May PC Gamer Article Discussion

[ZedClampet]

Alan Wake 2 hasn't turned a profit 6 months in and there's no Steam release in sight, but Remedy says it's in control

Plus, we've gotten updates on the multiplayer Control spin-off and the Max Payne remakes.

www.pcgamer.com

There is no way of knowing for sure, but I strongly suspect that had it released on Steam, it would have broken a million copies sold in the first week with all the publicity it was getting. But, hey, you don't have to be smart to run a game studio. We see that proven over and over.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Alan Wake 2 hasn't turned a profit 6 months in and there's no Steam release in sight, but Remedy says it's in control

Plus, we've gotten updates on the multiplayer Control spin-off and the Max Payne remakes.

www.pcgamer.com

There is no way of knowing for sure, but I strongly suspect that had it released on Steam, it would have broken a million copies sold in the first week with all the publicity it was getting. But, hey, you don't have to be smart to run a game studio. We see that proven over and over.

Eh, you know I'm a fan so I'm biased, but anyway. Alan Wake 1 was more of a cult classic than a big name franchise, maybe they were happy just to find someone to fund them to make it at all who would leave them to it without interference. I think the deal they had basically meant there wasnt much existential risk to the studio as the whole thing was paid for up front. Thats how I understood it.

Totally agree it would have been better off sales wise on Steam. They also had an all digital release on consoles, which some seem to think would have affected sales, not convinced by that myself.

They seem to be OK with the sales publicly and havent fired huge swathes of staff as far as I know due to this, which is a bonus. Looking into self publishing in the future, I assume that will mean their games are on all platforms and the skies the limit.

Hopefully they dont bomb with an attempted live service game in Condor. Not like they havent had a few duds over the years, but the recent games have been great and I imagine theres quite a lot of people who'd be interested in Max Payne remakes alone.

 

[DXCHASE]

Sweet liberty, are Helldivers 2 players not happy about having to link their Steam accounts to the PlayStation hive mind

10,000 negative reviews and counting.

www.pcgamer.com

Another "hey lets review bomb on steam, thatll show em!" move going on right now. Players are being "forced" to connect PSN accounts with Helldivers.

So when i pre-ordered the day before it launched, i was prompted to link my accounts, it said it right on its page from the beginning, so i had no big deal with it.

Now it seems that users will need to do this or risk losing access to the game. Queue all the crying over making a free account.

I understand that some countries dont allow PSN (Philippines) and i think SONY needs to address that, but the review bombing, like it always is, is dumb and unhelpful. A really good game getting slammed for something that im sure SONY is forcing them to do. Gamer mentality sometimes...

The other issue i have with this is gamers crying about SONY "leaking" data, while using Facebook, Steam and any other social media app that has had multiple data leaks themselves, to cry about SONYs data-leaking.

But what do these gamers say to that? "Ok SONY simp". Yep thats about the IQ of someone whos review-bombing Helldivers 2 on steam right now.

 

[Zloth]

I'm so annoyed that they're calling the new hobbit game 'A The Lord of the Rings Game'

That's gotta be illegal in at least a few states, right?

www.pcgamer.com

A little song for @PCG Tyler from The The

View: https://youtu.be/Nxazmzy0vAo?si=D2g5K_MO8LC60spI

 

[Pifanjr]

Sweet liberty, are Helldivers 2 players not happy about having to link their Steam accounts to the PlayStation hive mind

10,000 negative reviews and counting.

www.pcgamer.com

Another "hey lets review bomb on steam, thatll show em!" move going on right now. Players are being "forced" to connect PSN accounts with Helldivers.

So when i pre-ordered the day before it launched, i was prompted to link my accounts, it said it right on its page from the beginning, so i had no big deal with it.

Now it seems that users will need to do this or risk losing access to the game. Queue all the crying over making a free account.

I understand that some countries dont allow PSN (Philippines) and i think SONY needs to address that, but the review bombing, like it always is, is dumb and unhelpful. A really good game getting slammed for something that im sure SONY is forcing them to do. Gamer mentality sometimes...

The other issue i have with this is gamers crying about SONY "leaking" data, while using Facebook, Steam and any other social media app that has had multiple data leaks themselves, to cry about SONYs data-leaking.

But what do these gamers say to that? "Ok SONY simp". Yep thats about the IQ of someone whos review-bombing Helldivers 2 on steam right now.

Sony backs down on demand that Helldivers 2 players log into a PSN account

What a wild ride.

www.pcgamer.com

Seems like making a huge deal about this has been pretty effective.

 

[DXCHASE]

Sony backs down on demand that Helldivers 2 players log into a PSN account

What a wild ride.

www.pcgamer.com

Seems like making a huge deal about this has been pretty effective.

Seemingly. Sony is still going to make its massive profit and now people dont have to make an account. Sure its effective... at helping Sony retaining their customers and keeping their money and time.

Sony backs down on demand that Helldivers 2 players log into a PSN account

What a wild ride.

www.pcgamer.com

What a headache it has been doom-scrolling past helldivers 2 facebook groups, steam groups, discord etc. etc. because of the requirement of making a free psn account.

Sony, after doubling down and removing Helldivers 2 from a bunch of countries, has reversed their decision to force a free psn account sign up/link to the game. The community is taking it as a victory, i just see it as a Sony victory. They were able to quell one of their developers community's from not playing by throwing them a bone, so now sony can keep raking in the money from said community.

Cool, those players are saved, im glad, truly, it was a dumb decision for Sony to force, but Sony still wins in the end. Arrowhead should not have had to take it on the chin from its community for Sony to reverse a decision to make a free psn acct. Something i thought most people who play PLAYSTATION GAMES had for years 🤷‍♂️ .

Im not some Sony (or any big corpo dev) simp or anything like that, after Arrowhead asked its community to put up poor reviews to show Sony, i did, but this whole situation just shows that if a big evil greedy corp throws the smallest bone at a community they will happily roll over and keep giving that company its money. If you want to make a real change, i dont think steam review-bombing is it.

 

[ZedClampet]

Eh, you know I'm a fan so I'm biased, but anyway. Alan Wake 1 was more of a cult classic than a big name franchise, maybe they were happy just to find someone to fund them to make it at all who would leave them to it without interference. I think the deal they had basically meant there wasnt much existential risk to the studio as the whole thing was paid for up front. Thats how I understood it.

Totally agree it would have been better off sales wise on Steam. They also had an all digital release on consoles, which some seem to think would have affected sales, not convinced by that myself.

They seem to be OK with the sales publicly and havent fired huge swathes of staff as far as I know due to this, which is a bonus. Looking into self publishing in the future, I assume that will mean their games are on all platforms and the skies the limit.

Hopefully they dont bomb with an attempted live service game in Condor. Not like they havent had a few duds over the years, but the recent games have been great and I imagine theres quite a lot of people who'd be interested in Max Payne remakes alone.

I didn't really word my post very well. I actually was more concerned that they have no plan at all, apparently, to release on Steam. If they needed Epic money to make the game, there's no helping that. But even if they released on Steam this October, or whenever, they'd still make good money on the game.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I didn't really word my post very well. I actually was more concerned that they have no plan at all, apparently, to release on Steam. If they needed Epic money to make the game, there's no helping that. But even if they released on Steam this October, or whenever, they'd still make good money on the game.

As far as a Steam release goes, I was under the impression Epic has the publishing rights to Alan Wake 2 as part of the funding deal, so its up to Epic whether the game comes to Steam or anywhere else. Could be wrong but that's what I thought.

Remedy for sure owns the Alan Wake IP now though, so they arent glued to Epic for sequels if they dont want to be.

 

[Hveðrungr]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indu...creators-of-prey-and-hi-fi-rush-respectively/

Gutted about this news. I wish there were something that could be done about the state of the industry.

 

[Zloth]

EA and Activision started that trend off about 30 years back.

It's really rough on the developers, obviously, who lose their income until they can find a new place. For the industry overall, though, I'm not sure it's all that bad. The developers get split up and go to other companies, which spreads the knowledge they've gained around to other companies as well. Some developers will start up new studios, which might make some 'spiritual successor' game - this time free of publisher interference.

I'm not saying the overall effect is good for sure, I'm just saying it might be. It may turn out that the developers are already spreading their new ideas around pretty effectively without smashing teams built up over the years.

 

[neogunhero]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/as-arkane-austin-falls-to-the-shareholders-its-masterpiece-prey-that-elevated-immersive-sims-to-a-god-tier-level-is-slashed-in-price-by-80/

I really want to get into to this game but the 2-3 times I’ve tried it just never grasped me. I get to the main lobby, go to Morgan’s office, and sometime shortly after that I end up dropping the game. It seems so awesome and I can understand how so many people love it, but for some reason I never got past a few hours each playthrough. I really need to sit down and grind it out because I feel like I would end up loving it just as much as everyone else.

 

[ZedClampet]

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indu...creators-of-prey-and-hi-fi-rush-respectively/

Gutted about this news. I wish there were something that could be done about the state of the industry.

Tango Gameworks hits me fairly hard. I loved the Evil Within series. Guess that's gone for good now.

 

[ZedClampet]

Hades 2's forget-me-not mechanic is so good that I think any game with a billion resources should be taking notes

Who needs a binder when you've got magic.

www.pcgamer.com

Weed Shop 3 had "smart TV's" you could hang around your workshop and surf the web with to go to the official guide. Find the table you want and you could take an image of it and place it in a picture frame on your wall.

 

[Hveðrungr]

I really want to get into to this game but the 2-3 times I’ve tried it just never grasped me.

Have you played Dishonored? It's got less-intense combat in case that's more your thing.

 

[neogunhero]

Have you played Dishonored? It's got less-intense combat in case that's more your thing.

I have, very long ago, and enjoyed it quite a lot but never finished it. That is another game I’ve been wanting to give another go at. It reminded me a lot of Half Life 2 in some ways back when I first played it.

 

[DXCHASE]

Helldivers 2 remains delisted in 177 countries and territories even as Sony backs down on PSN requirement, Arrowhead CEO says 'I won't rest in my desire to have it available everywhere'

It's a curious lingering effect of Helldivers 2's greatest challenge to date.

www.pcgamer.com

Im not going to change my mind about steam-review bombing being unhelpful and an illusionary way of "rebelling" against a corporate company like Sony until this is fixed.

 

[neogunhero]

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/pr...amd-boldly-suggests-am4-has-legendary-status/

Great article detailing the longevity of the AM4 socket. I’ve been a proud user of a Gigabyte x470 AM4 motherboard for nearly 6 years now. I got an AMD Ryzen 1600X towards the end of 2018 along with the mobo, at the time it was a good budget CPU. I kept it all the way until just March of this year, replacing it with a Ryzen 5700X. I was very glad that I didn’t have to spend even more money on a new mobo, just needed to update bios and chipset drivers. It has worked flawlessly ever since, and I plan to use it at least a few years more. AM4 was equally impressive with its backwards compatibility with multiple generations of Ryzen, and in my eyes has always been the best choice for budget concision gamers like myself. Back in 2018, I don’t fully remember how much I paid for the CPU and Mobo, but my guess is around $200~ give or take 50. These days it’s hard to get anything less than 2 years old at the price. Of course inflation is a thing, but still, even in 2018 that was an amazing value for a CPU/mobo that got me through nearly 6 years of intense gaming. These days I will still recommend AM4 to anyone wanting to build on a budget. In my eyes AM4 definitely deserves legendary status.

 

[Colif]

Homeworld 3 review

The Hiigaran fleet returns for a third outing that's busier and more complex but not quite as elegant as its predecessors.

www.pcgamer.com

vaguely remember buying first game. Might look at this.

 

[Brian Boru]

Might look at this

I'll pass, I find 3D in space too confusing. Review sounds like they've made the same mistake as Civ 6, thinking complexity = strategy.

boring conversations in hideous cutscenes

When will devs learn that stories belong in books or TV, games with player agency stand or fall on gameplay first and foremost.

 

[ZedClampet]

President of Xbox asked about the closure of Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, spends close to a minute saying almost nothing

Something something, long-term commitment.

www.pcgamer.com

The reason no one from Xbox can give a good answer is simple: The order came from above them. Layoff decisions typically come from the very top of the company. Xbox execs were probably told to layoff X number of employees and then had to decide how to do that. They didn't want to do it.

The easiest thing in this situation is to just close entire divisions/studios. If you lay off people from all over, you are probably going to disrupt game development, but these two studios had just released games, so they weren't even working on anything but possibly pre-production. In an executive's eyes, that's nothing. You can't put projected sales figures on your reports for games that aren't even in full production yet, so closing these studios gets rid of expenses while not delaying the games closer to being finished, the games all their numbers are relying on.

And these are not blockbuster studios. They make nice games, but they don't make much money. Easy targets.

Microsoft was fine with all these studios as long as the bottom line kept going up. Now I'd be really concerned if I worked somewhere like ID, Machine Games, Obsidian or inXile. If their next games aren't huge hits, they could be gone, too, and none of them have any recent big hits. Wouldn't surprise me at all if all these purchased studios weren't whittled down to Bethesda and Activision in a few years.

 

[Zloth]

I'll pass, I find 3D in space too confusing.

But... but... you live in 3D space?

When will devs learn that stories belong in books or TV, games with player agency stand or fall on gameplay first and foremost.

When they stop listening to me!

 

[ZedClampet]

When will devs learn that stories belong in books or TV, games with player agency stand or fall on gameplay first and foremost.

They're probably waiting for that to be a true statement. Right now they are not just ignoring you, they are holding a Steam festival: LudoNarraCon 24. You should try to disrupt it. Do what the college girl protestors do. Stand near them with a slogan scribbled on your bare chest. So far as I know, that's never worked, but the only other thing I can think of is setting yourself on fire, and I'm pretty sure that never works either, and there are reports of possible adverse health effects, though more studies are needed.

 

[Colif]

When will devs learn that stories belong in books or TV, games with player agency stand or fall on gameplay first and foremost.

Invents time machine... after completely destroying history and having to recreate it all again from Childcraft books, comes back to original purpose of invention and removes all cutscenes from all games. That is what started slide into people thinking games are just like movies.

this game didn't help at all

The Order: 1886 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Not sure when they will learn...

When they stop listening to me!

quick, grab a gag. We found who is to blame. If he stops telling them long enough they might make fun games again... just need to wait 6 years for the game to be made... can you wait?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

The campaign of Homeworld 1, and Cataclysm was amazing at the time, my memories of those games are of being fascinated with the Higarans journey and discovering the history behind their race and the reasons they were being attacked in the first place. The narrative was so woven into that games appeal. I'm not sure what Fraser is talking about here when he says it was minimal in the earlier games.

I guess the actual cut scenes were pretty minimal, so maybe the devs misunderstood the assignment when their research told them story and narrative was important to the series. The story being told over comms during the mission really immersed you in that universe, and the still frame stuff between levels and in engine stuff was super atmospheric. A lot of that was the sound design as well, I can still here those barks and comms chatter during battles, and the positional audio when you zoomed in close.

I'll give the new game a go at some point and see for myself, but maybe I should also try and go through all of those. I started with Cataclsysm, never beaten 2.

 

[Colif]

speaking of wanting to make them more like TV... what is more TV than adverts?

EA Considering In-Game Advertising, But Will Take "Thoughtful" Approach

EA previously sold in-game ads for its sports games and Battlefield 2142.

www.gamespot.com

Between EA & Ubisoft & Microsoft, there is no room for fun in games, they too busy cramming ways to earn more money into them.