Industry News / Upcoming Games

[Chronicler]

I mean, games are fun. I'm nowhere near like, cutting games out of my life or anything.

The business behind games can be kind of shitty sometimes, but that's true of pretty much every industry.

 

[Antimatter]

This year has been an incredible year for gaming, with massive surprise hits like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Donkey Kong Bananza, as well as others, like Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. It also had a game that became my most favorite ever, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. So while there are bad games, yes, there are also absolutely good ones. The choices are plenty.

However, I think players' resistance works (in case some bad strategy is applied by a publisher). I can recall how players won in the OGL debacle vs Wizards of the Coast, or how recently the "Stop Killing Games" movement started to challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers.

I hope enough players show resistance against such stupid monetization practices as Bloodlines 2 has. And (it seems) it already worked?

 

[BelgarathMTH]

I'm not so sure about that. I'm not even thinking about the future. The current state of things is bad enough. I used to buy games on the release dates and also buy DLCs (aka expansion packs as they were called then) and not really feel like I was getting ripped off. Now, I can't even bring myself to buy a new game in good conscience. It seems almost necessary to see how it stands the test of time. There are also fewer and fewer games coming out that actually interest me. Games seems to focus more and more on product design and commodification over quality game design.

I know, right? I was somewhat excited before about the release of "Titan Quest 2". The original Titan Quest is a game I've replayed many times over through the years. Now, lo and behold, Titan Quest 2 has been released in beta form with the dreaded "early access" business model. That's a red flag to me, and it means that it is another game for which I should be part of the target market, that I am highly likely to never buy, as there will be patch after patch changing it radically, and then a "final version", if there ever is one, that will be a big mess of attempts at splicing in "community feedback" into a Frankenstein-style mosaic of chaos.

It looks like the new "Heroes of Might and Magic" game is well on its way to following the same path to inferiority to past games. And while I know many of my friends here wound up loving it, "Baldur's Gate 3" lost me in its first year of having only one act completed and continuous revisions being done in a long series of patches.

I'm starting to miss the days when I would go to a store like Best Buy and purchase a beautiful box with a disc and a beautiful manual, with maybe a cloth map, and bring it home to play a complete game that I owned outright on a disc or discs I could hold in my hands, and I would play that game for years and years without any changes to it. Remember that? Buying games as finished products with a reasonable expectation of quality of workmanship, that no one could take from you or change at will?

Maybe Generation Z or Generation Alpha will stop buying products from industries using this misguided business model. I'm starting to see videos on YouTube from young people talking about buying their entertainment on physical media like CDs and DVDs, and even getting into purchasing retro technology and household items. Some of them are getting savvy to the unhealthy and unwholesome path much of technological industry has led society down.

 

[mlnevese]

I know, right? I was somewhat excited before about the release of "Titan Quest 2". The original Titan Quest is a game I've replayed many times over through the years. Now, lo and behold, Titan Quest 2 has been released in beta form with the dreaded "early access" business model. That's a red flag to me, and it means that it is another game for which I should be part of the target market, that I am highly likely to never buy, as there will be patch after patch changing it radically, and then a "final version", if there ever is one, that will be a big mess of attempts at splicing in "community feedback" into a Frankenstein-style mosaic of chaos.

It looks like the new "Heroes of Might and Magic" game is well on its way to following the same path to inferiority to past games. And while I know many of my friends here wound up loving it, "Baldur's Gate 3" lost me in its first year of having only one act completed and continuous revisions being done in a long series of patches.

I'm starting to miss the days when I would go to a store like Best Buy and purchase a beautiful box with a disc and a beautiful manual, with maybe a cloth map, and bring it home to play a complete game that I owned outright on a disc or discs I could hold in my hands, and I would play that game for years and years without any changes to it. Remember that? Buying games as finished products with a reasonable expectation of quality of workmanship, that no one could take from you or change at will?

Maybe Generation Z or Generation Alpha will stop buying products from industries using this misguided business model. I'm starting to see videos on YouTube from young people talking about buying their entertainment on physical media like CDs and DVDs, and even getting into purchasing retro technology and household items. Some of them are getting savvy to the unhealthy and unwholesome path much of technological industry has led society down.

Actually, I'm playing Titan Quest 2 Early Access, and I'm surprised at how responsive the developers are to player feedback. The Earth domain was basically unplayable but is now in a much better state. Complaints about bugs, overpowered monsters, and both underpowered and overpowered abilities are being addressed quickly. Even in Early Access, the game is already much more fun to play than Diablo IV, for example. But just like with BG3, nobody should play it too much now, or when the final game is released, you won’t want to go through the first chapter all over again.

 

[BelgarathMTH]

Actually, I'm playing Titan Quest 2 Early Access, and I'm surprised at how responsive the developers are to player feedback. The Earth domain was basically unplayable but is now in a much better state. Complaints about bugs, overpowered monsters, and both underpowered and overpowered abilities are being addressed quickly. Even in Early Access, the game is already much more fun to play than Diablo IV, for example. But just like with BG3, nobody should play it too much now, or when the final game is released, you won’t want to go through the first chapter all over again.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, but the process you describe does go to my original point. We used to call what you're participating in "beta testing", and developers paid people to do it as their employees. Now they've convinced people to pay them to work for them as beta-testers. They're getting away with it, I suppose, because there are enough people who apparently get enough value and enjoyment out of paying to be beta-testers for game companies that the business model of selling beta-tester positions is working for them. I won't be paying any game companies to do volunteer work for them, myself. That's my way of voting with my dollars to change what I see as a sketchy business practice that produces inferior games.

 

[Antimatter]

Pete Hines (former Bethesda) has given a massive interview about all his years in the industry, and some of his words will become important quotes going forward:

24 years at Bethesda with Pete Hines – “There's no question that the company is not the same”

For 24 years Pete Hines was up there with Vault Boy and Todd Howard as one of the public faces of Bethesda. As senior vice president of global marketing and com

www.dbltap.com

About Game Pass: "I saw what I considered to be some short sighted decision making several years ago, and it seems to be bearing out the way I said. Subscriptions have become the new four letter word, right? You can't buy a product anymore. When you talk about a subscription that relies on content, if you don't figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content – without which your subscription is worth jack shit – then you have a real problem. You need to properly acknowledge, compensate and recognize what it takes to create that content and not just make a game, but make a product. That tension is hurting a lot of people, including the content creators themselves, because they're fitting into an ecosystem that is not properly valuing and rewarding what they're making."

About young gamers: "As our attention spans sap thanks to snackable media and TikTok reels, there’s a real chance game developers will have to compete for our limited attention spans and shrinking wallets in a similar way, bending the art just to get noticed in an industry bursting with options. Everyone's been conditioned. The attention economy is the worst it's ever been, the kids are scrolling vertical videos, they want live events and crossovers, and they think every game should be a forever game, updated until the developers turn into a Fallout skeleton."

I will also quote here Jens Andersson from Machine Games:

“As for Game Pass… We know the behavior of players. They jump in for five minutes and they drop out. You can take a certain amount of decisions based on that, but at the same time, you don't want to make too many concessions. It needs to be a great game for the player who plays all the way through. That's the most important part for us, being the story-centric studio as we are. It's a hard balance. You always know that you should worry about that more, but at the same time, you care about the grand scheme of things.”

The Indiana Jones developer has a fight club in its basement

MachineGames on its extracurricular activities, making games for Game Pass, and creating a good Indiana Jones game

www.thegamebusiness.com

 

[Antimatter]

As GamesFray reports in their thorough coverage of the case, Patent No. 12,403,39, which was granted to Nintendo in the US over a week ago on September 2, is a significant concern. Not just for Palworld. The Patent '397 covers the fundamental mechanics of summoning a character to have it fight another. That sounds like Pokémon. However, it also describes things that many other games do.

Unlike many patents, which often face heavy scrutiny or rejections before they’re approved, this one glided through the U.S. Patent Office without objections. It was filed in March 2023 and granted just last week.

Specifically, the patent describes a situation where:

• A console or other system is being used to run a video game from storage
• The player controls a character in a “virtual space”
• The player can perform an input command to make a “sub character” appear (i.e. summon another character)
• If there’s an enemy where the sub character appears, the player can control a battle between the sub character and the enemy
• If there’s no enemy where the sub character appears, the sub character will automatically move around
• The player can move the sub character to a different location on the field, and if an enemy is there they can control a battle between the sub character and the enemy

 

[JustKneller]

When a Stallone movie accurately predicts the future, that's how you know we're all fucked.

 

[Antimatter]

So players won, at least in the case of Bloodlines 2 DLC decision.

But Paradox came up with new DLC plans:

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2: Lasombra and Toreador clans are confirmed for the base game at launch, making all 6 clans playable for everyone!

"Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition. That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing," said Marco Behrmann, White Wolf Executive Vice President and Bloodlines 2 Executive Producer.

"We’d also like to thank The Chinese Room for their quick turnaround on the concepts for the post-launch Story Packs. We’re constantly impressed by their creativity and skill in weaving enticing narrative threads that expand on the main story in Bloodlines 2."

We’re also unveiling two new Bloodlines 2 Story Packs: “Loose Cannon“ (Brujah Sheriff Benny’s story) and “The Flower & The Flame” (Toreador Primogen Ysabella’s path). Both are included in the Premium Edition Expansion Pass, alongside the day one unlock Santa Monica Memories Cosmetic Pack, and will be released in 2026.

Game Overview - Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.

www.paradoxinteractive.com

 

[Antimatter]

EA has announced it plans to be acquired for 55 billion dollars by a consortium of investors led by Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.

Under the terms of the deal announced today, the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF and Affinity Partners will pay EA’s stockholders $210 per share. Affinity Partners is a private equity firm run by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Electronic Arts would be taken private.

The total value of the deal eclipses the $32bn price paid to take Texas utility TXU private in 2007.

If the transaction closes as anticipated, it will end EA’s 36-year history as a publicly traded company that began with its shares ending its first day of trading at a split-adjusted $0.52.

The IPO came seven years after EA was founded by former Apple employee William “Trip” Hawkins, who began playing analog versions of baseball and football made by Strat-O-Matic as a teenager during the 1960s.

EA has been run by its current CEO, Andrew Wilson, since 2013.

This marks the second high-profile deal involving Silver Lake and a technology company with a legion of loyal fans in recent weeks. Silver Lake is also part of a newly formed joint venture spearheaded by Oracle involved in a deal to take over the US oversight of TikTok’s social video platform, although all the details of that complex transaction haven’t been divulged yet.

Silver Lake has also previously bought out two other well-known technology companies, the now-defunct video calling service Skype in a $1.9bn deal completed in 2009, and a $24.9bn buyout of personal computer maker Dell in 2013. After Dell restructured its operations as a private company, it returned to the stock market with publicly traded shares in 2018.

Gaming giant Electronic Arts bought in unprecedented $55bn deal

EA is known for making best-selling games such as EA FC, The Sims and Mass Effect.

www.bbc.com

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

EA has announced it plans to be acquired for 55 billion dollars by a consortium of investors led by Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.

How bad do you think this is?

 

[Antimatter]

Well, jokes aside, going private means EA won’t be beholden to quarterly earnings reports or shareholder pressure.

This could allow developers more breathing room to--hypothetically--take creative risks (but with *** I mention below) or invest in long-term projects. Games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age may actually benefit from strategic reboots or deeper investment, especially if the new owners prioritize legacy IPs.

Remember how EA kept declining BioWare's proposals for a Dragon Age trilogy remaster or a remake of DA:O. According to former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah, EA has historically been "kind of against remasters" and rejected the pitches, despite the commercial success of Mass Effect's Legendary Edition. Now this can change.

Or how EA (still) focuses on The Sims 4 instead of starting to work on The Sims 5.

***But let's also not forget what happened to Microsoft-owned studios. This new EA deal is heavily debt-financed (about $20 billion), which often leads to layoffs, studio closures, or reduced budgets for riskier projects. Games that aren’t blockbuster hits or part of major franchises may be deprioritized or shelved altogether. But that would happen at EA anyway.

We should expect more aggressive monetization strategies: subscription models, microtransactions, and AI-driven content generation to cut costs and boost profits--but again, that would happen at EA anyway.

People online are uneasy about Saudi Arabia’s growing stake in Western entertainment, raising concerns about censorship, cultural influence, or ethical implications. Personally, I'm not convinced this will be an issue.

 

[Chronicler]

Bioware's been a shambling corpse for years. Things can get better for them, or they could make a lateral move, but it's hard to imagine things really getting worse.

 

[Antimatter]

Players are cancelling Xbox Game Pass subscriptions en masse because Microsoft increased the price.

Microsoft has raised Game Pass prices for the third year in a row, with the give-me-all-the-day-one-releases tier now setting players back $30 per month. Fourteen months ago, Game Pass Ultimate was $17.

This Xbox Generation Will Be Remembered for One Thing: Greed - IGN

IGN Senior Executive Editor and Unlocked podcast host Ryan McCaffrey reacts to Microsoft's recent price increases on consoles, software, and Xbox Game Pass and how they fly in the face of the player-first decisions that Xbox had continually made since Phil Spencer took over the Xbox business.

www.ign.com

 

[JustKneller]

Wow. I truly don't understand console gamers, especially at today's prices. My "console" is a laptop that I already need for a number of other adulting things. Even then, I don't think I've spent as much as an X-box costs ($800 now!?) on it. I've had it since probably 2018 and it's still going strong. Not to mention, I'm finding that PC games are generally cheaper (and Steam sales are better than X-box sales).

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

@JustKneller is there a difference, on average, in muscle power? For example, can the average laptop compete comparatively with a console in terms of working smoothly with decent monitors? To me, the one advantage consoles had was lost as soon as they got internet connectivity. Devs no longer had to provide a (relatively) bug free product at launch. It’s the same formula as PC now: release crap and let the customers beta test it.

 

[JustKneller]

is there a difference, on average, in muscle power?

I would say PCs beat consoles in performance for sure if only for one thing, mods. The mod options for PC are (as far as I know) astronomically better than the options for consoles. For example, except for New Vegas, I've always found Bethesda games almost unplayable out of the box. However, there are thousands of mods for PC that can make these games serviceable. Fallout 4 was notorious for having major tech issues (on all platorms) that resulted in frequent crashes (as well as many other problems). It made it insufferably to play one of the more challenging game modes (with limited saving). However, I had relatively few issues in this regard thanks to the community patches (which were PC only). I think PCs still (most likely) get a crappier release when it comes to AAA games, but they are also much easier for the community to patch up. Not to mention, I usually only get into a game well after they've worked out their kinks (assuming they do), so I normally get a pretty smooth game out of the box anyway.

Another advantage is control schemes. With consoles you pretty much just have a controller. With PC, it's just one of the options. And, I tend to prefer keyboard/mouse if only for the expanded hotkey options.

On top of that, PC (well, laptops) travel better. I take my laptop with me on trips and game on my downtime. I wouldn't have it so easy with a console.

Finally, easier/cheaper to upgrade (if you're on a desktop). What you get for a console is pretty much what you get, but PCs have a lot of expansion capability. A mid-range gaming computer will probably cost a little less than (or about the same as) the latest console, but instead of spending the same again on the "next gen", you can just keep updating the key components for much cheaper.

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

The last one I had was a PS3, and I realized soon after I got it that I was already over console gaming. It basically became my 'Netflix Machine.' I do have fond memories of the old school console days, Sega Master System, Genesis, playing Resident Evil all night on PS1...

 

[JustKneller]

The last console I had was PS2. I think my main reason for it were the Final Fantasy games (I think FFIX is easily one of the greatest games of all time). But then FFX and FFX-2 came out, were terrible, then I was disappointed by FFXII, and I was like, "guess I don't need a console anymore".

 

[Chronicler]

Slightly related tangent, it always seems weird to me when not buying something because it's too expensive is framed as a "boycott".

When the Switch 2 prices were announced, I saw a lot of people talking about boycotting it, but like, if that's a boycott, then I've been boycotting high end sports cars every day since I was born.

I've seen headlines calling it a "boycott" that people are unsubscribing from the gamepass after the price hike, but like, that's normal? When something goes up in price it's normal and expected to reassess whether you think it's worth the new price.

Seems kind of in the same vein as when headlines make a fuss about millennials killing this or that industry because it's an expensive luxury and nobody's got any money.