FYI, this is not about free GPUs. “GeForce NOW” is a streaming service.
Headline would’ve been less confusing if it had the service name in quotes or something. I can see how people might read that and assume it means free, ad-supported GPUs. It does not.
I mean, gaming exploded over the pandemic. Anyone who thought that was going to become some kind of norm was an idiot. Have we shrunk below pre-pandemic levels? Or is this just idiots who thought they could keep skimming free oil off the surface once the leak was fixed?
Also, I disagree with the idea that AAA games are performing poorly. Bad ideas in AAA games and chasing “easy money” in AAA is performing poorly. Helldivers 2 seems to be doing well, whereas Suicide Squad isn’t. Baldir’s Gate 3 killed it while Starfield kind of flopped. Final Fantasy 16 didn’t meet expectations, but we know Square Enix regularly sets expectations too high anyway.
Are people tired of the same Call of Duty games over and over? Are people full up on live service games and looter shooters? Yes and yes. But are people crazy excited for the new Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth? From the communities I’m in, very much yes. Did Alan Wake 2 release and sell faster than any other game from that studio? Pretty sure I saw that headline recently, yeah.
So when Diablo 4 dies on impact, was that the fault of the gaming landscape? Or was it because Blizzard execs pushed the team to maximize systems and balance they thought would bring in easy money but actually ended up alienating their core audience and reviewers?
I’ve seen this before when working in mobile. Execs want to chase the whales so badly that they don’t allow designers and devs to make the game actually fun to play. Doesn’t matter how “well” you monetize your shitty game if nobody wants to stick around to play it.
I could see Xbox becoming just a Windows PC preconfigured to launch essentially a Big Picture mode version of the Xbox app or something. And then maybe Sony goes ahead and makes their own store/launcher to sell a PS6 or PS7 that’s just a PC as well. But if you have your own PC, that’s fine too.
With them releasing more of their library to PC, this wouldn’t surprise me.
Haven’t there been some pretty flagrant cases where someone said “we are not doing XYZ” and then like 3 months later there was a big press announcement stating “guess what? We’re doing XYZ, and think you’re going to love it!!”?
My 7yo was upset the other night because I’d been playing FF7R (wanted to finish before the new one hits) instead of joining him in Minecraft or Fortnite or Parkitect or whatever.
He literally thought that FF7R didn’t have an ending because I guess in his mind all games are just live service/hobby things. Even I guess the ones that are story things.
I don’t mind Souls games, but I kind of hate how so many games lately (especially sequels) have been trying to low-key fit the genre when nobody asked them to. God of War, Darksiders 3…
I tried replaying the Kingdom Hearts games leading up to playing KH3. Got all the way to the final boss sequence in KH1, but I just couldn’t get past the second phase, and I didn’t have any good saves for going back and leveling up. Gave up. Already beat it as a kid when it first came out. No need to kill myself in my late-30s for it.
Yeah, I also paid for Destiny 2 on launch, and then like a year later they went f2p and archived all the original content I paid for. Really, really shitty.
I’d happily take “fully co-op Elden Ring” (keep meaning to try the mod, tbf), and “Dwarf Fortress, but in 3D and you can play/explore/participate like Minecraft.
For some definitions of “play”, absolutely!
Epic would need to have a “import your games and achievements and saves from Steam” feature AND THEN ALSO have a much better performing app than they currently do, for me to convert. But years later and EGS is still a pretty awful user experience compared to Steam. There’s just no way.
NMS is super janky in spots… but it pulls off a whole lot of awesome things I can’t do anywhere else, so I tolerate all the junk and loading stutters and fading in geometry…
Dwarf Fortress, for me. Even the graphical one on Steam, I needed to watch YouTube videos to really start digging in to it.
I mean… 2023 is shaping up to be pretty dope so far. FF16, Pikmin 4, Diablo IV, Armored Core (assuming it’s good), Tears of the Kingdom…
Might’ve meant “material” progress, like “tangible” or progress that’s real and meaningful? “Materialistic” I think usually just means thinking about things you own rather than the quality of your life and relationships? Though saying it out now, I guess that works kind of… But I’ve only ever heard “materialistic” referring to people who only care about what someone owns rather than being a good person; never about video games or the kind of progress I think you’re wanting.
Anyway, lots of good suggestions here. I can’t add anything that meets all your qualifications; but if you are willing to dramatically break your install size requirement, I’ve been having a lot of fun lately with the Forza Horizon games (4 and 5) which are open-world racing/challenge games; but literally everything you do contributes to experience points and money you can use to upgrade and purchase new cars, and there are a lot of challenges which aren’t just races, there’s speed trials (how fast can you hit this one stretch of road), trick trials (how many jumps can you pull if in a minute) and so on.
But the install is like 65GB for FH4, and 150+GB for FH5… hundreds of high detail cars and massive open worlds, I guess… :(
I was really sad the day I completed the last Picross S game on Switch. I had run out. I was playing in bed to unwind my brain at the end of the day. Found a clown on Steam that’s decent, but my Steam Deck is too big to play lying down in bed comfortably. 😥
The only good outcome of the merger IMO is hopefully getting rid of Bobby Kotick. The fine devs across the company deserve better leadership and a safer working environment than they’ve had over the years under his frat boy reign.
But do I think Microsoft will eternally play fair with the acquisition? Not by a long shot.
I was VERY confused about Counter-Strike 2 having any kind of urban planning at all… and then I saw the screenshot better and worked it out. 😅
It was fairly quickly demonstrated IIRC that Yuzu could emulate TOTK at higher res and 60fps. So it’s entirely possible to me that Yuzu’s Patreon sub soared because users wanted to play their purchased game on better hardware.
I hope the courts find in favor of Yuzu and set the legal precedent that it’s legal to dump secret numbers and purchased software from a device you own.