On Assassin's Creed: I played the first game way back when on my 360 and it was alright, but it got really repetitive quickly and pretty much turned me off to the series completely. (PSP game came with my PSP as well, was also merely okay) I can understand how someone would enjoy it though, and the sales are not surprising.
At face value, I want to say AC3 is a great game and deserves the huge, huge sales. But I haven't played it yet. How are the impressions going, generally speaking? Because that setting looks too good and I hope they didn't squander it.
Public opinion? No idea. But for me:
I played AC1 and hated it. It was flawed in far too many ways for me to enjoy it past about the halfway mark.
I was skeptical about AC2 after 1, but I got it anyway and actually really enjoyed it. It basically fixed every gripe I had with the first game.
So AC3. So far I really like it. You don't play as Connor initially, and I thought the pre-Connor stuff was a little too long, but that's a pretty minor complaint. As soon as I got to be Connor the game sped up and I started having way more fun. Almost nothing tops air assassinating a bear.
I was super skeptical about the naval stuff at first, but I really like it. It's easy to get into and feels really "grand." Upgrade the swivel cannons because they're awesome early on (if not all game).
The only gripe I have so far is for one mission. I had to chase a guy on foot and he was just as fast as I was, so I had to shave corners and restart like ten times. I honestly felt like I was doing it wrong, but eventually I caught him so I guess not. It was a ridiculously annoying mission, though.
Personal score is 8.5-9/10, but I'm not done yet so it could be higher or lower.
Well, when it comes to the projection falling over several years, not all of that is a result of bad decisions or bad games. Competition is a thing that exists too.
Nobody likes me but that's okay. I'm used to it. I stream at night - /henroidt on Twitch
The big dip at the end of '08 in the THQ stock price was likely coincidental with the general financial meltdown just before the election. It wasn't until 2011 that they really started their precipitous slide, and even that was mostly due to the years of poor management decisions finally coming home to roost.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
The big dip at the end of '08 in the THQ stock price was likely coincidental with the general financial meltdown just before the election. It wasn't until 2011 that they really started their precipitous slide, and even that was mostly due to the years of poor management decisions finally coming home to roost.
2008 was around the time that licensed game sales started to go to complete shit.
On Assassin's Creed: I played the first game way back when on my 360 and it was alright, but it got really repetitive quickly and pretty much turned me off to the series completely. (PSP game came with my PSP as well, was also merely okay) I can understand how someone would enjoy it though, and the sales are not surprising.
You should really at least try 2, 1 is really not a good game to judge the others on as the games after it are way, way, way more refined and better designed. It's very similar to ME1 in that respect.
So dunno if this came up yet or not, but after all that flap a bit ago about halo 4 mp and the sexism thing, microsoft came out to state their policies on sexism are the same as racism, homophobic slurs, or harassment (among other things like using the kinect to put up pictures of your genitals and what have you). Sexism gets no 'special treatment' compared to other forms of harassment is the gist of it.
So basically it was a giant waste of time. I want my five minutes back!
Non-sarcastic question: Is this a bad thing? One would assume a magazine named after a console would be biased as hell, but some of them (nintendo power) had some redeeming value.
I used to read OPM all the time, from not too long after they started until up until around their transition from PS2 to PS3. That makes me sad. I used to take an issue with me whenever I went to flea markets back in the PS1 days because the last couple of pages were a listing of games they had reviewed as well as their score, this way I could look up a score for a game I wasn't familiar with before I bought it.
Then again, print media is dying, etc etc. If a magazine that had subscription rates as high as Nintendo Power couldn't even keep its shit together I don't see how any company specific gaming magazine can.
I guess a lot of us twentysomethings will be the last generation that will have gotten our videogame news from physical magazines once a month, as opposed to just getting everything instantly on the net as we do now.
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"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
Is Home still around? Sure wouldn't know it by looking.
I've made this point before, and I'm by no means a fan, but it totally IS still around and hugely popular. If you can stomach the hours of patching it would take at this point to load it up and go in there you'll see, it's absolute madness and swarming with freaks of all shapes and sizes. I think the last time I went in there was early this year and I played sports trivia for awhile at some bar which was actually cool.
I'm genuinely starting to think the Vita might get Dreamcasted. There's no critical mass in userbase to encourage developer support and Sony's not in the kind of overall financial situation to take the steps necessary to right the ship. That goes double given that they're undoubtedly warming up for the PS4 which is a mountain of cash in its own right.
Home was supposed to be a major social network that integrated a bunch of shit like music, matchmaking, trophies, etc. with a nice virtual world wrapper. They talked about being able to play music and videos in your fake apartment as if that would be a really cool thing. Interactivity with Harrison used the term "Game 3.0" to refer to it.
Home is meant to extend the gameplay cycle and keep gamers from trading in games at local retailers. Once a game is in the used bins, publishers and developers stop making money. But with Home, gamers unlock new items for their house and character based partly on the titles they play. One thing that Sony can't yet announce, but is looking into, is the possibility of having your Home avatar appear in the retail versions of games. "We've got so much cool stuff to share with you," Harrison promised, holding back additional functionality in Home that was not shown during his GDC presentation.
I bought a Penny Arcade clubhouse in Home. About five people used it to write messages on a little board that was hung up in there. I also put some space invader arcade machines in that no-one could play because they came from a Japan account.
Then we left the club house and were all dance-raped.
Well, for what it's worth, Sony's doing another Uncharted game for Vita.
Update: The eagle-eyed members of NeoGAF have struck again; Uncharted: Fight for Fortune has also received classification in Brazil, where it was classed as a "casino/card game" and listed for the PlayStation Vita. Original story and information follows.
Original Story: It looks like PlayStation gamers will be getting more Nathan Drake. Why? Because the Australian Classifications Board seems to have unveiled a new game in the Uncharted series.
Multiple sources have reported on the seemingly unintentional reveal, most notably GameSpot, which was re-Tweeted by Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida, all but verifying that the game is real.
So what does the classification listing tell us? Well, quite a bit, as it turns out.
For starters, the publisher, not surprisingly, is Sony Computer Entertainment, which owns the Uncharted franchise. What’s strange here is that the developer of Fight For Fortune is a studio One Loop Games. The Uncharted trilogy on PlayStation 3, as well as the PlayStation Vita iteration in the series, were developed in-house by Sony-owned developers Naughty Dog and Sony Bend, respectively. It appears this entry will leave the first party development stable.
One Loop Games’ website shows a picture of both an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The company claims its “team has over 30 years of interactive entertainment experience behind it,” with projects having appeared on XBLA, PSN, and elsewhere. Interestingly, the studio worked on God of War: Betrayal and Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, indicating it already has a relationship with Sony. The studio also had a hand in the development of consoles games like Full Spectrum Warrior and The Saboteur.
The rating also indicates that Fight For Fortune may not be your typical Uncharted game. Australian games are rated in six categories: Themes, Violence, Language, Drug Use, Nudity and Sex. Each of those categories can be ranked from “none” to “high impact”, with four other classifications in between. Fight For Fortune scores a “none” in Themes, Language, Nudity and Sex, with “very mild impact”, the next step up from “none”, in Violence and Drug Use. (Its overall rating -- G -- indicates a "General" game with "content... very mild in impact.")
Now, Drake and his friends have never been known for running around naked or using drugs -- so there are no surprises on that front -- but the four Uncharted games have, so far, relied a great deal on death-by-gun. So perhaps Fight For Fortune is something that deviates from the Uncharted formula. We'll have to wait and see.
Interestingly, the game is also listed as being multi-platform. Since Sony owns Uncharted and is publishing the game, this could very well indicate that Fight For Fortune is a cross-play PS3/Vita game. Or perhaps it’s a PS3/next-gen game. Again, we'll have to wait and see.
We’ve reached out to Sony for official comment, and will update when we hear back.
One Loop Games to decide halfway through development that they're switching to mobile games when finished. Then they scrap the single player story and focus on 1on1 multiplayer.
Speaking with VG247 via email, a member of the DayZ team outlined Bohemia and Hall’s stance on the pay to play nature of DayZ Bounty, and confirmed that none of the DayZ Bounty developers had been in touch with their team, “The DayZ development team and Bohemia Interactive is not involved or has had any contact with with DayZ Bounty and it’s creators.”
“While we fully support modifications created by the community,” the developer continued, “to improve the gaming experience for players of DayZ and ArmA II, we do not support their creators putting a cost on them. As commercially exploiting their small additions to DayZ undermines the work done by the original team.”
VG247 reported on the reveal of DayZ Bounty earlier today. It’s entirely unofficial and charges players between $5 to $20 to play. Participants can then earn money back for scoring kills, which are then paid back to the player via PayPal.
On the gambling angle, the DayZ spokesperson continued, “We believe that the elements of gambling that DayZ Bounty introduces challenges the basic game design aspects that DayZ is built upon. It changes the focus of DayZ from being a creative, enjoyable, gritty gaming experience to a game that is based almost solely on financial gain and that is not something we want to be associated with.”
Bohemia and the DayZ team will be looking to halt all development of the fan project, “We will be contacting the owners of the DayZ Bounty website directly over the coming days, to ask that they cease their activities in their current form.”
The 2003 merger between Japanese game developer Square and publisher Enix was a "complete failure," former Square Enix president Hisashi Suzuki said in a tweet posted earlier today.
According to Suzuki, who was with the company from 2000 to 2005, the total value of publicly traded Square Enix stock has not surpassed its value prior to the merger. He also mentioned high development costs as a contributing factor to the company's stunted growth, citing a 5.4 billion yen deficit last month.
"The merger was a complete failure," he tweeted. "There's no vision for the future."
The company recently posted a $13 million loss due to "sluggish" console game sales and "delays of social game service launch, which resulted in [a] decrease of service revenues and up-front expenditure of development costs."
Last month Square Enix signed a long-term licensing agreement for use of Unreal Engine 4 and published a number of casual mobile titles for iOS and Android.
Speaking with VG247 via email, a member of the DayZ team outlined Bohemia and Hall’s stance on the pay to play nature of DayZ Bounty, and confirmed that none of the DayZ Bounty developers had been in touch with their team, “The DayZ development team and Bohemia Interactive is not involved or has had any contact with with DayZ Bounty and it’s creators.”
“While we fully support modifications created by the community,” the developer continued, “to improve the gaming experience for players of DayZ and ArmA II, we do not support their creators putting a cost on them. As commercially exploiting their small additions to DayZ undermines the work done by the original team.”
VG247 reported on the reveal of DayZ Bounty earlier today. It’s entirely unofficial and charges players between $5 to $20 to play. Participants can then earn money back for scoring kills, which are then paid back to the player via PayPal.
On the gambling angle, the DayZ spokesperson continued, “We believe that the elements of gambling that DayZ Bounty introduces challenges the basic game design aspects that DayZ is built upon. It changes the focus of DayZ from being a creative, enjoyable, gritty gaming experience to a game that is based almost solely on financial gain and that is not something we want to be associated with.”
Bohemia and the DayZ team will be looking to halt all development of the fan project, “We will be contacting the owners of the DayZ Bounty website directly over the coming days, to ask that they cease their activities in their current form.”
...
Is that even legal?
It can't be legal. It boils down to the base game, Arma II, being used in a pay for play situation.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
Xbox Live Rewards is offering free Microsoft Points to players who plunge their lives into Halo 4 multiplayer. There's a maximum 800 MSP up for grabs, 600 of it for playing 140-plus hours of Halo 4 multiplayer, and 200 for spending at least 3000 MSP on Halo Marketplace content. The catch? You've got until November 30 to put in the time.
If you like freebies but don't like the idea of a whole month playing one game's multiplayer, the good news is you get 300 MSP for playing 70 hours, and 100 MSP for 35 hours. And if you only have 1500 MSP spare for Halo stuff this month, you still get 100 MSP back. You should note Microsoft says there's a maximum total of 10 million MSP on offer across all players, and they'll be doled out on a "first-come, first-serve basis."
FYI, clocking in 140 hours of Halo 4 mulitplayer by the end of the month equates to just under six hours each day.
Xbox Live Rewards is offering free Microsoft Points to players who plunge their lives into Halo 4 multiplayer. There's a maximum 800 MSP up for grabs, 600 of it for playing 140-plus hours of Halo 4 multiplayer, and 200 for spending at least 3000 MSP on Halo Marketplace content. The catch? You've got until November 30 to put in the time.
If you like freebies but don't like the idea of a whole month playing one game's multiplayer, the good news is you get 300 MSP for playing 70 hours, and 100 MSP for 35 hours. And if you only have 1500 MSP spare for Halo stuff this month, you still get 100 MSP back. You should note Microsoft says there's a maximum total of 10 million MSP on offer across all players, and they'll be doled out on a "first-come, first-serve basis."
FYI, clocking in 140 hours of Halo 4 mulitplayer by the end of the month equates to just under six hours each day.
The 2003 merger between Japanese game developer Square and publisher Enix was a "complete failure," former Square Enix president Hisashi Suzuki said in a tweet posted earlier today.
According to Suzuki, who was with the company from 2000 to 2005, the total value of publicly traded Square Enix stock has not surpassed its value prior to the merger. He also mentioned high development costs as a contributing factor to the company's stunted growth, citing a 5.4 billion yen deficit last month.
"The merger was a complete failure," he tweeted. "There's no vision for the future."
The company recently posted a $13 million loss due to "sluggish" console game sales and "delays of social game service launch, which resulted in [a] decrease of service revenues and up-front expenditure of development costs."
Last month Square Enix signed a long-term licensing agreement for use of Unreal Engine 4 and published a number of casual mobile titles for iOS and Android.
Sounds about right.
Not really sure about that.
Unless I'm missing something, the Enix side of things has been doing pretty well and most of the falling behind has come from fuckups made by the Japanese branch.
And most of the high development costs have been coming from the Japanese branch.
So...I'm not sure how much the merger actually had to do with this.
I mean maybe he is right and the behind the scenes numbers match up to what he's saying. But for the most part seems like sour grapes from someone who probably didn't agree with the decision.
THQ's stock price is now at $1.26. When is it at risk of delisting?
if it goes below $1 for 30 straight days, then they get a delinquency notice. They then have 90 days to get the stock above $1 for 10 consecutive days in that period. If they don't then they get another notice that the stock is about to be delisted and they have 7 days to appeal to a panel, which will give a decision in 2-4 weeks, and after that they have 45 days to appeal that decison. So it would be a few months before the stock is delisted.
THQ was in the same position back in june with a stock price of 0.5, and managed to get it back up a bit with a reverse split. So they might be able to do that again.
But my bet is that another publisher just buys them up, they have a few games close to a launch and lot of good talent.
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Man, for a second there I thought you posted Zynga's stock history.
Edit - Holy shit, this is tracking years, not months. What the hell, THQ?
I stream at night - /henroidt on Twitch
Public opinion? No idea. But for me:
I played AC1 and hated it. It was flawed in far too many ways for me to enjoy it past about the halfway mark.
I was skeptical about AC2 after 1, but I got it anyway and actually really enjoyed it. It basically fixed every gripe I had with the first game.
So AC3. So far I really like it. You don't play as Connor initially, and I thought the pre-Connor stuff was a little too long, but that's a pretty minor complaint. As soon as I got to be Connor the game sped up and I started having way more fun. Almost nothing tops air assassinating a bear.
I was super skeptical about the naval stuff at first, but I really like it. It's easy to get into and feels really "grand." Upgrade the swivel cannons because they're awesome early on (if not all game).
The only gripe I have so far is for one mission. I had to chase a guy on foot and he was just as fast as I was, so I had to shave corners and restart like ten times. I honestly felt like I was doing it wrong, but eventually I caught him so I guess not. It was a ridiculously annoying mission, though.
Personal score is 8.5-9/10, but I'm not done yet so it could be higher or lower.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Kind of like that disney ride, only depressing.
I stream at night - /henroidt on Twitch
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
2008 was around the time that licensed game sales started to go to complete shit.
You should really at least try 2, 1 is really not a good game to judge the others on as the games after it are way, way, way more refined and better designed. It's very similar to ME1 in that respect.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
So basically it was a giant waste of time. I want my five minutes back!
The Official Playstation Magazine will be completely dead soon.
Non-sarcastic question: Is this a bad thing? One would assume a magazine named after a console would be biased as hell, but some of them (nintendo power) had some redeeming value.
So should I be sad?
I honestly thought that it died years ago.
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It is according to Wikipedia.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
Yeah. I listen to the podcast.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Funny way to spell 'Home'.
You're muckin' with a G!
Is Home still around? Sure wouldn't know it by looking.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
I used to read OPM all the time, from not too long after they started until up until around their transition from PS2 to PS3. That makes me sad. I used to take an issue with me whenever I went to flea markets back in the PS1 days because the last couple of pages were a listing of games they had reviewed as well as their score, this way I could look up a score for a game I wasn't familiar with before I bought it.
Then again, print media is dying, etc etc. If a magazine that had subscription rates as high as Nintendo Power couldn't even keep its shit together I don't see how any company specific gaming magazine can.
I guess a lot of us twentysomethings will be the last generation that will have gotten our videogame news from physical magazines once a month, as opposed to just getting everything instantly on the net as we do now.
You're muckin' with a G!
Nonsense, it's just been replaced by the Print Button.
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Nice 3DS bump.
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"Did ya hear the one about the mussel that wanted to purchase Valve? Seems like the bivalve had a juicy offer on the table but the company flat-out refused and decided to immediately clam up!"
Is that Style Savvy game coming to the US?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Also Japan just had a monster hunter ultimate bundle released. That could explain the bump.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
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Add me!
I've made this point before, and I'm by no means a fan, but it totally IS still around and hugely popular. If you can stomach the hours of patching it would take at this point to load it up and go in there you'll see, it's absolute madness and swarming with freaks of all shapes and sizes. I think the last time I went in there was early this year and I played sports trivia for awhile at some bar which was actually cool.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/03/09/gdc-2007-harrisons-home
Then we left the club house and were all dance-raped.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/07/uncharted-fight-for-fortune-unintentionally-announced
One of these days Sony will realize it might be a good thing to have their A teams develop for portable for once.
http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/07/dayz-bounty-mod-undermines-original-vision-bohemia-wants-development-to-cease/ Is that even legal?
http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/7/3612852/square-enix-has-no-vision-for-the-future-says-former-company-president
Sounds about right.
It can't be legal. It boils down to the base game, Arma II, being used in a pay for play situation.
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/07/play-halo-4-multiplayer-a-whole-lot-get-free-microsoft-points/
Hell, even playing 35 hours of Halo 4 in a month is a bit of a tall order.
Wow, I couldn't imagine playing 35 hours of any game a month.
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Not really sure about that.
Unless I'm missing something, the Enix side of things has been doing pretty well and most of the falling behind has come from fuckups made by the Japanese branch.
And most of the high development costs have been coming from the Japanese branch.
So...I'm not sure how much the merger actually had to do with this.
I mean maybe he is right and the behind the scenes numbers match up to what he's saying. But for the most part seems like sour grapes from someone who probably didn't agree with the decision.
if it goes below $1 for 30 straight days, then they get a delinquency notice. They then have 90 days to get the stock above $1 for 10 consecutive days in that period. If they don't then they get another notice that the stock is about to be delisted and they have 7 days to appeal to a panel, which will give a decision in 2-4 weeks, and after that they have 45 days to appeal that decison. So it would be a few months before the stock is delisted.
THQ was in the same position back in june with a stock price of 0.5, and managed to get it back up a bit with a reverse split. So they might be able to do that again.
But my bet is that another publisher just buys them up, they have a few games close to a launch and lot of good talent.