I also think that while red dead 2 will sell gangbusters, it wont have the same insane online legs as GTAV, mainly because people play that who dont even touch the single player, and treat it like a Second Life kind of sim, the modern setting helps a lot in selling it. Ie, people like to buy clothes, cars and apartments and such to show off with their friends, and they are willing to pay LOADS of a real money to do so, in a way that I dont think the old west theme will be able to match.
Thats my hunch anyway
What if...
Red Dead Redemption Online?
No i mean more the popularity of the theme (and brand recognition of GTA). Like im sure there will be, and it will be huge, but I dont think anyones going to be able to replicate the success of GTAV online just due to the fact that people are more willing to spend money on cars and modern clothes than on carriages and petticoats (though id love to be proven wrong). If you look at a large subsection of that community, especially in terms of the whales who spend the most real world cash, they dont participate in any of the actual online gameplay, they use it as like a second life sim to hang out with friends and stream and such. Its a very odd and interesting twist. Having such an insanely huge install base also made it the "place to be" online, which is a very nebulous and elusive kind of thing and is not something developers can really anticipate or "develop" for
GTAV online is a difficult case to learn anything from, because so much of its online implementation was madenningly frustrating and offputting, it made all these classic mistakes that would have seen the online crash and burn with any other game, and yet it ended up being massively popular almost in spite of the gameplay infrastructure rockstar "implemented" (it was awful at launch, and basically just got slightly less awful and intrusive as time went on, rather than getting better)
So this Doki Doki Literature Club....I kind of want to check it out but I'm a giant baby. I can assume it must be some kind of scary or nerve racking thing, how bad is it? Will it make me pee myself?
While I do think aaa video game development is bloated and over budgeted, I think a lot of people’s statements about how much a game has to sell tend to be short sighted statements that assume one game, in a vacuum. Constantly making games that pay for themselves usually isn’t enough, nor realistic. Your first game has to cover the loans you took out and then provide a safety net for your next game. Your second game has to replenish that net, pay back loans you took out for it, and then provide that safety net for your third game. Any point of failure means that much further behind.
It’s often crazy that a multi-million selling game doesn’t lead to investor confidence, but a statement like “they wanted it to make more money” is usually more complex than people make it seem
if we arent giving exorbitant salaries and golden parachutes to the upper crust at the expense of everyone underneath them then what even is the point of capitalism?
There's pretty much no level on which the Birth Of A Nation comparison to Half Life works, sorry. One is important but (arguably) too dated, the other is important and indisputably extremely racist. You're comparing apples and Klan propaganda.
feel free to pick another dated movie that is considered important by certain wonks, I'm not married to the comparison
You could probably say Citizen Kane or Casablanca. I feel that way about Blade Runner. Any reference to Birth Of A Nation is going to be indelibly stained with "...wait, the Klan movie?"
Citizen Kane, sure. Casablanca is wonderful and holds up and I will defend it to my death.
Casablanca is an Important Movie that everyone should see but it's also just actually fucking great, and being both of those things is an achievement that not a lot of films can claim.
Maybe don't spend literally as much money as you spent making the game advertising it?
You might have this backwards.
Dead Space 2 had a development budget of $60 million. It also had an advertising budget of $60 million.
The way I see it is that advertising is needed, you need people to know about your game. To put it simply, more money spent on advertising means more sales. But the cost of developing a game depends on what kind of game your developing. Often there's things pushed for that the game doesn't really need: state of the art graphics, open world, a single player mode for a multiplayer game (or vice-versa). So what you need to spend of game development depends on what features you want to include, it's a choice to make a big epic game.
A random thought: I swear I've read a thing somewhere about the video game industry doing hollywood accounting². So the advertising budget might not be as big as advertised.
I usually like Musterbrand's stuff, but I'm not sure how I feel about this. Like I'm not entirely happy with the look in general, but also it kinda seems like a cross between M Bison and a Nazi officer?
are the Officio Prefectus supposed to be good guys in 40k lore?
In 40K law, the Human Imperium are xenophobic, fascist religious fanatics. And they're technically the good guys.
I mean, DS2 has a fucking 87 on metacritic and is considered in retrospect one of the finest horror actions games ever made and apparently 4 million fucking copies sold wasn't good enough
I don't know what big name production companies think is realistic here
Co-Op multiplayer vs AI is my favourite kind of multiplayer.
Where is my Left 4 Dead 3?
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
also before anyone mentions the Tau, reminder that even before the sinister mind control subtext was made into regular text they were a big bundle of colonialist tropes that are way less benign to someone who's been colonized.
Which, like, yeah is better than the Imperium but people going on about how they're pure and good gets a little in my craw.
That game is very good right up until the very end, where it stumbles so badly I have to wonder what they were thinking
The whole time I was saving everybody individually, it seemed so clear to me that the final puzzle sequence would be you using all the different routes you've uncovered throughout the mansion and all your powers combined to do one big route through the whole place and saving everyone in one go.
But that's not what happens at all.
Sure, you could backtrack to earlier places and play with powers you didn't have in those areas, but the only purpose for doing so is getting collectibles. After the final basement puzzle, the entire rest of the game is an extremely linear exposition dump where the finale is a "moral choice" so lopsided that I wonder why they even bothered including it. Hell, during the Move On ending, rather than actually doing the cool thing I thought for sure the game was leading up to, you just send out a bunch of clones in a cutscene to do all that shit for you.
It's just such an anticlimax. Especially since the final three powers you get are essentially useless. Thanos' mask simply unlocks more lore, the Sapphire Ring is only ever needed to unlock a single door, and the mirror-walk power is so pointless that the only time you ever actually need to use it is to get to the next cutscene. Why did you even give me those powers, game?
also before anyone mentions the Tau, reminder that even before the sinister mind control subtext was made into regular text they were a big bundle of colonialist tropes that are way less benign to someone who's been colonized.
Which, like, yeah is better than the Imperium but people going on about how they're pure and good gets a little in my craw.
The Literature Club is full of cute girls! Will you write the way into their heart? This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.
I need people to talk with about this. Trust me on this one, it's worth your time. And don't look anything up, because you WILL be spoiled.
It's free, by the way.
I've played this and loved it! But yeah, I'd recommend people take the content warnings to heart.
I'd love some discussion on it, though.
Just Monika.
I was never unsettled to the point of literal tears until this game came along.
Also, I think it wouldn't have worked half as well if the writing in the leadup wasn't so surprisingly solid. This game actually sold me on the appeal of visual novels outside Phoenix Wright and the Zero Escape series.
Literature Club (Whole thing)
Yeah, the horror section was really effective, to the point where I had to physically move my laptop farther away from me at times, but I almost have to mourn the "Normal Visual Novel" that never was. The writing was good and the poetry gimmick was kinda fun. Although when Monika noted later on how one-dimensional and stereotypical the other girls were, I kinda had to call bs on her, because the writing was well on its way to subverting some character tropes before it turned into a horror game. And I have to say, it didn't really turn into a horror game right away after the Sayori part, at least for me. I thought it was going to go the way of the glitches being problems with the MC's memories, or their regrets, and the story would be more of a message about guilt and depression or something. As it is, the game kinda used a fairly realistic portrayal of depression and suicide as window dressing for their horror game, and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
That being said, I did have a flash drive sitting around unused, so now Monika lives there. :razz:
So this Doki Doki Literature Club....I kind of want to check it out but I'm a giant baby. I can assume it must be some kind of scary or nerve racking thing, how bad is it? Will it make me pee myself?
No, but it can be very, very unsettling
The game opens with a content warning for those who experience anxiety and such, and I'd strongly advise paying heed to that.
also before anyone mentions the Tau, reminder that even before the sinister mind control subtext was made into regular text they were a big bundle of colonialist tropes that are way less benign to someone who's been colonized.
Which, like, yeah is better than the Imperium but people going on about how they're pure and good gets a little in my craw.
the only good and pure faction in 40k is da orkz.
They are the most honest if nothing else
At least now Rabooty is back, the Imperium can start getting it's shit together
My for real choice for "goodest" faction would be the Eldar Exodites. The one's who left (or never were a part of) the Craftworld Eldar or the Dark Eldar. They mostly live fairly isolated lives on ex-Eldar worlds. They seem kinda chill. But their "goodness" comes from isolation. They don't do bad stuff because they don't really do much at all aside from keep to themselves. They exist in a kind of grey area, and they have some peaceful contact/trade with other Eldar and Humans. (although, with the recent changes to the lore maybe they're doing more things now)
Hatoful Boyfriend is fun, but more of a dating sim and chances are that you've already played it.
Beyond that I havent played that much. Long Live the Queen might not count as a Visual Novel, but it's good. If you get frustrated by endless deaths and trial-and-error gameplay, there's no shame in looking up guides.
After that, though... I'm out of games that I've played that are both easily available and, well, don't contain some number of porn scenes.
I've heard that Planetarian is good, though, and I made sure to grab that visual novel humble bundle a while back since apparantly the author of Spice & Wolf wrote World End Economica? I haven't gotten around to reading it, though.
Hatoful Boyfriend is fun, but more of a dating sim and chances are that you've already played it.
Beyond that I havent played that much. Long Live the Queen might not count as a Visual Novel, but it's good. If you get frustrated by endless deaths and trial-and-error gameplay, there's no shame in looking up guides.
After that, though... I'm out of games that I've played that are both easily available and, well, don't contain some number of porn scenes.
I've heard that Planetarian is good, though, and I made sure to grab that visual novel humble bundle a while back since apparantly the author of Spice & Wolf wrote World End Economica? I haven't gotten around to reading it, though.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I mean, probably? She doesn't really like video games though.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
My mom always treated video games like there was literally nothing on the screen. Like not positive, not negative, just "oh, alright that's a video game and not a movie or tv show? I'm gonna just not."
That game is very good right up until the very end, where it stumbles so badly I have to wonder what they were thinking
The whole time I was saving everybody individually, it seemed so clear to me that the final puzzle sequence would be you using all the different routes you've uncovered throughout the mansion and all your powers combined to do one big route through the whole place and saving everyone in one go.
But that's not what happens at all.
Sure, you could backtrack to earlier places and play with powers you didn't have in those areas, but the only purpose for doing so is getting collectibles. After the final basement puzzle, the entire rest of the game is an extremely linear exposition dump where the finale is a "moral choice" so lopsided that I wonder why they even bothered including it. Hell, during the Move On ending, rather than actually doing the cool thing I thought for sure the game was leading up to, you just send out a bunch of clones in a cutscene to do all that shit for you.
It's just such an anticlimax. Especially since the final three powers you get are essentially useless. Thanos' mask simply unlocks more lore, the Sapphire Ring is only ever needed to unlock a single door, and the mirror-walk power is so pointless that the only time you ever actually need to use it is to get to the next cutscene. Why did you even give me those powers, game?
Ugh.
yeah that game fumbles it pretty hard. and the reveal for what's going on is also...bad.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
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No i mean more the popularity of the theme (and brand recognition of GTA). Like im sure there will be, and it will be huge, but I dont think anyones going to be able to replicate the success of GTAV online just due to the fact that people are more willing to spend money on cars and modern clothes than on carriages and petticoats (though id love to be proven wrong). If you look at a large subsection of that community, especially in terms of the whales who spend the most real world cash, they dont participate in any of the actual online gameplay, they use it as like a second life sim to hang out with friends and stream and such. Its a very odd and interesting twist. Having such an insanely huge install base also made it the "place to be" online, which is a very nebulous and elusive kind of thing and is not something developers can really anticipate or "develop" for
GTAV online is a difficult case to learn anything from, because so much of its online implementation was madenningly frustrating and offputting, it made all these classic mistakes that would have seen the online crash and burn with any other game, and yet it ended up being massively popular almost in spite of the gameplay infrastructure rockstar "implemented" (it was awful at launch, and basically just got slightly less awful and intrusive as time went on, rather than getting better)
It’s often crazy that a multi-million selling game doesn’t lead to investor confidence, but a statement like “they wanted it to make more money” is usually more complex than people make it seem
Still eat capitalism tho
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Boardgame development is comprehensible to me at least.
maybe don't have more executives than designers
maybe don't pay them as much
Dead Space 2 had a development budget of $60 million. It also had an advertising budget of $60 million.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Casablanca is an Important Movie that everyone should see but it's also just actually fucking great, and being both of those things is an achievement that not a lot of films can claim.
Ehh, assuming the game is actually good and the money is spent wisely, marketing is easily one of the best investments you can make in a big title.
It's just that those first two assumptions are often wrong.
A random thought: I swear I've read a thing somewhere about the video game industry doing hollywood accounting². So the advertising budget might not be as big as advertised.
In 40K law, the Human Imperium are xenophobic, fascist religious fanatics. And they're technically the good guys.
GRIMDARK
God I would have loved a horde mode on DS2.
Where is my Left 4 Dead 3?
Which, like, yeah is better than the Imperium but people going on about how they're pure and good gets a little in my craw.
That game is very good right up until the very end, where it stumbles so badly I have to wonder what they were thinking
But that's not what happens at all.
Sure, you could backtrack to earlier places and play with powers you didn't have in those areas, but the only purpose for doing so is getting collectibles. After the final basement puzzle, the entire rest of the game is an extremely linear exposition dump where the finale is a "moral choice" so lopsided that I wonder why they even bothered including it. Hell, during the Move On ending, rather than actually doing the cool thing I thought for sure the game was leading up to, you just send out a bunch of clones in a cutscene to do all that shit for you.
It's just such an anticlimax. Especially since the final three powers you get are essentially useless. Thanos' mask simply unlocks more lore, the Sapphire Ring is only ever needed to unlock a single door, and the mirror-walk power is so pointless that the only time you ever actually need to use it is to get to the next cutscene. Why did you even give me those powers, game?
Ugh.
the only good and pure faction in 40k is da orkz.
Yes yes you 100% nailed my feelings on it
...
Anyone got visual novels to recommend?
No, but it can be very, very unsettling
The game opens with a content warning for those who experience anxiety and such, and I'd strongly advise paying heed to that.
They are the most honest if nothing else
At least now Rabooty is back, the Imperium can start getting it's shit together
Hatoful Boyfriend is fun, but more of a dating sim and chances are that you've already played it.
Beyond that I havent played that much. Long Live the Queen might not count as a Visual Novel, but it's good. If you get frustrated by endless deaths and trial-and-error gameplay, there's no shame in looking up guides.
After that, though... I'm out of games that I've played that are both easily available and, well, don't contain some number of porn scenes.
I've heard that Planetarian is good, though, and I made sure to grab that visual novel humble bundle a while back since apparantly the author of Spice & Wolf wrote World End Economica? I haven't gotten around to reading it, though.
All of those should be on Steam, last I checked.
DREAM DADDY
Your mom hates Dead Space 2!
world end economica was bad
yeah that game fumbles it pretty hard. and the reveal for what's going on is also...bad.
Oof, good to hear. I just got interested in it because of the author, so it's a shame to hear that it doesn't work out.
I knew nothing about this game before this tweet, but it turns out it's been in Early Access for a while? Seems neat.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It's the Soul Eater dating game.