LogicStrikesAgain

@Art_Vandelay I mean, you’re right, that’s true as well. I just think Sony is still in a slightly better situation than some other publishers though. Sony can still fall back on their main source of income. Other publishers really need their games to break even, or else they are automatically in a loss. However if Playstation makes enough through third party sales and subscriptions, they could still end up making profits at the end of the day, even if some of their games failed

@Ralizah I think discussing SE’s multiplatform strategy on a gaming news site is a bit different from literally reaching out to the developer (Housemarque) directly and demanding for a port

@Markatron84 we don’t know anything though, who’s to say blundell isn’t the one who F’d up this time. People are so certain to put blame somewhere when we literally have no insight at all to what’s going on behind the scenes

@Lysterao Sure. But these things happen a lot with all publishers. They invest in things, and things get cancelled behind the scenes. That’s just how it goes sometimes in game development. Maybe things weren’t developing as they hoped, or sometimes plans and strategies just shift

There is no need to extend development of game for more than 5 years and even anything longer than 3 is ridiculous

Sorry but saying that ‘anything over 3 years of game development is ridiculous’ is just not realistic, at least not for AAA games. Perhaps if AI is heavily used in every step of development, then we might get there

@Leetware1 I lf you were replying to my first conment. You’re absolutely right. And they should definitely make improvements on all those things. But i find that people like to demand or complain about things they know little about, showing the disconnect of what people want vs the realities of game development costs and running a large publishing company

Maybe shortening games length might help. I personally dont need every game to be 30-50+ hrs long. Also better use of AI in development, reusing assets between studios, improving tech engines(like Unreal Engine MetaHuman, so you dont require expensive mocap tech) , smaller teams, more AA in between, more teams outside of high wage countries etc

there is no reason to for a video game to cost more than many movies

Not sure i totally agree here though. Game development often needs a huge amount of expensive technical skills (programming, system design etc), on top of the creative side, which can definitely be more expensive than movies in some cases

A game like Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, for example, simply cannot afford to fail.

I dont fully agree here. I think Sony might actually be in a slightly better position than other publishers in this regard. Sure, it wouldnt be good if it failed, but they can afford it, because their main source of income are the billions they make from third party sales on their platform.

Meanwhile, third party publishers really need their games to succeed, because that is their main source of income

People hardly understand all the financial realities and business decisions going on behind the scenes of these large companies, but they do like to complain and demand a lot

@twitchtvpat That actually makes sense, with them being the creators of J&K. Somehow that thought has made me even more hyped for Intergalatic hehe

@SMJ They didn’t acquire them. This studio didn’t exist before. Sony created this studo internally, bringing in some former developers from Deviation Stuio after they closed down

So it wasnt a live service game? I wonder why they cancelled it. Oh well, end of the day lots of unannounced games get cancelled all the time behind the scenes. We dont know what they had so far, so can’t really judge if this was a good call or not

I’d like to see a reimagined gritty mature sci fi version of Jak & Daxter

That sound design though! You can feel it in your bones 🔥

@The_ghostmen

if the game was good enough to play the hate wouldn't matter.

I dont think thats necessarily true though. A game can be very good to play, but because it has a lot negativity surrounding it, many people might never even try it because of the narrative surrounding it.

On the other hand, some popular live service titles can actually be very mediocre, but have good initial momentum because of positive perception.

Look i’m not saying hate caused it to fail, but early momentum and online discourse can definitely impact a game. Launching while everyone was yelling DOA was always going to be an uphill battle.

The kind of hate Marathon got can definitely create a distorted perception, even if the game turns out to be solid, which it did.

Not saying Marathon is purely a victim of bad press, but in this case, since the hate on this game has been extreme, it likely had an impact on its initial succes.

Having said that, Marathon definitely has many bigger reasons, like being a very niche genre, for not being a huge succes though

@TrollOfWar Those are actually good assessments of both games’ reception after release. But what i mean is that these games got an unusually high amount of hate before release. People were relentless, even people who weren’t even interested in the slightest, were spamming every article that the game is garbage and needed to flop. Most reasons werent even about the game itself, but rather a bias against the publishers strategy. Some people just wanted it to fail out of spite.

That kind of negative momentum can distort peoples perception, even if the game turns out to be pretty good. It wasnt the same hate like Mindseye or Cyberpunk for releasing in horrible states either, because both Concord and Marathon released in a technically excellent state.

And thats fine, people can hate all day if they want. I’m jus sayinf that level of negativity can impact people’s perception, and some who ignored the game might’ve otherwise tried it if it didnt have such a negative air surrounding it, that’s all.

Just to be clear though, Marathon has many bigger reasons, like the ones you mentioned, for not being a huge succes, but this is likely one factor that also contributed

@RBMango

Regarding Fairgames, I do hope it fails because it looks like the worst kind of hot cynical garbage with a grotesque, pompous, and hypocritical "eat the rich" tone. It that's the tone they're going with, I absolutely do want that to fail out of sheer spite

Dont get me wrong, thats your prerogative. But i think it also makes my point perfectly clear. That before Sony releases a live service game, before people have played it, heck sometimes even before we’ve seen any gameplay, there are people out there that already want these games to fail, and not because the game is bad, but more out of spite than anything else

@Rich33 I agree, even though i quite like the artstyle myself. But this is indeed a very niche genre, something their audience probably wasnt really into. But alas, they bought Bungie with the caveat that they would manage themselves, and they were already heavy in development for Marathon so Sony just had to go along with it

@Rich33 I don’t think Helldivers 2 quite enjoyed the same level of hate Concord and Marathon received though. But you’re right, i certainly dont want to imply that perception is the only reason a game succeeds or not. I’m just saying, especially with live service titles, perception is an important factor

@RBMango Oh i agree with you on the sales part, 1.2m is definitely not enough, no disagreement there. But it’ll probably continue to grow, the question is how much.

I was referring to people hating on the game before they’ve even played it. Heck, even before the first alpha gameplay released some people were already wishing for it to flop. Granted some may have been from the groups you describe, but many also seemingly jumped on the bandwagon.

Just look at that post above with the concordian timeline meme. People know nothing about and havent even played fairgames and hunters gathering, but are already actively ridiculing and wanting it to fail. I’ve seen that meme pass by like 5 times already in other comment sections, lol.

There are way worse games out there, and every week a new live service title gets announced by scummy publishers, but nothing seems to garner as much hate as Sony’s live service games, doesnt even matter if its a quality game or not.

In the end, it is what it is, i’m not gonna stop people from hating on a game if thats what they wanna do with their time. I’m just saying that the excessive hate this game has received most certainly will have had an impact on people’s perception of the game, that’s all

@RBMango

Sorry, this isn't "haters caused this game to fail

It’s definitely not the sole reason, that’s true, it’s also simply just a very niche genre. But perception is also very important with these live service games though. And all the excessive hate will have had an impact on it. Its a perfetly good game, but it just didnt get a fair start with all the negativity surrounding it.

Apparently the game isnt bad at all. It currently sits at 82 on Metacritic, and a 89% Very Positive from 23k+ Steam user reviews. This site gave it a 9/10, and even the tweet in the article says the game underneath is a “MASTERWORK of design”. It certainly doesnt deserve all the hate it getting. But even in this comment section people are almost celebrating its downfall, or at least ridiculing it. Honestly, very weird behaviour in my eyes

@nomither6 coincidentally, what did you vote in the “whats your age” poll they posted this afternoon?

@Splat With the fidelity of that game, it would’ve been way more expensive to develop and maintain though. Also, Factions 1 wasnt exactly the biggest hit, so we can’t confidently say this would he either

Perhaps it also has something to do with all the excessive hate it received prior to release? 🧐

@RoomWithaMoose I agree, they shouldnt have invested so much in live service titles alone, i understand your frustration regarding Sony first party. But at some point, you have to understand that shifting back from that live service strategy is going to take some time. Game development takes years, so even if they began shifting gears a few years ago by cancelling most of those titles, it would have still taken a few years before we would see them back on track. This year has a steady cadence of games again from Playstation Studios though, so hopefully its the beginning of a return to form

@RoomWithaMoose

But still, they founded a studio and shut them down in a year before they made a single thing. That's just stupid.

Sony has just shifted strategy since then. It was created purely to fascilitate their live service push. Now that they’ve downshifted their live service strategy, they didnt think the studio they formed was needed anymore. I can understand it’s a bad look though, so close after the Bluepoint closure

@ RoomWithAMoose When they created this studio last year to make live service games for them, they were still operating under their previous live service strategy, but Sony has since shifted gears, so they closed it.

Honestly, with how much people hated Sony’s live service push, you’d think people would understand this decision

@RoomWithaMoose Why is it automatically assumed to be a wrong decision though? Maybe they are correcting mistakes Hulst made in the first place. We dont know anything, so why is everyone acting so certain?

Perhaps this newly formed studio didn’t hit any of the agree upon milestones, and maybe this time Sony is scrutinizing live service projects much sooner so projects don’t go on too long before being cancelled. Isn’t that what we wanted from Sony?

@get2sammyb No idea. For all we know forming this studio after Devation closed down was the bad call, and this is the right one. Who knows, maybe upper management is undoing some of the wrong decisions Hulst made. We have literally no insight at all

@get2sammyb We dont have inside information. How can we be sure closing Dark Outlaws isn’t a good call from Sony?

Hey, who you calling old!?

I actually started playing FF7 Integrade. Never played the original. I played FFX and FFXII on PS2, and still remember them as some of the best gaming experiences i’ve had. FF7 remake took some adjusting though, but it eventually clicked with me.

I voted 35-39.

Seeing 90% of the people here are 30+ is kinda cool, but thinking about how some behave in here, it’s also a bit disappointing. It means i can’t tell myself that some unreasonable takes here are from kids anymore, lol

@KundaliniRising333

Paving the way for yet another new piece of hardware to play old games as the selling point because they spent Most of the generation pissing away studio dev time chasing live service unicorns

I’m sure it wont be limited to just Playstation Studios’ games. Also, what do you mean with ‘old games’? Im assuming if Forbidden West will be playable on this handheld, then upcoming games should be too

@nessisonett

The fact a 4 year old game is still one of the most graphically intensive games on the system speaks more to the general disaster of this gen than anything.

thats a bif of an exaggeration. Graphics aren’t a measure of whether a console generation is a “disaster”. Some of the best games this gen like Elden Ring don’t even pursue cutting edge graphics. If anything, HFW holding up till now, speaks more to the technical skills of Guerilla Games, than anything else.

I wouldn’t say that games this year are that noticeably more impressive looking than Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls

You can’t ignore that games like Death Stranding 2, Avatar: Pandora, Alan Wake 2, Indiana Jones, AC Shadows, Hellblade 2, RE9 etc. push graphics well beyond early games like Miles Morales. Improvement might be more subtle than previous generations, but thats because of diminishing returns. We can’t expect the same leaps when we’re already approaching photorealism

I’ve been following graphics tech since the Nvidia Geforce days, and it’s so cool to see how software ML is making it possible that even consoles are now able to play modern high fidelity games like RE9 with ray tracing at 60fps with an image wuality that basically looks native 4K. Loving the progress! And loving the PS5 Pro, Mark Cerny nailed it again

I’ve said it before, the market is oversaturated. At some point, there is just too little differentiation between games. Too many studios, too many publishers, too many games releasing and trying to capture our attention, which is already spread across other forms of media. Way too hard for all these studios to find succes in such a crowded market.

Isn’t Nacon the publisher of that Gollum game? The word slop gets thrown around a lot these days, but if there’s a game that deserves to be called that, it would be that one

They gave you the opportunity to write one last article using the PSN brand name before they changed it lol

@GamingGod Ikr! I can already imagine all those Playstation characters in an astro styled kart game, Sony needs to greenlight this immediately 😍

@nessisonett

The sort of thing I’d love to try but there’s no way I’d ever have the money to get. I get why PSVR2 is that expensive, it’s honestly cheap compared to some of the headsets out there, but it’s still pretty crazy considering how small the library really is.

Fair take. But if you get the PC adaptor you can instantly have a massive library (on top of the psvr2 exclusives), and it would still be cheap compared to some of the headsets out there

Give us Astro Kart, Sony!!

This all sounds like music to my ears. And not just because of the modern viking accents lol. Coincidentally, has anyone watched the Norwegian tv show Vikingane/Norsemen? It’s f***ing hilarious, and its all i can think about when i hear these guys talking 😂✌🏼

Can’t wait to try this 🤩

@Ambassador_Kong You’re right, i’ll give you that, you did say almost. But this isnt the first time youre implying this. But if thats a feeling you have, fair enough

@Ambassador_Kong

Capitulating to Bungie's demand to hold back a review until they could finish the game was quite sad

Also, the game was already finished. This endgame just wasn’t abailable yet, because it required people leveling up for a few weeks to be able to unlock. Its not like Bungie is hiding anything, they even made the game free to play for everyone just a few days prior to release

@Ambassador_Kong

Almost as if Sony said, "nice little site you have there. Be a shame if you didn't get early access or press releases anymore."

You keep saying this. If this were true, that would be fair calling it out. But you’re perpetuating a self made narrative without any proof. Sony isn’t gonna withhold early access to media outlets if they dont listen to them. At some point you either have to prove it happened, or just let go of this fake narrative 😉

@evan23 you mean

this?

Its [ quote ]text here[ /quote ]

But without the space in between the [ ]

@Propaperpusher Nice, dude! 👍🏼 And a perfect example of people having all sorts of reasons for buying or skipping a game that are way more varied than all this tribal drama some are so obsessed with

@HonestHick

This is your good point and i fully agree if it was just said as such and not blast the GAME until it’s on said box and then act like being called out is someone’s else negativity. No one wants to eat crow and i and many others like to serve it.

I get what you’re saying. But maybe try not to equate what you hear from a few loud fanboys online to the entire 130+ million user base.

Also the “making people eat crow” bit doesnt really hold up. You can’t assume the same people that blasted the game are the ones that are now preordering. With sucha large userbase, its highly unlikely there is any overlap. Who exactly is eating crow if the people who hated the game still aren’t buying it?

Look if you mean to call out specific users for saying something before, and now saying something different, thats fair. But if you’re talking in general, its best not to judge the whole group based on what a small minority has said

@HonestHick. I’m not trying to be a “meanie” lol, and i’m not attacking anyone. I just notice a pattern of some people always introducing console wars into the narrative. Thinking that people aren’t buying a game is because they “hate” another box is just tribal mentality thinking, most people dont even care about any of that.

The biggest reason is probably a much more boring one, many who liked it just didnt think it was worth buying another system for. And now that its releasing on the system they actually own, they can finally pick it up. See? Not everything needs to be explained with that tribal mindset

@themaladroit Sounds peaceful indeed! I never really realized how different this comment section looks to each person, depending on who they ignored, and who ignored them