Look at this clown! First, they came out saying they weren’t even fans of the material. You have Henry Cavil in the lead role who is a super fan of the source materials arguing with you and the writers about the show. And then you finish it off by blaming the audience for your decisions. Mind you, the audience you have ultimately attracted is largely influenced by the decisions you have made throughout the production of YOUR show. The audience didn’t make this show, YOU did
If you're the executive producer, it's your fault that your team members fucked it up. If you cannot find a competent writer to properly express nuance on the screen, it's still your fault. You hired the wrong person to adapt the books. You are the boss, the final say, the one-ass-to-kick when things go wrong. The Witcher is not some nuanced story about regional distinctions in low-visibility communities told in short form, which seems to be his only acclaimed experience, followed by several production failures.
This entire interview comes down to "those lazy zoomers don't know how to appreciate good film." From the description of his past, massive failures it appears to be a problem with his process and ability, not an audience problem.
If you’re the executive producer, it’s your fault that your team members fucked it up.
Again though, that’s not true.
The Television producer hierarchy has Showrunner at the top, that would be Lauren Schmidt Hissrich. Tomasz Baginski was just an EP on 16 of the episodes, so would not have been in charge of determining the overall series plot.
This entire interview comes down to “those lazy zoomers don’t know how to appreciate good film.”
Yeah, his complaints are that Young Adult material is simplified to be able to hold their attention, that’s not controversial, that’s not new, that’s been the case for literally ever. It’s why book stores have Young Adult fiction separate from more complex and heady adult fiction.
The Witcher found success on TV as a YA show and that has forced them to simplify the plot, something one of the producers didn’t appreciate.
I mean quite the opposite. Ff you are talking about the plebs, you would have a point but the Unity changes they are now trying to force through are going to other companies who typically don't like it when you mess with their income unexpectedly. They likely will switch to a new engine with their newer projects, so they don't have to deal with a surprise change.
Democracy isn’t an economic system. You can have communism with democracy and capitalism without it. You maybe wouldn’t get elected as a straight up communist — like an unreformed Maoist or whatever — but democratic socialism is popular across the world.
Whilst Communism itself (i.e. the utopia were everybody has the same - i.e. Equality Of Outcomes - which, by the way, has never been achieved anywhere in the world) isn’t anti-democratic per-se, the only ideologies that aim to reach it, such as Marxism and all its derivatives, have it being done via the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat (hence the revolutions and then takeover of power in all the self-proclaimed “Communist” countries), which is most definitelly anti-Democratic.
However Leftwing principles aren’t incompatible with Democracy, so Leftwing ideologies exist - such as Social Democracy - which strive for “the greater good for the greatest number” without the need for autoritarian means (i.e. using things like Universal Healthcare, Universal Education, Progressive Taxation and other such things within the context of Democracy, to make the society more equal, especially in terms of Equality Of Opportunities). None of these expects to ever achieve Communist - they actually accept that it’s impossible given human nature - but still try and make a more equal society which maximizes the quality of life for all people.
This stuff has definitelly been done in practice in Democratic nations (for example those in Scandinavia) overlayed on some amount of Capitalism, though as of late with Neoliberalism (which is definitelly incompatible with it) things have been going backwards even there.
I think it’s quite oversimplifying it to say that any ideology that aims for a more equal world is “communism” as that one is quite a specific outcome which can’t really be achieved without forcing people to do certain things against their will and, as history has shown everytime that’s tried, the outcome of taking over power to try and reach Communism is never Communism but rather a new Elite who keep themselves in power through repressing, claim to be representatives of the Proletariat (which giving themselves all kinds of priviledges the proletariat never has) and use certain slogans to try and pass themselves as leftwing.
Judging by the Communist Party in my own country - with it’s habits of Party First in everything (even above those they claim to defend), always having things approved by unanimity in their conventions and hard-on for autocrats - I very much doubt we will ever see anybody coming from that background capable of taking their country in a more equal direction within the constraints of Democracy: they’re simply far too autoritarian, mindless slogan parroting and tribalist to be capable to, in a democratic society, create the necessary consensus for the steady and stable moving of a country towards a grand objective.
All I want him to do is figure out the rights issues and do re-releases of the Black and White games. Populus, Dungeon Keeper and Magic Carpet games. Remasters would be nice, but just get them working 16:9 on modern windows would do.
There is somewhat similar game, where you do not have direct control of your units at all. And it is RTS. It's name is Majesty. And especially the first game is absolutely fantastic!
Because the sequel removed something that some people complained about. The individualistic behaviour and different patterns of different hero types. Now they are all braindead.
It's too late. Cat's out of the bag. It's crystal clear to everyone now what kind of people run the company, and they're not content to fish for whales anymore.
I’m interested in playing this but I don’t own a PS5 and I’m not buying a whole console for one game. They would have gotten a day 1 sale out of me if they released it on PC.
Ditto for me. I have all Final Fantasy games released on PC, but I can’t justify buying a PS5 for a single game. I’ve chosen to watch a let’s play of the game. Glad I did because it’s definitely not a Final Fantasy I’d play a second time.
Originally, they did plan to release it on PS5 and PC. My guess is Sony made a timed exclusivity deal with them, which Sony had done with companies before. SE shout themselves in the foot by taking it.
Not to mention the kowtowing to China and the countless other controversies. Same thing with Riot Games with their sexual harassment settlement and 100% being owned by Tencent (a company that operates a mass-surveillance network against ethnic minorities). So funny how everyone forgets about these things when a company releases a product they like.
And then WoW still got kicked out of China. GG Blizzard, GG. God damn Bobby Kotick is a horrible, horrible person. Thinking about dating Bobby Kotick? Don't.
It's not that they "forget about it" they just don't care. People want to enjoy things.
If you were to stay on the high horse and stop consuming products and services made by companies with track records like Actiblizzard, you'd probably end living off the grid in a cave
We arguably live in a golden age of gaming, there are so many goddamn games to play and people still swarm to the one made by companies that fucking killed people and are actively working to milk as much money out of you as possible and to make the hobby you enjoy worse in the long run in favor for short term profits. This is why people don't take you people seriously.
This is capitalism at its finest. I do not have time to care about the people who made this. I do not want to care about them. I am too overworked to have time to find another hobby. I just want to escape by any means necessary with others before I must return to the grind. I understand this feeling completely and don't fault you.
People are generally pretty keen on being on their high horses when it comes to philosophical questions about which company is "good" and how no one should play their games ever because of previous mis-steps
It's pretty unrealistic to expect the vast majority of people who just want to play games with their friends to not play them because of ideological reasons.
You don't have to expect the vast majority of people to see things your way, but you can explain to your friends that it's important to not support Blizzard due to X, Y, or Z, and then you can play Grim Dawn or something instead.
I’d imagine that game devs, just like Unity’s shareholders, like predictability in profits. Even if it’s more expensive overall for them to move to Unreal for their next game, it could be worth it to avoid future calamity.
The problem is because you pay per install you could end up owing Unity more money than you actually make. Especially if people uninstall and reinstall your game a bunch of times for whatever reason.
How did a good way to protest? It’ll just rack up your bills.
The correct way to protest is just stop using their platform.
I hope the large studios that use unity sue them into oblivion for breach of contract, because changing the deal after the fact is utterly unacceptable. How a business is supposed to operate if other businesses just change the terms of the deal retrospectively.
At least Unreal is source-available and you only need to use the license for the version of Unreal you use. If Epic changes their license, you don’t need to agree to it and can still ship under the older license.
Godot is a great engine but it isn’t a silver bullet. It can get there, though.
Developers were right to be in fear of Baldur's Gate 3 resetting expectations. This isn't close to all of the reason for this backlash, but for me it's a notable part.
Here we all have for contrast suddenly an expansive, complete, player-respecting game that isn't trying to squeeze money out of you at every turn... it reminds me of old PC games, before the enshittification of the industry began, before the corporate rot set in. When I bought my copy of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, it was complete. It was expansive. It was before micro-transactions were really a thing, so it was a finished product. BG3 makes me think of those games, but with modern technology. My gaze shifts back to the allegedly "modern" games we have now, to Overwatch 2, and it just feels cheap and disgusting. A minimum-viable pile of gameified gambling covered in greasy MBA penny-pincher fingerprints, shrouded by half-truths from marketers trying to puff it up to look like a complete experience. It is still possible to deliver the better experience. It's clearly just a matter of "want".
I feel like I've just come from a family-owned restaurant on the beach in Cabo and came back home to a McDonald's in a roadside casino, and I've just realized how genuinely shitty it all is.
I think I would actually rather just go outside or start a new hobby than touch "games" like this ever again.
You are in a similar position (it sounds like) to where I was a short time ago.I was so fed up with the state of things on the computer/console/handheld front that I just kind of did not want to play anything anymore. Two things, and adjusting my expectations, really helped:
Game Pass - I’ve had it forever, but now it is more important, since I’m not buying new games as much anymore. It’s a small monthly fee, and I can frequently be surprised by the quality of some smaller indie games.
RetroAchievements - This is my current “thing”, and hopefully it will be for a long time to come. You use an emulator that has support for RetroAchievements (the biggest one being RetroArch) and the correct ROM file, and you can earn achievements in thousands of old games, from the earliest days of mass-market computing and consoles (magnavox, intellivision, apple ii, fairchild, amstrad cpc, etc.), through all 8 and 16 bit consoles, and up to Ps1/2/PSP/N64/3DO/Dreamcast, with Gamecube, Vita, or PS3 likely to be the next “big” console release (probably Gamecube). Revisit your favorites from years past and play them in new ways to get all of the achievements, or try out games you never had (or systems you never had) for the first time. Biggest criticism is that they have a tendency of being “too hard”, but you can either just pick games that don’t have ridiculously hard achievements, or just not go for 100%.
I will absolutely be buying Baldur’s Gate 3 as well.
Certainly all of Overwatch 2's issues were known and well documented before Baldur's Gate 3's release, I think people have just put two and two together (or more aptly, put the two next to each other for comparison).
I wish more people realized the same and stopped buying shitty games, while rewarding the good ones.
I grew up during the “old times”, I remember how it was so I’m quite wary of new games, but I think a lot of gamers are much younger than me and when shitty predatory practices is all you know, it’s probably difficult to believe something different can exist.
I didn’t want to buy BG3 at first because I probably won’t be able to play it, no doubt it’s a masterpiece but I can’t stand isometric view, I don’t like turn-based combat and click-to-move, but when I saw how AAA devs reacted to Larian integrity, I bought it anyway and I will at least try, hoping someone will develop a mod to make controls more “bearable” for players like me.
Even if they don’t, I firmly believe it’s money well spent, AAA devs are still attacking Larian for petty reasons, it means what they’re doing is extremely good for the players, they deserve to be supported by all means, let the current “AAA practices” rot.
EDIT: in case someone else is interested, I found modders did it! Hope they work on Linux:
using a controller with BG3 actually feels really good. you can also adjust the zoom so you are more in a third person view as opposed to isometric (nearly over the shoulder camera). you can also play the game real-time with pause, which may or may not help push you along as you say you don't necessarily jive with turn-based.
i hope these things help you get into BG3. i personally LOVE isometric view and turn-based tactics but even if these things don't appeal to you, the game itself is such a breath of fresh air that i do not see myself putting it down for a long, long time.
I wasn’t blaming any single entity. And really the first smart phone wouldn’t be accurate either, probably the first iPhone. Not so much brand, but popularity. Once the market became so large, and they started to realize they could get people addicted, regular games were over.
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