I got to the second map in Divinity: Original Sin. I’m really enjoying it, though it’s a bit more combat heavy than Baldur’s Gate 3, and that combat is more punishing, especially at lower levels.
I’m still finishing up DLC in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire on my second playthrough in turn-based mode. Obviously I’ve enjoyed this game enough to immediately do a second lap through it in a new mode, but I am now starting to run out of steam.
I started playing The Thaumaturge. It’s a really interesting setting, and the combat has a timeline for its turn system, which makes it fun to pick attacks based on how fast they come out. It’s a little shallower than I was expecting, both in terms of combat and outside of combat, but it’s hard to say that I’ve played a game like this before so far.
I’m also trying to finish up Titan Quest in co-op with a friend of mine. This was my first real attempt to get into a loot game in a long time, and I did find a taste for it this time. Titan Quest itself is fairly dated in a lot of ways, but I’m enjoying it, and we’re coming up on the end of the base game. With V Rising having just launched, we might just call it on Titan Quest after the base game and move on, and we’ll be ready for Titan Quest II, which may be releasing later this year.
The industry historically hasn’t shrunk when studios close like this. There just ends up being more bespoke studios all over the world with former developers from those studios.
I don’t think big companies know how to make a good FPS campaign anymore, let alone hone in on classic deathmatch multiplayer. The last FPS I bought was Half-Life: Alyx four years ago, and the first one to come along and interest me since then was Phantom Fury, but I’m letting that one iron out bugs for a few weeks before I...
I can think of plenty of games with writing I’ve really enjoyed in recent years, not the least of which is Baldur’s Gate 3 just last year, but FPSes in particular are in one of only a few genres where I haven’t been well served lately.
I would not agree with that, no. First because I’d say mechanics are almost always the most important part anyway, and also because I’ve probably come across more stories that have held my interest in recent years than I did 25 years ago. Stories were pretty basic back then, more often than not. In fact, these days, I’ve been carried through mediocre gameplay by well-told stories more than a few times, and I don’t think that ever happened 25 years ago.
Not exactly, but I have found a taste for loot games lately, so maybe someday I’ll get around to that one. It still wouldn’t scratch the same itch though.
It peaked today at just shy of 100k concurrent players following its successful early access period, with about 70k reviews, both of which are indicators that it’s selling extremely well, as well as taking the #4 spot on the top sellers list on Steam.
Fortunately there are enough people who value them more than you, because most games, even moderately budgeted ones, wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves at that price.
Let’s say that including benefits, a developer’s salary is about $100k. Maybe a small team of 8 people worked on a game like The Thaumaturge for 3 years. Before you even factor in contract work like voice acting, that would put the development budget at $2.4M. If the game cost $20, they’d have to sell about 120k copies to break even on that investment, which is far from guaranteed. By pricing the game at $35, their break even point is nearly half of that. This is a moderately budgeted game, not a AAA game with microtransactions.
Even an experienced team like Mimimi games, who made smart development choices by iterating on what they built before to keep costs down, releasing critical successes several times in a row, ended up closing down because the money coming in was too tight. Their games ranged from $30-$50 and had every sale, bundle, giveaway, and promotional opportunity you could think of.
I’m sorry that you don’t enjoy video games enough to pay $30 for most of the good ones, but I hope one day you can sit down with a calculator and realize why it must be that way.
Video games are often afraid to be only a couple of hours these days, often to their detriment, but if you multiplied a movie’s runtime by 2-3x for some extra production value in your game, you end up at that $35 price point easily for a game that’s 5-10 hours long. Even for a direct comparison to Atom RPG, I’d rather pay 2-3x as much for a Wasteland game to get what I’m looking for, and Wasteland games aren’t exactly short. Neither is V Rising.
Currently, mine just says it can’t connect to Steamworks and gets no further. Anyone else having that issue? I would expect the game to fall back to offline mode at least, but even with Steam in offline mode, I get the same error.
God of War: Ragnarok Reportedly the Next PlayStation Exclusive to Hit PC (www.ign.com)
Nintendo president: “Game development will become even longer, more complex, and more sophisticated” (mynintendonews.com)
Xbox president: Studio closures will ensure 'business is healthy for the long term' (www.gamedeveloper.com)
Weekly what have you been playing discussion - week of May 6th, 2024
ops forgot
Xbox Has Had More Studio Closures Than First Party Game Releases So Far In 2024 (twistedvoxel.com)
We've almost reached the end of the 1st half of 2024, and Xbox has had more studio closures than first party game releases in the year so far.
Perfect Dark Reboot Is Allegedly In Bad Shape (www.gamespot.com)
I don’t think big companies know how to make a good FPS campaign anymore, let alone hone in on classic deathmatch multiplayer. The last FPS I bought was Half-Life: Alyx four years ago, and the first one to come along and interest me since then was Phantom Fury, but I’m letting that one iron out bugs for a few weeks before I...
V Rising has launched out of Early Access! (steamcommunity.com)
V Rising 1.0 review: one of the slickest survival games gets even slicker (www.rockpapershotgun.com)
BREAKING: Microsoft has closed Redfall's Arkane Austin, HiFi Rush's Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda. | IGN (twitter.com)