https://kotaku.com/xbox-bethesda-studio-closings-arkane-too-many-games-1851464885
Apparently, Microsoft's top leaders are paying closer attention to Xbox and its plans, too
Capture and kill...
The only thing better than owning the competition, is putting them out of business.
So they buy studios that compete, fire all the workers, keep the IPs, and call it a day.
If we enforced anti-monoply laws this wouldn't be a thing. But monopolies dontate a lot of money to politicians so they say monopolies aren't a big deal.
Have you met our political system?
Primaries literally don't have to be fair, because the results are nonbinding, the party can just pick someone else.
And the people in charge keep loosening regulations so they can get bigger donations.
They're openly running a PAC that coordinates with Biden and the DNC that individuals can legally donate a million a year.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-2024-democrats-dnc-state-parties-ac8fba0ab1117ebf75cc16ebe0c735e4
https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00744946/
Average Americans are being priced out of democracy by both parties. The candidate for both will be who the wealthy pick, and everyone will have to vote if they want to keep who they hate most out of office.
If you're wealthy there's no way to lose, if you're the other 99.9% you can't win.
Regular people can't out lobby Microsoft and Disney, and unless a progressive third party emerges the system will keep getting worse.
unless a progressive third party emerges the system will keep getting worse
If a progressive third party emerges, they'll split the vote with Democrats, making both of them weaker. That'll just give every election to Republicans and make the country get worse even faster.
The only way to get progressive candidates is by moving the Overton window to the left, and the only way to do that is by voting for Democrats.
While political system is captured... I am talking about gen pop discourse. Vast majority got nothing to hide, it is convienient, poor people suck, shoulda worked harder, quit being poor, there is nothing can be, we just really don't know.
This rhetoric is pathetic for any self respecting adult yet here we are.
Sure if everybody got educated about their lot in life they could theoretically vote in a third party but let's be real here, we got some app to circle jerk for engagement slop that induces you to buy plastic shit to make feelz
People tried to block the Activision acquisition. Some were mocked for their attempt and some were mocked for their stance. It wasn't enforced because for all the attempts, it couldn't be proved which is more an indicator better definitions needed to be in place
INVESTORS INVESTORS LOOK AT HOW MANY STUDIOS WE CAN BUY LOOK LOOK WE'RE SOOO PROFITABLE
WERE REMOVING SO MUCH DEAD WEIGHT INVESTORS LOOK WE'RE GOING TO BE SO PROFITABLE AFTER THIS
Reduce the number of studios. The number of sold copies of games stays constant. Therefore, the money going to the remaining studios goes up.
If the cost of purchasing the studio is less than the number of diverted sales, its in your interest to buy up and shut down competition. The only reason this math would change is if people exclusively purchased from the shut-down studios. And we all know why they don't.
As a kicker, you can wring some extra cash out of old properties by turning them into shitty reskinned Pay2Win mobile games covered in the flesh mask of the old IP.
Therefore, the money going to the remaining studios goes up.
LOL
People believe this shit? The money goes directly to some CX or some manegement asshole or chair or board or fucking whatever. What studios? What devs?
Or license it to a third party studio who does a great job, puts out a quality product, then gets bought out and gutted.
Microsoft has been a fucking blight on gaming. Paid online, and timed exclusives both started there. No resale if we didn't throw a massive fit about it. Buying up studios to kill them. I mean Sony has their share of being fucks as well, but at least they're making good games. Microsoft has barely any decent games the last 2 generations, and hellblade 2 which is looking great was a Sony game that they had to buy and make exclusive.
Looks at ballot.
"Is carbonite, like...an actual thing? Can I be frozen like Han Solo? I have a little bit of money saved up. Which stupid tech bro startup can do this for me?"
wait so the bodies are frozen after the person has already died?
I thought the point was to get frozen while still alive so that you could be thawed out in the future and continue living. which, while still very stupid, is something I can wrap my head around as a concept.
am I just now learning that the whole thing is predicated on the wish that we will one day be able to reanimate dead people??
They ideal for most of them is absolutely that they can be frozen while still alive and unfrozen later. We are nowhere near that technology though so most fallback to the second hope. Yes, that is that when they're unfrozen in the future we can cure whatever it is that killed them. From what I've seen in documentaries, most of the people signing up know it's the world's furthest longshot, but they figure they're dead either way, why not take it? Worst that happens is they stay dead but hopefully science learned something from their body at least, best case is they wake up in the 24½th century and keep on truckin.
Also, considering that they need access to freeze things inside of you quickly enough, such as your brain, I think most subjects would prefer that they were dead first.
Let's ask Ted Williams's frozen head. What do you think, Ted?
Ted Williams's frozen head: ...
Thanks Ted
Turns out those rich fuckers currently being scraped off the sides of their cryochambers had the right exit strategy all along.
Alcor is generally considered your best cryonics bet right now. Not a great bet, but your best bet.
I don't have carbonite but for the right price I can pack you into a freezer filled with ice. That should do the trick.
In a sane country there would be laws to prevent this monopoly shit.
The problem is that Microsoft is no monopoly in gaming.
They have the money to basically buy any studio they want if they could, Nintendo and Sony included.
Their gaming division isn’t a monopoly, but with their parents funding yeah they could be and that’s the problem. They could buy everyone up and leave them selves alone in the market.
Their gaming division isn’t a monopoly, but with their parents funding yeah they could be and that’s the problem.
I agree it's a problem but without Microsoft being a monopoly in gaming, no watchdog will do anything about it.
The FTC was trying to do something. Than Microsoft convinced them they weren’t going to do X if they sold Y, so they let the cloud gaming go, and then immediately did what they said they wouldn’t.
If they didn’t lie to the FTC they would have done something about it than and there.
It’s not a monopoly until it is, and that’s what they are trying to avoid, stuff getting to that point in the first place.
Yes, they let the cloud gaming go so the EU wouldn’t deem them a monopoly, they than told the FTC they weren’t going to lay anyone off. And a month later or so they laid off 2000 employees while using the excuse it was happening anyways regardless of the merger.
What other merger was there you could be confusing this with?
So you want to do something about it after they are a monopoly?
Me? Why me? You were talking about countries and I was explaining that countries don't apply monopoly laws to non-monopolies.
Actually the laws are meant to apply BEFORE that happens.
What good is trying to stop a monopoly after it’s fully established? You need to deal with it when it starts, not when it’s done.
Trying to force online only as well. That nearly killed an entire console generation for them.
Microsoft has barely any decent games the last 2 generations
I remember buying the XBox and only ever owning Halo for years, because the rest of the library was utter shit. Then Halo got too popular and Microsoft had to gut the talent and sell the husk for scraps.
HB 1 was a Sony exclusive initially. Launched on xbox later. Microsoft then bought the developer making 2 Xbox only.
You say, "timed exclusives" as a negative meanwhile Nintendo dominates the market and never releases its exclusives.
its clear in hindsight that there needs to be more regulation to prevent buyouts of competitors and more protections for workers under buyouts/mergers such as paying workers for at least 3 years after the sale of a company.
3 gives people time to wrap up projects, move etc, basically any life most folks could have reasonably scheduled can be shifted in 3 years, it gives new parents time to take care of their kid and transition back to normal work. And the way to do it would be to have the companies pay the wages whether they lay them off or not (encouraging retraining rather than layoffs.)
Although if what you wanted to do was was absolutely ruin the incentives that mergers create for layoffs the average appointment length of a CEO might do it.
It's UBI with extra steps, but I honestly think ten years is a great idea for no reason.
Microsoft is buying up companies to stockpile IP. Simple as that.
Then they have a lot of redundant workers so they let them go, leaving the IP in their hands to be filed away for potential lawsuits against infringers.
Unless and until new game studios start snapping up these suddenly out-of-work talent.
Microsoft is buying up companies to stockpile IP. Simple as that.
And then they do nothing with that.
Their history is full of hold my beer and EEE.
Is it still EEE when they're shooting themselves in the foot all the time? Xbox 360 had a good run but then during the cycle they dropped the ball and even got overtaken by PS3 late. One and Series S/X don't matter that much.
This exact method is how Microsoft became a giant in the first place. They've been doing it for longer than I live and they'll likely outlive me doing it.
Market consolidation resulting in less of a desire to compete with innovation? Who would've thought.
Watch as they still milk them to death.
They cannot improve these games, give them meaningful updates or expansions. But they have killed many of their competitors and further monopolised the industry.
The second Microsoft gains a market majority in the gaming industry they will employ as many scummy tactics as possible to wring every cent out of people.
Basically the old EA approach. They don't seem to realize that EA never restored their reputation from those days. But, I guess they don't care as long as they can show a line going ever upward for the shareholders.
Restore... They are actively working to ensure I never buy another game again from there.
Last bf was the last straw for me. I am out.
Then they go and add anti cheat for bfv? I am a Linux gamer, fuck u.
they did this with the t-mobile sidekick... they bought the platform and all data outright... then 'oops! we lost all your end-user, cloud stored data, sorry! we were just too busy to do our jobs!'
thanks, microsoft.
The subscription model is, in my opinion, dumb. If they need it to work, maybe they should buy games instead of studios. I can't work out exactly how long term patching would work though, unless they kicked back a maintenance fee from sales and gamepass usage to the studio.
Back in the day, devs used to not release games until they were done. Patches were bascially unheard of.
I will say, these days it's more or less impossible to release a game that'll run perfectly on every system and it's a good thing we're able to fix crashes and patch issues as they come up. This has naturally had its downsides as publishers squeeze devs for tighter releases, but outside of that it's a very good thing for devs and players.
It would be a bad look and there were anologue standards at play then. Digital releases and the capacity of storage mediums really pushed releasing unfinished games over the edge.
I don’t know how the contracts look but games on Apple Arcade get support years after release. It does work somehow.
It must work like the music streaming model where Apple kicks back a fee to the devs based on monthly installs or usage to the dev. It probably works better than Microsoft's model of buying a developer, not committing resources to run them, then closing the studio.
Well, you see, they don't have cash on hand because they spent it on stock buybacks to boost that market cap
All MS want to produce are sequels to their tired franchises. Does anyone even buy Halo anymore?
Halo wasn't even all that great to be honest. It was popular because it was an accessible, easy to play FPS on a console during a time when those types of games were mostly played on PC.
Mine personally is that all past Reach were garbage, I'll never forgive what 4 did to the lore, humanity being around and a spacefaring race back when the forerunners were was fucking stupid
What if I told you that 343 didn't make that decision. Ever wonder why Guilty Spark called Master Chief reclaimer? Though I agree with your point, 4 was the last halo game I bought.
All of the lore snippets we got before 4 kind of hinted that Humanity was chosen as the next tech bearer because they were on the verge of a sentience level that the rings would exterminate, but not fully there yet, the fact that the forerunners would choose to pass the mantle on to a race they were actively at war with INSTEAD OF SAVING THEIR OWN RACE, is BEYOND stupid
goldeneye 64 was pretty innovative even compared to its pc competition at the time. It suffered from performance issues, but the xbla remake or just good emulator settings fix that and really make it shine
No way dude. it revitalized the fps genre which was circling the drain at the time, and some ideas Halo had are still felt in fps games today.
I disagree. Half Life was top dog back then with Counter Strike, and Unreal Tournament and Quake arena for the multiplayer arena fps genre.
I found Halo's level design pretty boring and repetitive. The story wasn't appealing to me either. I didn't like the American-like militarism aspect. Especially in that post-9/11 period.
Oh? Maybe a bit hyperbolic perhaps. How bout this instead? Halo created a new renaissance for a genre that before Halo was niche, and afterwards became a powerhouse genre that drives the industry.
Crazy take. Op was right that halo basically made fps more accessible for console players- that along with great storytelling is its real legacy. At the time, if you wanted the most out of fps games, you'd buy a PC and pick up a copy of Half-Life from a store, find an update off a shady ftp, then after install you'd have access to tons of mods giving you access to an array of truly unique experiences. Fps weren't really made for console at the time and lacked a lot of usability (I.e. aim assist was not well developed, games were way faster and also more difficult for console controls). Counter-strike paved the way with TAC shooters and streamlining fps, but again you needed Half-Life and the retail port didn't come until 2003. Halo brought a console first experience with casual play in mind, most notable: low gravity for easier positioning and easier to shoot players, spawning with a decent weapon so you weren't outclassed off spawn, limited you to carrying only two weapons for easier weapon management, slow movement, and regen so you didn't have to chase health packs. This wouldn't be complete without me actually saying what Halo was good for- Notable innovations were obviously its physics and graphics engine, extensive user input assistance (aim assist and movement assist), use of vehicles (other games were clunky and there was little to do other than drive from one point to the next), story telling, sophisticated AI, and system link. To call halo some sort of Renaissance game that vitalized a dead genre is so very weird- you do realize this was the time of Counter-strike, team fortress, unreal tournament, quake, tribes, alien vs predator... Esports was growing with CPL and ESWC, both with majority fps-only titles. I can only assume you were not alive to experience it.
Well im 45, so there's that. Feel free to disagree, but i look at widespread casual usage of fps as a genre for everyoneas a measure of "driving a market", not esports which are cool, but niche (especially then). esports, CS, UT, and the like were PC only, and PC gaming itself was at the time smaller.
While those games existed and indeed so did esports, that and what i am saying (widespread, universal appeal for as you call them "casuals") are two very different things. Two disparate things.
So finally im sensing from you that you're not the kind of person in interested in talking to. Its a feeling i get that you just want to put others down. I might be wrong. Prove me wrong. Do you feel like walking that comment where you call my opinion wrong because of ignorance back, and maybe we can talk like peers? Perhaps we could talk about the impacts halo did have, or the impacts other games you mentioned has that were greater than halos. Maybe that would be information and fun for the both of us.
Or, do you want to keep waving your opinion in front of me and being dismissive? One of those choices continues this conversation. I am at this point ambivalent.
Balls in your court.
You are free to discuss all the stuff you thought that made the title as great as you thought it was. I clearly elaborated on why I thought it wasn't a genre defining fps but your comments were all about you claiming halo is great but not really saying why or how. Did you even try to explain what parts of the game were so revolutionary? Notice you wrote 4 paragraphs but didn't mention a single aspect of the game that stood out against what was in the market at the time. You also claimed I disparaged "casuals" when I clearly talked about features that made the game easier to pick up on console (you know, the market they were targeting) compared to what was the norm. You called the genre dead and I elaborated why it wasn't and what it was up against, and to be clear, you claimed the entirety of fps as a genre was dead. Not adding the millions of pc users seems weird when it is alive in that market (and many new games being produced are proof the market had growth). What do you consider widespread usage? How do you know Halo set the benchmark and not Counter-strike or team fortress or... maybe gaming in general was just growing and it was along for the ride? Or maybe it was marketing that put it on the map? You may as well have claimed no fps existed until halo. Do you think moba as a genre is dead? Moba dwarfs other genres in viewers but it is largely pc. For console fps, i would argue goldeneye set the standard in the late 90s with its good controls, split screen multiplayer, and memorable campaign. If we're talking gameplay trends clearly more tac-like shooters based on cod and counter-strike flourished. Also I recognize esports as relatively niche but you'd also need to realize it's the 2000s and recognition of esports at all is a big achievement in terms of gaming becoming mainstream. Gaming was stigmatized for a long time and the idea of competing in it for money was a breakthrough.
All that said, if you want to continue I don't care. It would've been nice to hear what parts of the game changed the genre but if you prefer zero substance comments I'm done here
Halo under Bungie was pretty damn good.
They were unique for that OG Xbox era of consoles, and although there were a lot of great games on the PS2, the one thing they sorely lacked was a really good FPS. Timesplitters was close, but Halo was where FPS first felt designed for a controller. The level design was on point as well, things like The Silent Cartographer still hold up now. It wasn't just a series of corridors.
Other devs cracked it by the next gen, notably Infinity Ward, but back in that generation Halo stood alone.
Totally agree! I remember being shuttled to the demo XBox by a GameStop employee who was fawning over the first Halo and I was not impressed having just finished Half Life 2
I actually would buy halo remastered if it were a non-insane price. I would buy a copy for me and the friend i logged countless of hours of co-op with... but they won't sell it to us w/o making us buy a package with a ton of the other halo games wwe don't care about.
So i guess i don't buy halo anymore either.
The Halo remasters are a very reasonable price..?
$40 for 5 games, regularly on sale for less (low of $10).
40$ for one game tho (80$ for two copies) is less reasonable tho innit mate? And i'd need two since couch co-op is disabled in the new version.
Oh now i didn't know that bit of tid. If i can get two copies for 20 bux me n M$ might have ourselves a transaction
Yeah I think I got it for $20 and played through 3 games couch coop. So thats why I was taken aback by the comment :P
Honestly it's worth spending the money on. Any bad talk about bugs and whatnot have been resolved for awhile now. The biggest price to pay is hard drive space.
A buddy and I did co op in different states for the whole series starting with Reach and it was a blast
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Halo's problem with both 5 and Infinite seems to be the game eventually reaches a great point, but by then everyone has left for the most part, and with it having happened twice they're going to struggle getting people back for Infinite 2: Reclaimer Boogaloo or whatever they name it. Just give those passionate devs a longer leash and let them cook please.
I lost interest around Halo 4. Making Cortana and Dr. Halsey turn into villains was dumb. Also, 4's forge mode was inferior to Reach's. Also, 4's environments were too bland, monotonous and grey. The earlier games worked in part due to the aesthetic variance from one level to the next.
Didn't Spencer say they weren't gonna lay anyone off or did I smoke way too much crack?
I don't know but if he did say that and believed it, he might have smoked too much crack. This is capitalism.
Yep, was here to say roughly the same thing.
Buy up studios, Claim their IPs, shut them down to reduce the existing number of studios, and more importantly..properties, and thus competition.
