Community MetaSteam | April 2024 - Definitely there's no rest for the wicked.

[Ascheroth]

We all agree that they made bad business decisions, but apparently Square, in typical Square fashion, took it to mean AA games don't sell, when plenty of people think AA games priced like AAA games don't sell.
I'm really unconvinced that for Square, a company that obviously struggles with the rising cost of AAA, the answer is to take their AA offering to a farm upstate.

That's not entirely what's happening though.
This is what Kiryu said a while ago:

Q: Has the way that your development function has spread to cover so many bases made controlling your development efforts more difficult?
A: It has less to do with our development function and more to do with the numerous entries in our lineup. I want to structure our development function so that we are able to ensure higher quality from each title by slimming down our lineup.

Q: Why have you been unable to slim down your lineup until now?
A: As our customers’ needs and the types of devices available have diversified, we have tried to produce hits by developing a wide variety of titles rather than by focusing only on certain ones. I believe that this has resulted in the splintering of our resource pool. Meanwhile, there have been clear winners and losers among the major titles released recently in the gaming market, and it has become possible for even indie titles to make their presence felt. The market is increasingly polarized between blockbuster and indie titles, but I feel that we have developed many titles that fell somewhere in the middle. I want to make clearer distinctions going forward.

He does obviously want to focus more on AAA titles, but I don't think he says anywhere that they are planning on killing every AA game. But they will have fewer of them, that ideally are more consistent, with higher quality instead of shitting out 20 mediocre ones in a single quarter. I don't really think that's bad?
You can't tell me them going through their in-development titles and pruning the Babylon's Falls, Balan Wonderworlds, Quiet Mans and others before they come out and bomb is that terrible of an idea.
Hell, Asano (Octopath, Triangle Strategy,...) got promoted.
But like I said, it will take some time before we'll see the ramifications in full.

 

[Li Kao]

That's not entirely what's happening though.
This is what Kiryu said a while ago:


He does obviously want to focus more on AAA titles, but I don't think he says anywhere that they are planning on killing every AA game. But they will have fewer of them, that ideally are more consistent, with higher quality instead of shitting out 20 mediocre ones in a single quarter. I don't really think that's bad?
You can't tell me them going through their in-development titles and pruning the Babylon's Falls, Balan Wonderworlds, Quiet Mans and others before they come out and bomb is that terrible of an idea.
Hell, Asano (Octopath, Triangle Strategy,...) got promoted.
But like I said, it will take some time before we'll see the ramifications in full.

Sure, I won't argue about the idea, but I still think most of their infamous November 2022 (?) line up wasn't horrible. It was just insanely piled up and overpriced.
If killing AA projects only means nuking the obvious stinkers you mentioned, well, cool by me.

But I'm not used to Square making sense, so I assume they will overkill.

 

[CommodoreKong]

End of 2022, 13 games, 4 months:

Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
Various Daylife
The Diofield Chronicles
Valkyrie Elysium
Triangle Strategy
Star Ocean 6
Neo: TWEWY
Harvestella
Tactics Ogre Reborn
Dragon Quest Treasures
Crisis Core
Romancing Saga
Dragon Quest 10 (Japan)

Yeah that's bad. I imagine Square Enix isn't like Nintendo and aren't willing to sometimes hold on to completed games to round out their release schedule (and I get wanting to make revenue right away on a project you just spent millions on) but you need better project management on a corporate level.

 

[fantomena]

Lol, I get some ghost desire to buy a PS5 from last month, check Stellar Blades : 80 euros. Oh. Ronin : 70 euros. Oh.
Don't fucking dare to wonder why your sales are flat, console makers. This is crazy town.

Lol, for some reason I thought Stellar Blade was a 60$ title or that in Norwegian kroner, it's not.

Stellar Blade is 900 nok aka 81$. Ronin too.

lol.

 

[Ascheroth]

Sure, I won't argue about the idea, but I still think most of their infamous November 2022 (?) line up wasn't horrible. It was just insanely piled up and overpriced.
If killing AA projects only means nuking the obvious stinkers you mentioned, well, cool by me.

But I'm not used to Square making sense, so I assume they will overkill.

I would be lying if I said I didn't expect some collateral damage, but also their product management has been so deeply fucked for so long that flipping the chessboard entirely instead of trying to navigate themselves out of a checkmate could be better for them and us long-term.

 

[Madventure]

I started playing command and conquer remastered (I played the originals forever ago) and holy shit either I was aces at this crap or most modern stuff is like easy peasey because after like the first mission holding your hand it just throws you into the blender lmao
Its great but It's hilarious I don't remember it being hard at all

 

[lashman]

 

[dex3108]

I really hope that Valve will update "Play Next" section in Steam Client. It is showing me basically same games (they barely change, if at all) no matter what i play XD

 

[kio]

I really hope that Valve will update "Play Next" section in Steam Client. It is showing me basically same games (they barely change, if at all) no matter what i play XD

I would be happy if the Dismiss from Play Next button worked. It has been broken for almost a year.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

FTC fines Razer for every cent made selling bogus “N95 grade” RGB masks

“Deceptive advertising and misinformation posed a risk to public health.”…

arstechnica.com

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced this week a proposed settlement [PDF] against Razer that would see the tech company pay $1,171,254.33 for its misleading claims about the Zephyr RGB face mask. Razer marketed the device as offering capabilities similar to those of an N95 respirator.

 

[didamangi]

FTC fines Razer for every cent made selling bogus “N95 grade” RGB masks

“Deceptive advertising and misinformation posed a risk to public health.”…

arstechnica.com

 

[Parsnip]

As far as I can recall, neither I nor the friend I played it with in coop had any notable performance issues at any point in the game.
To be fair, we both have pretty fast PCs -- but it was relatively consistent.

Cheers!

I started playing command and conquer remastered (I played the originals forever ago) and holy shit either I was aces at this crap or most modern stuff is like easy peasey because after like the first mission holding your hand it just throws you into the blender lmao
Its great but It's hilarious I don't remember it being hard at all

I played the first two games sometime before the remaster came out and yeah it's kind of wild how quickly the training wheels are off.

I also remember one mission in RA2 Yuri's Revenge where the AI just pumps out Yuri clones non stop, it's nuts. You haven't learned the value of non-sentient base defense before that, you better learn fast.

 

[lashman]

 

[「Echo」]

Report comes out about cancelled games, many that were probably AA since they said they were going to cut back on smaller games that didn't sell well. Almost all of these came to multiple platforms.

PC gamers- That'll show you for skipping PC

Bruh. Don't be like this.

The last time Square had gang busting sales was NieR A, and FFXV. Even their AAA efforts aren't doing so great these days. And those DO get fucked over by their release strats. They've been carried by the MMO division for a while, which actually does have a big following on PC thanks to FF14 efforts. If there was one moneyhat that should have SCREAMED "avoid me" it was FF16. Now it's been out and it's mostly cooled in critical and fan circles, it's bound to do "meh" on PC and Square only has themselves to blame.

There is absolutely a discussion to be had about their inability to strike while the iron is hot on the biggest Platform of the planet and how late, often hampered releases and thus poor reputation among PC circles hurts SE's OVERALL ability to recoup gaming costs. That in-turn effects every game from them be it big or small.

 

[Mor]