Community MetaSteam | May 2022 - May Comes Kicking Like a Kangaroo

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thekeats1999

thekeats1999

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Only thing of any value at SE for me is FFXIV and maybe, maybe FFXVI. XIV becauyse I am still enjoying what that has to offer and XVI because it appears to be same people from XIV responsible for it.

Outside of that they have slowly been going downhill. The whole mismanagement of all their western developers and IP's, the terrible showing of Avengers, the idiotic expectations they had for games all the time. and then this push towards NFT's and blockchain. Funny thing with the last one is it looks like America is starting to look at regulations around that. So they are probably jumping in as it starts getting harder to make any money from NFT's.

I also wonder what is going to happen to the Avengers. I would imagine that is not an easy IP to transfer and, unless they contract the developers back from Embracer group, they no longer have a group to develop it.
 
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ezodagrom

ezodagrom

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I guess on a positive note, each publisher in the embracer group is its own separate entity (decisions made by one are not representative of the others).

I wonder if these former Squeenix studios will form another new publisher in the embracer group or if they'll join one of the existing ones though.
 
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C-Dub

C-Dub

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Not an Embracer fan, but I hope the folks at Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal don't feel like scapegoats for the failures of Square Enix Japan anymore. I imagine there's at least one more quarter where SE will try to offload their failures on them, however.

Yes, some of their games "underperformed" (after being given unrealistic sales and development targets that they'd never hold their Japanese games to), but they also weren't given as much latitude when they did fuck up. When Final Fantasy XIV went pear shaped the company moved Heaven and Earth to get it into a good state. And when Final Fantasy XIII was dogshit, Square Enix had the galaxy brained idea of commissioning two increasingly bad-selling sequels.

Yet all it takes is one poor performing Deus Ex game, tanked by the publisher's decision to put MTX in it, and Eidos Montreal winds up getting relegated to making a game they have no experience making (Shadow of the Tomb Raider) while the studio that should've made Shadow of the Tomb Raider made a game that they had no experience making (Avengers MTX live service shite).

This is after they kept imposing stupid decisions on IOI (Kane & Lynch, Hitman Absolution) and then using them as a scapegoat for poor financials to the point that they walked, and within a matter of years found success outside of Square Enix while following pretty much the same formula.

Meanwhile Nomura works on more projects than he can realistically manage, all of them getting delayed, plus he seems to have a bad habit of setting money on fire, and it's barely mentioned.

I honestly don't see a future for Square Enix on their own. They will be gobbled up by a bigger fish (or be one of the founders of a Japanese publishing conglomerate) in the next decade.
 
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Ascheroth

Ascheroth

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Square Enix selling of their entire western development branch is quite a way to start into May, huh.
When you look at the other recent acquisitions, 300 millions seems like chump change, but it looks like the studios barely made them any money, so I can understand why Square was trying to sell them and why they "only" got 300 million.

Not a fan of all these big acquisition wars, but this is probably one that is very likely going to be a net positive for both the devs and the players. Square just had no idea what to do with their western side.
 
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Aaron D.

Aaron D.

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Dandy said:
I'm looking forward to Crowns and Pawns. I may check out Sandrock too.

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RiyuExelica said:
Ditto on Sandrock. Trying to 100% Portia before it comes out.
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Dandy said:
Oh shit, I forgot about Citizen Sleeper! Made by the people who did In Other Waters:

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Yeah, Sandrock and Citizen Sleeper are my two big gets this month.

Absolutely loved the previous releases from these devs.




Shipbreaker is also going 1.0 on 5/24 and this is likely my overall most-anticipated release of May. Bought into EA while it was cheap and have been quietly sitting on it in anticipation of 1.0.
 
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Aaron D.

Aaron D.

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Had an interesting dive down the rabbit hole with haxxorz titles this weekend.

1. Tried the Deadeye demo. "Damn, this is legit af. But it's not out yet. Wonder what else can scratch that itch."

2. "Midnight has a demo as well. Let's see what this is all about." Insta-sold and bought. "This is like Hacknet-lite, but the presentation & polish is just out of this world!"

3. "All this is reminding me that I haven't fired up Hacknet in years. Never did finish the campaign." ** Proceeds to drop a fresh 10 hrs. into Hacknet. **

LOL.

So it's been a keyboard-only, terminal-based weekend for me.

I'm again reminded that Hacknet is one of the best indies to come out in the past decade. Deadeye looks absolutely baller and will be mine Day One. Midnight is an amazing addition to the hacker subgenre and I can't wait to dive back in. It was also in the Jan. Humble Choice, so there's a chance it might already be in your library. Keys are also going for $1-2 on the Era B/S/T thread.

What an odd turn of events.
 
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Arc

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I just woke up. Did I miss anything?

tetel said:


Not exactly sure about the source of that though.
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That's a pretty solid bundle for me as I don't own any of those games. Hopefully C&C is a Steam key and not Origin, but after Mass Effect I'm not getting my hopes up.
 
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Cacher

Cacher

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I honestly think that being acquired by Embracer is the best outcome here. On one hand, SE doesn't know how to manage their western-developed games. On the other hand, purchased by MS or Sony? They become console war assets. Purchased by other big third-party players, I don't want to start calling names but some of them are just... geez.

Embracer so far show that they are willing to revive dormant franchises like Jagged Alliance and Outcast. It is very likely that we will see the return of Deus Ex and Legacy of Kain (Queen hinted it, btw) soon.
 
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manchego obfuscator

manchego obfuscator

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tetel said:


Not exactly sure about the source of that though.
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hmm, I want If Found and Spongebob, not sure I'd pay $12 for that though. oh well

C-Dub said:
No mention of it leaving SE or staying.

Square Enix did say they’re only keeping three Western IP (LiS, Just Cause and one of their recent releases that is instantly forgettable), so I assume it’s in a new home with Embracer.
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seems like SE intends more generally to keep working with external Western studios on a game-by-game basis, they just don't want to deal with owning Western studios or the inflated expectations they attached to certain IP anymore
 
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xinek

xinek

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Aaron D. said:
Yeah, Sandrock and Citizen Sleeper are my two big gets this month.

Absolutely loved the previous releases from these devs.




Shipbreaker is also going 1.0 on 5/24 and this is likely my overall most-anticipated release of May. Bought into EA while it was cheap and have been quietly sitting on it in anticipation of 1.0.
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I want to play all these but just started a fresh play of Factorio after being away for way, way too long. How can I get more hours in a day? Or at least not need to waste so much time sleeping?
 
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Arc

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Panda Pedinte said:
Square sold mostly of their western division and IPs to Embracer for US$300 millions.
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Oh I was joking. I think it's a net positive for both companies as CD and Eidos never really gelled well with SE as a whole. I kind of have a love-hate relationship with SE since they still publish some great games (Triangle Strategy is currently my runner up for GOTY and FF Origin was better than it had any right to be) but also do some of the most obnoxious business decisions that I despise (shoehorning GAAS into games that obviously weren't designed for it, blockchain, Epic exclusives etc).
 
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toxicitizen

toxicitizen

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That's certainly some news to wake up to on a monday, what the fuck! I was under the impression that the Tomb Raider games were doing well for S-E so that part at least is a surprise. Then again, those Marvel games certainly didn't lol. Hopefully now the Deus Ex IP is in hands that won't so grossly mismanage it.

The industry is getting just insane enough these days that I'm almost willing to hope Embracer plans to rehire some of the talent behind Mankind Divided and finally give us the second half of the game instead of a fresh start.
 
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Aaron D.

Aaron D.

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xinek said:
I want to play all these but just started a fresh play of Factorio after being away for way, way too long. How can I get more hours in a day? Or at least not need to waste so much time sleeping?
Click to expand...

My big hangup is that I find myself being a "gaming grazer" most of the time. Flitting between this and that title as the mood strikes. Sometimes for a couple hours, sometimes for a couple dozen...but never finishing practically anything I pick up. Doesn't help that 90% of my bread & butter genres are systems-based (sim/strat/mgmt), so there never really is a "story" to finish.

So my typical scenario is that I'll dig into a new or returning title and get maybe 25% of the way in before getting distracted by something else. Fast-forward 6, 12 or more months and I "rediscover" this old title and pick it back up. Of course it's been so long that I make the executive decision to start from scratch AND then proceed to play the first 25% over again before dropping it by the next title that grabs my interest.

Been this way for me for so long that I'm not even bothered. But I ultimately do find it funny that I find myself repeating the same opening 25% of a game over and over like it's Groundhog Day and never getting much beyond that.

Damn you ADHD!!! lol.
 
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Li Kao

Li Kao

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Wait, I... may have a horrible backlog situation, so that explains the question but, is Mankind Divided really unfinished ? I always thought that was some hyperbole about how the game FEELS incomplete. Is it really incomplete ?
 
fantomena

fantomena

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SE has managed their western branch badly, so I can only see this as something positive. Considering the small sum, they seems to have wanted to get rid of the western branch anyways.

Still good that Sony didn't buy them since Sony has no known PC strategy.
 
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toxicitizen

toxicitizen

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Li Kao said:
Wait, I... may have a horrible backlog situation, so that explains the question but, is Mankind Divided really unfinished ? I always thought that was some hyperbole about how the game FEELS incomplete. Is it really incomplete ?
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It's a complete game in terms of length and content but it's blatantly obvious (and I believe all but confirmed at this point) that they arbitrarily cut the story in half to split into two games. It moves as a snail's pace and the game just sort of ends right as you feel like it's finally building up to something. It's still definitely worth playing but yeah, we need that sequel... especially considering some of the things people managed to uncover from a certain bank vault within the game. 👀
 
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Cacher

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ExistentialThought

ExistentialThought

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I cannot believe SE sold off its western studios for peanuts. It is almost amazing how poorly SE managed those studios and IPs to the point they are worth so little to SE. I almost think they accepted the first real offer and want to wash their hands of all of it and some of the recent failures, but time will tell if it was a mistake...

Personally I am in the camp of thinking it will be mistake unless they are planning on being gobbled up themselves OR they have plans to revive a lot of their dormant IPs. Otherwise I am skeptical and hearing blockchain being touted only solidifies that skepticism.

Embracer just represents a lot of unknowns at the moment. Maybe they keep business as usual and any worry is for naught, but I do think they will be called to task to provide value to their shareholders and lord knows where that takes them...
 
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toxicitizen

toxicitizen

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ExistentialThought said:
I cannot believe SE sold off its western studios for peanuts. It is almost amazing how poorly SE managed those studios and IPs to the point they are worth so little to SE. I almost think they accepted the first real offer and want to wash their hands of all of it and some of the recent failures, but time will tell if it was a mistake...
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What makes this even more hilarious is that these studios were producing games of much higher quality than their Japanese counterparts before they put them all on fucking Marvel games. Surely they could've gotten much more for all these studios just 5 years ago. But hey, who cares about quality if the game doesn't outsell even the most dogshit Final Fantasy title?
 
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fearthedawn

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RiyuExelica said:
Fuck Embracer. Never forget this
variety.com

THQ Nordic Apologizes for Ill-Conceived 8chan AMA

The imageboard site has been linked to child porn, swatting, and online harassment.
variety.com variety.com
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Hard to forget as somebody who was there live and clicked on that link.

Stupid me didn't consider the possibility a link to an AMA from a presumably respectable company might lead me to... putting some serious thought into the likelihood of a few images (immediately deleted by mods even in that place) somehow getting flagged and investigated by authorities.
 
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ExistentialThought

ExistentialThought

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manchego obfuscator said:
Grubb is strongly implying that SE is looking to be acquired, wouldn't surprise me

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Its reasonable speculation, heck it is what I assumed as one possibility, it just seems weird any potential buyer would have been okay giving up most of those IPs and not offered to keep most of them in any deal that cheap. Like Tomb Raider alone has massive media potential.
 
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Censored

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Shahem said:
I could definitely Sony acquiring Square. Hopefully the games still release on PC.
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This should have happened before merge with Enix when Sony saved them from bankrupcy cause Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within fiasco.
 
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