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

[Hektor]

Square Enix selling all their western Studios
Sony buying Bungie
Microsoft buying Bethesda and Activblizz
Developers selling their games for the Epic Games Store
"Insiders" saying Square Enix going to be bought
"Insiders" saying Ubisoft looking to be bought
"Insiders" saying From Software is gonna be bought

It's like no one wants to sell videogames anymore, they all upgrade to selling videogame companies.
I'm not gonna buy games anymore, just videogame companies too.
Got a ton of money down on Ubisoft

 

[Aaron D.]

The odd thing about Square > Sony is that 20 years ago it would have been Big Alarming News (tm.).

But then I stop & consider the last FF title I played was OG FFVII (PSX) 25 years ago.

Never played a Kingdom Hearts release. Or any of the lesser side stuff like Neo or SaGa.

Did enjoy DQB2 and DQ11 though.

I was left surprised by how generally uninvested I am on a personal level with the dev.

So it would land like a Megaton with the gaming community, but imagine I'd just greet it with a resounding Meh.

 

[dex3108]

Sony really shouldn't have added those 2 grindy areas in God of War. Even without them you are spending like 30+h in game.

 

[Spamlynguist]

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.

Ooh, I've been waiting for this to hit 1.0! After Power Wash I need another chill chorecore game

 

[toxicitizen]

The "plan to be bought" take is weird, because if you were planning to sell why would you sell your IPs to a third party.

Offloadding what they consider to be excess weight to be more appealing, I imagine. Then again 300 millions doesn't seem like that much when we're probably talking about a pricepoint of a few billions here...

But yeah, I think this is more likely getting rid of something they had no idea what to do with, like with IO interactive a few years ago.

 

[Aaron D.]

After Power Wash I need another chill chorecore game

Ah, I See You're a Man of Culture as well.jpg

 

[Kyougar]

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.

I am the same.

 

[Durante]

Doesn't Embracer own more than either of them ?

In terms of sheer number of franchises, maybe, in terms of market power I don't think so.

 

[NarohDethan]

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.

I'm the same way. At this pace I'll finish Elden Ring in 2025 but I honestly don't care.

 

[Lashley]

 

[LEANIJA]

Steam's got a "Going Rogue" festival thingy, featuring rogue-likes, rogue-lites, souls-likes and metroidvanias

Going Rogue

Steam Store Hub

store.steampowered.com

 

[STHX]

I'm surprised people still listen to insiders saying "so and so company is looking for acquisitions" despite not a single one of these acquisitions leaked ahead of time. Even the past week alone everyone was focused on WB and yet today we got Embracer making out like a bandit with the western part of SE
It's almost as if leaking confidential informations about a future acquisition would cause serious legal ripercussions since it can be seen as market manipulation. I'm not sure if the jail time is going to be worth it for a few extra twitter followers

 

[lashman]

 

[Stevey]

50%off

 

[Stone Ocean]

"Touhou Warcraft 3" is certainly not something I ever expected to see but sure why the fuck not

 

[Parsnip]

It almost feels like the paltry $300 mil is the final petty fuck you from SE Japan to their western arm, as like, "this is what I have always thought of you".

NFTs!

 

[manchego obfuscator]

I'm surprised people still listen to insiders saying "so and so company is looking for acquisitions" despite not a single one of these acquisitions leaked ahead of time. Even the past week alone everyone was focused on WB and yet today we got Embracer making out like a bandit with the western part of SE
It's almost as if leaking confidential informations about a future acquisition would cause serious legal ripercussions since it can be seen as market manipulation. I'm not sure if the jail time is going to be worth it for a few extra twitter followers

pretty sure there had been talk of SE selling off its Western studios for a while, tbh

 

[dex3108]

This is what Embracer sends to companies they want to acquire XD

 

[Lashley]

should I run my gpu undervolt 24/7 or just when gaming?

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

This is probably why it was sold for so little. These IPs and studios don't really bring in much.

 

[toxicitizen]

This is probably why it was sold for so little. These IPs and studios don't really bring in much.

Almost like they were managed by one of the (if not the) most inept of all the big publishers.

 

[NarohDethan]

SE expecting FF XIV - esque returns on Tomb Raider will never not be hilarious.

And remember, they had to redo FF XIV because they massively fucked it up the first time it almost killed the company (again).

 

[ZKenir]

3.6% and 0.65% are outright atrocious tbh, i said low profit margins in my prev post but I didn’t know they were that bad

 

[Eternia]

Square Enix also shelved those IPs while releasing two consecutive bombs from those two studios. I'd imagine they would be far more successful if they just continued with more Tomb Raider and Deus Ex.

 

[dex3108]

 

[Parsnip]

Almost like they were managed by one of the (if not the) most inept of all the big publishers.

This pretty much.

Like it's no secret that both Avengers and Guardians bombed, but they really didn't have a chance with Square Enix anyway.


From what we've seen from Embracer, they seem pretty hands off with each of their divisions.
Will be very curious to see where the new studios land in that structure actually, or if they form a completely new Eidos division.

 

[STHX]

I'm sure that when they originally started development on Avengers and GotG no one could have predicted they would end like this

 

[Kal1m3r0]

Imagine making the only f*cking AVENGERS videogame in Anno Domini 2020 and failing it commercially

 

[toxicitizen]

This pretty much.

Like it's no secret that both Avengers and Guardians bombed, but they really didn't have a chance with Square Enix anyway.

Even something as simple as capitalizing on the success of a previous game was seemingly too much for them. They had a hit with Deus Ex Human Revolution but that wasn't good enough, they had to poison the well with all that "Augment your Pre-Order" and "Deus Ex Universe" nonsense ahead of Mankind Divided's launch. And the latter never amounted to anything except like... a couple of mobile games, from what I remember.

They couldn't even bother porting Deus Ex Go to PC like the first two Go games. That's how much of a failure it all truly was.

 

[Parsnip]

Even something as simple as capitalizing on the success of a previous game was seemingly too much for them. They had a hit with Deus Ex Human Revolution but that wasn't good enough, they had to poison the well with all that "Augment your Pre-Order" and "Deus Ex Universe" nonsense ahead of Mankind Divided's launch. And the latter never amounted to anything except like... a couple of mobile games, from what I remember.

They couldn't even bother porting Deus Ex Go to PC like the first two Go games. That's how much of a failure it all truly was.

Completely forgot about Deus Ex Go, and how you could get praxis upgrade points in Mankind Divided by playing Go and syncing it all up...
That's not too too far from AC Unity's companion app bullshit. Though at least the AC Unity app was free I think.

 

[NarohDethan]

Given how Annapurna is yet to publish one good game, please don't.

 

[Alextended]

They couldn't even bother porting Deus Ex Go to PC like the first two Go games. That's how much of a failure it all truly was.

It was on the Windows store at some point, not sure what happend with it.

Buy Deus Ex GO - Microsoft Store

Download this game from Microsoft Store for Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 10 Team (Surface Hub). See screenshots, read the latest customer reviews, and compare ratings for Deus Ex GO.

www.microsoft.com

 

[Knurek]

Given how Annapurna is yet to publish one good game, please don't.

Hey, they published several good games.
And even one that was great.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Given how Annapurna is yet to publish one good game, please don't.

Outer Wilds has entered the chat

 

[manchego obfuscator]

Imagine making the only f*cking AVENGERS videogame in Anno Domini 2020 and failing it commercially

Avengers was just an incredibly confused project from the very beginning. iirc, the initial reveal at E3 2019 focused entirely or almost entirely on the cinematic, heavily scripted single-player prologue, but it was also emphasized (but not really shown) that the game was somehow also supposed to be a multiplayer co-op GaaS title. it wasn't at all clear how those two extremely different styles of game design would cohere, and as we all know, that identity crisis carried over to the final product.

 

[Censored]

Avengers was just an incredibly confused project from the very beginning. iirc, the initial reveal at E3 2019 focused entirely or almost entirely on the cinematic, heavily scripted single-player prologue, but it was also emphasized (but not really shown) that the game was somehow also supposed to be a multiplayer co-op GaaS title. it wasn't at all clear how those two extremely different styles of game design would cohere, and as we all know, that identity crisis carried over to the final product.

Artist direction was pathetic since first trailer announcement, if they couldn't afford films characters rights at least they could have kept with comics dessigns like Switch's Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 . Really, who the hell chose those mediocre uncharismatic characters models and art direction?

 

[NarohDethan]

You know you fucked up when Lego Avengers has a more coherent gameplay relative to the franchise.

And I don't think Avengers was THAT bad tbh.

 

[xinek]

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.

I sympathize -- the good part is that going back to Factorio, there was so much I just completely forgot about that it was like playing a brand new game.

Vampire Survivors is dangerous.

It is no joke currently my GOTY this year. AHEAD of Elden Ring which is pretty wild.

Alright, this kind of hype and it's only $3? It's also in the Going Rogue event top sellers list. How could I not pick this up?

 

[Snakethesniper]

Look at that stutter!

 

[NarohDethan]

Look at that stutter!

You just got served the KT PC Port Special

 

[PC-tan]

Ironically, Sony buying them would probably mean SE treats their PC customers with less contempt.

That "insider" take is just so terrible.

So SE treated their Western dev like poop and sold them so that Sony would buy them for their Japanese games?

Sony doesn't really seem to care about Japan or their own Japanese IPs asides from Gran Turismo (which now has crazy MTX) and Astro bot. They are way more focused on their Western devs, some of their JPN devs even left because of this.

How much does FF even sell? Is that the main IP that SE has that sells well? Since DQ is not going to be doing over 4 million units.


And I'm guessing that they want all of their Western ips to have done 10+ million units sold? Which once again is crazy seeing how none of their JPN IPs besides FF could ever do that.
--------------

So I'm guessing that SEGA is the only good example of a Japanese company buying a western dev and their games still selling very well?


I'm guessing that expectations are just very different and with the SE mobile game thing, isn't a mobile dev team like 50 people or something? I'd imagine that those are a lot quicker to make and also less expensive to make but at the same time they don't typically last very long. I guess this is why SE will release 10 mobile games within 6 years and st least half of them will still up and running, which is still making money for them. Where as with a AAA dev you might just get 1 game within a span of 3+ years?

 

[manchego obfuscator]

Artist direction was pathetic since first trailer announcement, if they couldn't afford films characters rights at least they could have kept with comics dessigns like Switch's Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 . Really, who the hell chose those mediocre uncharismatic characters models and art direction?

Yeah, the ersatz-MCU vibe definitely didn’t help either. Both Avengers and Guardians would have benefited greatly from a more stylized art direction, a different team lineup, or both

 

[QFNS]

Yeah, the ersatz-MCU vibe definitely didn’t help either. Both Avengers and Guardians would have benefited greatly from a more stylized art direction, a different team lineup, or both

I want to point out that Guardians the game is pretty different from the movies once you get playing it. But I do understand that it's hard to see that from the outside. They do LOOK similar (they are the same characters after all), and it can definitely be a turn off for people who can't look past that.

That said, that game is god damn beautiful. The art in the game is pretty varied IMO, but that probably depends on how much space themed RPG stuff you've been playing recently.

 

[gabbo]

Yeah, the ersatz-MCU vibe definitely didn’t help either. Both Avengers and Guardians would have benefited greatly from a more stylized art direction, a different team lineup, or both

I mean, would having a more comic-inspired colour palette/art direction (to say nothing of the Avengers' character designs) really have helped the game any? Guardians it seems less an issue, at least from what most people here and elsewhere have said.

 

[PC-tan]

The SE thing sure is something especially looking at what people are interested in.

It seems like "SE has nothing to worry about, since they still have some top names in Japan".

The real kick is in hearing that "they can work on what they want"

Meanwhile Edios and crew didn't seem to be able to?


It will be interesting to look back at this in a few years and see how those devs go

 

[ZKenir]

 

[didamangi]

should I run my gpu undervolt 24/7 or just when gaming?

24/7 is fine as long as you've tested it extensively and it's stable.

You can also save profiles for undervolt, default, oc or whatever else in msi afterburner, make a global hotkey in it's options menu. So you can change profiles anytime, even in game.

 

[Madventure]

got posted somewhere else but, yikes Lol

 

[yuraya]

Still can't believe they fucked up an Avengers game.

All they had to do was make a good singleplayer open world game with a story and some good villains. Like the bare minimum would have seen them sell as much if not more than the Arkham games.

 

[Satori]

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