Gaming - General Chat

[Happy Blue]

1 hour ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

@Cannabis, @Happy Blueand anyone else that has an Xbox One.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203984/microsoft-xbox-one-startup-problems-xbox-live
 

Thanks for the heads up, my one x is still working great as is my sons standard xbox one. I find clearing the cache and mac address from time to time fixes any minor issues

[Mel81x+]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/microsofts-xbox-live-is-coming-to-switch-ios-android/

Seems like Nintendo decided that their online platform might not be up to snuff so they went out and partnered with a company that has one of the best ones out there. The next few months will be interesting to see how deep the integration really goes and what kind of partnership this turns into.

[Dr. Gonzo]

New Titanfall game coming out today that's free to play. I read it doesn't have wall running... or Titans... which are pretty big parts of Titanfall. It's essentially just COD really.

I had fun playing the Anthem demo... but I'm probably not going to buy that one because it reminded me a lot of Destiny and I just really wasn't that into Destiny.

[Mel81x+]

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I had fun playing the Anthem demo... but I'm probably not going to buy that one because it reminded me a lot of Destiny and I just really wasn't that into Destiny.

that was what I kind of felt with Anthem too. The other issue is that they couldn't balance the load on servers for the demo but can't really hold that against them as release day is different. Metro Exodus is the next thing to look forward to now.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Apex Legends is not Titanfall at all... but it’s a good game and I like it. It’s refreshing compared to most other BR games out right now imo - the classes work well and the pinging system is good if you’re stuck with randoms. It’s hard as fuck compared to Blackout & PUBG though.

[Mel81x+]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/ea-turns-in-bummer-fiscal-report-were-disappointed-in-our-underperformance/

Can't say that I am surprised really but they are turning a huge chunk of their profits from FIFA. I wonder whether they'll actually drop more this quarter considering they've not shown any promise with Anthem (could be wrong and release day turns out to be a success). I hope the good partners just decide this isn't worth it anymore and jump ship minus all the legalities associated with doing so. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, Mel81x said:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/ea-turns-in-bummer-fiscal-report-were-disappointed-in-our-underperformance/

Can't say that I am surprised really but they are turning a huge chunk of their profits from FIFA. I wonder whether they'll actually drop more this quarter considering they've not shown any promise with Anthem (could be wrong and release day turns out to be a success). I hope the good partners just decide this isn't worth it anymore and jump ship minus all the legalities associated with doing so. 

Anthem looks shite tbh. Kind of generic Destiny clone - and Destiny is big with people who love Destiny, but most people I know hated the first one and never touched the second one. But then they've also loaded Anthem with microtransactions that are just as expensive as Fortnite microtransactions and even EA's new game Apex Legends (which imo is a great game - I'm a bit annoyed it likely means no Titanfall 3 - but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun with it). I think quite frankly loading a full priced game like that up with microtransactions of the same price as F2P games is outrageous.

And then you also have to consider the performance of Anthem in the demo... just right before it's release, so I doubt they fix this anytime soon. But it performed terribly on my Xbox One X - not optimised at all and running at 10 frames per second or less.

Honestly with Anthem... I honestly think BioWare have just made a bland game on the heels of the latest Mass Effect, which I didn't play, but sounded like another bland game. How much of that is down to EA's demands on BioWare? I have no idea - they did just twist the production of a game in development into a F2P game that's very different to what the game was intended to be.

Honestly though I'm pretty pleased with the new free to play game. But Respawn games have now made 3 games and all of them have been top quality in terms of both gameplay enjoyability and performance... so maybe they're just a good developer that happens to unfortunately be owned by EA.

[Mel81x+]

19 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Anthem looks shite tbh. Kind of generic Destiny clone - and Destiny is big with people who love Destiny, but most people I know hated the first one and never touched the second one. But then they've also loaded Anthem with microtransactions that are just as expensive as Fortnite microtransactions and even EA's new game Apex Legends (which imo is a great game - I'm a bit annoyed it likely means no Titanfall 3 - but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun with it). I think quite frankly loading a full priced game like that up with microtransactions of the same price as F2P games is outrageous.

I tend to think that EA likes to enforce 'engines' down on companies it works with. At the end of the day its a business and businesses generally care only about profits so its understandable they do what they do in terms of micro-transactions, etc. The problem with EA is that even if a company they work with has a good game but it doesn't fit their mode of operation they are quick to scratch things and desert those projects pretty quick. Having said all that there are a plethora of better options out and while I am disappointed that Titanfall won't be getting anything new sometime soon there is some good stuff to look forward to. The more people boycotting their practices the better gaming is going to get I suppose.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: Congratulations everyone. We've just recorded the best ever results in the history of our company, making $7.5bn in 2018, up from $7bn in 2017.

Employees: That's amazing.

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: Unfortunately, we did not realise our true potential during this period, so I'm going to increase the development team of our money making wankathons like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, whilst giving myself a big fuck off bonus. 

Employees: What about us? 

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: I'm laying around 770 of you off. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47226157

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/1999-11-30-activision-blizzard-confirms-it-will-lay-off-approximately-8-percent-of-staff

 

 

Congrats everyone. We did this by continually buying their money making shite, microtransactions, loot boxes and all. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

20 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: Congratulations everyone. We've just recorded the best ever results in the history of our company, making $7.5bn in 2018, up from $7bn in 2017.

Employees: That's amazing.

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: Unfortunately, we did not realise our true potential during this period, so I'm going to increase the development team of our money making wankathons like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, whilst giving myself a big fuck off bonus. 

Employees: What about us? 

Bobby 'The Cunt' Kotick: I'm laying around 770 of you off. 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47226157

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/1999-11-30-activision-blizzard-confirms-it-will-lay-off-approximately-8-percent-of-staff

 

 

Congrats everyone. We did this by continually buying their money making shite, microtransactions, loot boxes and all. 

I know someone that works at Activision (on the Blizzard side), that’s been sacked from EA (twice!) and Ubisoft. Apparently layoffs and switching jobs suddenly is pretty normal for the gaming industry.

This one is kind of interesting because it’s not a lot of developers being laid off. But it’s a lot of the support staff (like the cleaners) and basically 90% of the eSports side of Blizzard has been chopped (I think right after some massive Overwatch tournament too), and a lot of their marketing consultants (if not all of them) have been chopped because they’ll probably go the EA route and hire third party marketing agencies.

He’s most surprised about it being layoffs for a developer where it’s not mostly developers getting the sack. He’s honestly most surprised he’s not been sacked 

[Bluebird Hewitt]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I know someone that works at Activision (on the Blizzard side), that’s been sacked from EA (twice!) and Ubisoft. Apparently layoffs and switching jobs suddenly is pretty normal for the gaming industry.

This one is kind of interesting because it’s not a lot of developers being laid off. But it’s a lot of the support staff (like the cleaners) and basically 90% of the eSports side of Blizzard has been chopped (I think right after some massive Overwatch tournament too), and a lot of their marketing consultants (if not all of them) have been chopped because they’ll probably go the EA route and hire third party marketing agencies.

He’s most surprised about it being layoffs for a developer where it’s not mostly developers getting the sack. He’s honestly most surprised he’s not been sacked 

The first part in bold I can understand to a point as creating, developing, testing and releasing a game is effectively a 'project' as such and when said game has gone gold, that's pretty much said 'project' launched and other than possible DLC or new content, it's pretty much redundant. What does seem odd is that there may not be a lot of developers being laid off, but if they're expanding the annual release team, why not at least offer them those roles? 

The second part however is just baffling, looks very short sighted and just screams greed. Is getting rid of an esports team and support staff really going to do that much more for revenue when you've just made record revenue in the first place?

Wouldn't you need the marketing consultants (unless temporary) to actually market your game above the competition? 

It all just seems nothing more than a 'money at all cost and fuck everyone else' exercise really. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

The first part in bold I can understand to a point as creating, developing, testing and releasing a game is effectively a 'project' as such and when said game has gone gold, that's pretty much said 'project' launched and other than possible DLC or new content, it's pretty much redundant. What does seem odd is that there may not be a lot of developers being laid off, but if they're expanding the annual release team, why not at least offer them those roles? 

The second part however is just baffling, looks very short sighted and just screams greed. Is getting rid of an esports team and support staff really going to do that much more for revenue when you've just made record revenue in the first place?

Wouldn't you need the marketing consultants (unless temporary) to actually market your game above the competition? 

It all just seems nothing more than a 'money at all cost and fuck everyone else' exercise really. 

There is a belief that a lot of people will be hired back and this is a really sloppy reorganisation, with the eSports side of things at least. Idk how true it is and I’m not in the industry I just know 3 people who are. Seems like they all change jobs all the time though - but they’re all developers, not people doing the eSports shite. I don’t know if there’s more in nuance or anything in the different niches in the gaming industry.

Axing the cleaning staff, many of whom were around for a very long time though, looks very poor when they’ve made record profits. Taking out the people at the lowest rung when you’re in a position to probably pay the ones who’ve been around forever (and everyone at the company)

[Mel81x+]

There are loads of companies that would kill for those numbers but I guess if you're that greedy you don't care if you trample on people just because you can always get a fresh batch to replace the ones going out. They will go the EA way and have in many ways already because they have online stores for in-game merch as well as platform subscriptions that will feed the engine for a long time to come. Who would have ever imagined this is what it would get to where you've got the oldest names in the business doing things that you'd imagine startup companies would do instead. This is why I always cringe when Nintendo North America does any promo work for new titles because they just don't get it and probably never will either.

[Viva la FCB+]

On 04/02/2019 at 11:21, Dr. Gonzo said:

New Titanfall game coming out today that's free to play. I read it doesn't have wall running... or Titans... which are pretty big parts of Titanfall. It's essentially just COD really.

I had fun playing the Anthem demo... but I'm probably not going to buy that one because it reminded me a lot of Destiny and I just really wasn't that into Destiny.

I was keen on pre ordering but I waited until I tried the open beta demo whatever they want to call it. I played for a good 2 or 3 hours with a squad of 3 friends. It was fun, the flying took some adjusting and getting used to but to me it seemed like it would get repetitive quite fast. Every fight or combat is kind of different but not really and if thats all they offer? yeah not super keen on it anymore.

[Dr. Gonzo]

35 minutes ago, Viva la FCB said:

I was keen on pre ordering but I waited until I tried the open beta demo whatever they want to call it. I played for a good 2 or 3 hours with a squad of 3 friends. It was fun, the flying took some adjusting and getting used to but to me it seemed like it would get repetitive quite fast. Every fight or combat is kind of different but not really and if thats all they offer? yeah not super keen on it anymore.

Flying around like Iron Man was really cool, but exactly. Every fight felt pretty much the same.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

I have a horrible feeling that if Anthem flops, I may have to get the EA company death meme out again. 

[Mel81x+]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/how-this-ultra-rare-copy-of-super-mario-bros-sold-for-100000/

100K USD for a copy of Super Mario Bros for the NES. Crazy.

[Mel81x+]

In light of the Activision-Bilzzard fiasco I came across this on Kotaku today.

https://kotaku.com/an-open-letter-to-game-developers-from-americas-largest-1832652654

The article itself is okay and nothing to write home about but the comments section is littered with the way people see developers not just in the gaming industry but in general. I don't think devs get paid a lot in that industry primarily due to the fact that the projects aren't structured the way they are in lets say a Google or Microsoft structure but then you look at the amount of money these companies make per year and you can't help but feel bad for them. I do hope that the gaming industry does see some kind of reform and protection for engineers because they badly need it but I don't think we'll see it anytime soon.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

15 hours ago, Mel81x said:

In light of the Activision-Bilzzard fiasco I came across this on Kotaku today.

https://kotaku.com/an-open-letter-to-game-developers-from-americas-largest-1832652654

The article itself is okay and nothing to write home about but the comments section is littered with the way people see developers not just in the gaming industry but in general. I don't think devs get paid a lot in that industry primarily due to the fact that the projects aren't structured the way they are in lets say a Google or Microsoft structure but then you look at the amount of money these companies make per year and you can't help but feel bad for them. I do hope that the gaming industry does see some kind of reform and protection for engineers because they badly need it but I don't think we'll see it anytime soon.

I might start a flame war here but is the 'developers don't get paid well and work crazy hours' more of an American thing (ie. pure capitalistic greed and everyone else gets fucked) or in general? 

I only ask as the vast majority of the time this issue comes up, it tends to be EA or Activision in the headlines more often than anyone else (I know about Red Dead 2 in case anyone mentions it). 

[Mel81x+]

4 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

I might start a flame war here but is the 'developers don't get paid well and work crazy hours' more of an American thing (ie. pure capitalistic greed and everyone else gets fucked) or in general? 

I only ask as the vast majority of the time this issue comes up, it tends to be EA or Activision in the headlines more often than anyone else (I know about Red Dead 2 in case anyone mentions it). 

I think its a general trend in software development but it probably gets the most publicity in North America more than anywhere else. Then again most big IT firms are based out of there which then goes back to your point of capitalistic greed anyways haha.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

Well, looks like Anthem is getting a tad bit of a kicking. Even IGN give it a 6.5 and they usually wank over many of EA's games. 

[Guest Cannabis]

1 minute ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Well, looks like Anthem is getting a tad bit of a kicking. Even IGN give it a 6.5 and they usually wank over many of EA's games. 

Surprised that IGN are ripping into it for the reason you mentioned - they're a proper shite reviewing platform given the fact that they are in bed with most of the top publishers. It's why I listen to reviews from independents on YouTube (Angry Joe being my favourite) to see what games are really like - Before You Buy is another good channel too. 

I'm surprised that most people are surprised it's shit. From announcement I'd have been gobsmacked if it was anything other than average, EA just fuck up anything that they touch.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

12 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Surprised that IGN are ripping into it for the reason you mentioned - they're a proper shite reviewing platform given the fact that they are in bed with most of the top publishers. It's why I listen to reviews from independents on YouTube (Angry Joe being my favourite) to see what games are really like - Before You Buy is another good channel too. 

I'm surprised that most people are surprised it's shit. From announcement I'd have been gobsmacked if it was anything other than average, EA just fuck up anything that they touch.

Ironically, I've just watched that (all 50 minutes of it). Praises the graphics, flight moments and general gameplay but rips into everything else. 

I wasn't really that interested in Anthem anyway, but after apparently being in development for six years, that's bad. 

[Pyfish+]

Just had to order a replacement Xbox One power pack cable thing. Fuming. 

[Guest Cannabis]

19 minutes ago, Pyfish said:

Just had to order a replacement Xbox One power pack cable thing. Fuming. 

Lucky you. 

The latest update bricked my console so I've been without it for a week and a half (and it's only expected back in another week and a half). 

The console was out of warranty but as I didn't kick off on the phone and because Xbox pretty much accepted liability they're replacing/repairing it for free.