Xbox Game Studios Stupidity Hate Thread Game Pass Edition

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The Last Stand dijo:
Where are those Asha Sharma fanboys now? Xbox changing the logo, Xbox having a feedback page, cheaper Game Pass, WE’RE SO BACK BROS?!!?
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Here still?

It will be sad to be Obsidian go but the "real" obsidian died nearly a decade ago so this is a mercy killing. As much as I loved Obsidian Outer Worlds 1/2 (and the unneeded remaster lmao) and Avowed were really inexcusable in terms of how shitty and incomplete they felt despite all of the time/money spent on them. Giving a studio so much time and money just to get worse knock-offs of games you already own (Fallout and Skyrim) is insane.

Incecticyder dijo:
They did as was asked of them. They WERE true believers but let's not pretend they weren't asked by their parent company for woke slop.
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They very clearly did not. Also these companies (for the most part) already made woke shit pre acquisition (New Vegas having gay characters and themes, for example).

You don't buy a company like Obsidian and hope they make Grounded or Avowed, you want them to make games that were as impactful/successful as New Vegas. Sony didn't buy Bungie for Marathon - they want something to hit like Halo/Destiny did.

All of these studios have one thing in common - they clearly cannot be left to their own devices and have no value in producing games as-is. Some studios went as long as a decade without any actual output and there's no way you can even begin to assess that level of rot without just throwing the whole thing out and starting over somewhere else.
 
Focken Kiwi dijo:
Unironically, this is true. Capitalism is working as designed and that's not a bad thing.
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To them it certainly is -- capitalism, as Ray Stantz pointed out in Ghostbusters (1984), "expects results." It's a meritocracy of sorts (when allowed to operate unfettered by DEI mandate, anyway); only the meritorious is rewarded with business.

It's why they love communism so much. No standards, everybody has to share "equally" (though they never get around to pushing that part unless they think they're not getting enough of a share), no penalty for failure (because everything already sucks in communist regimes).
 
Tanner Glass dijo:
They very clearly did not. Also these companies (for the most part) already made woke shit pre acquisition (New Vegas having gay characters and themes, for example).

You don't buy a company like Obsidian and hope they make Grounded or Avowed, you want them to make games that were as impactful/successful as New Vegas. Sony didn't buy Bungie for Marathon - they want something to hit like Halo/Destiny did.

All of these studios have one thing in common - they clearly cannot be left to their own devices and have no value in producing games as-is. Some studios went as long as a decade without any actual output and there's no way you can even begin to assess that level of rot without just throwing the whole thing out and starting over somewhere else.
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They were acquired with the expectation that they would produce woke games and they did. The people that would agree to make woke games aren't accepting of things such as feedback and criticism. Grounded and Avowed were made in echo chambers as those are the only environments where woke games are made.
 
Vibralldo dijo:
Game journos: "This is hecking capitalism's fault!"
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Focken Kiwi dijo:
Unironically, this is true. Capitalism is working as designed and that's not a bad thing.
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The only occasions I'm in agreement with the journoscum. It is Capitalism's fault as the rules of the free market dictate that a company has to create products for the demand of an existing audience, not an imaginary one. Any corporation that fails to understand such groundwork level understanding of the market deserves to go bankrupt.

Vibralldo dijo:
They're literally saying that the government should subsidize garbage like south of midnight that no one bought because they personally think it's important
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Some of the worst woke garbage we have gotten in the last few years has been subsidized by government grants. Dustborn and many of Red Thread's games have been in large part funded by the Norwegian Film Institute which is why they can calmly keep producing one commercial failure after another because sales and market appeal aren't a concern. They are happy using games as pulpits to lecture their propaganda because they know they can keep leeching off the government's tit, too bad for them nobody is listening and instead their output is only worthy of ridicule.

Aphelion and many of Don't Nod catalog of games have also being partially funded by the French Film Institute. As you can see there is a pattern at play here, the boards of these government organizations are filled with the most radical type of progressives that will approve generous grants to any movie and game that parrot their preferred type of politics and reject any project that does not. It is an incestuous vicious circle of commies wasting taxpayer's money in an effort to ideologically capture the next generation of gamers but it is failing spectacularly.
 
Incecticyder dijo:
They were acquired with the expectation that they would produce woke games and they did. The people that would agree to make woke games aren't accepting of things such as feedback and criticism. Grounded and Avowed were made in echo chambers as those are the only environments where woke games are made.
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That same environment and company made New Vegas, a massive game on every level that people don't label as "woke" despite being extremely woke. The same thing for Baldur's Gate 3, Expedition 33, Undertale, and so on - no one really cares if the game itself is good.

Even if you think that "woke" is some type of virus, a good virus let's it's host live so it can continue to infect others - so even if they were the truest believers to ever believe, they still aren't doing the correct thing. They would need to operate at a profit and include the messaging in games that are well recieved.

It isn't woke at fault here - it's just short sighted greed. Microsoft (and Sony) bought all of these studios just thinking they'd continue to produce but never assessed the damage the purchase did to the companies or considered their ability to care about the business side of development when the reward structure was ripped out.
 
Tanner Glass dijo:
That same environment and company made New Vegas, a massive game on every level that people don't label as "woke" despite being extremely woke. The same thing for Baldur's Gate 3, Expedition 33, Undertale, and so on - no one really cares if the game itself is good.

Even if you think that "woke" is some type of virus, a good virus let's it's host live so it can continue to infect others - so even if they were the truest believers to ever believe, they still aren't doing the correct thing. They would need to operate at a profit and include the messaging in games that are well recieved.

It isn't woke at fault here - it's just short sighted greed. Microsoft (and Sony) bought all of these studios just thinking they'd continue to produce but never assessed the damage the purchase did to the companies or considered their ability to care about the business side of development when the reward structure was ripped out.
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Could it be that game writers are people who weren't good enough for Hollywood? (and we are seeing how Hollywood is currently).
 
Hellbalde is the perfect example of a game that didn't need a sequel, no idea why Microsoft thought it could be a franchise with mainstream appeal. Ninja Theory had 8 years and $100 million to make a game where you walk forwards and can let the battles play themselves for 5 hours. Seems to mostly exist so the developers got to have all expenses paid trips to Iceland.
 

I know, I know, it's Jason Schreier, but the vid had a couple interesting bits. Apparently Gamepass is a massive issue for xbox-owned studios as it eats up major portions of their profits (no surprise there). They use 'member-weighted values' to determine how many hours a month your game is played on gamepass by the audience, and then pay you the amount according to that number. Considering that Gamepass probably operates at a loss, I can't see that payout being very much at all, compared to not having the game on there so players have to play full price.

Also insiders are telling him it's going to be a 'bloodbath'. GOOD!
 
Tanner Glass dijo:
It isn't woke at fault here - it's just short sighted greed. Microsoft (and Sony) bought all of these studios just thinking they'd continue to produce but never assessed the damage the purchase did to the companies or considered their ability to care about the business side of development when the reward structure was ripped out.
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What is the end goal with that strategy? Say MS and Sony buys every game studio possible, then close them down for inexplicable reasons, then what? Try to employ those laid off into a bigger subsidiary within? Or maybe, they can try to create another studio. But, that takes personnel and money.

It appears that both Sony and Microsoft are hemorrhaging the AA market by dissolving them into their big name developers. But, even the big developers are struggling lately. From the outside looking in, it's a very bad time to be a video game developer.
 
Tanner Glass dijo:
That same environment and company made New Vegas, a massive game on every level that people don't label as "woke" despite being extremely woke. The same thing for Baldur's Gate 3, Expedition 33, Undertale, and so on - no one really cares if the game itself is good.

Even if you think that "woke" is some type of virus, a good virus let's it's host live so it can continue to infect others - so even if they were the truest believers to ever believe, they still aren't doing the correct thing. They would need to operate at a profit and include the messaging in games that are well recieved.

It isn't woke at fault here - it's just short sighted greed. Microsoft (and Sony) bought all of these studios just thinking they'd continue to produce but never assessed the damage the purchase did to the companies or considered their ability to care about the business side of development when the reward structure was ripped out.
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There is a difference between woke and left wing. Those games you mentioned are left wing. Woke think criticism is an attack and feedback is harassment. Thus, left wing games can be good but woke cannot.
 
The Last Stand dijo:
What is the end goal with that strategy? Say MS and Sony buys every game studio possible, then close them down for inexplicable reasons, then what? Try to employ those laid off into a bigger subsidiary within? Or maybe, they can try to create another studio. But, that takes personnel and money.

It appears that both Sony and Microsoft are hemorrhaging the AA market by dissolving them into their big name developers. But, even the big developers are struggling lately. From the outside looking in, it's a very bad time to be a video game developer.
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This isn't the strategy, this is them all but admitting the strategy has failed and cutting losses.

The strategy was to buy up a bunch of studios and have them all develop first-party titles for their respective ecosystems (either first-party, exclusive, timed exclusive, or tied to Gamepass/PSPlus Premium) and just have a flood of high quality content. Xbox was trying to buy a future where Fallout 5, Elder Scrolls 6, Call of Duty 30, and so on were tied to their brand instead of being loosely affiliated third party partners. They wanted a huge section of the market to be entirely theirs instead of the loose alliance of platforms, publishers, and developers that existed prior. Not a bad plan in theory.

The core issue is that studios have to be harshly managed by a single person with a vision and that didn't happen post acquisition (presumably because those people got a huge payday and quit instantly). In buying Bethesda, Microsoft wanted ownership over games like Fallout 5, Elder Scrolls 6, Doom whatever, and so on - but through mangled incompetence got FO76 and Starfield. They wanted everything Blizzard was going to do and don't even have WoW on consoles yet.

You can buy a business with enough money - but if you can't run it yourself, all you've bought is a pile of shit. Sony and Microsoft have spend a decade and billions of dollars learning this lesson and it's finally come time to admit defeat.

As for what happens after? Who's to say - but, there's currently nothing stopping talent devs from simply making their own studios and games. It won't be the ~400 person daycare that modern AAA is, but, there's a gigantic market of people who want to play quality games if you can make them (see every indie dev success story in the last few years). I'd imagine that mid size studios start to reform with a much more manageable team size of 1-80 instead of what they are today.
 
The Early 2000s dijo:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wfJ8qreLv8k
I know, I know, it's Jason Schreier, but the vid had a couple interesting bits. Apparently Gamepass is a massive issue for xbox-owned studios as it eats up major portions of their profits (no surprise there). They use 'member-weighted values' to determine how many hours a month your game is played on gamepass by the audience, and then pay you the amount according to that number. Considering that Gamepass probably operates at a loss, I can't see that payout being very much at all, compared to not having the game on there so players have to play full price.

Also insiders are telling him it's going to be a 'bloodbath'. GOOD!
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Something else to note is that technically none of the studios on the chopping block have been officially shuttered, they are in "negotiations," which is basically a Hollie Dance tier level of cope.
 
Do we know exactly whose getting axed?

The only reason why im not immediately dancing is because I can easily see the hire ups saying

"Ok, axe all of the Whites so we can replace them with JEETS"
 
TrainWreckWatcher dijo:
I hope Obsidian and Bethesda feel the touch of the culling too.
They've rested too long on accomplishing nothing good.
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Probably the opposite will happen. They will get the money saved from wiping out other studios to hyper focus on Elder Scrolls and Fallout main series titles. In hopes that those games will be enough as exclusives to keep the Xbox ecosystem alive for another generation. I doubt that they have the talent left to make a game better than Oblivion or even Fallout 3. Let alone something like New Vegas.
 
Tanner Glass dijo:
It isn't woke at fault here - it's just short sighted greed.
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I think it can be both at once. Woke is just one symptom of the bigger problem that AAA games are now so expensive they have to be accessible to everyone (which means they have to play the same as everything else and carry little to no challenge) or they target niche demographics who don't buy games in large enough numbers to have any chance of seeing RoI.

This has been a problem since long before woke was even a concept. Dead Space 2 is infamously rumoured to have never made a profit, despite being a darling of critics and fans, because it was so expensive to make. That's why evil EA forced Visceral to pivot Dead Space 3 into a generic co-op shooter filled with microtransactions, but all that did was strip the series of its USP so even the fans didn't buy it.
The Last Stand dijo:
What is the end goal with that strategy? Say MS and Sony buys every game studio possible, then close them down for inexplicable reasons, then what?
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Think of these acquisitions as dice rolls at a craps table and it starts to make more sense. They don't actually care about any of the studios they're buying, they're just hoping at least one of them will produce a Fortnite-tier money printer to appease the shareholders.
I also have a question for the people excited for E-Day: why? I watched the gameplay demo from the showcase and it looks like the exact same Gears gameplay we've had for 20 years.
 
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