Xbox Game Studios Stupidity Hate Thread Game Pass Edition

[Tanner Glass]

Listen, the games UL make arent high art, I know, but they were profitable and the dev team is small (50 people?) so i cant imagine the overhead is high. They got something functional made currently and they're gonna shutter it before they even get alpha feedback?

I like SOD2 mind you - but SOD3 is in a really rough spot because they burned up so much time. They had 50 people make SOD2 in 4 years, but now with ~150+ people have an alpha after ~8 years - it's probably not going fly. If they tried pulling a fast one with that trailer on Microsoft (like Perfect Dark did) then corporate is going to remember that.

It's also not a safe genre - Zombies as a concept have been mined out to hell and back in the last decade and I'd wager that Microsoft would prefer SOD3 to have a multiplayer component that works better than in SOD2 but the question becomes is there still a SOD2 audience worth courting or have they moved on to Apex/Valorant/Tarkov/Arc/Helldivers/Whatever else years ago and likely won't look back.

It sounds like they're saying the right things now, but, this should have been where they've been years ago.

It really depends on how far away they are from launch truly, they might only have sandbox/multiplayer sandbox and have 0 true SP content (despite having 6+ story writers/designers) which Microsoft might spin out into a side game before axing it.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Rumors are 35% cuts at Xbox.

 

[The Early 2000s]

I like SOD2 mind you - but SOD3 is in a really rough spot because they burned up so much time. They had 50 people make SOD2 in 4 years, but now with ~150+ people have an alpha after ~8 years - it's probably not going fly. If they tried pulling a fast one with that trailer on Microsoft (like Perfect Dark did) then corporate is going to remember that.

It's also not a safe genre - Zombies as a concept have been mined out to hell and back in the last decade and I'd wager that Microsoft would prefer SOD3 to have a multiplayer component that works better than in SOD2 but the question becomes is there still a SOD2 audience worth courting or have they moved on to Apex/Valorant/Tarkov/Arc/Helldivers/Whatever else years ago and likely won't look back.

It sounds like they're saying the right things now, but, this should have been where they've been years ago.

It really depends on how far away they are from launch truly, they might only have sandbox/multiplayer sandbox and have 0 true SP content (despite having 6+ story writers/designers) which Microsoft might spin out into a side game before axing it.

I disagree on zombies being stale - people always say that but then you get yet another zombie game that sells well. Might not be exciting anymore but i wouldn't call it dead in the water.

The staff size, however - no idea it was that large. That does change things.

Rumors are 35% cuts at Xbox.

Holy moley, a fucking THIRD of Xbox gone.

 

[Questions are a Burden]

Rumors are 35% cuts at Xbox.

I mean, it's a start.

 

[moocow]

Ver archivo adjunto 9210468
This sounds really bad.

"I know a [thing] but I'm not telling."

Fucking asshole.

Just pointless attention whoring and grifting. Again.

 

[Super Hans v2]

since sugar daddy phil told them to take their time and work on passion projects.

That they were told to take their time I can see, because Phil was too much of a bitch to crack the whip, but to work on what they've always dreamed of? I hope not, because Jesus Christ, it's like being given a holodeck and and out of all the possibilities choosing to simulate sitting in your living room watching a football game.

 

[regalterry]

I personally chalk that up as xbox's fault

This is the whole Schafer vs Kotick fiasco all over again.

For those not in the known, Tim Schafer was bitching about how unfair his then-publisher, Activision was, how they were stifling creative freedom in favor of making money etc., to which Kotick replied that he had no fucking idea who Schafer even was.

Now, say what you want about Kotick and his methods, but it's notable that since Tim Schafer left his corpo job and went indie, his development track record has been abysmal. He was given everything he claimed he wanted/needed on a silver platter, and delivered shit.

I am of the belief that game devs, and especially of modern leftist/woke variety, are lazy niggers that will faff about or iterate on their dogshit game endlessly so long as corpo daddy isn't in the room to parent them.

Rumors are 35% cuts at Xbox.

Well deserved. XBox was a microcosm of the modern gaming industry.

I can at least appreciate that MS put their money where their mouth is and actually took a hands-off approach. Pity that, due to the industry being full of leftist untermensch, the developers they bought out were incompetent clowns, so all they got out of attempting to give them creative freedom was these morons spending years doing nothing besides antagonizing potential buyers on social media.

Then again, Microsoft woke directives didn't help any, and just emboldened the worst elements in every company to double down on their retardation.

 

[Oliver Onions]

So Ubisoft and EA are out of XBOX GAME PASS??

My read of the article, whose only source is one man's interpretation of overheard conversations, is that this would only apply to new games from third party studios, going foward.

In other words Game Pass will retain all the old/good EA and Ubisoft 360 games, but you'll no longer be able to play the new AssCreed or indie slop day one. Personally, I could live with that if I still had Game Pass.

So how is the console market supposed to survive?

It isn't. I'm making the bold prediction the PS6 will sell worse than any Sony console since the PS3 (before the price cut) because what actual reason is there to buy one?

I also predict that whatever Project Helix turns out to be it'll be cancelled by Asha because again, after 2 catastrophic console generation defeats, why would she greenlight a third roll of the dice?

No idea how the Steam Machine will do in the long run, but with its outrageous price tag I can't see it enjoying mass adoption, so all that'll be left is Nintendo who've been content (and very successful) doing their own thing for a decade.

The only positive in all this is it's going to be extremely interesting bloodbath to watch unfold.

 

[The Last Stand]

So, I take it that Microsoft isn’t completely at fault, rather these game studios haven’t delivered or released a quality game in a while. Sounds like it’s multiple factors in play here. Buying studios for one umbrella, hoping they do a hit but they move at a snail’s pace each time with no results.

 

[Green Kitbash]

Bringing up Schafer reminds me of back in the day when I would check out all sorts of indie shit and post Brutal Legend Schafer and Double Fine would put out nothing but experimental slop and none of it was fun. They had these game jams that were interesting but games like this one Monster Hunter clone they decided not to greenlight and another Spacebase kinda did but got cancelled were the only games that had potential. They would instead focus on quirky shit and they would play like shit. Stacking, Iron Brigade etc. Quirky ideas isnt talent

 

[trent]

So, I take it that Microsoft isn’t completely at fault, rather these game studios haven’t delivered or released a quality game in a while. Sounds like it’s multiple factors in play here. Buying studios for one umbrella, hoping they do a hit but they move at a snail’s pace each time with no results.

I still blame MS. They big-dicked the industry and just threw a load of money at buying a bunch of established developers whilst expecting the square root of fuck all from them. Being able to say you own X, Y and Z means nothing when people maybe might pay you one months Gamepass sub to play something that took multiple years and 10s of millions of dollars to develop.

Some 19 year old in his parents spare room is as likely to produce a wildly successful game as any of the MS owned studios with their flashy offices and hundreds of staff but they just don't understand that. I love it to be honest. It harkens back to they days of some guy from Stoke-on-Trent creating an all time classic for the C64 or whatever.

 

[The Last Stand]

Bringing up Schafer reminds me of back in the day when I would check out all sorts of indie shit and post Brutal Legend Schafer and Double Fine would put out nothing but experimental slop and none of it was fun. They had these game jams that were interesting but games like this one Monster Hunter clone they decided not to greenlight and another Spacebase kinda did but got cancelled were the only games that had potential. They would instead focus on quirky shit and they would play like shit. Stacking, Iron Brigade etc. Quirky ideas isnt talent

Brutal Legend could’ve been more successful if it was a hack and slash game instead of combining an easy genre with a niche genre.

 

[Gamepads]

Bringing up Schafer reminds me of back in the day when I would check out all sorts of indie shit and post Brutal Legend Schafer and Double Fine would put out nothing but experimental slop and none of it was fun. They had these game jams that were interesting but games like this one Monster Hunter clone they decided not to greenlight and another Spacebase kinda did but got cancelled were the only games that had potential. They would instead focus on quirky shit and they would play like shit. Stacking, Iron Brigade etc. Quirky ideas isnt talent

People are still clinging to Double Fine and coping, bringing up Brutal Legend and stuff. That's 17 years old at this point, on top of the seething nonsense he did years later.

I'm not gonna put much faith in old creators, everyone changes over time. Ron Gilbert came back with RtMI, and he became a bitter old man too.

 

[Mister Fister]

Brutal Legend did not work as a game, the pseudo RTS boss battles did not work, it also billed itself as a hack and slash.

Microsoft also forgot one thing as well, it's the name on the back of the jersey not the front that matters. I am looking forward to seeing the new Sandfall Interactives form as the crippled studios burn as the nerds realize they don't need the AAA studios to make AAA quality games.

 

[regalterry]

No idea how the Steam Machine will do in the long run, but with its outrageous price tag I can't see it enjoying mass adoption, so all that'll be left is Nintendo who've been content (and very successful) doing their own thing for a decade.

The thing with Valve is that the Steam Deck and Steam Machine aren't central to their strategy, they don't really much care if either succeeds.

It would obviously be a bonus if the hardware saw major commercial success, but at the end of the day both are merely vehicles to propagate Steam OS, which is what Valve is actually after.

Just look at the Steam Deck - as soon as it was out everyone else was scrambling to release their version of it, and most of those clones came packaged with the Steam OS.

We're seeing a similar thing happen with the Steam Machine, only that it's less "chase the leader" and more "dunk on Valve", but at the end of the day all they're really doing is giving Steam OS more and more market share.

Valve is facilitating this - many of the updates for the Steam OS were specifically made to make it easier to use on non-Valve hardware. And before that Valve spent years trying to turn Linux into a viable gaming platform.

 

[Oliver Onions]

at the end of the day all they're really doing is giving Steam OS more and more market share.

And that's all I'm really interested in, because I'm desperate to not be shackled to Windows any more, but Linux still isn't compatible with all the software I need, so presumably higher adoption of Steam OS would incentivize companies to invest more in compatibility.

 

[wholetthegodsout]

Yeah I dont get get the massive love for Schafer. Actually I do get it. They are based in San Francisco where the major gaming websites and print magazines were based back in the day. So he developed personal relationships with a lot of gaming journalism old guard. These types are going to go nuclear if MS shuts down Double Fine of course ignoring the years of absolute failures by the company. I will have no sympathy though as Schafer probably got very rich off Microsoft money and green lit stuff like Kiln.

 

[Jace on ice]

I hope Bioware, Obsidian, and Bethesda get hit.

They must suffa for their enshittification of classic RPG franchises.

 

[Tanner Glass]

No idea how the Steam Machine will do in the long run, but with its outrageous price tag I can't see it enjoying mass adoption, so all that'll be left is Nintendo who've been content (and very successful) doing their own thing for a decade.

The Steam Machine will do great in the long run because memory prices won't always be attached to the AI bubble - fucking up the prices.

The Steam Machine '28 can relaunch at a much lower price with more power with no issue - the draw is that there are hundreds of thousands of games on Steam and 99.9% of them don't need that powerful of a machine to play.

A Steam Machine in 2028 at ~$699 is a much different proposition than a PS6 at $699 because the question for the PS6 will always be "what games will be on this".

So, I take it that Microsoft isn’t completely at fault, rather these game studios haven’t delivered or released a quality game in a while. Sounds like it’s multiple factors in play here. Buying studios for one umbrella, hoping they do a hit but they move at a snail’s pace each time with no results.

It's 100% on Microsoft (or Sony, for their studios).

You don't buy a business (which is a deeply disruptive thing to do to a business) and then just expect it to work the same as it did before - you have to get into the business and make sure it's running correctly. Microsoft clearly did not do this (and neither did Sony) and not only but when the cracks started showing - more or less 2 years in - they did nothing for another 8 or so years after.

If you bought Obsidian (who made New Vegas and KOTOR 2) and then they made Outer Worlds (a complete pile of dogshit) - you should probably go down to the studio and find out what the fuck happened.

 

[Green Kitbash]

Another thing that these vanity artists that MS (and oddly to a lesser extent Sony) have collected is that you can tell that they don't actually like this medium. But at the same time how could they? You have an artist who might be contracted to do something like Senua 2 right, well that game took what 6 to 7 years to come out? No doubt they were assigned support work and other nebulous shit. Projects that may or may not come out. Then the game that they did work on no one plays and no one remembers because it wasn't developed as a game first.

Hell lately I've been watching and reading shit by guys who use to work at EA Tiburon, visceral. Licensed games, slop by current standards right. But they look back on the games and their work fondly. Def Jam, NBA Street those 007 and LOTR games these guys had pride in and you can get genuine insight from. That windmill game by Double Fine will we see that down the line? Hell no, it is somehow more of an actual slop product as its just there to fill the game pass menu.

Then on the other extremes, other cancelled vanity projects with 1000 man teams."Wow remember the times we worked on that cancelled Perfect Dark game, real proud of the bullshot trailers we put together".

And this isnt a modern vs vintage debate. Its the guys MS hired. You can tell when people have passion for the projects they put out, actual passion. That shit comes through.