7 ms·

Games themselves are going through some interesting times. Several AAA single-player games are rumoured to have sold poorly (notably the Bethesda games Dishonor

Games themselves are going through some interesting times. Several AAA single-player games are rumoured to have sold poorly (notably the Bethesda games Dishonored 2, Prey, and The Evil Within 2), and I've seen talk that publishers are now reluctant to fund those types of games. That would certainly explain why EA just closed Visceral Games and 'refocused' their single-player, story-based Star Wars game. Meanwhile indie game developers are gambling their life savings, with very poor odds. For every Cuphead - which was funded by the developers remortgaging their houses - there are 100 other indie games that sell ~0 copies. PUBG is sucking all the air out of the room in the gaming market, and I expect we'll see a lot of attempts to emulate its success in the near future, most of which will fail.

sgarman 9y ago
I'd like the add that I don't think they will fail because they can't make something as good or better then PUBG but rather just like startups there is a lot of luck and timing involved.
kibwen 9y ago
If video games weren't so utterly dominant as a medium I'd think that a 1983-esque crash was around the corner. I'm blown away by the bald-faced, not-even-trying-to-hide-it, grab-a-quick-buck shitware that's choking Steam these days. And the entire mobile gaming industry, having long since won the race to the bottom, appears to be a glut of thinly-veiled Skinner boxes banking on bored whales and financially-unsupervised children. And the weird thing is that, otherwise, we're experiencing a golden era of video games. But organic discovery is harder than ever, on every platform.
- gozur88 9y ago
  I don't think we're going to see a crash, but a correction is definitely in order. Companies producing AAA games have been doing design by committee for a few years now, trying to distill its essence into a factory line product the same way movie studios give us the same Joseph Campbell plot in different skin over and over. Still, you're probably right about the golden era and the difficulty of discovery. It's a shame game journalism is so corrupt.
  - kibwen 9y ago
    I'm not sure what corruption in games journalism has to do with any of it. For example, the old Nintendo Power magazine was as theoretically corrupt as it is possible to be, being a propaganda rag owned by the video game company itself. And yet each issue featured tons of games that I'd have never heard of otherwise; its capacity for discovery was great.
    - gozur88 9y ago
      The problem is games are so expensive and there are so many of them you can't try them all, so it's not enough to know a game exists - you need some indication it's worth buying. That's the purpose of a review, and if you can't trust the reviewer to be reasonably unbiased it's of no value.
- paulmd 9y ago
  There are an impressive number of companies attempting to cash in on the loot-box phenomenon in more and more blatant fashion. That's probably not sustainable in the long term, even apart from the possibility of regulatory gaze turning upon this form of gambling.
  - makomk 9y ago
    It seems even Twitch is dipping its toes in that water at the moment. They've been displaying a message at the top of the chat telling people that they can get a random temporary emote for every 250 bit "cheer" (about $3.50) - collect all six to get a permanent emote. It's effectively a version of the good old kompu gacha except with a limited-time deadline: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-25-twitch-halloween-crates-contain-temporary-emotes http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-25-twitch-hallowee...
- watwut 9y ago
  Nevertheless, I could browse steam for hours and not find a game that I would really liked (and be disappointed whenever I bought some). If they were there, they were well hidden or expensive for something that had big change that I won't actually like it. There is stuff for me to play on mobile and I was able to find it by myself. And much cheaper overall.
QAPereo 9y ago
A lot of big games are also turning out to be so compromised by microtransactions and related mechanics that the only sane response is apathy. Look at how a modern Ubisoft game is structured... it's really ugly. I have a friend who plays For Honor, and that game is truly half-assed, with wretched netcode. It's also a massive time-grind, with "loot boxes" to boot. Gaming is just becoming an endless series of thinly disguised Skinner Boxes and slot machines, designed to turn you into an ongoing income stream.
babuskov 9y ago
> Cuphead - which was funded by the developers remortgaging their houses Cuphead was funded by Microsoft. The whole "mortgaging the house" story is just a marketing stunt, same as "the guy who couldn't complete the tutorial level in 40 minutes" video. They have a really good PR agency, probably hired by Microsoft as well. http://fortune.com/2017/09/29/cuphead-microsoft-video-game/ http://fortune.com/2017/09/29/cuphead-microsoft-video-game/ I wouldn't call Cuphead indie game at all.
- watwut 9y ago
  That dude was not marketing stunt. He posted video because his friends thought it is funny, he had no idea gamers will take it personally and harras him for that. Games are good, but culture of gaming is oftentimes quite crappy without any need to organize it by marketing stunts.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  > Cuphead was funded by Microsoft. The whole "mortgaging the house" story is just a marketing stunt As someone in the industry, how can you not know how gamedev works? I understand hanging out on HN can kind of blind people to the fact that "funding" isn't always endless. But "Funded by Microsoft" could very well mean they got $100k out of it, which would be peanuts for the amount of work that went into the game. After all, do you really think MSS is going to shell out half a million for a "2d run and gun with an animation gimmick"? Please don't call stuff like this "marketing stunts" unless you back it up with strong evidence. The games industry, even moreso than SV, is filled with the husks of projects that ran out of money, and of devs that ruined their lives on a bet that didn't pan out. Here of all places, I would hope people have some respect for that.

sgarman 9y ago

I'd like the add that I don't think they will fail because they can't make something as good or better then PUBG but rather just like startups there is a lot of luck and timing involved.

kibwen 9y ago

If video games weren't so utterly dominant as a medium I'd think that a 1983-esque crash was around the corner. I'm blown away by the bald-faced, not-even-trying-to-hide-it, grab-a-quick-buck shitware that's choking Steam these days. And the entire mobile gaming industry, having long since won the race to the bottom, appears to be a glut of thinly-veiled Skinner boxes banking on bored whales and financially-unsupervised children. And the weird thing is that, otherwise, we're experiencing a golden era of video games. But organic discovery is harder than ever, on every platform.

gozur88 9y ago
I don't think we're going to see a crash, but a correction is definitely in order. Companies producing AAA games have been doing design by committee for a few years now, trying to distill its essence into a factory line product the same way movie studios give us the same Joseph Campbell plot in different skin over and over. Still, you're probably right about the golden era and the difficulty of discovery. It's a shame game journalism is so corrupt.
- kibwen 9y ago
  I'm not sure what corruption in games journalism has to do with any of it. For example, the old Nintendo Power magazine was as theoretically corrupt as it is possible to be, being a propaganda rag owned by the video game company itself. And yet each issue featured tons of games that I'd have never heard of otherwise; its capacity for discovery was great.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    The problem is games are so expensive and there are so many of them you can't try them all, so it's not enough to know a game exists - you need some indication it's worth buying. That's the purpose of a review, and if you can't trust the reviewer to be reasonably unbiased it's of no value.
paulmd 9y ago
There are an impressive number of companies attempting to cash in on the loot-box phenomenon in more and more blatant fashion. That's probably not sustainable in the long term, even apart from the possibility of regulatory gaze turning upon this form of gambling.
- makomk 9y ago
  It seems even Twitch is dipping its toes in that water at the moment. They've been displaying a message at the top of the chat telling people that they can get a random temporary emote for every 250 bit "cheer" (about $3.50) - collect all six to get a permanent emote. It's effectively a version of the good old kompu gacha except with a limited-time deadline: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-25-twitch-halloween-crates-contain-temporary-emotes http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-25-twitch-hallowee...
watwut 9y ago
Nevertheless, I could browse steam for hours and not find a game that I would really liked (and be disappointed whenever I bought some). If they were there, they were well hidden or expensive for something that had big change that I won't actually like it. There is stuff for me to play on mobile and I was able to find it by myself. And much cheaper overall.

QAPereo 9y ago

A lot of big games are also turning out to be so compromised by microtransactions and related mechanics that the only sane response is apathy. Look at how a modern Ubisoft game is structured... it's really ugly. I have a friend who plays For Honor, and that game is truly half-assed, with wretched netcode. It's also a massive time-grind, with "loot boxes" to boot. Gaming is just becoming an endless series of thinly disguised Skinner Boxes and slot machines, designed to turn you into an ongoing income stream.

babuskov 9y ago

> Cuphead - which was funded by the developers remortgaging their houses Cuphead was funded by Microsoft. The whole "mortgaging the house" story is just a marketing stunt, same as "the guy who couldn't complete the tutorial level in 40 minutes" video. They have a really good PR agency, probably hired by Microsoft as well. http://fortune.com/2017/09/29/cuphead-microsoft-video-game/ http://fortune.com/2017/09/29/cuphead-microsoft-video-game/ I wouldn't call Cuphead indie game at all.

watwut 9y ago
That dude was not marketing stunt. He posted video because his friends thought it is funny, he had no idea gamers will take it personally and harras him for that. Games are good, but culture of gaming is oftentimes quite crappy without any need to organize it by marketing stunts.
scrollaway 9y ago
> Cuphead was funded by Microsoft. The whole "mortgaging the house" story is just a marketing stunt As someone in the industry, how can you not know how gamedev works? I understand hanging out on HN can kind of blind people to the fact that "funding" isn't always endless. But "Funded by Microsoft" could very well mean they got $100k out of it, which would be peanuts for the amount of work that went into the game. After all, do you really think MSS is going to shell out half a million for a "2d run and gun with an animation gimmick"? Please don't call stuff like this "marketing stunts" unless you back it up with strong evidence. The games industry, even moreso than SV, is filled with the husks of projects that ran out of money, and of devs that ruined their lives on a bet that didn't pan out. Here of all places, I would hope people have some respect for that.