7 ms·
20-25 years ago a handful of companies had a weird hold on me. I’d jump on anything Google made back then. Blizzard could sell me any game they came up with. I
by eknkc 2y ago
20-25 years ago a handful of companies had a weird hold on me. I’d jump on anything Google made back then. Blizzard could sell me any game they came up with. If it was from Blizzard, it was gonna be great.
Lost all of it obviously. Not a single company has my loyalty anymore.
Except if valve were to release a mystery black box with faint lambda symbol on it. I’d pay whatever they asked for it.
- balls187 2y ago> Not a single company has my loyalty anymore. FromSoft
- Groxx 2y agoI gotta have my poison bogs
- marginalia_nu 2y agoBesides FromSoft as perhaps the exception to the rule as a subsidary to Kadokawa, private companies seem to be keeping their shit together fairly consistently. Larian and Wube are a pair of solid examples, although Valve is probably the most outstanding example. Game developers and publishers start shitting the bed when they IPO and need to juggle the conflicting interests of managing investor relations as well as customer demands; that or when they're acquired and turned into a subsidiary.
- philistine 2y agoWube at this point could announce they made an arsenal of thermonuclear devices and I'd trust them with it.
- cgh 2y agoI've never understood the saying "the exception that proves the rule" until now. Possibly one of the greatest runs in game company history?
- drumttocs8 2y agoIt's Larian for me
- balls187 2y agoSeveral commenters have mentioned Larian. I raged quit BG3, but maybe I go back and check out their other titles. I couldn't deal with my one of our party members, but have no issues with COD PUG's. Go figure.
- boomboomsubban 2y agoReally? Most of the people I know that are huge Souls fans weren't big on Armored Core. Then I've never heard anyone mention 2018's Déraciné and if you go a couple more years back their track record becomes fairly poor.
- balls187 2y agoYes Really.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoI liked armored core well enough, but it's not like I can build my skills over multiple games like I can with fromsoft
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- keyringlight 2y agoMy theory is that there's a period when a studio has huge early success (plus in the case of Valve, they started with huge amounts of money from being former MS employees) that lets them devote themselves to their mission of making games, before either mission creep or dilution with new hires occurs over time either from staff naturally changing over time or expanding. Another factor is that when aiming to 'go big' and realize what they can do with lots of resources, they need to partner/join with others that don't work the same way and will influence them.
- ramesh31 2y agoValve is still a top tier org, but they simply make too much money in the publishing business to bother with game development anymore. Any sales would be peanuts to what they are making through developer fees and the marketplace. This is why all of their releases in the last decade have been F2P.
- ethbr1 2y agoAlso, supposedly the whole radically flat org structure thing. Which I imagine doesn't lend itself to doing hard things like making Half Life 3... Why would any game dev choose to go through a death march to perfection, if they had other project choices?
- BlueTemplar 2y agoI would hardly call making a sequel "perfection". They might have had enough original ideas for HL2 (and then Alyx, driven by a new medium), but still not HL3...
- mhh__ 2y agoFrom what I've read the flat structure goes in the bin when they've decided to go to the finish line on an idea
- ranguna 2y ago> Which I imagine doesn't lend itself to doing hard things like making Half Life 3... Does it lend itself to do other hard things like half life alyx?
- tikhonj 2y agoThat's pretty much exactly the logic that got me to buy a Valve Index + Half Life Alyx and it was totally worth it. VR turned out to be cooler than I expected and both the game and the Index were just so satisfyingly well-executed. It's nice to have products which clearly had far more attention to detail and quality than was economically necessary. It's clearly the result of a different philosophy than I've seen at most tech companies. I had the same experience with the Steam Deck: just very well done, including side things like the case that came with the device. I've grown used to accessories bundled with electronics ranging from basically garbage to okay (but not great), while Valve's case was as good as I'd expect from a high-end third-party product.
- jsheard 2y agoUnfortunately VR also showed the flipside of Valves approach to development - putting extreme amounts of money and effort into a project, then abruptly dropping it and moving on to something else. The Index was great at the time but now it's five years old, dated in numerous aspects, and hasn't even had a price cut since launch. Alyx is great but it came out four years ago and Valve has done nothing with VR games since, either themselves or by using their infinite bankroll to help fund third party PC VR development until it's more sustainable.
- willis936 2y agoI've been patiently waiting for an index 2 or a price cut. I will continue to patiently wait. I threw my CV1 that I bought secondhand in the trash when facebook bought oculus then forced login. Maybe I'll return to the market when it supplies something I want.
- jsheard 2y agoFor better or worse Facebook are the ones keeping VR on life support, without them it would have flatlined years ago. They have the only good affordable headsets, they throw tons of money around to bankroll VR game studios in exchange for exclusivity, and even for games they don't bankroll it's a no-brainer to prioritize their platform because >90% of sales happen there. https://x.com/MuchRockness/status/1849543449906942094 https://x.com/MuchRockness/status/1849543449906942094 Even the minority who do buy VR games on Steam are mostly playing them on a cheap Meta headset, so without Meta those sales might not have happened either. The most recent Steam hardware survey shows that of the users who have a VR headset, nearly two thirds of them are using an Oculus/Meta model.
- KaiMagnus 2y agoSame here when the Raising the Bar reprint releases. I never managed to get the first edition, so I'm beyond excited they decided to make a second one after all this time. And as a fan, I need to have it.
- boneitis 2y agoThe reprint with added content is wonderful news. I have a prized copy and wish I had the space for a coffeetable by which to flaunt and share it. As neat as it is to see how rare it is these days (w.r.t. the asking prices I currently see online), I've always wished other fans could enjoy and appreciate it as much as I have.
- Janicc 2y agoPublic companies are slaves to the shareholders
- daedrdev 2y agoI will buy the next few games by Larian Stuidios after BG3 no matter what they are
- happytoexplain 2y agoFrom 1995, Blizzard released one of the best games of all time every year for a decade (if you count expansions, which, for that time, you should). I don't think anything like that can happen again until we invent a new medium.
- shantara 2y agoI’ve been following Larian trying to build a game of their dreams since early 2000s. It’s been immensely satisfying to see they finally succeed and achieve the popularity they deserved with the release of BG3. I also highly recommend Divinity OS 1 and 2 for the same level of dedication to every single detail and free post-launch support, even if they didn’t have such an enormous blockbuster budget behind them.
- satvikpendem 2y agoIs it possibly because you were much younger back then and thus likely less jaded? I hear of people even back then who for example hated Microsoft with a burning passion, who were already older, even as today their image has been largely rehabilitated among many young devs.
- happytoexplain 2y ago>their image has been largely rehabilitated among many young devs Whoa, what? I only hear people complain more about Windows over time.
- satvikpendem 2y agoLots of people praise VSCode and have neutral to positive opinions about GitHub. I haven't heard any more complaints about Windows than I've been hearing over the past 20 years or so anyway.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoI think this is right, but both of those largely escape microsoft branding. I think a better example would be XBox and Windows as a gaming platform (vs macos, though Linux is definitely gaining ground). Windows itself, and especially Teams, have very negative reputations.
- satvikpendem 2y agoTeams, yes, but I don't hear many people having a worse opinion on Windows than the decades before, it seems like it's a vocal minority who care while most people just use Windows and get on with their lives.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago> but I don't hear many people having a worse opinion on Windows than the decades before Well sure, but windows has never exactly been highly praised outside the enterprise world. Much of the praise that is held is mostly nostalgic.
- abtinf 2y agoBethesda is the saddest example.