7 ms·

AAA gaming feels so tired (and tiresome) that this news barely registers for me. The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contri

AAA gaming feels so tired (and tiresome) that this news barely registers for me. The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way of the project. They still own the rights to a ton of legendary IP - SimCity, Command & Conquer, Battlefield, but I don't have illusions that new iterations of that IP will be any good. I know this is probably part of the Saudi strategy of "sportswashing"[1], but I don't really care about EA or their legacy anymore. [1] https://www.eurogamer.net/ea-sports-fc-24-boss-on-sportswashing-engagement-and-gen-z-football-fans https://www.eurogamer.net/ea-sports-fc-24-boss-on-sportswash...

teeray 1y ago
> The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way I still remember the “Westwood Studios Proudly Presents…” on the RA2 intro cutscene and that pride really shined through. Even the installer for the game was a blast (full-screen, dropped you into a faux game-UX and gave you a military briefing with their kickass soundtrack while the progress bar ran). Modern AAA games lack the soul that games of this time had.
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  > soundtrack The tracks in FIFA 14-15 was also so much better than the tracks in today's FIFAs. In every way. They handpicked not-mainstream songs too
poszlem 1y ago
Which is ironic given the origin of the name, Electronic *Arts* once positioned themselves as a haven for “software artists,” treating games as creative works on par with music and film. Now they feel more like a licensing machine, recycling IP until it’s dry and chasing live-service revenue. The contrast between what the name promised and what the company became is kind of bleak.
- CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
  The irony really kicks in when you start to remember all the arguments for how capitalism leads to the best products. Seems we forgot to clarify "best for who?", but it's clear at least shareholders won something.
  - parineum 1y ago
    Indie games are a product of capitalism too. RimWorld, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, etc. All products a functioning market just as much as the latest AAA shovelware is. It's thanks to capitalism that you get to choose which one you want to play.
    - CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
      You're saying that like it's some obvious truth, and only exists because of capitalism, yet you provide no proof it is actually like that. I'd argue indie games exists despite of capitalism, not because of it. But that's my opinion, I won't claim that's some universal truth.
      - parineum 1y ago
        > You're saying that like it's some obvious truth, and only exists because of capitalism, yet you provide no proof it is actually like that. You're statement about EA and capitalism implies that the current market is a result of capitalism. If the market is a capitalist market, as you a state, then all the products of that market can be equally attributed to capitalism, can they not? Capitalism (the free market, more accurately) is what led to those games existing and your ability to choose to play them. You can easily imagine a world where software engineers were subject to licensing requirements (like lawyers, doctors, etc) and software that was run on your PC was subject to a state approval process. The ability of a single person to use their time and money how they see fit to create products that other people can choose to use (or not use) based on their own personal choice is the ideal of capitalism.
        1y ago
itsoktocry 1y ago
>but I don't really care about EA or their legacy anymore. They own the entire sports gaming genre, and it's a massive money maker.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Yeah, admittedly my perspective is that of someone who thinks sports games peaked with NBA Jam (1993). The only other sports games I play are racing sims - which are also in a bad place, but I digress.
  - yeasku 1y ago
    I wanted to get into sim racing but paying for mods is not something i like.
  - rockercoaster 1y ago
    NBA Jam; NFL 2K (and 2K1, 2K2) on the Dreamcast; the first three Tony Hawk games, the THQ "pro wrestling" games on the N64; Ice Hockey, Punch Out!, World Cup, Dodgeball (really, any of those Kunio Kun sports games) and Bases Loaded (first one only) on the NES; the Mutant League games on the Sega (especially Hockey). What the Golf?, Golf Story, the Mario Golf games. Mario Tennis (any of them, they're pretty much all good, the latest one on the Switch is great). Super Baseball 2020 on the Neo Geo. There are two big audiences for sports games, I think, and I'm in the one that doesn't give a shit about realism or real team names or real-world rosters. I have no interest whatsoever in modern EA-type sports games, and most (not quite all) of my favorites for any give sport are from the '90s or '00s. I would characterize myself as a pretty big fan of sports games, actually (look at that list! I have put lots of time into pretty much all of those! I didn't even list all of them, like snowboarding games) but don't have any interest whatsoever in the latest EA NFL games and such.
    - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
      they've rebooted mutant league football if that's of any interest to you. it's an awful lot of cheaty, cheesy fun just like the first one
nemomarx 1y ago
They still have some exclusives or older titles locked up - I think American McGee's stuff? I wonder if the new owners would care to port it or sell it again.
bob1029 1y ago
I mostly agree about AAA, but to be fair Battlefield 1 was/is a really good game. You'll never find an experience like that in an indie studio.
- DanielHB 1y ago
  Thinking about EA (or any big publisher) as a monolith is quite counterproductive to generate a mental model. In practice it is several studios with an overlord. Some studios might still be independent enough that the overlord just stays out of the way.
  - AlexandrB 1y ago
    While that's true, there's also often a noticeable trend of games moving in a similar direction across a publisher - for example the disastrous live service attempt from Bioware (Anthem). Whether this is due to top-down pressure or just corporate vibes or culture, publishers definitely seem to have an impact on what kind of games get made.
- Spartan-S63 1y ago
  I believe that Battlefield 4 was the last good Battlefield game. Biggest asset was fully self-hostable servers that provided progression, community control, and allowed gaming clans/organizations to actually community-build. Nowadays, forced matchmaking and limited party sizes really eliminate the ability to build large communities. The consolidation of publishers/developers in controlling all of the online experience has started limiting online gaming's ability to be a reasonable third place.
  - zppln 1y ago
    BF4 was broken on launch, with servers crashing from people simply playing the objective. These studios have been serving people garbage for close to two decades by now. They deserve their fate.
    - parineum 1y ago
tnolet 1y ago
next up Ubisoft. Last Assassin's Creed was also a snore fest.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
> AAA gaming feels so tired When first person games became a destination for gaming (and not just another genre that we move on from — like "fighting games") is when I checked out of gaming. I know, I know, there are no doubt plenty of cool indie games out there (and other genres) but I guess in the meantime I found other ways to spend my time and haven't really looked back into games. (I think too "AAA" as a moniker is kind of a huge red flag for me anyway. Like how "Now a Major Motion Picture" means it will be artless and instead appeal to a broad demographic in the most banal of ways.)
- onli 1y ago
  A new civilisation game just got released, the most well known mainstream gaming series are either third person (GTA) or sport games (Fifa), there is the witcher - in no way has gaming be reduced to first person games, not even AAA.
zamadatix 1y ago
EA is a big publisher, so things like Split Fiction/It Takes Two get sprinkled in with their yearly shovelware of new paint jobs for Madden, NHL, FIFA, The Sims 4, etc too. I'll also give them credit that not every remaster is crap (Mass Effect Legendary Edition was great).
deaddodo 1y ago
> The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way of the project. Not only did they get out of the way, but they actively hired the studio that sprung up from the corpse of the original developers (Westwood): Petroglyph. Not only letting the original designers/developers do their thing, but giving them a chance to work on their own baby again. It’s rare for larger companies to be willing to humble themselves for something like that, so they gained an iota of respect from me.
tapoxi 1y ago
To their credit, the new Battlefield had an extremely well recieved beta and feedback from ongoing private tests is overwhelmingly positive. They're even shipping Godot based modding tools.
- CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
  > To their credit How much of the new Battlefield actually been coming from EA though? I feels like the relatively new "Battlefield Lab" (which EA seems to have a really hands-off approach with so far) seems to be the main credit for that. Has there been any interviews or anything that clarifies how much EA been involved? Otherwise I'd continue give credit to the developers rather than the publisher.
  - tapoxi 1y ago
    Battlefield Studios is just a bunch of EA owned studios, DICE, Criterion, Ripple Effect (formerly EA LA). It's not a separate entity. EA corporate put Vince Zampella in charge of the whole thing. Labs is the name of their playtest program.
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  I'm sure the game will be well received, but the beta was enough to put me off from buying it, and you're talking to someone who bought bf5 and 2042 despite misgivings, so I have a pretty low bar. The maps I've played are pretty much all close quarters maps with the exception of liberation peak. It's pretty clear they're courting the COD playerbase. The maps that do have vehicles are so small it makes no sense to have anything but humvees. They've once again given assault pretty much everything it needs to be a god class. No thanks. Not my battlefield, and I say this as someone who's got like 4k hours in bf3/4.
- drnick1 1y ago
  Except that it enforces kernel-level anticheat, and hence is incompatible with Linux.
pjmlp 1y ago
Being a 1970's child that grew up with games alongside the industry, nowadays I mostly play retrogaming, retrogaming inspired, or digital versions of board games. The quest for realism without gameplay of many AAA games, with exorbitant prices, and GB sized textures, is not something I care about. I may spend more time playing something with Atari 2600 graphics, and enticing gameplay than caring about latest COD. I would be busy for hours playing Laser Squad, Quazatron, ATF,....
- bunderbunder 1y ago
  I recently watched a youtube video by a gamer about 20 years younger than me who had discovered older games and was reflecting on how deeply different they feel compared to modern games. The big difference she observed is that older games don't hold your hand the way modern games do. They expect you to think hard, work hard, use trial and error, and generally, in her words, "use your brain." She spent a while talking about how old games have a manual where new games have a lengthy tutorial, automap, quest log, helpful companion constantly telling you what to do next, etc. etc. etc. She didn't quite get there herself, but the juxtaposition really brought it home for me: the reason modern AAA games hold your hand is because they have to. Because they're just too big: too many game mechanics, too many locations, too much story, etc. etc. etc. If they tried to just sit back and let the player play the game for themself, nobody would would even scratch the surface of the game before they get bored and leave. It was a little liberating because I finally realized I really can just stop paying attention to AAA games in general, and I don't have to feel weird about it. I'm not going to say they're bad. Plenty of people enjoy them enough to support a company the size of EA. But I'm now prepared to recognize that the kind of gameplay experience that I grew up on and continue to find most compelling is fundamentally incompatible with a AAA-sized budget.
  - jader201 1y ago
    > the reason modern AAA games hold your hand is because they have to. This doesn’t touch on one key difference between games now vs. games then: there were some secrets in games that you just didn’t ever know about unless there was a (printed) walkthrough, or through the word of mouth of friends. The Legend of Zelda is a great example. Nowadays, many games can be 100%’ed without even having to jump online or ask someone for help. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’m playing the Metroid Primer Remaster on the Switch 2 (originally for the GameCube), and even it can be 100%’ed without having to look much up or without even a manual.
no_wizard 1y ago
RIP Mass Effect and by extension BioWare. One of the most groundbreaking trilogies in gaming with tons of potential and it’ll get relegated to the dustbin of history no doubt. If I was absurdly rich I’d buy up lots of underused and/or abused IP and start a game studio around it. I feel like that would be a good business if you have the capital to handle game dev costs
- khuey 1y ago
  I assume the acquisition is mostly about the sports games and Battlefield but EA really is sitting on some fantastic IP: Bioware, Westwood, and Maxis were all great studios.
  - elefanten 1y ago
    The Sims also still prints money and there's a new version due soon-ish. But, basically, yes agreed.
  - jcranmer 1y ago
    I think "were" is the correct tense. EA's dictates for SimCity (2013) ended up crashing that franchise entirely, and a decade into The Sims 4, EA has admitted it's planning on endless expansion packs for Sims 4 rather than making a Sims 5, with the community largely debating whether or not the best Sims game is Sims 2 or Sims 3.
    - khuey 1y ago
      Right, they have plenty of good and dormant IP, they're just uninterested in or bad at executing on it. Cities Skylines (1, not 2) did well, for example.
    - GaryBluto 1y ago
      The Sims 4 was a shockingly awful product, being a retool of an in-development Sims MMO after the dramatic failure of the always online SimCity (2013) it lacked (and probably still does lack) the majority of features from the previous installation, such as an open world.
jerf 1y ago
Between the fact that I'm on the "no time" part of the "time to play but no money, money to buy but no time, pick one" saying, indies, some still-functioning Japanese studios, and the burgeoning "AA" segment of the market, where people in the 2020s use 2020s technology with a team of maybe a dozen or two to put out what would have been AAA games produced by hundreds of people in the 2010s, I've had no use for the AAA space for a while. Or the gacha space; you don't need to create an open wound in your wallet just to play some decent games. I've noticed this attitude is not yet "mainstream" but the first and the second derivative of its prevalence ought to worry the AAA industry. If their moat essentially collapses to "we can afford to spend a bazillion dollars on marketing" their death won't be too many years behind.
- brailsafe 1y ago
  > I'm on the "no time" part of the "time to play but no money, money to buy but no time, pick one" saying You should try Factorio, it'll find the time for you.
mhh__ 1y ago
The new battlefield actually looks pretty good
ivape 1y ago
EA has an interesting strategy on offering a good value for their paid EA Play and EA Play pro plan. For example, if you find yourself in these specific genres: Sports: - Madden - FC Soccer - F1 This area should grow to cover other major sports. Others have mentioned how strong the sports offering is, and it’s also worth noting how strong Wii Sports was for the monumental success of the Wii. FPS: - Battlefield more or less The Battlefield universe can cover anything you can dream of when it comes to FPS, so that’s another platform that is still a growth sector imho. I think this is a very lucrative approach.

teeray 1y ago

> The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way I still remember the “Westwood Studios Proudly Presents…” on the RA2 intro cutscene and that pride really shined through. Even the installer for the game was a blast (full-screen, dropped you into a faux game-UX and gave you a military briefing with their kickass soundtrack while the progress bar ran). Modern AAA games lack the soul that games of this time had.

porridgeraisin 1y ago
> soundtrack The tracks in FIFA 14-15 was also so much better than the tracks in today's FIFAs. In every way. They handpicked not-mainstream songs too

poszlem 1y ago

Which is ironic given the origin of the name, Electronic *Arts* once positioned themselves as a haven for “software artists,” treating games as creative works on par with music and film. Now they feel more like a licensing machine, recycling IP until it’s dry and chasing live-service revenue. The contrast between what the name promised and what the company became is kind of bleak.

CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
The irony really kicks in when you start to remember all the arguments for how capitalism leads to the best products. Seems we forgot to clarify "best for who?", but it's clear at least shareholders won something.
- parineum 1y ago
  Indie games are a product of capitalism too. RimWorld, Stardew Valley, Minecraft, etc. All products a functioning market just as much as the latest AAA shovelware is. It's thanks to capitalism that you get to choose which one you want to play.
  - CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
    You're saying that like it's some obvious truth, and only exists because of capitalism, yet you provide no proof it is actually like that. I'd argue indie games exists despite of capitalism, not because of it. But that's my opinion, I won't claim that's some universal truth.
    - parineum 1y ago
      > You're saying that like it's some obvious truth, and only exists because of capitalism, yet you provide no proof it is actually like that. You're statement about EA and capitalism implies that the current market is a result of capitalism. If the market is a capitalist market, as you a state, then all the products of that market can be equally attributed to capitalism, can they not? Capitalism (the free market, more accurately) is what led to those games existing and your ability to choose to play them. You can easily imagine a world where software engineers were subject to licensing requirements (like lawyers, doctors, etc) and software that was run on your PC was subject to a state approval process. The ability of a single person to use their time and money how they see fit to create products that other people can choose to use (or not use) based on their own personal choice is the ideal of capitalism.
      - 1y ago

itsoktocry 1y ago

>but I don't really care about EA or their legacy anymore. They own the entire sports gaming genre, and it's a massive money maker.

AlexandrB 1y ago
Yeah, admittedly my perspective is that of someone who thinks sports games peaked with NBA Jam (1993). The only other sports games I play are racing sims - which are also in a bad place, but I digress.
- yeasku 1y ago
  I wanted to get into sim racing but paying for mods is not something i like.
- rockercoaster 1y ago
  NBA Jam; NFL 2K (and 2K1, 2K2) on the Dreamcast; the first three Tony Hawk games, the THQ "pro wrestling" games on the N64; Ice Hockey, Punch Out!, World Cup, Dodgeball (really, any of those Kunio Kun sports games) and Bases Loaded (first one only) on the NES; the Mutant League games on the Sega (especially Hockey). What the Golf?, Golf Story, the Mario Golf games. Mario Tennis (any of them, they're pretty much all good, the latest one on the Switch is great). Super Baseball 2020 on the Neo Geo. There are two big audiences for sports games, I think, and I'm in the one that doesn't give a shit about realism or real team names or real-world rosters. I have no interest whatsoever in modern EA-type sports games, and most (not quite all) of my favorites for any give sport are from the '90s or '00s. I would characterize myself as a pretty big fan of sports games, actually (look at that list! I have put lots of time into pretty much all of those! I didn't even list all of them, like snowboarding games) but don't have any interest whatsoever in the latest EA NFL games and such.
  - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
    they've rebooted mutant league football if that's of any interest to you. it's an awful lot of cheaty, cheesy fun just like the first one

nemomarx 1y ago

They still have some exclusives or older titles locked up - I think American McGee's stuff? I wonder if the new owners would care to port it or sell it again.

bob1029 1y ago

I mostly agree about AAA, but to be fair Battlefield 1 was/is a really good game. You'll never find an experience like that in an indie studio.

DanielHB 1y ago
Thinking about EA (or any big publisher) as a monolith is quite counterproductive to generate a mental model. In practice it is several studios with an overlord. Some studios might still be independent enough that the overlord just stays out of the way.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  While that's true, there's also often a noticeable trend of games moving in a similar direction across a publisher - for example the disastrous live service attempt from Bioware (Anthem). Whether this is due to top-down pressure or just corporate vibes or culture, publishers definitely seem to have an impact on what kind of games get made.
Spartan-S63 1y ago
I believe that Battlefield 4 was the last good Battlefield game. Biggest asset was fully self-hostable servers that provided progression, community control, and allowed gaming clans/organizations to actually community-build. Nowadays, forced matchmaking and limited party sizes really eliminate the ability to build large communities. The consolidation of publishers/developers in controlling all of the online experience has started limiting online gaming's ability to be a reasonable third place.
- zppln 1y ago
  BF4 was broken on launch, with servers crashing from people simply playing the objective. These studios have been serving people garbage for close to two decades by now. They deserve their fate.
  - parineum 1y ago

tnolet 1y ago

next up Ubisoft. Last Assassin's Creed was also a snore fest.

JKCalhoun 1y ago

> AAA gaming feels so tired When first person games became a destination for gaming (and not just another genre that we move on from — like "fighting games") is when I checked out of gaming. I know, I know, there are no doubt plenty of cool indie games out there (and other genres) but I guess in the meantime I found other ways to spend my time and haven't really looked back into games. (I think too "AAA" as a moniker is kind of a huge red flag for me anyway. Like how "Now a Major Motion Picture" means it will be artless and instead appeal to a broad demographic in the most banal of ways.)

onli 1y ago
A new civilisation game just got released, the most well known mainstream gaming series are either third person (GTA) or sport games (Fifa), there is the witcher - in no way has gaming be reduced to first person games, not even AAA.

zamadatix 1y ago

EA is a big publisher, so things like Split Fiction/It Takes Two get sprinkled in with their yearly shovelware of new paint jobs for Madden, NHL, FIFA, The Sims 4, etc too. I'll also give them credit that not every remaster is crap (Mass Effect Legendary Edition was great).

deaddodo 1y ago

> The last EA game I played was the excellent C&C remaster - and EA's main contribution was getting out of the way of the project. Not only did they get out of the way, but they actively hired the studio that sprung up from the corpse of the original developers (Westwood): Petroglyph. Not only letting the original designers/developers do their thing, but giving them a chance to work on their own baby again. It’s rare for larger companies to be willing to humble themselves for something like that, so they gained an iota of respect from me.

tapoxi 1y ago

To their credit, the new Battlefield had an extremely well recieved beta and feedback from ongoing private tests is overwhelmingly positive. They're even shipping Godot based modding tools.

CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
> To their credit How much of the new Battlefield actually been coming from EA though? I feels like the relatively new "Battlefield Lab" (which EA seems to have a really hands-off approach with so far) seems to be the main credit for that. Has there been any interviews or anything that clarifies how much EA been involved? Otherwise I'd continue give credit to the developers rather than the publisher.
- tapoxi 1y ago
  Battlefield Studios is just a bunch of EA owned studios, DICE, Criterion, Ripple Effect (formerly EA LA). It's not a separate entity. EA corporate put Vince Zampella in charge of the whole thing. Labs is the name of their playtest program.
wing-_-nuts 1y ago
I'm sure the game will be well received, but the beta was enough to put me off from buying it, and you're talking to someone who bought bf5 and 2042 despite misgivings, so I have a pretty low bar. The maps I've played are pretty much all close quarters maps with the exception of liberation peak. It's pretty clear they're courting the COD playerbase. The maps that do have vehicles are so small it makes no sense to have anything but humvees. They've once again given assault pretty much everything it needs to be a god class. No thanks. Not my battlefield, and I say this as someone who's got like 4k hours in bf3/4.
drnick1 1y ago
Except that it enforces kernel-level anticheat, and hence is incompatible with Linux.

pjmlp 1y ago

Being a 1970's child that grew up with games alongside the industry, nowadays I mostly play retrogaming, retrogaming inspired, or digital versions of board games. The quest for realism without gameplay of many AAA games, with exorbitant prices, and GB sized textures, is not something I care about. I may spend more time playing something with Atari 2600 graphics, and enticing gameplay than caring about latest COD. I would be busy for hours playing Laser Squad, Quazatron, ATF,....

bunderbunder 1y ago
I recently watched a youtube video by a gamer about 20 years younger than me who had discovered older games and was reflecting on how deeply different they feel compared to modern games. The big difference she observed is that older games don't hold your hand the way modern games do. They expect you to think hard, work hard, use trial and error, and generally, in her words, "use your brain." She spent a while talking about how old games have a manual where new games have a lengthy tutorial, automap, quest log, helpful companion constantly telling you what to do next, etc. etc. etc. She didn't quite get there herself, but the juxtaposition really brought it home for me: the reason modern AAA games hold your hand is because they have to. Because they're just too big: too many game mechanics, too many locations, too much story, etc. etc. etc. If they tried to just sit back and let the player play the game for themself, nobody would would even scratch the surface of the game before they get bored and leave. It was a little liberating because I finally realized I really can just stop paying attention to AAA games in general, and I don't have to feel weird about it. I'm not going to say they're bad. Plenty of people enjoy them enough to support a company the size of EA. But I'm now prepared to recognize that the kind of gameplay experience that I grew up on and continue to find most compelling is fundamentally incompatible with a AAA-sized budget.
- jader201 1y ago
  > the reason modern AAA games hold your hand is because they have to. This doesn’t touch on one key difference between games now vs. games then: there were some secrets in games that you just didn’t ever know about unless there was a (printed) walkthrough, or through the word of mouth of friends. The Legend of Zelda is a great example. Nowadays, many games can be 100%’ed without even having to jump online or ask someone for help. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing. I’m playing the Metroid Primer Remaster on the Switch 2 (originally for the GameCube), and even it can be 100%’ed without having to look much up or without even a manual.

no_wizard 1y ago

RIP Mass Effect and by extension BioWare. One of the most groundbreaking trilogies in gaming with tons of potential and it’ll get relegated to the dustbin of history no doubt. If I was absurdly rich I’d buy up lots of underused and/or abused IP and start a game studio around it. I feel like that would be a good business if you have the capital to handle game dev costs

khuey 1y ago
I assume the acquisition is mostly about the sports games and Battlefield but EA really is sitting on some fantastic IP: Bioware, Westwood, and Maxis were all great studios.
- elefanten 1y ago
  The Sims also still prints money and there's a new version due soon-ish. But, basically, yes agreed.
- jcranmer 1y ago
  I think "were" is the correct tense. EA's dictates for SimCity (2013) ended up crashing that franchise entirely, and a decade into The Sims 4, EA has admitted it's planning on endless expansion packs for Sims 4 rather than making a Sims 5, with the community largely debating whether or not the best Sims game is Sims 2 or Sims 3.
  - khuey 1y ago
    Right, they have plenty of good and dormant IP, they're just uninterested in or bad at executing on it. Cities Skylines (1, not 2) did well, for example.
  - GaryBluto 1y ago
    The Sims 4 was a shockingly awful product, being a retool of an in-development Sims MMO after the dramatic failure of the always online SimCity (2013) it lacked (and probably still does lack) the majority of features from the previous installation, such as an open world.

jerf 1y ago

Between the fact that I'm on the "no time" part of the "time to play but no money, money to buy but no time, pick one" saying, indies, some still-functioning Japanese studios, and the burgeoning "AA" segment of the market, where people in the 2020s use 2020s technology with a team of maybe a dozen or two to put out what would have been AAA games produced by hundreds of people in the 2010s, I've had no use for the AAA space for a while. Or the gacha space; you don't need to create an open wound in your wallet just to play some decent games. I've noticed this attitude is not yet "mainstream" but the first and the second derivative of its prevalence ought to worry the AAA industry. If their moat essentially collapses to "we can afford to spend a bazillion dollars on marketing" their death won't be too many years behind.

brailsafe 1y ago
> I'm on the "no time" part of the "time to play but no money, money to buy but no time, pick one" saying You should try Factorio, it'll find the time for you.

mhh__ 1y ago

The new battlefield actually looks pretty good

ivape 1y ago

EA has an interesting strategy on offering a good value for their paid EA Play and EA Play pro plan. For example, if you find yourself in these specific genres: Sports: - Madden - FC Soccer - F1 This area should grow to cover other major sports. Others have mentioned how strong the sports offering is, and it’s also worth noting how strong Wii Sports was for the monumental success of the Wii. FPS: - Battlefield more or less The Battlefield universe can cover anything you can dream of when it comes to FPS, so that’s another platform that is still a growth sector imho. I think this is a very lucrative approach.