People don’t want to pay for Disneyfied corpo slop that the HR department and advertisers signed off on. A public company lacks the soul to imbue into a creative project.
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This ain’t that
Not that odd. Seems like a decade and change ago it became common knowledge that market-tested, sanitized content wasn’t really resonating with “core gamers”, but we don’t even call the demographic that anymore. Not really sure how we got here
Well, gamers includes anyone sliding their finger on a phone screen now playing Farmville and stuff…and that is a looooooot of people. So that moves the needle on the average gamer a lot towards that end. And I think there is limited overlap between the people that use it as a time suck and the people that sit down and turn on their console/pc to play a game as a hobby.
So if the MBAs looked at statistics too much… you also get a warped idea.
It seems that stuff that gets people most excited are the inspired games made by creative people because they had a vision for their game…
Farmville players do not buy AAA games. We need to get this idea that mobile games and other forms of video games are connected out of our collective heads.
I know… but plenty of writers of articles seem to use the term gamers to identify everyone that plays any game… so of you don’t identify your target audience good enough you run the risk of making something that on paper will appeal to everyone but in practice to no one.
And also successes of iterative games like fifa run on the fact that real world changes to for example teams players are in drive sales… Because the player base is invested in the real world sport… so they want this year’s game because now the players shifted teams. But a new iteration of other games will not have that external pull.
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I saw your reply and regret to inform you the other folks are right, I’m no gamergater and the context isn’t even right. Woke is a descriptor that causes me to buy a game. “Core” referred to gamers that were willing to grind, basically; it was a useful demographic for describing players and I don’t really know what has replaced it.
Are you SERIOUSLY this stupid and triggered? They’ve said NOTHING about “woke” anything, and your dumb ass goes off like this is gamer gate? Fuck you. Fuck you, you illiterate moron.
This is about how Epic, the corporarion Tim Sweeny leads, a corpo that’s a big player in the games industry, is FAILING to identify that it is quality, not budget that determines if a game sells.
… and then you come in here saying GamerGate shit. Fuck off, you inflammatory dumbass. Seems like you need to get past Reddit culture, troll.
Someone needs to go for a walk
Yes, the guy I replied to. They need to walk to their nearest college and learn how, “reading between the lines” is NOT about applying any and all conspiracy thinking to a subject…
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When you try to make literally everyone your target demographic then nobody will be your target demographic
Fuck Tim Sweeny
More like Slim Weeny
Chikka chikka Slim Weeny!
The biggest thing I miss from yesteryear is all the low budget straight-to-handheld spinoffs. No clear place for those to exist now that dedicated handhelds are dead, and no room for quirky little side projects when publishers are putting all their resources into just a few AAAA megagames.
What about mobile games? I know the market is weird around them (low cost etc) and maybe I misunderstood your statement.
What about them? They’re all garbage.
Well the handheld thing, if you make a good game it could be shipped to mobile? Or maybe lacking buttons makes it always crappy?
Yea, eating up loads of screen space for controls and having a tiny screen are big negatives.
Processing power is waaaay less too, but that’s been a non-issue for indie quality style graphics for some years, now.
The entire market works off of freemium and piecemeal/ad models, too, which as Tim refuses to admit; people also hate!
He he I worked in the mobile game industry before smartphones, buttons (flimsy though for many phones) but man has screens gotten not just bigger but better :-)
Power is never an issue, except if you want to showcase some tech instead of making a good game, IMO.
Ya to death with all that dark pattern shit.
The screens getting better pushes directly against graphics processing increases. More pixels takes more power, after all.
Not that it’s any excuse… Modern phones are more powerful than the Switch, by a long shot.
I really wish mobile games could be good, but this is modern capitalism: It’s not about careers and good products. It’s about extracting wealth.
Well, check out a GBA/DS fat screen vs a DS lite one, it’s from that time roughly, not many more pixels but the quality is way different. But sure, a shame the whole mobile game industry is so incredibly crappy.
I don’t see how that market was better than what we have now. We still get games like those, but you can play them anywhere. You just have to stop expecting to find them from the publishers you recognize from 20 years ago. Ubisoft and EA don’t really make games for us anymore.
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I’ve been a console gamer since the PS1. I’ve also gamed on computers for way longer than that. I just find the consoles easier, as it’s plug and play, and no need to constantly upgrade my computer.
This has been a fact for me until now. Got the PS5 2 years after release, and had a fucking blast with it, while the computer I built 13 years ago is used for other stuff than gaming. It took it’s last breath about two months ago.
I then got myself a brand new computer with a RTX4060ti, and I installed RDR2 to see how it compared to the PS4 version, and it blew my mind when I added mods (fucking hell, mods are easier to install today than 15-20 years ago lol). Then I bought Baldurs Gate 3.
The price of the PS5 Pro comes out more expensive than my computer. I’ll continue playing some games on the PS5, but the pro can fuck off, and the PS6 will probably never come into my house, as I am done with consoles. I’d rather buy ANOTHER gaming computer and hook it up in the living room.
Company that makes its money from fraud screams at customers for not being suckers.
News at 7.
Maybe instead of playing with money, the money people should come up with ideas. I can’t think of a time where more budget meant more fun.
the money people should come up with ideas
I’m sure « Financial Market Simulator 3000 » could be fun but … meh… :)
I already play Eve. Ideas gotta be new!
Those studios have been pouring huge amounts of money on graphics under the assumption (i.e. idiocy) that better graphics = more sales. Tim Sweeney is shifting it towards yet another assumption/idiocy: that more forced socialisation = more sales.
And they still don’t get the picture. People won’t buy your games if they’re boring, if they’re too expensive, or if they think that you’re an arsehole. Roughly in this order. That’s it.
Ok. Interesting take. Let’s look at Alan Wake 2. High Budget and pretty good. One of the best games I played in recent years I would say.
And why did it sell poorly, I hear you ask? Well, maybe it had something to do with the fact that you published it on your Epic Store only, being fully aware that the overwhelming majority of PC players are on Steam (and very lazy when it comes to switching away from it). Also you didn’t produce physical copies for consoles. Download only for an environment known for being fiercely pro physical copy.
But we all know it’s not about these things. It’s about calming down investors. That’s why you use buzzwords like “metaverse” and shit. I am actually impressed you didn’t ramble about AI.
Man, I’d love to play Alan Wake 2. Big Remedy fan; Control was my game of the year for two years. Be nice if they’d release it on a platform I’d buy it on.
Oh and 90% of the market could not run the thing.
That’s because they suck ass
Fun beats pretty.
Is this for video games or romantic advice?
Not only that, but pretty much everything else, including weapons and cars.
When I buy a game, I want a game.
Not yet another platform to bleed my wallet dry.
I also don’t want to be forced to use some stupid storefront just because the publisher wanted an extra 18% cut or whatever. If your game lives and dies by that 18% cut, perhaps you should make a better game.
If I want to use EGS, GOG, or Steam, that should be my choice, don’t force me to switch to something else just because you want higher margins.
Well, when you invest $$$ into something that’s meant to be fun and it’s not fun, then there’s your problem. Why not invest in the game designers and scale down the graphics/fancy stuff and exec salaries?
Remove all the garbage. The DRM, the proprietary launchers and the requirement to constantly pay to win.
Has nothing to do with ‘generation’ anything and everything to do with bean counters. The fact that Minecraft is still beating them all is everything they need to know but refuse to listen to.
They don’t mean boomers, millennials, etc. When you consider games from Atari, to genesis, to 360, to what we have now with microtransactions and season passes after unloading $60+ for a premium game, there are clear “generational” divides.
Investors be like: “MineCoins you say🤔”
Fuck you Tim Sweeney. Fuck the fortnite model and fuck you for delisting and shutting down the Unreal franchise.
Just curious as to what you think the Unreal franchise could provide the modern gaming landscape that we aren’t getting now. It always struck me as pretty bland.
The Unreal franchise can provide the Unreal franchise. There was no real reason for epic to delist the games from all the store fronts and shutdown the master servers other then wanting to control their brand. It was costing them pennies to keep that stuff up and to even shudown the single player games was completely.
As far as “the modern gaming landscape” goes, it can suck it. I’m not interested in playing modern multiplayer shooters. I’m tried a few and they come across as walking simulators and fidget spinner simulators.
Oh you meant like…the old games. I thought you were like dying for the Unreal story to continue or something.
Yeah. Epic delisted the old games. You can not purchase a new copy on any of the digital store fronts, even the single player games. They also shutdown the servers that listed the available open servers. Not the game servers themselves that had map files stored on them. The master server was just a list of IP addresses that cost next to nothing to run. You can configure your install of the games to point to community run master servers, but no new players will know how to do that without someone helping them.
