Video game companies are bad | Take-Two sack 580 people (5% of workforce)

I was going to post this in the game thread for Star Wars Outlaws but I don't want to dump it there as I feel that is for focusing on the game itself rather than the pricing and marketing around it.

So... it seems that a few YouTube channels are now making vids about the pricing of the game. Even Pete Dorr - a longtime YouTube stalwart who appears to be one of the most easy-going people in gaming - has just posted about it. Now, obviously this is a drop in the ocean in terms of mass market awareness and Ubisoft probably aren't too worried about small YouTube channels. Unfortunately the bigger, professional videogame news outlets often shy away from bad industry practices as they're more interested in not losing advertising payments. Hey, Eurogamer produces lengthy articles on where to buy Star Wars Outlaws; and many similar sites do, too. The only thing I'm hoping for is that a fair chunk of the mass market are finding that pricing games from £70 to £130 is simply unsustainable.

Ubisoft's share price has hit free-fall over the past five years and they're responding by applying ever-higher prices to games. It's hard to see that they - or other similarly large publishers - will change, either. I'm beginning to wonder if, recognising the scenario of "AAA" game publishing becoming ever riskier due to the costs involved and many people being impacted by wider economic issues, we're heading for a situation where the gaming market contracts. At the very least, I suspect that we'll see far fewer "AAA" games releasing and, those that do will be "tried and tested" ideas which are pretty reserved in terms of scope.

Of course, for now we're in the situation where CEO wages and bonuses keep rising and, instead, staff are sacked to compensate for any poor game sales.

Despite this gloom I did have a laugh at one of the comments on Pete Dorr's video - "Ubisoft need to get comfortable with us not buying their games" .

their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Wedgie wrote:their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Big thing I've seen is there's exclusive missions involving Jabba the Hut that are shown in the trailer of the normal edition of the game but you can't do them without paying for the ultimate or gold edition which are super expensive. It's pretty scummy.

Somehow microtransactions returned

Wait a couple of months and the game will get reduced in price, never buy a Ubi game at launch, not worth it.

Victor Mildew wrote:Somehow microtransactions returned

they were gone?

Qikz wrote:

Wedgie wrote:their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Big thing I've seen is there's exclusive missions involving Jabba the Hut that are shown in the trailer of the normal edition of the game but you can't do them without paying for the ultimate or gold edition which are super expensive. It's pretty scummy.

Oh ffs

Tomous wrote:

Qikz wrote:

Wedgie wrote:their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Big thing I've seen is there's exclusive missions involving Jabba the Hut that are shown in the trailer of the normal edition of the game but you can't do them without paying for the ultimate or gold edition which are super expensive. It's pretty scummy.

Oh ffs

Qikz hasn't got it quite right. It's the usual Ubi setup:

Standard - base game
Gold - adds early access and season pass
Ultimate - adds cosmetic tat

And the Jabba missions are part of the story DLC, which is included in the season pass but will also be available to buy separately.

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Qikz wrote:

Wedgie wrote:their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Big thing I've seen is there's exclusive missions involving Jabba the Hut that are shown in the trailer of the normal edition of the game but you can't do them without paying for the ultimate or gold edition which are super expensive. It's pretty scummy.

Oh ffs

Qikz hasn't got it quite right. It's the usual Ubi setup:

Standard - base game
Gold - adds early access and season pass
Ultimate - adds cosmetic tat

And the Jabba missions are part of the story DLC, which is included in the season pass but will also be available to buy separately.

Not so bad then, depending on scope and pricing of the story DLC.

Victor Mildew wrote:Somehow microtransactions returned

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Qikz wrote:

Wedgie wrote:their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Big thing I've seen is there's exclusive missions involving Jabba the Hut that are shown in the trailer of the normal edition of the game but you can't do them without paying for the ultimate or gold edition which are super expensive. It's pretty scummy.

Oh ffs

Qikz hasn't got it quite right. It's the usual Ubi setup:

Standard - base game
Gold - adds early access and season pass
Ultimate - adds cosmetic tat

And the Jabba missions are part of the story DLC, which is included in the season pass but will also be available to buy separately.

Not so bad then, depending on scope and pricing of the story DLC.

And if you do wait to buy, it won't be long until you can get the Gold version for the price of a regular game.

shy guy 64 wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:Somehow microtransactions returned

they were gone?

To obtain the answer to this question, please purchase the "Victor" DLC for £1.99.

The industry is almost as blind as the Tories are.

Hogwarts Legacy, a full price game with a strong licence attached to it (that’s also a really good game) sells 24m copies in a year. It has no microtransactions at all and a lot of repeatability with the different house and friendship choices.

Suicide Squad drops hard despite having a decent game underneath all the online pass nonsense.

Skull and Bones sinks without a trace.

I wonder where this leaves Outlaws? On one hand it has a strong licence; on the other hand it’s full of
Online nonsense including a network check to install.

Carlos wrote:The industry is almost as blind as the Tories are.

Hogwarts Legacy, a full price game with a strong licence attached to it (that’s also a really good game) sells 24m copies in a year. It has no microtransactions at all and a lot of repeatability with the different house and friendship choices.

a tainted strong license

Carlos wrote:The industry is almost as blind as the Tories are.

Hogwarts Legacy, a full price game with a strong licence attached to it (that’s also a really good game) sells 24m copies in a year. It has no microtransactions at all and a lot of repeatability with the different house and friendship choices.

Suicide Squad drops hard despite having a decent game underneath all the online pass nonsense...

Both of these examples were published by Warner and, despite the sales/reception differences, their approach now appears to be a greater focus on the Suicide Squad-style of "live" games.

Why? Profit. To some of these giant publishers, selling millions of copies of a stand-alone game isn't enough for them. The pressure - from management, shareholders and investors - is to make more more money and "live" games are a potential way of doing this. Most will be a miserable failure against expectations but, if one is a hit, the cash can come rolling in. The target product is a live game that has millions of players paying millions of pounds on an ongoing basis... the Fortnite effect. But, of course, there can only be maybe a few such games at any one time as, naturally, people only have so much time and money. But large publishers will keep trying because they feel that just selling a stand alone game isn't worth it. And, yes, this sucks.

Live games don't have to be bad. They often are, though, especially in terms of ripoff pricing. I've played a live game for the past four-to-five years and love it; albeit it has stopped me playing most other games during that period and this is an example of where the "AAA" market is going. Fewer games, increased pricing, less variety and risk.

We are in a cycle of "AAA" games becoming increasingly expensive to make and, as tech power and expectations go up, this is likely to continue. AI will be utilised to help reduce development costs but, of course, this is likely to have zero impact on costs for the consumer.

Tl;dr the "AAA" gaming sector is either going to hugely implode or it will become even more expensive and sh1t.

Everyone's playing old games -

Newzoo’s data shows that the top 10 games on each platform (ranked by their average number of monthly active users, or MAU) are filled with old, established titles. Fortnite took the crown on all platforms, including Switch and PC. The rest of the lists included titles that won’t surprise you, like Grand Theft Auto V, Counter-Strike 2, Roblox, Minecraft, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Fall Guys, Valorant, and Call of Duty. Across Xbox and Playstation consoles, only one dedicated single-player game cracked the top ten: Starfield.

To further prove that gamers are primarily focused on older games, Newzoo’s data shows that just 66 titles accounted for 80 percent of all playtime in 2023. And 60 percent of that playtime was spent in games that are six years old or older. In fact, in 2023, five old games—Fortnite, Roblox, League of Legends, Minecraft, and GTA V—accounted for 27% of all playtime in the year.

It gets worse. Of the 23 percent of playtime spent in 2023 on new games—defined as 2 years or younger—more than half was spent in big annual sequels like the latest Madden or NBA game. Only 8 percent of video game playtime was spent on new, non-annual titles like Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate III.

https://kotaku.com/old-games-2023-playt ... 1851382474

Monkey Man wrote:Everyone's playing old games...

Proof that Switch is the platform for cutting edge games .

jawa_ wrote:

Monkey Man wrote:Everyone's playing Wii U games...

Proof that Switch is the platform for cutting edge games .

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

Qikz wrote:

Wedgie wrote:their Star Wars game is the only game I’m interested in, and unless it doesn’t feature any of their usual bloated whole map shite also sneak in some shithousey micro transactions then I will get the game when it’s on sale.

Big thing I've seen is there's exclusive missions involving Jabba the Hut that are shown in the trailer of the normal edition of the game but you can't do them without paying for the ultimate or gold edition which are super expensive. It's pretty scummy.

Oh ffs

Qikz hasn't got it quite right. It's the usual Ubi setup:

Standard - base game
Gold - adds early access and season pass
Ultimate - adds cosmetic tat

And the Jabba missions are part of the story DLC, which is included in the season pass but will also be available to buy separately.

Not so bad then, depending on scope and pricing of the story DLC.

Turns out the exclusive thing is just a single piffling mission - completely ignorable. There's plenty of Jabba and the Hutts in the main game.

I think one of the reasons people are playing old games more than ever, apart from the fact a lot of new ones simply aren't very good, is that this is the first generation of consoles where the previous generation is also available to purchase so easily on digital stores. There is very little, if anything, to now differentiate between PS4 and PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series. Old games are also extremely cheap (or even free!). Why pay for Ubisoft's latest £70 tat when, say, Resident Evil 2 is right there for under a tenner.

The video games industry has not only devalued itself in a way, but the focus on online multiplayer in its various forms has also meant they've created games that are massive time-sinks, underpinned by communities that are about more than the game, so of course consumers are going to purchase less.

The current mindset amongst publishers appears to be: cynically milk the ultra hardcores for all they're worth at launch (often with a shoddy product) and then crash the price a couple of months later. It's so ridiculous that you often see £10-£20 come off in a matter of weeks.