Richnj

I have zero sympathy for any party involved here.

This man got special access to special knowledge because he has a platform to share it. They tried to use him for marketing. He tried to use them for clout. They all played themselves.

Double edged swords don't care which side of the blade gets bloody.

@Kienda "we live in an era where everything now has politics added to it"

Art is political by nature. Especially art that is based on the works of Tom Clancy.

@bighal if you believe that subbing to a service like this damages the industry, and that people who care about games wouldn't sub to one. Why are you subbed to PS Plus?

@Sqush-Pare Half of that is true, and already been done in a Splinter Cell game.

"It’s like when a movie comes out in the theatre first, and then goes to pay-per-view or streaming or free television. Every time it generates new revenue or a broader audience"

This logic breaks down when you remember that movies leave the theatre, and streaming and blu-ray becomes the only way to experience the content, but games don't leave the digital store (not if it's able to be on a sub service anyway). Video games have no theatre equivalent.

So what, he just didn't like consolidation when he weren't part of the companies doing it?

Big surprise, big Corp guy like big Corp money.

Ha, and here's me thinking this was EA seeing a chance to revive the Medal of Honor games lol.

I guess I'm the fool.

@huyi Nope. I was expecting a cute petting animation too.

I've played some stupidly easy games and got plats (and do not feel bad because of the number of plats I've been cheated out of with closed servers), but there was always some effort from the devs and fun in them.

There's zero effort or fun here though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPkAj9zIr08

8 minutes of tapping X, while a picture of a dog is on screen.

@extermin8or_ It's not about who started it. The practice sucks. It sucked then, it sucks now.

And sells what, 15 million units on PS, out of 117m million consoles. What are the other 100m users playing if they aren't playing COD?

"But once you have market dominance and can't realistically be challenged. Guess what? Upngo thr prices. No incentive to bother delivering titles people want but to instead just make loads of long term mp based games with microtransactions"

Friendly reminder that Sony is market leader, is upping prices, and has like 15 Live Service games in development.

I love first person games, but for horror, third person just seems to work better for me.

I feel like the best horrors have great protags, and not a faceless avatar, and seeing and connecting to them is crucial to connecting to the horror on screen.

@CapGod Because it's comfort food. With the yearly releases and gameplay essentially not changing since 2007, it's got in to a position now where everybody knows what COD is, and when faced with a choice between COD and a brand new game, they keep picking the safe option.

Like how we all stare at the menu for 15 minutes and buy the same thing we always do.

@TheCollector316 Exactly, COD money. That's what I said.

@JSnow2 I never said anything about how Sony got in to the position to make these deals, only that if MS took control of COD, that Sony couldn't keep making these deals. How is that innacurate?

Remember, losing the ability to do anti-consumer deals like this, and sour the experience on other platforms compared to theirs, is the real reason Sony is upset.

MS could offer Sony a deal that keeps COD games launching on PS indefinitely, and it still wouldn't be good enough because MS are just going to put COD on Game Pass and it will cause a slide in sales on PS consoles.

That's why, out of all the IPs being taken, they only ever mention COD.

@Repo_Dog Yes, MS have been doing exclusives. And no, I never said only Sony was bad for doing it.

Thanks for completely misunderstanding my arguments but feeling like you contributed.

@UltimateOtaku91 Cumatively, Sony's deals have probably made more than 15m+ players miss out on content. Either permanently, or temporarily, but they were OK with that, because it benefitted them.

Yeah, this would suck to be an exclusive. I hope COD stays multiplatform. If it was up to me personally, all games would be multiplatform. And as with Minecraft, I'd see a multiplatform approach to just be a smarter choice.

But this fake concern about how these deals affects gamers bugs me.

For everyone confused on how this is being compared to FF and timed exclusives.

You can't pay to keep big games and content as timed exclusives, then claim that you have the "gamers" interest at heart, and that that is why you object to this deal.

It's kinda like buying lots of cookies for the house, but when anyone in the family tries to get one, you eat it instead and claim that you are just trying to help them from getting fat. Like, why would you keep buying them if you didn't want us to have them?

The mismatch in actions and words gives away your motives. It's true that eating all those cookies would be bad, but that's not why you keep stopping us from eating them. Just admit you bought the cookies for yourself and you are selfish.

@OrtadragoonX Some people have a weird sense of entitlement.

You'll notice it a lot with exclusives. If the game isn't just for them, they want it less.

They made all sorts of stupid arguments up to justify it too. Like worse quality, or missing mechanics. And yet, some of the most anticipated and highest quality games right now (like RE4 and God of War) are cross gen, and Horizion got flying mounts anyway.

People here saying stuff like they aren't buying it now, would be the kind to not buy the GC version of RE4 because they learnt it was going to PS2 as well.

@Beerheadgamer82 Well, I'm hoping that by 2025 that MS release the series 2s, and that was what I really held out for, but that also depends on them going the PC/phone route for hardware.

But yeah, waiting for hardware and software is a better route. Other than FOMO, there's zero reason to buy most things at launch. Deathloop on Xbox Series X in 2025 will be the same experience as Deathloop on PS5 today.

@Beerheadgamer82 I don't think it would require Game Pass. You can just buy the individual games, and at heavily discounted prices if you are willing to wait.

But, if you did think that Game Pass is a must, they have the 'Friends and Family' pass being tested for release, so you and four of your friends could all split the cost. If the price is the expected £25ish price then you could spend around £5 a month for the service.

"the S on nearly every release at 30fps"

Are we talking multiplat titles again here?, because remember, every multiplat game can run like dogsh*t on the system, it's not an issue for you, since you'll play those on PS5. Your only concern is if the exclusives run well, (which I could be wrong) but as far as my memory serves, they do.

@Beerheadgamer82 The Series S exists, and it's half the stated £500.

If the Xbox is going to be your secondary console and used almost exclusively for exclusives, might as well get the cheaper one.

I'd be happy with the S as my primary console if I could get one with a disk drive (I'd need my xbox to have a drive since I still have a massive 360 collection that still plays on the console. It's not so much a problem on PS).

The issue is marketing.

They don't want to show the game, they want to market it.

@Northern_munkey "therefore ruining the game"

Would it though?. Would not being able to buy 150 different skins for your character ruin the game for you?. Would not being able to endless buy in game points to roll a dice on what kind of one time use item you get, ruin your game?

"they just make it easier to unlock items you normally have to spend hours grinding for"

Who the hell do you think chose to make that grind so grindy?, it wasn't God. It's not naturally like that. It was purposely designed like that by the devs. And they make it worse to encourage you to spend more money on "optional purchases" with your "free will". (I love that you keep placing it quotation marks BTW, it's very apt).

"Sounds a little bit totalitarian to me"

So are seatbelt laws. They take away your option to exercise your "free will" not to wear one. But it's to stop "free thinkers" from making things unneccesarily worse.

"so whats the answer then ladies? Do you want all dlc,mt's,loot boxes and expansions banning outright"

MTs and Lootboxes, yes. Especially lootboxes that can be purchased with MTs. They create an envirnoment that forms really bad habits and can lead a person down destructive paths. We banned things like advertising smoking on TV for the same reasons.

Expansions are absolutely fine. A piece of additional, supplimental, substantial content is fine. Things like Episodes can extend the experience in meaningful ways. It's a one off purchase that comes with a (more or less) complete experience. It's barely a step away from buying a game.

DLCs should be regulated. Again, DLC like expansions are fine. DLCs are better than MTs because it's a one time purchase. The endless repurchasing nature of MTs is part of the problem, but the "micro" is the other part.

Horse Armour was once laughed at, and now we have people fighting tooth and nail for their "free will" to keep buying it. It's not good content. 100s of hats and skins, and emotes, is not good content.

Free will be damned, at this point it's a quality control issue, and endless cr*p, whether it's games on the eshop or skins on fortnite, is just bad content, and I don't see why any platform owner would want their platforms brought down by such content (Besides the billions of dollars they make through taking advantage of its customers).

@Northern_munkey Because neurodivergent peole have problems with impulse control, and 15-20% of the world or 30-40% of the US are neurodivergent.

You don't have to hold a gun to people's head to make them do things that negatively impact their lives.

EA has famously been researching how to mentally manipulate players in to spending more money, and disabled gamers have been having a much harder look at how games are designed to understand how it affects them in recent years.

@Bleachedsmiles This analogy has well and truly scrambled my brains at this point. But fine. If people want to find community and belonging based on rivalry and the success of a thing you are not actually a part of (and ultimately, anger and hate, which leads to those console wars) instead of the love of the thing you are there for, then they can.

I'm sure they are both as good as each other.

@Blackbluto Yeah, that's part of my point. Blaming and hamstringing the other guy at something you yourself don't want to put effort in to, even when you had every opportunity to secure a foothold, isn't a defensible position.

If MS released a brand new console and did nothing with it, then Sony came in with a brand new PS console, with loads of new games and taking over 90% of the market, the people here would blame MS for digging their own grave. (This actually happened BTW ).

But could you imagine if Governments thought about coming down on Sony for that dominance of the market? The people crying about monopolies and MS right now, would be right behind Sony.

@nessisonett Japan only has two time periods, Ninjas and Cyberpunk.

@Bleachedsmiles in this analogy, the team would be the game. The platform would be the league.

Anyone rooting for the league is kinda weird.

@thefourfoldroot1 "before anyone else gets a foothold"

"the point is not who gets there first"

Sony literally had a three year head start to build an audience before MS entered the market. Don't move the goalposts.

"Any other consideration is simply fanboyism"

This is thought-terminating.

@Bleachedsmiles I appreciate that, but gaming communities can (should) transcend the platform.

The COD community did it when they moved to PS4 from 360.

Communities should be formed around like minded people, or even just those games they play, not the consoles they are played on.

All three consoles could crumble tomorrow, we'll survive.

@thefourfoldroot1 "Hence the governmental concerns over MS monopolising the subscription gaming sector before anyone else gets a foothold I guess…"

Sony should have launched their own subscription service like 3 years before Game Pass. Maybe they would have had a chance then.

"It's just business"

This is the bottom line of this whole drama. Big company spends money to make itself more money. Sony and MS have been doing this for years.

They aren't arguing over COD "for the players" it is purely for the money.

What gets to me, is that people are far more upset about this than they ever were about the other stuff the industry does on the regular. It's clear that the outrage at this has nothing to do with industry behaviour, and everything to do with access to a franchise or siding with a multi billion dollar company that provides your chosen piece of plastic.

@Ravix Yeah, I mean, preferences are preferences. There's no right or wrong in that.

I'm obviously just talking stick placement and design intention.

I think the DS3 and Wii U pads are the only ones that are outright poorly designed. The DS4 and DualSense are miles ahead of them in terms of comfort, even with the sticks in the "wrong" place.

I actually think that now (Post Xbone, PS4, and Switch launches) is probably been the only time since analogue sticks were introduced that all the controllers are a joy to use.

I just bought some new Ikea furniture. I'll just leave a box in the corner of the room and get a more authentic "Solid Snake's in my room" experience.

@Ravix @Beerheadgamer82 "having the camera controls (right analogue) level with the regular movement directional buttons (left analogue stick) makes more sense, doesn't it?"

I mean, you try telling that to the Wii U gamepads. Both are set up symmetrically but having the right stick in the primary position feels weird.

You think of how the PS pads came around. They are PS1 pads but with added sticks. These sticks were placed in a secondary position. The d-pad and face buttons were primary inputs.

When Sega and Nintendo really started to get in to 3D games, they created controllers where the left stick was a primary input to make the most of the 3D worlds.

The Wii VC pad had secondary sticks, but the pad was intended for classdic 2D games. The Wii U pads were primary placed, to match the Wii U tablet, but that felt very awkward. And the current Switch layout takes the offset "xbox" approach.

Speaking of Xbox, their gamepad came from an evolution of the Dreamcast controller, with the left stick in the primary position.

Just speaking in how controllers evolved and the fact that consoles are designed around 3D experiences, it makes zero sense to have the left stick in the secondary position. PS only do it because of a throw back to the arcahic way in which they implemented analogue sticks.

If we are talking the right analogue stick, even FPS games use plenty of face button actions. Reloading, swapping weapons, crouching, jumping, it's all integral to the gameplay. D-pads, aren't. This makes having face buttons in the primary position feel good, and again, right sticks in the primary position was tried and hated.

I'd also make another argument about how we use both sticks. Just because they are the same kind of input doesn't automatically make them the same in useage. Left stick usage is more relaxed, pushing more so in one direction, right stick usage is more active, going all over the place more or less evenly.

@Neverwild Not once have I said Sony owns a lot of publishers.

"I hope Sony never buys a publisher cause thats wrong for gamers."

and I'm sure you've always been up in arms when Sony bought anybody who made even 1 game that released on another platform, or threw cash at another company to block the release of content on another platform.

@Neverwild You should see my posts on Nintendolife and Purexbox... You seeing my criticisms of a company as fanboyism is your problem, not mine.

"So Sony will get 69 billion from Microsoft"

if they did, would that make this situation OK in your opinion?

@Neverwild "So Microsoft are buying Activision-Blizzard from Sony?"

In a sense, yes. Why do you think they are so upset about this?

"I know you hate Sony"

You are assuming I hate Sony. I'm just not in love with them. There's a difference.

@Neverwild 2K, Squire Enix, Konami, Capcom, Activision, EA.

They've all been "bought" by Sony in one form or another.

They don't offer exclusive marketing and content for the sh*ts and giggles.

It's interesting that one of the biggest defences for Sony is their "organic growth", but MS buying a massive 3rd party franchise is throwing the whole thing in to disarray.

Paying 3rd parties to show more favour for your console isn't organic growth. It's buying your way through the industry.

Sony and MS have been doing the same thing, only Sony was hiding it from you.

@Milktastrophe As far as I can tell, Gamers actively hate actual developers, and only care about the brands and their products.

I mean, Activision and Ubisoft have been the absolute worst to their employees, but also, COD and Assassin's Creed are massive money makers.

I think MS, Sony, and Nintendo could announce all the revenue of their next games of Halo, Spider-Man, and Mario would go to murdering the homeless, and Gamers would justify their desire for the games as being a good thing actually, because they are reducing suffering...

@GreatAuk He's already wrote about this behaviour in games development (as per the info in this very article). What he has here is additional evidence directly from a manager who willfully and publicly (through twitter) gave up that supporting information.

Why don't you just ignore his tweets the way you ignore his journalistic works?

@GreatAuk "Jason should mind his own damned business"

This is gold. He's a journalist...

A good manager wouldn't let his staff work that long.

Passionate people especially need reigning in. They burn themselves out and let other stuff break down because they are so laser focused on this one thing.

This is, at best, borderline exploitation.

Would be better to properly remaster the previous games and produce a new game.

Or you can copy Capcom and leverage the strength of certain titles (RE2, RE4, SH2) to sell a new game with a nostaligic facade.

@SmoothlyRough Killzone and Resistance scored better than most COD games.

I think Modern Warfare 1 and 2 are the only really high rated COD games.

CODs success isn't due to an unmatchable quality, it's due to an unmatchable connection to the zeitgeist. COD is a known quantity and people find comfort in that.

@Intr1n5ic "You were quick to highlight Halo"

It's a peeve of mine when people use Halo Infinite as an example of reduced quality as a direct result of Game Pass.

Halo has been poorer quality ever since 343i took over, about ten years ago. It's represented in the Metacritic scores, if you want a less biased metric.

And stuff like releasing with missing features, less maps, tons of microtransaction BS, and everything that is essentially wrong with Infinite, was also true of Halo 5, which launched before Game Pass was a thing.

MS and 343i just butchered Halo with incompetence.

There's a lot I could say here about how I think Sony is in the wrong, but I'll just say this;

I would buy a new Resistance game in a heart beat. I would love to eventually play another Killzone. And I'd buy, play, complete, and plat both long before I did the same for another COD.

All season passes should have to come with a roadmap of content. So that customers know what it is they are buying.

I got burned twice before with Destiny 1 and Halo Wars 2.

This is one of the reasons I wait a year before buying games. Though if this game has four years of "content", I may just wait that out.

I'm not buying something when I don't know what I get with my money.

@Beerheadgamer82 Everything's better when someone is watching.

"complain about the price of a loaf of bread?"

Some of y'all never had Nans, and it shows.