Comments 5,452

Re: Dragon Age: The Veilguard's First PS5 Update Out Now, Adds Mass Effect Armour, Fixes Bugs

themightyant

@ShogunRok THIS so much. I’ve seen people arguing that they know what the writing is like because they’ve seen 2 or 3 short scenes picked from a 50+ hour game and projected the rest is the same.

Considering most video game writing is pretty dire I’m sure we could cherry pick bad examples of writing in most games. But as you said this is the internet… balance, rationality and nuance be damned. Especially when it’s apparently “woke”, critical thinking goes out the window as soon as that dog-whistle is blown.

Re: Take-Two Has Sold Its Private Division Subsidiary to an Unnamed Buyer

themightyant

I just don't understand the Roll7 move, they were a relatively small studio (55 people) that make lots of games (6 in the last 10 years), which review well and win awards. Rollerdrome & Olli Olli World both released in 2022 and were hightly praised. Were their games really not financially successful?

I can understand them being too small for someone like Take-Two but I would have thought someone would want to snap them up. Talented bunch. A shame.

Re: PS5 Pro Does a 'Much Better Job' of Enhancing Games Than PS4 Pro Did, Says Tech Experts

themightyant

@Cerny I can understand wanting Sony to reveal something, I really can, but I also know that development is not a straight line, and there is a wider strategy to when you announce games. They will do it when they are ready.

I haven’t seen the leaked document you speak of, because I don’t want to know what MIGHT be coming, because that is all subject to change. Plans move, games fail behind the scenes, and more. No point getting excited, or angry, over something that may never happen, much better to wait for an announcement than get exited over nothing.

But it doesn’t surprise me that they are working on multiple games, some will be in very early concept stages and they probably have schedules for the next 5-10 years. What’s the point? Should we know about these?

While I personally wish Sony would give us a little more, I absolutely don’t want them to give dates they can’t hit OR get in a mess like TLOU2 factions. Would be much better to only know about a game when it is guaranteed to come out and not be cancelled imho. Ultimately I trust the studios and creatives to know when THEY want to announce their game, it’s not an exact science, it’s ready when it’s ready.

But let me ask you this simple question. Do you honestly have a shortage of great games to play? Because my backlog is hundreds of games long. I feel ALL studios could stop making games for a couple of years and I’d still not get close to catching up. Perhaps you feel differently and have completed everything you want on PSN.

Re: PS5 Pro Does a 'Much Better Job' of Enhancing Games Than PS4 Pro Did, Says Tech Experts

themightyant

@Cerny that’s not entirely true. A few of the larger studios work on multiple games at the same time but not most.

Additionally when they are working on multiple games most of these studios will have one in pre-production and the other in full production with most devs pulled to just one. Most of them aren’t working on them both evenly. When you include pre-production a lot of the dev cycles increase to 5, 6, 7+ years especially for new IP. Again remember some games fail at this stage.

Re: Insomniac I agree they are incredible in their output. But they are a statistical anomaly, almost no AAA studios of their size matches their output. As to “why”, that’s harder to answer for sure. I’d probably say that is because for about a decade they were rated as one of the best places to work in the USA on Sites like Glassdoor, and winning awards for this, which meant they didn’t lose much talent, that makes them more efficient. They were also one of the larger studios earlier, and typically make shorter games. (Which I think is a good thing on the whole)

As for Wolverine it is reportedly not coming out for at least another year and was way back announced in 2021. Is that really what we want, games announced 5+ years in advance? The reality is this trailer wasn’t mostly for us, it was a job recruitment advert, “come work on Marvel/X-men/Wolverine.

Lastly Sony have shifted strategy around announcements with games announced and released closer together. Astro bot for example was announced in May and launched in September. Ghost of Yotei was an inched last month and due next year. This is better imho then announce, delay, delay.

I get it, we all want more groundbreaking games from Sony, but at the end of the day making games is really hard.

Re: PS5 Pro Does a 'Much Better Job' of Enhancing Games Than PS4 Pro Did, Says Tech Experts

themightyant

Cerny wrote:

with 16-18 first party studios you could expect 3 or even 4 new big games every year, so every studio has to release one big title every four to five years.

There’s a few problems with your maths here. Firstly you aren’t factoring in that some games fail in development, this has always been the case and can’t be predicted (e.g. before God of War 2018 Santa Monica were working on a Sci Fi game for years, or TLOU factions 2, etc.) Most of the time we don’t always hear about these, but it’s just part of the creative process and adds to development time.

Similarly game development doesn’t always go according to plan and a 4 year dev cycle, might turn into a 6 year one, especially for new IP, sequels are quicker and safer. Hence it’s hard to reliably space releases evenly if you are willing to let developers cook to make the best game they can, as Sony usually do. This leads to busier years and quieter years.

Third, they usually try and stack the lineups around the launch of a console so 2020, 2021 and 2022 were all pretty big years, but that might leave the years either side a bit quieter.

Lastly despite this Sony DO in fact typically release at least 3 new big games a year… they may not be the titles YOU want, and they may not all succeed, that’s just business, yet they typically do release at least 3 major titles a year. If games weren’t cancelled or delayed they would be aiming for 4-5+, but that’s not realistic. e.g.

  • 2020 - TLOU2, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-man: Miles Morales, Dreams, Astro’s playroom, Demon’s Souls, MLB The Show 2020
  • 2021 - Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, MLB 2021
  • 2022 - God of War Ragnarok, Horizon: Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, TLOU pt1, MLB 2022
  • 2023 - Spider-man 2, Horizon Call of the Mountain, MLB 2023
  • 2024 - Astro Bot, Concord, MLB 2024

Plus this isn’t factoring in second party/third party paid partnerships like Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, Stellar Blade, Helldivers 2, Rise of the Ronin, Lego Horizon all of which are 2024. Sony fill their gaps with these pretty well imho.

Re: Metacritic Responds to Ongoing Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review Bombing Campaign

themightyant

@boogieman117 It's not so easy to review bomb on Steam as you actually have to have bought the game to leave a review and helpfully it says how long they played for, and how many hours at the point of review. It is still possible, especially via brigading, organised downvoting etc. but far less easy and common.

In situations like this it's clear to see the disparity between people who did actually buy the game and those that just have an axe to grind. E.g.

  • Steam it's currently "mostly positive" with 73% giving it a thumbs up from 14,134 buyers.
  • Metacritic just 3.8 from 5,277 user reviews.

Re: PS5 Pro Has a Remarkable Impact on Unpatched Games Too

themightyant

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I agree. But I think a part of it is disappointment. They THOUGHT PS5 Pro was going to be for them, like PS4 Pro was, and then the rug was pulled out from under them when it was announced to be £700 - £800. Many people don't react well to being told they are no longer a target market for something.

Re: More and More Games Tag on PS5 Pro Support Before Launch

themightyant

One thing that seems to have been leaked by a few developers to reputable outlets like Moore's Law is Dead is how easy PS5 Pro support is to enable. There's literally a toggle and a PS5 Pro profile. Obviously you can go far deeper into optimisation, but at it's most simple many developers will be able to just enable this and get an instant boost. Smart from Sony.

Re: Metacritic Responds to Ongoing Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review Bombing Campaign

themightyant

ThaBEN wrote:

The real problem is current day game developers not understanding their core audience.

Devs know exactly what their core audience wants, many devs are also hardcore gamers who fell in love with the industry playing the same games as us, and most would love to make that hardcore game core gamers say they want. But it's just not that simple, especially at these high budgets.

The reality is that the core audience is TINY, a minority of vocal gamers like us that make noise online. At AAA budgets they simply can't make games purely for their core audience. Other than a few outliers (like BG3) that route is far more likely to lead to failure; cult hits that don't sell to the masses and flop spectacularly.

THIS is what core / hardcore gamers don't understand. That games at this scale are rarely just about us, there needs to be give and take.

Bioware, like Bethesda, USED to be a small studio that made those sort of games, but they aren't anymore, and neither are their costs.

E.g. Being an old school RPG fan I wanted Mass Effect 2 and Skyrim to be less dumbed down in terms of RPG mechanics, but they needed mass appeal to make a profit, so they made them RPG-lite in many areas to make it appeal to a wider audience.

There are studios that still make those uncompromising hardcore games that the core audience wants but they are typically much smaller budgets with less risk e.g. Disco Elysium, Pentiment or Norco.

So i'd flip your statement around and argue that instead of developers not understanding their core audience, it's more like the core audience not understanding game development and what is necessary to fund and sell a game successfully, especially at this scale. If you want that hardcore game it's probably out there, just not at AAA very often.

Re: Metacritic Responds to Ongoing Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review Bombing Campaign

themightyant

@Icey664 While potentially concerning hasn’t this basically been debunked? The only “evidence” they had was that 3 reviewers who were slightly more on the fence about the preview didn’t get review codes. Yet there were several reviewers who liked the preview (e.g. Luke Stephens who gave that preview a 9 out of 10) who also didn’t get review code and others who were more unsure or negative, like The Gamer, who did. If they really were trying to cherry pick they did a pretty bad job of it.

Meanwhile Fextralife who made the original video about access journalism have now reviewed the Veilguard where they praise some aspects of it, like the combat and performance, while lamenting others, like the writing and lack of RPG depth. It’s not really for them, they wanted a deeper RPG which is their genre, but they don’t say it’s awful either. It’s a middling review, they didn’t score it but called it “meh” like a Marvel movie suggesting it will be polarising and your enjoyment will depend on what you want from the game. But let’s say they gave it a 5 or a 6 what would that ACTUALLY do to the overall Metacritic? Very little. In fact it would take two or three 5 or 6s to reduce it just one or two percentage points. Hardly a major change.

Re: Metacritic Responds to Ongoing Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review Bombing Campaign

themightyant

The discourse around this game is toxic and tiresome, polarised between two extremes that it’s hard to parse the valid complaints and have a fair discussion.

Far too many who haven’t played it jumping in to bash it because they’ve been whipped into a frenzy online and it doesn’t agree with their politics. Their barely coherent dribbling punctuated with the same dog-whistle buzzwords, over and over whether it’s “woke”, “dei” or “sbi”. If you want to make a point about the flaws of the game, make it better, stop sounding like a sheep bleating what others have said. Have a unique thought.

On the other hand plenty overly defending it on principle, many of whom also haven’t played it, unable to see that there could perhaps be a problem with poorly written characters and a change of tone.

It’s a minefield of politically charged BS. I loathe this side of gaming.

Re: PS5 Dominates UK Black Ops 6 Sales, As Game Pass Causes Xbox Share to Collapse

themightyant

@AhmadSumadi Perhaps. But I don’t see them closing the option of digital stores anytime soon, it would be business suicide alienating too much of your audience, therefore if that ever happened we could just return to buying games individually. Which I still do in addition to Game Pass and PS+.

Much like physical and digital - I buy BOTH - choice is good, and I’ll advocate for keeping all choices open.

Re: PS5 Dominates UK Black Ops 6 Sales, As Game Pass Causes Xbox Share to Collapse

themightyant

@Intr1n5ic No one is unbiased! But I try to be a little more even and scientific than some who seem to let their hearts rule their heads too often. But we all do it occasionally. Mostly I just hate BS, that's when theMightyRANT comes out... like a moth to a flame when I see it. lol

100% looking forward to the video, he's the best in the business imho, or perhaps just my kinda science and facts first tech nerd.

Interesting speculation about the forum. I look forward to having a deeper delve when I get a moment. Happy gaming.

Re: PS5 Dominates UK Black Ops 6 Sales, As Game Pass Causes Xbox Share to Collapse

themightyant

@Intr1n5ic I appreciate that and I hadn't heard of Installbase so thanks for the heads up on that.

I don't think you, or they, are trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, their numbers may be bang on, but it's impossible to say without more info on their methodology. I just know it's very easy to miss some minutiae that then compounds when doing these sort of calculations and unwittingly put out inaccurate data.

I really just wanted to confirm if it was from an official source.

Re: Golden Joystick Reveals Nominations for 'Ultimate Game of the Year'

themightyant

Strong year. Animal Well is my current GOTY, though in truth I haven't played many of the other yet. I'm surprised UFO 50 didn't get a chance, it's a 92 on Metacritic and has more originality than every other game on this list.

@Icey664 As for Stellar Blade, should a game that got a Metascore of 81 be up for GOTY which is more of a universal award? Probably not. Instead be happy that you enjoyed it more than a lot of players and reviewers, you won already.

Re: Poll: What Did You Think of the Monster Hunter Wilds Beta?

themightyant

I've not played it, but almost all the content i've seen about it is negative from combat lacking it's usual oomph, to sup-par framerates and resolutions. Even players that raved about MH: World have been a bit mid on it from what I saw. Though it's always hard to parse, as the gaming internet is usually pretty negative.

Re: PS5 Dominates UK Black Ops 6 Sales, As Game Pass Causes Xbox Share to Collapse

themightyant

@Intr1n5ic No worries mate and thanks for sharing the source.
I have listened to the GI.biz podcast and Dring doesn't give any specific sales numbers (he never does as far as I recall, I think that info is all NDA'ed), he only gives percentages vs the last two CODs and on other occasions he gives chart positions.

So i'd take those precise sales figures with a large pinch of salt, they aren't verified figures, only roughly extrapolated from other numbers. The trouble with doing this is that the two datasets might not be an apples to apples comparison and it's easy to make small mistakes here that can compound to create less accurate data.

Re: PS5 Dominates UK Black Ops 6 Sales, As Game Pass Causes Xbox Share to Collapse

themightyant

@Banjo- GamesIndusrty.biz specifically always has data for both physical and digital in the UK, Nintendo is the only exception.

@AhmadSumadi ”Game Pass in not good for gamers” WHY?

As a gamer it’s great for me, I get FAR more value from it than what I pay and if that changes I can just switch and buy the games instead, choice is good.

I accept it isn’t good for everyone, but nothing is, perhaps it’s not for you, that’s fine, however saying it’s bad for all gamers is false.

Re: Alan Wake 2 Trapped in Financial Dark Place, 'Most' Development, Marketing Costs Recouped

themightyant

@LordAinsley Yes we are in the minority, but the stats aren't quite as one sided as Sony likes to put out. E.g. they trumpet that 70% of ALL games bought are digital but that's not a fair fight as there are many games that ONLY come out digitally. Regardless 30% is still a large chunk.

Yet if we dig a little deeper we see 82% of PS5s sold in Europe had a disc drive, and as recently as 2022 Sony published games sales were on average 65% PHYSICAL and just 35% digital worldwide, a stat we found from the Insomniac leak that I am sure they don't want us to know.

We may be in the minority but it's not as small as some think.

Re: Alan Wake 2 Trapped in Financial Dark Place, 'Most' Development, Marketing Costs Recouped

themightyant

@LordAinsley I'm not anti-digital, in fact I buy more games digitally than physically, BUT crucially I want the choice.

Especially for full priced AAA games where there are no good consumer protections in place if I don't like the game. At least with physical I can sell or return it. I also don't trust Sony not to start pricing games like Nintendo, with few/small sales, if they get the all digital future they seemingly want.

Hence I refuse to buy AAA games Day 1 at around £70, I simply won't support an ALL digital future like that, I will vote with my wallet to maintain that choice. And if the comments are representative of a wider trend in gamers then a lot of people may feel similarly. A large proportion of the comments here mention similar.

But we all live in our own mini-echo chambers. For me and my friends physical is still vitally important, but I can accept that for others, especially in other territories where pricing is different, and the second hand market might be smaller that they are all digital. All I ask for is CHOICE to decide.

Re: Alan Wake 2 Trapped in Financial Dark Place, 'Most' Development, Marketing Costs Recouped

themightyant

@LordAinsley While I agree with you that Remedy would have got zero off any second hand sales DIRECTLY, the reality is that second hand sales will get them revenue indirectly through more mindshare.

E.g. If I play a second hand game but then recommend it to 1-3+ people who buy it, and who each then recommend it to 1-3+ people who also buy it, then that original second hand sale made them money indirectly.

It's overly simplistic to say second hand gets them zero, the second hand market still has a role to play in a games success.

Re: All PS5 Pro Enhanced Games

themightyant

15 games I haven’t played but want to already on the list, several of which I’ve already bought and are on the backlog. Over 75 in total before launch, that’s impressive. Well done Sony and devs.

Re: PS5 Pro Could Seriously Improve the Quality of Your PS4 Games

themightyant

@AgentGuapo it’s not impossible. Microsoft did it in SOME games on Xbox Series X, running games at 60fps while the game still thinks it’s at 30fps. Could also be done with frame generation, but then you only get the smoother picture not the lower latency. Either way it’s 99% not going to happen. Shame

Re: PS5 Pro Packaging Flaunts Its Disc-Free Nature

themightyant

fewer than 25 per cent of games sales are purchased physically

True. But this needs to be put into perspective. Many games ONLY release digitally, especially cheaper ones. Moreover most people who are advocates of physical media ALSO buy digitally, it’s rarely just discs. So this number is heavily skewed in digitals favour.

As we saw from the Insomniac leak for PlayStation Studios titles it was 66% physical just a couple of years ago, the opposite of the figures they report. Physical is still a significant chunk, especially for more expensive AAA games.

Re: Sony Knows How to Sell PS5 in China, And It's with Gacha

themightyant

@Nyne11Tyme Go and have a look at the most played game on PlayStation, seriously go have a look. It's almost all live services, this is the list for the top 15 most played games in the last 30 days:

  • Fortnite
  • COD: MW2 / Warzone
  • EA sports FC 25
  • Roblox
  • Rainbow Six Seige
  • GTAV / GTA Online
  • Minecraft
  • Overwatch 2
  • Rocket League
  • Dragon Ball Sparking Zero
  • Dead by Daylight
  • NBA 2K25
  • Genshin Impact
  • Red Dead 2 / Red Dead Online

To be clear I'm personally not interested in most of these but facts are facts, live services are the most popular games everywhere the West included, pretending otherwise is just lying to yourself. And if we looked at revenue gained these would destroy the single player games I love.