Duderino

It's been a while since I've seen such a disconnect between online discussion around a title and actual market interest.

Days Gone is tracking very strong. Pre-orders are great especially for a new IP.

Last time I remember something like this was Ghost Recon Wildlands.

— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) April 14, 2019

9 minutes ago, fuckle85 said:

Well, don't remember making a claim with certainty about how much success Days Gone's would have other than saying it doesn't seem like it has a lot of hype, and that short term and/or long term success isn't guaranteed so I hope it does well. I guess that's a controversial statement though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No one knows exactly how well it will do.  The only debate here is what the factors are and how much they matter.

2 hours ago, fuckle85 said:

 

I dunno, tbh I'm kinda over this debate having presented what I feel is enough evidence to back up my argument.

 

Now I'm just fascinated by all the freudian slips in your post here. 

How does your argument account for Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon Wildlands, No Man Sky, Mafia III, etc?  What do you make of Days Gone's current success on the Amazon charts?  Seems only fair to consider all the evidence, right?

I think your point is applicable to games going from bad (little to no buzz) to worse (widespread negativity), but I do question how well it fits here.

33 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Huh? 

The Last Jedi and Han Solo had a bit of a muted look.  They still have color of course, but the way it pops here is more reminiscent of Episodes 1-3.  For me anyways.

Think it’s a good thing.  I like seeing some variety to the way the Star Wars universe is presented.

Well that was different from what I was expecting.  A lot more colorful than the recent movies.

On 4/11/2019 at 12:57 PM, fuckle85 said:

 

I think this is an optimistic but potentially inaccurate take.  It's easy to see a message boards thread and the amount of complaining and nitpicking and chalk it up to  "just insulated messageboard culture", but when you're talking about a large accumulative userbase across multiple boards and social media platforms and opinions expressed from various corners of the world, it seems possible to me the internet response to games can be indicative enough of offline reactions as well, and there's not much evidence I'm aware of that contradicts this.  Do you have proof this isn't the case?

 

Also I don't think "a drop in the bucket" accurately describes the extent to which the attitudes of complaining/entitlement/non-constructive criticism/passions/etc you see everywhere on the internet may both reflect and influence the sales and potential cultural impact of games unless you're referring to the far more extreme and toxic subcultures in gaming, which ARE a vocal minority and are definitely not perspectives considered by most of the industry, or even entertained on most of the popular message boards, at least not as much these days. 

 

But there's still a prevalence in other various reactions online, negative or otherwise that you see among game consumers, and game studios still on some level consider these reactions when making their products since one of their main goals is to please a broad audience.

 

That said, unless there's actual quantitative data that can pinpoint the extent of how influential consumer reaction is and how much that, along with streams and professional reviews, impact financial success and cultural impact of a games, we're mostly just a bunch of dudes on a message board speculating here.  

 

One thing that does seem to be pretty clear though is the quality of the game itself can significantly determine how successful critically, culturally and financially it will be, but sometimes this isn't the case either.  

There are ample concrete examples in this thread of AAA tittles smeared online, far worse than anything thrown at Days Gone, that performed way better than message boards, youtubers, articles, and even reviews would indicate.  If there is a strong correlation, why has it failed to make a sizable difference on soo many occasions?   

Which brings us to Days Gone.  

Why would its success be any more at the whim of internet negativity?  Is a hot take like “gamers are sick of zombies” really enough to burry Days Gone’s future?

3 hours ago, fuckle85 said:

 

Basically this. Sales ultimately matter more to studios and publishers, but what I was trying and I suppose failing to express is an acknowledgment of the symbiotic relationship between sales numbers, reviews and public perception that can and often does exist. The only thing I have to add/reiterate is I think the extent of how influential the voice of the consumer is can be difficult to quantify and varies depending on the game and studio.  Sometimes popular opinion of players can effect sales of some games, and it's reflected via the reaction online across multiple sources.

I’d agree that Streams and Lets Plays are having a notable impact when it comes to promoting additional sales.

But media that is fueled primarily by criticism and concerns, whether it’s overtly negative articles phishing for clicks, dramatic YouTubers seeking self-affirmation, or drive-by comments on gaming forums or social media, very little if it ever reaches a wide enough audience to make an impact.  Why?  Because the appeal of this content only resonates with a very small, insular group of consumers.

The negative voices collectively amount to a drop in a bucket compared to the impact of positive buzz.

I do believe with the right marketing, open-wilderness action survival horror, as a game concept, can sell plenty well.

18 hours ago, fuckle85 said:

True, I meant from both a sales, critic and word of mouth perspective.  Sometimes a 7.5-7.9 is a viewed by many as a death sentence to games that are actually still pretty fun.  Review scores can have a lot of pull, so if DG reviews well it'll probably stir more hype and make it more of an event than word of mouth (online at least, i don't have many friends who game irl) right now seems to indicate.

Good reviews would certainly help, but by the day it’s becoming increasingly clear that there is a large amount of buzz surrounding the game.  Days Gone has its detractors for sure, but the concerned rhetoric is looking increasingly out of touch with the game’s sales potential.

For a little context Days Gone is currently the #1 selling PS4 tittle on Amazon.  Comparatively MK11, the other big April release, is sitting at #10.

4 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

PUBG and Ark have performance issues because they were programmed by talentless apes. 

I guess that kinda speaks to the problem.  

There’s just not many AAA open world UE4 tittles out that demonstrate the engine is well suited for a world like Anthem’s. Not saying that Frostbite is either of course.

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Despite all its other problems, Crackdown 3 is open world and has plenty of fast traversal. Days Gone, too. Fortnite for sure. Kingdom Hearts 3 has everything but the online play (and let's be clear: 4-player co-op is not a challenge for the fucking Unreal engine), Ark, PUBG, etc.

Is there any single game exactly like Anthem? No. But "has graphics, open world and 4-player co-op" are not features I expect Unreal to struggle with, and tons of Unreal Engine games move extremely fast and look extremely nice. You don't even fucking fly that fast in Anthem. You fall to the ground like 3-4x faster than you jet straight down, it's slowed down that much.

Know what else UE4 has? A FUCKING THIRD-PERSON CAMERA OPTION BY DEFAULT.

 

Frostbite isn't built for this shit. You have developers screaming that the engine and tools suck, there is no need to defend or pretend. Frostbite is great if you're Dice, making a Dice game, and not great for anyone else. Period.

  Ark and PUBG definitely have had their performance issues.  Crackdown 3 ran well, excluding the apparent hitching on PC,  but is far less dense of a world than Anthem’s.  Days Gone looks to be the more demanding open-world UE4 tittle, but going by earlier impressions has also faced performance challenges throughout development.  State of Decay 2 also clearly struggled with streaming issues. Kingdom hearts I can’t really speak to. Fortnite I’d put into a similar camp as Dice, given its built by the engine developers.

There’s obviously a lot more to an engine than just how performant it is, but I do see a common thread of open world tittles that have also struggled in this department with UE4.  Doesn’t mean the engine is incapable, just there’s likely a lot of modifications happening under the hood by these devs to get their games running well.

19 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

They need to be allowed to use Unreal Engine. 

Honest question, have there been any UE4 games with Anthem’s complexities that demonstrate the game would be better suited for the engine?  Something like a big AAA open world game with high speed traversal, loads of FX on screen, and online multiplayer?

I’m sure frostbite came with major challenges, but Anthem’s game pitch isn’t exactly a safe bet for any engine.

Impressions from Kinda Funny at 41 min.

Some points:

- Impressed with the narrative and acting.  Want to see how the story plays out.

- Praised the UI, specifically the "Storylines", wheel, and touchpad enabled menus.

- "Storylines" help connect the world activities with the narrative.  There is a % complete associated with each storyline that they like.
- Greg compares it to AC: Odyssey quite a bit:

     - Quality of Life features like looting multiple items at once.

     - Progression that allows players to focus on different play styles.

     - The world overall is pulling Greg in like ACO.

     - Implies that visually Days Gone makes ACO look rough.

- They bounce back and forth between Horizon, TLOU, and ACO comparisons.

- The bike maintenance is a natural extension of the activities in the game.  Not a pain.

- Didn't expect this quality given Sony Bend's history of handheld tittles.  The experience working on an Uncharted game shows here.

- Question marks pop up on your radar that imply something is happening near by the player may want to explore.  Could be an ambush.  

(Lots more in the video)
 

5 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Shadow of War's "grind" was vastly overstated. Like dramatically so...

Same goes for FXV’s Chapter 13.  And WW’s tri-force quest.  And probably Anthem too.

The common thread between it all, arbitrary late game progression stalls can lead to unhappy gamers and lower review scores.

I can understand the complaints.  Good on Bioware for tweaking it, but for some players this is still going to be an arbitrary progression blocker.  As endgame content though it would probably be fine.  People might even appreciate it.  Same could be said for Wind Waker's Triforce Quest,  FFXV's Chapter 13, Shadow or War's Nemesis Grind, etc.

I never quite understood why some thought the Metroid 4 announcemment was such a home run for Nintendo during their E3 direct.  Sure, it gave fans something to get excited for, but compared to just about any other game shown at the press conferences and show floor, the MP4 logo was as low effort as it comes.  To put it into perspective, we’ve seen more of the FF7 remake.

So EA canceled the tittle, then gave Motive only 2 years to cobble together a new, smaller game?.... yeah, good luck with that.  

I bet Viseral could have shipped a much better game by 2020 if EA only saw it through.

6 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

There is little doubt in my mind that both of the cancelled Star Wars projects (Visceral's and this one) have the same root cause: EA's mandated use of the Frostbite Engine for all of it's projects.

 

No pressure, Respawn Entertainment.  None at all.

Visceral and Motive would have had their hands full with a 3rd party engine as well.

EA as a publisher just lacks the the patience to see these games through while sticking to a vision.

7 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

I don't think this is true in the slightest. Politics aren't always, or even really usually, some kind of uber-topical thing. Certainly things change on certain levels, but take a game like Papers, Please. Entirely political and yet timeless. But I think that point is relevant whether or not the game is specifically made to make a political statement (which PP certainly was). And a lot of outlets are ditching the idea of scores. 

 

Most AAA games attempt to stay away from overt political messages, mainly because they are trying to appeal to a mass audience + they have too many cooks with a role in making the stew, but many of them are still quite political, intentional or not. Reviewers shouldn't shy away from their own political leanings when critiquing them. They just need to explain their criticisms in the review, and then there's nothing to hide. The idea that you can separate your political leanings if you are going to critique something is, I think, fake anyway, so the way to go about it is to be comprehensive and honest in your review. The reader can take it or leave it, but that's the point of a review. As I said before, the idea of an objective review is silly. If that's what you're looking for, a lot of people certainly try, so I guess there's plenty of those to go around if that's what you're looking for. 

 

I think the alternative is much more interesting and useful for the industry nowadays. There's so many ways you can get a feel for the gameplay, graphics, and see if it's just generally the type of game you'd like without having someone spell it out in a 9/10 score. So let's have reviews go after the interesting stuff. 

I agree that politics in gaming don’t have to be topical, but when part of the gaming press wants to draw parallels to current affairs and starts to stir up those expectations, it clouds up the game intent dev’s are trying to communicate (locked down years in advance) and sets the stage for some really odd criticisms in reviews.

Politics may not be the focus of every big budget tittle, but it has been a large influence over the years.  No disagreement there.  Curious though, since you brought it up, which tittles do you think have crooks at the helm suppressing a political message?  You might not be wrong, but it is a heavy accusation so I hope you have examples.

4 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

The notion of any semblance of or requirement for objectivity in this type of activity is a fool's errand.  Hell, I personally consider the entire philosophical notion of "objectivity" itself to be completely false premise simply by the inherent nature of the human condition where the entirety of existence itself is filtered through our totally subjective physiological/psychological conditions.

 

Instead of pretending or paying lip service to the false notion of objectivity, we should be striving to make our inherently subjective positions as logically supportable as possible.

I do think it is the responsibility of the reviewer to set aside articles trying the label a game prior to release and evaluate it, to the best of their ability, on their own experience.  Politics can certainly play into that, games (and reviewers) don’t exist in a bubble, but that is not what I view as the issue here.  It’s the click-bait, frequently misinformed, hot takes that are hardly grounded in game itself getting repeated in reviews and previews as a point of criticism.  Not always related to politics either.

Hope that clears up my view.  I really don’t care to get into a philosophical debate over what is or isn’t truly objective.

While video games are in no way removed from politics, they are perhaps the worst medium in the entertainment biz for making a political statement on current afairs.

Games just take too damn long to make.  Outlets that choose to grade tittles on their ability to draw parallels to modern trends are basically weighting their scores on the ability of developers to predict and provide commentary on the future.  

Unfortunately with a lot of reviews I’ve read that talk politics this context is completely lost.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good discussion to have, but it requires a degree of objectivity on the reviewer’s part that frequently doesn’t exist.

Played for several hours offline today.  The game’s pace stops just short of Melee thanks to quicker attacks and faster movement than 4, but what the game gains in speed it lacks in responsiveness.  I’m assuming the 6+ frames of input lag have a lot to do with it.  Here’s hoping that Nintendo can improve it, because the game could (and should) feel soo much better.  The level 9 CPU’s do put up a good challenge, but it doesn’t feel like they are working with the same handicap at all.

Overall I’m enjoying it more than I thought it would, but it is rough around the edges at the moment.  Here’s hoping a fix is in the works.

I’m just hoping Smash Ultimate’s gameplay is a bit more open-ended than its predecessor.  Smash 4 was definitely an improvement on Brawl, but at the same time the physics and combos felt very pre-deterministic for a Smash game.  Ready for more variability and unpredictability again.

Ready at Dawn just opened an office in Portland a few weeks back.  Clearly they’ve aquired lots of additional funding to extend their operations like that. Microsoft makes sense.

12 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

On original PS1 hardware, 3d textures typically looked like a pixelated, jittery, warped perspective mess.  Lines in textures couldn't even render straight.  I was definitely on the side of the N64 smear back in the day.

Not to mention the ps1 also had that polygon wobble.  Wish the PS1 classic included methods emulators have developed to combat the problem.

Here’s hoping the eventual n64 classic takes more liberties with the emulation.  N64 games can actually hold up relatively well with a resolution bump, AA, and some texture filtering.

18 hours ago, Dodger said:

If you're looking at MS's acquisitions and saying well that's nice and they'll make some nice little games but there isn't any HZD, GOW, Spiderman, UC4, Days Gone etc etc potential there, well if you would have looked at these studios even 5 years ago, sans ND you wouldn't have seen these games coming from Sony either. I'm not going to predict that they will have the same success as Sony's historic recent run, but don't surprised if some of these studios step up and create successful "AAA" games that you never saw coming. Because outside of ND that's what Sony has done. 

The biggest challenge for Microsoft to expand their AAA portfolio will be having the patience to see it develop.  Playground needs time to build their character pipeline for the rumored Fable title.  The Initiative has to hire a new team, develop their process, and find their identity.    Undead Labs, InExile, Obsidian, etc require investment and time to make the visual, performance, and presentation leap into modern AAA territory.  Even Ninja Theory, while arguably in the best position of these new acquisitions, has historically relied on outside studios to fill in their manpower gaps.

Just like Sony’s internal studios, it will take years to see the same kind of leap forward.  

I agree with others that “AAA” is not the goal for many of their new partners.  Content is.