Runescape developers made a hole for afk skilling on summer event and most of people who took part in summer event - was in a hole, talking about how moist and fun it is.
Talking about holes... We nee Hole VR🌚
the difference is, ubisoft wants you to pay $100 for a game that is just ok, and expect you to cup their balls and give so much praise, when all they really accomplished was another mediocre star wars product.
Probably, but no AAA company would ever sell a game for $5. They'd try to replicate the experience of the hole digging game, add microtransactions and "season passes" and still sell it for $70
There's an article on push to talk (that features an interview with zeekers too) estimating it sold approximately 10 million copies by January 2024 but really I was referencing a video I saw about lethal company
Nah. It has been bizzare to me how the real answers are never spoken about on bsky/x. Meanwhile in the industry, everyone knows about the real reasons for many of the 'problems' on social media game dev. But it's just not worth fighting with people who can't handle it
Neat.
I would love to hear your take on NetEase firing Thaddeus Sasser and his team after they delivered on what would have likely been a billion dollar free to play franchise this year in Marvel Rivals.
When the price of AAA titles is quickly being normalized as $70 with some publishers spitballing about releasing high profile releases like GTA for even more people expect them to be amazing experiences worth every penny
Ye it's just whenever I flee monsters due to low health I get turned around, which is also fine because it's such a pretty cave with a nice soundtrack https://youtu.be/p6QqM_WCtcI
Brian pro tip:
If you wait for one or two seconds After exiting battle... The game will point you and the camera the way you were facing previous to the battle
Just like @superbocky.bsky.social said, our game, The Glitch Fairy, has a cave level. Not only that, we also have a CRYSTAL cavern level. That's twice the cave action!
While I do acknowledge the importance of said holes, I will also add that if I give up on a game, it's oftentimes because it's unfun to begin with. And if it's unfun to engage with at all, why would I bother sticking around to see if going In its hole would make it better?
Unfortunately both are correct statements.
The first is true for the "games are bad now" crowd that only sees mainstream triple-A.
The second is true for people whose taste isn't super limited
"Extraordinary" isn't inaccurate, but I imagine they're using it to mean something else.
A game about digging a hole is, quite literally, extraordinary (who the hell has played a game before where you just dig holes??). Everything coming out of Ubisoft is very much not, tho.
Ubisoft needs to understand that if you're gonna make a Star Wars game, yeah, "solid" isn't what u should shoot for. Damn right gamers are gonna expect extraordinary for a title like SW. But like ur saying here, gamers are cool w digging a hole, too. Ubs just over-chewed trying to tackle a SW game.
Also nobody actually cared about this one particular game. SW fans aren't a monolith, it has a vast transversal fandom of all ages and tastes and yet...
The promise of another cookiecutter ubisoft experience felt uninteresting. Maybe the game is "solid" but we already played it a lot of times
Doesn’t this completely miss the point? The hole game was made in a week and has received continuous patches for bug issues. Yet it’s successful with no where near the number of work hours as the average triple A game?
I am not sure you understand the absolute state of the games industry. 100 hour work weeks on crunch time. That is not normal, and yet is treated as a requirement for most of the games you play. If a simple, tiny indie game has some jank, but didn't torture their employees, I will take it.
The reason the smaller game did well is a blend of factors, but the core selling point of "dig a hole!" vs "go on a star wars adventure!" brings different expectations
I lost the comment but someone said that for them, "work less" means not wasting effort on stuff if it's not worth it and I really agreed with that. "Work less" could be not adding an extra battle system that clashes with the main game, or keeping the scale of the game smaller and more focused.
Exactly. I think the thing that rubs me the wrong way is how it openly says "I want games to be short and ugly," when it apparently MEANS "we shouldn't worry about games being perfect and infinitely long."
It's such a class act in narrative story telling. No words just seeing a life unfold through where they live, who they live with, how they are treated.
One of my favorites is when they move in with their bf and he's made no space for them.
Some of my favourite games are janky as hell titles from the 90s, which I have played exclusively as an adult many years later, because they so specifically nail the experience they are going for in a way no AAA four quadrant ludoslurry ever can.
Western gaming is dying thanks to corporatism. I mean they just released Civ VII only going up to 1950 with all the other eras included but locked away for a future $50 DLC, removed a critical empire (England) because it’s too “imperialistic” but all the others are fine… crazy.
I mean, I think the meme is going after the CEO rhetoric that makes success for most AAA releases unachievable. I wouldn't call that Gamergate-level rhetoric, its a serious problem.
I didn't mean for this to go significantly further than "simple games can be fun"
But Ubisoft also made Prince of Persia last year which was a relatively simple and extremely fun game that was reviewed glowingly..... And then fired the whole team.
Yeah, and that's the issue. I worked for Blizzard for 11 years and my job was taken away because Microsoft became a majority and then fired 2000+ people.
Then talks veered off into the perceived quality of Blizz games, and from there to "then they deserved to be fired" was just a couple steps.
Ubisoft CEO ie the creep who keeps his staff in miserable conditions and makes sure his family are kept in high management roles despite poor decisions 🙄
Absolutely
But if more developers would think of the audience as "people playing games who want to have fun" it's not hard to see why so many indie games succeed
And if development costs can be measured in thousands instead of millions.... It's not hard to recoup lol
not really i've played both hole game and outlaws. outlaws was disappointing compared to even survivor or fallen order let alone most of the under $20 games i've bought recently.
No Ubisoft, you're just so disconnected with what anyone wants that you can't tell that there is a difference between what You think the customer wants
vs
what the customer Actually wants.
Stop blaming anyone but yourselves, I HATE AAA STUDIOS I hate the state of the gaming industry.
I think the issue is AAA games are making essentially the same game over and over and over, just with different characters or settings. Similar gameplay, similar storyline, so you have to go bigger and bigger and bigger. Being creative and doing something new is just more INTERESTING to players.
One is a focused game that was made for a specific audience and stuck to the plan....the other was bloated with too much junk and some of the worst writing.
Sure
Moreso I was pointing out both are "solid" games, it just so happens that solid is good enough for us but not for Ubisoft apparently
Which is their own fault
If your game costs $70 in this economy? Yeah, not many people are going to want to buy that unless it's fantastic. A $5 game? Hell, that's cheaper than buying a takeaway lunch these days. Why not try it?
"you've broken free of the spice mines on kessel, but you find yourself wandering aimlessly. you need to gather the materials needed to get off this heap."
How do you know about the time I dug a hot tub hole in the beach of Hawaii? other kids showed up and we even had to fend off jealous adults, we sat in that hole that filled up with water, it was amazing
I am teaching myself options so I can buy puts off EA and retire. The AAA industry is in such a mess. Like late Soviet Union level of sclerotic and decrepit. Good riddance.
Alternative Text:
"Why cant gamers be satisfied with shareholder-acceptable levels of fun that fall within our profit-risk financial policies?" asks multi-billion-dollar profit machine Ubisoft.
Omg! When will corpos understand that people hate soulless games! True gamers do not care about anything besides the game being good. We play video games to transport us to far away lands. We want to be taken out of reality! Just write good stories, developed good game design.
I would have liked Star Wars Outlaws a lot more if I wasn't forced to play Jane Human. In this entire galaxy, with all these crazy species, they really couldn't let us be anything else? Also would've liked a little more "Outlaw" in the game too. Let me have blaster duels like RDR2 or something.
Honestly being easy to please makes life so much easier. Being less prone to disappointment? Being more easily entertained? Finding perfection being 100x easier? Yes please!
Made really morally correct? And NPC can reinforce that by asking "are you sure this is the route you want to take?"
Remember the original Rayman? I sure do. It was a gameplay experience with a touch of narrative. It was amazing. Ubi needs to STFU and get back to their roots.
Exactly!
That's why I was so pissed off about Dear Days 2. The game is simply "the same game 2" (and in some aspects, worse), but for some reason they had the ✨ brilliant ✨ idea of selling the game for the measly sum of $70! (Actually $100, since you need the DLCs to get new packages!!!)
I mean, nice dunk on Ubisoft and all, but can you imagine what people would say if *they* released the hole game?
Part of having a published work is the perceived expectation that every new release needs to be on par or better than your last. And on that point he's pretty justified.
let's be honest. a game with a plotline including "there's a town in the center of the city. take me there, but don't expect my mechanics to work well. i'll get stuck and die from tripping over a pebble" is trash. automatically. ON THE OTHER HAND!! DIG A FUCKING HOLE?!?! HELL YEAH!!!
Let an indie developer make a kinda shitty $5 star wars game where boba Fett has to climb out of the sarlacc put with a rake for some reason and I'll put 150 hours into it and call it the best game of the year.
If you advertise a triple-A experience, you better deliver a triple-A experience. If you advertise an indie diggy diggy hole and deliver a fun diggy diggy hole game, you'll get appraisal. It's that easy.
I play Beast of Bermuda and spend HOURS using a dino to dig a hole, put music and turn off my brain from the existencial crisis that surrounds real life.
It's extremely hard for AAA games to reach the oh so sought after soul in their products. Not because the individual devs aren't good at their job, but because the nature of the project makes it way less personal. Ubi did release the new PoP last year, that was great (and then canned the sequel 😔)
Yep
They're one of those companies that's been complaining for years that it's not cheap to make video games so they have to sell well..... So then they make a scaled down and amazing product and don't follow through
AAA doesn't give a shit about making "solid" games. Many can't even measure up to that standard. No, they make "mediocre" games with incomplete features, expect you to pay out the ass for them right out the gate, and then keeping paying to get the rest of the game spoon-fed to you as DLC.
Sometimes AAA often doesn't even give you complete experience as DLC. Nooo, they just sell you band-aids for the broken core gameplay spoon-fed to you as DLC.
We have such an enormous variety of games available to us now...that after you play something like Vampire Survivors for 100 hrs...
The clones are already too late
I'm moving on to Balatro lol
There a big element of investments and trends in these things.
Its a quite difficult to convince someone to fork up 60-70$ and a 100 hours for a new game, but it's not nearly as difficult to ask them to spend 5 and an evening to try out a weird little product.
https://youtu.be/Ty4RvClI_iQ?si=UbyH6-lEp3heupyp this video today from @retr0j.bsky.social should highlight that popular games are accessible, cheap games that don’t require expensive hardware
I truly think the people who want every game to have high fidelity graphics, a riveting story, dynamic characters, and addicting gameplay. Are really just the minority over all. I’ve played more indie games and games with much lower budgets that I’ve enjoyed more than other games.
Fuck I enjoy older games where I don’t have to wonder if it’ll crash my laptop.
I think there’s 3 camps of gamers overall.
1. The anti-woke crowd that want every game to be far cry 3 and call of duty world at war anything other then that and its woke and gonna suck to them
2. People who (cont)
Want the moon and more out of every game that comes out and anything less then a 10/10 on metastatic or whatever is a flop in their eyes.
3. And then gamers. Those of us who play what we want and don’t care about what we don’t like.
Like sure pretty realistic-looking games are great and look super cool but yeah for me I'd rather have there be something compelling to enjoy rather than something pretty to look at.
Are the characters interesting? gameplay fun? that's what truly matters
It's like, just do something interesting, something worth playing and caring about. AAA games often don't feel like that, they feel like Product designed by Man In Suit.
Just do anything that's not the same freeze-dried space garbage we've already seen a thousand times before but that this time you can see the black heads on that random npc's face.
That would require taking risks to some degree, which is a no from aaa studios.
AAA games (according to shareholders) need to sell hundreds of millions over their budget to be worth it. So nearly every big title ends up being as safe and broadly palatable as possible because a good selling 8 is worth more then a niche 10
Speaking of digging holes, this is the hole you dig yourself into when you cater to an audience who thinks a game's value is directly proportionate to it's budget.
The Western AAA Gaming Industry is about to collapse because these people can't manage the scope of their 7-Year-long $200M projects
all large companies are just copies of openai and sam altman begging for billions of dollars to create garbage nobody wants or asks for instead of something useful
I will never understand why AAA studios think a bigger price tag means the game is 'better' when indie games or lost cost games have been out performing time and time again in all parts of the market
I mean, yeah? A $70 experience (and that's WITHOUT all the content) should be a lot more extraordinary compared to a $5 experience. I don't exactly see the contradiction. Ubisoft's experiences haven't been good enough to justify the asking price for a long time. The hole game justifies being $5.
It’s not our faults we deliver shit games because we focus on micro transactions and appealing to the widest audiences possible instead of focusing on personal passions! It’s the fault of everyone else!!!
I just dont want a game for 80€ that needs 800 hours to finish, and the actual story is like 8h and out of those 8 hours ill like 3 or 2 hours. Quantity is not quality. "Ah but we have a quirky mechanic!" thats literally every ubisoft game.
To be fair, 15 years ago Ubisoft made From Dust, which was a game about digging holes, among other things, and it was really good at the hole digging aspect, and no one bought it.
My problem is with Star wars outlaws is that the stealth and combat looks really bad. Theres like 1 stealth takedown. Punching a stormtrooper in its helmet. The gun combat is just bad. Also, I have quest 64 on cart still. For some reason people overhated it or something
Comments
1. Stupidly High Expectations For No Reason
2. Inexplicible love for jank
There's no in between.
Talking about holes... We nee Hole VR🌚
I would think so
Those CEOs are SOOOOO far removed from reality that it's like they never experienced a group of dudes digging a hole at the beach
Peak entertainment!!
Me, a chad: “hahahaha shovel go brrrrrr”
They have no plans to do that again
All of them have millions of sales.
It checks out. 👌
I just don't give a s*** about your profit margins lol
Im here to at least say it
I would love to hear your take on NetEase firing Thaddeus Sasser and his team after they delivered on what would have likely been a billion dollar free to play franchise this year in Marvel Rivals.
When the price of AAA titles is quickly being normalized as $70 with some publishers spitballing about releasing high profile releases like GTA for even more people expect them to be amazing experiences worth every penny
If your game has a hole and an underground explorable area we will buy it
https://bsky.app/profile/radventure.bsky.social/post/3lh4tmgss5k26
*Assorted void screaming*
The second one was okay, but islands can't compete with holes
Unless you never want to leave which is totally valid
https://youtu.be/p6QqM_WCtcI
If you wait for one or two seconds After exiting battle... The game will point you and the camera the way you were facing previous to the battle
Take notice 🙏
But you can also play it for free on your smartphone
Indeed
The problem isn't the lack of explorable holes, it's that AAA game studios are making holes that are unfun to explore.
It's not how many holes you have, it's how fun it is to be in them.
What if it's better in 5 feet
We may not know unless we dig
But a game that beats around the bush, has a shitty personality, and isn't fun to spend your time with? But is promising holes? Not for me.
Both may be shallow but the digging game is honest.
The first is true for the "games are bad now" crowd that only sees mainstream triple-A.
The second is true for people whose taste isn't super limited
See how often it comes up for you!
A game about digging a hole is, quite literally, extraordinary (who the hell has played a game before where you just dig holes??). Everything coming out of Ubisoft is very much not, tho.
The promise of another cookiecutter ubisoft experience felt uninteresting. Maybe the game is "solid" but we already played it a lot of times
No complaining about poor optimization.
No complaining about bad writing.
No complaining about reused assets.
No complaining about delays or over-promising.
No complaining about ANYTHING.
Walk the walk.
If a game has shitty optimization and bad writing, well, those developers were working less, just like you said they should.
No complaining.
But that Sonic meme is just polemic-ass horseshit that should never be posted, anywhere.
"Hey, maybe the games could just be really great quality and even long...and it just comes at the expense of the investors buying less yachts."
THAT is a meme I can get behind.
Cause EVERYBODY understood what it meant.
It's all covered by that "work less" clause, in the meme.
If a game is shitty in any capacity, that's because the developers were working less, just like the meme said.
So, no complaints. You're getting what you said you wanted.
If you're including a story it should be coherent.
If you're including platforming it should be mechanically sound.
Work less would mean (to me): if something isn't good, cut it
As long as you never post that meme. If you do, and then it turns out you DO still actually have expectations, you're the worst kind of hypocrite.
Some get basically feature complete after 1 game jam and a month of testing.
It just depends 🤷
I'm just saying anyone who posts that particular, annoying Sonic meme never gets to complain about any aspect of any game, ever again.
That's the particular issue I'm focusing on.
Less is less. Period.
If you're asking for more quality, in any capacity, that can simply be answered with "yeah, but you said to work less."
Shouldn't have said for them to work less.
Think the writing sucks? Too bad! They were just working less.
Zero optimization? That dev didn't feel like working hard on it.
AI assets? I dunno, it sure takes more work to make real art.
Don't say what you don't mean.
It just exists to be an extreme viewpoint and drag the discussion away from actual reasonable points of view.
Which I will freely admit is something I shouldn't be helping with.
Say what you mean, even in a meme, guys.
I interpret it as a dig at common traits of AAA games
Long drawn out open world games
Hardware demanding ultra deluxe 8k realistic graphics hogging 200gb of space
And long grueling hours of lackluster pay & no guarantee you'll still have a job at the end
One of my favorites is when they move in with their bf and he's made no space for them.
a 70 dollar AAA game experience i've probably seen 40 times over the past decade or silly 5 dollar hole game
In fact my kids still regularly play goat Simulator
There is more than enough space in this industry for all kinds of games, for all kinds of preferences.
The problem isn't "HaHa UbISoFt GaMe dO the ToWeR lol CUTSCENES"
The problem is a lot more societal than that.
But Ubisoft also made Prince of Persia last year which was a relatively simple and extremely fun game that was reviewed glowingly..... And then fired the whole team.
Then talks veered off into the perceived quality of Blizz games, and from there to "then they deserved to be fired" was just a couple steps.
But if more developers would think of the audience as "people playing games who want to have fun" it's not hard to see why so many indie games succeed
And if development costs can be measured in thousands instead of millions.... It's not hard to recoup lol
vs
what the customer Actually wants.
Stop blaming anyone but yourselves, I HATE AAA STUDIOS I hate the state of the gaming industry.
I also want my pc to not fucking EXPLODE if I open your game...
You have billions of dollars and a massive team, genuinely they should be ashamed every time an indie game makes more money than them !!!
Moreso I was pointing out both are "solid" games, it just so happens that solid is good enough for us but not for Ubisoft apparently
Which is their own fault
Unfortunately Ubisoft considered a failure because they're a terrible company
I'm in
Gamers: “hole”
Swing, swing, swing with me
Raise your pick and raise your voice
Sing, sing, sing with me
lul
If it doesn't get an award it's a crime. It's the most amazingly satisfying thing ever.
Not when there's ample opportunity to dig into enormous hole and sit in it
"Why cant gamers be satisfied with shareholder-acceptable levels of fun that fall within our profit-risk financial policies?" asks multi-billion-dollar profit machine Ubisoft.
If you can't make a game without narrators or dialogue then the experience is incorrect.
Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't use narrators or dialogue because they have their place in psychological reinforcement for players.
Like is the decision you just..
Remember the original Rayman? I sure do. It was a gameplay experience with a touch of narrative. It was amazing. Ubi needs to STFU and get back to their roots.
Endrant
Gigantic multibillion international corporations should be held to a high standard if they wanna charge that fuckin much
You want 60-70 bucks? You had BETTER give me something fuckin exceptional
lil indie guys? You do you man
That's why I was so pissed off about Dear Days 2. The game is simply "the same game 2" (and in some aspects, worse), but for some reason they had the ✨ brilliant ✨ idea of selling the game for the measly sum of $70! (Actually $100, since you need the DLCs to get new packages!!!)
Part of having a published work is the perceived expectation that every new release needs to be on par or better than your last. And on that point he's pretty justified.
Thats what we want.
Donut County: less than $15 & occasionally discounted for half that price or even less.
We are talking five plus years ago though. I had no idea what it was but I knew for under $5 I had to play it
They're one of those companies that's been complaining for years that it's not cheap to make video games so they have to sell well..... So then they make a scaled down and amazing product and don't follow through
They are definitely trying to be bought
A few generations ago, you could make something quickly based on what was popular, now the popularity has passed half way through development.
We have such an enormous variety of games available to us now...that after you play something like Vampire Survivors for 100 hrs...
The clones are already too late
I'm moving on to Balatro lol
>Extraordinary experiences
Pick one.
Boobiesoft, hire me
Its a quite difficult to convince someone to fork up 60-70$ and a 100 hours for a new game, but it's not nearly as difficult to ask them to spend 5 and an evening to try out a weird little product.
I think there’s 3 camps of gamers overall.
1. The anti-woke crowd that want every game to be far cry 3 and call of duty world at war anything other then that and its woke and gonna suck to them
2. People who (cont)
3. And then gamers. Those of us who play what we want and don’t care about what we don’t like.
Are the characters interesting? gameplay fun? that's what truly matters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34CZjsEI1yU
> Concord
That would require taking risks to some degree, which is a no from aaa studios.
The Western AAA Gaming Industry is about to collapse because these people can't manage the scope of their 7-Year-long $200M projects
Report back with your findings
And games with holes are cool
The Towers also extended underground. The children yearn for the mines.
– elephant-tier memory for injustices done them
– grudges
– rightful hatred of elves
Pretty much the same people