$25 for a 4 hour or so experience might not be most people's cup of tea if they solely base things off of "dollar per hour" ratios (which I think is an insane way to judge a game's worthiness)
However, Jusant was a great game. The varied locations, the music, the little twists on the climbing gameplay, spelunking into little hidden caverns to find shrines and story tidbits of the people's lives before. It was absolutely worth my time. If people stopped worrying about dollar per hour ratiols or graphics or other random arbitrary things that don't really mean anything in terms of a game's quality, games like this would probably score a lot more recognition in the industry
That is something about this acquisition that benefits customers and not just Microsoft.
Yeah, but only the customers that Microsoft allows to play that product. What about Bethesda games being longstanding multi platform IPs that are now locked to Xbox consoles and Playstation users who might have been playing them on their consoles since Oblivion now get fucked.
Acquisitions like this are fine UNLESS it's a multi trillion dollar conglomerate gobbling up the industry's largest players. That is not beneficial to anyone. And there is no way to justify it is
I agree, which is why I think creating companies around subjective reviews by boiling things down to a score that people are expected to take objectively as a measure of a product's worth is entirely asinine and silly. ESPECIALLY when the general triat of capitalism allows these review companies to have their bias and subjections swayed by not wanting to bite the hand that feeds their comapny's existence
Sony being in a "dominant" position doesn't mean the answer is to just let Microsoft buy out a nice chunk of the larger industry as a whole.
Microsoft has money, they can use that to create and invest and build up studios themselves. Corporate consolidation never helps anyone but the company buying out the other company.
Microsoft buying out Betheda and ActiBlizz will not benefit consumers in any way
I played the demo the other day. It really like it. Really nails the kind of PS1/DC survival horror vibe. I was getting a lot of Blue Stinger vibes from it
"Graphics:" are the only thing consoles can actively advertise on since "graphics" are the easiest thing to showcase in a screenshot or video.
It's why so many gamers whine and complain about "graphics" being the most importnat thing that determines whether they buy a game or not, which I find completely asinine.
Notice I put graphics in quotes a lot. That's because I distinctly and separating graphics/fidelity and art direction/aesthetic. I would much rather take a great game with a unique art style and lower fidelity over a game that has good fidelity, but a bog standard boring art direction and a color pallete of mostly browns and grays where 90% of the budget went to visuals and not the gameplay or content.
It's why I pretty much don't play modern AAA games. Year after year it's just the same crap rehashed in a slightly differnet $60 package. Why would I buy Call of Duty 26 or Open World Collectathon But This Time There's a Spider-Man Coat of Paint On It when I can play shit like Signalis or Crow Country or any of the Yakuza games or Nier or Antichamber or Death Stranding or Monster Hunter
It's not about how many Microsoft owns. It's how large the ones they own are. Microsoft has essentially made long time huge third party developers/publishers part of their company now, that's corporate consolidation and should never be defended or justified in any way.
Microsoft has trillions of dollars. They have the capital, workforce, and time to build up their own studios. If the only way a trillion dollar company can "compete" in a space is to consolidate that space by applying anti consumer tactics like buying out longstanding publishers, that's stupid and a lie.
Eh, I don’t think the big review sites can survive if they get blacklisted by one or a few publishers.
Then those review sites shouldn't exist. It directly conflicts with their entire business model of "reviewing products objectively" when they can't review products objectively without fear of the hand that feeds getting mad at them for saying the truth
A review site that lies isn't a review site. It's advertising
The employees being treated better under MS is probably the only positive about a trillion dollar conglomerate purchasing multiple of the industry's largest third party publishers in the industry's largest purchase ever.
This acquisition doesn't benefit the average gamer in any actually good way
It's not even a Nintendo Curve (They might have a stronger curve), but the vast majority of the time these large review sites are all in the pockets of publishers (event invites, interviews, exclusive first looks, review copies etc) and in order to keep that gravy train going so their review company doesn't fold means to not bite the hand that feeds too much, even if you have to lie.
Video games aren't in danger of becoming a monopoly,
Microsoft, a trillion dollar tech conglomerate, has just purchased multiple of the entire video game's largest publishers. It is entirely in danger of becoming a monopoly
there are so many QOL improvements they can’t really be treated as the same game.
there's a few, but it definitely doesn't make it a superior version or anything. Honestly Bluepoint did what Bluepoint does best and fucked with the lightning and color palette too much and the PS5 remake of Demon's Souls loses a lot of what made the original's aesthetic so great.
Yeah how dare consumers expect feature parity with games on a device that Microsoft said require feature parity so the same product gets the same features regardless of which one you buy.
$25 for a 4 hour or so experience might not be most people's cup of tea if they solely base things off of "dollar per hour" ratios (which I think is an insane way to judge a game's worthiness)
However, Jusant was a great game. The varied locations, the music, the little twists on the climbing gameplay, spelunking into little hidden caverns to find shrines and story tidbits of the people's lives before. It was absolutely worth my time. If people stopped worrying about dollar per hour ratiols or graphics or other random arbitrary things that don't really mean anything in terms of a game's quality, games like this would probably score a lot more recognition in the industry