Sony needs SONIC most, after the ASTRO BOT success.
The whole situation changed after Ms bought Axtivision. Sony also rushed to buy FPS game studios.
What should Sony's Acquisition Plans Be? *spawn*
- Thread starter RDGoodla
- Start date
Not Activision. Bethesda. When MS started acquiring large, it seems Sony felt the need to copy. Other than Insomniac, which was in keeping with Sony's traditional strategy. They seem to have bought fairly randomly and it doesn't appear to have paid off.
Looking this up, one of their acquisitions is working on stuff for Star Citizen!
Not quite randomnly. The main problem here is they started buying untested woke studios because it was the "right thing to do" and obviously their games didn't need to pass the usual internal tests because those games were "rightly targeting the modern audience". Concord is the perfect exemple of this and Fairgames will be next. You can already count on it been another massive failure for Sony.Not Activision. Bethesda. When MS started acquiring large, it seems Sony felt the need to copy. Other than Insomniac, which was in keeping with Sony's traditional strategy. They seem to have bought fairly randomly and it doesn't appear to have paid off.
Looking this up, one of their acquisitions is working on stuff for Star Citizen!
I give you 2 examples. When Barlog was doing God of War 2018 (the last great new Playstation game before AstroBot) he was constantly visited by his boss, here Shue Yoshida, to prove Sony that his game was going to be a hit and they could delay the game in confidence. From Barlog point of view Shue visits were not a joke at all, it was serious and Sony could stop funding the game suddenly.
Even Team Asobi, after only crittical successes from them for years and the best PSVR game, had to do a fu**** playable demo to prove Sony their AstroBot project was going to work!
The main problem of those western videogames companies and how the accountants are making decisions is virtue signaling. Which is why they are still buying into this new "culture". And this is why the best games are currently coming from either indies or the east. Creativity in the west is mostly dead right now.
I'm not sure I can really get behind the untested studios assertion. Sure, some of the studios were green, but they were headed or staffed by industry vets with proven track records. And I doubt Sony bought them without looking at what they were working on. Firewalk is staffed by former Bungie employees, Haven headed by Jade Raymond, Bungie made at least 1 good game, Valkyrie was a support studio on Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite and God of War Ragnarok, Bluepoint and Nixxes are talented port studios with celebrated resumes, with Lesengle and Savage/Neo Koi being mobile developers. It isn't like these studios were full of nobodies.
Indies have always been at the spearhead of creativity though, this isn't some new trend. Larger companies have traditionally been more risk averse, while smaller companies have been more apt to swing for the fences with some novel idea and mechanics. This trend you are picking up on is the industry trying to appeal to a younger demographic, because growth has stagnated and they are trying to capture younger players who have grown up playing Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite. Sometimes it works, like Helldivers 2 (which is described as a "pretty woke" game by it's community manager) and sometimes it doesn't work, like Saint's Row - Which ended up looking like Buscemi with a skateboard. Also, the problem with describing anything as "woke" is that it's proven undefinable. The previous example of Helldivers 2 is a perfect example, because it's defined as such by at least some Arrowhead employees, but many of it's players insist that it isn't.
Sure failures have always existed for various reasons. But show me a bigger failure than Concord? It's likely the biggest bomba in the videogames industry and will be reminded as such. Fairgames inevitable failure (maybe not as big as Concord though) will make it a combined catastrophic disaster for Sony. Hopefully it will teach them a lesson.
And they have others GAAS games almost as promising in the pipeline...
Duke Nukem Forever
Daikatana
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
APB: All Points Bulletin
Battlecruiser 3000AD
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury the defence rests it's case....
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Is Fairgames gameplay really worse?
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
"Woke" is quite definable. The fact that some people don't understand it doesn't change that. Kind of like Calculus.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Well, the fact some of those examples are 40 years old does open up some room for cross-examination.
Especially when one of those titles is often cited as the reason the entire game market crashed.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, Concord isn't that bad as it is slightly better than E.T."
All jokes aside, it's safe to say that Concord is the biggest fiasco in years.
arandomguy
Veteran
There might be somewhat of a technicality involved here as Concord technically released but there's been other large projects as well that had a lot of money and time sunk in that just never actually released. Everquest Next for example I think spent almost 10 years in development and ended up just cancelled. How much was sunk into Fable Legends? Anyone remember that Bethesda hero shooter Battlecry?
Or with a more recent example what about the new Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines 2 game? I mean it's technically scheduled to be released but I believe as a completley new game and from an entirely different studio? So the previous iteration that spent years in development with delays essentially got completely shelved from my understanding?
Would Concord be viewed as big a failure if they just unceremoniously cancelled it versus actually releasing? I mean if they say cancelled it 6 months prior to launch would have achieved the same notoriety? It's not like those 6 months would've really changed the financial and time sunk. Or if they let it run for say 6 months to a year? Some "failed" games were given a small run.
Or with a more recent example what about the new Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines 2 game? I mean it's technically scheduled to be released but I believe as a completley new game and from an entirely different studio? So the previous iteration that spent years in development with delays essentially got completely shelved from my understanding?
Would Concord be viewed as big a failure if they just unceremoniously cancelled it versus actually releasing? I mean if they say cancelled it 6 months prior to launch would have achieved the same notoriety? It's not like those 6 months would've really changed the financial and time sunk. Or if they let it run for say 6 months to a year? Some "failed" games were given a small run.
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cheapchips
Veteran
Is it? It always sounds like people not being able to criticise things they don't like properly. Everything they don't like is 'woke'.
Care to offer up the universal definition, so those of us who understand calculus but not 'wokeness' can understand several of the comments in this thread.
My understanding is that 'woke' is an adjective that describes a thing that promoting a set of social ideals about rights for certain groups, or maybe even every group that's not hetero-male. So black rights, women's rights, gay rights, transgender rights and gender rights in particular. I don't know how the actual word 'woke' ended up being used though. This word is also used as a complete blanket with zero nuance, so you can't have degrees of representation and anything that has some aspect of black/female/gay/gender representation can be classed by some as 'woke'.
However, I don't know if 'woke' is just representation, or if motive also needs to be a factor. Someone writing a story with a gay female protagonist could just be writing a story, or could be 'woking' (oo, that's where I live!). I also don't know if 'woke' is bad or neutral - is 'woke' a positive to get behind by those who endorse it, or those who feel supported by it?
However, I don't know if 'woke' is just representation, or if motive also needs to be a factor. Someone writing a story with a gay female protagonist could just be writing a story, or could be 'woking' (oo, that's where I live!). I also don't know if 'woke' is bad or neutral - is 'woke' a positive to get behind by those who endorse it, or those who feel supported by it?
Well, the fact some of those examples are 40 years old does open up some room for cross-examination.
Especially when one of those titles is often cited as the reason the entire game market crashed.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, Concord isn't that bad as it is slightly better than E.T."
All jokes aside, it's safe to say that Concord is the biggest fiasco in years.
Where does Anthem sit in this list?
They should stop investing in GAAS (almost completely) and start investing again in Single players projects. Seems GAAS is even more risky than AA SP games, for them.
They should take what was working for them like TLOU factions and see if they can evolve from there. They should not waste their time on any GAAS Horizon project. Based of the current "culture" off that studio, it's going to fail spectacularly (at least relatively to their own targets, like the last Star Wars game from Ubisoft only selling half of what was expected). Players massively reject any ideology put into their games. They weren't buying far right bible games before, they won't buy far left marxist games now. Gamers want to evade reality and just have fun playing their games.
Sony should recreate the Studios that made stuff like Driveclub, pupeeter, The last Guardian or even Infamous, the PS3 games when games were only fun using silly powers. There is big void currently in those areas.
They should growth organically what is working currently: Like Bluepoint, Housemarque, Team Asobi or even Helldivers 2 studio. All their big teams like Guerrilla, Insomniac and Naughty dog are too big already. They should do something about Naughty dog and maybe split the studio in 2. One doing series and the other doing games.
Sony should also stop buying expensive Marvel Licenses and let Insomniac work on IPs they already own. They'll sell less, but they'll make more profits.
But obviously they'll do nothing of what I listed and future is not going to be great for them.
They should take what was working for them like TLOU factions and see if they can evolve from there. They should not waste their time on any GAAS Horizon project. Based of the current "culture" off that studio, it's going to fail spectacularly (at least relatively to their own targets, like the last Star Wars game from Ubisoft only selling half of what was expected). Players massively reject any ideology put into their games. They weren't buying far right bible games before, they won't buy far left marxist games now. Gamers want to evade reality and just have fun playing their games.
Sony should recreate the Studios that made stuff like Driveclub, pupeeter, The last Guardian or even Infamous, the PS3 games when games were only fun using silly powers. There is big void currently in those areas.
They should growth organically what is working currently: Like Bluepoint, Housemarque, Team Asobi or even Helldivers 2 studio. All their big teams like Guerrilla, Insomniac and Naughty dog are too big already. They should do something about Naughty dog and maybe split the studio in 2. One doing series and the other doing games.
Sony should also stop buying expensive Marvel Licenses and let Insomniac work on IPs they already own. They'll sell less, but they'll make more profits.
But obviously they'll do nothing of what I listed and future is not going to be great for them.
It lasted a lot longer than concord. But yea. Definitely up there for a massive blunder. So sad, they got so much right. And so much wrong.
cheapchips
Veteran
Sucker Punch are still going at least. The question is why Ghost of...and not Infamous 4 or even Sly Cooper.
13 million sales for Ghosts, versus 6 million for Second Son and 2 million for Sly?
Also, they wanted to do something new. And they brought something new and valuable to gamers. I'd hate to be tied to past glories forever and not allowed to try something new!
The woke games curator lists games being woke for having anti gun content, anti family content, historical inaccuracies in scifi games that take place in the far future, the unlikely diversity in an alternate dimension, anti-capitalism, pro maxism, pro communism, having a wheelchair bound raccoon as a playable character, having "fat" characters, pro-climate action content, a black man who know how to make sushi, promotion of illegal activity, pro abortion, anti western society, selections in a character creator labeled "body type", anti patriarchy, NPC's having unnatural hair color, having the ability to divorce, the ability to draw a rainbow in the drawing section of a kids game, having female authority figures, anti colonialism, a shark plushie that IKEA sells, pro immigration messaging, having a comic book character who is sometimes portrayed as black and/or biracial in the comics since the 1980s appear to be black, having cybernetic implants in a cyberpunk game (promoting transhumanism), having Miles Morales be the best character in Spider-Man Miles Morales, polygamy, social commentary, economic struggle, non-traditional gender roles, a male character getting kicked in the balls by a female, the ability to settle conflict through words instead of violence, promotion of "anchor babies", and having Bernie Sanders in a meme game about Bernie Sanders -with no other qualifier about any of the content content. Just labeled as featuring Bernie Sanders.
So, yeah, I know people "know" what woke means to them, but I can't untangle that ball of yarn and get a clear message.
That perhaps points to that one curator not having a clear definition, or not being serious. Why is that one source so important?
Wokism is a collection of ideologies that have been dogmatized and distorted from their original roots that aim to deconstruct society and culture without proper critical thinking under the guise of "human rights", "social justice", "inclusivity" and "diversification". It has made a fool of genuine, well intended movements and ideologies and has thus cancelled them and replaced then with joke modern versions and interpretations and is promoted ironically by capitalism itself.