Vidya Games Thread

[Kyouko]

UPDATE: The Scam Before has been officially pulled from Steam (again, and for the last time)

The Day Before removed from Steam hours after devs shut down studio - Dexerto

The Day Before is no longer available to purchase on Steam, news that comes just hours after the development studio Fntastic shut its doors.

www.dexerto.com

 

[UberSoldat]

And the bad news
View attachment 59761

Correction

The Embracer spiral continues as Insurgency: Sandstorm studio New World Interactive lays off employees

The studio is not closed, but it is being restructured.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Bronze]

To no one's suprise. E3 is officially dead


I enjoyed watching it, but Geoff's summer fest does essentially same thing for me so can't say I'll miss it.

 

[Kalion]

Excerpt:

When I was told "we are not making good games, we are making good products", I immediately started to plan my leave from one company at the time and I did do so quite quickly. It clashed so bad with my own beliefs as a game developer and as an artist.

RIP Platinum Games. May you languish in Live Service hell.

 

[UberSoldat]

Another Insomniac L for the year

Insomniac Games Hacked By Ransomware Group, Resulting In 1 TB Of Leaked Game Info And More

A ransomware group demanded roughly $2 million from Sony earlier this week but the company did not comply, and the group released the hacked information as a result.

www.gameinformer.com

 

[UberSoldat]

Slipgate Ironworks, developers of the Rise of the Triad remake, Bombshell, the Kingpin remaster, Wrath, Graven, Phantom Fury, Core Decay, and co-developer of Tempest Rising, has been hit with another round of layoffs

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[UberSoldat]

Slipgate Ironworks, developers of the Rise of the Triad remake, Bombshell, the Kingpin remaster, Wrath, Graven, Phantom Fury, Core Decay, and co-developer of Tempest Rising, has been hit with another round of layoffs

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3D Realms has not been spared either

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What a dumpster fire of a company Embracer turned out to be huh.

 

[UberSoldat]

Spoiler: Statuses of various 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks projects after they got Embracer'd

Combustion: Alive

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Core Decay: Alive

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Phantom Fury: Alive

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Tempest Rising: Most likely alive according to this tweet by the lead designer

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Wrath: Aeon of Ruin: On track to release but had to cut multiplayer

WRATH: Aeon of Ruin - WRATH: Developer Update - The Final Stretch - Steam News

Greetings Outlander, It’s been a while since our last update when we announced that WRATH: Aeon of Ruin will be leaving Early Access on February 27, 2024, so it is time again to share a quick update to welcome the beginning of the new year! The Finishing Touches of Development We have made the...

store.steampowered.com

Graven: Expected to release in a few weeks, but lost its game director and some staff, so maybe a delay is incoming?

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[UberSoldat]

Another one bites the dust (thanks Embracer)

Elex 3 May Have Been Canceled, Developer Piranha Bytes Possibly Closed Down

Piranha Bytes' upcoming science fantasy-themed action role-playing game, Elex 3, may have been canceled, and the studio possibly closed down.

twistedvoxel.com

Ah shit, weren't they also working on a Gothic remake?

Thankfully, not them, but a Spanish dev named Alkimia

 

[UberSoldat]

Piranha Bytes has issued a statement regarding the recent news about the state of the company

 

[thhrang]

From KF: "PalWorld Mod Community get straight to the heart of the matter and bans the bestiality mods."

 

[UberSoldat]

Great year so far

Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

The cuts primarily affect Activision Blizzard employees.

www.theverge.com

Black Forest Games reportedly cuts 50% of employees

THQ Nordic and Embracer subsidiary Black Forest Games has reportedly cut 50% of its workforce.

www.gamesindustry.biz

Nvm about what I said about Blizzard then

It's over

From what I read, these are "redundancies," I wouldn't be too sure about that

 

[Zapan1984]

More Layoffs and booo

And the new Blizzard President is the former CoD Executive so good knowing you Blizz given how the last few CoD's

Introducing Johanna Faries as the new President of Blizzard Entertainment

Today, the following email was delivered to all Blizzard employees by Johanna Faries, the new President of Blizzard Entertainment...

news.blizzard.com

 

[ScarletCorrupt]

This just popped onto my feed, what in the fuck

Spoiler: Perfect reply

 

[UberSoldat]

Literally right after it got delayed too

Update: Blackbird Interactive confirms layoffs and wider "realignment plan"

Multiple posts on social media indicate job cuts are happening "across the company."

www.gamedeveloper.com

 

[UberSoldat]

Dev getting shafted again

Disco Elysium expansion reportedly cancelled, with a quarter of staff at risk of redundancy

A Disco Elysium standalone expansion has reportedly been cancelled, leading to 24 developers being placed at risk of re…

www.rockpapershotgun.com

 

[That Chuuba Enjoyer]

Looks like Sony isn't confident this generation. Console been out since late 2020, but I think one factor of sales being down, is due to how damn hard it was for 2-3 years to even get one. Hell PS5 had a huge black market during that period, going upward of 2k for a console itself.

Not many interesting games either to make me personally go out and grab a PS5 either. Especially as they're slowly porting games to PC, with more to come after the Insomniac leaks shown how Sony wants to put more games in that market.

Still wonder if we'll see a second video game crash with amount of layoffs and sales going down. I know indie scene will be fine, and more creativity will blossom from it if we do see another crash.

PS5 Entering ‘The Latter Stage of Its Life Cycle’, Sony Says - IGN

After sales of the PlayStation 5 failed to meet expectations, Sony has said the console is entering “the latter stage of its life cycle.”

www.ign.com

 

[John Vtuber👁️]

I will now proceed to write essays about current-ish monster taming game news, and monster taming related accessories (only one of the games isn't a monster tamer game), because I am autistic.

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Spoiler: Palworld sells 25mil copies

Palworld at 25mil copies sold within the first month of sales, surpassing Pokemon is merely a matter of time



With the current onslaught of twitch and chuuba promotion, it doesn't seem like it will die out any time soon - and hopefully the developers are able to hire as many people as needed, because last I checked they said they were woefully understaffed to handle the sheer amount of popularity it gained. Any investor that doesn't jump on ruthless expansion will live to regret their words and deeds.

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Spoiler: Temtem: Swarm, Survivor style game using assets from TemTem, focus on evolution and co-op

In other Monster Taming news, TemTem is releasing a survivor-style game using their assets which, while smart from a development perspective, isn't exactly what people wanted out of them for the "next TemTem game":



Personally, I like TemTem, I backed the game during Kickstarter. It's a good competitive Pokemon-like, which is why it's unfortunate that the developers seem to be so out of touch with what people want. New regions and creatures? No, what the people want are battle passes, seasonal events, a rotating cash shop, of course! PVP updates and additional game-modes are good, excellent, as are the two variants of "shiny" for hardcore hunters/breeders, but if that's where the above post-launch funding for the game goes, it might genuinely take a "TemTem 2" to have an actual chance of reaching Palworld-status, let alone Pokemon.

...I'm going to get TemTem Swarm because my autism is tuned to Pokemon and Pokemon-likes, it's a mental disease of its own that only indie devs seem to focus on. Hopefully with Palworld, larger devs are able to have creature collectors greenlit once more, now that executives have dollar signs in their eyes at the prospect of jumping on the Palworld trend.

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Spoiler: Re:Legend comes back from the dead after ghosting players for 2 years

Re:Legend was kickstarted during a time when Pokemon had yet to transition into the HD console era, billing itself as somewhere between "Stardew Valley" and "Pokemon". An absolute winning formula, so you could understand its success in funding! But because this is a kickstarter game, it unfortunately follows the path of various kickstarter games before it: releasing in an incredibly buggy state that years of Early Access could not overcome, combined with the publisher preventing them from working on the game post-launch to not only fix it but finish their kickstarter promises (alleged by the developers for the past year or so). So it's also not surprising that it completely fell by the wayside!



Last month, the developers made a post stating that the publisher has since allowed them to start fixing the game again and adding the remaining content, as well as making console ports - current fixes are on the beta branch. Coincidence of coincidences, this comes days after Palworld becomes a smash hit, so my take on it is that the publisher sees dollar signs and wants to capitalize. That being said, don't buy it until it's "finished" with all of the backer content implemented, and fixes in place.

Also coincidence of coincidences, the developers' next game seems to also hit similar notes to Palworld, recently signing up with a completely different publisher ALSO days after Palworld's success:



Cash grab or not, I'm going to buy it because I have a mental disease, and I will report back with news good or bad when/if it releases!

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Spoiler: Digimon Con announced, Dizzy's wallet in shambles

the Digimon Animation 25th anniversary is being celebrated in a few weeks, the Digimon Games Twitter retweeted it, and if there's not a game announced by then Dizzy might actually consider playing sudoku (for real for real this time):



Last I read from the developers, there's a Digimonstory game in the works that's not Cyber Sleuth related, and I have been waiting for it to release for years now. They also polled users whether or not they want to purchase modern ports of their old games in English, to a resounding "yes", so there's some hope on that end as well. If not, we can always play another playthrough of Digimon World: Next Order until those old Digimon World ports are put together. If Monster Rancher could do it, so can they, and that's the copium I am relying on!

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Spoiler: Gundam Breaker 4 announced, multi-plat, English, Dizzy continues to be in shambles

While it may not be a Monster Tamer game, a similar level of autism is applied with its loop of collecting and building Gundam, as Gundam Breaker 4 was announced the other day, and this is the real shit, absolutely nothing like New Gundam Breaker. This is the game that people kept buying all of the other recent English Gundam games for, in the hopes that either it or 3 would come to modern platforms. If you even remotely like Gundam, you are going to want to purchase the most expensive version of this game possible on PC, because it is a builder's dream - and people far more autistic than any of us are almost guaranteed to mod even more crazy things in.



If Dizzy doesn't know by now, it's probably for the best that nobody tells her, because she is going to ruin her life with this game.

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Spoiler: Monster Hunter: Stories gets modern ports, content from Japan

Monster Hunter: Stories is a series of games that also aims for the Pokemon audience, so this port announcement may also coincide with Palworld's success, somewhat. It's also had a bit of a troubled release, with each English platform beforehand having different content, with some content releasing in Japan only, so now it's all in one package for people to play - and possibly pick up Monster Hunter: Stories 2 along the way, which I am still hoping for an expansion to.



Hopefully this does well enough that a Monster Hunter: Stories 3 is considered, or the big wigs at Capcom might think people don't want Monster Hunter: Stories games anymore. And that's terrible! I dislike gaming executives like you wouldn't believe! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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And with this, I have done infinitely more work than most modern gaming journalists for free, and I will now proceed to die internally.

 

[UberSoldat]

PlayStation hit with layoffs

Difficult News About Our Workforce

The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local...

sonyinteractive.com

An Important Update from PlayStation Studios

Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment initiated a reduction in our workforce – including within PlayStation Studios – and I wanted to talk about the impact that will have. These decisions have been extremely difficult, but they are necessary, and I think it’s important to be transparent: The...

sonyinteractive.com

 

[Jealous]

Yuzu emulator getting sued