Just a few days ago, we had Sony State Of Play showcasing a number of new games, the first they went with is a team-based shooter, an Overwatch rehash called Concord. The trailer dislike told the whole story, nobody wanted a game that was super derivative and uninspired.
They did tell us that this year will not have first-party games coming around, going soft with the push for more system sales, too. But the part that bothered me, is how much of the live service aspects were seen from this showcase. But you know what's even funnier? They've decided all live service games will arrive day-1 for PS Plus Extra. Not the single-player titles.
The PS5 has become synonymous as the best-selling console so far, yet, most people who owned it for the past couple of years, barely used it. It just sits there, and people chant the "one game" meme everywhere. It's been over 3 years, the consoles are still stuck at their 500 USD price tag. We're paying the extra AAA tax on each game purchased, where has it taken us half-way in the cycle?
The live service infestation spreading further, massive lay-offs across the industry with studios being shut down, the dismissive mentality of major companies, and now this shift in the culture, by slowly removing the existence of physical copies, or even ownership of digital content.
Ubisoft, the company known for exploiting fandoms, and the large majority of their workers too, has continued and consistently shown that they no longer care about quality anymore. A game made by a mismanaged subsidiary, a quote on quote "AAAA video game" came not only disappointing so many people, but it easily becomes a cautionary tale of what having so much money and little care in the world will do. Uninspired, boring, lacking in content, and terrible gameplay loop.
And now goes ahead, and announced the most awkward thing; their new Assassin's Creed game, which everybody wanting to take place in Japan, stars a black character. If there was a video game about Yasuke, I wouldn't mind. But this confuses things in many ways.
Prior installments starred characters based on their historical depiction, so a Japanese protagonist is now a low priority, opposed to a black guy? What's next, another taking place in Africa, but it stars someone white? Do note, the last games, Mirage and Valhalla, weren't that good.
But hey, let's talk about Xbox. Big daddy Microsoft's favorite to share, until they've decided keeping things that are good doesn't align with their bottom line. Whose bright idea was it to shut down Tango Gameworks? Oh, I get it, because they don't make you enough money despite saving your failing reputation the past year with the release of their most bombastic title.
There's so much more to peel off this debacle. But I there's one way of putting them in a summary; their problem has always been the corporate culture. A fact being more clear after purchasing Activision Blizzard. I'm done defending this company, and will not forgive them for this, either.
Look at Sony, even if they're doubling down on live service titles, they can always come back with good single-player games, with a largely good proven track record. Almost every single studio of Xbox is going through internal turmoils. With the newly announced ones like Contraband, Perfect Dark and Fable reboot, the disappointing Hellblade sequel, the misses keep coming, but no, let's close down studios that were actually doing pretty well. Is there any humility left in these people?
They're like a giant bloatware company, no word from the other titles announced prior to the pandemic. I get that there's a lot going on in the world, and some personal issues will come alone. But so many studios under the umbrella, and many announcements got no update to date.
So many potential contents teased, many seemingly promising, yet in the end we arrive to the sad conclusion. Which speaking of, let's talk about Take Two. Now they can't deal with the baggage of handling an indie publishing subsidiary, fired off most of the staff, and now giving word that they'll sell it off to someone more willing. This is just cut-throat business practice.
Then there's Embracer Group, because they chewed more than they could swallow. The companies they bought, from Gearbox, Saber, and so on, they have laid off people including from Eidos Montreal, and some they sold off. Great, more disappointing news after killing the Deus Ex sequel.
This one company pulled the worst one of them all, and they're a Swedish company. The Saudi investment cash they were betting so much on, didn't come around, and so now, they had to clean up house. A lot of cleaning, actually. 1400 people lost their jobs, they are several billions in debt, and now, some of their studios are in limbo state. They're the boomer version of THQ, which is scarier when you look at the fact that the majority of their games released, aren't all well-received.
EA cancelled the remake of Dead Space 2, due to poor sales, Wild Hearts is canned, and no longer supported, people already forgot this, but they were working on another Star Wars project, which got cancelled this year. Criterion Games is now a support studio for Battlefield.
Nintendo single-handedly killed Yuzu emulator, took away Dolphin, and now are itching to give anyone a lawsuit even for the smallest infractions on their respective IPs. When it comes to being a boomer company, that holds the right to a person's property with a strong iron grip, they're very consistent at it. In the future, you play their games the wrong way, they'll drag you in.
PlayStation subscription like PS Plus Premium allowed you to stream movies too, you want to watch one particular movie? Too bad, because Sony can retroactively remove it. Including for those who purchased the content. Ubisoft pulling out The Crew was almost as bad.
It isn't a bad year from their part though, Ghost of Tsushima came out for the PC after 4 years, and God of War Ragnarok is also arriving soon. All of these come with a sad caveat though, and that is that they're available in very few countries where PlayStation Network is available, why? Because you have to sign in to a PlayStation account in order to play them. This is all a move to promote the PSN, and according to the new CEO, to convince the Steam players in buying a PS5.
My guy, you're worse than Nintendo at this point. You've restricted hundreds of countries from buying your games in order to sign in to your, no offense, subpar network service that doesn't even provide free cloud saves In 2024, paying for PS Plus before my cloud saves get deleted in 6 months. They did this with Helldivers II, and then had to revert back because they were losing players.
People are already calling it the next video game crash. I don't think that's entirely true, but it does seem like the gravy train they've come to rely on so much is losing its vigor. Meaning, AAA gaming is a dying breed, and that independent developers will start taking over soon. Also, don't feel sorry for Microsoft, the A.I. hype has made their company surpass Apple in evaluation.
And it doesn't seem like 70 USD is adequate for certain games, all they have to do is look at the hype it's generating and get away with making whatever decisions they want. I don't think the price will change soon, but you'll never know in this point. You have Strauss Zelnick to thank for that.
I think reading books, buying vinyl records, and watching movies, TVs just plain works fine rather than funding my gaming hobbies. I'm sick and tired of all this. For 2 years now, I couldn't purchase a single AAA game that I've wanted to play. All these suits controlling everything just to line up their pockets have ruined a cherished hobby while tens of thousands loses their jobs. We deserve better.
I miss E3. Covid was the final nail in the coffin, but before that you could tell it was dying, and dying as a result of an industry that had lost its creativity. Everything now has to be cinematic, like a movie, with photorealism. Or a soulless live service. It's all so tiresome. I miss that excitement of what may come, the creativity and storytelling. Funnily you can tell all of the soul remains in the indie scene, and that's hardly thriving either.
It is a pretty rough state for games. There seems to be no real 'joy' in the creation process and the developer/community response is almost always cut throat with neither side being happy with the end result.
I would like to think all the corporations/companies in the gaming space aren't entirely blind to what players want, but that is looking like it's the case more and more in their corporate greed.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and recapping the year and status of gaming! It was a great read with plenty of information.
They just couldn't help themselves right now. We now have sycophants to worry about.