Last week, Google announced Project Genie, an AI-powered virtual world creator still in its infancy that seemed to spook a number of video game investors. But at least one video game CEO isn't ruffled: Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick.
and once you make amazing entertainment you have to market it worldwide, and the people who are best at marketing entertainment worldwide are big, significant entertainment enterprises with the balance sheet to actually support those launches, companies like us. So I feel more optimistic than ever that new technology is going to allow us to supercharge our business.
So the argument is basically that their company will not be overshadowed because they’re using AI too, and because the important part of making a successful game is advertising it.
Eh, the gaming industry generally feels pretty dry/dead these days to me, even with record numbers of games available. There’s just so many crappy half made ‘alpha’ or ‘early access’ things around. The very small number of ‘better’ games are often marketed so heavily that I find them boring and don’t even bother to finish them – like BG3. And a lot of the “triple A” content often trades engaging/fun gameplay for rent-seeking features without regard to actual player enjoyment.
A new tool from Google won’t fix that. So I guess I’d sort of agree with the take-two guy.
Oh, I’m not trying to say there aren’t some gems around. It’s just that the quality options vs the garbage is already at a really bad ratio, and to find something like a ‘quality’ indie game, you gotta sift through a lot of junk. And with marketing blitz’s, and the pervasive use of things like influencers who’ll steer conversations on various social media (including reddit, not sure about lemmy yet but wouldn’t surprise me if it was happening here too)… they’ll hype garbage, or they’ll inundate you with so much marketing stuff that it basically spoils parts of ‘good’ games.
Easy example: the thing I liked most about the old BG games, was discovering/exploring etc. That style of gameplay was obliterated for me by how much marketing / comments / noise there was about that game – noise that was basically impossible to avoid if you’re online at all.
Idk man, could be I’m just projecting on you conversations I’ve had with myself, but fondly remembering the sense of discovery you had with the Infinity Engine games while being sour on BG3 because it was “spoiled” for you seems like it has a lot more to do with your sense of nostalgia than any rational critique. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the sorta person who will break out my soapbox to yell about Morrowind’s virtues vs Oblivion or Skyrim, and I’ve also attempted to cajole several friends into giving BG1 a shot in the lead up to and wake of BG3’s release, so I’m sympathetic to your broader point. I just think, unless you’ve been out here reading reviews, watching Let’s Plays, opening discussion threads, and sucking down all in-house marketing Larian did, you vastly overestimate how much of the game is spoiled for you. And, frankly, if you’ve been doing all of those things, then the real culprit is how you spend your time online, not being online in and of itself.
Besides, the game is massive. Even watching multiple Let’s Plays of Act 1 would still leave room for discovery, simply because there are so many paths to pursue, many of them mutually exclusive. Hell, my big critique of the game is that I find the plethora of choices to be overwhelming, as I’m the sort that likes to consume all content in a single playthrough, and that’s literally impossible.
I still find games that I enjoy these days. Two that my friends and I have played through for a while are Valheim and Abiotic Factor. One reason those are more enticing, is that the proc gen on a game like Valheim means you can’t as easily stumble across a post saying “Go here to unlock bear porn scene” or whatever. And while Abiotic is less random, it’s less well known/saturated by marketing shit, so there’s plenty of “wait wtf was that?!” and “oh neat, I can do something new that we hadn’t realised we could do before!” as we play.
So given that I still find games currently that fall into my preferences from way way back, it’s still something some games are capable of accomplishing. BG3, I’ve basically never made it past Act 1, as I get bored with it and its pseudo predictability and mundane mechanics. Like even the Divinity series from Larian, I found more engaging from the tactical fight POV just because the way they did elemental combo attacks on enemies and interaction with world components far better than in BG3, from my perspective in terms of player engagement – like there’s still ‘traces’ of that stuff in BG3, but its neutered. Plus they were less known games, without a constant stream of marketing shit showing you exactly how to min/max those events.
Do AAA game CEOs even realize AI is the main reason sales are down? The very hardware to run your slop has become unaffordable, you clowns! Bloating about AI is about the most tone deaf thing you can do right now.
Besides, we don‘t want slop in our games. If you actually used your products you would know why.
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So the argument is basically that their company will not be overshadowed because they’re using AI too, and because the important part of making a successful game is advertising it.
Eh, the gaming industry generally feels pretty dry/dead these days to me, even with record numbers of games available. There’s just so many crappy half made ‘alpha’ or ‘early access’ things around. The very small number of ‘better’ games are often marketed so heavily that I find them boring and don’t even bother to finish them – like BG3. And a lot of the “triple A” content often trades engaging/fun gameplay for rent-seeking features without regard to actual player enjoyment.
A new tool from Google won’t fix that. So I guess I’d sort of agree with the take-two guy.
skavau is a clown
Oh, I’m not trying to say there aren’t some gems around. It’s just that the quality options vs the garbage is already at a really bad ratio, and to find something like a ‘quality’ indie game, you gotta sift through a lot of junk. And with marketing blitz’s, and the pervasive use of things like influencers who’ll steer conversations on various social media (including reddit, not sure about lemmy yet but wouldn’t surprise me if it was happening here too)… they’ll hype garbage, or they’ll inundate you with so much marketing stuff that it basically spoils parts of ‘good’ games.
Easy example: the thing I liked most about the old BG games, was discovering/exploring etc. That style of gameplay was obliterated for me by how much marketing / comments / noise there was about that game – noise that was basically impossible to avoid if you’re online at all.
skavau is a clown
Idk man, could be I’m just projecting on you conversations I’ve had with myself, but fondly remembering the sense of discovery you had with the Infinity Engine games while being sour on BG3 because it was “spoiled” for you seems like it has a lot more to do with your sense of nostalgia than any rational critique. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the sorta person who will break out my soapbox to yell about Morrowind’s virtues vs Oblivion or Skyrim, and I’ve also attempted to cajole several friends into giving BG1 a shot in the lead up to and wake of BG3’s release, so I’m sympathetic to your broader point. I just think, unless you’ve been out here reading reviews, watching Let’s Plays, opening discussion threads, and sucking down all in-house marketing Larian did, you vastly overestimate how much of the game is spoiled for you. And, frankly, if you’ve been doing all of those things, then the real culprit is how you spend your time online, not being online in and of itself.
Besides, the game is massive. Even watching multiple Let’s Plays of Act 1 would still leave room for discovery, simply because there are so many paths to pursue, many of them mutually exclusive. Hell, my big critique of the game is that I find the plethora of choices to be overwhelming, as I’m the sort that likes to consume all content in a single playthrough, and that’s literally impossible.
Eh, take it however you want I guess.
I still find games that I enjoy these days. Two that my friends and I have played through for a while are Valheim and Abiotic Factor. One reason those are more enticing, is that the proc gen on a game like Valheim means you can’t as easily stumble across a post saying “Go here to unlock bear porn scene” or whatever. And while Abiotic is less random, it’s less well known/saturated by marketing shit, so there’s plenty of “wait wtf was that?!” and “oh neat, I can do something new that we hadn’t realised we could do before!” as we play.
So given that I still find games currently that fall into my preferences from way way back, it’s still something some games are capable of accomplishing. BG3, I’ve basically never made it past Act 1, as I get bored with it and its pseudo predictability and mundane mechanics. Like even the Divinity series from Larian, I found more engaging from the tactical fight POV just because the way they did elemental combo attacks on enemies and interaction with world components far better than in BG3, from my perspective in terms of player engagement – like there’s still ‘traces’ of that stuff in BG3, but its neutered. Plus they were less known games, without a constant stream of marketing shit showing you exactly how to min/max those events.
Look all other AI implementations have not worked out… But I am sure this one totally will.
Hand crafted games are boring anyways.
Sorry, I’m only interested in boutique, handcrafted video games.
Meh. I’m over it. Shovelware is abundant on all platforms and it’ll lead to another industry crash similar to 1983 as soon as the economy chokes.
My Steam backlog will last years.
Assuming those games don’t get pulled.
Correct. Lets hope Valve remains a consumer-friendly monopoly for the long term.
Legions of lesser companies have long since enshittified themselves while screwing consumers until they are blue in the face.
God bless Gabe.
We always got piracy to fall back on if they pull that.
My VPN provider doesn’t keep logs so…
We are not confused but you are. Quit smelling your own farts long enough to see we don’t want and we are not gonna buy it.
Do AAA game CEOs even realize AI is the main reason sales are down? The very hardware to run your slop has become unaffordable, you clowns! Bloating about AI is about the most tone deaf thing you can do right now.
Besides, we don‘t want slop in our games. If you actually used your products you would know why.