I think so, yes. Although I dipped out of their blogposts around the time they rented some big office space. That was years ago at this point.

Didn’t know about this. This is amazing.

Honestly the cancellation was years overdue. I‘m almost surprised it took them this long but then again it‘s not surprising they couldn‘t even get around doing that.

Amazing! The upper left quarter is essentially my childhood.

You would do that probably because you have a huge Steam library but many Switch users have a huge Switch library and want that performance upgrade. You and me are not their target audience but it remains to be seen if the Switch 2 will flop or exactly what Nintendo fans want right now. There‘s a huge difference between paying 600€ and 1000€ for hardware that‘s pretty much toe to toe anyway. If I wanted a Steamdeck I sure as hell wouldn‘t buy one right now but wait a little longer.

I know it might be an annoying nitpick but if the game does not comment on Japanese warcrimes then I‘d be deeply disappointed but sadly not surprised.

The presentation looks too fluid. I don‘t see any room or reason to use a controller live on stage there other than to pretend. The entire thing looks scripted through and through so why would you even make Ciri controlled live there? Feel free to send me time codes where the camera itself actually looks like it‘s controlled by the guy behind the pult, though. I can‘t see anything. It looks like a normal tech demo with preselected inputs to me and I see no reason why they would give the guy control over anything.

What actually stuck out most to me besides Witcher 4 was their LLM based „Don‘t press the button“ game presentation at the very end of the show. No one is really talking about it because it was really lame but I think it‘s telling how they showed the AI driven stuff after everything else almost to kind of sweep it under the rug because they know most people are already sick of AI but they still had to include it for gullible shareholders or something.

Well damn I know it’s just footage of a tech demo so there is a lot that can happen still and Ciri was definitely not controlled live (as they tried to make us believe if you watched the full event. Like seriously, who’s going to believe you when you slice up a horse and voxelize trees? Holding the controller on stage was just corny, sorry guys) BUT it looks amazing! I especially loved how they showcased some of the technical details. I really didn’t think it would impress me this much because they showed way more about a game that’s probably years away from release than I ever anticipated. And again, a lot can still happen and go wrong but I would lie if I said I wasn’t hyped already. Mission accomplished I guess.

I‘m wondering if Microsoft sends them an angry Email soon. Indie devs were forced to change the name of their game for less obvious similarities.

Sorry but if you think AAA studios aren‘t doing the exact same then I‘ve got a bridge to sell to you.

Can‘t wait to watch Norman Reedus rush to school with a slice of toast in his mouth.

I‘m just going to say that the distinctions between the two you‘re laying out here seem irrelevant to the discussion to me. I am not arguing about a season pass or preservation of games. Again, that is not what this discussion is about. This is about the developing side of games where these things don‘t mean anything. To give an example of what I mean: World of Warcraft employed and paid more people over a longer period of time than most AAA games.

That‘s the critical one. It‘s not about budget or outsourcing or whatever. It comes down to who makes the decisions and why. In a lot of cases it‘s people with a finance background who couldn‘t care less about the medium they‘re working with and that can be a major issue. Gaming being a bigger industry than music and film combined has attracted a lot of people who only think in dollar bills and it shows. Luckily however, there are still a lot of passionate teams with leaders who have a love for games.

I want to believe this is just s straw man argument but sadly I know there are enough jerks out there who absolutely call everything that doesn’t cater precisely to toxic masculinity wOkE.

I think it‘s a bit of a bummer that the ending of Witcher 3 that does make the most sense in-universe isn‘t canon in favor of what I think is pure fan service. I will probably still play the shit out of this though because all of their games have been hitters for me. Even Cyberpunk at launch. Even Witcher 1.

Please phrase your thoughts in a way everyone can understand and if possible a little less mockingly? What is it that you have a problem with exactly?

Way to make a truly bad faith argument or perhaps you are lost or something. To clarify: Are you implying it‘s any different for AAA SP games? Because that’s the discussion here.

I mean they also created a ton of jobs and it‘s not like devs working on single player games don‘t face layoffs and bonuses fraud. Besides Overwatch 2 killed Overwatch already.

There are plenty handhelds in all shapes and sizes in that price range for exactly this. How many more do we need?

I‘ll still buy their controller because you can‘t sue Chinese companies either so what‘s the difference? However I‘ll use it for PC gaming. No way I‘m going back to their ecosystem. Those days are gone.

Sounds like Minecraft or more recent Zelda titles but for what’s worth there is still a lot of untapped potential there.

Quite often they openly refer to Xitter posts as a source for simple game mechanics when the game has come out already. They don‘t even play the games they report on anymore.

Would‘ve played the hell out of a new Team Fortress but I‘m completely burned out from MOBAs personally. Invite-Only is also something I deeply reject as a concept no matter the reason.

You see, this community just really hates PvP for some reason. Apparently playing games with other people rather than with yourself is an inconceivable concept to some. Unless it‘s coop that is. And I too love a good coop experience but PvP is quite literally the mother of all game types so it‘s strange to see how much hate it gets in this particular corner of the internet.

So will they give back the most anticipated game 2025 award now or how does this work? Lol

There‘s no Oblivion remake. Go to the Steam Page and carefully read word for word what it is you‘re talking about.

It’s also inspired by „the wanderer“ painting that has been referenced a million times without most people even realizing that yes, someone did that first.

It’s Unreal 5 slop with OG Oblivion running in the Background. Of course it has these issues.

And there is really no reason to trust it whatsoever. It might feel secluded but in the end of the day, even your „private“ chats are essentially an open forum thread in the technical and legal sense because Discord is basically that: A huge, public forum where everything you say is a public statement. There is no privacy on Discord because that‘s simply not what it‘s for.

There‘s a bitter irony in demanding parents doing their jobs because that‘s exactly why they don‘t have time for parenting. The cost of living is too damn high.

but I’d be surprised if gacha even made up half of the spending SMBC is reporting on here.

I wouldn‘t. Gacha is vastly more popular in Japan than PC gaming and it‘s not even close. It would seriously surprise me if mobile Gacha didn‘t make up the majority of spending in microtransactions.

Funny thing is I know more women playing these games than I know dudes. Which of course does not reflect player statistics. I know that. But it‘s probably more popular with women than you would think based on character designs. I think it has a lot to do with cutesy Japanese pop culture that‘s appealing to a lot of people. There‘s a reason many Chinese and Korean games are copying it recently.

There isn‘t much of a contradiction there, I think. People complaining about it are mostly from an entirely different culture than where Gacha slop is developed and most popular. The former being the western world and the latter being South East Asia and players who have a deep fascination for it.

I‘m not entirely sure what I watched (lots of new abilities I guess) but I love these animations! I‘ll miss them.

As Astarion already said it‘s only the final content patch. Bugs will likely still get fixed later on.

If you are not their target audience then you can‘t really boycott them in the first place. And in my opinion there is no harm in playing a game with loot boxes when you don‘t buy them. They aren’t really getting anything out of non-spenders. That’s not how their servers keep running. And most f2p games that I encounter nowadays do season passes without the random factor anyway, so I feel the loot box discussion is becoming a little outdated for the main stream. Thank goodness.

I‘ve also noticed multiple times that this community has a gripe with multiplayer games for some reason. It‘s better to take anything from online strangers with a grain of salt.

That‘s not even true, though. People will not like this, but most major console games used to be much more expensive 30 years ago, actually. They only became more affordable when the masses got into gaming and really dropped in price when they became fully digital. No idea where everyone got that morphed perspective from, maybe because most people borrowed games back then or bought them on flea markets. And I‘m really not trying to defend Nintendo here because what applied back then isn‘t the case anymore but people really have no idea just how expensive new N64 games used to be.

Whatever the case, I‘m happy to be a PC gamer right now. Let me tell you that.

Interesting you felt the need to tell me that instead of lecturing the person comparing Nintendo‘s practices with supporting a genocide. Very unique priorities indeed.

That one is on America.

You criticize capitalism, yet you participate in it. Curious. /s

If you know a manufacturer that‘s handing out world class controllers for free let me know, but otherwise I didn‘t ask.