Overwatch 2 situation. We just add numbers now to excite people.

It seems like there’s a few studios that get this trick. Hazelight (Split Fiction, It Takes Two) seems to have a good cadence to releases and likely hasn’t inflated their size all that much. They’re consistently making good games.

I wish there were more examples of that.

Does this apply to all Hoyoverse games? Never got into Genshin, but I enjoy Zenless Zone Zero.

Seems like a tragedy of MMOs when they want to introduce what’s new to returners, but then deliver an avalanche of “new stuff” to people brand new to the game.

I suppose I’ve plugged it recently, but Another Crab’s Treasure.

It opens pretty plainly as an ocean-based Soulslike parody with a simple story premise and some self-subverting humor in the dialog with other crabs. As you go on though, every 20th conversation becomes really pointed and real-world-connecting, going beyond just “pollution bad”. It’s not quite Spec Ops: The Line, but it at least has something to say about society.

The combat is frustrating but addictive, much like Souls games - and it’s okay with handing off a number of allowances like accessibility modes and tip systems. It’s even helpful that, if I die to a glitch or something bogus, I can actually just choose to re-obtain my microplastics (souls) through a menu.

The soundtrack to Tunic is so moody.

I used a few little hints to help with the “true final boss”, but it was a fantastic reorienting of everything, and was glad by then it got away from traditional combat. I enjoyed the core combat too, although I usually don’t even like Soulslikes.

I was getting into Blue Prince, then I think I got a little annoyed with a puzzle involving a time lock, that claimed you could set it to open at a future date/time and it would stay for one hour. Fun, inventive way to get people to plan ahead.

But no, then I wasted several out of game days planning only to find that it’s referring to in-game time; something that has not plainly existed through any of the other mechanics thus far. I’ll likely get back to it, just think they could’ve chosen the orientation of “big picture” puzzles like that a bit better.

I think about the creativity that goes behind translations like Ace Attorney, and lament that people are skipping past the nuance. Ex:

• The name “Naruhodo Ryuichi” means nothing to me. However, their invented name “Phoenix Wright” evokes a popular image on its own. Same for a great many of their pun names. There are many detective games I’ve played from a Japanese theme where I actually couldn’t put clues together because I couldn’t remember “Udo Rayoge” was a noodle shop owner and “Ero Gotaro” was the police deputy that was taking bribes and was murdered - because those names form no connections in my mind.
• Maya Fey eats burgers. Before translation, it was ramen; but at time of release, Americans associated ramen with being extremely cheap and low-nutrition (thanks to Cup Noodles). Changing it to burgers accomplished the intended character theme of being junk-foody and gluttonous.
• Quite often, linguistics have some effect on the visual clues of the game (and Danganronpa mysteries just as much so), which means they often have to go very creative with something like a torn letter or a message written in blood.

I think there is a “graphical plateau” to gaming; a universal constant a bit like Moore’s Law. And while it’s not certain, it’s very possible the Steam Deck has mostly moved beyond it.

I definitely don’t think there’s an infinite bound to the detail games can add, especially within the resolution displayed on the Deck. Plus, many formats of games have not been well-served by that sort of extra detail. When a fringe hit like Liar’s Bar, REPO, or Lethal Company comes along, it never really needs the extra horsepower of top consoles. There’s a few rare PS5 exclusives that may struggle on it, but given Cyberpunk 2077 runs on it, I don’t even think we need be too worried.

Is yours part of a larger network? I am lucky to live in a denser area where multiple library branches are within biking distance; and they generally share a database. They also have some options to have items delivered to a branch by request (though, with the demand video games get, this is probably more common for particular books)

It sounds like Nintendo games would really be the preference for librarians.

• They stay at high price so many patrons will want them
• They’re often kid friendly; and part of a library’s goal is giving kids a destination
• The console they’re designed for can be carried to the library
• The media is resilient to damage or being faked

This is a problem a lot of VR games have to work with. They work best when you’re not adventuring around, so many of them prescribe a long set of challenges in a small space.

If the Princess gets any kind of ranged ability, you could make it like a sniping “puzzle” game across a wide parapet. And, if trying to elongate the game, come up with story reasons why just as the Knight opens the gate to her keep, he’s discovered and an evil dragon/Baron whisks her to a different tower. (Kinda like what Super Meat Boy does every level)

Another Crab’s Treasure.

Oh, haha, a souls game but with crabs, funny parody haha!

Except, no, while it does seem like it would be compared to SpongeBob humor, and it does self censor “shit” to “ship”, the themes of the story go well beyond just “Crab must find his stolen shell!”

It takes time to ramp up but in some ways it feels like a better-written game than most Soulslikes (to me, that’s not a high bar given the way many of them wrap their lore in many layers of obfuscation that you don’t get to enjoy in the moment)

Watching speedruns and trying NG+ is also a lot of fun.

Valve hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Someone email them again?

I’m mostly PC. I have a PlayStation, and I just like the rental tryout system of PS+. I still think it’s a nicely cost effective way for someone new to gaming to try a lot of stuff.

But yes, even then you can often get much of the same through Steam key bundles.

I still don’t understand the sentiment that turn-based doesn’t sell. We just got Clair Obscur breaking expectations.

Part of it is, you have to make the combat interesting visually, tactically, and sometimes even tactilely. Some games get that right: Persona 5, Like a Dragon, etc.

I would also go on a limb and say that 99.9% of strategy in turn taking games is terribly designed. Buff attack, use strongest attack. The one that I really wanted to see more of is a system like Cosmic Star Heroine’s.

Recently, Clair Obscur told another story of ex-publisher success. So far, we only know of the review success and I don’t actually know if it’s a financial success.

If it is, I can only hope it leads to some investor understanding in just how done the world is of lottery-planning in the game world; seeing one victory, and having every single publisher chase it.

• Cover shooters
• Candy crush mobile games
• NFT games
• Battle royales
• 5v5 Overwatch clones

That’s the thing, though. I respect the analogy, but the equivalent here would be if the game was also checking your drive for other games, for financial apps, scanning your browser’s cookies to see which sites you visit, etc.

If, while playing a singleplayer game, they’re recording what actions you take within that singleplayer game, it’s understandable some people wouldn’t even want that - but I also don’t see that as nearly so invasive as other data travesties. Worse, highlighting it here feels like a “cry wolf” situation where you’d desensitize people to the most harmful privacy breaches.

Based on the article text, it’s only citing things like how long you play. I thought most games collected telemetry like this?

Don’t get me wrong, if it was scanning your drive to sell data to harvesters, I’d be extremely unnerved. And you should definitely be able to turn this off. But I feel like even Valve has recorded things like “60% of players quit after losing to this boss”

If anyone is done with the official series and wants some more, some indie games that nicely follow its success:

Gyakuten Live, a fan game based on Love Live School Idol - three cases in, generally based around lower-stakes crimes but with surprising escalation

Occult Crime Police, a series based on small town paranormality

Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane, takes place in a world of magic where rules of spells are often a form of evidence.

If you’re trying to say that a recording of a video game is not considered fair use under copyright law, then I give you the existence of Youtube and Twitch as counter evidence.

So, funny you should say that…

This happened to Persona 5. Atlus felt that they had a legal basis to make copyright claims on the game - in their case, circumstantially around spoilers (I guess because they wanted people to pay $50 to experience the late-game story)

And they walked back, not because lawyers were dismantling their case, but because of public outcry. That basis of public preference is what has encouraged game studios to be friendly with Twitch / YouTube, not because judges would rubber-stamp any fair use “transformative work” argument. That is also why many games have given explicit notices to say “Content notice: Please feel free to share videos of this game wherever you’d like!” etc - as it is a non-default judgment.

So, as strange as it is to say, most uploaded videos of a game is in some murky legal territory. Obviously, most studios don’t care and even prefer them to be shared for visibility - or took the time to include those notices to make it 100% legal. But when the recording came from an internal build, the game itself is “stolen”, in that the person playing it breached either terms of viewing or terms of employment, and then the person re-uploading it is breaching copyright as they had no permission.

If you want to work it through the other way, permission to upload a work is non-default. You need to provide a basis it’s legal, not a basis it’s illegal. In many cases, it’s “I made this”. For 99.9% of video game content, it’s “the developer is okay with it”.

If something that would normally be copyrightable is leaked, then the only people who have legal rights to that work are still the original owners. Anyone taking/sharing it is breaching copyright.

Different case for something someone recorded/created themselves, ex recording police abuse on their phone.

I know some people have a misguided view of “But you didn’t register copyright, it’s not copyrighted”. That’s the opposite of how it works. Rights are granted at time of creation; copyright is a “granted” right as part of sale/viewing managing how something can be shared.

Otherwise, a photographer that takes a picture of a rare Snipe can have that photo “legally” stolen before they make it to a lawyer.

I tend to use these platforms without feeling I’m “committed”. I’ve abandoned things like Reddit before, and can likely do so again.

But I can see with the organization levels of channels that others are not thinking the same way.

I think every few years I’m reminded this game exists, and go in to try to check it out - and I still have some account issue where my email is in use but it also won’t send a reset code.

Mario!? Who would have thought Nintendo would revive one of their oldest properties?

When that’s characters, I just accept it. Like, “Oh, I guess I don’t get to try out this character? I’ll level up others instead and see how well I can do.”

I’m undoubtedly kind of frustrated about this “proving tariffs right” - but it remains to be shown whether this works. Very likely, even if/when they achieve scale, prices won’t come down for a very long time.

And it skips over the fact that there were so many ways to achieve this end without causing so much harm to so many industries that can’t do the same.

I play a gacha game and have spent $0 on it. But I can imagine that sort of psychological insulation is not quite so common.

So in a lot of ways, it’s just the Asian term for loot box games, something that western games shied away from a bit after the Battlefront 2 controversy and EU attention, which Disney got embroiled in.

Given the tariff position, I’m curious if this will be the first time Nintendo decides to eat the loss on console hardware sales; something usually only other console makers have done.

Perhaps they think Trump will be on his way out. Or they’re eating into their cash reserves to prevent discussion of their consoles from getting political.

That’s the thing though; it has most definitely entered Duke Nukem Forever / No Man’s Sky levels of development hell wherein the result will never be satisfying. The best we can hope for is a Halo Infinite result where it’s “kinda fun” but inevitably comes nowhere near the hype.

My understanding is this has been the price of thousands of gaming communities enacting a “No politics” rule - people want to keep it external.

“This fucking piece of actual trash! He’s using the most broken character this game has ever put out, and trash talking over it like he’s ever fucked a woman. Literally eat a dick. What do you think, chat?…Oh. Holy shit. Sorry, I just saw some stuff about Trump, listen, I’m sorry, but we don’t talk politics here. It can get really toxic.”

Beyond Good and Evil 2.

I’m not even mad that we didn’t get the multiplanetary open world new-tech live-experience cooperative second coming. I’m mad we didn’t even get a simple, short singleplayer experience living off of the charm of the first one.

In future history books: “…But the biggest exodus from the United States was after it was announced the Switch 2 would cost $1000 exclusively there.”

The Xbox once did have a version of Internet Explorer on it, I remember.

Its supporters claim that in some ways it’s meant to make development easier; that it simplifies many lighting tricks devs handle manually.

I don’t necessarily think it’s a strong enough point since it’s often throwing hardware at a creativity/effort problem.

“We are also pleased to announce that, next year, we will be adding support for Gamecube games other than Super Smash Bros. Melee.” /s

I regret to be taking no action on this - because I already started my boycott of Xbox back when they fired Tango Gameworks.

You had ONE Game of the Year, all year, Microsoft!

But uh…yeah, funding genocide is also extremely bad.

Although we still number consoles, in a lot of ways we did get our “tiered” console structure.

Take most people’s daily plays, and I’d say about 90% of them or more have an edition available on the prior gen console. And it makes sense when so many of those games have relatively basic graphics - and when game engines have gotten better at scalability.

So, those consoles are neatly serving as a low budget option for a lot of gamers that can’t follow all the latest and most expensive games. Yes, some newer releases will be fully excluded; but even then, getting a brand new or used Switch or PS4 can introduce someone to a huge number of games if they haven’t been exploring options.

I think your voice could actually be better than your wallet on this.

For one, these games are free. So, are you harming the world by playing them and just not buying loot boxes? Minimally, at best. I also advise people enacting boycotts to represent vocal action around them. For instance, I called Target directly about my boycott when they ended DEI hiring.

You can also help lobby politicians to make clear how you feel on the issue. That can put a lot more panic on publishers. Politicians don’t have a strong reason to defend them - often it only gets ignored because they don’t think voters find it a significant issue. Even if you don’t get a federal ban, sometimes you can get state laws like limiting physical advertising; which can also sometimes spread to other states.

Basically, boycotting as a form of inaction, especially when it makes your days boring, isn’t necessarily an effective approach.