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It’s this. Japanese businesses almost always only truly care about the Japanese market. If something does well in foreign countries but does poorly in Japan, it can be expected that product will never be made again, or changes will be made to attempt to make it sell more in Japan, even if that means alienating the rest of the foreign market that already liked the way it was.
I only bring up RE4 since it released in 2005. Morrowind is even older at 2002. My point was more that there aren’t any indie games that match the content or polish of those games, as old as they are.
Its mostly a limit of indie in general. Not enough money or time to match AAA games of even 20 years ago. AA absolutely should be at minimum matching 20 year old games, but even the funding AA gets should be enough for AAA games from 2010.
I would argue that is not true. I don’t see many Indie games that match AAA games from 2010 in polish or content, honestly. Maybe there are a few, but I cannot think of any off the too of my head. Most are like AAA of 25+ years ago.
On a technical level it may be achievable that an Indie game matches a 2010 AAA game, but I think mechanically speaking that has not happened yet. Indie games have a hard time even matching the content and polish of 20 year old games from 2005. Where is the Indie Resident Evil 4, or Elder Scrolls III Morrowind? Some Indie games try to compete, but they either aren’t polished enough, look like they released in 1999, or are too short in content to compare to those games.
We need to go back. Everything now is too sterile. Publishers do not take any risks on games anymore. We don’t get games like Illbleed or Burnout from AAA funding anymore. Games that look at a genre and really ask what actually belongs in that genre.
Nowadays its all unoptimized Unreal Engine copy-paste Over the Shoulder perspective slop.
Indie is being more experimental these days simply because of how easy it is to develop video games now, but still lacks the necessary funding to create experiences on par with what AAA can offer.
That’s basically the point of a tariff; to discourage people from buying foreign goods and to encourage production and sale of domestic goods instead.
The only times it doesn’t work correctly is when too much of the general populace refuses to do the work necessary to create production, domestic regulations make production locally too prohibitively expensive, and/or when domestic product manufacturers raise their prices to match the new higher tariffed prices, effectively cancelling the intended benefits of a tariff.
The USA right now is kinda seeing the effects of all 3. It has been so reliant on imports for such a long time that trying to cut that off all at once is having a more pronounced effect than if its import reliance was curtailed more slowly and started a while ago. And since there is no regulation (AFAIK) saying that domestic good prices cannot raise to match imported good prices when tariffed, that doesn’t help either. Businesses want the most money, and if all the other options for a product are $150 and their domestic one is only $50, without law saying they can’t match those other prices businesses feel like they are leaving $100 on the table.
I mean, any person that tries to learn history from video games or movies alone is pretty dumb. In order for it to be entertaining, artistic liberties often need to be taken which usuaally means the final product is not historically accurate. The thing with Assassin’s Creed games is that where history was involved, in the past they tried to be as accurate to real life as possible. The layouts of cities, the appearance and roles of real historic characters, etc. In more recent years they have tossed that out the window, but historic accuracy on elements not related to the assassin storyline was something Assassin’s Creed prided itself on.
Even still, most only have a single text screen at the very beginning that just says “this is a work of fiction.” I don’t know that I would call that emphasis, but it is present. I also haven’t tried this mod myself, but I don’t see that it would be portraying itself as real events unless it says “this is based on real events.” I have always assumed that video games are a work of fiction, even if they are based on real events. If I wanted to learn more about the real events, I would do research on my own.
I suppose at the end of the day more context is needed. Did Valve contact the mod author prior to takedown to request a change in the mod description to add a “work of fiction” tag and the author refused? If Valve just straight up removed it without even contacting the author, I think that is not good.
I am concerned that censorship might become greater with this action. What other governments will say to Valve “remove X or Y game/mod because it is offensive or portrays real life characters or events improperly?” Ideally none, but still. I don’t exactly agree with the context of this mod and entirely understand why it would be offensive, but at the same time I think that a mod author or game developer should be free to create whatever they want, without fear of censorship removing their work.
EDIT:
Valve has denied reports its pulled a controversial mod from Steam around the world at the request of the South Korean government, saying the mod was only blocked in South Korea and only because it broke local laws. The mod’s author is said to be behind its global removal.
EDIT: This was important information I was not privy to when I originally made this comment. This makes more sense and is completely understandable.
Original comment below:
I feel like this opens the door to banning any “alternative history” setting for a game or mod on Steam.
For example, if someone wanted to make a mod about WWII but aliens invaded Earth and the Allies and Axis decided to make an agreement to become allies to repel the alien invasion, how would that be different from this? That would effectively make Nazis “good guys” in that alternative historical setting. Obviously, that is something that never happened in real history, but if someone is interested in real historical events, it should be on them to do their research, not a video game developer or a mod author.
Unless there is specific context where a government is pointing to this mod saying that’s “how it really happened,” would not a disclaimer saying that the events in the game are not based on reality and set in an alternative timeline be sufficient?
Sometimes, but most of the time duplicates let you level up a character beyond their basic level (Limit Break, most commonly called), or give you materials to pick a new character (sometimes called Pity System, but that is a little different), or materials to forge new weapons.
I have played many gacha games, and I have only ever spent money on NieR Reincarnation because I wanted Square Enix to see that I like Yoko Taros games and want more of them. I am not a whale, dolphin, or a minnow. I am a “barnacle” F2P player, and I have never had a problem with the games I play. They’re not really designed to be constantly played all the time like a “regular” game would be, instead being level or session style games. I don’t compare my game progress with other players, and I play to have fun and pass time. I get exactly what I want from them for whenever I play them.
I would just like to mention that it is called “gacha” not “gotcha.”
“Gacha” is short for the Japanese term gachapon, which means “capsule toy.” You remember gumball machines? You put a quarter in and twist the handle and a gumball comes out. Gachapon is like that, but with a small plastic ball with a random toy inside. Those are less common than the gumball machines, but there were also some that had sticker/temporary tattoo sheets and those hard candies that looks like fruits(mostly bananas).
Gachapon is a bit different from gambling. Gambling comes with the inherent understanding that you have a chance to lose. With gachapon, you always get exactly what you are paying for: a random capsule toy. You just don’t get to pick which one you get. With gachapon, you always “win,” there is no chance that your money is spent and you get nothing in return. This is why games with gacha mechanics makes duplicates of characters or items useful. Whatever you get is still useful to you, even if you don’t get what you wanted.
I think you already understand the negative aspects of gachapon, but I just wanted to add that little bit of information.
Honestly? Its kinda good Perfect Dark was cancelled.
When MS first showed Perfect Dark, there was nothing of substance really to base any expectations on. Except previous games, which were only ever “okay.” But the second time they showed it, with their idea of gameplay, it looked bad. It didn’t look like what one would expect from Perfect Dark, it looked like some weird hybrid between Battlefield/Call of Duty, Mirror’s Edge, and a high tech cyberpunk game.
Perfect Dark was really only ever “that game Rare made because they weren’t allowed to make GoldenEye 2.” It wasn’t really revolutionary or prolific or anything, unlike GoldenEye.
Its better that it stays the way it was than be ruined by whatever it was going to be cobbled into. I am kinda shocked it took MS this long to cancel it.
because piracy means stealing
No. No it does not. Piracy is legally copyright infringement, not theft. Stealing requires that the thief deprive the original owner access to the stolen thing. Piracy is not stealing because there is no deprivation of access.
If I made a copy of your car, but you still had access to your car and could drive it like normal, I didn’t steal your car.
VOID originally split from the original publisher of the game because they “didn’t want to compromise their vision of the game.”
Well, apparently that has changed now that console money is on the table. They’re completely disregarding what they stood for before and are trudging ahead with compromising their vision of the game.
Look, I am still using a GTX 1080 Ti (GOATED GPU btw, best dollar per performance value probably ever) because GPUs are too expensive. $700 USD for a low-mid tier card, or $1000+ for a card that should (and usually does) give good lasting value. I don’t see where anyone is buying a PC for less than $500 and it has better performance than a PS5, but I suppose it is possible this is a result of Price Discrimination, since I am in California.
NVidia is showing what PlayStation will look like when it feels there is actually zero competition. Xbox, so long as its hardware exists, is a constant threat to PlayStation keeping a lot of things in check. Once Xbox completely disappears, PlayStation will have no competition. Then Sony can set the prices however they want and nobody can do anything about it except pay up, or don’t.
I have Valkie 64, and I say save your money. Last I played it, it was VERY rough, unpolished, and felt unfinished. It didn’t properly replicate N64 graphics, looking more like an emulator from 2005 with the internal resolution cracked way up and only basic bilinear texture filtering. The controls are clunky, and I don’t mean like in an N64 game way, I mean they just feel bad.
Even for $5 USD or whatever, I say its not worth it. I was disappointed because the trailer seemed to make it look like an attempt to recapture the magic of Ocarina of Time, but it doesn’t do that at all. Like, not even close.
Its was similar in some way, but it was also very different in others.
With the exception of Ghost Recon 1, which was first person, the series was always a third person shooter genre, but it occasionally was first person depending on the platform and the game (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1 is in first person only for PS2, Xbox, and PC, but is optionally third person on Xbox 360. GRAW 2 is in third person for all platforms). Most Ghost Recon games are third person, and this was likely an intentional choice to make a game that does not directly compete with Rainbow Six, another Ubisoft series.
Ghost Recon had some semblance of realism, but not on the level of Rainbow Six and definitely not on the level of Ready or Not. Rainbow Six in its later years also began to lose its realistic style and became more and more fanciful, culminating in Siege having crossovers that don’t make sense for the game or genre (I love NieR, but 2B does not belong in Rainbow Six, and her model in the game looks awful anyway).
Ghost Recons biggest difference is that Ghost Recon has a military focus, whereas Rainbow Six is more focused on SWAT or counterterrorism efforts. To this end, Rainbow Six often featured levels with enclosed spaces such as the inside of buildings or airplanes and a lot of close quarters combat, while Ghost Recon favors more open maps and long range encounters. Ghost Recon also featured vehicles and vehicular combat sections while Rainbow Six generally did not. For example, Ghost Recon would sometimes have a helicopter or tank appear to assist your squad in combat, perhaps against another enemy vehicle. If Rainbow Six ever featured a vehicle, it definitely wasnt a tank assisting your squad, and at most was a helicopter shooting through building glass or something similar.