Problem is that barely anyone use crypto as currency. Almost everybody treat it as a stupid get rich quick scheme.

Better than sex

• the most genius comedian of all time

I look forward to that new meme template.

They were one of the loudest proponents of “games as a service” back in the day.

Among the old PS3 conferences there’s this one where Portal 2 is announced for PS3. While everybody else tried to make 3D TV gaming and motion controls the next big thing, Gabe just enters the stage and describes how they believe games as a service is the future.

They were so far ahead. Everybody struggled to figure out what the next big thing is going to be. Valve had already figured it out.

I think it’s unlikely we’re going to get Sekiro 2 because the IP is under Activision. If anything, we’ll probably get a spiritual successor under Namco.

I think Elden Ring has much greater variety than any other open world game. I agree there’s quite a bit of copy pasting, but even after playing for more than 50 hours, I’m surprised with new enemy types and environments (especially now with the DLC). I think it’s exciting to explore every corner of Elden Ring.

Compare it with Tears of the Kingdom. It felt like I’ve seen most the game had to offer after 10 hours. I lost the excitement of exploring rather quickly.

I think it took me longer to finish the DLC than my playthrough of Dark Souls. They really like to over deliver.

I hope we will see more smaller scale games from them in the future. Elden Ring is fantastic, but I want them to make another take on Sekiro’s combat.

Fair point.

Time will tell when Sokoban and Silksong releases. It’s hard to know what’s happening internally at the studios and why it’s taking so long.

Making an entire programming language is a bold move, and I’m skeptical it’s a move that’s going to pay off.

Faster compilation is probably nice, but making a new language with all its tooling from scratch is a huge endeavor. Props to him for actually doing it.

The problem is that all this work takes away time from the actual game development. I’m not sure about the scope of his next game, but from what I’ve seen I don’t really understand why his Sokoban adventure game can’t be made in Unity. I don’t think he’s pushing any hardware limits with it.

Unity also got hot reloading nowadays, which is about as fast iteration you can get.

I’m just armchair guessing, but I believe he would’ve been done with his game by now if he just used Unity.

His arguing hasn’t helped him to maintain is image either. It’s hard for me to respect the guy, which makes me less inclined to buy his games.

Or just test the damn thing before shipping it to customers. That’s standard practice in the software industry.

If they had just installed it on one of their own Windows machines, none of this would’ve happened.

Yes that can be true, but fun doesn’t pay the bills.

Jonathan Blow has been more interested in marketing his niche programming language than his games, so maybe that’s why.

Risks are normally outside the reasonable control of the company. For example, sales not hitting the target. They can’t just press a button and up goes the sales.

This was entirely within the company’s control. That risk shouldn’t ever be there at all. They could’ve avoided the entire situation if they chose not to ship the faulty software.

Naturally there’s a drop in profit in a year where they don’t release a heavy hitter like Elden Ring. And the numbers don’t include the sales of the expansion.

I’m sure they have their finances under control.

I believe it was a desperate attempt to get a new source of revenue. His upcoming Sokoban game is taking forever to make, so it’s not going to bring them any new revenue anytime soon. In large part because he made the arcane decision to create a new programming language for it (as a replacement for C++), because apparently Sokoban is the type of game where you really need that high performance.

PSX was a common abbreviation for the original PlayStation at the time. It has just stuck with me.

I haven’t played it myself, but Boku no Natsuyasumi is a game that recently entered my radar, which fits your description quite well. It’s a game I want to play sometime, but I have had other priorities. It’s for PSX.

It’s about a boy in a summer vacation with his family.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any official English versions of the game, but hopefully you might find a solution if you think the game looks interesting enough to play it.

I don’t think they would keep investing in marketing if they didn’t know if it worked. I’m just guessing, but I believe there’s a noticeable bump in sales after a successful marketing campaign.

It must be some mismanagement issue going on in the games industry. Wrong stakeholders who have no idea of game development influencing the wrong decisions.

I think marketing is always important no matter how established you are. Coca Cola aren’t skimping on their marketing budget even if they’re the most recognizable brand in the world.

It’s about constantly reminding everybody “hey, I exist! Don’t you want to buy me?”.

My guess is that there will be some sections where you play as Link. Kind of like how you play as Zelda in some sections of Spirit Tracks (if I remember correctly).

Sounds more like warframe is using the early access model to me. I think that’s fine. Many great games are in early access that are worth their price even in their unfinished state.

Star Citizen feels different, even though it’s also early access. In part because of the weirdly priced ships. There are ships that cost thousands dollars. Like, what’s the justification for that? Most people spend way less on games for a year, but this game asks this price just to gain access to one asset?

Another part is the ever expanding scope. It feels like they don’t really want to release the game. They’ve found there’s no point in actually finishing the game when they can just keep selling the promise of the definitive space sim game. Keep giving them more money and they will promise more.

He’s specifically talking about the original. Bioshock was unlikely to get made with its budget due to how niche System Shock is. It’s impressive they managed to make Bioshock a big success.

Every time I see some SC news I look up to see if there’s any release date announced for SQ42 yet.

It was originally supposed to release in 2014 and it still doesn’t have a release date!

He’s talking about System Shock, which wasn’t that immensely popular.

Whether they intend it or not, these engines are built to funnel you back into the lowest common denominator, most broadly appealing stuff, because that’s what the algorithm sees gets the most clicks from the average person.

That’s not my general experience. Spotify for example is good at recommending me songs with less than 10k plays which I vibe on. I’ve discovered many smaller artists thanks to Spotify recommendations.

Recommendation is part of the service. If they know I like something, then it’s reasonable they recommend me something that’s similar. It’s like going to a restaurant and asking for recommendations.

Advertising is when things are promoted outside the service. It’s like going to a restaurant and they tell me about Raid Shadow Legends. I don’t want that.

I think recommendation should be linked to usage data like watch history on that particular service. Location and other external information shouldn’t be used. I don’t want my recommendations depend on which friends I have or recent activity on a different service.

I’m mostly joking about that Embracer is more effective at shutting down studios and cancelling games rather than making them.

It’s not from a high bar, so not improbable AI will do a better job than Embracer already do.

I don’t want to set up Patreon for every creator I’m watching. Often I just watch one or two videos from them and that’s it.

Probably near zero chance. Fediverse is dead empty compared to the alternatives, so not ideal if they want to reach out to their fans.

Well it works best if the game is actually good.

A game that does seasons very well is Deep Rock Galactic. Each season comes with fresh new content. Old seasons can be revisited if you missed them, so no stress. The new additions to the game are permanent, which adds great variety to the missions. Progress follows between seasons, so no need to create new characters from scratch.

Most importantly: the game is really good as well.

It’s mostly to maintain user engagement. It’s a way to bring players back every now and then.

The game is mainly designed around season play. You’ll miss out on content if you don’t participate in seasons. The game won’t be as enjoyable either, because it’s not designed to be played that way.

I just want a game without the time pressure of seasons. I want to play games in my own pace. It’s hard to maintain an attachment to the character when the character “expires” once the season ends.

I haven’t played D4, so I’m not sure how seasons are implemented in that game, but this was a problem in D3. Once the season ends there’s little reason to continue playing with the character.

Excellent video!

I was probably 3 when I was first exposed to the first Wipeout game, and I have been a fan of it and its music ever since. Petrol from Orbital is a big influence on my childhood.

Then later we got a demo with 2097. I distinctly remember it had Body in Motion by Cold Storage. Probably the best track in the entire series.

And now I learn Cold Storage hated this kind of music when he started with Wipeout.

Yeah, I was tired when I wrote.

I didn’t enjoy Doom 2016 as much because once you get the super shotgun and ballista, there’s few reasons to use any other weapon in the game. No need to experiment with weaker weapons when super shotgun gets the job done. Heck, even the starter pistol is obsolete after the first few levels already.

In Eternal the game encourages you to experiment with all your weapons. The starter shotgun is still a good choice even when super shotgun is in your arsenal. And with constant ammo refill the combat can also be much longer with way more enemies (which they especially make use of in horde mode). In Doom 2016 you could technically run out of ammo completely.