this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
194 points (98.0% liked)

Games

16689 readers
441 users here now

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc..
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 32 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Hi-Fi Rush is a blast and I highly recommend it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

What happens to the talent at these studios?

Are all these buyouts just a way to force hire workers.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Buying something and shutting it down shouldn't be possible. You don't want to own it anymore? Great, they're independent, good luck have fun. But you didn't do anything, to say it stopped existing. It is a purely theoretical act. No factory was torn down, no warehouse was liquidated. A video game studio is just a bunch of folks who come in to work on the same thing every weekday. Games are made of labor. If the money stops flowing, that's a problem, but it shouldn't be a light-switch existential termination.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's an amazing amount of naivety on display.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This sort of empty shit comment is worse than telling anyone to go fuck themselves.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In that case go fuck yourself and learn some basic economics before you open your hole again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

bAsIc eCoNoMiCs is even less meaningful than just scoffing about naivete. Which you misspelled.

I'm making a normative statement about how this studio - which successfully made a beloved and profitable game, as a product that over a million people paid for - was still treated like it failed, lost money, and ruined everything. And that statement is, if success isn't good enough, that's fucking bullshit.

And the thorn that puts in your side is... that it's not capitalist enough? My guy, do you think the children's introductory textbook version of supply and demand has a footnote about destroying successful companies for shits and giggles? Or maybe you only spit that libertarian shibboleth at anything besides line-go-up. In just two words, you've assured that I don't know and I don't care.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

If a misspelled word is your opening argument the rest of your pointless essay isn't worth reading. Go back to school.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It wasn't, but cling to whatever shields your ego.

And consider your own advice - "basic" doesn't mean "fundamental." It means "for children." Try advanced economics.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If the studios had the resources they could easily become independent. But the corporate side owns the rights to their works, so the now independent studio doesn't have any incoming revenue.

The average employee won't work for scraps or nothing. So it's effectively over if big corpo cuts them off.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

'They could but they can't' is certainly almost a take.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Misrepresenting what I'm saying is not nice of you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Missing the point of is versus ought is just bewildering.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why even engage if you're not interested in discussion?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That is not what happened here. I am saying: buying a studio and saying whoops you don't exist anymore should not happen. You are saying: but it does. Because copyright? Even for shit that's not out yet. A bunch of these closures involve killing unreleased projects, which are obviously never going to go anywhere in the hands of whichever robots own them. Tell me their ownership matters and you will see what backlash looks like.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for explaining. I was not arguing the point that closures happen, just expanding on why it's not easy for the studios to get back on their feet again as independents.

There will likely be non-disclosure agreements, non-competes or simply IP rights to take into consideration if we want to argue why these studios can't continue their work. In the end it comes down to legal stuff and money. The IP rights even for unreleased products very likely are with the parent corporation. The same goes for the codebase.

So yeah. The studios are left with nothing, except a severance pay if they're lucky.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Normative statements are a novel concept to some people.

Pointing to all that and going AND THAT'S HORSESHIT is not a factual argument - it's a moral judgement.

I'm not saying it's untrue. I'm saying it's unacceptable.

In short:

Fuck.

That.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Well, you can only win against big corpo if you shoot them with their own guns.

Or literal guns.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

This is awful. What happens to the games themselves? I haven't played hifi rush yet but it's been on my list.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I don't know but it still hasn't been cracked... I imagine things would be very bad if they decide to pull it for some reason...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The games are the property of the publisher (in the case of Hi-fi Rush, Microsoft Games), so (baring licensing issues like music) as long as the publisher is around the game should still be around.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Editor? Do you mean publisher?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yes, sorry, I used the word from my first language

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hifi Rush is in Humble Choice this month, and I noticed they have a redemption deadline which is a bit out of the ordinary. So it's possible it'll get delisted, or maybe Humble is just playing it safe with the keys they have.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Oh I'll check it out on there then thanks for the headsup

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

It could get delisted in the future if there were any licensing deals, although that can happen for any game. If you already own it on Steam you'll be able to keep downloading and playing it indefinitely.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago

None of these companies create jobs, none of them create competition, none of them foster creativity, none of them innovate. Global monopolies are a blight.

And I'm not going to let doom scrolling and apathy deter me from trying to change things. At least I emailed my congressman today

[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago

Hopefully this doesnt steamroll into a Embracer situation.

Still, pretty obnoxious of Microsoft to buy these studios, just to close them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

There should be no shock from this. This happens everytime.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No no, xbox buying these companies is going to be good for gaming! It's going to increase game production because it's so efficient!

Every capitalist wank last year talking about how all the mergers were wonderful.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

The stupid thing is it totally could have made things better. Facilitated knowledge share, floated work between studios if one needed help, heck, just combining HR and publishing tools could have freed up some costs that could feed back into development. Something.

But yeah, saw it coming