but they appear to include staff at PlayStation's Visual Arts studio, based in San Diego, which supports developers like The Last of Us creators Naughty Dog and Spider-Man 2 creators Insomniac.
YES! Now just cut EVERYONE out in America, relocate your headquarters to Japan in the more racist area (I'm thinking either Hokkaido or Okinawa), don't use that Canadian studio for your game scripts and focus only on the money again!
My friend worked in an office with tiny little Obasama, who loved to talk crap all day. It was hilarious to watch him gossip next to them. They kept a score book of people we scared at which area.
That is hilarious. I remember when my family first moved to the States and it surprised me that you couldn't take candy from strangers because in Japan in 1991 you absolutely could.
Also that Santa Claus wasn't Japanese, that came as a surprise. There was this middle aged old widower who used to dress up and give out toys every Christmas at our apartment building.
I pity millennials, and I pity zoomers even more. Things truly were better before, and they'll never have that perspective.
As a kid growing up we had two Santas. German Santa and American Santa both had beards, but it ended there.
The lines for KFC on Christmas day... Did your Colonel get decorated?
I think half the problems today are that all of our problems were solved in the 90's, and the NEWS just kept saying it still existed, or made up stuff even worse.
It could be Insomniac employees getting axed after Spider Man 2 launch. Happens alot in AAA. They keep a few on for bug fix, and DLC. They'll start to hire up again when they work on the next big project.
Sadly they rarely lay off the actual shit employees. They are protected.
I feel like a lot of this could also be just the sheer amount of entertainment that's out there.
Phones now have tons of games that keep kids attention, despite the fact that they are shit, because they are psychologically optimized to addict you.
Social media has gone from an active to a passive hobby, with the majority of people just swiping through an Instagram or tiktok feed and not actually engaging with people. because there's less conversation, it is harder to build fandoms organically like in the days of focused internet forums.
Even video games now are designed to last forever in mediocrity. Fortnite has had the attention of the young video game audience longer than Halo did, and most other successful games are endless multiplayer grinds that take up all of gamers' time.
In this market, high budget AAA games cannot afford to be mediocre or even good, let alone how bad they've been lately. They have to be Great. Superb. Epic. Unforgettable. Groundbreaking. Anything short of this and they will be lucky to turn a mild profit.
With momentum generally swinging away from both console and PC gaming, in favor of social media and forever games like Fortnite, companies really can't afford to release a bad or mediocre game unless they have one hell of a safety net.
In this market, high budget AAA games cannot afford to be mediocre or even good, let alone how bad they've been lately.
Alternatively, they can have a fanbase. Actual fans who will turn out for even their meh titles simply because they enjoy the product enough that its rough edges don't bother them.
Which is a problem for most AAA game studios, as they've spent almost the last 20 years telling their fanbase to go fuck off so they could court the nebulous and unpleasable "wider markets." Which requires them to release either FOMO addicting slop or "THE GREATEST GAME EVER" just to have a chance of standing out.
From Soft, for example, just dropped a new title in one of their dead series in an ever deader genre completely different than what most people want from them. But because they have a fanbase, it was still able to sell immensely and become a hit.
honestly, I feel like the "dead" genre was actually an ingenious move. in an era where so many video games controlled so differently, it's easy to see how games like Armored Core and other mech games would gain a niche audience.
fast forward to today, and everything controls exactly the same. everything has the same safe plot points, and everything has predictable gameplay mechanics. There's no variety unless you go to the indie world, so From decides to make a safe-ish gamble and pour their resources into reviving a genre that had a dedicated fan base. the recent successes of both project wingman and Ace Combat 7 also probably factored into that decision, given how those games have a similar pace and style.
As a result, people are loving it. they love it because it's fun, and the genre does work, but they also love it because it is so different from open world collectathon with a mildly neat gimmick number 483. Similar to what happened to the souls games, we are probably going to see a bunch of core-likes in the near future until THAT genre starts to get stale like the souls-like genre did.
I've already 100%'d it and loved it myself, as someone who had been waiting on a new one forever. Each of the 3 endings are now up near the top of my favorite endings of all time, even. But very few Dark Souls fans had ever played an AC before this.
However, its because they have those fans that most people even tried it to find out they loved it and the genre. If they hadn't had that pre-built trust, it would have been fractionally successful regardless of its quality.
And probably most of them would have quit on the Noob Filter Copter on the Tutorial Mission if not for the extreme FOMO push by it being such a big thing.
For a comparison, Daemon X Machina* attempted to do the literal same thing not a few years ago. It released to complete silence and barely any played it despite it being functionally identical to AC6 in most ways. It did fine enough, but not much of a ripple was made off it. A lot of which, because nobody who wasn't already into the genre even heard about it compared to anyone who knows From Soft knowing about AC6.
*It also does one thing almost in a parody opposite fashion of From Soft, which is introduce a shit ton of characters with overly long dialogue heavy cutscenes at the starting hours of the game. Its the game's biggest flaw that keeps anyone from getting into it deeper, simply because you get more than a dozen (with more to come) names introduced in the first hour with distinctive personalities you need to remember in long drawn out text only cutscenes to establish them.
YES! Now just cut EVERYONE out in America, relocate your headquarters to Japan in the more racist area (I'm thinking either Hokkaido or Okinawa), don't use that Canadian studio for your game scripts and focus only on the money again!
Lived in Hokkaido for years. Can confirm, it was very based on the 90s.
Lived in Hokkaido during the 00's. I made a game of seeing how many people ran away from my black friend. It was hilarious every time.
I should add we were both over 6 feet tall.
My mother was six two and had flaming red hair. People took pictures of her a lot.
My friend worked in an office with tiny little Obasama, who loved to talk crap all day. It was hilarious to watch him gossip next to them. They kept a score book of people we scared at which area.
That is hilarious. I remember when my family first moved to the States and it surprised me that you couldn't take candy from strangers because in Japan in 1991 you absolutely could.
Also that Santa Claus wasn't Japanese, that came as a surprise. There was this middle aged old widower who used to dress up and give out toys every Christmas at our apartment building.
I pity millennials, and I pity zoomers even more. Things truly were better before, and they'll never have that perspective.
Wait, what? 🤔
Yeah. I was blond and adorable as a little kid so in Japan strangers used to give me candy all the time.
As a kid growing up we had two Santas. German Santa and American Santa both had beards, but it ended there.
The lines for KFC on Christmas day... Did your Colonel get decorated?
I think half the problems today are that all of our problems were solved in the 90's, and the NEWS just kept saying it still existed, or made up stuff even worse.
Not only did they decorate the KFC for Christmas, but I still remember Valentine's Day KFC celebrations.
It could be Insomniac employees getting axed after Spider Man 2 launch. Happens alot in AAA. They keep a few on for bug fix, and DLC. They'll start to hire up again when they work on the next big project.
Sadly they rarely lay off the actual shit employees. They are protected.
They are administration, while the talent is easily replaced by the next kid who wants to prove himself.
Kind of a bummer when your failing rival uses their Rupees to just buy all the most popular franchises.
I feel like a lot of this could also be just the sheer amount of entertainment that's out there.
Phones now have tons of games that keep kids attention, despite the fact that they are shit, because they are psychologically optimized to addict you.
Social media has gone from an active to a passive hobby, with the majority of people just swiping through an Instagram or tiktok feed and not actually engaging with people. because there's less conversation, it is harder to build fandoms organically like in the days of focused internet forums.
Even video games now are designed to last forever in mediocrity. Fortnite has had the attention of the young video game audience longer than Halo did, and most other successful games are endless multiplayer grinds that take up all of gamers' time.
In this market, high budget AAA games cannot afford to be mediocre or even good, let alone how bad they've been lately. They have to be Great. Superb. Epic. Unforgettable. Groundbreaking. Anything short of this and they will be lucky to turn a mild profit.
With momentum generally swinging away from both console and PC gaming, in favor of social media and forever games like Fortnite, companies really can't afford to release a bad or mediocre game unless they have one hell of a safety net.
Alternatively, they can have a fanbase. Actual fans who will turn out for even their meh titles simply because they enjoy the product enough that its rough edges don't bother them.
Which is a problem for most AAA game studios, as they've spent almost the last 20 years telling their fanbase to go fuck off so they could court the nebulous and unpleasable "wider markets." Which requires them to release either FOMO addicting slop or "THE GREATEST GAME EVER" just to have a chance of standing out.
From Soft, for example, just dropped a new title in one of their dead series in an ever deader genre completely different than what most people want from them. But because they have a fanbase, it was still able to sell immensely and become a hit.
Full disclosure: I'm heavily enjoying AC6.
honestly, I feel like the "dead" genre was actually an ingenious move. in an era where so many video games controlled so differently, it's easy to see how games like Armored Core and other mech games would gain a niche audience.
fast forward to today, and everything controls exactly the same. everything has the same safe plot points, and everything has predictable gameplay mechanics. There's no variety unless you go to the indie world, so From decides to make a safe-ish gamble and pour their resources into reviving a genre that had a dedicated fan base. the recent successes of both project wingman and Ace Combat 7 also probably factored into that decision, given how those games have a similar pace and style.
As a result, people are loving it. they love it because it's fun, and the genre does work, but they also love it because it is so different from open world collectathon with a mildly neat gimmick number 483. Similar to what happened to the souls games, we are probably going to see a bunch of core-likes in the near future until THAT genre starts to get stale like the souls-like genre did.
I've already 100%'d it and loved it myself, as someone who had been waiting on a new one forever. Each of the 3 endings are now up near the top of my favorite endings of all time, even. But very few Dark Souls fans had ever played an AC before this.
However, its because they have those fans that most people even tried it to find out they loved it and the genre. If they hadn't had that pre-built trust, it would have been fractionally successful regardless of its quality.
And probably most of them would have quit on the Noob Filter Copter on the Tutorial Mission if not for the extreme FOMO push by it being such a big thing.
For a comparison, Daemon X Machina* attempted to do the literal same thing not a few years ago. It released to complete silence and barely any played it despite it being functionally identical to AC6 in most ways. It did fine enough, but not much of a ripple was made off it. A lot of which, because nobody who wasn't already into the genre even heard about it compared to anyone who knows From Soft knowing about AC6.
*It also does one thing almost in a parody opposite fashion of From Soft, which is introduce a shit ton of characters with overly long dialogue heavy cutscenes at the starting hours of the game. Its the game's biggest flaw that keeps anyone from getting into it deeper, simply because you get more than a dozen (with more to come) names introduced in the first hour with distinctive personalities you need to remember in long drawn out text only cutscenes to establish them.