There's an added monetisation layer going on here as well I believe. It's not just the devs being butthurt at modders doing a better job than they ever could with content creation though that is part of it. Modding fucking up the DLC market big time because why would you pay money for their shitty DLC when you can simply download a mod that does the exact same thing for free?
Most of the DLC content you get adds very little to the game even though they clearly took it apart piece by piece to resell. When you look at the DLC market in general it's usually cosmetics, sometimes if they're feeling generous they'll do a mini-expansion to the story or something like that. Or it's clearly something they whipped up in about 10 minutes if that and they're charging people £20+ now for it. Part of it will be ideology, but don't forget the financial incentive they have to ban modding outright because it eats into their shitty business models. A great example of this would be bethesda's creation club. It does not take a lot of skill to make some generic coloured repeatable pattern in Krita and then paste it onto a model and the majority of the time that's what these lazy bastards are doing.
That's true but I'd argue the 'lost profits' of modders making dlc less desirable is outweighed by modders keeping a game alive BEYOND it's original life expectancy.
Let's be honest, pre Fallout 76, ALL of Bethesda's previous titles would've died off a lot longer ago without the active modding community. Skyrim and NV might be an exception to a degree but both those titles would've not been as popular without the modders. You can't sell microtransactions to a dead game which we're seeing with Starfield how right that is.
Counter argument: Street Fighter is not of a genre in which modding keeps the game going, especially not cosmetic modding. It'll be kept alive because SF7 doesn't exist yet and nothing else has come along to dethrone it in the meantime and ideally because it'll have gameplay that's deep enough to keep the community engaged and developing new tech. Bethesda's titles are good examples of the point you are trying to make, whereas fighting games are an atrocious example.
Good counter argument as not into fighting games (just don't have the muscle memory for it) but it does seem from and outside perspective capcom is not putting that much effort into their franchises anymore at least aesthetically.
Is there a balance as with other genres where the gameplay can only carry a title so much before the asthetics ruin any incentive to play it?
There's probably some level where bad aesthetics will turn people off from playing a fighting game, but it's pretty much an ancillary feature and I'm not aware of any game on the market that has actually crossed that threshold. If the core gameplay isn't there then the game will die. If the game is losing momentum it's always down to the gameplay and no injection of good visuals will do anything to move the needle. Just look at DNF Duel. That game had gorgeous visuals and some of the best rollback netcode known to man, but the gameplay just wasn't strong enough and it died a pretty meek death.
Yeah, fighting games are simply a total anomaly when it comes to the industry, it’s basically the only genre where current DLC practices are actually an improvement over what used to happen.
If you extrapolate creative assemblies' responses over DLC pricing it's easy to understand why they don't give two shits about people actually playing their games. They're like locusts on game franchises now, they keep churning out generic titles after generic titles until there's nothing left and the community gets fed up of them. Then they move onto something else. I think this is part of what was going on with their weird Hyenas title that flopped so hard.
Starfield is a great example to bring up as well because it's just some generic woke trash and doesn't have the same appeal older games have so they can't rely on that to make them money. It is a good thing though because I think gamers are slowly realising how little of a shit these game devs really give and as a result this is being reflected even in the steam reviews with most of the major titles being negative rated into oblivion.
I think this is part of what was going on with their weird Hyenas title that flopped so hard.
That's actually a perfect example as they got bitch slapped HARD by Sega after for wasting their money that they did massive staff cuts.
This locust mentality has burned most of the good will out of the industry and the only ones left are niche studios and titles to a certain audience, and Nintendo. Seriously if another gaming crash happens, Nintendo are going to be a record two time champion of surviving a dying industry.
There's an added monetisation layer going on here as well I believe. It's not just the devs being butthurt at modders doing a better job than they ever could with content creation though that is part of it. Modding fucking up the DLC market big time because why would you pay money for their shitty DLC when you can simply download a mod that does the exact same thing for free?
Most of the DLC content you get adds very little to the game even though they clearly took it apart piece by piece to resell. When you look at the DLC market in general it's usually cosmetics, sometimes if they're feeling generous they'll do a mini-expansion to the story or something like that. Or it's clearly something they whipped up in about 10 minutes if that and they're charging people £20+ now for it. Part of it will be ideology, but don't forget the financial incentive they have to ban modding outright because it eats into their shitty business models. A great example of this would be bethesda's creation club. It does not take a lot of skill to make some generic coloured repeatable pattern in Krita and then paste it onto a model and the majority of the time that's what these lazy bastards are doing.
That's true but I'd argue the 'lost profits' of modders making dlc less desirable is outweighed by modders keeping a game alive BEYOND it's original life expectancy.
Let's be honest, pre Fallout 76, ALL of Bethesda's previous titles would've died off a lot longer ago without the active modding community. Skyrim and NV might be an exception to a degree but both those titles would've not been as popular without the modders. You can't sell microtransactions to a dead game which we're seeing with Starfield how right that is.
Counter argument: Street Fighter is not of a genre in which modding keeps the game going, especially not cosmetic modding. It'll be kept alive because SF7 doesn't exist yet and nothing else has come along to dethrone it in the meantime and ideally because it'll have gameplay that's deep enough to keep the community engaged and developing new tech. Bethesda's titles are good examples of the point you are trying to make, whereas fighting games are an atrocious example.
Good counter argument as not into fighting games (just don't have the muscle memory for it) but it does seem from and outside perspective capcom is not putting that much effort into their franchises anymore at least aesthetically.
Is there a balance as with other genres where the gameplay can only carry a title so much before the asthetics ruin any incentive to play it?
There's probably some level where bad aesthetics will turn people off from playing a fighting game, but it's pretty much an ancillary feature and I'm not aware of any game on the market that has actually crossed that threshold. If the core gameplay isn't there then the game will die. If the game is losing momentum it's always down to the gameplay and no injection of good visuals will do anything to move the needle. Just look at DNF Duel. That game had gorgeous visuals and some of the best rollback netcode known to man, but the gameplay just wasn't strong enough and it died a pretty meek death.
Yeah, fighting games are simply a total anomaly when it comes to the industry, it’s basically the only genre where current DLC practices are actually an improvement over what used to happen.
An improvement over just having alternate colors/costumes being built into the base game? Or were you referring to roster expansions?
If you extrapolate creative assemblies' responses over DLC pricing it's easy to understand why they don't give two shits about people actually playing their games. They're like locusts on game franchises now, they keep churning out generic titles after generic titles until there's nothing left and the community gets fed up of them. Then they move onto something else. I think this is part of what was going on with their weird Hyenas title that flopped so hard.
Starfield is a great example to bring up as well because it's just some generic woke trash and doesn't have the same appeal older games have so they can't rely on that to make them money. It is a good thing though because I think gamers are slowly realising how little of a shit these game devs really give and as a result this is being reflected even in the steam reviews with most of the major titles being negative rated into oblivion.
That's actually a perfect example as they got bitch slapped HARD by Sega after for wasting their money that they did massive staff cuts.
This locust mentality has burned most of the good will out of the industry and the only ones left are niche studios and titles to a certain audience, and Nintendo. Seriously if another gaming crash happens, Nintendo are going to be a record two time champion of surviving a dying industry.