There are features in Far Cry 2 like the wind-based fire-spreading tech that still is nowhere to be seen in any other game to date.
The industry really did top off by 2010, tech-wise it was mostly downhill from there (though I will say that I wish someone would steal and adopt Assassin's Creed 3's procedural blending tech for combat into another game, there still isn't another game that has that feature and it's angering Ubisoft is sitting on so much cool tech that is being used for nothing).
It's cathartic for sure, they're suffering the consequences of putting their multi-million dollar projects in the hands of woke ideologues, but this decline will just mean another large western media company is likely to be bought out by Saudi or Chinese investors. Or worse, Indian companies might start getting in on it. Eastern interests taking over western culture may have the short term benefit of getting rid of woke propaganda, but in the long run they'll just be full of other types of anti-western propaganda. More subtle, maybe, at least at first.
Oddly it's at half its value now compared to the $12.20 it was when Gamergate got established.
It peaked on July 27 2018 at $100.65, it's now at $6.64.
Curious that it increased over 900% in value, and then dropped down to 50%, during that decade.
I'm sure all those gaming 'journalists' got a fine chunk of change from it and haven't been thrown to the kerb and are now pouring coffee for folks saving up to by the next GTA - they were on the right side of history after all, not just some useless labour used to take the heat in whatever that anomaly in financing was.
Crazy. I wonder if anyone is going to just take them over if they keep falling any more. Then again, is there still anything left worth buying? Do they still own any IPs or did they transfer them to that new company they created with tencent?
They have a couple billion in debt, that's why no one can make money by just selling off their IP.
They apparently transferred control of their 3 biggest IP's to a subsidiary tencent has an additional 25% ownership stake in (presumably in addition to the 10% or so they already had), so that makes it even more difficult for someone to sell out the IPs. There probably isn't even much value left in the "main" part of the company.
They have a theme park being made. Can their IPs actually save them this way? Probably not.
The problem is they make a good game every now and then. I enjoyed the Rayman platformer. I stopped playing Far Cry 2 because it's too much based on places I've visited in South Africa. It's also from the Brown era. Their attempts at Driving games were acceptable. The Wii U zombie game was really original.
I think that's the problem. They're great at AA style games that are acceptable and fun if someone already made the style, or a really original idea at something. Their attempts at AAA always disappoint because it's trying to follow whatever trend they think works. So they invest in big games, but then make the gameplay fairly basic. They need bigger numbers than what they are capable of creating.
I think a big part was the dreads, which were a huge talking point at the time of black people trying to claim ownership over. Basically half the discussion around the game involved Killmonger references.
It was just a poor design choice that killed it before it had a chance.
Immortals Fenix Rising was a shockingly good original IP they made a few years back, that basically improved in all ways over BOTW that it was copying (unless you hate the quippy narration and dialogue a lot).
And it just flopped immediately due to minimal marketing and was abandoned.
Its odd, because BOTW is such a lackluster game filled with poor design, but it has the foundation to build great games out of. You certainly need a lot of effort to make an open world that feels right, but Ubisoft slop showed how you can crank that out and still make money for a long while.
The only thing Nintendo took away from BOTW is people really like open-world Hyrule, which is why Nintendo reused the map twice: once in TOTK, and another in Mario Kart World.
Hey, they also took "we don't need to make anything fun, just give them a bunch of random stuff and they will pretend they are inventing it" from it. Which is why TOTK is literally the same empty sandbox, except now you got generic crafting on top of it that even further makes the game a joke.
It be cooler news to me if I still thought the free market dictated decisions
They used to make fun games until it got corporatized to death. People still speak fondly of FarCry 1 and 2.
They peaked with Black Flag. It's been diminishing returns ever since
There are features in Far Cry 2 like the wind-based fire-spreading tech that still is nowhere to be seen in any other game to date.
The industry really did top off by 2010, tech-wise it was mostly downhill from there (though I will say that I wish someone would steal and adopt Assassin's Creed 3's procedural blending tech for combat into another game, there still isn't another game that has that feature and it's angering Ubisoft is sitting on so much cool tech that is being used for nothing).
It's cathartic for sure, they're suffering the consequences of putting their multi-million dollar projects in the hands of woke ideologues, but this decline will just mean another large western media company is likely to be bought out by Saudi or Chinese investors. Or worse, Indian companies might start getting in on it. Eastern interests taking over western culture may have the short term benefit of getting rid of woke propaganda, but in the long run they'll just be full of other types of anti-western propaganda. More subtle, maybe, at least at first.
or it's the reverse and the buyout attempts are why it's acted like it has.
Oddly it's at half its value now compared to the $12.20 it was when Gamergate got established.
It peaked on July 27 2018 at $100.65, it's now at $6.64.
Curious that it increased over 900% in value, and then dropped down to 50%, during that decade.
I'm sure all those gaming 'journalists' got a fine chunk of change from it and haven't been thrown to the kerb and are now pouring coffee for folks saving up to by the next GTA - they were on the right side of history after all, not just some useless labour used to take the heat in whatever that anomaly in financing was.
Crazy. I wonder if anyone is going to just take them over if they keep falling any more. Then again, is there still anything left worth buying? Do they still own any IPs or did they transfer them to that new company they created with tencent?
They have a couple billion in debt, that's why no one can make money by just selling off their IP.
They apparently transferred control of their 3 biggest IP's to a subsidiary tencent has an additional 25% ownership stake in (presumably in addition to the 10% or so they already had), so that makes it even more difficult for someone to sell out the IPs. There probably isn't even much value left in the "main" part of the company.
Good pun on the title.
They have a theme park being made. Can their IPs actually save them this way? Probably not.
The problem is they make a good game every now and then. I enjoyed the Rayman platformer. I stopped playing Far Cry 2 because it's too much based on places I've visited in South Africa. It's also from the Brown era. Their attempts at Driving games were acceptable. The Wii U zombie game was really original.
I think that's the problem. They're great at AA style games that are acceptable and fun if someone already made the style, or a really original idea at something. Their attempts at AAA always disappoint because it's trying to follow whatever trend they think works. So they invest in big games, but then make the gameplay fairly basic. They need bigger numbers than what they are capable of creating.
Everyone whose played it said it was great, and it seems that the "We Wuz" trailer and character design ruined that for them.
I think a big part was the dreads, which were a huge talking point at the time of black people trying to claim ownership over. Basically half the discussion around the game involved Killmonger references.
It was just a poor design choice that killed it before it had a chance.
Immortals Fenix Rising was a shockingly good original IP they made a few years back, that basically improved in all ways over BOTW that it was copying (unless you hate the quippy narration and dialogue a lot).
And it just flopped immediately due to minimal marketing and was abandoned.
The BOTW game style should have been repeated way more. I wanted a Castlevania like it.
Its odd, because BOTW is such a lackluster game filled with poor design, but it has the foundation to build great games out of. You certainly need a lot of effort to make an open world that feels right, but Ubisoft slop showed how you can crank that out and still make money for a long while.
The only thing Nintendo took away from BOTW is people really like open-world Hyrule, which is why Nintendo reused the map twice: once in TOTK, and another in Mario Kart World.
Hey, they also took "we don't need to make anything fun, just give them a bunch of random stuff and they will pretend they are inventing it" from it. Which is why TOTK is literally the same empty sandbox, except now you got generic crafting on top of it that even further makes the game a joke.
Turns out it was never a good idea to go full "We wuzzin' ". Who woulda thunk it?
Buy the Dip!