General Gaming News

[Gee]

This comes after Insomniac employees made repeated requests to get management to make a statement not unlike those issued by a few other large video game companies, including “Destiny 2” developer Bungie and “Psychonauts 2″ creator Double Fine. In the Q&A, Price writes that Sony shut that approach down: “[Sony Interactive Entertainment] will not approve ANY statements from any studio on the topic of reproductive rights. We fought hard for this and we did not win.”

Oh **** off, Sony.

 

[Iceman]

Why is it so important to crush statements like these from their underlying companies. Can’t imagine that is great for morale for those asking for it. And all despite Insomniac contributing so much to Sony in a short space of time.

 

[OtherwiseKnownAs]

 

[Teelie]

Oh **** off, Sony.

Sony and Microsoft continue to do good and bad **** simultaneously. This is not one of Sony's better moments.

 

[Iceman]

3 new titles would have been a bit much but this sounds decent. 1 remake, 1 smaller game and 1 proper mainline game (which hopefully turns into a classic).

 

[Lily Adler]

The Nintendo of America Contractors Who Feel Like Second Class Workers

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Reuters - Melvin Capital to shut after heavy losses on meme stocks, market slump
Melvin Capital, once one of Wall Street's most successful hedge funds which then lost billions in the meme stock saga, will shut down after it was hit again by this year's market slump.

Melvin Capital, once one of Wall Street's most successful hedge funds which then lost billions in the meme stock saga, will shut down after it was hit again by this year's market slump.

Gabe Plotkin, widely regarded as one of the industry's best traders after posting years of double digit returns, told investors that the last 17 months have been "an incredibly trying time."

Plotkin had been trying to turn around the firm after being caught out in early 2021 betting against retail favorite GameStop (GME.N) and after being wrong footed again by tumbling markets this year.

Melvin Capital had $7.8 billion in assets at the end of April. The fund lost 23% in the first four months of 2022, a person familiar with the fund's finances said.

This year's losses come on the heels of steep losses in 2021 when Melvin Capital ended the year down 39%. The firm bet that shares of GameStop would tumble but was battered when retail investors took the other side and sent the stock surging.

 

[Sithborg]

Something about Inafune jumping into NFTs after the Mighty No 9 debacle is just... absolutely correct.

 

[metaphysician]

Google and Apple are essentially banning all apps that are not GaaS. It pretty much destroys these platforms as viable long term for non-GaaS video games if anything that becomes a year or two old not-updated gets yanked from the storefronts permanently.

Google and Apple may remove 1.5 million outdated apps from their app stores - gHacks Tech News

Eh, I feel like this is only half the story. The issue is that the OS for both smartphones changes and updates often enough that it is highly likely an unupdated game will simply not work anymore. Maybe this current policy is a clumsy fix for that, but ultimately, if you don't update your app? Its going to become permanently unavailable soon enough *anyway*, whether Google and Apple yank it or not.

My main takeaway? If you care about your game as a work of art that you want to be available long term? You shouldn't be making it for smartphones, not as its primary platform. They are just bad platforms for long term availability.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[Iceman]

Those runours/reports of EA shopping themselves to Disney/Apple/Amazon for M&A were kind of crazy. Looks like a ton of big gaming companies are on the lookout for being acquired or merging with others.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Get out your healing crystals!

Kotaku - EA Tells Devs It Won't Take Stand On Abortion Rights, Encourages 'Healing Circles'

Electronic Arts won't be joining some other big game studios in publicly supporting abortion and transgender rights, Kotaku has learned. Asked about it during a May 24 company-wide town hall meeting, the gaming publisher told staff it couldn't take a stance on every public issue and that "being an inclusive company means being inclusive of all those points of view."

They're full Trump on Charlottesville like Sony. "Nazis and anti-Nazis continue to give us money $$$"

 

[Iceman]

That lovely-looking Ni No Kuni MMO is full of cryptocurrency woes

 

[Iceman]

 

[DeadlyWest]

 

[Mani-Man]

It feels like i should feel sorry for those hacked and who got their stuff stolen...but i just cant.
NFTs and the NFT bros are just insufferable as hell.

 

[Teelie]

If they want to throw away their money, I will gladly take it instead of letting them get scammed in the next NFT type craze. I might actually do something useful with it.

 

[metaphysician]

Happier news, with 100% fewer NFTs:

Sega Announces Mega Drive Mini 2, With 50 Games Included - IGN

 

[Gee]

 

[Sithborg]

So, that really just leaves Nintendo for the non-E3 presentation announcement.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Oh Activision, you never stop being disgusting and a psychologically manipulative overconvoluted casino company wrecking the integrity of your 'games'.

PC Gamer - Diablo Immortal microtransactions have sparked a brutal backlash
GameRant - Streamer Spends Nearly $4,000 on Diablo Immortal and Doesn't Get Any 5 Star Legendary Gems
Forbes - Can Blizzard Fix 'Diablo Immortal'? Do They Even Want To?
Eurogamer - It costs £88,000 to fully upgrade your character in Diablo Immortal
BGR - Fully upgrading a character in Diablo Immortal can cost over $100,000
Metro - Diablo Immortal costs £80,000 or 10 years of playing to fully upgrade characters

Another great example of GaaS = crap. And Apple and Google are steering more software in this direction since they get a cut of the proceeds.

 

[Teelie]

I used to pay $12-15 a month for WoW, I occasionally spend $5-15 on mobile games a month but that's not even every month. Spending thousands of dollars on a free-to-pay game in order to progress is a "nope" from me.

 

[Gee]

It was clear from the announcement at BlizzCon that DI is a mobile game. The PC version is still considered a beta and it was only made after the backlash from "Do you guys not have phones?".

It's no damn surprise this mobile game features a monetization model and a disgusting pay-to-win model at that.

 

[Sithborg]

Yeah, that reads as typical mobile monetization to me.