PenguinTD

Like which type of shooter is your thing?? For me it's the quick arena/team shooter, my good shooter example would be Q3 and Tribes 2. I think it's really satisfying when moving quickly and shoot people with actual projectiles, rocket/disc launcher in my examples. (not a fan of hit scan type)

I generally avoid denuvo and EA. I literally break this stance just to see what they did with UE5 but ended up enjoying the game as well. It sucks cause denuvo means I can't hook up RenderDoc and see how they render a frame compare to stock UE5. The movement reminds me a lot of original Quakes(very close to Q3) where you can have lots of control mid air and really snappy movement speed with their mechanics(blinks and grapples). But yeah, if this game doesn't have this "use all UE5 latest tech" tag I will probably not even know or touching it cause I don't play shooters after like Battlefield 3. Cause I am old and I like fast arena shooter not modern slow pace CQB/battle pass shooter, I was quite disappointed after trying Halo Infinite. But, that said, any shooter fits my criteria, would probably fail in sales. ^^;

lol, I go take a look, yep, battlefield 3.(note, I have no idea when I added crysis, it's probably from a bundle or something and it redeems directly. I had high hope when crysis 2 released. ) And yes, I did played 2042 open beta cause we had a company game day that picked the open beta.(and yep I don't like it. )

You mean denuvo? I think it's a money sinker now so might as well remove it at this point. But it's EA's call. Also, yes I have to download EA's launcher as well.

I bought the game for science cause it was the only game so far using all major features of UE5 and is a good reference to see how they manage asset, etc to keep the game running at 60fps with provided spec.

I think it does have potential, the mechanic is tight enough(the kbm default binding is not good, needs some rebind to make the combat flow more fluid), frame pacing is smooth majority of time(you have jitter mostly when it switch between cutscenes<->game), pretty much checked all the boxes and doesn't feel lacking when playing the game.

BUT, it does have poor marketing plan and kinda bad luck in releasing window. It's a good "alt shooter game" IMO.

lol, exactly why I wouldn't renew end of year.

With how games work these days, having just the disk is pretty much useless if the publisher decides to delist or discontinue the game from platform, because:

• patches and updates don't come with disk form anymore.
• many games that requires online authentication to play won't be available to keep playing if their account service is down.
• games go on sale with steady rate most of the time(except nintendo), for bargain bin deals you would probably find the game on humble bundle or gog.
• you often have the good games that release "better" remake version over and over anyway. Note, I know people sometimes prefer the original version, but not everyone is on the same page and it hugely depending on the dev/publisher for the newer version.

Now let's describe the cons:

• in many countries, breaking DRM is illegal. So even if all you want to do archive, you can't make a decrypted copy. That's why homebrew etc provides the key/dumper for you to do such at your own risk. IMO, it's safer(INAL) to download pirated iso/rom compare to doing your own dump. And, archiver actually tried to keep a post patch version before store is closed down(see wiiu store close example), the disk version is not a viable option anymore for archiver.
• storage up keep, physical things require storage space. I still have like 3 large shipping box for my older gen(ps3/GC/Wii/X360 games) I will probably donate them to library or something and keep the only ones I wanted to keep.
• console part cost, the BD drives are often first point of failure, then HDMI connectors. Cause well, moving parts are easier to break and harder to QA. PS5's 2 versions gives a good example how the disk affects the look, weight, etc. Not to mention, they are a lot slower then SSD and you are required to install all that anyway.
• developer/publisher/platform see nothing for used game sales. It sounds like huge shill talk but let's be honest, they want to make a living, if you are not supporting your favorite developer they will have to offset the cost by doing shit you all won't like. ie, mtx, subscription service, selling analytic data, selling the studio to shit publisher that push worth practice, platform raise price to meet target projection. Buy/sell used game only helps that service owner(gamestop/ebgame/bestbuy, not the community.)
• did I mention switching disc just to play game is a PITA, and if your case is the modern garbage version, remember those plastic break down more easily and you would have to buy new case to hold your disc.
• environment waste for all the manufacturing, packaging and shipping. It's honestly not worth that in modern era if you give a fuck about how future generation will live.

I was hoping this extends to many other departments.

I wrote reviews(early 2000) during the late magazine era and even back then there were taboos about local influential company's releases.(they only sign import deal and sell/distribute games locally.) Cause they survive on the ad money instead of subscription or individual purchases. Modern website sucks even more cause you made pennies for each view and if you don't have something that covers enough contents to drive views, you will be at the mercy of promotion partners, same for the youtuber/streamer/influencer.

I mostly write review/walk through for import games, as there was usually a couple months delay for localization, even had contacts with local publisher that consult with group of writers about maybe which game to sign and import. The US/Japan publisher aren't exactly nice guys you know, they will ask you to sign multiple games, including the games you know might not sell well as part of the deal. It's a risky business and if companies that import games will try to influence review scores, you know how desperate the publisher will try to defend their "investment".

This is from the culture where don't show you outsourced some of your work and claim that you did everything internally. There was a time where players think outsourced anything is bad but we have since gone way past that. Many big studio out-sourced their asset making/audio etc cause it's simply too much work to do the up keeps if you don't have a library of them from your past games.

As far as I know some Japanese company still operate this way and the out-source partner are contractually not allowed to disclose what they worked on. You would be considered lucky to even make the partner list with company name only. It's a really bad standard and I hope we just get rid of that entirely. (If you are not aware, China's asset outsource companies makes a lot of assets for AAA industry for a long time. )

I wonder how many are actually in union to gain that bargain power?

It's because Nintendo still haven't implement server client networking and host their own dedicated servers. It's why people paid Nintendo Online to play multiplayer Nintendo games are getting scammed.(even Capcom or EA/Epic did batter job on switch then Nintendo.)

That's why you get no real online plays, blame Nintendo's internal policy, not networking complexity.

It's not impossible cause any thing that has specific rules laid out can be implemented. And table top rule are turn based(no time sensitive action, ie, physics simulation), fixed permutations/outcomes(dice rolls for everything), programming is just "rules" for moving numbers, even for deep learning networks.

The harder to implement are the conversations, cause there are pretty much infinite way depending on who initiate the conversation(background/race/stats/class/proficiency/+whatever player thinks that's possible and DM assign a check value), with potential plots lines, the writer has to limit what can be chosen and remove other options even though it's legit on table top.