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There is no way that the EA buyout turns out well for customers. Those private investors did not buy it with any interest in getting another Dead Space made or to give Bioware a chance to get on its feet. They did it because EA already sells annualized updates with its sports games and makes more money on the microtransactions for those than it does with regular game sales. As much as we bemoan the "line must go up" mentality with public companies, they are now dealing with investors that not only want a return, but will expect that it also do enough to pay for that loan that they took out to buy it.

I am curious about the sales for Silent Hill F. Are initial sales higher than SH2 Remake because people are more interested in a new game, or is that they were more hesitant last year? Konami had been dropping the ball with SH pretty much since SH4, so there was a lot of reason to be skeptical. Personally, I was also taking a wait-and-see attitude toward F since the dev studio was mostly a support studio before, and the successes of Blooper team are not transferable. However, for the general gaming public, there is a tendency to apply assumptions based on the last game and ignore details like who, specifically, is making the game. I wouldn't be surprised if customers were less cautious about SH F because the last Silent Hill game was good and surely Konami wouldn't turn right around and fumble the next entry., right?.

Did not expect a deep cut like Cyrano de Bergerac here! I haven't seen the movie but I've been reading up on classic stories because the different ways they get adapted over long periods of time is fascinating to me, I will need to check it out

Regarding remakes and the like, I do usually feel like some of the original appeal is lost, but the point of a SH style remake is too redesign it from the ground up to reach a broader audience so I don't usually except them to lean into the niche appeal or focus on what made made a mechanic interesting in the original. When I was younger there were more Paper Mario TTYD style remakes that mostly cleaned up the script and art without changing the core, but the goal of modern Silent Hill and Resident Evil type revivals is the opposite.

All that said I'm not mad about remakes. I just said last week that the downside to difficulty sliders as a tool to introduce new players can harm the appeal of the core game at times. Not that I think such tools are bad, but just that in an ideal world they would make a version of the game that is more approachable rather than sometimes putting people in an all or nothing situation where the games are too hard to play normally but easy mode isn't challenging. So I'm okay with remakes being more easy because they basically are completely redesigned to be easier versions of games, which is way more love and care than slapping a damage reducing multiplier on the game.

For that reason I really can't be mad about them unless they were all we got, but despite people complaining we have too many I have had plenty of new and original games lately across the spectrum from Bananza to Clair Obscur to Silksong to Hades 2 and even some older original titles like Aegis Rim and I Was a Teenage Exocolonist that my backlog is rapidly growing. That's not even mentioning releases on the horizon like Pokemon Z-A, Resident Evil 2, Metroid Prime 4, and Fire Emblem . I do wish triple AAA studios would focus more on new properties, but since every business makes some safe decisions I do think making classic franchises approachable to people that like a series but cant handle aspects of the classic gameplay is a great idea, even though the people who have been around would prefer every new game be a groundbreaking idea.

Eta: and Katamari! I almost forget the release is coming up because there isn't much buzz, but if Katamari can get a game that isn't remixed challenges then I think there is hope for variety in games for sure.

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(Doesn't help that people seem to want "new experiences" that aren't too new—I saw how folks reacted to South of Midnight!)

I disagree with this statement wholeheartedly. Everyone is open to "new experiences". They just have to be "good" too. If something new doesn't capture people's attention then more often than not there is fault within the product itself, not the audience.

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But you can't just make a game cheaper, because companies can't afford to look anything less than cutting-edge, and audiences won't accept it either (heck, people practically burned Avowed at the stake because you couldn't steal spoons).

More and more gamers are actually tired of companies prioritizing cutting-edge graphics over gameplay and performance. That's why you see indie games consistently outselling AAA studios. Hollow Knight: Silksong being a prime, recent example. FromSoftware releases AAA-quality games, but are graphically a generation behind most leading studios today. They're popular because they prioritize art direction and gameplay over graphics.

The thing is, these developers can make games for cheaper. THEY are stuck under the impression that gamers care about graphics anymore. Graphics haven't improved much since 2016, at least not at the magnitude it used to. And it's been proven time and time again that you don't need the most realistic graphics to sell millions of copies.

Too much stuff happening this week:

-Doug Bowser: Dude was only around for six years, but it was a pretty eventful tenure. Anytime someone has to deal with a pandemic, they get a muliplier.

-EA: Hoo-boy, talk about karmic fates considering how EA is one of the top examples of churn and burn. People may say it's accelerationist, but considering how many companies not only didn't learn a goddamned thing from the first crash but also seem to badly want to just be horrible it's definitely gotten to the point where it should be made clear they are responsible for their actions. They made these conditions, they own them. If only we could get Bioware and Respawn out from under them.

-Remakes: Remakes are always going to be a contentious. One of my problems with the RE remakes, aside from 1, is that they feel insecure over the memes and awkward dialogue which ironically makes some interactions more stilted when updated. They take themselves too damn seriously.

Though there are some that are fine to remake just due to mechanical stuff, like entire sectors that haven't aged well or ideas that were straight up bad. It's a subject we have to be honest about because my biggest irritation is remaking something to sweep your mistakes or blunders under the rug instead of owning up to them.

-Nintendo and slavery: And of course the pedant in me has to says it's "Last Week Tonight" if just because Oliver and his team are the best they are at what they do.

Anyway, I have horror movies to watch since it is the season. Also, the latest Daemon x Machina update adds gyro controls, the superior way to shoot

I read Cyrano de Bergerac. Its last lines contain one of my favorite examples of translation being an art rather than a science. Never watched the movies though- either the black and white or Roxanne.

EA's merger is a train wreck that anyone can see coming. Especially with EA taking on debt as a part of the buyout, its horrifically easy to see upcoming cuts being quick, ugly, and to the bone. Maybe I'll be incorrect...but I don't really see it. And then there's my opinion on some of the players in this sordid stageplay...yeah, I don't see this working out well for any but a wealthy few.

Remakes and remasters are unfortunate. I would much prefer to focus on new games, new stories, new experiences and have old ones be more accessible. But thats a delusion more than a dream- unless there's money in it, there's not much reason companies would just make old games easy to get at, even if you've already bought them. And with dev costs rising, remakes are seen as "safe". That said...I'm currently really enjoying the FFT remaster. So maybe I'm the problem, for being an easy mark.

AiddonValentine wrote:

-Remakes: Remakes are always going to be a contentious. One of my problems with the RE remakes, aside from 1, is that they feel insecure over the memes and awkward dialogue which ironically makes some interactions more stilted when updated. They take themselves too damn seriously.

The orignal Resident Evil games were meant to be taken seriously but have badly written and in some cases badly acted dialogue. Same thing with the later Megaman games that got voice acting.

If you want a good example of how much people care about cheesy writing in the games look no further than Keith & Quint from Revelations who the fanbase couldn’t stand in part based upon how terrible their dialog is.

DanielSummers wrote:

More and more gamers are actually tired of companies prioritizing cutting-edge graphics over gameplay and performance. That's why you see indie games consistently outselling AAA studios.

We do?

Also a think a good part of the reason there’s an audience for indie games is less because of performance and gameplay and more to do with nostalgia. Since if we’re objectively judging these games on those two aspects many of them are not that different from the type of video games that were the norm of the 1980’s and 1990’s aside from some QoL features like save states or rewind functions or in game maps.

DanielSummers wrote:

FromSoftware releases AAA-quality games, but are graphically a generation behind most leading studios today. They're popular because they prioritize art direction and gameplay over graphics.

……One of the major selling points and somewhat divisive aspects of From Software titles is the gameplay, running around a winding and mysterious environment which in addition to the numerous enemies and bosses can kill you pretty easily.

DanielSummers wrote:

The thing is, these developers can make games for cheaper. THEY are stuck under the impression that gamers care about graphics anymore.

While it’s hard to gauge exactly gamers to a point do care what their games look like if a game looks like ass in addition to running like ass it’s going to be sticking point for many people.

Minor nitpick.

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They're responsible for some of the biggest titles, particularly in the field of sports games (Madden NFL, FIFA 2K, so on).

2K isn't EA, it was originally Sega's branding for their own sports games on the Dreamcast and they briefly continued using the branding for their sports games when they became a third party publisher before Take-Two Interactive bought Visual Concepts, the actual development studio behind Sega's 2K sports games, and the 2K IP in 2005.

The reason people speculate about FIFA 2K possibly happening is because EA Sports long-standing FIFA license ended in 2022, with FIFA 2023 being the final FIFA game done by EA, so people speculate that 2K Sports will pick up the FIFA rights. EA's new soccer/football/futbol branding is simply FC, for Football Club.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has addressed rumors that FIFA 2K might become a reality, saying that the problem with the FIFA license is that, unlike the big North American sports leagues such as the NBA, the NFL, Major League Baseball, or the NHL, the FIFA license itself doesn't come with any leagues, teams, or players, which have to be negotiated separately.

The only possible upside I can see to the EA buyout, and it is a POSSIBLE upside to the CERTAIN downsides, is if some of the more niche studios get sold off to other conglomerates when the inevitable closure-because-they-took-on-the-buyout's-debt occurs. Maybe some of them will have a better chance elsewhere than they do right now. But I'm not betting on it, and I'd expect things to get a whole lot worse for thousands and thousands of people before there's even a chance they get better.

Ugh, just ugh, is my thought process.

Regalli wrote:

The only possible upside I can see to the EA buyout, and it is a POSSIBLE upside to the CERTAIN downsides, is if some of the more niche studios get sold off to other conglomerates when the inevitable closure-because-they-took-on-the-buyout's-debt occurs. Maybe some of them will have a better chance elsewhere than they do right now. But I'm not betting on it, and I'd expect things to get a whole lot worse for thousands and thousands of people before there's even a chance they get better.

Sadly the more likely outcome is that those niche studios are the first to get completely gutted, because in order to try to handle the logistically impossible interest rates on the $20b junk loan they're way more likely to just undertake mass firings and sell off property than they are to go through the whole process of selling studios

Not mention because there is so much bad stuff EA has done was them killing Westwood Studios, basically besides Blizzard (at the time) kings of the RTS genre. EA bought them in 1998 and shut them down in 2003. That was the day EA died to me.

On the Nintendo side of business, I don't know where I heard it but I heard that he most of the decisions are made by the Japan branch but also the majority shareholders which is kept mostly under wraps (like most things Nintendo). Also I think Nintendo at least deserves a golf clap when it comes to their stance on slavery. That stat you gave on human trafficking was an eye opener and I think it's only going to get worse if some reports I've heard about some human traffickers posing as ICE turn out to be true.

Also occurs to me that Nintendo's anti-slavery stance probably made the PIF a bit peeved considering the kafala system

DanielSummers wrote:

I disagree with this statement wholeheartedly. Everyone is open to "new experiences". They just have to be "good" too. If something new doesn't capture people's attention then more often than not there is fault within the product itself, not the audience.

Bingo. Disney tried to do the same thing by "calling out" people not seeing Elio by saying people don't actually want original movies if they don't show up for them, completely ignoring the fact people want good original movies. Same here. South of Midnight is a game that only appeals to the tiniest of niche audiences. Of course people didn't show up for it. Avowed was an ugly, uninspired mess that tried to take on Skyrim and failed miserably. The same thing happened with Outer Worlds which boasted it was their attempt to take on Fallout. That one at least had slightly better results enough to justify a sequel although it was still massively underwhelming for people who went in expecting New Vegas 2 like they advertised it as. Putting aside what 'original' even means if you're instantly comparing yourself to two of the biggest gaming franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, it's more important to be good. People will accept unoriginality if the end result is good. Look at Megabonk which is derivative of Holocure/Vampire Survivors like games but is apparently doing well.

FishLion wrote:

. When I was younger there were more Paper Mario TTYD style remakes that mostly cleaned up the script and art without changing the core, but the goal of modern Silent Hill and Resident Evil type revivals is the opposite.

The Paper Mario TTYD remake was no different than Resident Evil remakes or any other remake that took a belt sander to the original game and made sure to remove anything interest or unique about it. The gameplay might not have had a complete overhaul like Resident Evil 2-4's remakes were from their original games but I'd argue story, tone, and dialog are just as important - especially in an RPG game. The original game's script and humor were the main thing people loved about the game and they toned down so much of that down in the remake that it's absence was painfully noticable.

Remakes in the past worked because they were made to actually interested in improving a game. And by improving I mean adding stuff just like the original game had so fans had more content to enjoy. I'm sure companies that make modern remakes also think they're "improving" the game with all the changes they make to them in their eyes, but there's an obvious difference between older remakes and the ones now. Not all remakes today are soulless though. xeen Inc have had two knockout bangers with Trails of Mana in 2020 and Romancing SaGa 2 in 2024. No idea if they can keep it up especially as external pressure might cause them to start following what other companies are doing but at least those two releases felt like something that would have come out back during the glory days of video game remakes. They could easily be propped up next to Resident Evil 1's remake.

lufia2rocks wrote:

[ Not all remakes today are soulless though. xeen Inc have had two knockout bangers with Trails of Mana in 2020 and Romancing SaGa 2 in 2024.

Funny you talk about remakes being soulless and then mention Revenge Of The Seven. A game I remember seeing some on Reddit make claims of it being soulless because of things like “the anime esque” designs for the characters along with not having Coppelia’s modern design be in line with her original.

Apparently what does and doesn’t qualifiy as soulless differs by fan.

I mean you can characterize the remake as unfaithful in many ways all you like, there's no denying it is trying to provide a version of the original experience whereas something like the REmakes are clearly based on the same story and vague ideas but completely change the gamplay so that outside of genre conventions they resemble each other very little.

I'll disagree on golden age remakes, I have played old games with bonus content in the ports and most of them don't add enough to be worth a purchase for me. There are some that rise above and beyond like the Chrono Trigger stuff that was mentioned because it feels like a director's cut, but I have played many RPGs where the new content was less like an expansion and more like a few dungeons without any story attached. I can't be mad about a more complete vision, but compared to the ones I have played I would much rather have a new world to explore like the FF7 remakes than a few extra dungeons tacked on.

Regardless, they don't make remakes to sell the same games to old fans anymore, they release them to sell the IP to people who would never be willing to learn tank controls to play the old resident evil games, also when you touch the content of old gams fans are always cranky about something as you characterizing Mario as a belt sander made clear. You could say that was a bad remake and that Romancing Saga was a good one, but even if that's correct we're talking about a situation where few people want to play older games to begin with and doing the wrong things angers people then why would many studios want to do that? That attitude where if you change the right things it's genius but if you change other things it's a disaster is exactly why they would rather sell to new fans than ask their scrying pool what isn't going to have people gnashing their teeth.

Outside some people's weird obsession with the soccer player and the DJ I'm not sure what bad things happened to SNK after they got bought the article is referencing. City of the Wolves was good. Metal Slug Tactics was good. No complaints here.

I don't care about EA itself but I do have a bit of a nostalgic pining for Bioware since they used to be a good studio and make some great WRPGs but that hasn't been the case in well over a decade. Maybe I should just learn to let them go and accept they're a lost cause but part of me also kind of hopes a huge shake-up like this buyout could mean a return to form. Maybe the Saudis love the OG Mass Effect and Dragon Age games and will hire a bunch of actually good developers to make new ones more inline with the classics. I know that's copium but I'm willing to huff it. At the very least if this means no more awful token representation characters like Taash from Dragon Age The Veilguard again then that's a step up. Maybe Bioware will be forced to write good characters again.

All I'm saying is if we get a new Dragon Age or Mass Effect out of this and it's actually good I can accept a cameo from some soccer player or DJ in them. That's an acceptable compromise to me.

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