General Gaming thread

PolarityMan

Moloch said:

RedRabbit said:

Moloch said:

RedRabbit said:

TheMarlin said:

They no longer need the FIFA license.  

I've no interest in FIFA games or football in general so I could be talking out of my arse but I'm just not sure that's true.

I think 2k is a likely home for FIFA and, if you've got an option between EA football 2024 and FIFA 2K24 I think a lot of people would go with 2k.  If it does go this way EA's only real advantage is that they'll likely have a one year gap to release a non-FIFA game before the new developer is able to get anything out.

Wildly incorrect, I'm afraid. The biggest cash cow in the game (possibly in gaming globally, but I'm not up to date on the numbers) is the Ultimate Team franchise. That alone gives EA a gargantuan lead that no other developer is going to be able to get near without a minimum of five years of development. And even with the required effort from another developer, EA will be developing and enhancing their own UT, as well as the franchise as a whole.

I've no idea what ultimate team is and a quick google leaves me none the wiser.  Happy to be proved wrong though.  Really don't have a dog in this race.  I've obviously overestimated how much weight the FIFA name carries - I just kind of assumed it was the be-all and end-all of football.

Oh I get you, mate. I wasn't have a pop at all.

Back in the day you would almost certainly have been right. FIFA was kept ahead of Pro Evolution Soccer on name brand recognition and higher advertising budgets. It was a close race, but FIFA stayed significantly ahead on sales, even when PES was a massively superior game. Then Konami went down the toilet with PES and EA started nailing the coffin shut when they invented Ultimate Team. It almost instantly became the biggest thing in online football gaming.

Basically imagine an old sticker book and the packs of stickers. Lots of common stickers and one popular 'shiny' card. Ultimate Team works very much like that, only the 'stickers' that you get can be fielded in matches against AI and human opponents. You get your packs either as rewards for success in competitions, by buying them with an in-game currency (coins) that you get for match performance, or finally through use of a second in-game currency called FIFA Points, which you pay real money for. The last of those is by far the least time consuming and the most popular. That's why UT brings in such an incredible sum of money for EA.

 There is also a transfer market, where you can sell your cards/stickers for in-game coins with which to buy other players who you want. Trading is a solid way to become 'rich' in-game if you know what you're doing, but most of the players are either children, idiots or idiot children, so they pay the real money for packs instead, looking for the competitive advantage. It's a form of gambling that is somehow still being allowed to market directly to children alongside adults. EA maintain a continual flow of promotions with upgraded cards, to keep the marks buying. So throughout the year, other than a lapse in August and early September as people wait for the new edition, EA brings in millions. How many millions?

 Well, for the 2020/21 tax year EA made £1.1 billion from sales of whole games (their entire library, including all releases new and old).

Ultimate Team, combined across all of its iterations (FIFA, NBA, NHL, UFC and NFL) made £1.15 BILLION just from Ultimate Team pack sales across those five games alone. And FIFA's version of Ultimate Team is by a substantial distance the most profitable of those five.

And now it's also an extremely valuable e-sport.

That's the behemoth that every developer looking to gamble on buying the FIFA brand will have to reckon with.

Tbh football games never managed to hit the heights of speedball 2.

monquixote

PolarityMan said:

Moloch said:

RedRabbit said:

Moloch said:

RedRabbit said:

TheMarlin said:

They no longer need the FIFA license.  

I've no interest in FIFA games or football in general so I could be talking out of my arse but I'm just not sure that's true.

I think 2k is a likely home for FIFA and, if you've got an option between EA football 2024 and FIFA 2K24 I think a lot of people would go with 2k.  If it does go this way EA's only real advantage is that they'll likely have a one year gap to release a non-FIFA game before the new developer is able to get anything out.

Wildly incorrect, I'm afraid. The biggest cash cow in the game (possibly in gaming globally, but I'm not up to date on the numbers) is the Ultimate Team franchise. That alone gives EA a gargantuan lead that no other developer is going to be able to get near without a minimum of five years of development. And even with the required effort from another developer, EA will be developing and enhancing their own UT, as well as the franchise as a whole.

I've no idea what ultimate team is and a quick google leaves me none the wiser.  Happy to be proved wrong though.  Really don't have a dog in this race.  I've obviously overestimated how much weight the FIFA name carries - I just kind of assumed it was the be-all and end-all of football.

Oh I get you, mate. I wasn't have a pop at all.

Back in the day you would almost certainly have been right. FIFA was kept ahead of Pro Evolution Soccer on name brand recognition and higher advertising budgets. It was a close race, but FIFA stayed significantly ahead on sales, even when PES was a massively superior game. Then Konami went down the toilet with PES and EA started nailing the coffin shut when they invented Ultimate Team. It almost instantly became the biggest thing in online football gaming.

Basically imagine an old sticker book and the packs of stickers. Lots of common stickers and one popular 'shiny' card. Ultimate Team works very much like that, only the 'stickers' that you get can be fielded in matches against AI and human opponents. You get your packs either as rewards for success in competitions, by buying them with an in-game currency (coins) that you get for match performance, or finally through use of a second in-game currency called FIFA Points, which you pay real money for. The last of those is by far the least time consuming and the most popular. That's why UT brings in such an incredible sum of money for EA.

 There is also a transfer market, where you can sell your cards/stickers for in-game coins with which to buy other players who you want. Trading is a solid way to become 'rich' in-game if you know what you're doing, but most of the players are either children, idiots or idiot children, so they pay the real money for packs instead, looking for the competitive advantage. It's a form of gambling that is somehow still being allowed to market directly to children alongside adults. EA maintain a continual flow of promotions with upgraded cards, to keep the marks buying. So throughout the year, other than a lapse in August and early September as people wait for the new edition, EA brings in millions. How many millions?

 Well, for the 2020/21 tax year EA made £1.1 billion from sales of whole games (their entire library, including all releases new and old).

Ultimate Team, combined across all of its iterations (FIFA, NBA, NHL, UFC and NFL) made £1.15 BILLION just from Ultimate Team pack sales across those five games alone. And FIFA's version of Ultimate Team is by a substantial distance the most profitable of those five.

And now it's also an extremely valuable e-sport.

That's the behemoth that every developer looking to gamble on buying the FIFA brand will have to reckon with.

Tbh football games never managed to hit the heights of speedball 2.

Super Nashwan FTW

TeleMaster

sinbaadi said:

Only just bought a PS4 after selling one in, apparently, 2014!  Mind blown by that alone, but despite having a new baby and zero free time of any significance, I couldn't resist the new Gran Turismo.  Much nostalgia, such a polished product.  Shame the ps5 experience is just stupidly expensive, but maybe in another 8 years I'll think it's worth getting one.....

I also have Ride 4 which seems okay but doesn't really inspire like I hoped it might.  

Personally I think that £500 for a console that lasts 8 years, with that level of tech and innovation included is a monster bargain. You want a decent GPU in your PC? You're looking at hundreds just for that.

CavemanGrogg

Must say, so far I'm disapointed with the lack of new varieties of machine animals in Horizon Forbidden West, but the map is big, and busy, not to mention that the puzzles are trickier than any I came accros in Horizon Zero Dawn, including the one to get the power armor.  This game will take me months to finish, I'll probably still be playing it at Christmass at this rate.

westford

CavemanGrogg said:

Must say, so far I'm disapointed with the lack of new varieties of machine animals in Horizon Forbidden West, but the map is big, and busy, not to mention that the puzzles are trickier than any I came accros in Horizon Zero Dawn, including the one to get the power armor.  This game will take me months to finish, I'll probably still be playing it at Christmass at this rate.

I'm enjoying the puzzles, and some of the new machines are cool (I like the Leaplashers) but some are complete buggers. I'd almost taken out a Rollerback last night, then the game glitched or something and it disappeared along with the components I'd managed to shoot off it.

DefaultM

I absolutely hate it when Aloy gets stuck climbing a mountain. There's yellow bits around you but she just sticks there while machines chuck stuff at you.

CavemanGrogg

westford said:

CavemanGrogg said:

Must say, so far I'm disapointed with the lack of new varieties of machine animals in Horizon Forbidden West, but the map is big, and busy, not to mention that the puzzles are trickier than any I came accros in Horizon Zero Dawn, including the one to get the power armor.  This game will take me months to finish, I'll probably still be playing it at Christmass at this rate.

I'm enjoying the puzzles, and some of the new machines are cool (I like the Leaplashers) but some are complete buggers. I'd almost taken out a Rollerback last night, then the game glitched or something and it disappeared along with the components I'd managed to shoot off it.

Honestly the problem is with me, not the game.  Time is just a huge issue for me right now, so my gaming is limited to the odd 30 to 45 minutes stretches once or twice a week.  It took me close to a month to finish the tutorial, granted I got side tracked quite often to explore the environment.  To date I've opened the Embassy, completed 2 hunting grounds, the armor salvage contract, 1 tall neck, 1 ruin, 2 vistas, 1 fighting pitt, and 1 cauldrin.  So it's probably my lack of in game progress that's stopping me from seeing the new machine animals.  The puzles are a lot more engaging, more of a challenge, though the combat is a lot easier compared to Zero Dawn by a large margin, I haven't come close to dying once yet.

DefaultM said:

I absolutely hate it when Aloy gets stuck climbing a mountain. There's yellow bits around you but she just sticks there while machines chuck stuff at you.

I've not experienced anything I'd call a serious or game breaking glitch or bug to date, I've once got stuck, but that was easy to fix via a fast travel pack, and it was my own fault really trying to carve a short cut through climbing mountains.

TheMarlin

guitargeek62 said:

Well it looks like I might finally have a reason to upgrade to next (/current?) gen in January:

https://www.eurogamer.net/eas-dead-space-remake-gets-january-2023-release-date

I don’t hold out any hope that it’ll be good.  EA successively regimes Dead Space by trying to cram in trendy features, and further monetisation. 

I’m expecting a microtransaction furled cash in. Dead Space 1 was fab, 2 was good-ish, 3 was crap.  Will be more of the same.  If the original developer was allowed to do what they wanted to do with the IP, we would have had three excellent games. 

TheMarlin

Moloch said:

RedRabbit said:

TheMarlin said:

They no longer need the FIFA license.  

I've no interest in FIFA games or football in general so I could be talking out of my arse but I'm just not sure that's true.

I think 2k is a likely home for FIFA and, if you've got an option between EA football 2024 and FIFA 2K24 I think a lot of people would go with 2k.  If it does go this way EA's only real advantage is that they'll likely have a one year gap to release a non-FIFA game before the new developer is able to get anything out.

Wildly incorrect, I'm afraid. The biggest cash cow in the game (possibly in gaming globally, but I'm not up to date on the numbers) is the Ultimate Team franchise. That alone gives EA a gargantuan lead that no other developer is going to be able to get near without a minimum of five years of development. And even with the required effort from another developer, EA will be developing and enhancing their own UT, as well as the franchise as a whole.

The Ultimate Team part of FIFA generates 30% of ALL EA revenue.  

I work in the games industry, I’m up to date on the stats

CavemanGrogg

TheMarlin said:

guitargeek62 said:

Well it looks like I might finally have a reason to upgrade to next (/current?) gen in January:

https://www.eurogamer.net/eas-dead-space-remake-gets-january-2023-release-date

I don’t hold out any hope that it’ll be good.  EA successively regimes Dead Space by trying to cram in trendy features, and further monetisation. 

I’m expecting a microtransaction furled cash in. Dead Space 1 was fab, 2 was good-ish, 3 was crap.  Will be more of the same.  If the original developer was allowed to do what they wanted to do with the IP, we would have had three excellent games. 

They killed that franchise for me with their over the top monetrisation of it.  The first Dead Space was nothing short of a truly amazing game, the second one had no chance of living up to part 1, the 3rd one was EA just taking the piss and seeing what they could get away with screwing over their customers.

TheMarlin

CavemanGrogg said:

TheMarlin said:

guitargeek62 said:

Well it looks like I might finally have a reason to upgrade to next (/current?) gen in January:

https://www.eurogamer.net/eas-dead-space-remake-gets-january-2023-release-date

I don’t hold out any hope that it’ll be good.  EA successively regimes Dead Space by trying to cram in trendy features, and further monetisation. 

I’m expecting a microtransaction furled cash in. Dead Space 1 was fab, 2 was good-ish, 3 was crap.  Will be more of the same.  If the original developer was allowed to do what they wanted to do with the IP, we would have had three excellent games. 

They killed that franchise for me with their over the top monetrisation of it.  The first Dead Space was nothing short of a truly amazing game, the second one had no chance of living up to part 1, the 3rd one was EA just taking the piss and seeing what they could get away with screwing over their customers.

There was a fan documentary on YouTube discussing how EA meddling ruined Dead Space 2 and 3. The Multiplayer feature was a disaster as EA tried to force a co-op mode into a single game. Got worse from there. Will see if I can find it. 

westford

CavemanGrogg said:

Honestly the problem is with me, not the game.  Time is just a huge issue for me right now, so my gaming is limited to the odd 30 to 45 minutes stretches once or twice a week.  It took me close to a month to finish the tutorial, granted I got side tracked quite often to explore the environment.  To date I've opened the Embassy, completed 2 hunting grounds, the armor salvage contract, 1 tall neck, 1 ruin, 2 vistas, 1 fighting pitt, and 1 cauldrin.  So it's probably my lack of in game progress that's stopping me from seeing the new machine animals.  The puzles are a lot more engaging, more of a challenge, though the combat is a lot easier compared to Zero Dawn by a large margin, I haven't come close to dying once yet.

Think we’re at a similar point in the game, although I’ve died loads because I’m an idiot, lol 

duotone

RaymondLin said:

duotone said:

@RaymondLin ;
Just to let you know that my Retroid Pocket 2+ arrived yesterday. It was almost 3 months from order to receiving it.

https://www.goretroid.com/products/retroid-pocket-2-plus-handheld-retro-gaming-system?variant=42632318910688

Will let you know how I get on with it, when it’s fully set up.

ooooh, I never heard of that one.  

@RaymondLin ;

Got it set up a couple of weeks ago. It took 1 hour to follow a step-by-step set up guide on YouTube, which was very thorough.

Works well with GameBoy, GameBoy Colour, NES & SNES games. Definitely worth the almost 3 month wait & the $99 I paid for it. 

I haven’t tried any newer consoles than that, but if I have success I will let you know @RedRabbit ;

RaymondLin

duotone said:

RaymondLin said:

duotone said:

@RaymondLin ;
Just to let you know that my Retroid Pocket 2+ arrived yesterday. It was almost 3 months from order to receiving it.

https://www.goretroid.com/products/retroid-pocket-2-plus-handheld-retro-gaming-system?variant=42632318910688

Will let you know how I get on with it, when it’s fully set up.

ooooh, I never heard of that one.  

@RaymondLin ;

Got it set up a couple of weeks ago. It took 1 hour to follow a step-by-step set up guide on YouTube, which was very thorough.

Works well with GameBoy, GameBoy Colour, NES & SNES games. Definitely worth the almost 3 month wait & the $99 I paid for it. 

I haven’t tried any newer consoles than that, but if I have success I will let you know @RedRabbit ;

I actually bought a Miyoo Mini v2…plays all the SNES. NES, MD, MS too.  PS1 games too!

Sporky

I did all five endings of Nier Replicant. Takes a while to get going, and clearly a generation or two old, but really good. Kaine has some superb swears and lines. I particularly enjoyed her shouting "shitwaffle!".

Straight into Nier Automata, which really does reward re-re-replaying.

TeleMaster

I can't beat The Elden Beast. I'm level 160 and it's just too hard. 

RaymondLin

TeleMaster said:

I can't beat The Elden Beast. I'm level 160 and it's just too hard. 

What build?

I watched a video last night where someone got a summon to beat it on it's own.

PolarityMan

TeleMaster said:

I can't beat The Elden Beast. I'm level 160 and it's just too hard. 

I only just scraped past Margit! 

monquixote

I bought the kids a copy of Pacman Museum+ on the Switch to keep them entertained over the weekend. 

It's really fun and good value at £17 for 14 pacman games. 
Multiplayer Pacman 256 is really fun.

TeleMaster

RaymondLin said:

TeleMaster said:

I can't beat The Elden Beast. I'm level 160 and it's just too hard. 

What build?

I watched a video last night where someone got a summon to beat it on it's own.

High dex and arcane build for bleed. I have Rivers of Blood level 10 and Uchigatana level 25. My mimic is level 10 but it's useless against the Elden Beast due to it moving all over the place.