Useless gaming news & chatter

[Sky]

I have a hard time believing they tie bonuses to metacritic, based mostly on compensated reviews and wanna-be journos and not...err...profits earned? Derrwha?

I guess schild is onto something with his burning revulsion of the workings of the 'industry'.

[schild]

Metacritic is awful, and publishers do in fact love it.

[jakonovski]

Not feeling very positive about the Giant Bomb thing. The fragile ecosystem that allowed for their brand of crazy has been broken and being reattached to the blandest of the bland mainstream sites will not help. 

[MisterNoisy]

Not feeling very positive about the Giant Bomb thing. The fragile ecosystem that allowed for their brand of crazy has been broken and being reattached to the blandest of the bland mainstream sites will not help. 

Not too keen on GB becoming part of CBS, but I'll pretty much just wait and see.

Even weirder is what's happening at (former) Whiskey Media site Tested.com.

[koro]

Apparently Obsidian's managed to catch a break, and is now working on a new secret project, according to some digging done by their forumers. Speculation is that an ex-publisher's come to their rescue, so we'll see how that pans out.

[sickrubik]

Not feeling very positive about the Giant Bomb thing. The fragile ecosystem that allowed for their brand of crazy has been broken and being reattached to the blandest of the bland mainstream sites will not help.  

Not too keen on GB becoming part of CBS, but I'll pretty much just wait and see.

Even weirder is what's happening at (former) Whiskey Media site Tested.com.

John Davidson sat down with Gertsmann to talk about The Stuff. It really sounds like it came down to suits... Suits that are no longer there. And yeah, excited for the Tested guys.

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=gamespot_and_giant_bomb20120315

[Velorath]

Yeah, I've liked John Davidson since back in his 1Up days.  The guy can run a site or a magazine, and still just be one of the guys, doing podcasts and stuff.  I think if they got him on the Bombcast even if only from time to time, it would be great.

[Sky]

we'll see how that pans out.

I bet Jack's going to get them to the glory hole!

[Yegolev]

Atmosphere doesn't have much at all to do with graphical quality.

Depends on how you define quality. There's technical prowess and there's creative leveraging of an engine. Something like FEAR or Amnesia is the latter and what I was talking aboot.

I'm using quality in the technical or objective way.  Like: The graphical quality of Super Mario World is superior to that of Super Mario Bros. 3.  Use of the technical medium to create something brilliant, that's not what I meant by graphical quality.  That would be quality of the artist.  Like: The quality of the artists that worked on EQ2 was very low.

[Yegolev]

Apparently Obsidian's managed to catch a break, and is now working on a new secret project, according to some digging done by their forumers. Speculation is that an ex-publisher's come to their rescue, so we'll see how that pans out.

Hopefully they can all get some journeyman plumber jobs, leading to eventual union pay and a satisfactory distance from game programming.

[Yegolev]

How can anyone be so crazy as to tie their payment of royalties to a goddamn Metacritic score? That just seems the height of stupid business plans.

Apparently it worked like a fucking charm.

Maybe you are looking at it from the perspective of the working man.

[HaemishM]

Heh. It worked for Bethesda. Obsidian... not so much.

[Ragnoros]

Eh, I can only wish Obsidian the best. I got more mileage out of New Vegas than Skyrim, which is saying something. I just hate how their games are so damn hit or miss. As conversely I got all of three hours out of DS3 before I never touched it again, which is practically a felony.

[Yegolev]

Got Platinum on Club Nintendo today, thanks to a couple purchases by the boy.  So I ordered a blue Boo notebook for him.

[Kail]

Looks like Sega of America got gutted yesterday, lots of layoffs.  PR release says they're restructuring to refocus on their core IPs, Sonic (obviously), Aliens, Total War, and Football Manager.  Sad, I liked their games, despite their shit PC ports.

Sega's "extraordinary loss" (caused in part by costs from this restructuring) will see the company's expected profits drop from 38 billion yen ($462 million) to 20 billion yen ($243 million,) with sales revenue dipping about a half-billion dollars. The cancellation of these projects and this reform is estimated to have a 7.1 billion yen ($86.5 million) price tag.

http://kotaku.com/5898026/sega-of-america-walloped-by-layoffs-western-publishing-reduced-to-sonic-and-three-others

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/30/sega-canceling-games-cutting-jobs-in-us-and-europe-to-restructu/#continued

[Yegolev]

[Simond]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/04/12/oh-dear-cc-tiberium-alliances-may-have-borrowed/

f I were EA, it would be right about now I’d be issuing a memo to all my employees and contracted developers to say, “Hey guys, um, can we all stop doing overtly dumb things for a bit? Cheers, thanks, love EA.” With an internet backlash against the company, part deserved, part self-entitled arsetits leaping on the latest channel for their boundless streams of hate, now was perhaps not the best time for it to be noticed that Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances has – allegedly – been copying its tanks from Warhammer 40K. (Usually slapping in an “allegedly” is a coward’s way of making an accusation, but you might want to see just how similar they are in the pics below.)

As reported by Eurogamer, and spotted by Reddit, the designs for the new free-to-play C&C game do seem somewhat… borrowed.

Don't worry EA, it's not like Games Workshop's lawyers have a reputation of striking down with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to make money from GW's IPs or anything.

[jakonovski]

Don't worry EA, it's not like Games Workshop's lawyers have a reputation of striking down with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to make money from GW's IPs or anything.

Actually, they're just good at bullying lone dudes in garages. Their first real case, against Chapterhouse Studios, has become a farce.

[Rendakor]

On the other hand, Blizzard's been getting away with it for years. 

[Lucas]

The possible return of Carmageddon (through Kickstarter) :

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stainlessgames/carmageddon-reincarnation

After years of negotiation, the original founders of Stainless recently bought back ALL the rights to Carmageddon. So now it’s back in its rightful home, we’ve embarked on the journey that will reboot the brand, and we want YOU to join us on that journey.

I really enjoyed Carmageddon, it was fun as hell, would like to see a comeback :)

[satael]

Metro: Last Light - Enter the Metro Short Film (Official UK)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc9LNwddfLE

I enjoyed Metro 2033 and so I'm slightly excited about this despite it being delayed until 2013.

[Lucas]

Today CD Projekt will hold its Summer 2012 conference, in collaboration with GoG: beside a new IP announcement from the software house and other stuff, from various hints I gathered on Ultima websites and Twitter, a new Ultima game might be announced, probably the one Paul Barnett has been working on for the past couple years.

Conference starts at 5pm GMT (one and half hour)

http://www.gog.com/news/see_our_summer_2012_conference_live

[HaemishM]

a new Ultima game might be announced, probably the one Paul Barnett has been working on for the past couple years.

These two things in conjunction might well be the final death of a dream.

[ffc]

I'm watching the stream and I counter the Barnett rumor with the new IP announcement being (based on?) Cyberpunk RPG using the Witcher 2 engine.  They also keep mentioning Blade Runner.



 

[HaemishM]

If Paul Barnett gets his greasy, sunglass covered fingers on the actual Cyberpunk 2020 IP to make a game, I will rain unholy fire down upon this planet because we will all deserve ANNIHILATION.

[Lantyssa]

On the other hand, if we get Cyberpunk 2020 and Barnett is not involved, I will be very, very happy.

[HaemishM]

Yes.

[HaemishM]

MOTHERFUCKER. They are making a cyberpunk game. Is Barnett involved? Please tell me he is not.

[Malakili]

If Paul Barnett gets his greasy, sunglass covered fingers on the actual Cyberpunk 2020 IP to make a game, I will rain unholy fire down upon this planet because we will all deserve ANNIHILATION.

MOTHERFUCKER. They are making a cyberpunk game. Is Barnett involved? Please tell me he is not.

 

[Trippy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Barnett_%28video_game_designer%29

[MisterNoisy]

Silicon Knights's lawsuit against Epic over with the jury finding for Epic on all counts and in favor of Epic on their counter claims to the tune of $4.45M.  Given that SK's last game was that really terrible X-Men game that nobody played, one wonders if they're done for good now.

[Sir Fodder]

Just picked up the new Humble Indie Bundle: Bastion, Psychonauts, Amnesia, Limbo plus more. Nice!

[Malakili]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Barnett_%28video_game_designer%29

No, i understood that part, I was confused about why he had that reaction, then 2 hours later had the same reaction as if he was hearing the news for the first time. 

[HaemishM]

Because I can't see anything that says Barnett is involved. I would rather they didn't make the game if he's going to be involved in its creation.

[Yegolev]

http://www.redbubble.com/shop/featured+varia+mucha+t-shirts