We’re not talking about playing the game, we’re talking about buying the game. If a company announces that a game is about to be pulled from sale forever, many people will buy it just so they can own it. The cheaper the game, the more people will do this.

If Rockstar is any indication, they’ll just pull the licensed tracks from everyone’s copy of the game.

Apparently. That said, it’s ultimately about milking each product as much as possible and having a “last chance” sale for The Line seems like an easy way to milk more money out of it. Just announce that the game is going to be pulled a week in advance and put it on sale. Bam, easy money. Instead, they leave the game…

I only played the first VT extensively and from that, the combat didn’t seem all that deep. I do feel like you’re selling Dying Light (or more specifically, Dying Light 2) a bit short. It’s got blocks, parries, grapples, throws, contextual attacks, enemies that actively block and dodge your attacks, varying degrees of…

If 2K knew that the game would be pulled due to expiring licenses, why not notify potential customers..? And why not discount it on the largest, most popular platform (Steam)? Seems like this would be an easy way to quickly boost the game’s revenue before it stops generating revenue forever.

Apparently the progression issue was caused by a test server being used by default. It unlocked everything immediately for testing purposes and was only supposed to be used internally but somehow became the default server for players. So yeah, in this case, a due diligence problem.

February obviously isn’t going to be as packed as the holiday months but the notion that a game can’t succeed if it’s released in February just doesn’t hold any weight.

There are a multitude of reasons why games get canceled. It’s possible that the Timesplitters devs just weren’t meeting their milestones and were therefore given the axe when the $2b Embracer deal fell through. That said, we don’t actually know the scope of the project. Maybe they were pushing it into AAA territory.

It’s certainly possible but given Square’s PC history, I really wouldn’t be surprised if they just forgot that KH existed on PC.

I thought MS still owned the videogame rights to the IP?

What? Borderlands is a loot shooter, Outer Worlds is a Fallout-inspired RPG. They only have superficial similarities.

It’s about budget. Apparently they figured that Deus Ex needed a AAA budget, looked at the sales of the last 2 games, then realized that a Deus Ex game will never justify a AAA budget. The logical thing to do with be to just give it a AA budget but apparently they didn’t think that was an option?

Not sure trashing is the right word here. They bought a bunch of IPs that were basically dead in the water and made some good (or potentially good) games with them. Destroy All Humans, Desperados 3, Alone in the Dark, Titan Quest 2, Outcast 2, Gothic Remake, Jagged Alliance 3, etc.

Hub-based design is really underrated. I’ll take a dense, complex and lovingly detailed town/neighborhood over a shallow open-world map any day. Not sure I’d use Yakuza as an example, though, as its maps are pretty simplistic compared to the typical immersive sim hub.

I’m still baffled by the lack of AAA or even AA Shadowrun games. The HBS games were great but I think less niche games could be successful too.

Not necessarily. Last year, SF6 and Hogwarts Legacy came out in February. In 2022, Elden Ring, Dying Light 2 and Horizon: Forbidden West came out in February.

What’s weird is that they didn’t actually unload everything. Square still owns Just Cause, Kane & Lynch, Sleeping Dogs, Mini Ninjas, Murdered, Anachronox, Omikron, Deathtrap Dungeon, Daikatana, Pandemonium, Urban Chaos, Startopia, Supreme Commander, Quantum Conundrum, Dungeon Siege, Conflict, Battlestations, Order of…

Good luck finding buyers. When Square decided to clear out their western IP and studios, they likely pitched them to a wide range of publishers. Nobody was interested except Embracer. Embracer’s library is mostly comprised of IP that never made a lot of money and therefore has little value to AAA publishers. Jagged…

I think the problem is that AAA immersive sims just don’t sell enough to justify the budget. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dishonored 2, Prey, etc, all sold below expectations because their publishers had AAA expectations.

I don’t disagree. I’m playing Like A Dragon right now and the pacing is terrible. You have like 2 minutes of gameplay, then 5-10 minutes of cutscenes.