Nothing Xbox does matters if the games aren't good.

May 4, 2023 9:42 AM

Xbox Is Running Out Of Time To Get It Right by Ethan Gach [Kotaku] “But if Hi-Fi Rush showed the promise of Game Pass, where more focused and stylized games can find an audience without sanding themselves down into dust to appeal to a mass market, Redfall has done just the opposite. Arkane’s vampire shooter feels incomplete and plays like mush, a far cry from the striking, precisely drawn contours of immersive sims like Prey and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. [...] For years now, Xbox fans and players have been waiting for Microsoft to begin delivering a steady stream of hit exclusives that can rise to the level of those found on PlayStation and Switch, and it simply hasn’t. The results of an acquisition spree of new studios that began in 2018 are mixed at best, with each bright spot—Psychonauts 2, Pentiment—overshadowed by delays, missteps, and radio silence around major projects teased years ago in a premature effort to drum up hype for the Xbox Series X/S.”

• Xbox Boss 'Upset With Myself' Over Redfall's Terrible Launch by Ethan Gach [Kotaku]

“Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer was contrite following the overwhelmingly negative response to Redfall this week. In a new interview with the Xbox podcast Xcast, the executive confessed to being disappointed with some quality issues and the critical reception of Arkane’s vampire shooter this week. “There’s nothing more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community,” he said. “Just to kind of watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I’m disappointed, I’m upset with myself.” Redfall made headlines this week for its exceptionally poor review scores and went viral in social media posts displaying strange bugs and performance issues. It was not what fans were expecting for Microsoft’s first $70 Xbox Series X/S game or Arkane Austin, the acclaimed Bethesda studio behind the beloved immersive sims Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and Prey.”

posted by Fizz (56 comments total)

Losing the Dreamcast and '90s SEGA was a mistake.

For everyone that wants a hit of it, Lunistice is 5 bucks on Steam.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:11 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm personally pretty happy with GamePass because I skipped last generation and get to play a ton of games I missed. And I've realized that the vast majority of AAA titles that people salivate over, lately, aren't for me. But yeah, without a ton of really great first-party games, it's obviously a disaster for Xbox.

I haven't played Redfall, but I took a look at some gameplay, and ... ooof. I think that's the only word for it.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:42 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would still bet good money that Microsoft will find a way to bungle things further down the road for the Xbox, especially as the Activision-Blizzard merger will likely happen one way or another.

Maybe Starfield will be the Bethesda/Microsoft magic unicorn I need and want it to be. If that game figures out the same magic that Skyrim had, then I'll go out and buy one immediately.

But with that being said, dear lord, this is my prayer to you and the microsoft marketing gods....PLEASE find a better naming convention for your console: Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X. Who the fuck can even understand that mess of letters. What a nightmare.
posted by Fizz at 10:47 AM on May 4, 2023 [15 favorites]

It's odd, but the thing that bugs me the most about the Redfall clusterfuck is the requirement for a Bethesda.net account.

...on XBox, where you already have a Microsoft account. Microsoft, which owns Bethesda. WTF.
posted by aramaic at 10:55 AM on May 4, 2023 [23 favorites]

One undercurrent from the Spencer interview is that maybe MS execs are a little too hands-off with game development. He lists games that their acquired studios have recently made that were not their normal fare, but at what point does an exec need to step in and tell Arkane that the ship has sailed on looter shooters, and the studio's strength has always been single--player experiences.
posted by thecjm at 11:02 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't feel like I've really missed anything from the last console cycle by owning both a semi-capable PC and a Nintendo Switch. This gives me access to the Nintendo exclusives I care about (Zelda/Metroid/Fire Emblem/certain Mario games) first and foremost. All of the good Xbox/Playstation exclusives seem to get ported to PC at some point, and I just end up playing them when they go on sale on Steam. For indie games, I usually flip a coin on whether I want to play it on the go (Switch wins) or sitting down (usually PC wins). It's a peaceful life.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:04 AM on May 4, 2023 [9 favorites]

EuroGamer reviewer, from the Redfall link, made me laugh:

I think the patchy textures - yes, I’m really about to say this - gives the town a slightly impressionist feel. The waxy characters are wonderfully waxy, the kind of things you might meet on a trip through a haunted Hall of Presidents. Even so, there’s no ducking the fact that my wife came into the room when I was playing, looked at the screen in horror and said, “Jesus! What happened to Fortnite?"
posted by taquito sunrise at 11:05 AM on May 4, 2023 [15 favorites]

Been playing a bunch of Redfall, it's fine. It's not as great as Prey but that's a high bar, and I don't think that's what they were going for anyway. Multiplayer is pretty fun, single player is still engrossing for me right now. I'm betting there's some interesting analysis looking at Prey -> Mooncrash -> Deathloop -> Redfall, but don't think anyone's done that yet (tho I've seen the Mooncrash -> Deathloop conversation).

People are balking at the price tag, but gods, I don't know, at some point if you respect the fact that human beings are doing work, you gotta pay them*. There was also this big push recently about how the industry needs more B-games, games that are just solid and do a thing and don't have to be A MASTERPIECE. And then when something like that does come out, there's all... this.

Also, it's weird to hold Hi-Fi Rush up as a counter-example here, since I've heard wayyyy more lackluster responses on that, especially after people get out of the first few hours.

I dunno. This feels like a "pile-ons are cool, actually," thing, and it's boring. :/ Let's hate on a game and get really worked up about it for the absolute most mundane shit.


* and also work to get some UBI and healthcare for all and etc, this is not an either/or. We can pay people for games AND overthrow the system.
posted by curious nu at 11:20 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

I have a Series X as my sole gaming console and it feels like I bought a Zune.
posted by ZaphodB at 11:25 AM on May 4, 2023 [15 favorites]

The commentary around this game is so weird. I sat down to play with friends thinking it was going to be awful and we'd have fun glitching it out. We were just confused because it's fine.

The negative reviews are waaaaayy overblown and performative. I've played much worse games with far better launch reviews. It is a B- kind of thing. I'm not sure why people are constantly comparing it to the likes of Dishonoured when this is quite clearly attempting to be an arcadey, cartoonish, open world L4D by way off looter shooter riff. It's fine. It ain't going to win any awards, but it is totally playable and a fair amount of fun as a 4 player open world vampire shoot-em-up.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:25 AM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

I've not played but I've watched a shit-ton of streamers/let's play streams since launch and it honestly feels like Redfall was just not directed well and the marketing has been pretty poor at trying to advertise what specific type of game this game truly is and wants to be. There just feels like a lot of mixed messaging. But I do agree that gamers are generally pretty easily convinced to pile on and things can get toxic and out of control pretty fast.
posted by Fizz at 11:31 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

What we need is more 2D Street Fighter games and a new sequel to Culdcept.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:46 AM on May 4, 2023

Been playing a bunch of Redfall, it's fine.

People aren't really looking for the methadone version of fun though.
posted by mhoye at 11:48 AM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

People aren't really looking for the methadone version of fun though.

I wish I could somehow roll my eyes harder at this, but I'm running up against physical limits of the universe. Frustrating.
posted by curious nu at 11:52 AM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

People are balking at the price tag, but gods, I don't know, at some point if you respect the fact that human beings are doing work, you gotta pay them

The gaming community has a strangely dogmatic belief that games are supposed to cost $50, because that's what they cost "back in the day". Nevermind that adjusted for inflation, a $50 game 20 years ago would be nearly $85 today.
posted by a faithful sock at 12:11 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have a theory I'm nurturing that the strength of Sony (and Nintendo) and their exclusive libraries - as well as the majority of non-console-exclusive, non-sports type games is just... third-person perspective.

Obviously, COD/Battlefield/FarCry/Bethesda (waves arms)... everything... are enormously popular and influential still, but if I think about the breadth of hugely successful non-exclusive AAA titles and franchises out there - FromSoftware's catalog, Assassin's Many Creeds, Witcher, Metal Gear/Death Stranding, Grand Theft Auto, Fortnite, Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, etc, etc, etc - they're largely 3rd person action-adventure... and even in RE's case, they published an update which took you out of FPS mode for Resident Evil: Village.

I wonder if Microsoft stood up a new 3PS IP (not Gears of War), how that would affect the perception of their exclusive titles.
posted by phong3d at 12:12 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Third person is virtually a requirement for charting huge sales figures in Asia-Pac. First person gets a lot more buy-in and vocal grassroots/streamer marketing from EFIGS core gamers due to (reputedly) the immersion factor. It’s one of the single biggest decisions of any pitch that could theoretically support both (which some games do but it is nearly impossible to support them equally well).
posted by Ryvar at 12:41 PM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

1. Anecdotally, way more people I know have the Series X vs the PS5. Everyone who has one raves about the gamepass system vs the Sony version of gamepass. Personally I have a PS5 and love it but am somewhat considering the XBox S just for the gamepass.

2. It seems like a weird, somewhat toxic dynamic, in the gamer community to describe things that are just fine but not perfect as horribly broken and destined to fail. I see this all the time in the Marvel Snap community where cards that maybe need a bit of a balance tweak are ranted about as being horribly broken. I think gamers are just really passionate about their pastime and sometimes it translates into hyperbole that verges on toxicity.
posted by sid at 12:55 PM on May 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Nevermind that adjusted for inflation, a $50 game 20 years ago would be nearly $85 today.

I get this, but the cost per unit for a video game has dropped to effectively zero, and a middling indie game today will have sales numbers larger than the entire existing installed base of consoles in the 90s.
posted by phooky at 1:14 PM on May 4, 2023

I've only got a Switch and last summer when Starfall was supposed to come out I was idly thinking that maybe I'd pick up an XBox because my family would be out of town and I'd have more time to game. There seems to be a lot of overlap between the PS5 and XBox libraries so I know that if I get one I'd have more great games than I could reasonably play and it's just a question of which one I'd get. I'm not going to have any similar block of free time this year so even if Starfall does come out and is great I'm not going to be buying an XBox. Maybe in summer 2024.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:21 PM on May 4, 2023

The gaming community has a strangely dogmatic belief that games are supposed to cost $50, because that's what they cost "back in the day". Nevermind that adjusted for inflation, a $50 game 20 years ago would be nearly $85 today.

Wages, meanwhile, have surely risen accordingly, right?
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:22 PM on May 4, 2023 [26 favorites]

Here's the thing about Redfall - it was produced by Arkane.

Dishonored. Prey. Deathloop (which I didn't like, but at least it was well written and coherent). (And these are just the recent console games - their history of goodness goes a way back)

There's a level of expectation of Arkane that their games will be naratively and thematically solid. Along with the gameplay. Whereas with Bethesda, we expect the game to be a bug ridden janky mess that is awesome in spite of it's flaws, or will be once the modders get a hold of it. Arcane games are supposed to be fan-fucking-tastic out of the box. From moment one.

Here's what I got when I booted up redfall:

No real context. A haphazard story about "vampires" blocking out the sun and doing something biblical with the water around an island. 4 main characters which, personally, I found neither likable or relatable in their generic edginess.

And and the VERY FIRST THING I noticed (on an xbox series X) was the texture pop-in. In the first scene. If you can't optimize the whole game, at least get the first scene right. It's a generic looter shooter. It might have a fascinating lore and story behind it, but in the end it's just a generic looter shooter.

That said - it could be fun, the guns are pretty punchy and I've always liked Arcane's unusual art style. But this is a letdown coming from Arkane.

I'm glad I have gamepass because if I'd dropped $70 on this, I'd be pissed.
posted by jaded at 1:27 PM on May 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

But with that being said, dear lord, this is my prayer to you and the microsoft marketing gods....PLEASE find a better naming convention for your console: Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X. Who the fuck can even understand that mess of letters. What a nightmare.

Clearly inspired by the version labeling on video cards.
posted by straight at 2:04 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

PLEASE find a better naming convention for your console: Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X. Who the fuck can even understand that mess of letters. What a nightmare.

There’s a fun rumour that this started when the marketing team for the Xbox One settled on that name, thinking that people would either call it “the Xbox” (obviously no), “the One” or something that sounded like “Xbox won”. Rumour has it they were enraged by what people settled on: “XBONE”, pronounced “X-bone”, and the Xbox One X was explicitly named so that the initials would be “XBOX” and so people would call it the Xbox.

But Halo 3 doesn’t run on the Xbone, marketers! We need to be able to differentiate between consoles until you start offering seamless backwards compatibility!

Anyway, we got around the “Xbox One X” shenanigans by not talking about it
posted by Merus at 3:25 PM on May 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

I started playing it to review it and literally couldn't progress past the first few minutes because the tutorial popups were impossible to dismiss — it only detected the escape key being pushed down when I released it, for a brief moment, but you needed to hold it for 2 seconds to dismiss the dialog.

I literally couldn't play the game... couldn't quit the game! I had to Alt-F4 out, reload, and pop back in... when the same thing occurred on another tutorial a minute later. This combined with a strange floaty feel and really janky lighting just told me that I was better off not reviewing at all.

It's too bad because I was fully ready to forgive a lot in order to just have fun with a friend or two blasting vampires with our stake guns and UV beams. But despite being designed for co-op, game progress only stays in one player's game! It is the year of our lord jesus christ two thousand and twenty THREE, this is ostensibly a AAA title, cross-progression is table stakes. I just couldn't do it!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:22 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wish I could somehow roll my eyes harder at this, but I'm running up against physical limits of the universe.

Jaded covered in more detail than I would have, but my point stands. It is, like a lot of what we call disappointing releases now, a clearly rushed, underwhelming and inconsistent game with a mostly incoherent story, from a well respected shop, at a high price point for the genre that doesn't deliver the experience people were expecting. All the ingredients of a good game are there, it was rushed out the door because somebody's bonus was more important than the reputation of the team or the company, and now all the the people who thought they'd be playing a great game are just involuntary beta testers for a game that might be good in six months.
posted by mhoye at 6:19 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

This reminds me that I need to get a bigger hard drive for my xbone. So I can play it more.
posted by zenon at 6:31 PM on May 4, 2023

I’m somewhat tempted to replace my decade-old gaming pc with a series s and gamepass
posted by joedan at 7:46 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wages, meanwhile, have surely risen accordingly, right?

No, wages have risen significantly quicker.

Well, for those smart enough to leave games for absolutely any another software niche, anyway.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 7:47 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

I got the xboxone years after it's release and (unsurprisingly), just before the announcement of Series X/S. I had previously gone down the "I'll just get a gaming pc. Then I'll only have to do incremental upgrades. I am so smart!" only to discover every year the latest games would be beyond the ability of my PC to play, and the magical cheap upgrades would always cost more than if I had just bought a console. Does anybody remember that silly NFT thing that ate all of the available graphics cards for a year, or the COVID supply chain problems? Good times.

When I decided to get a console I looked at both available consoles, and chose the xbox for a very simple reason, it was $100 cheaper than Sony's. I know you're thinking,"But Sony has all of the best games!" I got one word for you: Halo. Yup, I love shooters. Sure I'm stupid and not a real gamer, but I like 'em and I don't care. Anyway, most of the things I wanted to play had an xbox port and when I discovered how inexpensive game pass was, I was pretty happy. I like the availability of a lot of games that I want to play for the cost of game pass. I'll be honest, most of them I try once and move on, but for those few games I love (like Sniper Elite 4 & 5) it's been totally worth it. I get to play through the games without paying the giant new game fee (yeah, I know, but I'm poor), and when I decide to buy the games, it's much cheaper.

So Redfall, honestly, it's not really on my list. I'll probably play it just to see, but I was never gonna spend the money on it anyway. What do I want to spend my money on? Diablo IV. I wasn't very excited when I heard it was gonna be an MMO, I think they probably were getting that a lot from people who liked the previous Diablo games, the best decision they made was to offer a free beta weekend. I figured I'd play it at some point, well after release because, who the hell wants to blow $60 bucks on a game? I spent a whole weekend playing it every free moment. I really liked it. By the end of the weekend I was ready to pony up the cash. Life got in the way and I still haven't dropped a pile on it.

So I guess this a love letter to game pass, and a WTAF?! to this whole game pass SUXORS! LOL! article. Whatever, haters gonna hate and all.
In conclusion, look at the news media, not really trustworthy these days. Make up your own mind, and play the games you like (or not all if you choose) and leave the hype to those getting paid to make it.
posted by evilDoug at 10:08 PM on May 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Erm, sorry. I guess I have opinions.
posted by evilDoug at 10:08 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

and a new sequel to Culdcept.

HRRRRNG yes, I wrung the life out of Culdcept Saga and I have a 3DS that contains exactly one cartridge and it is Culdcept Revolt. A perfectly engaging/enraging combination of MTG and Monopoly that scratched some profane itch of mine, and Saga had couch multiplayer if you could convince some other poor bastard to do a full two hour session.

damn i want more culdcept
posted by FatherDagon at 10:23 PM on May 4, 2023

Xbox One X was explicitly named so that the initials would be “XBOX” and so people would call it the Xbox

unfortunately, “Xbox” is spelled with two x’s, and “ Xbox One X” with three. We may never know what “Xbox, one x” refers to.
posted by atoxyl at 11:39 PM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

unfortunately, “Xbox” is spelled with two x’s, and “ Xbox One X” with three. We may never know what “Xbox, one x” refers to.

I think we can agree that marketers aren't like regular people. These are the people who thought "Independence Day" could abbreviate to "ID4". They do not look at the world and go, well, that almost works but it's not a good fit, they go, I'll make it work, and I dare anyone to contradict me.
posted by Merus at 11:59 PM on May 4, 2023

I can’t be alone in not knowing what the current generation of Xbox is. With PlayStation, I’m pretty sure it’s the highest number. The Xbox could be anything - x box one? Xbone? Xbox x one x? X 360 box?
posted by The River Ivel at 1:08 AM on May 5, 2023 [6 favorites]

Xbox One X was explicitly named so that the initials would be “XBOX” and so people would call it the Xbox

And yet I've seen it called the xbone x more often than not.

As to the game, I want it to be good. It's getting demolished in reviews on steam, which tells me that I should probably wait until it's on sale before trying to rope friends into it. I love Arkane and have been a huge booster for their games in the past (immersive sims are one of my two favorite genres and not enough are made), and I was really hoping for a semi immersive sim/semi looter shooter with this. It sounds like the level design, which is one of the things that they are known for, just isn't there.

I'm still going to buy it, but not at full price, at least not without CDPR/no man's sky levels of work to fix things up.
posted by Hactar at 1:10 AM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Game Pass is the most valuable subscription service I'm signed up to. The fact that I can get access to so many games on both PC and Xbox is hugely valuable.

One or two AAA games (Forza+Halo for example) plus a handful of indies I'd not try otherwise (Citizen Sleeper and Vampire Survivors as two excellent recent examples for me) has the service pay for itself for a whole year. The back catalog is immense.

Just at a glance on PC: Signalis, Return to Monkey Island (+ all the old Lucasarts adventure games), Weird West, Pentiment, Assassin's Creed Odyssey & Origins, Darkest Dungeon, Frostpunk, Deep Rock Galactic, Death Loop, all of EA's and Bethesda's back catalog etc. etc. It's thousands of hours of extremely high quality entertainment. I only wish I was more time rich to actually make use of it all.

I would also be more likely to agree with the thesis of the article if Sony was somehow crushing it but aside from the fact that I can now _maybe_ walk into a shop and buy a PS5 two years after launch but the only exclusives that come to mind are Horizon, God of War and Ratchet and Clank. Even the article itself only mentions GOW as if one title is evidence of Sony's success. Being "Game of the Year" in 2022 is not that impressive, considering the competition. The whole triple A gaming market is in a lull and Game Pass is hugely valuable and no one else is offering an equivalent service. (Plus the Series X gave a new lease on life for a huge back catalog of games like Red Dead Redemption 2 that I can now play in higher resolution with faster load times.)

Game Pass is in the early days of original content, like Netflix back before Stranger Things etc. really took off. Only MS has much deeper pockets and is a far more stable company than Netflix ever was.

Redfall is disappointing for the pedigree but gamers love nothing more than a pile-on and outrage feeds the YouTube algorithm and engagement figures. This article is a polished version of the same thing.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:46 AM on May 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

games like Red Dead Redemption 2 that I can now play in higher resolution with faster load times

Plus Quick Resume! I don't know that I'd be playing a lot of games without it. But when I can turn on the Xbox and dip into RDR2 for one mission without having to wait for anything to load, and then maybe do a race or two in FH5 or play a round of Vampire Survivors, and then shut the thing off and know I can come back to it later without load times, it makes gaming possible.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:56 AM on May 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

I learned, yesterday, that in the mid-90s, when Microsoft was creating the "Games SDK", they had DirectDraw, DirectSound, & DirectPlay libraries, so a journalist made fun of their naming convention, dubbing it "DirectX" and then that became the official name of the project. Later, they made a gaming console, the "Direct X Box", and marketing shortened it to "XBox".
posted by timdiggerm at 5:12 AM on May 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Jaded covered in more detail than I would have, but my point stands.

I mean.. it doesn't, tho? If your comparison is "a good game is heroin, and everything not heroin is bad," that is a fantastically warped perception. There's also, "this game is objectively bad because I didn't like it" and "I didn't enjoy the couple of hours I spent with this game." Most of the "criticism" seems to be the former. I think there's a really interesting conversation to have with people who are finding it disappointing and some soul-searching on your part about WHY it's disappointing, and what you're comparing it to, and what your expectations are (apparently: absolutely blissed-out on the edge of overdose???). But that doesn't seem to be what's going on.

Otherwise, all a person is doing is adding more negativity into the world at a time when goddamn, sometimes people just wanna play and enjoy a thing without seeing Gamer Internet spin up their hate machine.. which will last all of a week and then dissipate as they find the new thing to shit on.

I'm having a solid time with the game. It's meeting my expectations. I'm interested in continuing to explore the world and check out the nooks and crannies.

The amount of energy people are spending telling me I should hate myself and regret every dollar and minute spent on it boggles my mind.
posted by curious nu at 5:37 AM on May 5, 2023

On the one hand I'm sad that some of my favorite game makers seem to have released such a not-great-sounding game, which does not augur well for their future. On the other hand, I have been worrying about the fact that after the exclusivity change, I don't have a way to play Arkane games (and past Arkane games are one of the few things that might drive me to consider acquiring a way) -- so I guess that may not be a problem after all.

I'm not sure why people are constantly comparing it to the likes of Dishonoured

Er, the reason for this isn't subtle or complicated...
posted by advil at 6:20 AM on May 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

A lot of the pushback is, I figure, we see the writing on the wall, poor Arcane's likely getting EA'd.
posted by pan at 7:50 AM on May 5, 2023

People are balking at the price tag, but gods, I don't know, at some point if you respect the fact that human beings are doing work, you gotta pay them

Your purchase of game software has little to nothing to do with how the people who made that game are undercompensated and overworked. Even the tired 'success-of-company-pay-worker-in-future' is not meaningful as the industry can often take a success and spin it into disaster or otherwise spell doom for those who made the good thing. There's just no mechanic for your XX dollars to reach a worker who worked on the game. Many of them would have already been habitually fired by the time the game was even released and basically nobody in the industry gets royalties or fair compensation for their contributions.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:05 AM on May 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

Even the tired 'success-of-company-pay-worker-in-future' is not meaningful as the industry can often take a success and spin it into disaster or otherwise spell doom for those who made the good thing.

Blizzard notoriously responded to record profits by laying off hundreds of people.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:00 AM on May 5, 2023

There’s an interstitial pointing to other Kotaku stories in the middle of this and one is called “I Played That Racing Game Where Cars Have Legs And Jetpacks” and I am like, *this*, this is what video games should be, not some dreary AAA epic that takes a few thousand people a couple years to make, that I’ll probably never play until it’s on sale for $20, if ever. Nothing mentioned as XBoxXclusives gives me even a tenth of the urge to play it as this one goofy image of a flying car with giant cartoon legs. But I am also not interested enough in that to subscribe to Apple Arcade, I really just do not want to pay a monthly fee for *any* kind of game subscription service because then I feel obligated to play a lot more games than I really want to.

I am really thinking that my next console will be something that runs Steam. Sony was real good with crazy indy games for the PS3 but there’s been a *ton* of interesting little games I had to give a miss because they were on Windows and a console that was not my PS4. There’s been very little I cared about playing that was an exclusive to one console and never on Steam, and maybe it’s time to formally acknowledge that and just get A Box That Boots Into Steam when the PS4 games dry up. A Steam Deck 2 or a Steam Deck Slim that rarely leaves the cradle sounds pretty good.
posted by egypturnash at 12:12 PM on May 5, 2023

I appreciate the linked articles because, in all the noise Gamers are making over the Redfall being kinda disappointing*, I think it's true that the real source of their frustration is an industry-wide tendency for publishing companies to push offensively anti-consumer feature sets into games, and buy up production houses to wring them dry of craft and charm any time they display the ability to make games people actually like.

I was joking recently about mostly playing years-old games because I am an old person by gamer standards, who gets stuck in my Rocket League ways and can't keep up with the kids, but the truth is modern tentpole games are released in an incomplete state way too often, and I only get around to playing them a couple years later cause who wants to pay a premium at launch to find out if the game even works right? If they release it with a year long patch cycle planned, call me when they're done.

*I played via Xbox Live last night with some friends just to see what the fuss was about and the rough edges are there for sure but we had a lot more fun with it than we did some other recent co-op shooters, Back 4 Blood and Darktide in particular. For my money, Deep Rock Galactic is still the game to beat in that space, until Epic or somebody buys Ghost Ship Games and turns it into a casino I guess.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:28 PM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I am also playing Redfall, and I also think it's fine as a looter shooter, but I suppose it's a failure in that nobody would ever buy an Xbox to play it. Its a fun, casual game to play for short bursts with my husband - but I won't bother suggesting it to my gaming group once we get bored of switching between Valheim / Deep Rock Galactic / Darktide, because there's not enough depth there.

I was hoping for a new Left4Dead and it was kind of marketed as such, but it really isn't and I think that's coming back to bite it.

On the other hand my husband loves the Xbox game pass, which is the only reason we even played Redfall, and we were never gonna buy a lot of the Big Name games.
posted by stillnocturnal at 12:49 PM on May 5, 2023

Honestly it feels like the PlayStation/Xbox world of games just aren't made for people like me. The last Playstation I had was the PS3 and that was pretty much only used as a Blu-ray player (I did buy a used copy of Skyrim but that was the only game I ever bought). I have a Switch now that a friend gave me and that got me back into Nintendo games at least. I've always been a Nintendo gamer. They're more my style. Counting down the days until the new Zelda.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:50 PM on May 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Deep Rock Galactic is still the game to beat in that space, until Epic or somebody buys Ghost Ship Games and turns it into a casino I guess.

Ghost Ship Games is already owned indirectly by Embracer Group, the creepily-named conglomerate that has been buying up a bunch of studies and... not messing things up too badly, yet?
posted by ropeladder at 3:45 PM on May 5, 2023

this all seems very dramatic for one not-so-great game that was under development during covid, and the studio being bought out, sometimes shipping a thing is easier than canning it

long term arkane will be fine, xbox will be fine, and the two trillion dollar behemoth will continue to lumber on. in a few short months, starfield will (probably) make all this seem like the momentary gamer madness it appears to be from this perspective

still, i am taking a small moment of schadenfreude here, for personal reasons
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:38 PM on May 5, 2023

Er, the reason for this isn't subtle or complicated...

Okay, let me rephrase that. It is *disingenuous* and *bad criticism* to compare it to likes of Dishonoured. It has been 50+ years since Roger Ebert changed popular criticism. Why are game reviewers complaining that a multiplayer arcade loot 'em up doesn't meet their narrative and gameplay standards for a single player, story-oriented stealth game?

Should critics have the same expectations and standards for Babe: Pig in the City and Mad Max just because George Miller made both?

This is all so stupid. The CEO of XBOX issued an apology over this. What? For a game that is bland at worst? Again, my experience with Redfall was to sit down with some friends to hate-play what we expected to be an utter disaster, based on commentary. What we got was a totally playable and mildly entertaining multiplayer game. I have played much worse games that received a much more positive response.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:43 PM on May 5, 2023

Played a couple sessions on Redfall, it's mildly diverting, a few intentionally and a few unintentionally funny moments, then we got stuck due to a bug and will probably just go back to Valheim.

The broader reaction to this feels overblown until I remember that outside of gamepass you'd pay sixty quid for it, at which point I'd be absolutely outraged. It's easy to only think of gamepass as a ten quid a month Slurry Stream, and Redfall being a bust in that context... sure, whatever. But think of it as a package at 120 for the year, with this as one of the tentpole games, that's more disappointing.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:51 AM on May 6, 2023

Why are game reviewers complaining that a multiplayer arcade loot 'em up doesn't meet their narrative and gameplay standards for a single player, story-oriented stealth game?

Again, it's not that complicated (I don't get the argument here). Arkane have been very consistent in the games they have made along a number of dimensions, and I think there was a lot of hope that they would bring that magic to a multiplayer setting (and also retain it in Redfall single player, which exists). The setting and premise of Redfall were relatively promising for this, and deathloop already started moving the studio into multiplayer (with perhaps mixed results). But it's very, very clear that they haven't accomplished what anyone hoped, except perhaps for some of the art direction.

If your question is, "shouldn't a revered maker of high-end single player narrative games recently agglomerated into the microsoft gaming world be allowed to make a mediocre/boring game pass loot shooter that abandons most of their signature elements too"? Sure, but it doesn't seem remotely like lazy criticism to discuss this.

I don't know much about George Miller and he certainly has a fairly dichotomous catalogue, but perhaps happy feet two as compared to the first one is a better analogy here. ("Thin soup" sounds about right for what happened here too.)
posted by advil at 6:12 AM on May 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

That frozen wave looks cool as hell, though!
posted by ominous_paws at 10:47 AM on May 6, 2023

> Okay, let me rephrase that. It is *disingenuous* and *bad criticism* to compare it to likes of Dishonoured.
> Should critics have the same expectations and standards for Babe: Pig in the City and Mad Max just because George Miller made both?

I don't agree with this, because this isn't a case of Arkane making a perfectly fine movie outside of genre, it's, to continue the metaphor, Arkane going to make something new but facing so much executive meddling that they're unable to create anything good.

Something like Alien3 comes to mind.

I expect better, a lot better, from Arkane. I think it's reasonable to have that expectation. But it's also really obvious that they weren't able to deliver and the reason for that is quite obviously mismanagement.
posted by aurynn at 6:59 PM on May 6, 2023

Xbox Game Pass introduced me to a ton of indie games, which is fab
posted by creatrixtiara at 8:25 PM on May 6, 2023 [2 favorites]