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[Saber]

I hope it ends like The Last of Cuck online. Waste of good talent in doing this, probably a leftovers idea from the last head before departing.

 

[DragonNCM]

Well, that's disappointing. Bend is a single player developer. Isn't this ND all over again, without the woke? Why focus their energies on something they have no experience doing?

Sony needs to satisfy their shareholders & they are not satisfy with only 8 million copy's sold, they need to milk players like in fortnite, war zone & other GAS crap, THEY NEED TO MAKE FUCKING BILLION PER YEAR for next 10 years with investment of 300 million.

 

[bitbydeath]

These are the facts:

These aren’t accurate.

- Against any business sense, Sony rejects Days Gone 2 and fires the directors.

The rumours are that Bend decided against Days Gone 2, although one of the leads said it was still in development when they left.

Sony however did green light a Days Gone movie which shows they do in fact like the IP.

- 5 years later, all Bend has shown is a new logo.

This applies to most devs that released games back then, we haven’t seen anything from Sucker Punch either, not even a new logo.

 

[yurinka]

Excellent response Yurinka.

Do you think Bungie referred to Marathon as it's "new IP before 2025"? I know it's not a new IP but perhaps there was a misspeak or misinterpretation?

I just don't think Bungie has another project nearing completion alongside Marathon. Could be wrong.

Thanks.

I assume that in their communications always talked about Destiny and have been doing only Destiny for a super long period, so maybe mentioned "new IP" as meaning "not Destiny", more than specifically a new IP.

Or who knows, maybe until 2021 or so the game that we know as the next Marathon was a new IP, but when acquired maybe reconsidered to turn it into a Marathon game to give more importance to their old IPs, giving more value to their origins, or maybe because when negotiating with Sony thought that it would be a good idea to bring a few fans of their old games back, maybe also thinking in movie/tv show adaptations they were considering back then.

Let's remember that Bungie wanted to make adaptations of their IPs, and Sony has a long history of adapting popular PS IPs to movies and tv shows. The interests of both were aligned, so this is one of the reasons of the acquisition.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Wait, are we really saying Helldivers 2 isn't open world? Come on man, words have to have meaning. This is shameful.

What part of it is open world? Is Risk of Rain 2 open world on your conception too? I don't think one of its individual random maps are any bigger than Fortnite's or PUBG's one even, far less stuff on them too since they're mostly rocky wastelands.

You already admitted that in order to succeed on the Live Service space, you have to do something different. That creates an environment for creative risk and bar raising. In the SP space, that incentive isn't there which means you can release an inferior version of Resident Evil 4 (considered the best SH game) and still achieve commercial success. This breeds complacency.

Quite the opposite. Less risks means more creative freedom, no need to worry about deep market analysis or high returns. It is no coincidence its from SP new multiplayer genres are born, but you never see a new MP genre come from another MP.

Here's a challenge for you, find me full blown MP games that are equivalent in mechanical depth and complexity to:
X3 or X4
Dwarf Fortress
Mount&Blade
Baldurs Gate 3 or other CRPGs like Pathfinder or BG1&2
Ctrl Alt Ego

121 million dollars on Steam alone. Add in the console numbers and you've successfully attempted, but ultimately failed, to move the goalpost on the word "niche".

Where did you even took that number from? I hope this isn't some estimated gross revenue you took from one of those auto-calculator sites. Either way, something like Divinity Original Sin 2 probably made double than that in a similar time-frame and with less year-by-year investment, its a value on the ball-park of a good AA game.

No. You're just cherry picking exemplars to ignore the clear trend that's occurring in front of everyone's face.

How is WoW and FFXIV cherry picking...? They're literally market leaders on the genre you oh-so vehemently believe is yet to be invented.

Again, you were a "Live Service is luck" person not too long ago. We're about to watch a series of sequential hits. Get your hard hat on.

It still involves luck, mainly because companies can't read the market as well as you think they do. Certainly no one expected Helldivers 2 or Palworld to become huge hits, certainly not Sony or MS, or they would've bought the studios long ago when they were cheaper.

And certainly not you, the local GAAS specialist, as these games go against everything you ever considered to be progress. You even have to twist inside your mind how Helldivers 2, a game set into multiple small closed-off combat areas, is somehow "open world" despite that clearly not being the case. Talk about cope.

 

[Small John McCarthy]

This may be my last generation. Devs today are probably younger than me who didn’t grow up playing the kinda games I did. Probably grew up on Fortnite. So of course that’s what they wanna make. They simply don’t make games for me, they make what they know.

I have zero interest in live service

I’m down to buying 2 or 3 games a year now. The rest just don’t interest me.

In the from PS2 to PS4 I’d pretty much buy every major release.

I’m not mad, I accept that this is just not the hobby I once enjoyed. Now saving for a new mirrorless camera, photography has become a more enticing hobby for me.

 

[yurinka]

- Against any business sense, Sony rejects Days Gone 2 and fires the directors.

According to the game directors of Days Gone 1 Sony never rejected Days Gone 2 because Bend never sent them any Days Gone 2 pitch. Some of hem wanted to do it, but the internal head inside Bend blocked it and prefered to make a new IP instead.

One director was fired just after releasing the game, before having sales numbers. Being "toxicity" the reason, not related to Days Gone quality or performance. Probably because the directors and the head of Bend didn't have a good relationship.

The other one wasn't fired, he left. He did work in some ideas, one of them was to start an Uncharted spinoff codeveloped with ND but he left and Bend moved to work in their new IP.

- 5 years later, all Bend has shown is a new logo.

During this year they released Days Gone DLC and the PC port, but yes. They did help on TLOU Online, started to work on the Uncharted game and later moved to the new IP they are working on since -as I remember- 2021 or 2022.

In recent years, AAA games take 5-9 years to be developed, and Sony doesn't show games until close to release, so it's too early for them to show anything.

- Bend Studio has zero experience in GaaS.

Yes, but they have the help of experts from Bungie, Firewalk, Haven, Polyphony, San Diego, Media Molecule etc. (and now Arrowhead, and in Guerilla the director of Rainbow Siege Six) who worked in very successful AAA GaaS games and can support them via the Son Live Services Center of Excellence.

Other GaaS games from respected devs didn't make the cut, and theirs did. So should be promising.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

What part of it is open world? Is Risk of Rain 2 open world on your conception too? I don't think one of its individual random maps are any bigger than Fortnite's or PUBG's one even, far less stuff on them too since they're mostly rocky wastelands.


Quite the opposite. Less risks means more creative freedom, no need to worry about deep market analysis or high returns. It is no coincidence its from SP new multiplayer genres are born, but you never see a new MP genre come from another MP.

Here's a challenge for you, find me full blown MP games that are equivalent in mechanical depth and complexity to:
X3 or X4
Dwarf Fortress
Mount&Blade
Baldurs Gate 3 or other CRPGs like Pathfinder or BG1&2
Ctrl Alt Ego


Where did you even took that number from? I hope this isn't some estimated gross revenue you took from one of those auto-calculator sites. Either way, something like Divinity Original Sin 2 probably made double than that in a similar time-frame and with less year-by-year investment, its a value on the ball-park of a good AA game.


How is WoW and FFXIV cherry picking...? They're literally market leaders on the genre you oh-so vehemently believe is yet to be invented.


It still involves luck, mainly because companies can't read the market as well as you think they do. Certainly no one expected Helldivers 2 or Palworld to become huge hits, certainly not Sony or MS, or they would've bought the studios long ago when they were cheaper.

And certainly not you, the local GAAS specialist, as these games go against everything you ever considered to be progress. You even have to twist inside your mind how Helldivers 2, a game set into multiple small closed-off combat areas, is somehow "open world" despite that clearly not being the case. Talk about cope.

If we can't agree that Helldivers 2 is open world, we have no chance at agreeing on anything you don't want to agree on.

Shame on everyone reading this conversation and remaining silent through this absurdity!

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

yurinka gets it.

 

[Guilty_AI]

If we can't agree that Helldivers 2 is open world, we have no chance at agreeing on anything you don't want to agree on.

Shame on everyone reading this conversation and remaining silent through this absurdity!

>MMOs haven't been invented yet
>Palworld and Lethal Company are GAAS
*NEW*>Helldivers 2 is an open world game

I wonder what's the next gaffe you're going to give me.

 

[ResetEraVetVIP]

I wanted Days Gone 2 or another AAA Masterpiece…

 

[Borowski_1]

Jim Ryan is the worst that happened to Playstation

More hardware than software
No game announcements
Layoffs
Studios shut down
GaaS and more GaaS


At this rate, this might be my last Playstation console

 

[makaveli60]

This may be my last generation. Devs today are probably younger than me who didn’t grow up playing the kinda games I did. Probably grew up on Fortnite. So of course that’s what they wanna make. They simply don’t make games for me, they make what they know.

I have zero interest in live service

Yeah, but I’m looking at the positive side of this. I spend much less on games nowadays thanks to the decay in the industry and I can reduce my huge backlog that still has a lot of gems left. And with the insane length of games today, I can wait for sales for the few modern games that still interest me.

 

[crackajack]

I am not really against GaaS, when it is just part of a mix and not main focus like it is now, the term anyway does not mean much except that it is game that likely does not see a proper conclusion and or closed story. Something I and I believe many gamers as well always hated sicne the beginning of DLCs offering a true ending, instead of a separate own story. I liked Killing Floor and Back4Blood though. So if it is Days Gone as a MP variant in that type of loop, maybe I like it. As long it is PvE I can be interested. PvP though is usually not my thing, since there is no other goal than beating the others, which inherently is repetitive and pointless af.
It's understandable, trying to be Fortnite, but much like GTA being the only open world game that remained relevant and also no one repeating WoW success, many of this new ilk will fail and many hours of work will be for nothing. Maybe this is among the winners of these narrow minded publisher battles, but maybe it gets forgotten as fast as SP. Chasing trends never was a great idea and they could dial down the costs a bit and still do reasonably costly one and done games, but for some reason all the 3D scan and AI tools did not make game development cheaper yet while the core designs are anyway stuck in the past, game design stagnating, but costs not. Weird.

SP got more and more bloated, MP now gets endless bloat. Fun times.

 

[kyussman]

This may be my last generation. Devs today are probably younger than me who didn’t grow up playing the kinda games I did. Probably grew up on Fortnite. So of course that’s what they wanna make. They simply don’t make games for me, they make what they know.

I have zero interest in live service

Yea,I'm 51 this year and I might already be out,I've not bought a PS5 or XSX as I've not been excited by games this gen at all.I still love the medium of video games but it seems I might have aged out,no big deal I've just got into movies more heavily instead,I had a good run.I keep waiting for that new game that is gonna blow my mind and pull me back in but it just doesn't feel like it's gonna happen.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Not accepting this slander, PS4's later years were MUCH more varied in almost every single aspect. Just compare their output in 2014/2015 to 2016/2017.

Well, okay, I might've exaggerated that part a bit. However I think in terms of AA games or non-cinematic offerings their 1P basically came down to Rachet & Clank and Gran Turismo. Eventually Dreams as well and The Last Guardian, both of which were delayed nigh-endlessly (or at least TLG was; Dreams just was shown off way too early but was the only SIE game that gen where that was the case IMO).

Still though, in terms of total 1P variety nothing is touching 2009-2013 PlayStation for a very long time if ever again. Cinematic AAA, AAA sim racer, AAA arcade racers, AA platformers, puzzle games, "artsy" games, multiplayer games, a fighter, PS Home, Demon's Souls etc. The amount of variety & quantity in that 4-year period 1P-wise definitely outdoes what we've seen from 2020-2024 so far.

Although I can definitely see some argue that quality-wise the past four years best 2009-2013 and, certainly in terms of AAA high production-value games it likely does. But I'd say that's also due to sheer visual increases in hardware performance over time and SIE having significantly more cinematic AAA games than in the past, at the expense of some other software variety.

I've heard this point made on NeoGAF roughly 7,742 times. I've always responded with the following...

They ALWAYS have been. I'm going to say this until I'm blue in the face: It doesn't address the continued growth and popularity of Live Service games.

No one can offer a compelling retort because the point itself is moot.

Games have reached a certain quality, depth and variety level to where they're now the platform. It's no longer the plastic box.

Many here bemoan the days of buying a $300 dollar NES and buying $60 dollar microtr... games.

Today's gamers are no different. They're just investing into a different platform. A software platform rather than a hardware platform.


The market will continue to change as GAAS becomes better and better at capturing larger and larger audiences. We're in a constant state of change.

Definitely take a step back and look at the whole picture. Most GAAS have been failing rather spectacularly, and only a small handful are actually successful. It'd also seem like as time goes on, those which are successful do so by biting off some of the other popular mainstay GAAS who are going through rougher times. I actually think a good portion of Helldivers 2's success is coming from disgruntled COD, Halo & Destiny players looking for a new fix, and some of the mentions I've seen online bear this out. While I don't doubt the game'd be a big success otherwise, I do wonder what things would look like if the last COD, Halo, and Destiny expansion didn't alienate big parts of their respective fanbases.

Then you have other live-service games like Palworld that manage to kind of establish their own space but do so by playing off curiosities (maybe to the point of copyright infringement) of other well-established IP, almost like it's a parody, so they feed into internet meta culture and meme culture. However I think a lot of those games have trouble establishing long-term retention because once the appeal wears off there isn't much substance. They also always seem to come from small dev teams who don't have enough content to keep things going once popularly skyrockets, and don't have enough workers to make the content in a reasonable time frame.

So as you can see, the GAAS/live-service market is really being carried by a select number of massive IP already well-entrenched in that space, and the opportunities for new IP to carve out a similar presence are very, very few. They almost always hinge on one or more mainstay GAAS going through a rough patch, or playing into curiosities of massively well-established traditional IP but in a new GAAS/live-service format to the point of seeming like a parody. Helldivers 2 & Palworld are the two most recent examples of successful new GAAS but there's a mountain of failures beneath them.

 

[Humdinger]

Sony needs to satisfy their shareholders & they are not satisfy with only 8 million copy's sold, they need to milk players like in fortnite, war zone & other GAS crap, THEY NEED TO MAKE FUCKING BILLION PER YEAR for next 10 years with investment of 300 million.

I'm not bothered that they are greedy. I just don't understand why they choose to do it this way -- by assigning a team whose sole experience is developing single-player games to do a 180 and start developing a live service game, something they have no experience in. That's no way to make money. I mean, Sony's investment into the Naughty Dog live service project was a complete waste of time, money, and resources.

Why don't they assign people who know what they're doing? (I'm guessing the answer is, because they don't have any, or very few.)

 

[GymWolf]

Jim Ryan is the worst that happened to Playstation

More hardware than software
No game announcements
Layoffs
Studios shut down
GaaS and more GaaS


At this rate, this might be my last Playstation console

Between him and phil it's a race for who is the worst.

But at least phil has a nice smile

 

[nial]

Well, okay, I might've exaggerated that part a bit. However I think in terms of AA games or non-cinematic offerings their 1P basically came down to Rachet & Clank and Gran Turismo. Eventually Dreams as well and The Last Guardian, both of which were delayed nigh-endlessly (or at least TLG was; Dreams just was shown off way too early but was the only SIE game that gen where that was the case IMO).

I mean, RIGS, Gravity Rush 2, Farpoint, New Everybody's Golf, Yuunama VR, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Déraciné, Concrete Genie. I think the issue is people generally ignoring their PSVR output, when it was such a step up in quality compared to their Move games in the previous gen.

Still though, in terms of total 1P variety nothing is touching 2009-2013 PlayStation for a very long time if ever again. Cinematic AAA, AAA sim racer, AAA arcade racers, AA platformers, puzzle games, "artsy" games, multiplayer games, a fighter, PS Home, Demon's Souls etc.

I wouldn't deny PS3's varied offerings, but my problem is that they were either treated as low class PSN-only titles, or just not that good; Sly 4, PS ASBR, ModNation Racers, Echochrome 2? All extremely mediocre. Even Puppeteer which I love isn't really anything more than being very novel.

There was a good reason as to why their AAA games were all people talked about in the PS3 era, their AA games were such a let down compared to those on the PS2 and PS1.

If we're bringing PSP to the conversation, then that's another story, I'll give you that. But still, PSP's peak years were from 2006 to 2008.

 

[Moriarty1889]

They wanted to make a sequel to Days Gone but Sony would t allow it. I remember one of the studio heads left after that I believe. Unreal how Sony mastered the art of AAA SP OFFLINE STORY DRIVEN GAMES last gen and has done a complete 180 this gen. I know Jimbo was pushing this but was hoping once he left Sony would have changed this shite back to what had been so successful for them til now. Hoping Japan management at some point pull HQ out of whacked out California and back home. Maybe then things will start to go back to what made Sony so great before in terms of their games and management.

 

[Moriarty1889]

Between him and phil its a race for who is the worst.

But at least phil has a nice smile

It is quite curious how Sony has mimicked MS with their strategy this gen. I would say between the two Phil is still leading but Jimbo is a close second with what he has done with the Playstation gaming division.

 

[nial]

Hoping Japan management at some point pull HQ out of whacked out California and back home

It will not make any difference, the American and Japanese branches have the same leadership. Heck, Jim is not even American.
On a side note, t's funny how people believe Sony Japan does not do anything these days, they are literally the ones developing both the PS5 Pro and PS6 right now.

 

[GymWolf]

It is quite curious how Sony has mimicked MS with their strategy this gen. I would say between the two Phil is still leading but Jimbo is a close second with what he has done with the Playstation gaming division.

Phil wasn't starting from the same position as jim tho, jim started with a huge advance and a super successful console so the fuck up is more impressing in a way.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

They wanted to make a sequel to Days Gone but Sony would t allow it. I remember one of the studio heads left after that I believe. Unreal how Sony mastered the art of AAA SP OFFLINE STORY DRIVEN GAMES last gen and has done a complete 180 this gen. I know Jimbo was pushing this but was hoping once he left Sony would have changed this shite back to what had been so successful for them til now. Hoping Japan management at some point pull HQ out of whacked out California and back home. Maybe then things will start to go back to what made Sony so great before in terms of their games and management.

Because SP games only get so much sales and any mtx revenue associated with them will be low. So the risk and reward is GAAS.

Sony's gaming division profits are flatlined for 6-7 years at about $2 billion/yr despite record top line sales. So it's time they decided to roll the dice.

It's like some investing in the stock market. You can have a portfolio of boring dividend stocks paying 5%. It's consistent and the stock price probably wont move that much up or down. Its steady but boring and you'll never make Nvidia stock growth profits or Fortnite kind of money that way. But if you want to say fuck it, let's go, you carve out some funds and lay it on volatile tech stocks or GAAS MP gaming. Can be a forgotten dumpster fire (Destruction All Stars and Deviation Games cancelled game) or hit the jackpot (Helldivers 2).

So what they decided years ago is to put a lot of focus on GAAS. Which means a lot of GAAS coming soon (Helldivers 2 is one of them), as well as buying Bungie for Destiny and their GAAS expertise.

 

[DragonNCM]

I'm not bothered that they are greedy. I just don't understand why they choose to do it this way -- by assigning a team whose sole experience is developing single-player games to do a 180 and start developing a live service game, something they have no experience in. That's no way to make money. I mean, Sony's investment into the Naughty Dog live service project was a complete waste of time, money, and resources.

Why don't they assign people who know what they're doing? (I'm guessing the answer is, because they don't have any, or very few.)

Because it is what they have, developers who make AAA single player games & they forcing them to make GAS games or they will be closed.
So choose to develop GAS or you will hit the door......simply as that.

 

[gothmog]

This is going to be a great thread to look back on in a few years.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Definitely take a step back and look at the whole picture. Most GAAS have been failing rather spectacularly, and only a small handful are actually successful. It'd also seem like as time goes on, those which are successful do so by biting off some of the other popular mainstay GAAS who are going through rougher times. I actually think a good portion of Helldivers 2's success is coming from disgruntled COD, Halo & Destiny players looking for a new fix, and some of the mentions I've seen online bear this out. While I don't doubt the game'd be a big success otherwise, I do wonder what things would look like if the last COD, Halo, and Destiny expansion didn't alienate big parts of their respective fanbases.

Bill Murrays Groundhogs Day.

Anti GAAS argument: Making successful GAAS is hard. Many failures. The ones that succeed only do so by taking from others.

Retort: None of that addresses the growth of the Live Service games market. Steamcharts public data shows us the market is growing wider (more successful titles launching) and deeper (successful titles growing) through the years. PlayStations internal data certainly shows the same trend.

Anti GAAS argument: *Silence* I need to somehow explain to this guy that many Live Service titles fail and the successful one's only succeed by taking from others.

And around and around we go.

Then you have other live-service games like Palworld that manage to kind of establish their own space but do so by playing off curiosities (maybe to the point of copyright infringement) of other well-established IP, almost like it's a parody, so they feed into internet meta culture and meme culture. However I think a lot of those games have trouble establishing long-term retention because once the appeal wears off there isn't much substance. They also always seem to come from small dev teams who don't have enough content to keep things going once popularly skyrockets, and don't have enough workers to make the content in a reasonable time frame.

RoI is the only metric that matters to these companies. They don't care if it happens up front or over a multi year period.

So as you can see, the GAAS/live-service market is really being carried by a select number of massive IP already well-entrenched in that space, and the opportunities for new IP to carve out a similar presence are very, very few.

Lethal Company, Palworld, Helldivers 2, Enshrouded, Last Epoch, and The Finals all released in the last 6 months and have been extremely successful. They're all new or lesser known IP.

We do not get the equivalent in the saturated single player market.

 

[itshutton]

I see this as a positive. I won’t play a GaaS game from a developer I wouldn’t have played a single player game from. Just glad it’s not another one of Sony’s studios.

 

[Humdinger]

Because it is what they have, developers who make AAA single player games & they forcing them to make GAS games or they will be closed.
So choose to develop GAS or you will hit the door......simply as that.

Yeah, as I figured. They just don't have anyone who knows what they're doing when it comes to developing live service games (except Bungie! har). So it's time to jam the square pegs in the round holes and hope it all works out.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I mean, RIGS, Gravity Rush 2, Farpoint, New Everybody's Golf, Yuunama VR, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Déraciné, Concrete Genie. I think the issue is people generally ignoring their PSVR output, when it was such a step up in quality compared to their Move games in the previous gen.

Okay, that is another fair point. Sony's 1P support with PSVR was pretty strong, and they had good late PSP/early PS Vita support which did spill over into early PS4 gen. I guess though, that makes the lack of comparable 1P support for PSVR2 all the more striking in contrast.

I mean there are several big 1P releases you'd think would have PSVR2 compatibility but beyond GT7 it just isn't there.

I wouldn't deny PS3's varied offerings, but my problem is that they were either treated as low class PSN-only titles, or just not that good; Sly 4, PS ASBR, ModNation Racers, Echochrome 2? All extremely mediocre. Even Puppeteer which I love isn't really anything more than being very novel.

There was a good reason as to why their AAA games were all people talked about in the PS3 era, their AA games were such a let down compared to those on the PS2 and PS1.

If we're bringing PSP to the conversation, then that's another story, I'll give you that. But still, PSP's peak years were from 2006 to 2008.

Personally I enjoyed Echochrome (1) and Puppeteer out of what you mentioned, and the early LBP games of course. Didn't get around to Echochrome 2 though, maybe there were bad design changes to it?

But another reason why I'd say those AAA games were always talked about, was because that's all the industry cared about because of the 360 having its big games like Halo 3 & Gears, Mass Effect etc. And the media was always asking "where are Sony's equivalents?". They didn't pay much attention to the AA stuff, and since games media was still respectable in 7th gen that conditioned a lot of gamers to also ignore the AA offerings and only start focusing on the big AAA stuff.

At least, that's what I feel was part of the reason behind that.