Im not incredibly upset... the talent who made the games they listed are already gone. But its just the sign of the times. American/western gaming is on life support
The Pathfinder games were way too wordy and felt very hostile to newcomers, which I was at the time. I had just finished Larian games so it was very off-putting. Rogue Trader is in that sweet spot of welcoming enough for both newcomers and veterans of the genre for me. It also helped that the world of Warhammer is way more interesting than the generic world of Pathfinder for me.
I adore Colony Ship, an indie CRPG. But if the Pathfinder games were hostile to newcomers, this one absolutely hates you. Combat is very aggravating but also super rewarding once you get into it.
The only game I've played that hates the player more (in combat) is the dev's previous game The Age of Decadence.
The are both super niche, and definitely not for everyone. But if you persist they are both incredible.
The pathfinder games are pretty great for pathfinder players, but yeah that makes them a lot less approachable. But I like that they make those games for a slightly more niche audience.
Maybe I'm easily impressed but I adored Pathfinder and it's 'fuck you' nature. It really hit the spot after months of loading Baldur's Gate 3 up with as many difficulty mods as are available on console. But to be fair, I have like four guides open just to play for an hour...
I feel like Rogue Trader is way more wordy, especially with all of the tech-speak. Also, Pathfinder UI is more intuitive - the wheel leveling system in Rogue Trader is awkward to navigate.
Gotta say, as a massive fan of the books what they have shown so far does not really fit with that universe. For fans of the IP i think its gonna be a letdown. For people who just watched the show super casually it might be fine but I think they might be underestimating how hardcore the fanbase is.
Owlcat's CRPGs are fantastic, but I'm not sold on a Mass Effect-ish Expanse game, especially considering The Expanse started as a tabletop game setting never published and eventually turned into a book series.
I really would have loved to see an Expanse CRPG in that vein. The tight corridors of ships and stations would have lended better I think to that structure than a third person shooter.
I agree with this, the video game industry has just matured as most other industries do in America. Over time, it moves from grassroots/organic companies to a consolidated few. A few indie studios pop up here and there, but they grow or get swallowed up by the big guys. It’s normal in capitalism
The unfortunate thing is that while that's true, EA ultimately owns the IP to Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc. So those particular franchises are essentially dead.
Like Dragon age is just Grim Dark Fantasy. I can point to a dozen series that are Grim Dark Fantasy. The thing they do with the Fade, and how magic works in the world is really cool, bought the idea of magic being a curse as well as a blessing is not exactly rare in fantasy fiction.
And Mass Effect is awesome and has great alien races, but really as a setting it's kind of generic. The big draw of Mass Effect is the Reapers, and in a post Mass Effect 3 universe there isn't much you can do on that front that doesn't just retcon everything else you've already done.
It was pretty much from around 2008-2016 or so. Basically Bethesda, Bioware, Rockstar, Obsidian and CDPR put out their best work.
At the same time, Japanese gaming had started to decline, they kept making MMO styles games for single player. They still had some nice games but there was a clear shift happening.
A lot of it I think is the Japanese devs chased what they insisted was the mainstream US market, abandoning their actual fans. Then when the Western devs got that market, they did the same thing. It never works but that will never stop companies and their shills from justifying it.
Eventually you do that too much and people lose passion completely. They won't argue, they won't complain, they won't give you their opinion. They will just go do something else. Without that passionate fanbase, the shill replacements that followed them also get bored, they are always fickle, part of their fun is just ruining it for passionate people, since they don't have passions of their own.
Even now you're beginning to see the remakes and show adaptations are no longer working. The older players completely gave up, so that buzz isn't generating anymore. The newer players don't jump in and create that buzz either, I think they already know it's not worth it.
I think was some fatigue to the dense Western open world games, after Skyrim and AC brought it mainstream.
We're seeing that over-saturation with the Souls Like and Character Action genres right now.
The Open-world Western/Classic RPG format started to get repetitive (ubisoft had a lot to do with that, imo), and if the combat and RPG progression didn't hit well -- they just got boring.
Go to marker talk to someone, go to new marker, look around for pre-marked "clues" or maybe follow a trail, battle some baddies in really boring and easy combat, go back to person who gave you quest.
A beautiful rich world, and fun combat can save it (for me, Horizon and Ghost Of Tsushima are examples of the boring open world loop - saved by engaging Combat and/or RPG mechanics and progression) -- but that open-world gameplay loop itself got way to over-saturated.
Mmm. I don't think GTA is going to do as good as people are expecting. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it'll fail by an means (I don't know if it's possible for gta to fail even if it's pure shit tbh) but I don't see the excitement surrounding it that I was expecting.
That is not what being a subsidiary means. Unless the parent closes the subsidiary and subsumes it. These are still Western development studios, with western game developers, developing western-style games.
Having an Asian parent company, does not make a studio sitting in California, with a California-based dev team -- an "eastern" game.
Housemarque is now part of Sony -- its still a Finnish game developer and studio, not Japanese.
But the devouring of devs by these mega corps IS an issue.
Forget the location of tecent because it actually doesnt matter. But EA xbox sony etc did this in 2010s and into 20202s and look whats happened. Its causes bloat and corps come in and lay off and close the devs.
The hope is that indie companies can come in and fill that hole. But the hardware market being so shit, its going to be hard to get companies to survive.
The way they are operating, in this fashion, is largely affecting western companies.
Japanese and chinese companies tend to not struggle with bloated dev teams and costs like I just said.
With the struggle of getting access to consoles and the rising costs is causing companies to close down or consolidate due to the corporations greed of profit always needing to be growing.
This isnt an issue thats unique to gaming, but its unique to american gaming companies. Because japanese and chinese companies tend to have smaller budgets and teams. So they arent seeing the level of shrinkage in workforce we had.
We are on pace for 13000 layoffs this year in the US and Europe. 50,000 since 2022.
The pandemic caused severe over-hiring throughout the tech world, and heavily in gaming. There was also every big studio miscalculating on live-service -- and making large team for multiplayer focus -- that also dried up immensely, post pandemic. And AI is drastically effecting coding jobs.
There is also just more competition. So games have to be good.
The revival of 8/16-bit style games has really launched the Indie market the past 10 years.
Games sales are still going quite strong.(Covid bump is very visable)
Epic has laid off over 2,000 people in the last 3 years and are posting shit about how "programming is hard" while launching their broken vibecoded storefront . . . "going strong" seems like some serious hyperbole lol
Creative Assembly going strong? The same Creatice Assembly that hasn't releases an outstanding Total War game since Shogun 2, which was 15 years ago now?
Riot is owned by Tencent since 2012 (Chinese), Epic is owned by Tencent (not western), Sony (Not western) and Tim Sweeney and haven’t created anything worthwhile since 2020 with Fall Guys and Fortnite (2017). Both of which are garbage and haven’t evolved in any tangible way in the last decade. Sumo is owned by Tencent (chinese) and have only produced Sonic (Sega IP… Not western) and Forza (another multiplayer game with little to no story). Creative Assembly may be british but is owned by Sega (Not western).
Rockstar is the only producer in this list that qualifies and has arguably the best western franchises (pun unintended) IP and will most likely have the highest grossing game in history, this much is true. The highest grossing game does not necessarily mean it will be the best game and will sell because of IP developed from 1997 - 2013 ( it’s been 14 years since the last GTA renowned for its multiplayer) which is 8 years since the last release and 8 years from RDR1 to RDR2. In other words, little to no output over 2.5 decades as the leading story telling producer in the industry. Bethesda and Zeni Max were acquired by Microsoft in 2021. Since then they have released indiana Jones and starfield. Starfield flopped and Indiana Jones is unoriginal IP and released on Xbox Game Pass (Free Player acquisition through Microsoft). It’s been 11 years since their last release in successful original IP (Fallout 4).
CD Projekt Red is a western producer that overhauled their dev team (in favor of liberalism) and released Cyberpunk which was a broken unpolished game on release and was only fixed 3 years after release in 2023. 5 years before that in 2015 was their last successful release in the Witcher 3 which they are STILL RELEASING UPDATES FOR.
Activision (owned by microsoft) has acquired Halo’s IP which was purchased from Bungie (owned by Sony) which has not had a successful title since Destiny 2 which released in 2017! (Marathon Flopped as well, no player retention).
The reason why Warhammer games have been so successful and have a cult following is because their development is handed over to small studios and the IP remains intact.
So the original claim is true with all this evidence. Western gaming is dead outside of Rockstar. Massive, money hungry corporations have prioritised regular updates on unpolished multiplayer games, virtue signalling devs who are dead set on ruining franchises, and micro transactions over story rich plot lines, world building, emotional storytelling, and musical production. All the things that made gaming feel immersive, have been sold off to the highest bidder in exchange for a pay check and some dog shit dev team. Every successful title from 2010 onwards has stayed true to its original IP while adding additional world building and mechanics into their game. RDR 2, ME2 and ME3, Dragon Age Origins to Inquisition, Fallout 3, NV, and 4, Batman Arkham series, Dishonoured 2. Assassin’s Creed up until Unity (unpolished at release). Spiderman etc. etc. This is what killed Bioware and what has taken the soul out of the gaming industry. If you’re going to rip off IP, make it true to the writers vision, or don’t bother making it at all.
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u/Informalwizards 7h ago
Anyone paying attention saw this coming for a long time now. Still sad to see it happen and I hope the best for those that lost their jobs.