The industry has begun splintering in the same manner as Hollywood. Disney releases popcorn-entertainment and makes money off merchandise. Indie studios are creating quality movies of a tier that we never used to see before. Lastly, have some quirky bigwigs (wes anderson, Edgar Wright) who reliably create highly-stylized memorable if familiar works.
Epic, EA and Ubisoft are the Disney equivalents. Nintendo, CDPR, Naughty Dog, Kojima, From Software are your quirky stylized studios. Then you have indie studios making games like Hades, CupHead and Hollow Knight that provide excellent & complete experiences at the fraction of the investment. You get to pick which one you want.
Microtransactions are mostly restricted to the big studios. Restricting core gameplay aspects via microtransactions or Pay-2-win setups are pretty scummy. But, MMORPGS had those problems in the late 90s. So, it isn't new by any means. In cases where smaller games have microtransactions, they tend to be limited and exclusively cosmetic. The fact that I have played hundreds of hours of Rocket league and Dota without spending a single dollar, is a testament to how secondary the cosmetics are to the core gameplay loop.
I actually wonder if systems built to exploit whales are unethical. In some sense, the poor get to enjoy polished games because the rich are willing to pay an exponentially greater sum to look pretty in game. I don't think that's entirely bad.
Now, I do dislike 'loot boxes' with a passion. They play with our 'monkey brain', forcing us to buy more before our consciousness is able to intervene. Younger kids are even more susceptible and it serves as a gateway into gambling addictions. This part of dota and rocket league is reprehensible.
Hacker Cinema
1 comment on Hacker News
I don't agree.
The industry has begun splintering in the same manner as Hollywood. Disney releases popcorn-entertainment and makes money off merchandise. Indie studios are creating quality movies of a tier that we never used to see before. Lastly, have some quirky bigwigs (wes anderson, Edgar Wright) who reliably create highly-stylized memorable if familiar works.
Epic, EA and Ubisoft are the Disney equivalents. Nintendo, CDPR, Naughty Dog, Kojima, From Software are your quirky stylized studios. Then you have indie studios making games like Hades, CupHead and Hollow Knight that provide excellent & complete experiences at the fraction of the investment. You get to pick which one you want.
Microtransactions are mostly restricted to the big studios. Restricting core gameplay aspects via microtransactions or Pay-2-win setups are pretty scummy. But, MMORPGS had those problems in the late 90s. So, it isn't new by any means. In cases where smaller games have microtransactions, they tend to be limited and exclusively cosmetic. The fact that I have played hundreds of hours of Rocket league and Dota without spending a single dollar, is a testament to how secondary the cosmetics are to the core gameplay loop.
I actually wonder if systems built to exploit whales are unethical. In some sense, the poor get to enjoy polished games because the rich are willing to pay an exponentially greater sum to look pretty in game. I don't think that's entirely bad.
Now, I do dislike 'loot boxes' with a passion. They play with our 'monkey brain', forcing us to buy more before our consciousness is able to intervene. Younger kids are even more susceptible and it serves as a gateway into gambling addictions. This part of dota and rocket league is reprehensible.