A video from E3 which basically slams the Video game industry and Public Marketing Relations.

Warning, Graphic content.

You can't just summarize the content so we don't have to sit through a 15 minute video?

I play Vainglory and really like it. Doesn't really have any of that stuff wrong with it.

There are games beyond the 'triple Ay" mainstream that still offer quality. Of course finding those is super difficult when even console marketplaces have become infested with asset-flipping unfinished shite games.

However if you do know who to follow (like Supergiant Games, Subset Games, Daedalic for my personal preferences) videogaming is still great. Not to mention that older games rarely lose appeal (currently replaying Republic Commando which still is unique with the squad mechanics).

Of course board games are superior as social activity, but for solo play good experienced can be found.

The sorry state of the AAA industry (for the most part, Overwatch, The Witcher and their likes oppose this trend well) is no reason to give up on the domain on a whole.

The Devolver conference was undenieably the highlight of E3, though.

Overwatch has gambling as business model. I don't think we should include gambling for children as example for the good guys in the industry. ;-)
It's the new cancer of the industry and well stay so until some government steps in and downright ban those games for minors.

2 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Overwatch has gambling as business model. I don't think we should include gambling for children as example for the good guys in the industry. ;-)
It's the new cancer of the industry and well stay so until some government steps in and downright ban those games for minors.

True. I chose to ignore that aspect as fortunately is possible. Enticing children is a weak argument, though, they shouldn't be playing the game in the first place. At least under German laws.

38 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

Enticing children is a weak argument, though, they shouldn't be playing the game in the first place. At least under German laws.

In the states it's rated Teen, so that means anyone over `13...

Yeah, I see the big AAA publishers heading for another crash.

But, hey, Nintendo still keeps chugging along. With high quality. I am super hyped for the Switch. (Come on Capcom, localize Monster Hunter XX for the Switch)

2 hours ago, VanorDM said:

In the states it's rated Teen, so that means anyone over `13...

That is not great. But ultimately OW is not the worst in that department as at least you can't cash out. Anything Blizzard does Valve did ten times worse by offering the cash out option in their own client . That is so blatant it is not even funny.

On the bright side OW does a lot of great things: It doesn't just copy a popular formula, but rather creates a new aproach to the teamshooter genre. It removes the ridiculously pointless gating of content in multiplayer (seriously of all the things CoD established the progression treadmill has to be the worst). Even though it is fee 2 pay, buying it gets you all the content you will ever need to experience the gameplay. It comes at a reasonable price point of 40$ and it is a game that knows where to put its focus by not frocing a gimped singleplayer in there because it is another box to be ticked. Oh and the servers work.

Thats why, despite its indulgances in major publisher bs (Blizzard is still in bed with Activision after all), I still hold Overwatch as an example for good games coming from a AAA environment.

7 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

True. I chose to ignore that aspect as fortunately is possible. Enticing children is a weak argument, though, they shouldn't be playing the game in the first place. At least under German laws.

Really? I am pretty sure that overwatch has not an USK 18 ;-)
Now after looking it up it is a surprisingly high USK 16, which makes the children argument indeed a weak one, even when still valid. And with the use rating of teen it becomes fully valid from the developer's perspective. Preying on minors with gambling. Though as you mentioned the age rating, I would be actually thrilled if age ratings become automatically R / USK18 when gambling is part of the business model.

On the valve front you are correct, with the introducing of paid keys valve was basically the first who established those paid gambling mechanics as part of their business model, Blizzard basically just improve upon them by removing other sources of currency. Now the blizzard way seems to become the disgusting industry standard.

For game standards, overwatch is imho disgusting as well. The game design is build around two major pillars: Their business model of gambling, so allowing players to constantly switch champions is good and constant gratification of players. It's one of those "new" feel good games which aim directly at your reward centre instead of wasting time with games. The game is build around counters and those massive ultimates. It's a blizzard game, so I assume there is something below the garbage, but the trend to more and more passive gaming experiences has reached activisionblizzard as well. Assetflips are successful because players really "play" those automatic running games and throw money at them, so I really can't blame developers for delivering games which rely less on the interactive game elements and more on presentation and (for a lack of a better word) fake interaction. Press a button, stuff happens, you win, congratulation, 10s later it someone else's turn to press that ultimate button.

BTW, speaking of Valve, their gambling system has at least as far as I know at least a netgain for their players, mainly because of crazy buyers, but overall the players seem to make more money with it than Valve is making, so I am not that sure if Valve is really worse than activision or hi-rez. It's for sure more tempting, but they don't seem to milk the minors for their money, but instead milk the whales and allow their more reasonable playerbase to profit from it.

But I have no in-depth analysis of those systems to share, they are annoying enough to stay away from those games. Though I am pretty sure that OW is just a TF clone with more moba elements and a cool new IP. So they for sure copied a pretty popular formula, just not that stupid COD formula with stupid progress bars and retarded gating of content, but that certainly is not a new concept, but rather an old one. I am pretty sure that none of my quake games nor unreal ones had stupid progress bars. So OW can here only claim to be better than some of the current competition and that is a rather low bar. ;-)

Looking actually forward to quake champions myself. Comes with cancer boxes as well, tons of them, secondary currency out of those boxes to buy cosmetics too, so literally copying the overwatch system, but the gameplay, that gameplay is almost as good as the original Q3A. (I really should just host my own Quake servers) ;-)

As as said there are many good games out there and thanks to GoG you can still enjoy some old games on modern machines. And yes there is much bad stuff like microtransaction and DLC and stuff in the gaming industry but you don't have to use that stuff. There are still good triple A games out there, i just normaly don't preorder them or buy them on launch, i wait for sales or complete editions.

At the moment I'm playing Transistor, Defender's Quest and Hereos of the Storm, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun + Overwatch on PC and I personally wouldn't consider lootboxes gambling, they are just cosmetic stuff and while there are skins and emotes I like I will never buy lootboxes for many and I want to try the new Hitman as the first misison/tutorial is free now. On my 3DS i play Ocarina of Time, Mario & Luigi Dreamteam and Paper Mario: Sticker Star and on my Wii U Splatton, Pikmin 3 and Wind Waker.

And about explaining the video, wouldn't work you have to see it.

28 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

I am pretty sure that OW is just a TF clone with more moba elements and a cool new IP. So they for sure copied a pretty popular formula, just not that stupid COD formula with stupid progress bars and retarded gating of content, but that certainly is not a new concept, but rather an old one. I am pretty sure that none of my quake games nor unreal ones had stupid progress bars. So OW can here only claim to be better than some of the current competition and that is a rather low bar. ;-)

As someone who played a ton of TF2 in his teens and had some time as competetive medic I can tell you that Overwatch borrows elements, but plays very differently. Calling it a clone is just uninformed. The two games are in the same genre (-ish), which is one that is not crowded at all, so it isn't exactly a popular formula. Character abilities are not exclusive to DOTA-clones, and the game notably lacks anything that signifies those like level-progression, gold-aquisition and a tug of war style of simultanious attack and defense.

29 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

For game standards, overwatch is imho disgusting as well. The game design is build around two major pillars: Their business model of gambling, so allowing players to constantly switch champions is good and constant gratification of players. It's one of those "new" feel good games which aim directly at your reward centre instead of wasting time with games. The game is build around counters and those massive ultimates. It's a blizzard game, so I assume there is something below the garbage, but the trend to more and more passive gaming experiences has reached activisionblizzard as well. Assetflips are successful because players really "play" those automatic running games and throw money at them, so I really can't blame developers for delivering games which rely less on the interactive game elements and more on presentation and (for a lack of a better word) fake interaction. Press a button, stuff happens, you win, congratulation, 10s later it someone else's turn to press that ultimate button.

This is a rather weird paragraph tbh...well the OW stuff is pretty clear: Yes, Ultimates are important. Their use however takes a good amount of timing and tracking. If you keep on trying to Q-of the game you won't get past the bottom feeder ranks once the opponents supports are worth their salt and know how to counter you. I could now try and explain the game to you, but you probably aren't really interested. Rest assured that there is indeed more to it than you assume.

The other stuff...what? Asset flip games were not actually successful for the most part, but so cheap to make that they could refinance themselves on steams ridiculous "gamify purchasing" trading cards alone. Sales had nothing to do with any "instant gratification" gameplay. Heck half of the time there was no gameplay to speak of, at least none that was functional. We will see what happens to the phenomenon now that Greenlight has finaly been put out of its misery.

43 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

BTW, speaking of Valve, their gambling system has at least as far as I know at least a netgain for their players, mainly because of crazy buyers, but overall the players seem to make more money with it than Valve is making, so I am not that sure if Valve is really worse than activision or hi-rez. It's for sure more tempting, but they don't seem to milk the minors for their money, but instead milk the whales and allow their more reasonable playerbase to profit from it.

If you actually think the Valve way of promising the ability to cash out what equates to real money is actually better than OWs upfront "you will never see this money again" approach in gambling motivation you don't understand how gambling works. There are people who cash in on CS:GO crates hoping to finance their steam spendings - you can guess how that works out. Nobody puts money into Overwatch (period? I only know streamers do it for unboxing money) expecting to get a greater payback.

Other point: If blind-box models are the gambling devil that should absolutely not be let near children, what about trading card games that pull the same thing on largely an even younger audience?

45 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Looking actually forward to quake champions myself. Comes with cancer boxes as well, tons of them, secondary currency out of those boxes to buy cosmetics too, so literally copying the overwatch system, but the gameplay, that gameplay is almost as good as the original Q3A. (I really should just host my own Quake servers) ;-)

Played a bit of the beta, if they fix their connection issues and the abuse thereof it will be a pretty great game. The buisness model also is rather good with a 40$ pack availiable that gives you everything you need for gameplay (ignore cosmetics, it is not hard). The slow characters seemed rather pointless in what is still very much Quake, though.

I just watch longplay's these days. saves me the bother.

One of these days tough, I'm gonna see if I can get Diablo II working again.