I have been an Xbox guy since forever. However, every announcement they make is shooting themselves in the foot. The only thing they have had going for them is Game Pass, and now they are raising prices, making it unviable. I have no idea what they are thinking. They are hemorrhaging subscribers, and people have been leaving their ecosystem for the past two generations.
Indeed. Well, I'm 99% sure that the only thing they are thinking about is more money, and somebody thought that this might be a good idea. But IMHO, it's going to have an opposite effect from what they were expecting...
100% things are already getting touch out there. I've gone from buying 4-5 games a year to now just buy 1 when it's on sale and playing free to play titles like Marvel Rivals. Now I have to consider canceling my live service. Crazy
We regularly talk about this stuff with my friends, and the consensus right now is that companies are experimenting on their customers. How far could they move the goalpost until their customer base revolts? How much could they milk them? Oh, this is too much? Ok, we'll just issue an empty apology, revert and try something else.
It has happened with so many games and services already, especially the live-service titles, it's just ridiculous.
On the phones and other platforms that have the Play Store or App Store.
Some of their games are quite good, but it feels like they still haven't figured out what they want from this division. They keep buying, closing and opening studios without a clear vision.
On the D&D Live Service game being cancelled, Dungeons & Dragons, in fact RPGs in general, only make good games when it’s standalone stories — Baulder’s Gate, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls — it doesn’t do well with live service, because the tabletop game is effectively “live service”.
On Gen Ai in games — the more I hear it, the more I shake my head. Gen Ai is not good for creating games for one simple reason — Context Windows. Gen Ai, which is basically a chat, at basic levels (the free accounts you create) remembers the last 10,000 words in the chat. Paid for accounts (the basic tier) remembers 30,000 words tops. And the Highest tiers (the one that you pay $50/m for) can remember 100,000 words. Now, if you licensed 100 accounts with OpenAI for that level of ChatGPT, maybe you could do something interesting. Or if you tried to create an Ai server that could handle that kind of numbers of chat, maybe you can use it. But it’s just not there yet. Despite what Ai bros want to say.
It’s great to brainstorm. Several small ideas, turns of phrases, and thoughts have entered my game world — but Ai can’t understand a world I’ve worked on for 6 years — the context window just isn’t even remotely close enough to remember my world’s complexity!
It’s like adding a bit of salt to a stew — but it can’t generate the stew!
I agree. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, we will get to the point of Gen AI being really good, but we are definitely not there yet. But these days, every other executive thinks that if only they invest enough resources into AI, it's going to fix their bottom line. And to a degree, it's helpful, but it's definitely not a substitute
I think people hear the hype of Ai, and it can do “everything”, but what they are not told is the limitations. That 100,000 words is going to get pretty limiting if you’re aiming for a story driven game like Mass Effect or Dragon Age where there’s so much relevant backstory that you’d quickly run out of words.
I learned that when I started to interact with Ai with my world, it was forgetting leaders of different factions after a little bit of time. Not useful…
A remake of Halo might grab my attention after so many years. The first Halo is tied to a lot of memories I have playing with my best friend.
However, it must include a feature they keep neglecting - local co-op play. Each time a new Halo game appears, my interest diminishes because I'm not interested in online play at all, I just want to relive my time playing with someone next to me. Since the studio then keeps saying that they'll include it only to go back on their promises, I've since given up on the franchise.
I wonder if they are going to explain all the backstory, as it sounds like it's quite interesting, but for a person like me, who barely touched the original game, every time it looks like I'm dropping into the franchise I have no knowledge about. I have the same experience with Warhammer 40K 😅
I have been an Xbox guy since forever. However, every announcement they make is shooting themselves in the foot. The only thing they have had going for them is Game Pass, and now they are raising prices, making it unviable. I have no idea what they are thinking. They are hemorrhaging subscribers, and people have been leaving their ecosystem for the past two generations.
Indeed. Well, I'm 99% sure that the only thing they are thinking about is more money, and somebody thought that this might be a good idea. But IMHO, it's going to have an opposite effect from what they were expecting...
100% things are already getting touch out there. I've gone from buying 4-5 games a year to now just buy 1 when it's on sale and playing free to play titles like Marvel Rivals. Now I have to consider canceling my live service. Crazy
We regularly talk about this stuff with my friends, and the consensus right now is that companies are experimenting on their customers. How far could they move the goalpost until their customer base revolts? How much could they milk them? Oh, this is too much? Ok, we'll just issue an empty apology, revert and try something else.
It has happened with so many games and services already, especially the live-service titles, it's just ridiculous.
I always forget that Netflix has a games division.
Where do you even play their titles? On phones? Netflix itself?
On the phones and other platforms that have the Play Store or App Store.
Some of their games are quite good, but it feels like they still haven't figured out what they want from this division. They keep buying, closing and opening studios without a clear vision.
On the D&D Live Service game being cancelled, Dungeons & Dragons, in fact RPGs in general, only make good games when it’s standalone stories — Baulder’s Gate, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls — it doesn’t do well with live service, because the tabletop game is effectively “live service”.
On Gen Ai in games — the more I hear it, the more I shake my head. Gen Ai is not good for creating games for one simple reason — Context Windows. Gen Ai, which is basically a chat, at basic levels (the free accounts you create) remembers the last 10,000 words in the chat. Paid for accounts (the basic tier) remembers 30,000 words tops. And the Highest tiers (the one that you pay $50/m for) can remember 100,000 words. Now, if you licensed 100 accounts with OpenAI for that level of ChatGPT, maybe you could do something interesting. Or if you tried to create an Ai server that could handle that kind of numbers of chat, maybe you can use it. But it’s just not there yet. Despite what Ai bros want to say.
It’s great to brainstorm. Several small ideas, turns of phrases, and thoughts have entered my game world — but Ai can’t understand a world I’ve worked on for 6 years — the context window just isn’t even remotely close enough to remember my world’s complexity!
It’s like adding a bit of salt to a stew — but it can’t generate the stew!
I agree. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, we will get to the point of Gen AI being really good, but we are definitely not there yet. But these days, every other executive thinks that if only they invest enough resources into AI, it's going to fix their bottom line. And to a degree, it's helpful, but it's definitely not a substitute
I think people hear the hype of Ai, and it can do “everything”, but what they are not told is the limitations. That 100,000 words is going to get pretty limiting if you’re aiming for a story driven game like Mass Effect or Dragon Age where there’s so much relevant backstory that you’d quickly run out of words.
I learned that when I started to interact with Ai with my world, it was forgetting leaders of different factions after a little bit of time. Not useful…
A remake of Halo might grab my attention after so many years. The first Halo is tied to a lot of memories I have playing with my best friend.
However, it must include a feature they keep neglecting - local co-op play. Each time a new Halo game appears, my interest diminishes because I'm not interested in online play at all, I just want to relive my time playing with someone next to me. Since the studio then keeps saying that they'll include it only to go back on their promises, I've since given up on the franchise.
I wonder if they are going to explain all the backstory, as it sounds like it's quite interesting, but for a person like me, who barely touched the original game, every time it looks like I'm dropping into the franchise I have no knowledge about. I have the same experience with Warhammer 40K 😅