Humdinger
Gold Member
Excellent. That's what I suspected, but it's good to hear it more or less confirmed.
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PlayStation has canceled two more live-service games, from subsidiaries Bend and Bluepoint, Bloomberg has learned
Excellent. That's what I suspected, but it's good to hear it more or less confirmed.
viveks86
Member
Calling people out as if they are not real gamers and being embarrassed to be grouped with them in some imaginary "camp" just because they have a differing opinion is... yes... chest thumping. I can guarantee you 99% of people here are passionate "real" gamers and have a point of view that matters to the overall discourse. You are no better (or worse) than the rest here.
Hypereides
Member
I'm using figurative language when I use terms like "camp". And, sorry, this isn't chest thumping. I call it as I see it. The guy with the Lost character for his avatar has a long history with this behaviour.
But, whatever, you're free to think whatever you want. I have no interest in some pointless spat.
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Burger King
Member
Nice
Humdinger
Gold Member
I'm not privvy to the details either, but I find it hard to believe that's how it happened - that Bluepoint wanted to develop a God of War Live service game, Sony advised against it but Bluepoint decided to go ahead anyway. I mean, it's just a dumb idea on the face of it, and Bluepoint has no experience with GaaS.
I would wager it was the other way around - that Bluepoint would have preferred to work on an original title of their own, but Sony pressured them into doing a Live service version of God of War.
Puscifer
Member
That Picadilly Circus video announcing this lives rent free in my head. Even on PS2 there's a sort of hyper realism to everything that makes it age perfectly fine.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
I think Sony has year-end catalog review. I'm sure games need to hit certain benchmarks and those benchmarks aren't all the same for different games.
Bluepoint and Bend aren't as expensive as Sony's California studios. This means canceling their games likely isn't as hard a pill to swallow.
Fairgames is made by a team in Montreal, with even cheaper costs. I don't even know if they have a physical studio. Also, I heard Sony still has high hopes for the game, though that itself is just a rumor. I think based on the surveys they were sending out, that might not be the case.
Firewalk got shutdown because Bellevue is significantly more expensive than Austin and the brand had become too toxic. Companies like Media Molecule will get alonger chain because they aren't nearly as expensive. Doesn't mean they won't eventually be shutdown if they remain unproductive, but their timeline are going to be different.
viveks86
Member
Makes sense! Really bummed if these were indeed their main projects, but Concord was the canary in the coal mine. It's demise will keep gaming alive!
Humdinger
Gold Member
I think Jim Ryan is responsible for a lot of this, too. Lots of blame to go around...
GHG
Member
Basically, they were all going to be woke and generic as fuck.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
That's the version of the story you WANT to believe.
It's the big bad sony narrative.
Live Service games might be easier to get greenlit and might have its own funding pie, but I doubt Sony pressured Bluepoint into doing live service.
Like I said, I think it's troubling that that would be a project they would take on, but maybe even more troubled that there wasn't really a plan for them through acquisition. I could spend an entire afternoon mapping out a roadmap for Bluepoint that would be better than "live service GoW".
But still we don't have details. Maybe they had remastered GoW Ascension but didn't add it to the God of War Saga Collection and were looking at making that into a live service game. We have no idea what they were doing, but we'll jump to conclusions that it's a doomsday scenario.
People hoping for Bloodborne should be happy at this news because it increases the chances of that happening soon. It also increases the chances of Demon's Souls coming to PC soon.
I'm not sure where Bend goes from here, but I'm sure John Gavin is pouring himself a whiskey.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Sony's focus is all over the place. On one hand they're SP games are big budget and big sellers, but DG is shunned as it never sold more than 10M copies. But then games like Astrobot, MM games like Dreams, Returnal and a ton of GAAS were in the works get green lit for development.
So the trend seems to be:
- SP games only if giant sellers or cheap to make. That middle tier like a DG is caught in a limbo land
- VR games not worth making, but the hardware always is
- GAAS anything goes including buying up studios with nothing but concepts or a WIP early build
NuclearDiarrhea
Member
Don Matrick
Phil Spencer
Jim Ryan
that fuckface in charge of Ubisoft...
Hulst is not the worst but there's still time.
Felessan
Member
They are smart and rich enough to not allow it.
But this cases for sure lead to reevaluation of procedures, and as a result - forcing project to be checked against new, more tight, internal regulations and standards.
I am a Sony man and I want to see a high quality gaas from Sony. On the level of WoW or FF14 those are pristine level gaas and jewels in whole gaming.
Just not everyone is a gaas hater, I play MMO since 98' so I always look forward for any high quality gaas, but it should be interesting and engaging
I'm more disappointed that their efforts yield no results than they tried gaas.
In previous gaas rush (mmo) even though it was overexerted, it did produced some really nice results, the whole MOBA genre was born from it.
Hopium is really strong here... but no
We'll get Marathon this year and probably around ten or more asian AAA gacha. Most of them will be profitable and will found their niche.
Probably even some western-(oriented) GaaS, that will be successful. We get quite a few last year (PalWorld, HD2, 1st descendant etc) and things bound to get better.
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GymWolf
Member
Many people love days gone even with its shortcomings, it was their first big game on home console.
And i think you can understand why people are sad that bluepoint was making a gow gaas, and we don't know if sony forced this project on them, i doubt they wake up one day and decided to make a gaas with a franchise made by another studio, i sincerely doubt this was their dream project.
GymWolf
Member
I have a pc so i mostly bought a ps5 for the first parties from the sony studios i love, stellar blade and other timed exclusive from third parties are cute and all of that (for example i don't give a fuck about rebirth), but i bought a ps5 mostly for sony titles.
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
This is something I was warning about months ago and glad to see I wasn't alone in that thinking. SIE's porting strategy this gen has been a poorly-thought-out cash grab diminishing the prestige of their console unto the market, and signaling that they don't have faith in leveraging 1P software to push hardware sales long-term. Retaining those games exclusive throughout the course of the gen is part of that, because when the system prices come down, suddenly there's a big library of exclusives for new customers to jump into, and attract them to that system.
PS5 won't have that to the degree PS4 did, let alone PS3, or especially PS2 or PS1.
Well, I don't think the failure of Concord is going to cause PlayStation to nosedive in console sales, or that and these GAAS cancellations (which overall needed to happen, but IMHO should have been happening at least a year ago once Helldivers 2 showed them what a successful GAAS could look like) will make SIE go 3P. However, if a consequence of these cancellations is that they accelerate a push for non-GAAS ports to PC in much shorter windows or even Day 1...then I 100% think that will ultimately hurt adoption of future PS consoles like the PS6.
I guess it would just depend on where they're Day 1 at; if it's SIE's own PS launcher, then the impact is minimal both because their own storefront would be in its infancy, and because they 100% would own that storefront anyway. If it's Steam, the impact will be most severe, and analogous to the impact that had on Xbox this gen. Just too much demographic crossover and Steam itself is a goliath of a storefront in market share. If it's Day 1 on places like EGS or GOG, then the impact is somewhere in-between; those storefronts are more marginal compared to Steam but, SIE have no control/ownership over them either, so things end up a bit of a wash.
Relevance is probably the bigger factor, actually. As for quality, well for the big tentpole titles I think that's true. Halo Infinite disappointed many expectations, same with Gears 5 (tho not as much), and Forza Motorsport is just a complete joke. Their more niche and smaller releases have been good quality tho; Flight Sim, Pentiment, Grounded (supposedly)...though even here there are some massive duds, like Hellblade II.
The only major IP of theirs pre-Zenimax and ABK that retained some mass-market relevance gen-over-gen was Forza Horizon. Not a good sign. And I'd throw Minecraft in there too but, that IP is not associated with Microsoft or Xbox much at all by the vast majority of gamers.
Well FWIW I enjoyed games like HFW, but considering Hollywood itself has gone through a period of homogenization and Ubisoft's big AAA games have done a lot of the same, given many of SIE's AAA titles take inspiration actively from both places I guess it was inevitable more people began feeling that way about their output, too.
I think it's important to state that doesn't make the games "bad" by any means, and I think the majority of the customer base quite enjoys them, clearly, when looking at sales. They also have some AAA titles which do not chase after that type of design, like GT7, which I don't think should be ignored. But I wouldn't be surprised if a growing subset of hardcore enthusiasts in particular, are maybe getting increasingly tired of design trends in their Western AAA output.
I mean, you can tie a thread of tropes between HFW, GOW Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, TLOU 2 and even titles like Intergalatic (at least based on aspects of the reveal trailer) that can be considered analogous to storytelling beats in many modern Hollywood productions. If those beats & tropes are a turn-off in Hollywood works, they'll probably be turn-offs in the games I just mentioned. When stuff like Uncharted 2 and TLOU first came out they felt like a breath of fresh air compared to what the rest of AAA gaming was doing at the time, and felt like massive leaps in mature storytelling for games. However, I wouldn't 100% blame folks if they said much of what's come after from SIE AAA 1P has felt like prettier iterations of those titles with Ubisoft open-world elements and modern/chastising Hollywood socio-politics mixed in.
If you're more lenient or forgiving of that stuff, or accepting of it, then the games are as great as ever. But there is probably a slowly-growing segment of hardcore gamers less enthused with those elements. Maybe they aren't against bombastic cinematic games altogether, but they're wanting something that feels like a leap forward the way Uncharted 2 or TLOU felt for their time. Companies like SIE don't necessarily need to cater to those types of gamers, but I think it'd be an overall net positive since it'd also mean your 1P set industry-leading design concepts in an unquestionable way, plus the larger casual & mainstream audiences will love it anyway. Personally I'd like to see more cinematic story-driven games have more natural conversation systems, more nuanced ways of controlling your character and interacting with nearby scenery during conversation, more consequential story branching based on words & actions in dialogs, robust mechanics for conversations & nuanced actions, and 2nd viewports for character expressions in conversations when playing normal third-person action segments.
Still feel SIE's studios would be the most suited towards that push, but most of them seem like they were busy working on GAAS titles that have since been cancelled :/
Can't 100% agree on this. Now I do think the actress posting that pic on their social media was dumb as hell, and needlessly leaning into the culture war when they and the team should be above it. If they want to shut the doubters up, focus on the gameplay & systems, worldbuilding, and just write characters as normal & cool/unique instead of soapboxes for unpopular political agendas. Easy enough to do, maybe not when you're in California tho.
That said...I liked the trailer overall, and I like the concept. It should lean more into its influences tho I feel: give us some hyper-crazy anime-style combat mechanics, Tarantino Kill Bill-esque theatrics & vibes, Akira-style bio-engineered cyberpunk etc. I also have to understand that with the trailer, the likes/dislikes don't tell the whole story because there was probably a collective of different gamer types who swarmed to dislike it for various reasons i.e culture war shenanigans, console warriors, PCMR fanboys etc. I think those types are more likely to dislike something than those who enjoyed it are to give it a thumbs-up.
Hopefully more of the game shows off cool concepts, character designs (hope there's an alt costume of the main character with hair, and no afro or half-shaved head please), aliens/androids/mutants, planets etc. IMO ND probably have to build up hype for this game over time; the days of their stuff getting universal hype off initial reveals like UC4 and TLOU2 are probably over but they can earn it back.
Well TBF to HFW, fanboys and the media tried their hardest to belittle it compared to Elden Ring, which launched around the same time. Lots of folks were playing a part in that; somewhat the reason I decided to pick up HFW actually
True.
So yeah, it will be a risky move. But I mean, Sony has the data; they have a case study with Xbox. Maybe they can succeed where MS failed... supposedly, Hermen is trying to figure out a new way to run the PlayStation business...Let's see what conclusion he comes up with
If Herman's idea is they can put all their games Day 1 on Steam and somehow magically maintain sales volumes of the past because of "the magic of PlayStation", they'll be in for a rude awakening. Again, I don't think PS would have a drop-off same level as Xbox, because PS is a bigger brand globally.
But it could be enough of one where total annual revenue takes a precipitous decline. It's not just less hardware sales either; less subscriptions, less 3P software sales, less money from 1P sales, less peripheral sales....everything is impacted.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
I still don’t understand the dilemma, their output for ps5 has far exceeded any other prior gen even with the GaaS missteps.
Regardless, Sony can’t go back and undo these mistakes, they can only learn and improve for future…which it looks like they’re doing now, so there’s a silver lining from this negative news
No BBC=Anger
Member
For years all across the industry these types of shitheads have been giving the original PS fans and other PC/console users the middle finger. Even worse, it's like they don't exist to them anymore. I've cultivated other new interests now so that's something at least.
Physiognomonics
Member
Yep. Shocking. It was so predictable when the managers were running the show that it would lead to disastrous corporate decisions.
Felessan
Member
That's sounds good on paper...
But its imply that crowd have perfect memory. It's not. By the time price drop get in (and we hardly see it due to semiconductor situation and their battle against physics) - games are long forgotten and their sales flatlined.
There was s graph of long-term sales in one of the leaks - and straight line and quite depressed levels. Basically impulse-buys on sales due to "familiar name". This will be completely fine no matter what other channels game will distributed - included into premium ps+, given away for free as monthly ps+ game or ported to PC.
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Bartski
Gold Member
Hermen sending the bulldozer
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
Wasting money and YEARS for gaas and woke... porting everything to pc.
Then pikachu face "why no ps5 market growing ?!"
TheAmazingSpiderMan
Member
Surely they must’ve had one too many to drink when making that statement.
Just not in the way they intended.
MayauMiao
Member
Sound like a positive move, and more GaaS shit should be cancel.
Physiognomonics
Member
They are litteraly doing suicidal decisions and are surprised by the results. They are litteraly following parts of Xbox strategy! did it work for MS? Stupid woke managers.
They want people to spend their money on Nvidia GPUs and cracking their games to play them freely (no subs) on PC. Well it's bloody working.
MayauMiao
Member
Its indeed seen as "The Future of PlayStation" on how to avoid a disaster.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
And on top of that they are trying to kill physical gaming.... everything hat is playstation
Represent.
Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Im betting on all of them flopping, and if they don't flop outright, they wont do as well as Sony hopes. There isnt any hype at all for Marathon.
Felessan
Member
Some seems forgot in their delusion that Sony IS in peak condition now
These mishaps are pennies for them, cost of side-line experiments - they got record profit on a quarter they had to write-off concord.
Launch of ZZZ and Valorant probably got them more money that all those gaas experiments lost them combined.
Physical fans so insecure....
Who cares about your digital discs seriously? It's 5%
And denying physical they can get what? 0.5% increase realistically? yeah... a good number to pursue
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
who cares about my digital discs?! Are yo for real?
Cheaper, more goodies, on shelf, offline, 1.0 IF I WANT.
Most are playable fully 1.0 and fully offline. And if you patch, you still only need a disc and no account to play.
Don't be so ignorant. Physical is great and digital got nothing over it.
Saber
Member
Or maybe those GaaS were at same level if not equal to Concord. Meaning ugly designs, pronoums and all that garbage as service.
Felessan
Member
Mihoyo soon will be bigger than Nintendo.
While Gaas occupy 2/3 of revenue and 80% of playtime (skew due to younger age), that, in 10 years, will normalize and hit SP really hard.
And you still hope that "they will fail". Hopium is real here
And as for Sony - their strategy is clear and understandable. They try to get *every* promising GaaS to themselves, limiting/denying them to appear on competitive platforms ("paid" exclusives, same as in SP) where possible, while trying to make some of their own as it cheaper and more controllable.
Who cares.
Business is about money. And money says that games sold on disc is 5% revenue. And denying them of discs will increase revenue *in that particular group* by what, 10%? So 0.5% overall?
It's simply doesn't worth attention to try to fuck-up disc-lovers, they are so small and niche that it's easier to leave them alone.
They will cry on forums that they are important and Sony wants deliberately fuck them up, but mostly they are hit by side-effect, like economical non-viability to sell pc discs in real-world stores anymore, or having disc-enabled SKU. Typical voes of niche crowd that got shifted to side-lines.
It's not deliberate wish to fuck you up, it's just you are so small that no one care about your opinion/impact on you when they do a decision. It's now your problem, not a Sony problem.
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TheAtomicPile
Member
Yeah I don't know how any of this gaas stuff works, but wouldn't they be better off having a god of war or horizon battle pass/season within Helldivers?
That way they could put in minimum effort (skins, maps and whatever crap) to make some money while other studios work on other games that have a chance of succeeding.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Christopher Dring said Fairgames is testing well internally. The public has 0 idea how it plays based on it's CGI triailer.
TheGodfather07
Member
What the fuck happened to sony from last generation? They were almost perfect with first party banger after banger. They managed to massively grow their ip to sell mega numbers. Why pivot away from that so drastically? They should have dipped their toes into live service but they dived in head first from 100m up.
Hypereides
Member
Checked out the trailers and took a stroll down memory lane:
It just makes me want to see Sony make a dope ass action packed thriller game taking place in the UK. Honestly, now is a better time than ever to get development started on one without holding back on the "oomph". Wouldn't mind if it was made on an "shoestring" AA budget either.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
I don't care about revenue lol. I am a player and a customer. not a shareholder.Mihoyo soon will be bigger than Nintendo.
While Gaas occupy 2/3 of revenue and 80% of playtime (skew due to younger age), that, in 10 years, will normalize and hit SP really hard.
And you still hope that "they will fail". Hopium is real here
And as for Sony - their strategy is clear and understandable. They try to get *every* promising GaaS to themselves, limiting/denying them to appear on competitive platforms ("paid" exclusives, same as in SP) where possible, while trying to make some of their own as it cheaper and more controllable.
Who cares.
Business is about money. And money says that games sold on disc is 5% revenue. And denying them of discs will increase revenue *in that particular group* by what, 10%? So 0.5% overall?
It's simply doesn't worth attention to try to fuck-up disc-lovers, they are so small and niche that it's easier to leave them alone.
They will cry on forums that they are important and Sony wants deliberately fuck them up, but mostly they are hit by side-effect, like economical non-viability to sell pc discs in real-world stores anymore, or having disc-enabled SKU. Typical voes of niche crowd that got shifted to side-lines.
It's not deliberate wish to fuck you up, it's just you are so small that no one care about your opinion/impact on you when they do a decision. It's now your problem, not a Sony problem.
Besides, up few years ago physical 1st party games sold MORE on disc than digital...
Humdinger
Gold Member
No, I don't have a desire for it to be one way or another. I'm not a fan of Bluepoint or Sony, and I'm not an opponent of them, either. I'm just looking at the situation and trying to make an assessment of what is the most likely scenario. I think the scenario I sketched out is the more likely one.
Perhaps "pressured" was too strong a word, though. "Urged" or "incentivized" or "guided them into it" might be more accurate. ("Easier to greenlight" would be along the same lines).
Whatever the word, I have a hard time believing that it was Bluepoint's original desire, when finally presented with the opportunity to stop just remaking other people's creations and do their own thing, to do a God of War Live service game. Bluepoint has no experience at that. And we know this happened in a context where Sony was heavily investing in GaaS games.
So, taking that into consideration, it seems more likely that Sony urged, incentivized, or otherwise guided Bluepoint into taking on this project, rather than (as you suggested) it being Bluepoint's idea and Sony advising against it. I think the former is much more likely than the latter.
But of course, neither of us really know how it went down.
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Negotiator
Member
This isn't a first for the series:
God of War: Ascension: 1v1 Multiplayer Mode, New Maps Out Now
In Bout of Honor, two warriors will put their lives and reputations on the line to win the best of seven rounds in this strictly 1v1 mode. Bout of Honor is a true contest of skill with no chests, fountains, or world weapons to aid you. This mode also disables relics and allows for a [...]
blog.playstation.com
God of War Ascension Multiplayer Beta Begins Today for PlayStation Plus
Warriors of PlayStation Plus, our God of War development team here at Sony Santa Monica is proud to break open the arena gates to our God of War: Ascension Multiplayer Beta for you later this afternoon. What does this mean? All PlayStation Plus members will be able to download the Beta software...
blog.playstation.com
Btw, I'm not saying this would necessarily be a good MP game, but I'm honestly surprised you guys don't remember the PS3 era (there were more 1st party MP games back then, but I guess recency bias is a thing).
Sony needs to reinstate Uncharted/Killzone MP though. These 2 games were super successful for TPS & FPS fans accordingly.
ElFenomeno
Member
Bluepoint, the remaster studio - guys who never shipped an original game, made to work on GOW GaaS? Is Sony retarded?