Shoutout to FromSoft still having Bloodborne servers ready for me on my very first runthrough 10yrs after launch

I’ve been playing truth E33. It’s definitely slower than the Action games you list, being a JRPG-like game. It’s your side vs the enemy. Think old Final Fantasy. A closer comparison would be the Mario RPG series. While it is a lot of your turn->their turn->your turn etc, there are timings during both your turn and the enemy turns for button presses to do more damage (or in some cases, any damage), or to negate or even counter enemy attacks. It’s so much more of an engaging experience vs just pressing a button and watching your character do a massive combo. For me, getting really good at the parry timing is so satisfying. Most enemy attacks have multiple hits during their attacks, and if you parry every single one, you launch a counterattack. There is a dodge, but while it has a large window than the parry, all it really does is negate damage. That’s another thing: because you can learn enemy timings, your can take on bosses that are well above your punching weight. I find that part very fun. The characters are well written, in my opinion. For what a dreary story the game writes, there are moments of levity and extra background you have the option of engaging with for each character. The game is a serious contender for game of the year, it at the very least several awards. And for only $50usd, it blows many other AAA(A) games out of the water. Give it a chance and I think you’ll find it well worth your time.

Spider-Man 1, 2, Miles Morales & Dragonage: Veilguard also deserve to be mentioned. I’ll buy a game on launch at full price if it’s not loaded down with bullshit or shoving the rest of the game behind a paywall. Otherwise I’ll just be a patient gamer and get it in a few years cheaper and patched up.

This describes just about all Paradox games made in the past 15 years, sadly. They release with a barebones concept, then slowly drip-feed content for 5-30 bucks a pop, each one usually sitting at “Mostly Negative” because it doesn’t fundamentally add or change anything most of the time, and the times it does- meh. Crusader Kings 2 was my bread and butter for a long time. Played Crusader Kings 3, and it felt like almost every helpful mechanic that existed in CK2 was stripped, and then added on again over the course of years. It was so infuriating, that I just don’t buy their titles anymore.

Depends on how old the game is and how big the DLC is IMO. Rimworld, for instance, has quite a few DLCs now, but they are all well worth it if you like the base game. OTOH if a game just has cosmetic DLC or the DLC is coming out super near release that’s a red flag.

Rimworld’s DLCs are kinda assumed purchases for the modding scene, too. I feel like this drives a lot of their sales TBH.

At the very least, you can still pirate it and play cracked multiplayer with friends.

I made the mistake of buying the game year ago, and bought a bunch of DLC at 50% or greater sales, and now the sunken cost fallacy has taken hold on me, and I still want to buy more . . . . (at least I’m broke so I can’t right now hehehaha)

Minecraft is the most popular best selling game of all time, and the single-player mode is still being updated. Granted, many people play on multiplayer servers, but still.

Vampire Survivors is an exception.

Games as a service can be okay, in some situations. Ones we very rarely see due to (primarily) publisher greed.

If you’re paying for the game itself, at any point, GaaS is stupid and extremely exploitative.

If they choose to go that route however, the game needs to be free to play with separate monetization. They need to mebe things that are completely optional and don’t affect gameplay.

KCD2 is exactly like KCD1 with a few more years of development refining and in some cases expanding the rpg systems, a new map, and a continuation of the story. It feels the same, just a little nicer. In other words, it’s a perfect sequel.

The only fault I have with it is that Henry starts the game bad to mediocre at most things instead of useless, and that beginning stage is my favorite to go through and out of. But being a sequel I can excuse it pretty easily.

Hell yeah! Give us more of that!

What about games like Fortnite? Are they rewarded?

On the one hand, you’re right that the market for micro transaction laden multiplayer games is much larger than single player games. On the other hand, the market for people who want single player games is still very large. You showed that yourself mentioning Rockstar games and Harry Potter.

So while many publishers want a piece of that larger pie, every publisher trying for it just leads to over saturation and greater odds that a game will fail entirely. So there is still incentive for publishers to release large single player games even if the pie is smaller since there may be less competition making it easier to stand out. And what the article is saying is that, within that pie, one way to stand out is to avoid micro transactions. And since it’s discussing single player games specifically, I don’t see a lot of relevance for bringing up multiplayer games that exist in a different part of the gaming world.

I mean, MMOs were supposed to be continuously supported and developed during the enrollment period. Earlier iterations of the model had live DMs running encounters, active continuous releases to expand the game world and advance the storyline, and robust customer support to address the bugs and defects. Also, just maintaining the servers necessary to support that much data processing was hella-expensive on its face.

Games as a service don’t need to be a scam.

But eventually, the studios figured out they can do the MMO business model on any game. Justifying a fee for Everquest was a lot more reasonable than justifying it for a glorified Team Fortress knock off. Or a freaking platformer.

single player games don’t come any where near the profitability of these multiplayer games

True, but they are still very lucrative. You can make them, release them, generate a healthy surplus, and roll that into making the next game with plenty of cash to spare.

Also, you don’t have half your dev team stuck supporting a legacy release, constantly fixated on juicing engagement and monetization. There’s a lot less overhead involved in a single-iteration.

Fortnite

Call of duty

World of Warcraft

Apex legends

Had truly phenomenal marketing budgets. It’s the same thing with AAA movies. 25-50% of the budget goes to marketing, on a title that eats up hundreds of millions to produce and support.

You didn’t need $100M to make BG3. You didn’t need an extra $25-50M to get people to notice it and pony up. These bigger titles have invested billions in their PR. And that’s paid out well in the end. But it also requires huge lines of credit, lots of mass media connections, and a lot of risk in the face of a flop.

For studios that can’t fling around nine figures to shout “Look At Me!” during the Super Bowl, there’s no reason to follow this model of development.

I miss EverCrack.
Not the actual mechanics, things have come a long way since then. But the concepts. No end game. Mobs that take 100+ people all day to take down. And that last piece of armor you want, has a 2% drop rate off them. And even when it does drop, there are 10 of your class who wants it, and you have to work out who gets it. Levels took so long nobody worried about getting to cap, and just hung out. The grind and the community were the point. Not the next piece of gear.

$ for hours on VS is insane, even with all the DLC it’s pennies. I feel like I’m stealing from the dev.

I’m of the opinion that Rimworld DLCs don’t actually improve the base game, they simply build an extra layer of isolated complexity ontop of the base game. I like the base game but I didn’t really enjoy the DLCs (at least not the first 2) because they didn’t actually expand the base game. They felt like mods I paid for.

I feel the same about multiplayer games without gated progression and LAN server hosting. (Or local/splitscreen)

These days I can’t even play a multiplayer game with friends somewhere with shitty internet. And because of progression you have to force yourself to only play together, but never with different people or by yourself because then you will get ahead.