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On September 30 2025 04:36 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2025 11:29 Zambrah wrote:On September 10 2025 07:51 Excalibur_Z wrote:On September 09 2025 14:09 Zambrah wrote:On September 07 2025 18:06 Gorsameth wrote:On September 07 2025 17:51 Yurie wrote:On September 07 2025 06:19 Fleetfeet wrote:On September 07 2025 05:33 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On September 06 2025 20:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Mike Morhaime's studio is laying off people because Dreamhaven's games did not sell enough. https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/blizzard-co-founder-mike-morhaime-announces-layoffs-at-his-new-company-dreamhaven/Seems like many ex-ATVI guys set off to run their own shops are getting crushed. ex Creative Director Rob Pardo ran Blizzard's games during the apex of the company and he has not made a game in 11 years. David Kim, Tim Morten, Chris Sigaty, Dustin Browder, etc etc. Secret Door, Moonshot Games, Bonfire Studios, Runic Games, FrostGate are all in big trouble. The WoW guys who made that Marvel mobile card game did pretty good though. They are the exception to the rule. Bobby Kotick was so good at marketing, promotion, and managing genius-level talent that he made it look easy. I want a job @ Bonfire Studios as "Culture Manager" or "Community Liaison" or whatever made up BS title they can give me. Do nothing for 10 years...get paid.  Sad, but there is so many games coming out that it makes it hard for games to stand out these days.Plus still plenty of games released in past 15 years that hold up very well and can be picked up very cheaply. Got a feeling that AI developed games & AI assets are going to be a much bigger thing in 5 years than they are now which is bad news for both workers and gamers.Over 18k games released on steam last year which is already 2x what was released in 2020, imagine those numbers when AI puts together half or more of a game. Why is it a bad thing for gamers? A lesson of the last 5-10 years of game development is that design matters. Breakout successes in things like Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, Clair Obscur Exp33, Slay the Spire etc, many of which were made on virtually no budget, show that it's the design that makes games good, not the resources pumped into it. Games being made easier to make via AI tooling does mean there will be MORE games (and therefore more shit games) but as gamers we don't need to play everything, we can just play the ones that are interesting to us. If AI tooling was already prevalent everywhere, and you were to tell me 30% of Clair Obscur was AI generated textures or whatever, I would be impressed because it didn't detract from the experience. Ethical concerns of AI aside, I don't see how AI being used in game dev will be worse for gamers. There's already heaps and heaps of shovelware I don't play, if the next COD game is 50% AI generated that will impact me, or its userbase, very little. Exactly, more games made to a higher quality on a lower budget is good. Means we get more releases and through that a decent chance of surprise hits. We will still have a few high budget games a year but fewer than now. Since I couldn't play all the high budget games in a year, that seems fine to me. I think the AA type of studios will disappear though. Too much competition eating into them from below, not enough marketing power to survive. Some of the best games of this year are AA? Expedition 33, Alters, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I'd say AA's are thriving. Sure it can be a tough market with the competition but there are some real gems shining through. AA's and indies are definitely going to be stronger in the future. AAs can pull off a pretty high quality for a lot of experiences these days and indies are obviously just really low cost and a ton come out so a crop of excellent ones will generally always be being pumped out. AAA dev and marketing costs are just too high unless you're a GTA or some other giga-high profile game thats guaranteed to sell gangbusters. AAs are also feeling the squeeze. Bill Roper was trying to secure funding for his AA game studio for years before he finally had to sell his home and move out of California a few months ago. I'm not sure what can bring them back to prominence, and I agree with Bill that AA is the best compromise between vision and budget, but investors seem hesitant. Game industry is just in a historical low atm, my company was very lucky in that we got our money just about immediately before money became really hard to get in games. I think the overall trend is going to prefer AA studios more than it has in the recent past, assuming the general economic state of things gets to a state of relative normalcy. I think people give a lot less of a shit about peak realism graphics and are generally willing to compromise on a lot for a strong core experience, which AA is adequately positioned to deliver at a much lower price point than AAA. Really good graphics requires me to buy a new 2k (or is it 3-4k now?) gaming PC, a new screen and probably a new sound system to go with it. It's doable for me so I'm probably part of the target demographic for that. A teen living at home? Not so much... But I have like an hour a night to spend on gaming at best and I grew up with quake and unreal tournament. IDGAF about graphics and spend most of my time on indie games. I'd rather spend the money on take out or cleaning to give me more time to actually play games... Meanwhile Saudi Arabia bought EA for 50 billion or something? Hasn't EA sucked as for the last 10 years or so?
I have a good PC (well, it was good 2 years ago, no idea now). Still i don't play the new graphics games, because they don't give me what i want.
The last few games i bought:
Age of Wonders 4
Monster Train 2
Hades 2
Ozymandias
The Surge 2
Heroes of Science and Fiction
4d Golf
Not all total potato level, but also not super realistic awesome graphics fidelity stuff.
Graphics is part of a package for me. It can be relevant, but gameplay matters a lot more. And when it is relevant, that doesn't mean it needs to be photorealistic either. Just pretty and fitting for the game. If i want photorealism with boring gameplay, i can just go outside.
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how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter.
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On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter.
I am honestly surprised Bioware is still running. Last good game from them was March 2012. Since then they have released 4 middling titles that does parts well but is not a complete package. The last two I skipped fully, the two before I got my monies worth but didn't finish the campaign in.
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Lots of Canadian government money keeps Bioware afloat. Risk averse Megacorps love guaranteed government money and despise the fickle, opinionated, entitle consumer. So Risk averse Megacorp EA keeps Bioware going.
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On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter.
Man learns about gacha games in 2025.
This is literally how every gacha game works, it’s predatory all the way down except the user base tolerates it or doesn’t care due to sunk cost fallacy.
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On October 01 2025 10:26 Hat Trick of Today wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter. Man learns about gacha games in 2025. This is literally how every gacha game works, it’s predatory all the way down except the user base tolerates it or doesn’t care due to sunk cost fallacy.
I think putting gacha into sports games was a pretty genius move from a pure business perspective. You can get a totally new group of customers who would otherwise never get into a gacha.
(From any other perspective, it is obviously an asshole move. Gacha sucks)
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On October 01 2025 05:15 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter. I am honestly surprised Bioware is still running. Last good game from them was March 2012. Since then they have released 4 middling titles that does parts well but is not a complete package. The last two I skipped fully, the two before I got my monies worth but didn't finish the campaign in.
I was hoping for Mass Effect 5 but I don't see that happening now -.-
Ah well, would have been shitty anyways I guess
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On October 01 2025 10:26 Hat Trick of Today wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter. Man learns about gacha games in 2025. This is literally how every gacha game works, it’s predatory all the way down except the user base tolerates it or doesn’t care due to sunk cost fallacy.
Aren't EA Sports card pack mechanics more aggressive and extreme than gacha game mechanics? With EA Sports every new year the money you've spent is useless. Also, % chances are not revealed.
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On October 01 2025 23:20 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2025 10:26 Hat Trick of Today wrote:On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter. Man learns about gacha games in 2025. This is literally how every gacha game works, it’s predatory all the way down except the user base tolerates it or doesn’t care due to sunk cost fallacy. Aren't EA Sports card pack mechanics more aggressive and extreme than gacha game mechanics? With EA Sports every new year the money you've spent is useless. Also, % chances are not revealed.
No, not really.
The monetisation strategy depends entirely on the audience the game intends to cultivate. The biggest Chinese gacha games, like the Hoyoverse games, generally have more generous monetisation and sustain themselves by inundating the player base with new quality content like every 3 months.
You don’t have to squeeze blood from the gacha stone if you have a successful IP. You can sell concerts, anime, figures, music, card games, and whatever else you can dream of if you have a captive audience.
You can’t say it’s an unsuccessful strategy just because they aren’t showing extreme contempt for their player base, those games make eyewatering amounts of revenue that any game publisher would kill to make. Especially as new IPs that don’t have world’s most popular sport to feed them users.
The % being revealed or not is pretty immaterial because there was plenty of ways for the game to screw with the odds to the point you can argue the odds are false advertising. To use Fire Emblem Heroes as an example, the game often has increased rate banners to pull specific previously released 5 star summons.
The catch? They’ll add more increased rate summons in the same banner so the chances of pulling a specific summon that you don’t want increases as well. If you need to pull like 10 copies of the same summon to fully unlock, it doesn’t matter if they tell you the odds because the odds to get what you actually want are still impossibly awful.
It’s like me pulling on a 5% increased rate EA Football card pack but instead of me getting 5% increased odds of pulling specifically Messi, I’ve got 5% increased odds of pulling a card from a pool of players that include the entire current Manchester United roster and Messi. The only way you’re getting Messi and not 500 copies of Manchester United players is if you whip out the credit card.
On October 01 2025 13:41 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2025 10:26 Hat Trick of Today wrote:On September 30 2025 08:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
how long before Bioware is closed down?
i think EA's biggest genius move isn't merely creating "Pay 2 Win" for NFL Madden and FIFA FC. EA created "Pay 2 Win for about 3 weeks." You pay money to increase your chances to acquire the best players...then a new set of more powerful cards are released 3 weeks later. I do not know for certain this is what EA does. Based on the way people talk about all their Ultimate Team modes in their NFL, NHL, FIFA/FC games... i think this is how it works. No one cares they just keep spending.
After doing this the next year's version comes out and all the money you've spent on "Card Packs" means nothing.
In a way, this spending habit parallels sticking quarters in arcade machines in order to play for 5 minutes. This analogy fails at one level though. As you get better at the arcade game you get to play for more time on 1 quarter. Man learns about gacha games in 2025. This is literally how every gacha game works, it’s predatory all the way down except the user base tolerates it or doesn’t care due to sunk cost fallacy. I think putting gacha into sports games was a pretty genius move from a pure business perspective. You can get a totally new group of customers who would otherwise never get into a gacha. (From any other perspective, it is obviously an asshole move. Gacha sucks)
Yeah that’s the only thing you can say is genius about EA Sports card gacha mechanic. There’s already a captive monied audience that loves sports management games who also want the power fantasy of building, say, a basketball team with peak condition Magic, Jordan, LeBron, Duncan and Shaq.
The monetisation is really just gacha bread and butter.
It’s pretty funny to see someone like Joel Embiid, who is obsessed with football, blow my yearly salary in EA Football just so he can brag about his gacha football team on social media. But that’s the type of audience these games have and why they have the monetisation strategy they have.
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EPT
