EPTPerhaps it’s just an unfortunately unrepresentative cross-section I’m exposed to, but my god that segment may be among the daftest consumer group I’ve ever encountered
The Games Industry And ATVI - Page 60
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22746 Posts
Perhaps it’s just an unfortunately unrepresentative cross-section I’m exposed to, but my god that segment may be among the daftest consumer group I’ve ever encountered | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16114 Posts
On September 05 2024 16:36 WombaT wrote: Unfortunately many gamers are as impotently angry as they are lacking in patience. Perhaps it’s just an unfortunately unrepresentative cross-section I’m exposed to, but my god that segment may be among the daftest consumer group I’ve ever encountered Dude, I fall prey to it. I got Red Alert 3 because of Gina Carano. In the fight shown in the video she went into the cage with a Red Alert 3 shirt. Paul Tassi twitter.com Part of the reason Tassi is so hated is that he is smart and calculated. He has a colleague at Forbes, Erik Kain, and he does the "thoughtful right wing" opinion side. I think its orchestrated by Forbes and Tassi only believes a portion of what he puts out in public. Forbes has their "anti woke" guy in Erik Kain and their "woke" guy in Paul Tassi. As a company and brand, How do you survive the "woke"//"anti woke" war? You put guys on both sides who pretend to "oppose" each other. Kinda like pro wrestling.  At a basic level, I think Kain and Tassi believe in the perspectives they put out there. I do not think either is any where close to a 100% fraud nor are they giving us 100% what they beleive in their heart. I think Forbes has carefully hand picked both of these guys. This is how Forbes inoculates itself from being the next "Bud Light". All this said. I must give a tip of my cap to Forbes. Well Played. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16114 Posts
The second to second combat in Star Wars Outlaws is boring. xDefiant is collapsing. Skill based match increases the probability of a decent match. Removing that to differentiate from CoD was a mistake. Ubisoft has gone from €25 to €14 in a few weeks. Ubisoft deserves this. They are a garbage company relying heavily on government subsidies. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16114 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22746 Posts
On September 07 2024 00:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Ubisoft is tanking hard. The second to second combat in Star Wars Outlaws is boring. xDefiant is collapsing. Skill based match increases the probability of a decent match. Removing that to differentiate from CoD was a mistake. Ubisoft has gone from €25 to €14 in a few weeks. Ubisoft deserves this. They are a garbage company relying heavily on government subsidies. Skill-based matchmaking has many downsides too, and tons of players complain about it all the time. It seems the obvious solution is to have a ranked mode that uses it, and an unranked that does not. I suppose it can potentially split playerbases which can be dicey, but outside of this you can have the best of both worlds | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16114 Posts
On September 07 2024 02:46 WombaT wrote: Skill-based matchmaking has many downsides too, and tons of players complain about it all the time. It seems the obvious solution is to have a ranked mode that uses it, and an unranked that does not. I suppose it can potentially split playerbases which can be dicey, but outside of this you can have the best of both worlds That sounds like a good idea. They should put xDefiant on Steam. | ||
hexhaven
Finland889 Posts
On September 07 2024 02:46 WombaT wrote: Skill-based matchmaking has many downsides too, and tons of players complain about it all the time. It seems the obvious solution is to have a ranked mode that uses it, and an unranked that does not. I suppose it can potentially split playerbases which can be dicey, but outside of this you can have the best of both worlds We used to have dedicated servers. We used to be a real country. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22746 Posts
On September 07 2024 03:35 hexhaven wrote: We used to have dedicated servers. We used to be a real country. Not every day you get a Frank Sobotka reference! Unless you’re in a Facebook Wire memes group of course… | ||
Excalibur_Z
United States12210 Posts
On September 07 2024 02:46 WombaT wrote: Skill-based matchmaking has many downsides too, and tons of players complain about it all the time. It seems the obvious solution is to have a ranked mode that uses it, and an unranked that does not. I suppose it can potentially split playerbases which can be dicey, but outside of this you can have the best of both worlds You need only look to Activision Research's experiment where they disabled the skill-matching component of their matchmaker to see the negative ripple effects. The main people who complain about SBMM are content creators (obviously, they're making all the videos about it) who are typically also near the top of the skill spectrum. They have a personal interest in removing SBMM because in a purely-random lobby it allows them to pop off and generate Sick Plays which they can use in their streams and videos which makes their content more exciting which makes them more money. To everyone else in the player pool, though, more balanced matches means more satisfaction and more retention -- even in unranked modes. | ||
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Yurie
11630 Posts
On September 07 2024 04:22 Excalibur_Z wrote: You need only look to Activision Research's experiment where they disabled the skill-matching component of their matchmaker to see the negative ripple effects. The main people who complain about SBMM are content creators (obviously, they're making all the videos about it) who are typically also near the top of the skill spectrum. They have a personal interest in removing SBMM because in a purely-random lobby it allows them to pop off and generate Sick Plays which they can use in their streams and videos which makes their content more exciting which makes them more money. To everyone else in the player pool, though, more balanced matches means more satisfaction and more retention -- even in unranked modes. That is an interesting paper. Tight matchmaking is found to be beneficial for all but the best players. Where they instead start losing players once the skill matchmaking get tighter. Perhaps Dota's experiment with player drafting in the lobby was made to tackle that. Tightening the overall matchmaking while giving up on using the same method for the top percentage. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22746 Posts
On September 07 2024 04:22 Excalibur_Z wrote: You need only look to Activision Research's experiment where they disabled the skill-matching component of their matchmaker to see the negative ripple effects. The main people who complain about SBMM are content creators (obviously, they're making all the videos about it) who are typically also near the top of the skill spectrum. They have a personal interest in removing SBMM because in a purely-random lobby it allows them to pop off and generate Sick Plays which they can use in their streams and videos which makes their content more exciting which makes them more money. To everyone else in the player pool, though, more balanced matches means more satisfaction and more retention -- even in unranked modes. As someone who was top 200 in the world in pretty much every game mode in CoD Black Ops in my teens, the lack of SBMM was pretty fun. If I was having to sweat every single game, with players just as good as me, less fun I could also invite players of a mass variety of skills and have a good time. If you’re relatively bad at the game, queuing with an SC2 GM equivalent will mean it balances out that the average opponent is considerably better than you. Unless I was to play some ranked mode, where that’s the whole point, and climbing the leaderboard necessitates challenging yourself every game. I agree that content creators have something of an incentive that maybe doesn’t align with the health of the game on the whole On the flipside, even really good players wanna have a good time too. I’ve played a little CoD in the modern era as well, I’m not as good as I was and my lobbies aren’t insane by any means. I basically still have to play on meta basically every game In the old days, me and my boys were mucking around and doing things like playing pistols-only, or running weird loadouts. We spent a good 2 days trying to win a domination game 200-0 as a challenge Depending on how SBMM is tuned, which is another thing, if I’m playing folks as good as me every game, I gotta go with the best tools for the job every game. It gets a bit monotonous I enjoy playing pool, amongst my friend group there’s a guy who’s not clueless, but worse than the rest of us. There’s a middle group that trades 50/50 or 60/40 and there’s a guy way better than all of us. I can beat the bad player playing left-handed, and I can beat the player much better than me if I have a great game and he has a bad one, and that step up in challenge is fun With SBMM I’m just playing myself 24/7, I don’t have that shot to fuck around versus a bad player, nor do I get the shot to see if I can takedown a much better player and hope they’re off their game. You kinda remove that ‘some day you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue’ element, and that can be quite fun! Again I think you just use both. Have a ranked mode that matches you based on an approximation of your ability and rise through the ranks if you’re improving. But have an unranked too where it’s a complete crapshoot of skill sets and see where it goes. Despite not having SBMM, there was one time we ran into a group of guys we actually knew, with a full squad of people super high up the leaderboard. Queued a good 18 games in a row, maybe went 12-6. Had fun chatting shite a bit and enjoying the rivalry Another thing modern CoD does is re-queue you, you play one game and that’s that. You don’t have a persistent lobby that lasts 10-20 games with a few swaps | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12210 Posts
On September 07 2024 04:45 Yurie wrote: That is an interesting paper. Tight matchmaking is found to be beneficial for all but the best players. Where they instead start losing players once the skill matchmaking get tighter. Perhaps Dota's experiment with player drafting in the lobby was made to tackle that. Tightening the overall matchmaking while giving up on using the same method for the top percentage. Immortal Draft is a very curious beast. By the nature of Glicko2, the amount of MMR you gain is inversely proportional to your expected win probability for a match. You can earn or lose anywhere from +/-10 to +/-40. Unsurprisingly, players want to draft teammates who represent an opportunity to earn the most MMR, but what they seem not to grasp is that they are constructing teams where they are a 20% or worse underdog. It's a smart decision from Valve in terms of design, but degrades because the playerbase isn't smart enough to use it properly, turning it into a cesspool of toxicity. The main abuse in Immortal Draft shows up in the form of more social factors, such as overt collusion related to smurfing/boosting, or players refusing to play with each other.. | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12210 Posts
On September 07 2024 05:06 WombaT wrote: As someone who was top 200 in the world in pretty much every game mode in CoD Black Ops in my teens, the lack of SBMM was pretty fun. If I was having to sweat every single game, with players just as good as me, less fun I could also invite players of a mass variety of skills and have a good time. If you’re relatively bad at the game, queuing with an SC2 GM equivalent will mean it balances out that the average opponent is considerably better than you. Unless I was to play some ranked mode, where that’s the whole point, and climbing the leaderboard necessitates challenging yourself every game. I agree that content creators have something of an incentive that maybe doesn’t align with the health of the game on the whole On the flipside, even really good players wanna have a good time too. I’ve played a little CoD in the modern era as well, I’m not as good as I was and my lobbies aren’t insane by any means. I basically still have to play on meta basically every game In the old days, me and my boys were mucking around and doing things like playing pistols-only, or running weird loadouts. We spent a good 2 days trying to win a domination game 200-0 as a challenge Depending on how SBMM is tuned, which is another thing, if I’m playing folks as good as me every game, I gotta go with the best tools for the job every game. It gets a bit monotonous I enjoy playing pool, amongst my friend group there’s a guy who’s not clueless, but worse than the rest of us. There’s a middle group that trades 50/50 or 60/40 and there’s a guy way better than all of us. I can beat the bad player playing left-handed, and I can beat the player much better than me if I have a great game and he has a bad one, and that step up in challenge is fun With SBMM I’m just playing myself 24/7, I don’t have that shot to fuck around versus a bad player, nor do I get the shot to see if I can takedown a much better player and hope they’re off their game. You kinda remove that ‘some day you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue’ element, and that can be quite fun! Again I think you just use both. Have a ranked mode that matches you based on an approximation of your ability and rise through the ranks if you’re improving. But have an unranked too where it’s a complete crapshoot of skill sets and see where it goes. Despite not having SBMM, there was one time we ran into a group of guys we actually knew, with a full squad of people super high up the leaderboard. Queued a good 18 games in a row, maybe went 12-6. Had fun chatting shite a bit and enjoying the rivalry Another thing modern CoD does is re-queue you, you play one game and that’s that. You don’t have a persistent lobby that lasts 10-20 games with a few swaps I get this sentiment. Top players get bored and want to handicap themselves. They make gimmick-based smurf accounts in their games just for the extra challenge or to mix it up. But that is an extremely narrow use case in the grand scheme, and doesn't justify the removal of SBMM. I do think that gimmick accounts have their place, as long as their usage in applying the gimmick is consistent. For example, if you wanted to see how you would do in Starcraft playing mouse-only, obviously you wouldn't want to use your main account because that lost MMR is hard to earn back (plus it feeds undeserving wins to opponents), so you could use a secondary account solely limited to playing mouse-only. If you ever deviate from that gimmick then you impose some undue fluctuation onto the ladder, but treating it as its own "player" minimizes the impact of unfair smurfing since you're applying your handicap consistently. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22746 Posts
On September 07 2024 05:36 Excalibur_Z wrote: I get this sentiment. Top players get bored and want to handicap themselves. They make gimmick-based smurf accounts in their games just for the extra challenge or to mix it up. But that is an extremely narrow use case in the grand scheme, and doesn't justify the removal of SBMM. I do think that gimmick accounts have their place, as long as their usage in applying the gimmick is consistent. For example, if you wanted to see how you would do in Starcraft playing mouse-only, obviously you wouldn't want to use your main account because that lost MMR is hard to earn back (plus it feeds undeserving wins to opponents), so you could use a secondary account solely limited to playing mouse-only. If you ever deviate from that gimmick then you impose some undue fluctuation onto the ladder, but treating it as its own "player" minimizes the impact of unfair smurfing since you're applying your handicap consistently. This is why I propose a kind of ‘free for all’ mode alongside the ranked one with SBMM If your unranked mode is literally just ranked except you don’t get some shiny points, it doesn’t really deal with that core issue. SC2’s implementation is basically just that I’m no longer a high enough ranking player in any game myself to really care either way, but I understand the complaints. I can 100% tell you that if my late teens, being good at CoD meant just perpetually being stuck tryharding, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed the game nearly as much I’m of an age where UT and Quake 3 were staples for me, and sometimes a server saw me brutalised, sometimes I was better than everyone and sometimes it was somewhere in between To me, that’s absolutely fine really. Sometimes you’re the pigeon, sometimes you’re the statue and all that. Sometimes I’ll have fun stomping people, sometimes I’ll have an even match and sometimes I’ll be sweating my heart out and failing against much better players. That, for me is fine as an experience. I think implementing it in a serious ranked mode is 100% the correct call, obviously. I’m just against implementing it in every core mode, which seems to be the trend. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21154 Posts
On September 07 2024 06:40 WombaT wrote:If your unranked mode is literally just ranked except you don’t get some shiny points, it doesn’t really deal with that core issue. SC2’s implementation is basically just that That is because SC2's unranked exists as a counter to ladder anxiety. Some (a lot) of people have problems with the fear of losing their shiny points they worked hard to earn, a mode where the points still exist but are just hidden from the player helps combat that fear of losing points and keeps effected people playing. | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12210 Posts
On September 07 2024 06:40 WombaT wrote: This is why I propose a kind of ‘free for all’ mode alongside the ranked one with SBMM If your unranked mode is literally just ranked except you don’t get some shiny points, it doesn’t really deal with that core issue. SC2’s implementation is basically just that I’m no longer a high enough ranking player in any game myself to really care either way, but I understand the complaints. I can 100% tell you that if my late teens, being good at CoD meant just perpetually being stuck tryharding, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed the game nearly as much I’m of an age where UT and Quake 3 were staples for me, and sometimes a server saw me brutalised, sometimes I was better than everyone and sometimes it was somewhere in between To me, that’s absolutely fine really. Sometimes you’re the pigeon, sometimes you’re the statue and all that. Sometimes I’ll have fun stomping people, sometimes I’ll have an even match and sometimes I’ll be sweating my heart out and failing against much better players. That, for me is fine as an experience. I think implementing it in a serious ranked mode is 100% the correct call, obviously. I’m just against implementing it in every core mode, which seems to be the trend. I'm a server browser veteran too, and for me, the experience followed these steps: 1. Find a server with low ping. 2. Then, find one that has actual people playing - but not too few, nor too many. 3. After that, see how I do. If I'm doing great, then perfect: I'm the best. If someone else is owning, and they're too hard to beat, then come up with an excuse "that guy's cheating"/"lag"/"sweatlord" and find a different server. I think it was Rob Pardo or Tom Cadwell who said that if you leave it to players to choose their opponent, they'll always pick the opponent they can beat 51% of the time. They're okay with games being close, as long as they win! I don't know how common my server browser experience was, but it definitely let me customize my experience until I could be the best... provided I could set the rules. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16114 Posts
Fairgame$ is supposed to be a game about big heists. To me, the Heist has already been pulled off by Jade Raymond. The Quebecois born woman secured an extremely favourable government funding deal with the Quebec government with promises of future studios with 100s of employees. An independent studio forging new creative visions in video games. No sir, this studio won't be the "branch plant" that Canadian politicians fear. This studio won't be a glorified QA Testing Group for a big evil American studio! This studio will be creative and do new things! Seriously though, the last thing Canadian politicians want is the "branch plant economy". So she gets the $$$ from the Canadian and Quebec governments with promises of a massive studio that is a hub of independent creative Canadian content. The CRTC is just loving this! Quebec politicians are patting each other on the back. Jim Carrey, Drake, Ryan Reynolds move over. We've got a new MADE IN CANADA international Canadian superstar! Jade Raymond! Then months later she sells "her" independent studio to Sony; Haven Studios becomes a support studio for Sony owned Firewalk in the evil USA. Canadian taxpayer funded Branch Plant Engaged. Those boys at the Fraser Institute are now wagging their fingers at Quebec saying "see we told you so". Well played , Ms. Raymond. It is going to be interesting to see if Haven Studios gets turned into a support studio for a different Sony game not made in Canada now that Firewalk is toast. The Quebec politicians supporting these subsidies ... won't like it.  I wonder how many employees of Haven Studios are actually living in Montreal in February in -20C weather. LOL. How many are in some small Carolina town VNCing into work. There is pressure being exerted right now by Quebec and Canadian politicians for Haven Studios to produce a new game. If Haven Studios turns into a Sony QA Department then both Canada and Quebec will tighten the screws on the regulations around video game subsidies. On September 07 2024 08:08 Excalibur_Z wrote: I think it was Rob Pardo or Tom Cadwell who said that if you leave it to players to choose their opponent, they'll always pick the opponent they can beat 51% of the time. They're okay with games being close, as long as they win! I don't know how common my server browser experience was, but it definitely let me customize my experience until I could be the best... provided I could set the rules. in 2v2, and 3v3 pick up games of SC1, SC2, C&C at PC Bangs we always arrange the teams to be as balanced as possible. in IRL pick up games in foosball, bubble hockey, standard basketball, and standard hockey ... same thing.. balanced. Most people in live in-person competitive games would rather lose an hour long very close game of anything than win 12-0 in a stomp. I am not sure if its different for people playing alone at the PC in online games though. People seem overly serious on places like GR.Org, reddit, TL.Net etc etc. I find in person there is a "who gives a fuck its just a stupid game any way" attitude prevails; both winning and losing doesn't mean much. | ||
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Yurie
11630 Posts
Another way to see it might be to look at sports leagues. NBA is a highly competitive league with a lot of money where you expect even games. Yet the Portland Trail Blazers is 21-61 in w-l. You can have good games against them but if you only cared about even games you would have to impose some handicap. Which you would never do in this type of setting (at most resting a player for a harder game). I think the same feeling is sparked in a lot of top players in online games that are not professional. Most professional players would see it as practice and thus still do it seriously but for other reasons. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16114 Posts
Also, your typical 21-61 team is only involved in a handful of blowouts throughout the year. The emphasis of the 3 point shot create in game see-saw battles. Also, the volatility around the 3 point shot allows any team to win any game similar to a baseball game. NBA's "rule set designers" are absolute geniuses. | ||
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frontgarden2222
58 Posts
On September 07 2024 22:35 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Sony will put on a brave face for investors and the general public regarding Concord. In the background, Hiroki Totoki has already sounded the alarm. His comment about not enough IP was coded language for ... "i'm getting ready to fire people". Layoffs are going to happen like in the rest of the entertainment industry but that's not coded language for 'I'm going to fire people [to cut costs]'. It wasn't even in the background either, he practically yelled it. The quote in question: “Whether it’s for games, films or anime, we don’t have that much IP that we fostered from the beginning,” Totoki said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We’re lacking the early phase (of IP) and that’s an issue for us.” The CEO is objectively right, Sony's entertainment conglomerate lacks a big back catalogue of strong original IP that they completely own. They spend most of their time:
Like what does Sony Pictures own that is a fairly guaranteed box office and/or ratings hit? Hotel Transylvania? Breaking Bad? Both of which are dependent on specific people for the project to be successful? Analysts can read tea leaves into shit like Concord and fit square pegs into round holes. But Sony has been pretty transparent about desperately needing software that can generate recurring revenue. They have no real mobile efforts, their IP strength is nowhere near the strength of Nintendo where they can maintain MSRP for their entire lifespan, and the IP they do own is built with the expectation that it will swing for the fences. At certain points, they were better off not developing anything and just shoving money into a term deposit. They need to fully own a successful live service game that can fund their single player efforts during dry spells. There's nothing amazing about their strategy, they're loading everything into a shotgun and hoping one or two will hit. That's the start and end of any analysis on current and future Sony backed live service games, its not smart but they also clearly have no idea what they're doing in this space so that's the strategy they've gone with. Helldivers 2 definitely hit but you can see their inexperience in how bad the end game is, which is often kills the longevity of successful live service games. | ||
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