With the announcement of Ghost Recon: Breakpoint comes the news that the game will also require an online connection at all times. What does this mean for the game, the series, and the industry as a whole?
This month’s EDGE review scores are as follows include Luigi’s Mansion 3, The Outer Worlds, and more.
Replies(1)I've only read ONE review from Edge and that was over a decade ago for RE5. Now RE5 didn't exactly do for me that say RE7 or RE2 Remake did but it was a solid action shooter.
But the particular reviewer came off as a pompous blow hard that just made me disconnect from her review.
It's why I stopped reading them or going to Barnes and Noble to pick it up. At first it came across as intellectual. With good interviews, discussion about technology, etc. Which was great.
But then you could see that there was this certain air of arrogance and pompous behavior. Like they were supposed to be elite reviewers. And their number scores were questionable during last gen.
Add in the cost of the magazine that was already expensive for what it was and that was the end of me buying it. I started to use more of the internet to look for game information. Not necessarily reviews.
You know Apocalypse my experience is almost verbatim to your's! Down to getting them at Barnes and Noble to really enjoying the overall quality of the mag but then it did appear that they had a very high regard for themselves!
I first found the mag in 03 I believe at my local On Cue(loved the store because I lived in a small town and it was like mana) and found it enjoyable then.
The RE5 review though had the woman saying it was terrible of Capcom to have the virus infect Africans (I'm not kidding) and with 4 she had no issue because they were Spaniards and that wasn't offensive! Crazy shit that came off with a very elitist vibe!
Maybe it didn't fit her narrative. And I'm black. I figured if these created viruses can infect white people, it can infect black people and everyone else.
Truthfully, I would have liked to have seen an RE scenario set in Tokyo or somewhere abouts just to see something different but an area that Capcom would be familiar with to design the game.
Ubisoft decreased their revenue projections for 2019/2020, as revealed on the most recent earnings call. One of the reasons for it turned out to be the "very disappointing" sales of Ghost Recon Breakpoint during the first few weeks.
"First, it is harder to generate interest fora sequel to a Live multiplayer game, when prior iterations benefited from years of optimization. Consequently, we need to make sure there is more time between each iteration of Live game"
Maybe don't do live service games full stop.
Jeez, the rest of the report is depressing, they are so full of shit.
they are going down as fast as bethesda did. i loved their games, but now, jeez, just pass.
I mean the GR franchise has been in decline for some time now. AC and R6 have been doing well tho, For Honor is also doing decently, Ubisoft has been developing a lot of new IPs in the recent years as well so I wouldn't say they are doing as bad as bethesda is.
Ubisoft doesn't care about taking responsibility for the low quality of this game. Horrible game design, laughable microtransaction milking, it just shows cluelessness as to what gamers want and where the industry is headed. Forcing people to grind in a full price game like it's a fucking mobile game or else pay them money to not play the game via microtransactions? And they blame it on "There wasn't enough different from previous games, so the unique parts of this game didn't stand out as much" and "It's hard to generate interest on live games" - what a crock of shit. This is executive speak for "I don't want to take responsibility for this being pushed out the door a year before it was ready, with little game design or user testing to make sure it was actually fun and the progression worked"
Well there's no Assassin's Creed game this year, so Ubisoft hasn't completely lost their minds shoving crap out the door before it's ready, they finally learned from AC Unity.
There is hope for Ubisoft because AC Odyssey was good and so was Origins. However their other titles have become stale and don’t seem interesting at all.
What I believe is happening and isn’t exclusive to Ubisoft is that gamers are becoming fatigued of Western games. Remember at the start of Xbox360/PS3 era Western devs put out the best next gen games and Japan was struggling to keep up. Now the tables have turned and Western (Not 1st party Sony devs or some of the other creative ones) devs are having a hard time because they have become stagnant. Indie games are thriving because of the creativity shown in their releases but big AAA games stay the same are are flat out boring. Ubisoft needs to watch devs like Naughty dog to see how to do story telling and create characters we care about.
Edit...also Success can be Double edge sword if you don’t stay competitive.
@jaymac
If you look at the output of regions, Japan devs are still developing more SP games over MP, and the market for SP hasn't shrunk, so with less choice for games, there is more success for those types of games.
Trying to chase after the MP market to have that cash cow game means there is more failure, because the market for MP is limited, and the consumer base isnt always buying new games. They bank on MT to keep engagement because it's cheaper than making a whole new game.
The industry had gone from one extreme to the other, and for publishers that dont diversify their products, they're going to always be playing catch up. If any of the big publishers didnt manage to make at least one cash cow MP game, they'd be struggling right now because they arent making as many SP games to fill in the gaps.
When you make games for the sole sake of profit they're going to be overly-formulaic, generic, soulless, grindfests/borefests. Games with microtransactions CAN be fun but NOT when they're literally BUILT around them.
I'm really worried for ES6 and Starfield.
You'd think they'd know that an oversaturated market is harder to sell games in. Same thing happened last gen when they were trying to push mp, saying that it was too hard to make money on SP games. They said not as many.people brought SP games, which isnt true. It's that there was so.mich choice for SP games that the customer base was spread out more. On top of that, there were a lot of high quality titles to choose from, so the mid tier titles didnt do as well, which effectively killed the mid tier revenue.
The shift of the major publishers focusing on a few high profile MP games in lieu of high quality SP games have left a void in the market, which is why companies that are still making SP games regularly, like sony, square, capcom, sega, etc, are doing pretty well. Not all are making as much as some of these ultra successful MP games, but there are more MP only failure games this gen than last, because the MP market is not as big as the SP market, and since MP requires engagement, there is a shorter window of time for a game to be successful.
Companies want to put their eggs into one basket, and its going to cause then to have losses. Those losses can still be made up with one successful game, but then it becomes a design principle of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks
Keep puting your games exclusive on Epic Store and most people Will take a big dump on your games Ubisoft!Fans order rulez!
Dammit.... Used bad pun for Division 2.
Nonetheless, Ubisoft already closed shop on their creative side years ago.
Good.
I hope this sends a very clear message to Ubisoft and serves as a warning to other developers and publishers.
Gamers are tired of low effort, generic, cookie cutter clones crammed full of microtransactions.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint has out for almost a week now and in that short space of time we’ve already seen plenty of dogpiling. Disappointed players and critics vocal in both their anger and hope that this latest Tom Clancy game isn’t beyond redemption.
It's a shame that Breakpoint reaches for your wallet within the first hour. Doesn't even try to hide those microtransactions.
Wouldn't be so bad if people weren't already spending up to $150 on the base game.
It’s totally optional I’m 16 hours in, unlocking stuff from progression. No MT are forced and I don’t plan on buying them...I’ll play and unlock naturally. People want to pay for MTs then good for them.
It must be a crap game if they encourage players to buy items to get through it quicker.
Microtransactions are the worst thing to happen to gaming.
i can't believe microtransactions are still a thing. they know people don't like them and people won't buy their game because of them and yet they still put them in their game.
Exactly.. if production costs are that high they have to include them to make a profit, make better games.. I'd gladly pay more money for a complete better game..tlou 2 for example..you can tell alot of man hours have gone Into it, so why should that cost the same as a mediocre annual re hash? Games should be priced individually depending on development, quality etc then micro transactions could be abolished
The problem with that idea is, there is a price point that market research has shown that the majority of gamers will not go beyond. Realistically, would you pay $120 for the standard edition of a single player game? Microtranasactions (as much as I hate them, and would never buy into one) are a way to get small amounts from people because the price seems so low. $1.99 for this new gun? Well... It's only $1.99. That's how they sucker people in. It never has and never will work on me.
The thing is, it is still making then a ton of money and a lot of people buy their games regardless. Only the informed gamers won't and unfortunately, that is the minority of gamers.
Also, they make ungodly amounts of money from MTX's so as long as that is the case, they will be there.
They are testing the waters, trying to see how far they can push it before it affects their finances negatively.
Unfortunately, if the publishers didn't make a profit from mtx, they wouldn't waste their time with them. But the blind casuals keep swallowing every loot shooter that gets released.
It means nothing, because most games do this now days, it's not as if this isn't a thing already.
Good, I want to get my money 's worth out of Comcast. They are going to lose sales to people without internet, I guess they haven't learned anything from Microsoft.
so... epic game store exclusive, always online. my guess is comments are not gonna be very positive
Don’t know what it means for the industry, but for me it just means that I won’t buy it. I have perfectly good internet but this is a deal breaker.
I mean... is it really a shock? If you have played any Ubisoft game in the last 10 or so years you've had to connect to a Ubisoft account and be online.