Despite what the analysts like to repeat like broken record players, physical games really aren't going anywhere.
Two 3DO games recently reissued by Limited Run Games, Plumbers Don't Wear Ties and D, appear to have a major problem, according to customers.
D was a great, atmospheric horror game. It was worth the rental back in the day. Also, Limited Run Games sucks.
LRG are just glorified overpriced reproductions.... and now they can't even get that last part right. I make better repros using my own stack of CD-R.
Just don’t. 3DO games were the worst. Imagine paying premium prices for a dog-crap version of a game. The era of barely trying or understanding their own tech and charging asinine prices… 3DN0. It’s best that you don’t admit that you had one of these.
The 3DO was ahead of its time and one of the first to enter the 32 bit console space. Yes FMV games are awful, but at the time there was a real thirst for games to look like movies. Removing the FMV games the 3DO had Gex, a solid Myst port, and was often the best place to play non-SNK (best on NEO GEO) near arcade perfect arcade ports. Their downfall was poor marketing and a high price point for a time when consoles were considered to be kids toys.
It was certainly superior to the “64 bit” Jaguar, which was falsely advertised as stronger hardware and had one of the worst console controllers in history.
Limited Run Games makes me sick. The prices they ask are ridiculous and then the whole burning discs instead of pressing them is pretty disgusting. This is a company that takes their customers for a ride and demands extortion level prices for a product, like we’re talking 2x to 3x more than MSRP.
Brendan writes; "Head of digital product development Dan Ayoub tells us about the toy maker's plans to get back in the game."
As part of previously-announced layoffs, Take-Two Interactive is closing Intercept Games and Roll7.
I loved Rollerdrome and was looking forward to a Rollerdrome 2. 😐
Don't want to be melodramatic but as far you can be upset over video-game news ... bit heartbroken.
I feel like there's a trend of well made games like this going largely ignored by the gaming audience. It's quite frustrating. I hope the devs form a new studio but I suppose they'd have to start again from scratch.
"I feel like there's a trend of well made games like this going largely ignored by the gaming audience."
Yep. I'd love to know how many of us actually bought this game, rather than just getting it on Gamepass or PS Plus. Probably a shockingly low number. Steam concurrents topped out at 419.
I know it's anecdotal, but when I think of my favorite indie games, I still largely think of titles that came out in the 2009-2015 range. Maybe with less competition it was easier to stand out then, but I just felt like at that time there was more recognition of the really great indie games that were worth your time.
Olliolli 2, olliolli world and rollerdrome are some of my favorite indies of all time. This industry is disgusting lately.
it's not industry's fault, it's the consumers fault. Audience just wants to play shooter/Battle Royale etc...
No. It's the publisher's fixation on profit margins. They only want the most profitable of products. It's greed.
I wouldn't blame consumers entirely either. If shooters and Battle Royal is all we're given then it's all we've got to buy. If the AAA industry wouldn't follow trends so obsessively it'd be better varied.
There is fault to go around. Some of it is on consumers for sure. We whine constantly about live service games, but then we play them anyway and ignore better smaller titles.
But publishers and platform holders bear some responsibility too. You hear stories come out from indie devs who had big hits in the late PS3/360 to early PS4/XONE window who can barely move units now, and some of that is definitely failure to advertise and poor discoverability. During that era I felt like I reliably heard about the worthwhile indies, and now I don't.
Then there is the game pass effect (and PS Plus to a lesser extent). So many consumers have now been trained to expect to get indies with their subscriptions, they don't want to pay $20-$40 for them anymore.
When voting with one's wallet goes wrong. I prsonally have no problem with AA or indie games. Often times those are some of the best experiences to be had in gaming. Unfortunately a lot of gamers thumb their noses at indies however. There are success stories but there are just as many casualties or at least it feels that way sometimes.
Has anyone actually taken a look at the economy? If you're really looking to blame someone for layoffs and closers, then maybe blame the people at the top making the bad decisions tanking the economies.
It's like some of you live in a little bubble oblivious to what's going on around the globe.
If the games made money the studios wouldn’t be closing. Blame consumers for not supporting “indies”
I've got to disagree with the comments blaming consumers. Yes that is a part of it but by and large the money men are closing studios and sacking staff to increase profitability. Let's not forget the obscene salaries they're on compared to the people who actually make the games. Take 2 are not short of cash, this didn't have to happen.
The thing is, some of the Indie devs closing are really independent. In other words, we can blame Take 2 here, but who can we blame other than the consumers when a fully independent dev shuts down because their games aren't selling? There is an answer to that question, it just isn't greedy publishers, even if they are the most fun to blame.
Last year, Take-Two president and CEO both got paid 72M combined as a bonus. They could have paid the 600 employees they laid off 60K a year and still get half of that (36M). Strauss' compensation alone is 578:1 compared to a T2 employee's.
We created the industry by our purchasing decisions/actions. The industry is slowly imploding. At some point we may be left only with safe mainstays (COD, Fortnite) and franchise/movie tie-ins (Indiana Jones, Spiderman, Batman, Star Wars), along with a contingent of very low budget indie stuff if it can turn a profit.
Sad.
I loved Olli Olli.
I wanted to like Rollerdrome a lot more than I actually did. Shame about the studio though
"Even in the case that physical games do die out, there will always be somebody out there who will look to release it physically to what is still a baying crowd."
Assuming that was meant to say "buying crowd". That's it in a nutshell. Supply and demand. I would love to believe that physical will always be an option. My gut tells me that won't always be the case. There is a reason why GameStop is nearly a dead business and it is because of the rise of digitally downloaded games. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Right now the problem with digitally downloaded games is the congestion the internet due to people staying at home. I tried to run a speed test yesterday as my internet was slow and the speed test said there were too many people using speed test and try again later. That's insane. Imagine trying to download a 50 GB game. Makes physical games look really good right now.
DVDs and Blu-Rays haven't died, despite things like streaming services functioning even better sometimes, so of course physical games aren't going to die either.
Not until the price drops digital is a big rip off it may be convenient but not worth it . I only buy sale games digital at most 25 pounds
The author makes some really interesting points. You simply cannot trust that publishers/corporations will keep their game license active and you never have to worry about that if you have the physical disc.
Just look at what Konami did to P.T.