"As I am writing this article, Activision is shutting down Radical Entertainment, Sega is laying off staff from their UK and U.S. offices, Vivendi wants to sell its majority 61% stake in Activision Blizzard worth $8.1bn and THQ is on life support. Over 120 developer studios have been shut down between the beginning of this generation (end of 2005/beginning of 2006) and the end of this generation (currently). If you continue to let budgets and team sizes spiral out of control, the future of gaming will be grim. There is a quote above that says: “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ I believe this quote sums up why Nintendo’s strategy will prove to be more successful than other companies in the long run. Even with Nintendo’s least successful consoles such as GameCube and Nintendo 64, not only did they earn a profit, but they stuck by those consoles an entire generation to stay loyal to their fanbase.", writes NotEnoughShaders.
Soul Covenant feels like a game from the early 2000s, with its repetitive gameplay loop, waggle controls, and nonsensical story.
Indie developer Carlos Alfonso is working on Cold VR, a game where standing still isn't an option. The complete opposite to SUPERHOT VR.
Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered players are ticked off by the game’s most recent patch, which censors in-game pin-up posters of Lara Croft.
This is why gaming is screwed. When people change things to fit someone’s agenda, it’s a slippery slope downhill.
Even if that agenda is of the developer? Way to remove developer rights.
***One player called it a “huge problem with modern games,” saying they can now be “ruined AFTER people buy them”.***
The level of drama. Yes, I recall sitting there for more hours than I did anything else in the game. These two pinups are the core of the game, after all!
rlow1's cringe catastrophizing aside, I do think developers *ought* to strive to maintain an original work to the best of their ability. The language of a "remaster" tacitly implies that - for good or ill - what's being resold is what fans remember but better.
Games can be ruined after purchasing them yeah we know this not from this but from GTA IV which had half it's radio content patched out due to licensing expirations and to me that was a huge deal.
This pin up poster is a bit of nonsense but the whole argument of modern games can be ruined post launch is Absol true.
It's not their work to censor. They are incharge of restoration & remastering the work, not overwriting it.
It's not the agenda of the developer though, they're pandering and trying to increase their ESG score.
Way to support censorship...
It’s not the end of the world for sure, but I understand the hate towards this kind of change. I believe it’s also a matter of principle.
Imagine a Picasso painting being restored & the restorer deciding there aren’t enough strokes, or some lines aren’t straight enough or curved enough…not sure it would/should sit well with people.
Have all original devs signed off on this change? Even if it’s the case, are we saying older gamers are better mentally equipped to process what was there than current gamers, hence the change?
Enough time ago the case was made that games are an art form. We’re supposed to have won that case.
So which is it? Are games art or not?
Hasn't this been happened for over a decade since remasters? I can't see that it's any worse now. Maybe if Sweet Baby starts getting their hands on remasters we will definitely have a problem.
tbh I dont see something like this as censorship. Does anyone else not find it strange for someone to stick pin ups of themsleves in a locker room?
Now of it was a pin up of some half naked firefighters it might make sense as Lara might like that, and if they removed that I would cry censorship. But removing pin ups of the main character, yeah I get it.
It's a game, and they were placed there for the audience. It's not real life. If it was, she wouldn't have fought a T-Rex now would she?
Yes, it's censorship but it's a bit less in your face. If they were in the original game, then they should have been in the remasters. It's bad enough that they have that ridiculous unnecessary warning at the start, but then they start removing things post launch. I don't care how small the change, they shouldn't be doing it. It's nothing but ESG pandering but in a subtle way.
By the year 2030, this remaster collection will totally be changed and censored. Probably will remove Lara as a playable character. It's ridiculous. Glad that my family didn't buy this.
I still have Tomb Raider 2 PS1 as a memory.
That's the cruel truth... But the devs should not chase realism if they can't afford it. They have powerful hardware but they are not forced to use the whole potential.
Though after reading this article I wonder how powerful the next gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles will be... Maybe it's time to put more RAM (for multitasking) and less graphical/processing power?
The whole industry will not fail anytime soon, but I think there might be some heavy changes... And those changes will require victims.
The future of gaming ain't looking too bright.
a very informative article. definitely looking forward to mind blowing graphics. but if it is too risky for them then just focus on the story and the gameplay instead. i will happily buy a game with quality gameplay and story with decent graphics
This is so true. The Verge had a great article about the state of gaming.
interesting.. funny but interesting... wii was freak luck & nintendo thinks that families & senior citizens will go running after wii U like last time.. AAA 3rd party games dont sell squat on nintendo systems.. Only (well mostly) Ninny makes games that sell on anything they put out.. They can move in a different direction but since this cloud gaming thing is obviously going to happen, many costs of development will go down & only need ONE form instead of multiconsole versions of the same game to stream across every smartphone, smart tv, computers, systems, etc.. & it will cut costs on various other things like physical distribution.. This upcoming generation will probably be the last for home consoles.. after that, if u want physical games, u will need handhelds & even thats in danger when cloud gaming takes off.. by 2016 or so the majority of households will have internet connections & a device that can run max spec'd PC quality games & nintendo will just be its own entity for family friendly fun... But most families including the ones shown for wii u ads, have tablets & smartphones so u do the math