You may have wondered over the years why video game developers don't put something a bit more substantial than a 3D model viewer in their loading screens.
The reason is because of a 20-year-old patent from Namco that stated the company was the only one allowed to put minigames in video game loading screens.
Today, Bandai Namco announced its financial results for the fiscal year between April 2024 and March 2025, alongside its future strategy.
Bandai Namco has some impressive titles for those attending PAX East and fans should be thrilled to see the games.
2K Games is there and supposedly Square Enix as well. It is nice to ser bigger publishers return to U.S. shows and hopefully it continues as I have not been to PAX West since 2019 as it's all indies and not worth the travel for me. Staff handles it but if this continues I can see me being back in Seattle for the big show.
Bandai Namco announced its financial results for the first nine months of the fiscal year, on top of revealing its new mid-term plan.
Bandai Namco: Make games that are fun and people want to play. Profit.
Other game corporations CEOs: ah yes, profit.
Hopefully everyone takes advantage of this now.
Now we won't be so bored at games with long loading screens
In b4 no one takes advantage of it.
Well that said unless you're an open world game on consoles loading tiem are usually well below 20secs so idk if mini games will be a thing going forward.
I don't think anyone actually was afraid of infringing on this. Weird though the last time I've seen it was in Okami(Capcom).
"The 20 minute load times arent really an issue because we have provided players with a deep and engrossing minigame that allows us to not optimize jack shit about the loading, Your Welcome"