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submitted 7 months ago by slaacaa@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world
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[-] JDPoZ@lemmy.world 91 points 7 months ago

Said this in another thread :

First off - yes Sony is in the wrong.

Second - Helldivers ain’t Flappy Bird. Making an online multiplayer game that needs the ability to do reliable matchmaking across multiple platforms with hundreds of thousands of players out there needs MASSIVE network and infrastructure support…

So you may say “don’t take money from the mob,” but this is more a situation of where if they HADN’T taken Sony’s support, they likely wouldn’t have been able to have the resources to have done all that themselves which could have made the difference between their great success and failure.

Remember that the first helldivers game was also a Sony published title where everything worked out fine for everyone then… but mostly because it wasn’t near as big a success story and making headlines but was instead a far more niche title lost mostly in the noise of smaller dev Sony titles.

I’m sure arrowhead has learned its lesson now and it will likely able probably to flex its muscles in the future thanks to its success financially - as I’m sure lots of publishers will be now coming at them with much more lucrative and favorable contract deals going forward, but they probably would not have been able to do what they wanted to do at the scale that they have been able to had Sony not been there to help provide that initial capital and infrastructure support.

This is Sony’s fault fully. The guys at Arrowhead are just wanting to have the means to make good games. They needed the resources to launch successfully and pretending it would have been feasible otherwise without said resources is sadly… naive.

[-] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

What does it matter if the game "launches successfully" if it doesn't sustain itself? They knew theyd likely lose their players but they were hoping theyd be special - this game is not successful in the end.

Your entire argument boils down to: they wouldn't have been able to cheat us into thinking this was a good game without sony. If theyre going to take my money and kill the game anyway, it would have been better to not make it at all. That's what thousands of indie devs have to contend with every day.

[-] Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago

I think his argument comes down to, don't hate the playa, hate the game. Far better for them to have made the game, as it clearly is a good game. The publisher coming in and shitting all over everything is what makes the situation bad. Hopefully, this can serve as more inspiration for indie devs (who do make most of my fav games) and maybe lead to more studios not accepting Sony as a publisher. I can't fault Arrowhead for wanting to make what they love, but I can hope Sony burns to the ground never to rise again.

[-] DogWater@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

You're talking like this was premeditated by the development studio......is that really the case?

[-] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Unless there's evidence that AH got a special deal, there's no chance they didn't know this was an eventual requirement.

I've been an engineer in the AA/AAA games industry for almost 2 decades, my job often involves assessing the technical feasibility of games that big publishers like Sony want to invest in/ acquire.

Someone somewhere at AW agreed to shove PSN sign-in requirements in the deal, hoping it would blow over like many games before. (e.g rocket league / epic account debacle). Now the devs are sorry it's not working out and say "their hands are tied", but they must have known this was coming. There are way too many legal ramifications for this to be a random power-move by Sony.

Edit: sony apparently lifted the requirement today

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I'm gonna be honest. It didn't matter to them at the time. Look at it. They made their game and we all played it and loved it. For that time they were on cloud nine. They definitely got what they wanted, for a moment anyway. I can't say I wouldn't end up in the same situation if I was ever more than a shit dev.

Edit: but to add, I'd put huge banners in game saying it was a requirement at login. As far as I know I was never bothered in game for it. And if I was it was too easy to click and ignore.

[-] Iapar@feddit.de 2 points 7 months ago

I agree with you that they most likely needed the money to do what they wanted to do at that scale.

But I think my point still stands. Because it is a deal with the devil in the most literal sense that is possible. You get to your goal faster, easier or at all but in the end you have to ask yourself if the price you paid for that was worth it when the devil comes collecting. That is the moral of the fictional Storys, isn't it?

But to add to this. I think we, as consumers, aren't completely innocent either. Buying only the best looking, 1000 hours, other buzzword games. This undeniably sends a message to indie devs which can lead to people making self harming decisions.

One could argue that we got groomed to want that. And I do. All those blockbuster-games that were made under gruesome conditions are unsustainable. But we didn't knew that. We thought that they were the new normal.

But now we know better. This is just normal if you walk over corpses to get to your goal. And if we want developers that value our time and mental health, then we should value developers time and mental health in return.

Which means showing them that we will buy games that are not those 10 million dollar productions. And that we will measure the quality of the game compared to the resources that went into that particular game and not compared to a game that had an unholy amount of resources to burn through.

In the end we need to find a way to cut out all the rich people who came into the gaming industry as it broke into mainstream, who are throwing their weight/money around and bully everybody into submission.

And that needs strength of character. It means not buying the new shiny thing that we have seen an add for the hundredth time today, no matter how much we want that. It means not taking that deal which will make that problem go away quicker.

If gaming has taught us anything, it is how to prevail against overwhelming forces. That it takes compassion, companionship, a bit of anger and sacrifices.

If we haven't learned that, why the fuck are we even playing.

this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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