It also mentions that the unannounced title is planned to have a “live ops” phase post-release, suggesting that the Hogwarts Legacy sequel could be a live-service game. WB Games has been quite vocal about doubling down on its live-service push in recent times, seemingly unfazed by the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
That’s all you need to know.
Live service games are not necessarily bad. It’s just most of the live service games releasing are bad games.
Counterpoint: it’s WB Games. Nothing they’ve done in the last few years gives me confidence that their suits won’t fuck things up in their attempts to wring ever more money out of their games.
Can’t really disagree tbh. Just fed up with the live service = bad game. It is often the case, because of how the live service or game itself is built, but not a rule.
There are good live service games, but the blatant monetization bothers some people.
Take Warframe, one of the most popular live service games. Everything can be earned in game, including the premium currency as long as you’re willing to put in time and effort. However, every single UI element offers a way to spend that premium currency with higher presentation priority than the actual in-universe methods of doing whatever that menu is for.
Want a specific gun? Only 500 platinum for a fully kitted out model* (or 25,000 credits for the blueprint you actually want, and it wasn’t until fairly recently that they added tooltips showing where to earn things in-game). Building something? Only 20 platinum to rush construction, or you could wait a day. Want to customize your frame? Here’s a few dozen color palettes, 99% of which cost platinum.
* Which is such an awful newbie trap. Don’t buy weapons or frames off the Market in Warframe, kids. Their Prime variants, which are statistically superior, can be bought off other players for a fraction of what DE charges for the inferior regular versions. The Market is hilariously, blatantly overpriced and has been since the very beginning.
Space Engineers is another offender. It’s a block-building game and all of its DLC is cosmetic skins, but even if you don’t own the DLCs those skins show up as unique blocks in the block picker with a padlock icon that tells you to buy their associated DLC. It clutters up the UI to the point of worthlessness, but there’s no way to turn it off because it acts as an advertisement.
Let’s not even get into gacha games, which feed off of addictive impulses to have a small percentage of players pay thousands of dollars to subsidize everyone else who plays for free.
Live Service and Dark Patterns go together. Games as a Service requires a constant revenue stream to fund development, which incentivises predatory design patterns.
Idk, I think the whole “live service” model is fraught with issues. If the profit model is to make a game that can continually produce profit from the same base of users, then there’s a huge incentive to use manipulative tactics to keep people engaging with the game. If the profit model is to make a game that keeps selling to new customers, then the incentive is to make current users really happy so they recommend it to others.
That’s why I assume live-service games will suck unless proven otherwise. The good news is that my expectations are already quite low, so it’s pretty easy to impress me if the game is at least decent.
Yeah so what makes you argue against the average on something we have no knowledge on? If its often the case wouldn’t it be most likely you’re wrong in defending it?
I’m not judging the game one way or another. I’m arguing about the blind hate when term “live service” gets mentioned. It can be done right and some people like having a game that can be their main game and gets updated regularly. Most live services are bad because the live service element is tacked on to make more money or the developement focused on making a live service, but not a good game.
I reserve my judgment. Most likely this one will not be done in a good way, WB certainly doesn’t inspire confidence. But people act as if live service = bad game which is not always true. Lately it is, yes, but it’s not a rule set in stone.
I can agree with that, and I have to admit in biased against both jkr and live service games cause I’m a preservationist - but neither of those really define others enjoyment lol
Not to mention jk herself, making sure at least some cut of her cash cow is going to hurting trans people
I get that, but she’s already a billionaire. The damage is done; nothing we as consumers can do will have a meaningful effect on her life. And the game studio is obviously against her views, given the positive presence of a clearly MtF trans character* in the first game.
* Which honestly bothered me (the obviousness, not the trans part), because the Potterverse is one where you’d imagine transitioning to be easy and perfect (take that, Jo). I think it would have worked better if that character had a flawlessly feminine voice and only revealed they were born male later in their dialog. The way it was implemented it felt like pandering to negate Rowling’s toxic reputation, which tbf it probably was.
Tho a portion of that funding is going to her and then directly to anti-trans organisations, of which she continues to have the money to do thanks to all this harry potter IP.
By defending it all you’re doing is gaurenteeing the damage will continue to happen and worsen
What I meant by it being too late is that once you’re a billionaire, you can fund your interests (like making the world a worse place) off the passive income you make from interest and investments. Licensing fees are probably a drop in the bucket at this point. Even if she makes tens of millions less due to a massive boycott (which is wildly optimistic), it wouldn’t affect her life or political activities a smidgeon.
And since Hogwarts Legacy was the game that finally dethroned Call of Duty and random sports games as the top seller of 2023, I doubt a boycott would be at all effective. Harry Potter was many people’s childhood, and they’ll buy it regardless of external factors just to finally live in that world.
Edit: I fully support anyone who chooses to boycott Rowling and anything associated with her. It makes sense to not want to support her in any way. I just wanted to point out the unfortunate truth that a boycott won’t actually hurt Rowling or her disgusting political activism in any meaningful way, outside of maybe bruising her ego. She’s not beholden to public image like a corporation is, so she won’t even make a token effort to appear less awful.
Casual reminder: JKR is a bigot terf, and part holocaust/nazi denier
I knew the first, but not the second.
Looks like there are several videos discussing it, but the one i watched was from Caelen Conrad.
Wow this was so out of my mind I’m surprised the the developers themselves didn’t forget this game came out.
The game made over a billion dollars but disappeared from the cultural zeitgeist almost immediately. Of course the publisher only cares about that first part, so unnecessary sequel it is!
