Hey Allies!
I'm Axel, level/quest designer at Ubisoft, currently working on Assassin's Creed Origins.
I started my career at Larian Studios and worked on games like Divinity: Original Sin. My main focus is to create memorable stories and characters. #context
I'm a big Nintendo fan desperate for a new Metroid. My other favorite Nintendo series are Donkey Kong Country, Fire Emblem, Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda.
Overall, I'm into a lot of different genres, but particularly action/adventure, RPG, and platforming. And FIFA!
I currently own a Wii U, 3DS and PlayStation 4.
Let's be friends!
Well I watched the podcast and I enjoyed their discussion more there. They're still critical but they express their points better, and also give Stadia the benefit of the doubt, seemed a lot more fair to me.
Anyhoo, it's going to be very interesting to follow the inception of this new monster in the next few months!
You keep saying they're dishonest but I didn't feel it that way.
Actually, if you allow me to be cheeky for a minute, they were totally honest when they said they would show the "future of gaming". That's what they showed us, the future, not the present. The ideal future they're working towards, that may not come to fruition for the next 5 or 10 years, but will eventually.
Like I said in my first post, I don't think they expect this to blow up as soon as it launches this year, it'll probably only offer a handful of games, and they'll gather data in terms of performance, user engagement and all that crap. This is a service that they're planning to build upon for many years in the future.
Of course they're trying to "sell" it as something exciting as much as possible, they want to attract partners and convince devs, publishers and the world that this is the future. And considering the amount of partners they have on board already, it seems clear that they all agree it is. I'm sure behind closed doors they've addressed all the potential issues, all these companies are aware of them.
Again I think judging it the same way as a new console launching this year is going at it the wrong way. Maybe their messaging prior to the event was misleading, maybe trying to hype up gamers at the same time as devs was a mistake, but to call them shady and dishonest is unfair in my opinion.
@mbun said in Google Stadia:
That's not what people actually want. People want this to work and become an alternative for consoles
I wouldn't mind if it failed actually, I'm an old fart and want to buy a new console every 5 years! ;)
No. of Players: 2 players simultaneous
Even better!
Eurogamer has an interesting 4-point scale:
@mbun I have no issue with them being skeptical, I am too and I don't expect them to have blind optimism about everything.
But there should be a middle ground between taking Google at their word and condescendingly dismissing everything they're saying. It's the attitude that rubbed me the wrong way (again, mostly Kyle, I feel like Blood was a lot more fair and level-headed for example).
It felt like they were in it to hate it from the start, that their mindset was "Let's nitpick and mock everything we can" rather than "Let's see what they have to say and give it a fair shake". Maybe that wasn't their intention but that's how it came across to me.
When they showed you could start Assassin's Creed directly from the YouTube trailer and you were dropped in the middle of the game, Jones promptly pointed out that it was unrealistic because when you launch the game, you should start at the main menu, go through character creation, and so on. Duh, obviously, but it should also be obvious that this was done for the sake of the presentation. They would have been the first ones to say how boring it is to show you a game's main menu had Google done it that way.
Like I said, Google probably overhyped it, maybe they shouldn't have broadcasted it to the world in that manner, but it doesn't mean you have to ridicule them.
And even once the dust settled, their post-show impressions were mostly about discussing the presentation itself rather than what was actually said and its possible implications.
I would expect more insight from them, this thread for example had way more interesting discussions about what this technology could mean for the industry as a whole, the old vs new, how it's scary that Google may want to swallow up devs, and so on. There were a ton of fascinating topics to bring up. But no, they'd rather keep hammering on about what a faux-pas it is to start your talk with "I'm not a gamer" (it was a clumsy move, I agree).
I haven't watched the podcast yet, maybe there they'll go into those topics in a more thoughtful manner.
As for the concerns about the feasibility of the whole thing, of course those are fair and should be brought up, but again maybe not in a way that implies that Google engineers have no idea what they're doing.
And saying Google should have addressed those concerns themselves is not very realistic. Of course it's marketing, they're not gonna come out and say "Hey it may not work perfectly at launch but hopefully we'll get there at some point!". You don't expect Nintendo to show off the Wii for the first time and say "Your movements might not always register properly and setting up the sensor bar is a bit annoying".
Time will tell, if it indeed proves to be unplayable for 90% of the audience, it will crash and burn, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that our good old consoles are here to stay for at least another 5 years.
This topic gets spammed by non-news on a very regular basis, so I wouldn't consider posting trailers of actual new game announcements to be spam, we should be safe ;)
Forgot Creature in the Well, it looks very fun too!
Since I never played Crypt of the Necrodancer I'm not too sure what the gameplay will feel like, but it looks gorgeous, and here's more info about the game:
- A rhythmic action-adventure game in the world of The Legend of Zelda series
- Explore the randomly generated overworld and dungeons to save Hyrule as Link or Princess Zelda
- Use items from The Legend of Zelda series, plus spells and weapons from Crypt of the NecroDancer
- Outstep legendary enemies and bosses in rhythmic combat
- Keep the beat with 25 remixed classic The Legend of Zelda tunes
I'm in, I guess?
Some good stuff in there! My top picks:
The rumors were true, should we expect Ori soon too?
I'm not familiar with Crypt of the Necrodancer, only know it by name. Is this a DLC for it, or a brand new game? I'm very confused!
@dipset I totally feel you, and just to clarify, I never said I like it. But I see it as inevitable, like you said, the huge majority of people don't know any better or simply don't care.
We'll soon be the equivalent of music enthusiasts buying vinyl records, movie enthusiasts buying Blu-Rays, while the rest is happy with Spotify and Netflix.
And it's funny because in some ways, I've already transitioned to some of the modern convenience aspects of gaming. This gen I've only bought games digitally for my PS4 and Switch. And I love it, saves me a lot of space, and physical editions feel irrelevant to me anyway in the new era of day-one patches and no manuals. And when I moved countries a few years ago, I was very happy to only have to carry my console and not a whole box of games along with it. Maybe in 10 years when I can't re-download certain games I'll feel the sting, but right now I'm all in.
I doubt I'll play on Stadia, at least not throughout the next gen, but 2 gens from now, who knows? Stadia essentially makes the entire concept of "gens" obsolete at this point. It's scary because that's what we're used to, but I can foresee some advantages too, like no more backwards compatibility issues. Microsoft is clearly moving towards this too.
Let's see how it goes!
Announcement
With EZA reactions
Digital Foundry Performance Testing
I thought it was a very interesting reveal, and I'm pretty disappointed by the Allies' treatment of it.
They judged it as a traditional console announcement, as if we were watching a PS5 reveal. Obviously from that point of view, it would be disappointing, as you'd want to see exclusive games, exciting IPs, and so on. But it was clearly not about that.
Of course, from a hardcore/traditional gamer perspective, it's not immediately exciting, but that's not who this presentation was aimed at first and foremost. It was aimed at developers, and more specifically I'd say at publishers. The main selling point of this whole thing is that through Stadia, you'll have access to an audience of a billion users, as opposed to less than a hundred million on any given console. It really is Netflix for games. That's the key aspect, and you can bet Ubisoft and all the other big companies fully realize the potential of this thing.
It is the future, whether we like or not.
I'm not saying it will catch on and blow up as soon as it launches, and I highly doubt Google expects it to. They might burn money for the first few years, but they know that down the line it'll be extremely lucrative. Whether you'll be buying games individually, paying a monthly fee, or even playing for free and have to watch ads, we don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter, at least in its first phase.
What they're selling is convenience, and it's a lot more valuable to the masses than some technical nitpicks. We can have doubts about their performance claims all we want, but they're not idiots, they've definitely thought about all the potential issues way before any of us did. It's clear that they're going all in on this, and if one company has the money and the expertise to pull this off, it's Google.
In a way, it's the concept of the Switch, which everybody loves, but cranked up to 11.
It may not be perfect at launch, it may not take us away from our beloved PlayStations or Switches, but 5 years, 10 years down the line, it'll be the mainstream way of playing games, I'm almost certain of it.
Yes, there were quite a few cringy moments, maybe they overhyped it and the presentation dragged on a bit, but overall, it made sense and the potential is obvious. So I feel like the snarky reactions from the Allies, particularly Kyle, came off as petty and short-sighted.
What did you think?