Recent Posts

41

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo

« Last post by Dinar87 on April 15, 2024, 04:27:30 AM »

Totk has already sold over 20 million copies. The switch is heavily pirated and is about to become the best selling console of all time. But sure, piracy is definitely significant 

I mean for super popular stuff like Zelda, Mario and Pokemon they can survive, but pirates don't just stop at these games.  How would you feel if Metroid Prime 4 gets pirated over 1 million times?  Even if not every single one of those pirating the game would buy it, for smaller franchises, just getting a few hundred thousand more sales can be what makes the difference between companies greenliting sequels or deciding it's not worth continuing this franchise.

Companies like Nintendo kind of have to do all they can to fight piracy to protect all kind of games on their systems.  If it was something that became easy to do that wasn't being fought against I can guarantee you Switch software sales would be taking a much bigger hit.

That's why I always laugh when some gamers act like Nintendo is the worst company in the world for going after companies like Yuzu.  I mean, Yuzu was literally encouraging people to pirate Switch games and was even making money off of said piracy.  It's like seriously, if Nintendo didn't do anything it would just be encouraging others to do the same thing and before you know it, piracy is a much bigger issue that's easier for the average person to do as well.

If metroid prime 4 got pirated 1 million times, it would be great as said pirates would inevitably spread positive word of mouth, making the actual game sales higher than they would have been.

Your theory about ease of pirating being a potential threat is flawed as indie games almost always can be easily pirated, especially if they're on gog with no drm. But indie games haven't been negatively effected by piracy.

By fighting piracy you're also killing game preservation as the license holders prefer to manipulate the market with artificial scarcity (disney vault stuff) instead of individually selling all their legacy titles for a reasonable price (not $60), no subscription, no drm. Nintendo's virtual console used to be similar to this, but now it's a subscription so "you will own nothing and you will be happy"

42

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Year in Review 2023

« Last post by boredanguish on April 15, 2024, 03:21:26 AM »

I also played Tears of the Kingdom and Mega Man Battle. But personally, I don't rate these games as highly as the Pokemon or Sonic games.

43

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« Last post by Evan_B on April 14, 2024, 06:48:05 PM »

…Well, I’m going to have to revise my list a little bit.

Both Signalis and Frogun have been absolutely miserable experiences, and no surprise, because both rely heavily on absolutely terrible auto-aim systems as a core part of their gameplay. I tried Frogun first, beg cause I thought somewhere in my heart that I had nostalgia for old 3D platformers. If I did, they weren’t platformers like Frogun, which crams an insane amount of collectibles in every level and expects you to pick them all up in a single go in order to earn one of its meta-emblems. Stop this. I hate it. Also, the controls are bad! Yes, the Frogun has a bad aiming mechanic and in a very time-sensitive platformer, using a static “aim yourself system” to reposition and avoid the awful auto aim is not a suitable solution. The music is incredibly grating and it makes me not want to play the game.

Then, there’s Signalis. Visually, this game is stunning, and I can’t fault it for its atmosphere… until it becomes a rip off of Silent Hill in the later hours of the first playthrough. Actually, I really don’t have a lot of sympathy for the game’s mixture of cosmic horror and sci-fi elements in general, which become a bit ham-fisted and trope-y. I am not scared by Signalis. It doesn’t fill me with dread from a narrative standpoint, only a gameplay one, because holy ****, this game’s inventory management system is a hot mess. The amount of times I’ve had to backtrack for no reason other than “I don’t have enough space for the amount of resources and puzzle keys this game has thrown at me” is obscene. I mean. There’s a puzzle that requires six keys. SIX. I would have honestly respected the game a bit more if it had the balls to make me put all of them in at the same time, but no, it’s just a slow back and forth to get them all into the right slots. Also, Signalis has a number of really decent puzzles, but it also has a tendency to do the “here’s one key that leads to another room with another key” thing. And lastly, the enemy design, which makes sense to make uniform because you’re dealing with mass-produced robots, is also very inscrutable because of the low-res graphics, which makes the very unappealing decision to have certain enemies require getting burned to really bite it (which requires another resource that takes up another slot in your inventory) very annoying and disrespectful. Oh, and apparently I’m playing the improved version? With better inventory management?!

I can’t fault Signalis for its visuals, but I sure as hell think its world-building is bland, getting away with its obscurity because… well, we as a society tend to conflate ambiguity with depth or nuance. Anyway, I also really appreciate its scope and ambition, but Anno:Mutationem is a game with just as much visual style and inscrutable narrative, and it’s ultimately more fun to play.

…So now I’m trying Bleak Sword DX. We’ll see how that goes.

44

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« Last post by M.K.Ultra on April 12, 2024, 02:26:48 PM »

I managed to beat Fire Emblem Engage on Switch this week. Total play time was about 58 hours and I managed to get 294 achievements. If anyone knows the total number of achievements available in the game let me know. I played all the paralogues and main chapters. I did not try out the skirmishes or online battles in the Somniel yet.

This was my third Fire Emblem game. Three Houses was my first and I really enjoyed it so I picked up and played  Birthright. Three Houses' professor simulator components were fun and the in-between battle activities here certainly don't compare, but the battles themselves seemed more true to form with the various weakness triangle systems.

I thought the characters here were just as strong as Three Houses and think the Four Hounds were especially interesting. You can see from the bottom picture that Ivy was my favorite so I ended up pairing up with her.

I played on normal difficulty, but in classic mode (permadeath on). The way new characters are added to the team really supports this and I ended up not using quite a few from the initial roster later on so I was probably over careful with not letting them die. Even when they do die, they still appear in cut scenes, but the end credits acknowledges their deaths.

There is certainly not as much replay value as Three Houses, but I will likely replay on the harder difficulty and maybe try out the online battles in the future. Looking forward to the next Fire Emblem game.

45

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« Last post by M.K.Ultra on April 12, 2024, 10:25:51 AM »

Well I've got one done so far.

Yooka-Laylee

Overall I enjoyed the game because of the huge variety of gameplay in it, but this was also the biggest problem.  For every section of the game I enjoyed, there was another section that was janky bullshit.  The developers really should have scaled down the size of the game, and focused more on polishing up what was in it, instead of trying to throw in as much stuff as possible, whether it was a good idea or not.

So now I'll move to the next Yooka-Laylee game, Impossible Lair which I also played 2.5 years ago but stopped because the first hour was so boring I was falling asleep.  Hopefully it picks up like this one did, but without all the unpolished garbage that this one ended up having.

I was so hyped for Yooka Laylee and even backed the game on kickstarter. I was left feeling it was just OK. I did give Impossible Lair a chance and thought that was much more my style as the DKC games are some of my favorite. I am curious to hear your thoughts after you finish the final level.

46

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo

« Last post by Adrock on April 11, 2024, 12:13:57 PM »

I mean I agree with you that piracy can be bad for current gen games, especially indie games. I never pirate indie games. But if it was 1 million people pirating something like virtual boy wario land? There's no harm being done because nintendo isn't even selling it.

You moved the goal post, and I’m not interested in going down that rabbit hole here. If you want to have that conversation, start a new thread or use this one I created in 2022.

Even then for AAA games, there is no good evidence that 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale. Especially because publishers rarely make demos anymore and a lot of people use piracy to demo games to see if they'll actually like them. Only steam has good refund policies afterall. It inherently relies on an assumption.

LOL, what? That’s irrelevant.

I mean for super popular stuff like Zelda, Mario and Pokemon they can survive, but pirates don't just stop at these games.  How would you feel if Metroid Prime 4 gets pirated over 1 million times?  Even if not every single one of those pirating the game would buy it, for smaller franchises, just getting a few hundred thousand more sales can be what makes the difference between companies greenliting sequels or deciding it's not worth continuing this franchise.

I agree with the rest of your post. Just wanted to highlight these bits.

While Nintendo’s methods may often seem draconian, no company can afford to set a weak precedent. It becomes that much harder to fight it the next time when bad faith actors push a little farther.

47

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« Last post by Luigi Dude on April 11, 2024, 11:06:36 AM »

Well I've got one done so far.

Yooka-Laylee

I first started this game about 2.5 years ago but only played for an hour because I was falling asleep.  Well last fall I played A Hat in Time and loved that game, and then I beat New Super Lucky Tale last month and liked that as well, so I thought, maybe I should give Yooka-Laylee another chance since I've been liking these other 3D platformers recently.

Well it started out OK.  Once I unlocked all 3 moves in the first world and expanded it, I actually started having fun.  I still don't get why they thought it was a good idea to make you have to expand each world, since it just makes your first time in each world feel like a waste since exploring some parts will just lead to a dead end until the world is expanded, which kind of defeats the whole point of exploring.

Overall I enjoyed the game because of the huge variety of gameplay in it, but this was also the biggest problem.  For every section of the game I enjoyed, there was another section that was janky bullshit.  The developers really should have scaled down the size of the game, and focused more on polishing up what was in it, instead of trying to throw in as much stuff as possible, whether it was a good idea or not.

So now I'll move to the next Yooka-Laylee game, Impossible Lair which I also played 2.5 years ago but stopped because the first hour was so boring I was falling asleep.  Hopefully it picks up like this one did, but without all the unpolished garbage that this one ended up having.

48

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo

« Last post by Luigi Dude on April 11, 2024, 10:44:11 AM »

Totk has already sold over 20 million copies. The switch is heavily pirated and is about to become the best selling console of all time. But sure, piracy is definitely significant 

I mean for super popular stuff like Zelda, Mario and Pokemon they can survive, but pirates don't just stop at these games.  How would you feel if Metroid Prime 4 gets pirated over 1 million times?  Even if not every single one of those pirating the game would buy it, for smaller franchises, just getting a few hundred thousand more sales can be what makes the difference between companies greenliting sequels or deciding it's not worth continuing this franchise.

Companies like Nintendo kind of have to do all they can to fight piracy to protect all kind of games on their systems.  If it was something that became easy to do that wasn't being fought against I can guarantee you Switch software sales would be taking a much bigger hit.

That's why I always laugh when some gamers act like Nintendo is the worst company in the world for going after companies like Yuzu.  I mean, Yuzu was literally encouraging people to pirate Switch games and was even making money off of said piracy.  It's like seriously, if Nintendo didn't do anything it would just be encouraging others to do the same thing and before you know it, piracy is a much bigger issue that's easier for the average person to do as well.

49

General Gaming / Re: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

« Last post by lolmonade on April 11, 2024, 10:07:51 AM »

Don't expect 6/6 for me, I'm just trying to give myself a wide berth for success 

50

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Boredom and Nintendo

« Last post by Dinar87 on April 11, 2024, 05:21:46 AM »

Yes, deservedly punished. Nintendo's entire reason for using mini discs for the gamecube was to stop piracy. This made development unnecessarily harder for third parties which punished nintendo by not porting their games to the console. I may love the gamecube but that was an objectively terrible decision on nintendo's part. If they'd of just used dvds like the competition I guarantee you the gamecube would've had far better third party support.

I'm a third party. I've got a game I want to release on a console and I've got two choice. On one console, it would be a little simpler to format my game to work on it. On the second console, it would take a little extra effort. However, if I release it on the first console, it will be very easy for some people to pirate the game. On the second console, it will be harder for people to pirate the software. Which should I choose? I'll go with the second. Anti-piracy measure will help to ensure people actually buy the product we put the time and money into making instead of someone uploading it for free and hurting our sales.

But wait! The first console has five times the userbase size as the second console. 50 million potential customers compared to 10 million customers of the second. Since the first is a bit easier to develop for, I guess we'll prioritize that even though there may be some loss due to piracy. Whew. That was close. Can you believe we almost chose the second console for a moment? They were actually trying to help protect our sales; Can you imagine that?! What a bunch of losers! Screw them and their console! I hope it goes out of business. In fact, let's tell our friends at other third parties to also not release stuff on that second console to teach them a lesson about how we are cool if our stuff gets pirated.

Your logic is flawed, Dinar87. Mini-discs were not the deciding factor for third parties when it came to releasing stuff on GameCube. If PS2 had mini-discs to also combat piracy, third parties when it have been cool with it. They wouldn't have all flocked to Xbox because it was the only one to use DVDs in this hypothetical. It was about the userbase and potential customers. (It was also about Sony and MS throwing money at third parties to help get some exclusive games and spur development. A problem with the industry that has continued for years but that's a whole other thing.) Quit creating a false narrative or buying into one that third parties wanted to "punish" Nintendo because of anti-piracy measures.

(And, for the record, I always though mini-discs were cool. It seemed like another leap to the future. They could create a store these huge games on these small discs. Wii with DVDs seemed like a step back.)

That assumes piracy would significantly affect the sales, which there is no proof of such. Only claims made by the companies themselves, again with them providing no proof. You cannot prove that the pirates would of bought your game if they weren't able to pirate them. A lot of pirates also come from third world countries where they couldn't afford the latest games anyways. Game of thrones is the most pirated tv show of all time afaik. Also one of the most successful tv shows of all time. Totk has already sold over 20 million copies. The switch is heavily pirated and is about to become the best selling console of all time. But sure, piracy is definitely significant 

If mini discs weren't an issue, why did the gamecube barely get any third party support compared to even the xbox, which sold similarly to the gamecube? The xbox has over 300 more games than the gamecube. If there was no difference, why 300 more games?

Same with the n64 cartridges. If they weren't a big deal for third parties, then why did the ps1 sell so well? How come the n64 didn't get games like final fantasy 7? The answer is square enix tried to port final fantasy 7 to the n64 but nintendo's dumb decision to use catridges and less powerful hardware at the time made it impossible.
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/20240215-27218/