All gaming IP is deleted. Studios must start over with new franchises and characters. Who survives and who fails?

I am a greedy trillionaire and tonight at midnight, I am buying the exclusive IP licensing rights to every game ever made. With my infinite wealth and power, I will force all development studios and publishers to make original content moving forward. However, in my haste to acquire all of these iconic franchises, I will forget to include unpatented game systems, so popular mechanics are not included in this IP apocalypse and are fair use.

Which development studios/publishers thrive due to their consistent innovation and gameplay quality and who disappears because they rely too heavily on franchise loyalty with mediocre offerings?

For success stories, I think Rockstar gets through pretty easily. Their formula is basically life in X setting during Y time period. You can replicate that almost infinitely with different iterations.

For failures, I'd list Nintendo. Not because their game quality is bad, but due to who their customers are. I think Nintendo would have a harder time selling new characters to longtime fans of dead franchises. Those who did buy the next Zelda clone would love the gameplay, but the name change would make a significant dent in first year revenue.

Video version with a few more mentions.

u/SamStephens — 5 days ago

Cyberpunk 2077 Dialogue - Beautiful Stylized Writing or a Cringey Mess?

I'm playing through the game for the first time and can't help but think the dialogue is super cringey. It's stilted and tries too hard to be cool. I'm sure I'm not the first person to share the opinion here, but... this ain't preem in the game biz.

Most conversations play out as if the characters are limited in how many words they're allowed to say. For example, "Need'ta ask a question" vs, "I need to ask you a question." I noticed this early on and now I can't stop seeing it in the writing because it occurs literally in every conversation. I get this is drawn heavily from Neuromancer, but many of the lines are delivered as though the voice actor had little to no coaching on tone, emphasis, or the context of the scene. Dexter DeShawn's lines are a good example of this. Combine the truncated sentence structure with voice acting that lacked a little conviction and you get conversations that feel like people are reading a foreign language.

I have no issue with the use of novel slang from this world, but I think it was done poorly here. I could totally buy into it being colloquial sentence structure and slang, but it's really inconsistent and not delivered in a way that is believable. That's why it's jarring to me. Abbreviated sentence structure as a way of communicating happens like once per conversation, but it's never the WHOLE conversation. The dialogue FEELS like a team of Polish writers with no true understanding of US urban culture put together a 'cool guy' script in a foreign language then a separate team translated it after. I believe you could give the same game to Rockstar and their dialogue could feature all of the same slang but be delivered in a way that felt authentic and genuinely cool.

None of this is a dealbreaker for me, but it's quite disappointing to see it from a studio with this much experience and funding. I'm having fun with the core gameplay loop overall and bought the DLC to extend the adventure, but I wouldn't be able to power through for the story alone if the gunplay and tech weren't so satisfying.

Anyone else feel something similar? Video version of the discussion here.

u/SamStephens — 9 days ago

Reckless Ben is His Own Worst Enemy

Does Ben deserve the trouble he's found himself in? No, I don't think so. But I also believe most of his legal battles were entirely avoidable if he had prepared any type of interpersonal conflict contingency plan.

It's frustrating as a viewer to watch him reach 95% progress on a wild plan, just to have it fall apart because he's seemingly unable to turn off the "simpleton goof" character when it matters.

youtube.com
u/SamStephens — 1 month ago
▲ 71 r/DotA2

Magnus RP auto-casting after Ice Path.

RP gets interrupted, then goes off automatically after stun while issuing move commands. Is this a known thing?

u/SamStephens — 3 months ago

Howdy everyone. I'm getting married in October but still need to make a decision on the baker for the cake(s). My fiancée and I have sampled a few places but are looking to compare a couple more.

Y'all have any good recommendations for bakers/bakeries? Thanks.

reddit.com
u/SamStephens — 4 months ago