What Video Games Are You Currently Playing

I renewed my nintendo online today for another year. It works out to less than a penny a day so I'm not complaining. 

just a heads up Rocket League is going free2play on Wednesday.  And if you used to play on ps4 you can merge your accounts so all your old crap is on Steam, which is nice.  

  On 9/21/2020 at 5:17 AM, cloud capture said:

just a heads up Rocket League is going free2play on Wednesday.  And if you used to play on ps4 you can merge your accounts so all your old crap is on Steam, which is nice.  

I read on the net:
Starting September 23, 2020, Rocket League will no longer be available on Steam, but current owners, who bought it on Steam previously, can still keep playing the game, but only if they link their Rocket-league-account with an Epic-account. Starting September 23, 2020, Rocket League will only be available on PC on the Epic Game Store, and will be free-to-play (with cosmetic microtransactions).

My thoughts:
Seems like Epic Games is moving all of their games and the games of the Game Studios they acquired over the years from other competing Stores and Platforms to their Epic Games Store. (also look at the recent Epic vs Apple lawsuit) Reasoning: By no longer having to hand over the 30% cut on sales on other Stores and Platforms the Epic Games company gains more market-share and can make more mad $$$. This is probably the intention of both Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games and the creator of the Unreal Engine, (he owns >50% of the shares of the company) and Tencent, the Chinese multinational technology conglomerate holding company (they own 40% of the shares of the company).

It's kinda weird that when the Epic Games Store was first launched and introduced to PC gamers their motto was to bring more competition to the PC store front, but it seems it's more about bypassing revenue-cuts, exclusivity-deals and market-share.
However, they do hugely financial support a lot of indie game developers, apparently only in return for 1-year-timed exclusivity and a 12% revenue-cut. Also, I'm rather happy with all the free games you can freely collect from their store each week. This way I've collect about 140 PC games from their store so far. (I haven't bought a single game on the platform though, lol)

original Prey is actually pretty good. Slighty campy, but some of the gameplay stuff was great. Still holds up I think

  On 9/21/2020 at 11:26 AM, MaartenVC said:

I read on the net:
Starting September 23, 2020, Rocket League will no longer be available on Steam, but current owners, who bought it on Steam previously, can still keep playing the game, but only if they link their Rocket-league-account with an Epic-account. Starting September 23, 2020, Rocket League will only be available on PC on the Epic Game Store, and will be free-to-play (with cosmetic microtransactions).

My thoughts:
Seems like Epic Games is moving all of their games and the games of the Game Studios they acquired over the years from other competing Stores and Platforms to their Epic Games Store. (also look at the recent Epic vs Apple lawsuit) Reasoning: By no longer having to hand over the 30% cut on sales on other Stores and Platforms the Epic Games company gains more market-share and can make more mad $$$. This is probably the intention of both Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games and the creator of the Unreal Engine, (he owns >50% of the shares of the company) and Tencent, the Chinese multinational technology conglomerate holding company (they own 40% of the shares of the company).

It's kinda weird that when the Epic Games Store was first launched and introduced to PC gamers their motto was to bring more competition to the PC store front, but it seems it's more about bypassing revenue-cuts, exclusivity-deals and market-share.
However, they do hugely financial support a lot of indie game developers, apparently only in return for 1-year-timed exclusivity and a 12% revenue-cut. Also, I'm rather happy with all the free games you can freely collect from their store each week. This way I've collect about 140 PC games from their store so far. (I haven't bought a single game on the platform though, lol)

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I previously didn't have an Epic account but when I started RL last Friday it prompted me to login with existing epic account or make a ghost account using my steam login(which I did), then I had to set Steam as my RL preference and link my ps4.  It went pretty smooth, and I can avoid having to use Epic game store for anything.  Maybe when I build my next pc I'll feel more inclined to use EGS, especially since so many games will get exclusivity there.  

https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/?utm_content=buffer3ea03&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb&fbclid=IwAR3-Ce-TyxuT3ccn1ID1aG-FwSarnJLx5c2FWxv818IcZ34zDjvxTK5G9RE

not sure why my links won’t embed?

anyways Microsoft acquired zenimax today? That’s terrible news, I had no idea that was in the works.

$7.5B usd tho. Wow

Hotshot Racing (which is available on game pass). Good vibes arcade racing game where you mostly keep the gas pedal floored and drift and boost your way through the tracks. It's not very deep or anything, but it looks fine and feels so good. Sometimes you just want to kick back, relax and watch the pretty stuff fly by.

  On 9/21/2020 at 10:57 PM, Hugh Mughnus said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/?utm_content=buffer3ea03&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb&fbclid=IwAR3-Ce-TyxuT3ccn1ID1aG-FwSarnJLx5c2FWxv818IcZ34zDjvxTK5G9RE

not sure why my links won’t embed?

anyways Microsoft acquired zenimax today? That’s terrible news, I had no idea that was in the works.

 

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The amount of money being pushed around for corporate things like that always reminds me of how silly my paycheck is.

  On 9/21/2020 at 10:57 PM, Hugh Mughnus said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/?utm_content=buffer3ea03&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb&fbclid=IwAR3-Ce-TyxuT3ccn1ID1aG-FwSarnJLx5c2FWxv818IcZ34zDjvxTK5G9RE

not sure why my links won’t embed?

anyways Microsoft acquired zenimax today? That’s terrible news, I had no idea that was in the works.

$7.5B usd tho. Wow

 

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Whutnow?
From the article; The list of studios Microsoft would acquire with this deal:

•     Alpha Dog Games (mobile games)
•     Arkane Studios (Dishonored)
•     Arkane Studios Austin
•     Bethesda Game Studios (Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4)
•     Bethesda Game Studios Austin (Fallout 76)
•     Bethesda Game Studios Dallas
•     Bethesda Game Studios Montreal
•     Bethesda Softworks
•     id Software (Doom, Doom Eternal)
•     MachineGames (modern Wolfenstein series)
•     Roundhouse Studios (Rune 2)
•     Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo)
•     ZeniMax Online Studios (The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76)

$7.5 billion dollarinos!
That's absolutely crazy. Is this for real?
That's actually big news.

That might mean that future games within Dishonoured, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein, and The Evil Within franchises could become release exclusively to Xbox and Windows PC.
However my guess is that they'll eventually release their games about 1 year later on PlayStation and Nintendo Consoles.
So timed-exclusives, like Epic does.
They might also include more of these games in the Xbox Game Pass, enticing more people to subscribe.

  On 9/22/2020 at 1:17 PM, MaartenVC said:

Whutnow?
From the article; The list of studios Microsoft would acquire with this deal:

•     Alpha Dog Games (mobile games)
•     Arkane Studios (Dishonored)
•     Arkane Studios Austin
•     Bethesda Game Studios (Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4)
•     Bethesda Game Studios Austin (Fallout 76)
•     Bethesda Game Studios Dallas
•     Bethesda Game Studios Montreal
•     Bethesda Softworks
•     id Software (Doom, Doom Eternal)
•     MachineGames (modern Wolfenstein series)
•     Roundhouse Studios (Rune 2)
•     Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo)
•     ZeniMax Online Studios (The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76)

$7.5 billion dollarinos!
That's absolutely crazy. Is this for real?
That's actually big news.

That might mean that future games within Dishonoured, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein, and The Evil Within franchises could become release exclusively to Xbox and Windows PC.
However my guess is that they'll eventually release their games about 1 year later on PlayStation and Nintendo Consoles.
So timed-exclusives, like Epic does.
They might also include more of these games in the Xbox Game Pass, enticing more people to subscribe.

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I’m thinking it would make sense strategically for them to keep those franchises completely exclusive to xbox & PC, I think Microsoft has always struggled in terms of exclusive titles. Remains to be seen of course but yeah those are some bigggggg franchises they’ve just gained control of!

Capitalism is great for the end user!

Back on a Dark Souls tip, redoing the remastered trilogy. I haven't played though the first one before and it's a blast, in that typical masochist dark souls kind of way. No armor builds with big heavy 2handers and pikes is such fun. The paths are real messy and it took some time before I realized shit like Sen's Fortress aren't recommended at level 30ish. It's amazing to think how people first figured out some of the weird interactions, like getting a dragon sword from shooting arrows at the big red dragon's tail. 

  On 9/22/2020 at 3:23 PM, chim said:

Back on a Dark Souls tip, redoing the remastered trilogy. I haven't played though the first one before and it's a blast, in that typical masochist dark souls kind of way. No armor builds with big heavy 2handers and pikes is such fun. The paths are real messy and it took some time before I realized shit like Sen's Fortress aren't recommended at level 30ish. It's amazing to think how people first figured out some of the weird interactions, like getting a dragon sword from shooting arrows at the big red dragon's tail. 

Are you gonna end on Bloodborne? That's still my favorite, although I do miss some aspects of Dark Souls in there

  On 9/22/2020 at 3:33 PM, chronical said:

Are you gonna end on Bloodborne? That's still my favorite, although I do miss some aspects of Dark Souls in there

Good question. I haven't touched it but my nephew showed some gameplay, it looked a little alien and wonky. Probably worth a shot. 

  On 9/22/2020 at 3:45 PM, chim said:

Good question. I haven't touched it but my nephew showed some gameplay, it looked a little alien and wonky. Probably worth a shot. 

If you're into anything Lovecraftian and would like to try out the Souls formula without a shield, with faster and riskier combat, Bloodborne is for you

Weirdly enough, the Demon's Souls remaster is the main reason I'm getting a PS5 and honestly the only game besides RE8 "VIIage" that I'm remotely interested in playing.

RE: Microsoft and Bethesda - I think they might leverage this to boost Game Pass - that, or they think the only way to combat Sony and Nintendo exclusives is start building a library of their own AAA studios that produce games people will defect to a console for. That being said, there's nothing in the acquisition for me that would make me get an XBOX.

  On 9/22/2020 at 4:21 PM, Joyrex said:

they think the only way to combat Sony and Nintendo exclusives is start building a library of their own AAA studios that produce games people will defect to a console for. That being said, there's nothing in the acquisition for me that would make me get an XBOX.

This is my take on it tbh. Although most of those titles (elder scrolls, doom etc) are ones I have always and will continue to play on PC anyways. I can’t imagine playing and enjoying something as fast paced as DOOM on console

Time will tell of course - but the timing of the acquisition so close to next gen console releases has me thinking it’s for exclusivity

  On 9/22/2020 at 4:42 PM, Hugh Mughnus said:

This is my take on it tbh. Although most of those titles (elder scrolls, doom etc) are ones I have always and will continue to play on PC anyways. I can’t imagine playing and enjoying something as fast paced as DOOM on console

Yeah, a lot of these games started out on PC and generally are preferred on PC, so I think really it's more about Game Pass (they are looking at what Epic and EA are doing) and less about consoles. I wonder if the Series S/X will be their last or next to last as they transition to more of a game service, which seems to be what the long-term goal is.

Microsoft's big mistake (I think) early on was not courting Japanese developers more - had they been more successful in Japan, there might be more must-have games on XBOX that would appeal to the Playstation crowd and pull them towards XBOX.

Before the Switch saved Nintendo, I really thought that was going to happen - Nintendo become a game service and have their IP on both Sony and Microsoft hardware.

  On 9/22/2020 at 4:47 PM, Hugh Mughnus said:

Time will tell of course - but the timing of the acquisition so close to next gen console releases has me thinking it’s for exclusivity

Yeah, and they've already said they will consider releases on other consoles on a "case by case basis"

It's nice to see PC win the console wars this time around 8D

  On 9/22/2020 at 5:25 PM, cloud capture said:

It's nice to see PC win the console wars this time around 8D

Again!

Amiga 4 lyf

  On 9/22/2020 at 7:16 PM, oscillik said:

Amiga 4 lyf

I wish I still had my amiga. Shadow of the beast, operation wolf etc. Classic games.

I had a vertical scrolling shoot em up game, kinda like Raptor COS but in a spaceship. I can’t remember what it was called but would love to find out so I can pop it in an emulator

  On 9/22/2020 at 4:49 PM, Joyrex said:

Microsoft's big mistake (I think) early on was not courting Japanese developers more - had they been more successful in Japan, there might be more must-have games on XBOX that would appeal to the Playstation crowd and pull them towards XBOX.

The rumors that they are buying Sega won't go away. 

What if they buy Nintendo and Sony