I mean, people need to remember that Kickstarter isn't a store. When you send money you haven't bought anything really, not in the sense that it's for goods anyway.

No, what you're really doing is something closer to gambling. Could be Gatcha and you get something else, could be something less then you expected for your tier level at the higher-stakes table, might be exactly what you hoped and you "win", might be nothing at all and you "lose". Might take 10 years instead of 6 months. Point is, all of these should be expected potential outcomes. It's a gamble, and if you're not comfortable with it, pay for it when it comes out instead. A lot of projects don't even give discounts to backers anymore and you're basically paying retail/pre-order prices for games that aren't even made yet.

Stretch goals for Linux/Mac should almost never be believed. I can practically guarantee the majority of the ones that promise that as stretch goals are vaguely aware that Unity, or .Net whatever, and/or their engine of choice has "linux" support and think that with some extra effort they could figure out how to build for the extra platforms. They don't realize until mid-development that that was a bad assumption and that they needed to target the other platforms from the beginning so they make better, more compatible, choices. Frankly, some of the blame absolutely lies with engines/frameworks that lead people to believe that in the first place. If you do want to believe it, it's probably best to pay attention whether the developer has a history of actually releasing things on those platforms.

Personally I do still use Kickstarter, but I back selectively and only when I'm of the mindset of wanting to support something. I would like a return, but I don't necessarily expect it - a little mental trick to "not be mad, bro". Though if they don't deliver, you can bet I wouldn't trust them again.

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Wow, a reasonable opinion on the internet. Smart guy.

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Quoting: CyborgZetaProbably a controversial opinion, but multiplatform is the way to go these days. Exclusives no longer make sense to me. They were fun back in the 6th Gen Console generation and earlier, but just seem old-fashioned today.

The only problem with that outlook is the first-party exclusives tend to be the AAA show piece system sellers, which also tend to be the strong single-player narrative games, ala Horizon Zero Dawn. Frankly, I have a hard time seeing the justification for companies to continue to make games like that if exclusives (at least of that nature) stop being a thing.

Honestly, the recent Microsoft business is a good example of not needing or wanting strong AAA system sellers.

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Well this sounds like terrible news. I imagine they're just copying all the other big ones now, which is focus on only their biggest existing franchises and get rid of everything else.

Oh, and that means biggest in terms of revenue. Not the most popular franchises, critically acclaimed, and/or AAA titles. Expect live service, mobile, and other garbage to win the day while many, many, jobs are lost.

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Quoting: GuestSomebody can explain me why they sold themselves in the first place?

Were they forced somehow?

According to what I read earlier this morning they were in some sort of financial trouble, though at least what I read didn't really give any details. It probably also pays to remember that they didn't actually sell to Microsoft, they sold themselves to Zenimax/Bethesda, so were in turn aquired by Microsoft that way.

Yup, buy these companies for for their portfolios and brands, and the talent pool goes into resource management hell.

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Quoting: gradyvuckovicWhy on Earth would you close down the studio that made Hi-Fi Rush?

WHY?

What is with companies like Microsoft, Sony, Epic, Ubisoft, EA, etc. Are they just opposed to the concept of 'good things in gaming'?

I hope all the talent from those studios were shifted into other studios and not just lost.

I wondered the same thing and read about the studio a bit this morning. To me, it sounds like this was inevitable once Microsoft acquired them; even if they stayed open they probably wouldn't have stayed like they were -- kind of like Rare.

I guess Shinji Mikami, the "big name" in that studio, had wanted to leave for years but felt a personal responsibility to the developers there. I guess once Microsoft took over, despite still having a producer-esque title he was treated like a regular employee instead. While he himself never linked his several statements, he left right after Hi-Fi Rush was released and started a new studio.

So in my mind it's not hard to paint a picture of what happened here and motivations. "Yay" Microsoft and the corporate machine?

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Quoting: kuhpunktJust a random question. How do you guys pronounce TR1X when you read/say it? Tee Are One Axe? Tricks?

I just spell it out, same as your suggestion.

I also pronounce GUI "Gee You Ai" because while Gooey is a word, GUI is not. Like, would someone say Oohsah/Ussah instead of the letters for USA? No, because that'd be dumb.

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Might be fighting words for some, but this makes me glad I'm a bit old hat and generally not a fan of rolling distributions, which is who this mainly applies to. This attack entered the effected package only a couple months ago for pete's sake.

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Nice to see. I hope some of this applies to the Linux version too, which I had a lot of trouble with -- in particular too many particle effects would cause the game to come to an absolute crawl on a GTX 1070, but it was fine if you ran the windows version via Proton instead. The last world in the game was also very buggy, and I even ran into a game-breaking bug I had to enable no-clip to escape.

All in all, I still greatly enjoyed Black Mesa, and still highly recommend it!

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Interested, but I'll definitely wait for a store release that supports both Windows and Linux with the same purchase. GOG or Steam probably.

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