The Thursday letters page has some advice for EA when it comes to Battlefield, as a reader remembers paying £60 for Street Fighter 2.
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The sequel of Damocles
I’m really worried about Bungie. There’s been all these rumours about major job cuts looming, probably soon after The Final Shape is released, and Marathon seems to be in trouble long before it’s out. Even as a fan I was kind of surprised that Sony paid so much for them, because Bungie has been acting flaky for the last couple of years.
I guess this is the management problems mentioned recently but a couple of hours scouring Reddit and I think the people that okayed the purchase might have thought twice about the idea. But, as usual, nobody asks gamers.
I don’t know what to think about Destiny 3. On one hand it’s going back on a promise but on the other Destiny 2 is in such a state at the moment it does seem like a new game is the best way to fix everything. But I dunno… that’s going to be a lot of money and if that doesn’t work out I see Sony selling them off or shutting them down.
My guess is that Destiny 3 will happen but that it will end up as an even bigger threat hanging over Bungie, and possibly the one that will finally end them.
Cornell
To kill a god
I’d welcome a God Of War semi-sequel this year, and would almost certainly buy it, but I’d feel a lot more confident about Sony’s commitment to single-player games if they were to announce some new IPs. One thing I fear at the moment is that the only ones we’ll get are safe sequels to established franchises. I can see Sony being happy to churn those out and nothing else.
I also have to ask whether God Of War has kind of run its course now. Ragnarök is great but in terms of gameplay it already didn’t do much new, compared to the last one. And the story seems like it’s pretty much finished now.
I know Atreus as a playable character is an obvious way to go but I don’t find him or his abilities anywhere near as interesting as Kratos. But, of course, the game is popular, so nothing is allowed to just die.
Crom
Fielding another sequel
I really don’t know why EA is carrying on with Battlefield as a big budget game. They had their chance to beat Call Of Duty with Battlefield 4 and they put a broken buggy mess instead. And this was 2013. How times have changed, eh?
The hilarious thing is they’re still obsessed with making story campaigns, despite no one wanting them, and they still won’t knuckle down and make Bad Company 3 with more destruction effects. I don’t think EA has any idea why people like the franchise and I have no faith in that changing any time soon.
If I was them, I’d just have a small team make a grass roots, low budget reboot. That’s exactly what the original was, after all. Have fans help out with mods from the start and make something that is more than just a corporate product. I bet this never happens.
Dondaloin
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Time poor
RE: Keef’s letter. I think the Reader’s Feature last weekend did a good job of highlighting that, more than ever, its time and not money restricting many of us from playing/buying games.
Most people have a huge backlog, and that’s even ignoring the games that are given away free every month with PS Plus, Game Pass, and Epic Games. There are loads of indie games out there already charging less for non-AAA games, but I still can’t find the time to play everything I want to!
Matt (He_who_runs_away – PSN ID)
Evening ritual
I took a punt on Helldivers 2 and can happily say I’m enjoying it way more than any of the last four AAA £70 games I’ve bought and played.
I’ve not really been on my PlayStation 5 regularly for quite some months, as nothing I’ve been playing has held my interest. Helldivers 2 though, well, since buying it earlier this week I come home every night, bang on the PlayStation 5 and play till midnight.
Great graphics, minimal glitches, excellent play loop and, so far, a brilliant community.
RamboSi (PSN ID)
Why bother?
I’ve seen it mentioned many times recently about publishers wanting us to stay engaged with their titles for as long as possible, but could you explain why this is so beneficial for them?
I understand this concept for free-to-play or online focused games where microtransactions form the basis of their sales but what benefit does it have for a standard, predominantly single-player experience? I’ve never quite grasped why it’s desirable to keep me playing for as long as possible if I’ve already made the purchase?
They seem super obsessed with their user metrics, player engagement time, and the like but surely all that extra content they have to produce just lowers their overall profit margins? Spider-Man 2 was a fine experience but was bloated when compared to Miles. Starfield has an entire roadmap of new stuff coming up, but why?
It’s obviously going to cost a lot to produce this extra content so where’s the benefit to the publisher by just keeping us playing longer? An illusion of providing value for money just by length of engagement seems like a potential reason but it can’t be the only one?
Matt
GC: A large part of it is to give an impression of value for money but it’s something developers and publishers never really talk about. We’ll address the question in more detail in this weekend’s GameCentral newsletter.
Generic rage
Who else is willing to bet that the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time remake turns out to be some sort of awful grimdark revision where the Prince is turned into a psycho, in order to match the other two games? As soon as the leaker started talking about the remake being more ‘realistic’ I knew instantly what it would mean.
Just make a new game where the Prince is a charismatic good guy, the princess is feisty but likeable, and the bad guy is evil. Prince Of Persia isn’t a kitchen sink drama, the characters aren’t complicated. They’re archetypes and meant to be fun, not super serious serial killers.
Casper
Ask the questions
Regarding game prices, I remember paying £60 for Street Fighter 2 on my Mega Drive, which would have been in the mid-90s. So, I don’t think it is the price of games today which is the issue.
The problems, from what I can tell, are a combination of:
- Games being released unfinished – they’re not a quality product
- Buying the game then developers wanting us to buy more, to have the full experience
- Games being designed to take ages to complete but not necessarily be fun, which is kind of why I want to play games
That’s why games such as Baldur’s Gate 3 are so good. You pay for the game – you thoroughly enjoy it. There’re no extras behind paywalls, not even DLC (even though they could easily have held all of Act 3 back really!).
As a result, I’ll happily buy whatever they make next and, actually, I’d pay more than the £60 for it given I’ve spent nearly 200 hours on it. It’s ridiculously cheap when you look at it that way!
Anyway, please can developers go back to asking ‘What game do we want to make, why is it different, and why will people find it fun?’ If you can’t answer that, don’t make the game.
Tom
GC: Funnily enough, that’s pretty much exactly what the developers of Baldur’s Gate 3 said recently. And just to emphasise the point, £60 in 1995 works out as £118 when adjusted for inflation.
Inbox also-rans
I’ve just beaten Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom after 236 hours playing it. I wish it had lasted longer.
Loiter
I know people were talking about it before but I am just flabbergasted at not only how expensive the DLC is in Call Of Duty but how rubbish this new Kong glove thing is. What a colossal waste of money.
Auger
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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.
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MORE : Games Inbox: Giving video games a price cut, Star Wars Outlaws optimism, and next gen Xbox doubts
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