Posted by bauc 4 hours ago
"In France, Arkane's management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options."
Who woulda thunk they were full of crap...? (besides everyone who didn't have a financial stake in the deal)
Can't wait for more terrible UE5 games.
The fact Microsoft just fired them all, at a time when their remaining studios desperately need help with their aging, shitty engines? I can’t think of a better indicator that they haven’t a fucking clue about what they’re doing, here.
I love that these teams are pushing boundaries of technology, but it also points to an issue with modern game AAA development. It's expensive to make these beautiful games and it's not like they are more enjoyable than games made cheaper.
So, I'm guessing internally there were some leadership hopes that IdTech would help support IVAS and related professional AR systems and when those failed to be adopted at scale, IdTech lost a key sponsor. I'm guessing it's been a rough year of internal advocacy since.
And tbh I'm not sure it was ever a plausible contender for commercial success, more like Carmack wanted to play with rockets. But that might be unfair; I would happily accept a correction.
There's a reason game companies want to move towards the digital-only subscription model, and Xbox has been going that way for some time. As "bad" as Blizzard is, it's got the right model. That's what they care about, not about workplace culture or innovation.
WoW has become quite soulless after the changes where everyone gets the same end game equipment but you have to grind upgrade currency to improve it.
My wife and I used to play quite a bit but it doesn't really engage anymore. Perhaps we are getting too old, but we should be in the correct customer segment (mid 40 years old).
Now I have spun up a local wotlk server with player bots powered by ollama which is actually a bit fun again.
In any case, WoW has been stagnating for quite some time even before the merger. The devs act as though everything is slow because it needs to be. Classic+ could've been much better.