Microsoft has bought Bethesda

[Xolvix]

Wait hold on, Sin 2? I didn't know there was even a Sin 2 in development to have an engine in mind, much less idtech 4.

I thought after Sin they waited for a long time before doing Sin: Emergence as the first of the games in their episodic format (yeah that worked out well), but using the Source engine.

[revelator]

Atleast thats what wikipedia claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_4

though i newer seen any mention of it either.

[revelator]

Ah hard to find but here https://www.game-debate.com/news/28578/3d-realms-releases-video-of-their-cancelled-prototypes-including-sin-2-and-bombshell-fps

[revelator]

Sin 2 or Sin reborn as it would have been named is at the end of the video.

Looked kinda crap considering it was running on the idtech4 engine but early alpha footage

was nice to see idtech 4 running somethings else than a corridor shooter though.

[revelator]

Huh something else i did not know, human head studios was aquired by bethesda last year after the release of rune 2.

[Carnage]

3 hours ago, chakkman said:

It's likely that they will make Bethesda games exclusive, i.e. Windows and Xbox only.

Although it doesn't change much for me, I like diversity. An open market is needed to make it a competitive one, which in this regard is already missing competition. Then again, Sony has quite a bit of exclusive titles as well, so it's not like they are any better in that regard. In the end it's the customers that suffer as with less competition it's very likely that prices are going to rise as well. So I hope you're wrong that Sony is already limping.

[revelator]

Well the upcomming horizon zero dawn forbidden west sequel might spur some interrest with ps3.

I doubt ps3 is going away any time soon, to much invested in that platform to scrap it and they just released a new console.

Still since horizon recently came out for pc as well i kinda hope the ps3 sequell will also have a pc sequell.

[chakkman]

2 hours ago, Carnage said:

Although it doesn't change much for me, I like diversity. An open market is needed to make it a competitive one, which in this regard is already missing competition. Then again, Sony has quite a bit of exclusive titles as well, so it's not like they are any better in that regard. In the end it's the customers that suffer as with less competition it's very likely that prices are going to rise as well. So I hope you're wrong that Sony is already limping.

I hear you in regards of the Sony exclusive titles. My thinking is, though, that, if they don't want my money, they won't get my money then.

Edited September 22, 2020 by chakkman

[chakkman]

5 hours ago, revelator said:

Pretty much any idtech engine since idtech 1 have been opensource

Well, no. id Tech 4 seems like the last one, and that one is more than 15 years old.

[peter_spy]

Not sure whether this is the same strategy for MS now, but Sony has very strong first party studios in their portfolio: Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, Insomniac, Polyphony, Santa Monica, etc. All these have access to expert technical knowledge, and they became super proficient at making really good AAA titles for it. Also Sony Santa Monica has a division with smaller studios that can make small experimental games without worrying about commercial success that much (Journey, Bound). So with MS acquiring Bethesda I'd hope that Arkane would end up in much more stable financial situation, allowing them to make these risky im-sim games without risk of collapse with every new title released and performing "below expectations".

[revelator]

5 hours ago, chakkman said:

Well, no. id Tech 4 seems like the last one, and that one is more than 15 years old.

Ah you ment after idtech 4, well theres some parts of idtech 5 in  bFG but that one was the last indeed.

[chakkman]

16 hours ago, peter_spy said:

So with MS acquiring Bethesda I'd hope that Arkane would end up in much more stable financial situation, allowing them to make these risky im-sim games without risk of collapse with every new title released and performing "below expectations".

Hopefully. Really hope they do a Dishonored 3, especially as one of Arkane's leading figures (can't remember the name now) said not long ago that Dishonored isn't discontinued.

On the other hand, I could well imagine a Arx Fatalis 2 as well (or a similar RPG). The first game might not have been a success, but, there's definitely a lot of potential if Arkane also manages to modernize the game.

Anything better than their Deathloop stuff would be highly wished for.

Edited September 23, 2020 by chakkman

[Xolvix]

To be fair most developers/publishers like to keep their options open, at least publicly. Square Enix has said that Deus Ex isn't discontinued despite Eidos-Montréal being made to focus on other crap. Fortunately the Dishonored storyline was essentially finished with "Death of the Outsider" so we have some closure there. Adam Jensen is going to be stuck in Purgatory until SE decides that there's still a market for immersive sims.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Xolvix

[kano]

On 9/22/2020 at 4:18 AM, revelator said:

Well that would suck though i doubt they would go that way,

i have a feeling they just want to rein in some succesfull game developers to promote there own streaming platform.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner! The major players in the  video game industry hope and dream every day about transforming gaming into a subscription service like cable TV. Instead of paying just once for a game and then playing it and or modifying it (aka enjoying it) for literally decades like we do with Classic Doom, you will have to pay a constantly increasing amount every month to continue to use the service and play any games at all.

 

This is why, although Microsoft has open sourced some stuff, like old Windows programs that no one cares about anymore (e.g. a calculator or file manager), and they will also open source architecture that makes Linux perform better in a Windows environment (or vice versa), you will NEVER see them open source any game, ever. Because the minute they do, is the minute that someone gets it running without the cloud, or even worse, natively on Linux, without Windows, without being signed into the Windows store with a Microsoft account!

 

All of the big boys want everything to run in the cloud in order to facilitate maximum consumer exploitation. Not only does their crusade to make everything into a subscription service facilitate draining your wallet a little bit more with each passing month, but it allows them to engage in unchecked surveillance capitalism. You can't do that with an offline single player game! Open source is the enemy of this business model, as I outlined above.

 

As for what I personally think about this business move, I honestly can't really get that upset. Id stopped supporting Linux years ago anyway. The people who made the company an outstanding "good citizen" in the game industry left years ago. So it's like Microsoft is buying a light bulb that's already burned out. As a Linux user, the only thing this business move means, is that new id games will be significantly less likely to work in Wine, because they'll be hooked into all of the stuff like UWP and extensively tied into Windows), but I wasn't going to buy them anyway.

[revelator]

Knew i hated it but yeah the boat has sailed and thats a damn shame.