Game Awards 2022

[Romier S]

So anyone watching tonight?

 

I'll be on discord if anyone wants to join.

[dogbert]

40 minutes ago, Romier S said:

So anyone watching tonight?

 

I'll be on discord if anyone wants to join.

 

Yep, I should be about.

[JoeyN]

Gonna jump on voice chat?

[Romier S]

I can, sure 

[JoeyN]

be on shortly. Had to take care of some phone issues

[Josh]

fyi looks like the discord invite expired

[JoeyN]

https://discord.gg/V6mpyKAstd

[Starhawk]

That kid at the end totally walked up separate from the Elden Ring team.

[Romier S]

 

[dogbert]

10 hours ago, Starhawk said:

That kid at the end totally walked up separate from the Elden Ring team.

 

The kid's a known provocateur and his Bill Clinton shout out was borderline dog whistling at QANON etc. He deserves no air time.

[Josh]

2 hours ago, dogbert said:

 

The kid's a known provocateur and his Bill Clinton shout out was borderline dog whistling at QANON etc. He deserves no air time.

 

Yeah, he's an Infowars favorite.

[Josh]

Also he was apparently wearing Yeezys. Welp.

[JFo]

The Kid Who Crashed The Game Awards Was on Infowars When He Was 12

 

Matthew Gault for Vice:

 

Quote

 

The young stage crasher is 15-year-old Matan Even. A Twitter account associated with Even posted a clip of the Game Awards disruption at 5:25 AM with the message, “today there is a lot of talk, and speculation. More information will be released on all fronts sooner than later.” Motherboard DMed the account, who told us that he was Even and that he was 15 years old.

 

[...]

 

Even’s online history paints the picture of a very young person with a penchant for stunts becoming wrapped up in the right-wing online media ecosystem and seemingly encouraged by it. He has appeared on Infowars, which praised him as a conservative star and egged on his antics, and he has said that he is a longtime fan of the show and its hosts, although he denied this in a chat to Motherboard. 

 

Even first gained notoriety in 2019 when he flashed a pro-Hong Kong T-Shirt at a Los Angeles Clippers game. At the time, there were daily protests against Beijing in Hong Kong. The NBA saw China as a growth market and navigated a number of controversies related to the crackdown in Hong Kong. At the height of those tensions, Even appeared on the fan cam at a Clippers game, holding up a T-Shirt that said, “Fight for freedom stand with Hong Kong.” Also in 2019, he appeared at BlizzCon and yelled “Free Hong Kong” during a World of Warcraft panel. Blizzard had, earlier that year, caused an international incident when it banned a Hearthstone player during a tournament after he declared his support for Hong Kong. 

 

 

Some good context on who this person is and what he's about. It's sad that his antics have overshadowed Elden Ring's win last night, but it is what it is.

[JFo]

Xbox's Game Awards No-Show Is a Slap in the Face to Players

 

Ryan McCaffrey has some harsh words about Microsoft's lack of announcements at The Game Awards last night:

 

Quote

As 2022 draws to a close, allow me to draw you a meme with words: Xbox players are Charlie Brown, Microsoft is Lucy, and the promise of big exclusives is the football. Yes, the pandemic affected timelines. Yes, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has directly impacted multiple Xbox exclusives. And yes, shipping games too early would be the wrong move. But the fact remains that Xbox now proudly counts TWENTY-THREE studios in its first-party portfolio. That this year is ending with exactly zero AAA efforts coming out of Xbox Game Studios was tough enough to stomach for Xbox players, but for Xbox to show up to The Game Awards empty-handed as millions of gamers looked on is simply unforgivable. Microsoft is close to being out of goodwill with its audience. Any hope the company has of winning back the mindshare it lost amidst the rash of mistakes during the Xbox One era is rapidly slipping through its fingers, with no one to blame but itself.

 

I've definitely been playing my PlayStation 5 a lot more than my Xbox Series X in the past few months, thanks the steady stream of exclusives.

[Josh]

29 minutes ago, JFo said:

But the fact remains that Xbox now proudly counts TWENTY-THREE studios in its first-party portfolio.

 

Holy shit.

 

Maybe they can retroactively claim credit for COD?

[Romier S]

The only thing I would say in retort to Ryan is that perhaps he underestimates how much of the Xbox audience is a Game Pass audience. They've gone the year subsisting on a steady stream of good quality game releases on that service and I'm guessing a good portion will tell you that they're quite satisfied. Otherwise, I think the core of his argument is sound and justified given the dearth of first party content on the Series platforms.

 

I think 2023 will finally see the floodgates open for Microsoft, though. Redfall looks like its in a really good place development wise and seems on track for release. I don't think there's any chance in hell Starfield doesn't come out in 2023 and that game will be huge for them. They've got a new and very pretty looking entry into the Forzo Motorsport series hitting. Those are three big releases right there to help bring some much needed first party heavyweights to the table. 

[JoeyN]

I’m perfectly fine with all studios not showing stuff until they are actually ready. Don’t want to see another CG trailer for something not coming out for a few years just so media has shit to report.Am I disappointed Starfall got pushed, he’ll yeah. But I’d rather it be good, then come out like Cyberpunk.  

[King of All Cosmos]

New Ken Levine game has my attention.

[JFo]

2 hours ago, Romier S said:

The only thing I would say in retort to Ryan is that perhaps he underestimates how much of the Xbox audience is a Game Pass audience. They've gone the year subsisting on a steady stream of good quality game releases on that service and I'm guessing a good portion will tell you that they're quite satisfied. Otherwise, I think the core of his argument is sound and justified given the dearth of first party content on the Series platforms.

 

Yeah, I think I can say this is true for me throughout much of the year, to be honest. When I finally finished up Horizon Forbidden West in the late spring, I binged my way through a half-dozen Game Pass titles such as Tunic, Nobody Saves the World, and TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. None of those are big AAA first-party titles, but they were all great and didn’t cost me a penny extra to download and play. Hell, when I’m finally done with God of War: Ragnarök, I plan on playing A Plague Tale: Requiem… on Game Pass.

 

I think if you bought into Game Pass because of the promise of first-party titles day and date, this has been a bummer year. Hopefully, Microsoft can deliver more in 2023.

[Angry the Clown]

10 hours ago, Romier S said:

The only thing I would say in retort to Ryan is that perhaps he underestimates how much of the Xbox audience is a Game Pass audience. They've gone the year subsisting on a steady stream of good quality game releases on that service and I'm guessing a good portion will tell you that they're quite satisfied. Otherwise, I think the core of his argument is sound and justified given the dearth of first party content on the Series platforms.

 

I think 2023 will finally see the floodgates open for Microsoft, though. Redfall looks like its in a really good place development wise and seems on track for release. I don't think there's any chance in hell Starfield doesn't come out in 2023 and that game will be huge for them. They've got a new and very pretty looking entry into the Forzo Motorsport series hitting. Those are three big releases right there to help bring some much needed first party heavyweights to the table. 

 

 

I'm kind of surprised some pundits still don't see the value Game Pass alone brings to the the Xbox brand. In no way have I been short of anything to play on the Series X.Yes MS will still benefit from exclusives to draw people to the system, which will be especially vital as Game Pass subscriptions begin to even out, but that window of opportunity is still open in 2023 for Microsoft. In some ways the delayed timing of some of their big, big games may even prove beneficial for them. 

 

I agree with Joey too, that I'm tired of seeing CG teasers that barely amount to more than a logo/title reveal. I think Microsoft is well aware of having been guilty of this in the past, so are naturally not looking to repeat such mistakes again. My biggest hope from MS is that we see Hellblade 2 released within the next year but we'll see. 

 

[Romier S]

5 hours ago, Angry the Clown said:

 

 

I'm kind of surprised some pundits still don't see the value Game Pass alone brings to the the Xbox brand. In no way have I been short of anything to play on the Series X.Yes MS will still benefit from exclusives to draw people to the system, which will be especially vital as Game Pass subscriptions begin to even out, but that window of opportunity is still open in 2023 for Microsoft. In some ways the delayed timing of some of their big, big games may even prove beneficial for them. 

Beneficial only in the sense that the pent up demand will be there but I have no doubt that Microsoft and Phil Spencer wanted Starfield on store shelves/Game Pass this year more than anything. Especially given the reporting and comments from Spencer himself that growth for the service has stalled at the moment on consoles and most of the growth they are seeing is in the PC space.

 

Also to play devil’s advocate for a minute about the value of Game Pass, I do so get exhausted from people telling me how “amazing” it is that Microsoft put their first party titles on Game Pass ‘day one”. That’s a great promise/ideal that hasn’t materialized in any meaningful way in 2022 and I’ve no issue whatsoever with pundits calling them out on that. I’ve long noted my skepticism about Microsoft first party. Skepticism that I think is more than well founded and fair given their history and no matter how many publishers they gobble up. They’ve done very little to change my mind in 2022.
 

I’ve said that I believe 2023 will be better and I really do hope/believe that it is because much like Ryan states in his article, they are running out of good will from me. It doesn’t help that they gave me almost a year of radio silence on the backwards compatibility front only to come out with one big drop and then shutter the whole program including even FPS/Resolution Boost on Xbox One titles. That may be less significant for other folks but if you look back at those early Series X threads, the continuation of the BC program was a significant reason I even bought a Series X at launch. So yeah, I’m still bitter about that.:)

 

Oh and I’ll be very surprised if Hellblade II sees the light of day before 2024 minimum. The same goes for Avowed which we haven’t heard anything about in years since the initial cg teaser ironically enough.. Everwild is years away. Who knows what kind of progress they’ve made on Fable and Perfect Dark? The latter of which is still seeing heavy involvement from Crystal Dynamics even after the Embracer acquisition as of the latest reporting and I think that has the biggest chance to see a late 2023 release.

[Josh]

6 hours ago, Angry the Clown said:

I'm kind of surprised some pundits still don't see the value Game Pass alone brings to the the Xbox brand

I think they see that Sony has closed this gap significantly in the past year and it’s not really worth mentioning. 

[Angry the Clown]

3 hours ago, Romier S said:

Beneficial only in the sense that the pent up demand will be there but I have no doubt that Microsoft and Phil Spencer wanted Starfield on store shelves/Game Pass this year more than anything. Especially given the reporting and comments from Spencer himself that growth for the service has stalled at the moment on consoles and most of the growth they are seeing is in the PC space.

 

Yes, Starfield's delay no doubt dealt them some pain. Systems kept selling though despite the relative shortage of major first party titles, and we're only now starting to see general availability, so there too might be some benefit to hardware sales again once the roster of exclusives picks up, though we're now entering an economic period where not many people are going to be able to afford a Series X or PS5 even if they want one and even if they're more readily available.

 

 

3 hours ago, Romier S said:

 

Also to play devil’s advocate for a minute about the value of Game Pass, I do so get exhausted from people telling me how “amazing” it is that Microsoft put their first party titles on Game Pass ‘day one”. That’s a great promise/ideal that hasn’t materialized in any meaningful way in 2022 and I’ve no issue whatsoever with pundits calling them out on that. I’ve long noted my skepticism about Microsoft first party. Skepticism that I think is more than well founded and fair given their history and no matter how many publishers they gobble up. They’ve done very little to change my mind in 2022.

 

I’ve said that I believe 2023 will be better and I really do hope/believe that it is because much like Ryan states in his article, they are running out of good will from me. It doesn’t help that they gave me almost a year of radio silence on the backwards compatibility front only to come out with one big drop and then shutter the whole program including even FPS/Resolution Boost on Xbox One titles. That may be less significant for other folks but if you look back at those early Series X threads, the continuation of the BC program was a significant reason I even bought a Series X at launch. So yeah, I’m still bitter about that.:)

 

I can appreciate that view, certainly. I think for me I'm in a bit of an independent bubble as I've said for a while now that I really just want games to play every now and then as a quiet distraction. In that sense there's no real good will any of these companies have to earn from me. I no longer care when I get to play a game or what system I play it on as my personal investment in modern games has diminished to almost nothing (I remain interested in what games are being made, and the industry as a whole, but I don't feel compelled to give up as much time and certainly not as much money as I might have years ago). Game Pass and now PS+ Extra have become perfect models for me really, in fact I probably would have ended up selling the PS5 were it not for PS+ Extra. Not because it doesn't have a great library of big exclusives, just that I can't put that kind of money into buying games anymore.

 

 

3 hours ago, Romier S said:

Oh and I’ll be very surprised if Hellblade II sees the light of day before 2024 minimum. The same goes for Avowed which we haven’t heard anything about in years since the initial cg teaser ironically enough.

 

Sure. It's not one I am counting on seeing next year, but nevertheless it's the one I want the most (Fable too, but I'd be very surprised if that came before 2024). 

[Romier S]

Changing gears, can we talk about 2023?

 

-January: Forspoken, Dead Space Remake, Fire Emblem
-February: Hogwarts Legacy, Atomic Heart, PSVR2
-March: RE4 Remake, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 
-April: Dead Island 2, Horizon Forbidden West DLC
-May: Zelda: Tears of  the Kingdom, Suicide Squad
-June: Diablo 4, Final Fantasy XVI, SF6

 

STACKED!

[JFo]

Yeah, from March through May I have Jedi: Survivor, RE4 remake, Burning Shores, and Tears of the Kingdom. I will be plenty busy.