Avowed, a TOW-like game from Obsidian

[Finarfin]

Context aka the 'Where's Keaton?' minigame:

I'll indulge you, Keaton is the italian guy in the bottom left corner playing videogames with the brown woman(?)

Based on the other characters, there's a greater than 50% chance that Keaton is *****, so my money is on the one with pink hair.

No, I meant that IS Keaton.

[ArcaneLurker]

I'll indulge you, Keaton is the italian guy in the bottom left corner playing videogames with the brown woman(?)

Based on the other characters, there's a greater than 50% chance that Keaton is *****, so my money is on the one with pink hair.

No, I meant that IS Keaton.

I don't think we could insult Italians any more than ******* seeing them as a fellow POC instead of another ******.

[UltraFan123]

How the **** do they manage to always make the most repulsive-looking characters imaginable? It's not even just the character designs, but the artstyle and expressions too. It's like their sole goal is to maximize revulsion, yet I assume they were trying to make something that apples to the woke demographic?

Or is this all just performative, a woke tax paid by buying a game they'll never actually play - purchase the woke slop while gooning to Asian waifus incognito?

Seeing how these particular devs I'm referring to took personal offense when the only White guy became the most popular, I would say that in this case they are "true believers" so to speak.

When I was looking for the original tweet from 2022 that they deleted, I found no shortage of reposted fanart and concept art of ALL their quesrfreaks except for the aforementioned White guy, hence why I'm sure that this Keaton guy was indeed just a token. lmfao

Context aka the 'Where's Keaton?' minigame:

I'll indulge you, Keaton is the italian guy in the bottom left corner playing videogames with the brown woman(?)

Based on the other characters, there's a greater than 50% chance that Keaton is *****, so my money is on the one with pink hair.

Well, that tweet was from 2022, so I wouldn't be surprised if the devs went ahead and queerified their only White guy out of spite.

[PixiGreen]

How the **** do they manage to always make the most repulsive-looking characters imaginable? It's not even just the character designs, but the artstyle and expressions too. It's like their sole goal is to maximize revulsion, yet I assume they were trying to make something that apples to the woke demographic?

They draw what they know and see around That particular studio was "all POC", afaik, on principle.

[J1M]

I'll indulge you, Keaton is the italian guy in the bottom left corner playing videogames with the brown woman(?)

Based on the other characters, there's a greater than 50% chance that Keaton is *****, so my money is on the one with pink hair.

No, I meant that IS Keaton.

Yes, I knew that when I posted the picture but it was funnier to present it as an activity for the reader.

Was also expecting someone here to question if Italians can really be considered white.

[Cheeseknife]

How the **** do they manage to always make the most repulsive-looking characters imaginable?

The objective is wild. I found this out at college, although my university was not as woke as some. But any class that involves writing or creating a narrative has been completely compromised by a lot of Marxist ideals. Key there is "equity" or promotion of a worldview where aesthetic value is anathematized.

The reason they keep on making characters ugly on purpose is twofold:

1) Desensitization. They want to remove your perception of aesthetic value by showing you ugly things all the time. Over time, as your senses are assaulted by this, the experience is supposed to make you think there's no difference between beauty and ugly. The problem, of course, is that this experience exists within a vacuum and are not being forced by any foreign video game companies (China, Japan, etc.) who are also competing with Western companies. Essentially, this is a microcosm that exposes how DEI, ESG, and other woke policies are designed to undermine Western culture and affect our industries so that foreign industries are given an edge.

2) Hate Marketing. They want you to notice the ugly and react to it. They capitalize on reactionary content, shame you for it, but then utilize that to promote the product via negative press campaigning. Anita Sarkeesian made her money doing this. Kim Belair (Sweet Baby Inc) also works along these lines. "Everything is racist, everything is sexist, everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out." This means that if someone doesn't have a problem then that is a problem. The systems in place require the presence of bigotry or bias in order to sustain some ongoing crises in which these marketers come to save the day (e.g. "You think the female protag is ugly?! You only hate Star Wars: Outlaws because you are sexist and hate women.")

[Tangerine]

How the **** do they manage to always make the most repulsive-looking characters imaginable? It's not even just the character designs, but the artstyle and expressions too. It's like their sole goal is to maximize revulsion, yet I assume they were trying to make something that apples to the woke demographic?

Or is this all just performative, a woke tax paid by buying a game they'll never actually play - purchase the woke slop while gooning to Asian waifus incognito?

They'll preach from the mountain top about how more games like this are needed, but ask them if they've bought it and they'll hem and haw and make excuses for why they haven't yet.

[Tangerine]

"You think the female protag is ugly?! You only hate Star Wars: Outlaws because you are sexist and hate women.")

Yes and yes.

[Cheeseknife]

"You think the female protag is ugly?! You only hate Star Wars: Outlaws because you are sexist and hate women.")

Yes and yes.

You replied! This has now become online engagement. The algorithm has picked up this conversation. Now others will see us talking and insert their own opinions or reactions. And then, before you know it, everyone is talking about that new [MEDIA PRODUCT]. Is it woke? Is it not? And what is woke? And what is grift? Let's keep this up ad infinitum until [MEDIA PRODUCT] is released and we play it and it confirms our biases and we move onto the next thing to get upset about...

[Roguey]

@Roguey how we looking?

Still smashing success territory? Fergus gonna buy his Golden Yacht or...?

Where are we on the scale of:

Bankruptcy -------------- Layoffs -------------- Revenue Neutral ----------- Profit --------- Printing Money


Studio Killer




?????




Mass Layoffs - IP Abandoned

It did much better than Redfall.



Only MS knows their own expectations. But looking at those totals, it didn't do significantly worse than most of their single player games.

[rusty_shackleford]

amazing at how much failed slop microsoft has managed to produce

[Ryzer]

Redfall? awful FPS with terrible art design
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024? A buggy mess
As dusk falls? aventure story cringe
Halo Infinite? lol
Ghostwire Tokyo? Flopped so hard nobody knows it exists.
Deathloop? LOL
Pentiment? Another pretentious soyful californianesque experience
Hi-Fi rush? Cringe unappealing vomit inducing art

Here is a quick summary as to why it flopped.

[gerey]

Here is a quick summary as to why it flopped.

Did they publish anything successful?

Seems the only game that did well was Hi-Fi Rush, and they proceeded to close the studio down.

Also, you're forgetting the Indiana Jones game, not that I blame you, everyone stopped talking about it a few days after release.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024? A buggy mess

Still? This is bad news.

[rusty_shackleford]

Seems the only game that did well was Hi-Fi Rush

It didn't do well, that's a reddit meme

[Shillitron]

Seems the only game that did well was Hi-Fi Rush

It didn't do well, that's a reddit meme

It won a game journo award for being heckin cool. Whoopdie Doo.

Games that do well don't kill studios. (That studio was later shut down by Microsoft, the promised "investment" actually was layoffs)

[Roguey]

Seems the only game that did well was Hi-Fi Rush

It didn't do well, that's a reddit meme

3 million players total, most of them on gamepass. Seems rather decent for a low-budget game that received 0 marketing, but the fact that it got 0 marketing likely means they didn't like it, didn't know what to make of it, and were just looking for an excuse to get rid of them.

[J1M]

Here is a quick summary as to why it flopped.

Did they publish anything successful?

Seems the only game that did well was Hi-Fi Rush, and they proceeded to close the studio down.

Also, you're forgetting the Indiana Jones game, not that I blame you, everyone stopped talking about it a few days after release.

Halo
Age of Empires
Mechwarrior
Gears of War
Xbox Live Arcade

[rusty_shackleford]

Seems the only game that did well was Hi-Fi Rush

It didn't do well, that's a reddit meme

3 million players total, most of them on gamepass. Seems rather decent for a low-budget game that received 0 marketing, but the fact that it got 0 marketing likely means they didn't like it, didn't know what to make of it, and were just looking for an excuse to get rid of them.

every gamepass game has 3 trillion billion players

[rusty_shackleford]

"reeeee it didn't sell any copies on steam because it was on gamepass!!!!!"
*starfailed peaks at 330k players on steam despite being day1 gamepass slop*

[Valter]

"reeeee it didn't sell any copies on steam because it was on gamepass!!!!!"
*starfailed peaks at 330k players on steam despite being day1 gamepass slop*

We all laughed at Starfield, but look at the slop we're getting lately.
We don't deserve Todd

[Rand]

We don't deserve Todd

Yes, but not for the reason you imply.

[gerey]

Halo
Age of Empires
Mechwarrior
Gears of War
Xbox Live Arcade

Halo - is a dead IP
Age of Empires - also a dead IP
Mechwarrior - MS doesn't own the IP anymore, the new MW5: Clans sold below expectations and devs got laid off
Gears of War - also a dead IP
Xbox Live Arcade - is this even still a thing?

Unless you were talking about MS in the past and I misunderstood?

I should have explained it better, but I was talking about their lack of success ever since they embarked on the massive buying spree of developers.

[J1M]

Halo
Age of Empires
Mechwarrior
Gears of War
Xbox Live Arcade

Halo - is a dead IP
Age of Empires - also a dead IP
Mechwarrior - MS doesn't own the IP anymore, the new MW5: Clans sold below expectations and devs got laid off
Gears of War - also a dead IP
Xbox Live Arcade - is this even still a thing?

Unless you were talking about MS in the past and I misunderstood?

I should have explained it better, but I was talking about their lack of success ever since they embarked on the massive buying spree of developers.

You asked if they published anything successful. I gave you the list. You also deciphered the secret code that all of them were from another decade.

They will probably be able to return to decent publishing decisions in a few years. It will take a while to hire replacements after the DEI purge + dev time.

[traxtan]

Not holding their developers to deadlines is what killed their output, if you give devs 10 years to **** around they're not gonna make anything you have to treat them like **** to get any output (see Activision with call of duty)

[gerey]

You asked if they published anything successful.

In the context of recent releases. This is clearly your fault.

They will probably be able to return to decent publishing decisions in a few years. It will take a while to hire replacements after the DEI purge + dev time.

They're more likely to just downsize their gaming division or wash their hands of it altogether. It has never turned an actual profit, and likely never will.

I'm not even sure if there's anything left to salvage. The only competent dev they have is id, and they'll likely destroy them with DEI **** soon enough (if they haven't already). Bethesda is in the process of self-immolating and the rest, besides Activison, are just detritus no one else wanted.

[Roguey]

"reeeee it didn't sell any copies on steam because it was on gamepass!!!!!"
*starfailed peaks at 330k players on steam despite being day1 gamepass slop*

Bethesda built up such a big brand from Morrowind to Fallout 4 that tens of millions of people wanted to own Starfield, not rent it. Most companies don't have that big of an audience. The diehard Obsidian fans number around 100,000 as proven by Tyranny and Deadfire. With Bioware, it was about a million, as proven by Veilguard.

[J1M]

You asked if they published anything successful.

In the context of recent releases. This is clearly your fault.

They will probably be able to return to decent publishing decisions in a few years. It will take a while to hire replacements after the DEI purge + dev time.

They're more likely to just downsize their gaming division or wash their hands of it altogether. It has never turned an actual profit, and likely never will.

Nah, every few years they get a top executive that realizes that the success of the Windows brand is dependent on the game catalog available for the OS.

[1998]

Ghostwire Tokyo? Flopped so hard nobody knows it exists.

I liked that one

[Ryzer]

"reeeee it didn't sell any copies on steam because it was on gamepass!!!!!"
*starfailed peaks at 330k players on steam despite being day1 gamepass slop*

Bethesda built up such a big brand from Morrowind to Fallout 4 that tens of millions of people wanted to own Starfield, not rent it. Most companies don't have that big of an audience. The diehard Obsidian fans number around 100,000 as proven by Tyranny and Deadfire.

Or maybe release a better product to the common normie like Fallout New Vegas? and the fans number would not be 100k but more. Just saying.