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Ryuu96 on 09 December 2023



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shikamaru317 on 09 December 2023
Ryuu96 said:

Jez said on XboxTwo that he has heard that many things on the leaked Bethesda games lists from the court documents are not happening, one that he specifically called out as not happening was apparently Doom Year Zero (Klobrille also confirmed this recently), so the list should therefore be taken with a massive grain of salt.

I believe this list was one of those lists which you make as a best case scenario, a "look at all this stuff we could make" list created to drive up the acquisition price, especially since it's from 2020 and the list was made for Microsoft. If you think about it, a new Doom sounds better than a new Quake to a businessman, saying Ghostwire Tokyo 2 will happen implies you feel confidence Ghostwire will be a success.

Imo, I think Doom Year Zero, Dishonoured 3 and Ghostwire Tokyo 2 are not happening and never entered development.

I don't really care about Doom, a new Quake would actually be superior there, but I will be pretty disappointed if Dishonored 3 and and Ghostwire Tokyo 2 don't happen, especially Dishonored 3 since Arkane themselves teased we would get a new Dishonored game eventually. Hopefully Arkane Austin starts on Dishonored 3 as soon as they finish their work on Redfall, the director of the Dishonored games is already the studio head there, Harvey Smith.

We still have a 2 year gap of Arkane Lyon development that is unaccounted for to take into consideration. Bethesda is saying that Blade just entered development, which implies development began a few months ago at most. Arkane Lyon released Deathloop in September 2021, and the game received nothing after that but a few bug fix patches, the Xbox port, and the Goldenloop update which added a few odds and ends such as a new weapon, a new enemy type, a few new trinkets, a new power, and an extended ending cutscene. The majority of Arkane Lyon had to be working on something for the 2 years between Deathloop and the start of Blade development, and it clearly wasn't Redfall assistance considering how shoddy that game came out. 



Ryuu96 on 09 December 2023
shikamaru317 said:
Ryuu96 said:

Jez said on XboxTwo that he has heard that many things on the leaked Bethesda games lists from the court documents are not happening, one that he specifically called out as not happening was apparently Doom Year Zero (Klobrille also confirmed this recently), so the list should therefore be taken with a massive grain of salt.

I believe this list was one of those lists which you make as a best case scenario, a "look at all this stuff we could make" list created to drive up the acquisition price, especially since it's from 2020 and the list was made for Microsoft. If you think about it, a new Doom sounds better than a new Quake to a businessman, saying Ghostwire Tokyo 2 will happen implies you feel confidence Ghostwire will be a success.

Imo, I think Doom Year Zero, Dishonoured 3 and Ghostwire Tokyo 2 are not happening and never entered development.

I don't really care about Doom, a new Quake would actually be superior there, but I will be pretty disappointed if Dishonored 3 and and Ghostwire Tokyo 2 don't happen, especially Dishonored 3 since Arkane themselves teased we would get a new Dishonored game eventually. Hopefully Arkane Austin starts on Dishonored 3 as soon as they finish their work on Redfall, the director of the Dishonored games is already the studio head there, Harvey Smith.

We still have a 2 year gap of Arkane Lyon development that is unaccounted for to take into consideration. Bethesda is saying that Blade just entered development, which implies development began a few months ago at most. Arkane Lyon released Deathloop in September 2021, and the game received nothing after that but a few bug fix patches, the Xbox port, and the Goldenloop update which added a few odds and ends such as a new weapon, a new enemy type, a few new trinkets, a new power, and an extended ending cutscene. The majority of Arkane Lyon had to be working on something for the 2 years between Deathloop and the start of Blade development, and it clearly wasn't Redfall assistance considering how shoddy that game came out. 

Arkane Lyon is a small studio Tbf, ~150. They were working on the Deathloop port to Xbox (maybe a few months, I don't know) and they would have had to create a pitch for Marvel, which likely is a few months of work, drawing up concepts, story ideas, etc. Then they probably entered pre-production a few months ago, so that all combined could be a years worth of work.

Bethesda tends to use their studios to assist each other as well, not in major ways but it all adds up.



Ryuu96 on 09 December 2023

OD is such a terrible name but I'm guessing Microsoft didn't want to sell a game called "Overdose"



Ryuu96 on 09 December 2023

Idas Said:

On the merits and after the agreements with Ubisoft and Sony, the case is pretty much in favor of MS. But if the 9th Circuit agrees with the FTC on the issues related to the PI (preliminary injunction), it could force MS to settle with the FTC (to avoid at least an extra year of litigation and slowing down the integration with ABK). Therefore, maybe they have to make some extra concessions to the FTC (likely behavioural).

It's unlikely but not impossible.

In fact, it's not farfetched to think that Blade being announced without platforms is a legal precaution. After all, the exclusivity around the games from Zenimax has been a hot topic since December 2022 (when the FTC decided to block the acquisition). Days later the European Commission released a statement contradicting some of the arguments from the FTC regarding Zenimax and exclusive games, months later Sony highlighted to the CMA that the PS5 version of Redfall had been cancelled, and in June 2023 during the PI process it was brought up multiple times (the renegotiation of the contract with Disney to make the Indiana Jones game exclusive, all the internal meetings about Zenimax games being exclusive or not, Pete Hines not happy because COD was still going to be multiplatform but Starfield and Redfall had to be exclusive or even Phil Spencer backtracking a little on the idea of Elder Scrolls 6 being exclusive).

We know that the ABK case has affected MS/Xbox from a business point of view because cloud gaming was all the rage in 2021/early 2022 but as soon as concerns in relation to the cloud gaming market started to arise, MS started to downplay it more and more: they reduced investment close to zero, Matt Booty called it "experimental" in June 2023, no more talk about streaming games already owned (until weeks ago in Brazil), no more cloud games with specific mobile UI since late 2022, no more games added as F2P to xCloud like Fortnite (the original PR said that more games were coming soon), etc.

So, maybe it's a marketing gimmick but it could also be a legal issue that they know that has to be kept under control in the present (with the FTC appeal) but also even thinking about the future (more big acquisitions are likely coming if they want to be number 1 in revenue by 2030).

It will be interesting to see what happens with the next game announced by Zenimax during 2024 (specially if the FTC case is still alive).


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VersusEvil on 09 December 2023

God I wish this deal didn’t pass coz the only people who are fucked in the long run are Xbox gamers. Imagine having to make Blade multiplat coz some whiny cunt organisation in the US keeps bending both knees in defence of Sony. What a fucking disaster.



Ride The Chariot || Games Complete ‘24 Edition

VersusEvil on 09 December 2023

PlayStation got PT we get OD, hopefully it doesn’t meet the same fate :L … BG3 finally finished installing, not bad for my third world country internet!! Got just a handful of stuff left for this year to finish but boy I’m excited to start 2024 off playing it all the way up to DD2 :o I’m glad I’m alive



Ride The Chariot || Games Complete ‘24 Edition

Machiavellian on 09 December 2023
EpicRandy said:
Ryuu96 said:

Microsoft Corp. is converting a group of subcontracted temps into unionized employees, bucking an industry trend and expanding organized labor’s new foothold at the software giant.

In January, Microsoft agreed for the first time to collectively bargain with a labor union: ZeniMax Workers United, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America that represented some 300 quality assurance workers at a Microsoft-owned video game studio. Union contract negotiations have been underway since April, according to CWA.

As part of those talks, Microsoft recently agreed that a group of 77 contract staff doing similar work would become employees represented by the union. Previously these people had technically been employed by the staffing agency TCWGlobal.

Some of the contract staffers’ roles were being terminated this fall, CWA said. Instead, 23 of them will get permanent full-time Microsoft jobs, with a 22% pay increase. The rest will get temporary positions as Microsoft employees, $2.75-an-hour raises and paid sick days and holidays. They will also receive copies of the Starfield video game they worked on, a perk previously denied to contract workers.

Microsoft (MSFT) to Convert Gaming Staff From Temps to Union Employees - Bloomberg

That's so nice, glad a company as big as MS is taking the lead for worker conditions in this industry, I hope many others would follow but I doubt it.  

The smart move is if you cannot prevent it then lead it.  In this case, I always believe MS has a more direct path for anything they do and in this case, them leading with this could mean they get some of the best talent to come work for them.  If this is what the industry wants, then its best to be the first and most accepting thus you get the lionshare of talent which is the real goal.



BasilZero on 09 December 2023
Ryuu96 said:

Yep, such a great deal. Would have bought it from BB but Amazon is fine enough.



derpysquirtle64 on 09 December 2023
Ryuu96 said:

Jez said on XboxTwo that he has heard that many things on the leaked Bethesda games lists from the court documents are not happening, one that he specifically called out as not happening was apparently Doom Year Zero (Klobrille also confirmed this recently), so the list should therefore be taken with a massive grain of salt.

I believe this list was one of those lists which you make as a best case scenario, a "look at all this stuff we could make" list created to drive up the acquisition price, especially since it's from 2020 and the list was made for Microsoft. If you think about it, a new Doom sounds better than a new Quake to a businessman, saying Ghostwire Tokyo 2 will happen implies you feel confidence Ghostwire will be a success.

Imo, I think Doom Year Zero, Dishonoured 3 and Ghostwire Tokyo 2 are not happening and never entered development.

Hearing that Doom game is the one that is not happening is really disappointing. While I think that new Quake should happen at some point as well, I'm still more a Doom guy than Quake one.