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DC Murderverse posted:https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1484556399262814210?s=21 Yeah hopefully this encourages the A Better ABK people to roll in so some momentum builds
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 17:44 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 04:22 |
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Gwaihir posted:yeah I know it's been posted plenty of times but bobby's absurd contract gets him a 300 million dollar payday in pretty much any possible situation other than "convicted of actual murder" Even if Bobby didn't get the payout I'm sure he has enough assets that it doesn't matter. Short of seizing all his assets for some reason there's nothing that could happen to him that would have any meaningful consequences.
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 18:45 |
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DC Murderverse posted:I wonder if the purchase caught them off guard and they’re doing it because they worry it might be now or never. It pretty much is now or never. If you think ABK hiring bush era torture ghouls to run their strikebreaking operation is bad, that's nothing compared to the decades of anti-union machinery Microsoft has built. Right now, workers have the attention of congress and the media and that won't last.
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 19:03 |
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Kanos posted:He doesn't give a single poo poo about his reputation among the proles. Some dudes on reddit calling him Bobby Nodick and photoshopping devil horns on him, or Jim Sterling making a video on how much of a douchebag he is; these things don't even register on the radar of someone with his level of influence and money. The reputation he cares about is his reputation for being a super effective business guy, which is under threat now. The other half of this is in retirement, most guys like him want to serve on boards. Charitable foundations, other companies, etc. It lets them keep the prestige of being a CEO without spending as much time/energy, especially facing the public. It's how you stay a part of high society, going to galas and dinners and whatnot. But when your reputation goes from "Highly effective CEO" to "Was at the helm during widespread harassment, discrimination, and misconduct." it makes it a lot harder for any charitable foundation or company to invite you to that kind of position unless they want to invite some very pointed questions.
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 19:16 |
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His Golden Parachute has been discussed to death here, but I'm genuinely curious about the non-financial fallout he might face. Like, surely his name is radioactive by now no matter how much cash he gets on the way out, right?
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 19:37 |
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DanielCross posted:His Golden Parachute has been discussed to death here, but I'm genuinely curious about the non-financial fallout he might face. Like, surely his name is radioactive by now no matter how much cash he gets on the way out, right? I wouldn't bet on it. You don't reach and maintain a position of power like that for an extended period of time without making a lot of high level friends and acquaintances who will be totally willing to overlook this kind of thing. To become truly radioactive to other rich people you generally need to participate in a scheme that fucks over other rich people, which he absolutely has not. The Microsoft buyout forcing him out is likely going to be the only consequence the man faces for any of this.
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 19:49 |
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yeah no one's gonna complain to the friends of the kennedy center board about kotick in a couple years and get ANY traction
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 19:50 |
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Kotick will still be on the board of The Coca-Cola Company. He'll probably also keep his spot on Call of Duty Endowment's board, which he founded. Plus he's a trustee for LA County Museum of Art and Harvard-Westlake, one of the top-ranked private schools in the US. He'll either quietly retire or go into consulting.
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 20:16 |
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Pirate Jet posted:There’s nothing “promising” about giving the sexual harasser CEO a massive payout and golden parachute from the company instead of letting him face the ramifications of a unionized workforce. In addition to all of the above posted, the literal "best case scenario" outcome of every employee unionizing strictly in terms of "punishment for Bobby Kotick" would be...he leaves and takes his existing golden parachute. Maybe even puts "led Actiblizz through a wildly popular unionization process" on his resume and goes on a speaking circuit. e: It really needs to be emphasized how much "there are no consequences for rich people unless they directly gently caress with other rich people" is a statement of fact, not a trite "ha ha capitalism" joke Shooting Blanks posted:But when your reputation goes from "Highly effective CEO" to "Was at the helm during widespread harassment, discrimination, and misconduct." it makes it a lot harder for any charitable foundation or company to invite you to that kind of position unless they want to invite some very pointed questions. Just makes you more likely to be the "unpopular CEO that's hired explicitly to take the brunt of the bad PR when the board wants to do something they know ahead of time will go over like a lead balloon", probably Ursine Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jan 21, 2022 |
# ? Jan 21, 2022 22:15 |
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Pirate Jet posted:Except the fact that Starfield and all other future Bethesda games (except Ghostwire Tokyo) were made exclusive. The ONLY way Bobby would see real consequences out of this is if the employees dragged him out of his home and beat him in the street And he'd STILL have his golden parachute
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 22:39 |
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lih posted:Nintendo would just not be interested in being bought unless they end up in a catastrophic & desperate position where they're looking at having to exit the console market or something. Nintendo is so cash rich in reserve it would take like three Wii Us in a row to make them even sweat
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# ? Jan 21, 2022 23:33 |
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Anno posted:Idk if there’s a % breakdown anywhere, but I don’t think this has been true since Sony got marketing rights last gen and outsold Xbox by such a huge margin. It’s big on both consoles. A few days ago but I can't believe madden still sells that well, hasn't that game just been roster updates for over a decade
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 05:43 |
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Mr. Crow posted:A few days ago but I can't believe madden still sells that well, hasn't that game just been roster updates for over a decade Roster updates, more inconvenient menu navigation and worse music every year, yeah. They apparently removed the orchestral music this time so now I get to play it with absolutely no in game music. Yay.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 08:12 |
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There's a lot of people for whom Madden is where video games begin and end. Maybe other sports titles, and Call of Duty or Battlefield.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 08:17 |
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For several years if you wanted to play the cinematic storyline of a young up-and-coming football player trying to make it big, Madden had that for ya
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 08:45 |
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If you don't look at what actually sells in the video game industry outside of Something Awful it's easy to forget that mobile is literally half the market and even what's thought of as mainstream, AAA narrative video games amount to only a fraction of the revenue that FIFA and Call of Duty bring in each year.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 08:49 |
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exquisite tea posted:If you don't look at what actually sells in the video game industry outside of Something Awful it's easy to forget that mobile is literally half the market and even what's thought of as mainstream, AAA narrative video games amount to only a fraction of the revenue that FIFA and Call of Duty bring in each year. Yeah, that's totally true, but the AA and AAA market is what drives tech changes in dramatic ways so it's where huge contracts for resources are formed over 5-10 year spans, it's long term money and is contractually intertwined with other sectors and forms of media in a way that the mobile space is not.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 13:21 |
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Mr. Crow posted:A few days ago but I can't believe madden still sells that well, hasn't that game just been roster updates for over a decade Why bother putting in effort when you have a total monopoly on the license/sport? Gridiron football has little appeal outside of the USA so the biggest alternative is the Canadian Football League which currently has nine teams. Then you are down to the joke leagues: The XFL and other wannabes who can only get one or two games into a season before shutting down. There is college football but that still has issues to work out before games can be made again.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 18:01 |
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MH Knights posted:Why bother putting in effort when you have a total monopoly on the license/sport? Gridiron football has little appeal outside of the USA so the biggest alternative is the Canadian Football League which currently has nine teams. Then you are down to the joke leagues: The XFL and other wannabes who can only get one or two games into a season before shutting down. Surprisingly enough, the yearly Madden release actually is a ton of effort in my experience. Admittedly, that was years ago, but I doubt things have changed all that much. It’s amazing how little all the crunch shows up as improvements in the end product.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 18:11 |
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MH Knights posted:Why bother putting in effort when you have a total monopoly on the license/sport? Gridiron football has little appeal outside of the USA so the biggest alternative is the Canadian Football League which currently has nine teams. Then you are down to the joke leagues: The XFL and other wannabes who can only get one or two games into a season before shutting down. Just do what devs did in the 8-/16-bit era, and make names up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oymWAeqv_-c Bonus if you make them just different enough from real players to avoid legal complications.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 18:51 |
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People have occasionally tried making offbrand football games after the EA Sports era began and it never works. Remember Blitz: The League? Or All-Pro Football? Backbreaker actually got some industry hype for its animation engine but nobody played that either. Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 23, 2022 |
# ? Jan 23, 2022 19:28 |
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Feels Villeneuve posted:People have occasionally tried making offbrand football games after the EA Sports era began and it never works. Remember Blitz: The League? Or All-Pro Football? Konami did well with ISS/ProEvo
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 20:01 |
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Rarity posted:Konami did well with ISS/ProEvo True, Konami is the only competition EA has these days when if comes to FIFA and even they kinda put things on the back burner last year to try to make meaningful changes for the new generation consoles. American football has a rival game pop up ever now and then, but they tend to get smashed by the madden monster pretty fast. 2K tried to get back into the game with All Pro Football but that didn't work out very well, and a few years back Maximum Football tried to do a DIY teams in any league ruleset which also didn't stick. As much crap as all the big sports makers get, they have to be doing something right to keep people coming back year after year.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 20:19 |
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What they're doing right is a monopoly on real team/player likenesses which are the number 1 driver of sport game sales.
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# ? Jan 23, 2022 20:36 |
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Do the Madden games have the Fifa gacha system where you need a 6 star golden Cristiano Renaldo in order to be competitive?
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 05:05 |
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The market for an unlicensed sports game is very small because you’re essentially targeting people who A) love football B) want to play a football video game C) don’t care about specific players or teams and just really love the mechanics of football being a fan of the sport is mostly about being a fan of a person or a place involved with the sport.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 06:32 |
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Never played any of those yearly sports games, but do they actually change up the engine/gameplay much, or is it pretty much just a few surface level things, and updating the teams/players to be accurate for the year?
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 13:47 |
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It’s important to remember when critiquing the sports industry games for their lack of new features or recycling ideas and content that every MADDEN or FIFA has to function both as a dopamine hit for returning sports gamers but also as an onboarding for new sports franchise fans. The Madden that is your 15th Madden that feels the same as the other 14 Maddens will also be millions of kids first Madden that they play with their dad or their aunt for the first time, which is why I’ve never understood the complaints about it being the exact same game every year. Not every game is for the mega enfranchised gaming hobbyist.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 13:50 |
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Also notably, you don't have to buy every year. I'll drop in on Madden every few years and with five years of incremental updates or whatever, I get a pretty different game.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 14:21 |
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dr_rat posted:Never played any of those yearly sports games, but do they actually change up the engine/gameplay much, or is it pretty much just a few surface level things, and updating the teams/players to be accurate for the year? It's kinda like how to an outsider something like Pokemon or Call of Duty doesn't appear to change much each year but if you dive deeper into what the hardcore fans are talking about then there's plenty of important changes for good or ill. Though much like those other examples what the game is on a fundamental level stays the same.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 14:46 |
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Boba Pearl posted:Do the Madden games have the Fifa gacha system where you need a 6 star golden Cristiano Renaldo in order to be competitive? Every year buy enough FUT coins and roll up to the field with 11 of these guys
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 14:48 |
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Yeah, sports franchises staying pretty much the same year on year isn't that bad imho. At the end of the day, you're not going to suddenly add another football on the pitch just to make things different. And as mentioned above, if you only refresh every few years, you do see the little improvements all around. Now the predatory shift towards microtransactions with FUT, that's a lot more dodgy in my book. FIFA is pretty bad there, no idea what Madden/NBA are like these days. I long for the olden days of stuff like NBA 2k7 where everything was there and offline: solo street player career, NBA seasons, exhibition games...
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 14:56 |
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i don't think anyone cares that sports games are pretty much just roster updates, what's amazing is that they have trained their audience to buy a whole new video game every year plus new microtransactions. no other genre is that predatory except mobile.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:25 |
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:no other genre is that predatory except mobile. military shooters have been at it just as long and just as aggressively. The Battle Pass system is totally ubiquitous now, every shooter is a live service now.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:27 |
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Turns out the Unity CEO saying: "We work with the military but not in any capacity that would cause loss of life" turned out to be a lie. Who would have thought? https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdv8q/unity-dogfight-simulation-air-force-kill-chain
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:39 |
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:i don't think anyone cares that sports games are pretty much just roster updates, what's amazing is that they have trained their audience to buy a whole new video game every year plus new microtransactions. no other genre is that predatory except mobile. A lot of the audience of those games specifically play those games and not much else - same with games like Call of Duty. If 90% of your playtime is FIFA, buying a new FIFA every year isn't so much of a hassle.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:41 |
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DC Murderverse posted:https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1484556399262814210?s=21 Microsoft is pretty famous for its union-busting efforts, so you're absolutely right in saying this is a now-or-never move for the Raven QA people. I hope other teams and other studios follow suit before it's too late.
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:53 |
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https://twitter.com/ign/status/1485613613591285761?s=21 It worked?
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:56 |
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Reik posted:Turns out the Unity CEO saying: "We work with the military but not in any capacity that would cause loss of life" turned out to be a lie. Who would have thought? John Riccitiello specifically said that Unity wouldn't work on projects that would lead to "direct loss of life", leaving him with a very flexible out in the form of "indirect loss of life". It's just a training simulator, nothing happens!
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:57 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 04:22 |
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It's a show of good faith to put pressure on ActiBlizz to come to the negotation table. They've already said they'll take further action if (ie. when) ActiBlizz don't co-operate
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# ? Jan 24, 2022 18:57 |