Author: [email protected] (Tyler Wilde)
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The RTS genre will never be mainstream unless you change it until it’s ‘no longer the kind of RTS that I want to play,’ says Crate Entertainment CEO
Crate Entertainment has been working its way through some very ‘PC gaming’ game genres: First it made an action RPG, Grim Dawn, then it made town builder Farthest Frontier (which is scheduled to leave early access sometime this year), and now it’s also working on a real-time strategy game. Unlike some of its contemporaries, though,…
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Apple says it’s sorry for smushing musical instruments and art supplies to advertise its latest iPad
After making a lot of people very mad at it, Apple has apologized for a new advertisement and says it’s scrapping plans to air the minute-long spot on TV. The ad, called “Crush,” is meant to emphasize the thinness of Apple’s new iPad Pro, and features a pile of media devices and art-making tools, including…
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EA studios ‘hunger’ to start using generative AI ‘as quickly as possible,’ says CEO
A month ago we reported that EA CEO Andrew Wilson is champing at the bit to increase the efficiency of EA’s studios using generative AI tools, and he returned to the topic this week on a call with investors, saying that EA’s developers themselves have a “hunger” to put AI to work on their projects.…
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Elite Dangerous gets its own kick in the Steam ratings shin over real money ship sales
Just yesterday, Morgan observed that tanking a game’s Steam rating has become a reflexive response to PC gaming grievances big and small. Now, as Helldivers 2’s user review average recovers from its weekend PSN account linking fiasco, another game is being hit with a smaller, but still conspicuous, influx of negative Steam user reviews. The…
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Making good, profitable games ‘will no longer keep you safe’: games industry expresses fury and heartbreak over closure of Hi-Fi Rush and Prey studios
After laying off thousands of employees over the past couple years, games industry executives appear to be adopting a more efficient method of what they euphemistically call “reprioritization”: closing entire studios. Take-Two axed two studios just last week, and now Microsoft has bulldozed four more, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, which it acquired when…
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It’s been an incredible few weeks for game companies making avoidable mistakes they immediately back down from
The year has started with an impressive string of boneheaded moves from game publishers. The particulars are different, but they’re connected by how predictable, and therefore avoidable, they were. Here are the biggest recent hits on the 2024 wall of shame: Helldivers 2 suddenly insisted that its millions of PC players make and connect PSN…
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The idea that the Manor Lords dev should ‘just hire 50 people’ to update it faster is ‘fundamentally not the way things work,’ says publisher
It’s an exaggeration to say that early access city builder Manor Lords was made by one person—developer Greg Styczeń has worked with a number of contractors—but it certainly isn’t being developed by a big, 50-person team. Some players think it ought to be, though. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Tim Bender, CEO of…
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Don’t say Manor Lords was made by a ‘solo developer,’ argues competing city builder maker: ‘The team size on it is maybe even larger than ours’
Hit medieval town builder Manor Lords is frequently said to have been created by a single developer, Greg Styczeń, and its marketing has leaned into that notion: The official website says it was “hand crafted by a solo developer.” Crate Entertainment CEO Arthur Bruno, whose town builder Farthest Frontier is also in early access, takes…
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I’m so annoyed that they’re calling the new hobbit game ‘A The Lord of the Rings Game’
English is a quirky language, but what they’ve done with the title for the new hobbit game can’t be blamed on zany grammar rules. It’s a sin that’s been committed in the name of branding—a terrible sin. The full title of Wētā Workshop’s upcoming cozy hobbit life sim is: “Tales of the Shire: A The…
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Abiotic Factor, a 6-player survival game where you’re scientists in a paranormal lab, is rising up Steam’s top-sellers list after launching in early access
Gordon Freeman is a nerd who cuts a heroic profile, but in Abiotic Factor you’re just a nerd: a regular, lab-coat-wearing new employee in a Black Mesa-like science facility that’s undergoing an unspecified security situation. Your job, at least for starters, is to avoid dying. Out in early access on Steam today, Abiotic Factor’s premise…