Good old GP

Minnesänger wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

Never played the Stanley Parable. I would like to, but not sure if I’d like to quite that much.

It’s not long. At the worst you waste 90 minutes of your time and come away with a “see what it’s doing but it’s not for me” vibe. Proper good game, imo.

Stanley found himself staring at a computer monitor. On it appeared to be some kind of gaming forum, where they were discussing the new version of The Stanley Parable. He wondered whether to offer his opinion of the game, having downloaded it last night. People might, he thought, find it helpful if he explained that he had spent longer playing the new content than he remembers playing of the original version of the game all those years ago. They might even appreciate it if he pointed out that anyone who already owned it on Steam would get a 33% discount.

But no, he thought.  Doing so would just make him sound like some sort of shill for the doubtless evil corporate overloads who had created the game, and any hope of ever being held in high regard by these faceless strangers would be lost.

Perhaps, Stanley considered, it might be better if he pointed out some of the flaws.  That the "Super Deluxe" version was graphically every bit as superficially dull as the original. He could mention that some of the hidden bits in the original had seemingly been changed, probably because of copyright issues. Maybe he could even talk about how the game came, at times, very close to crossing the line into self referential smugness. 

Stanley smiled to himself at that last line. Yes, this was precisely the sort of observation that would allow him to both demonstrate that he had experienced the game, whilst maintaining a certain level of aloofness that would surely cement his cool with the denizens of the internet. As he began to type however, Stanley's new found confidence faltered as he recalled that the game had appeared to have been all too aware of this "line" and had not only crossed it, but then doubled back, danced on it a little, ripped it from the ground, painted it across the walls and ceiling and then set fire to it whilst dancing naked round the room. As such, making wry observations about it crossing the line might just make him look like he didn't get it.  And Stanley was very keen that he be seen as a getter of "it", whatever "it" might be.  After all, "It" was the only thing worth getting.

Emboldened by his new found quest to demonstrate his understanding of "It", Stanley set out to craft a long rambling monologue about the game, written in the style of its overly verbose  erudite and doubtlessly handsome narrator. However, as he read it back, he realised that this too was an error of judgement on his part, and it risked making him sound like a "dick".  Stanley was very much aware that being a "dick" was the exact opposite of demonstrating that you get "It", and should be avoided at all costs. 

Maybe, Stanley thought, he should simply say that he is, so far, enjoying the game a great deal? No, better to just delete the whole thing and pretend he was never here at all.
 
Stanley went to close the window entirely and inadvertently hit "post comment" instead.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't play it. Games are largely dull as fuck. If we aren't going to try something different when it comes about what's the point

Please send him a bill for nineteen pounds.

You should wait until a sale then post the creator the difference if you like it.

But he can nail that double jump bit in Revenge of Shinobi first time every other time.

Isn't Konami a Yakuza run gambling company now?

Blue Swirl wrote:

Why Microsoft should take a leaf out of Disney's book.

tl;dr - Instead of buying Activision Blizzard for tens of billions, they should "do a Disney"; Disney bought a near-death Marvel, and turned under utilised IP into a gold mine. Why not, say, buy Konami for a tenth of Activision Blizzard turn out a few not-shit Metal Gear titles?

I see the point but they’re not just buying the IPs, they’re buying the dev teams and publishing channels, the biz dev teams, the tech, the creative leads. Buy Konami and you’re realistically looking at 6 years before you see your first product and there’s no way it sells for near as many units as CoD or drives anywhere near the same Gamepass subscriptions.

The likes of Capcom or Squeenix, as the article suggests, would be more sensible in that respect but unless they default to multiplat then you’ll effectively be removing these games from their parents market of Japan.

Konami would be the Sony way. Buy the talent, direct em to do good work.

MS will also clean house on a lot of the management shite going on. That’s a given.

Buy what talent? Are Konami even capable of making full-fat software these days?

I would've thought it would make more sense to just buy their IP rather than Konami as a whole but then that still leaves you with sorting out talent to actually develop the games.

Also Acti Bliz are American so they integrate their cultures a lot more easily.

g.man wrote:

Who in their right mind would buy Konami????

I'll do it for £10

“enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud”.

Oh dear.

I guess it saves pretty much the Enix side of things while funding Square to accelerate to trash.

You’d think there’s at least 300m just in tomb raider.

Also, I feel like Crystal dynamics making new Perfect Dark makes more sense if this was in the air at the time. There was something weird about square just renting out their premier western developer for a console exclusive.