Playstation single player games will no longer be ported to PC

[sharknice]

I won't conclude that it isn't a major concern; we just have no firm evidence to show that it is, and saying "proven beyond reasonable doubt" doesn't make it so. I and now Ididar have already pointed out both contradictory evidence and other potential factors. No, I haven't conducted a survey, but I do know that gameplay, reviews, affordability, and sheer sequel fatigue are possibilities given historical patterns.




The problem is that Newtonian physics have still been rigorously tested and are solid, repeatable models. You can't say "games always fail when they push ideology" because that's not only subjective criteria (which ideology? Where's the breaking point?) but demonstrably false in at least some cases. If we're going to abuse the physics analogy, it'd be as if inertia only applied some of the time.




I appreciate that cultural differences meant you had limited exposure to Nintendo, but that doesn't change that Wind Waker was a massively popular game whose art style played a role in its success. I've never watched Titanic, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

The point is that distinctive art often sells games rather than taking away from them. Nintendo's business is arguably built on it.



Destiny 2 lasted for nine years and was second only to Call of Duty when it launched in 2017. I'll agree it was less polarizing, but I wouldn't call Marathon botched.

Woke ideology prioritizes equity over quality. The more woke a game is, the more sacrifices they make to gameplay, story, etc. A lot of the consequences of woke behavior are hidden behind second order effects. But woke ideology inevitably makes games worse.

 

[Ididar]

Woke ideology prioritizes equity over quality. The more woke a game is, the more sacrifices they make to gameplay, story, etc. A lot of the consequences of woke behavior are hidden behind second order effects. But woke ideology inevitably makes games worse.

So your theory is now that all games that fail are a result of woke ideology regardless of whether or not you can prove it? That's a religion right there.

 

[sharknice]

So your theory is now that all games that fail are a result of woke ideology regardless of whether or not you can prove it? That's a religion right there.

No, games can fail for other reasons too. You ok?

 

[Ididar]

No, games can fail for other reasons too. You ok?

Quite ok. But you did just say that woke ideology affects all aspects of a game so you can easily blame shit game mechanics on woke ideology. Are you saying that's not the case?

 

[DukenukemX]

So your theory is now that all games that fail are a result of woke ideology regardless of whether or not you can prove it? That's a religion right there.

Baldur's Gate 3 pushed for woke ideology and did extremely well, but it's a risky move. Every character in that game is essentially bisexual, with a lesbian couple that you have to save. Just like how sex can help sell an otherwise shitty game, you can expect "ideologies" to make a weak game even weaker. Here's another example from Persona 5, a game I didn't like playing but is well received by the community. At some point in the game you take a test and one of the questions is about who makes the money in Japan. The answer is not the government because the government is stupid at managing money. Clearly game developers had an ideology that they wanted to push in a game. Whether or not it's a popular opinion is another matter. Point is do enough of these in a video game and anger enough people while your game is essentially mediocre at best, then don't expect great sales. Even if the game was top notch, doesn't give developers excuses to put these into games. People in 2026 are very sensitive to bullshit, and can easily see it.


View: https://youtu.be/AECa-dHufmk?si=oZG2iO3kHllaF6Ah

 

[SecretStash]

I imagine he's saying it's a significant factor.

I don't like when people have to insert their woke ideology into games. It really pulls you out of the context.

But at the same time the labeling of 'woke' getting out of hand a little bit. I play through forespoken and it's really not woke. Sure. You have a black female orphan from New York who does self-centered things like an orphan would, finding herself in a fantasy world. But that's about it. The start was slow and cringy and the interactions were too. But that game was a lot of fun and a lot of quality creativity went into that game.

Having a female lead in a game is not woke ideology. Having that character not 100% white doesn't mean it's woke either. A character with an urban background in a fantasy setting is not something I would have chosen, but okay, is what it is. No Marxist ideology. No one is pushing LGBT values. There is even an in-game lore item about how business with low regulations yet strict punishments has been good for economic prosperity in the region.

The game is good for cat lovers which I don't like cats. But they give you this awesome setting so you don't have cats following you around which is nice.

There is just a lot of good parts in that game if you stick with it. The 'woke' label or hurt it unnecessarily.

 

[SecretStash]

Baldur's Gate 3 was successful in spite of the "woke" label. The developers are primarily from Belgium where they care less sexual expressions. To them sex is what it is.

I guarantee you that if this were developed primarily from the California United States, you would smell a lot stronger agenda/propaganda on sexual expressions. In other words, it would definitely seem like it was a lot more woke. These people from Belgium just don't seem like they are pushing as much philosophy, they are just diving in on what they consider fun.

 

[Aurelius]

You do know Sony made Stellar Blade? Feminists were very upset that a sexy female character was the main character of a video game. When ported to PC, it became the best selling Sony PC game. It beat out Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, and even Spider-Man. Stellar Blade sold over 1 million copies in its first three days on Steam. I don't see any damaged sales here.

The issue isn't whether or not the lead is an attractive woman, or even if she's meant to pander to horny, lonely men. I was discussing more the possibility that developers might backtrack to please the whiners. Imagine the public backlash if Santa Monica Studio caved and made Laufey a sex symbol... yeah, some of those complainers might change their mind, but that would be overshadowed by the roasting Sony would get for not sticking to its guns.

 

[M76]

I won't conclude that it isn't a major concern; we just have no firm evidence to show that it is, and saying "proven beyond reasonable doubt" doesn't make it so. I and now Ididar have already pointed out both contradictory evidence and other potential factors. No, I haven't conducted a survey, but I do know that gameplay, reviews, affordability, and sheer sequel fatigue are possibilities given historical patterns.

If I was on the jury for the trial of ideology, I'd have zero doubt that it's guilty.

What did lididar point out? Where is the contradictory evidence? Other factors existing is not contradictory evidence, one does not exclude the other.

gameplay is a perfectly good reason for a game to fail, but if we take games with similar gameplay and the ones with the ideology always underperform,while the ones without do not then you cannot blame gameplay.

Affordability can be easily excluded, approx 3 million ppl pre-ordered GTA VI in the first week of pre-orders, despite pre-ordering being less popular nowadays without physical media. Clearly people can afford games. They just choose to not spend money on certified trash.

Sequel fatigue is really just bad game fatigue, COD and BF can seemingly go on making sequels forever and not loose popularity. Or when they did there were clear reasons for it.

The problem is that Newtonian physics have still been rigorously tested and are solid, repeatable models. You can't say "games always fail when they push ideology" because that's not only subjective criteria (which ideology? Where's the breaking point?) but demonstrably false in at least some cases. If we're going to abuse the physics analogy, it'd be as if inertia only applied some of the time.

Which ideology? Glad you've asked. All of them! It is completely irrelevant that games happen to push LGBTQ, Feminism, or DEI mostly nowadays. If they tried to push Krishna or Christianity or anti abortion rhetoric I'd be against that too.
There is no breaking point, it's a scale, games can get away unscathed with a bit of subtle ideology, like Horizon Zero Dawn. But the more overt and obvious it becomes the more it will affect public discourse and potentially sales.
You say it's demonstrably false, but I can't think of a single game that was overtly ideological but didn't underperform or fail.

I appreciate that cultural differences meant you had limited exposure to Nintendo, but that doesn't change that Wind Waker was a massively popular game whose art style played a role in its success. I've never watched Titanic, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

From wikipedia:

"The Wind Waker received critical acclaim for its visuals, gameplay, level design, music, and story. The art direction proved divisive among players and contributed to comparatively weak sales"

You can say the exact same thing for marathon, praised by reviews, divisive with gamers.

The point is that distinctive art often sells games rather than taking away from them. Nintendo's business is arguably built on it.

Apparently not. Nintendo can get away with murder and still have a huge fanbase. They play outside of normal games industry rules for some reason.

 

[DukenukemX]

The issue isn't whether or not the lead is an attractive woman, or even if she's meant to pander to horny, lonely men. I was discussing more the possibility that developers might backtrack to please the whiners. Imagine the public backlash if Santa Monica Studio caved and made Laufey a sex symbol... yeah, some of those complainers might change their mind, but that would be overshadowed by the roasting Sony would get for not sticking to its guns.

Sticking to a vision and making money don't always go hand in hand. Also, who's vision? AAA games today have hundreds of people working on it, so who's vision we're talking about? This is the problem with gaming today in that there's too many cooks in the kitchen. Same goes for movies if you know about the controversy over The Odyssey. You know it's an issue when the Greeks have a problem with it. The Odyssey did make money despite the controversy, but that doesn't mean the movie did everything right.

As for backtracking, even the Sonic the Hedgehog movie has people saying that they should stick with their vision. Jim Carrey said that movie creators should not be influenced by people who were upset over the original Sonic design. Can you imagine ignoring a "vocal minority" so that someone's "vision" can be fulfilled? There would be no Sonic 3 movie which made $491 million worldwide. The Sonic franchise would be more dead than it is now.

 

[Ididar]

Sticking to a vision and making money don't always go hand in hand. Also, who's vision? AAA games today have hundreds of people working on it, so who's vision we're talking about? This is the problem with gaming today in that there's too many cooks in the kitchen. Same goes for movies if you know about the controversy over The Odyssey. You know it's an issue when the Greeks have a problem with it. The Odyssey did make money despite the controversy, but that doesn't mean the movie did everything right.

Every single movie or video game is going to have someone who doesn't like it. The internet is just giving them all bigger and more visible platforms that allow them to reach other like-minded people and amplify their voices. I probably won't see The Odyssey but most of the complaints I've heard centre around two actors, not the story itself. People don't like two actors and all I've heard is whining about them, not the story or visuals. And, to be frank, the same people bitching about a black Helen of Troy wouldn't have uttered a word 40-50 years ago when white people were playing Egyptian pharohs (early dynasty, not the Macedonian pharohs) or when John Wayne played Ghengis Khan. And, no, this is not unique to white folks before anyone jumps on me for that. Yes, some African and Asian descent people get annoyed when the characters they identify with get swapped as well. You'll always find someone who's annoyed and nowadays you'll likely hear about it because the internet lets you search for information across the globe in seconds so it is brutally simple to find someone who's annoyed about the same thing you are, or to find someone complaining about a counter-point you're trying to make.

Information flow is great but it does tend to amplify voices far beyond what they should. Subtract the internet from the equation and most people would have heard Matt Damon and The Odyssey and based their desire to see the movie purely on that and maybe a trailer. That's the way it used to be. Now people who regularly get annoyed about "woke" stuff go on the internet instead to their favourite forums and look to see if there is something about a movie or game they "should" be annoyed about before they choose to purchase.

 

[Shoganai]

but most of the complaints I've heard centre around two actors, not the story itself.

This is categorically false. Nolan completely shit on the story. If he had honored the story instead of taking so many creative liberties, people would have given an infinite shit less about the casting. The casting is the least of this movie's problems. Also, stop derailing this thread.

 

[SecretStash]

I mean no one in the history of Hollywood except for maybe Henry Cavill actually care about staying true to the source.

Also, it's good that we don't have people like John Wayne getting to be Genghis Khan anymore. Let's just try to aim for realism and stop pushing agendas onscreen. Won't stop me from going to see this movie though.

 

[Bankie]

I mean no one in the history of Hollywood except for maybe Henry Cavill actually care about staying true to the source.

Also, it's good that we don't have people like John Wayne getting to be Genghis Khan anymore. Let's just try to aim for realism and stop pushing agendas onscreen. Won't stop me from going to see this movie though.

Bro, You're arguing with people that were mad that Dark Souls has 'Body Type A' and 'Body Type B' for options.

 

[SecretStash]

Bro, You're arguing with people that were mad that Dark Souls has 'Body Type A' and 'Body Type B' for options.

Didnt think I was?

 

[MaZa]

This is categorically false. Nolan completely shit on the story. If he had honored the story instead of taking so many creative liberties, people would have given an infinite shit less about the casting. The casting is the least of this movie's problems. Also, stop derailing this thread.

And the armor and clothing! This was the bronze age FFS, people wore bright colors and the armor and weapons of the era were literally golden! Bronze is incredibly beautiful alloy. What Nolan does? Dresses everyone in black and brown biker leathers like it is the early 2000s and recycles the oh-so-obviously plastic Batman armor leftovers.

 

[DukenukemX]

Bro, You're arguing with people that were mad that Dark Souls has 'Body Type A' and 'Body Type B' for options.

Because male and female are now offensive for like five people, where Body Type A & B are offensive for majority of players. There was a Mod that renamed body types 1 and 2 to male and female was removed. This is called conditioning, like how Sony paid bots to convince people that removal of physical media was good. Just like when people tell themselves that not having Playstation games on PC is good. Majority of people are not in agreement of this assessment.

 

[Bankie]

Who cares what offends the professional victims and snowflakes on a Twitter poll (which is not a "majority of players" as you say)? Body Type A and B is a choice that affects 2 seconds of the character builder. It's like being mad about a 'fat' body type being called 'thick' in the character builder. It doesn't matter unless you're the type of person that wants to be offended.

 

[SecretStash]

Because male and female are now offensive for like five people, where Body Type A & B are offensive for majority of players. There was a Mod that renamed body types 1 and 2 to male and female was removed. This is called conditioning, like how Sony paid bots to convince people that removal of physical media was good. Just like when people tell themselves that not having Playstation games on PC is good. Majority of people are not in agreement of this assessment.

Yeah, conditioning is what gets people mad. A game that has less "progressive content" but forces the agenda is more woke than a game that has more "progressive content" but isn't trying.