(Either that or they fired all their limited partners.)

Loss Prevention

Law Pretender?

Ah, I think we call them controllers in Germany.

My father called them bean counters.

Not so fast etc.

$3.64 this morning, which is oof. To be fair, most of the game industry is down 5% this morning. The financial media has been suggesting it’s because US lawmakers spent the weekend blaming video games for right-wing street violence (which makes sense; they played tons of violent video games in the Weimar Republic, too, but I guess that is more pertinent to the Trump/America RIP thread). I guess we’re supposed to believe that stock speculators think there’s a 5% chance governments will start regulating them, but if it didn’t happen when they were trying to give children gambling addictions, it probably isn’t going to happen now. More likely the markets finally pricing in the fact that AAA publishers’ business models are almost as straight ****ed as GameStop’s is.

Oh, but I read another Forbes contributor editorial this morning. Did you know GameStop is dying because of digital?

Look at the mess that we're in. Look at the mess that we're in. As far as the digital, I agree to parts of what Jon`C said, we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we're not.

That reminds me of how Chinese bots haven't edited my TVTropes article (that I had to edit myself, ofc) yet https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/DeusExNihilum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record

Hmm, a new GameStop article on seekingalpha. Let’s see....

ok I guess maybe amazon could find something to do with some cheap mall leases, I guess, maybe, because they couldn’t get any of those already. but why would Amazon pay a $7 premium per share, that just doesn’t

ohhhhh

Amazon, I made an oopsie with my retirement fund, please bail me out it will only cost you 3x more than what the company is worth

I’m concerned because when the remastered Ghostbusters game is released on Switch, the physical copy of the game will only be available at GameStop. And I want a physical copy, damnit!

No Man's Sky is finally on sale for half off in various places. Good time to buy or is this one that will continue to drop sooner rather than later at this point? It looks like an update is coming which adds VR. Not really a thing I'm looking to take advantage of but I've kept the game on my wishlist to monitor for price drops.

Yeah, go for it. Unless you're really super concerned about the possibility of it being an additional 10% off in some other sale months down the road.

Saw this on 9gag:

Gamestop just laid off another 14% of its staff workers. I'd heard something a few days ago but wasn't sure whether to believe them, oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sherman, who according to Bloomberg is a "retail veteran", wants to unclutter stores and refocus on the top-selling products. Bold moves.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/big-short-investor-michal-burry-is-now-long-gamestop-51566424832?mod=hp_DAY_1



Burry is "going long on GameStop" but is also demanding that they execute a stock buyback that would nearly take the company private. Uh huh.

I guess it would be a pretty cheap way of buying a big company if GameStop bought all of the outstanding shares except his.

I like how this game basically took the "Third Person Shooter" blueprint that I also used during the UE4 Failure experiment back in 2017 and put it on Steam with only a handful of modifications to the sample maps:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/723830/Cyborg_Invasion_Shooter/

(Interestingly, that game - and the other ones made by that guy using the 3rd person shooter blueprints - is more competent than my failure project in some areas but far worse in others)

But yeah, it still kind of stings that I paid 2027.35 EUR back then only to realize that "copy-pasting assets worked well for you with TODOA and DXN, but not anymore!". Boh.

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It only cost you 2k to learn a lesson that most people spend 6 figures at game design school to learn.

That's true, even though I was very bitter about it for a long while (well, until fall 2018 when I finally made the money back). So it goes.

Also, that reminds me of how Ruthven got his degree from the game design school, but even someone as talented as him wasn't guaranteed a successful gaming career with all his merits.

(Not sure if he'd have really wanted one... well, considering everything's that's been going on in the past decade or so, I wouldn't have)

Holy crap, that is not just an asset flip, it is an incredibly lazy asset flip. Isn't that the default UE4 robot, just reskinned? And the level geometry is all so square.

I like how the intro video ends with him going through some traps and getting mowed down by a cheap, unavoidable trap. Like he actually dies in the video, lol.

So: I thought once about making a game in UE4, just as you. Then I remembered how long JED architecture could take.. really long.. and in today's world everything must be higher polygon, so even longer. Then with skinning and all.. basically, you'd need a team of artists you couldn't pay to get enough not-flipped assets to even make the game, who could work on spec. It just doesn't seem viable.

As Joncy said though, you learned your lesson actually pretty cheaply. It's nothing to be upset about.

As per working in video games generally.. that's a hard no from me unless it's a small company that I believe can make some decent products.

Yeah, that's the default UE4 robot character. Even though the later projects have actually gotten better, it's still easy to see where he's made his own "archi" instead of using the sample maps https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/951640/ss_bac4134a08c1e19922bff83fb38fdf9b15d2edaa.1920x1080.jpg?t=1552408150

But yeah, I learnt my lesson (even if my original reason for ceasing to get new assets was due to Epic sort of mishandling a hacker issue, albeit one that didn't directly affect me).

In any case, the legacy of JKEdit lives on:

JED isn't a good representative at all.

Lots of solos make perfectly good games, even UE4 games. It's not trivial, but it's achievable with the right combination of skills and judicious design. The non-viable part is the fact that there are only 3 game studios making any money.

Well that's fun. Maybe in 20 years he'll release a game worth playing?? Who knows!



Do you have an example? I know Stardew Valley was only one dev, and he raked it in with that game.

Minecraft, Banished, Cave Story, Axiom Verge, Papers Please, Undertale. I’m having trouble thinking of successful UE4 solo games off the top of my head, but that’s just a tool.

All based on 2D sprites or low polygon 3D. Which saves a ton in the art department. That's kind of what I was saying.. UE4 assets take much longer than for any of the listed games.

What about UE4 specifically precludes using 2D sprites or low polygon 3D?

you can do other so you must

Isn't a part of Fortnite's massive popularity based on it being a low polygon 3D game

(Or "Wasn't Fortnite's popularity due to etc.", I don't know anymore)

You could, but then why use the UE4 engine if you're not exploiting its capabilities?



Those character models and animations definitely took time, and FBR is just hacked together from a bunch of assets of the failed Fortnite coop game. Just the models and animations alone looks like it'd take a talented artist a long time.. and any solo artist wouldn't have the skillset to produce at the same rate.

This seems to be the only UE4 game I could find developed by one person in UE4. Apparently basically all of the assets were purchased from the store, and it still took two years.

Edit: no wait, it still hasn't been released, so it's been in development for 5 years now? And it's now been given funding by Sony and Epic Games? I have no idea what's happening really, but the point is one person can't really effectively make enough AAA assets to make using the UE4 engine worth it.. they need a team. The smallest major project I can think of in the UE4 engine was PUBG, but that had a team and was still very shoddy on release.

As for why people who design 2d games tend not to go for UE4. IDK, ask them? But when I google "which game engine is best for 2d" UE4 doesn't come up, so my guess is any developer who has an inspiration doesn't even discover it as an option. Just a guess.

Yeah, one of the first clues to the failure of my experiment was more or less "alright, I need to make a hole in this fancy floor (prefab), what do I need for that? ... ... ... Oh yeah, Maya/3D Studio Max/whatever and years of experience in making AAA grade models with it".

UE4 is a lot more than a renderer.

Sure, but isn't the renderer the biggest draw to the engine?

Yep, exactly my thoughts too. I could possibly learn Maya, but from what I remember it has a super cluttered UI and trying to learn anything felt overwhelming.

What you're saying is a bit like saying "I don't like steak, so I can't fully utilize the menu at a steakhouse. Instead I'm going to eat this hot dog I found on the street."

All that said, I wonder how many people have successfully reverse engineered the UE4 "Dark Forces" tech demo and have built a proper game on that base, without sharing it with anyone else obvs

Warning! Long meandering post follows!

I've come to the conclusion that I suck at games. I don't believe that was always the case but it sure is now. I don't think this is entirely my fault, a number of things seem to be conspiring against me.

Since upgrading to a 4K monitor I've noticed that several of my games seem to hate that I have DPI scaling set in the Windows properties. I have it set to 200% normally but several games refuse to display anything until I set it back to 100%. I would like to see if I can create desktop shortcuts that automate this change for me or some other sort of macro. It appears that I should be able to accomplish this change in the properties dialog but I don't understand the options and how to interpret them for my situation. I could also reverse primary and secondary monitors with the HD TV maybe but that isn't an ideal solution either.

I purchase a lot of old games on GOG but I'm often stuck with archaic controls and an inability to really use a gamepad. Some of these games might be worth the hassle but others maybe not. Documentation is often poor with regards to modernizing controls. Some of these problems may be solvable with key mapping software but other issues of mine I'll elaborate on later kind of prevents me from making use of these solutions.

I tend to just be a very casual player which sort of limits what I stay interested in. I've been finding some success with more recent FMV games. I played through several endings of Late Shift some months back and am fairly well into Her Story. I recently learned of The Bunker and just picked that up on a Steam sale. I also pulled the trigger on No Man's Sky and put in a little time here and there. It's a little on the boring side right now but as I get more comfortable with the controls I think I will get into it more. I can also get into button masher games like Force Unleashed and Injustice fairly well. Fun stories and easy game mechanics.

I don't console game as much as I would because I simply can't. I would look like a huge hypocrite if I chased my son of the console just so I can sit there for hours on end. I have to limit his console time because he really is a worse person the more he plays. Right now I have the rigid standard that all of his grades must be a C or better. He's not playing right now. I also generally never let him on the PS4 because, last time I checked, their parental controls suck. Microsoft at least makes it pretty easy to manage the time via the web interface. If it weren't primarily for this issue I could probably put in an hour or so per day console gaming. I have tons of great games to get through someday.

Another aspect that keeps me out of many games whether it's getting the game running or learning the controls is that my old brain doesn't retain things like it used to and unless I'm routinely dealing with something I'm likely to forget things I learn more recently. This is particularly bad with games with control schemes different from what I'm used to. The Battle for Middle Earth games being a good example. I'll never forget the basics of Warcraft or Command and Conquer but I'll be damned if I remember the controls for BFME. This also applies to tweaks that I may have to make to get games running. I also loose interest fairly quick now and don't stick with a game long enough to really get it. This ends up putting me in a cycle where I keep having to restart games to learn from the beginning and get the story.

On other gaming notes:

A couple years ago when I decided to get the Battle for Middle Earth games from my apparently very where Anthology set (wtf, actually I know WTF but damn! Amazon shows me at that link I purchased it for $18 11 years ago!)running I found links that not only show you how but have the entire thing out there readily available. I imagine it's still the case and nobody really cares to enforce the license on a dead franchise.

I mentioned somewhere far earlier in this thread that Star Trek Voyager Elite Force is available legally for free here. When I return scaling to 100% it runs great on my PC in a widescreen mode. Do not change the resolution! Elite Force II, which I chose to find through alternate methods (I do actually legally own the first one) seems to run fine too but I think it stretches the aspect ratio. I need to see if my video card settings will fix that.

I backed Star Citizen when it first came up here over six years ago. Well, updated it last night, I've spent about an hour tops inside the "game" over the years, and for the first time figured out how to spawn my ship and take a look at it. It seriously probably took as long to figure this out as I ever spent in the game before. When I finally managed to get inside there were sparks and smoke everywhere! WTF, LOL!

Are you talking about that Mos Eisley level? I think somewhere else in this thread I or somebody else linked to a video where some dude was trying to pass that off as some super secret Dark Forces UE4 level that only he was able to get his hands on. It was, however, made by the same group or people from the group that are/were working on a DF remake but I still thought that was hilarious.

Oh yeah, that's the one. I'm quite sure that someone has at the very least least stolen all of its resources from "GPU memory" or something for their own game, but I dunno if they've managed to recreate the game mechanics. Oh well.