Tag: COVID

The former director of the God of War studio is clear: "if a game is not fun, it is not worth the investment"

The video game industry in the West faces a discouraging outlook, with over 45,000 layoffs since the COVID pandemic in 2022. This phenomenon reflects the difficulty that studios and publishers face in adapting to rising production costs and changing player priorities. According to Meghan Morgan Juinio, former product development director at Santa Monica Studios, companies like EA and Ubisoft are likely to have to rethink their approach and develop smaller-scale games with more accessible budgets. We are heading towards a new video game paradigm In a recent interview in the […]

The video game industry in the West faces a discouraging landscape, with over 45,000 layoffs since the COVID pandemic in 2022. This phenomenon reflects the difficulty that studios and publishers face in adapting to rising production costs and the changing priorities of players. According to Meghan Morgan Juinio, former product development director at Santa Monica Studios, companies like EA and Ubisoft may need to rethink their approach and develop smaller-scale games with more accessible budgets.

We are heading towards a new paradigm of video games

In a recent interview at the Gamescom Asia x Thailand Games Show, Juinio emphasized that the most crucial aspect of a video game is its ability to entertain. “If a game is not fun, it is not worth the investment, whether it’s two million or 500 million dollars,” he stated. Despite the high expenses on graphics and music, fun must be the core of the player experience.

The growth of low-budget games, such as Clair Obscur and Peak, demonstrates that small developers can create viral hits, which calls into question the effectiveness of large publishers in producing titles that truly capture players’ attention. Juinio emphasized that, although iconic games like God of War will not disappear, we will see an increase in the development of smaller-scale titles by large companies, adapting to a more sustainable model.

As the demographics of players transform, with a large portion of them being adults over 35 years old, the challenges for games to reach a broad audience are evident. “We need to focus on building solid games that are truly fun to play,” concluded Juinio, pointing towards a future that could include fewer big-budget games but more accessible and appealing to a diverse audience.

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Hideo Kojima Unveils Death Stranding 2 Details: Plot, Gameplay, and More!

Hideo Kojima tells us a little more about Death Stranding 2 and, although he doesn’t clarify much for us, he does leave us some clues about his subject.

Death Stranding is one of the most impactful games of recent times. Hideo Kojima always provides, but many people had doubts because of the whole situation surrounding his departure from Konami. Whether he would be able to make an excellent game without having a big company or the Metal Gear brand behind him was something that was yet to be proven for many people, something that the Japanese creative managed to prove with flying colors. So now we are all eagerly awaiting Death Stranding 2, and although in dribs and drabs, Hideo Kojima has recently offered a few clues as to what we can expect from this sequel.

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Of the little we know about Death Stranding 2 is what the game’s trailer from the last Games Awards has shown us. Almost a year later, we still have no more information than those fascinating four minutes, and the fact that Kojima wrote the script during the pandemic. Something that has recently come to light.

In an interview for the publication Music Natalie, Kojima confirmed that he had to revisit what “strand” means to him because of the COVID pandemic. Although he had already written the story of this second part, or at least he had sketched out a significant part of it, after living through everything that living in confinement and under the permanent threat of something that seemed capable of ending civilization entailed, he decided that he had to rethink where he was taking the story.

In this regard, he said that in the first game the main theme was “connection”. But also that if the pandemic has taught him anything, it is that human beings require more than the pseudo-connections that occur remotely. Thus, his intention in this Death Stranding 2 is to also address that human need to connect with others in a physical way, not just through emails or video calls, which as we have seen, has not prevented a worrying rise in mental illness during and after the pandemic.

How this will be reflected in the game is something that remains to be seen. Although knowing Kojima and his penchant for taking violent swings between different installments of the same franchise, it wouldn’t be unusual if Death Stranding 2 ends up being something completely different than what we’ve come to expect.

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Reviving the Pandemic: The Iconic Game that Mirrored the Global Crisis Returns as an Animated Series

The most popular game of the pandemic returns, this time with an animated series from the creators of Big Mouth and Star Trek: Lower Decks

Among Us was extremely popular during the pandemic, and although it’s true that there isn’t as much talk about it anymore, the reality is that it continues to be played a lot nowadays. That’s why, even though it may seem like it’s coming late, like magicians, it arrives not too early or too late, but when it is needed. And Among Us announces that it will have an animated series.

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Under the supervision of the studio Titmouse, as reported by Variety, the series will focus on the mystery aspect of the original game, aiming to recreate the thrill of uncovering the impostor in a life-or-death situation for the crew members. In fact, the choice of the Titmouse studio seems particularly fitting in this case. As the creators of Big Mouth and Star Trek: Lower Decks, two series with a sharp but not irreverent or obscene touch, featuring characters that could be described as losers, they appear to be the perfect fit to adapt what every Among Us game becomes: a succession of misunderstandings and backstabbing.

Of course, we still don’t have specific details about the series. We don’t know if there will be an overarching storyline, if each episode will simulate a game session, or if the episodes will be long or short. What we do know is that the director is Owen Dennis, the creator of Infinity Train, and he will serve as an executive producer alongside Forest Willard, Marcus Bromander, and Carl Neisser, members of the original game’s development studio.

Among Us is a game developed by Innersloth, released on June 15, 2018, but it wouldn’t explode in popularity until a couple of years later when content creators from South Korea and Brazil started showing interest in the game. This sparked a trend that spread to the United States and eventually reached the rest of the world. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Among Us found its way onto computers and mobile devices worldwide, becoming a means of both gaming and socializing with others. It was a testament to how Among Us, despite appearing to have had its time in the spotlight, can always surprise us once again, showing its enduring appeal.

Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.

Twitter no longer cares about false information related to COVID

Elon Musk is at it again, and this time, he’s addressing the freedom of speech notion he toted from before he took over Twitter. In one of his latest acts, he’s addressing the policy that governs misinformation about COVID. Not only is it now allowed, but he’s reinstating thousands of accounts that were suspended due to sharing incorrect news about the pandemic before.

This COVID misinformation policy came into being in 2020 when the pandemic struck the planet. There were so many people spreading posts on Twitter about the virus being a scam or a government plot to take over the world, the platform decided to take action. If you issued Tweets that were misleading, your account was suspended.

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Enter Elon Musk and his life-long dream to promote free speech. If you head to the policy page now, it says the following:

“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.”

Not only can you now happily spread misleading information on COVID, but Musk is busy restoring thousands of Twitter accounts that were suspended. There are some that have over a million followers. I’m sure the owners of those accounts will be glad they don’t have to fight to get all those followers back again.

In one of our recent articles, we mentioned that Apple wants to divorce Twitter due to Musk’s intentions to promote freedom of speech. I wonder what they think about this latest move. After cleaning Twitter headquarters from almost half the staff, like Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, he’s making sure that everyone can say what they want.

What fascinates me is that Musk’s double standards are already starting to show. He wants freedom of speech but is culling the platform of porn-related accounts and content. Not only that, but he’s quickly cleaning out parody accounts. Why? Because his massive fanbase wants it that way.

Is it just me, or is Meta playing Monkey See, Monkey Do? It wasn’t long after Twitter cut its workforce in half when the Facebook company did the same thing. It looks like Meta is also investigating its COVID-related policies. Perhaps Zuckerberg thinks Musk is a genius and is following his example?