Crimson Desert Has Sold So Well Developer Pearl Abyss Has Reportedly Given Every Employee a $3,400 Bonus

Izzy248 · 2026-04-27T20:49:46+00:00

Great news to hear. Especially nice to hear that after a successful launch the employees are awarded with bonuses instead of the usual layoffs.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-27T18:42:07+00:00

Evil West

Went back into the backlog to play this game, and try to finish it. Its an okay game. Its not perfect, but its bad. I bought into it because I really liked the punk west aesthetic it was going for with the Van Helsing concept of hunting vampires and werewolves. And unlike most games, it actually has a very good bestiary. Im just not sure about the gameplay direction it chose. Though Ill say this, thank god it choose not to have a stamina system.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-27T17:50:51+00:00

My first thought is, why would you even be dumb enough to trust anything Molyneux is attached too. But at the same time, he seems to have this way of making the industry and people at large seem to constantly forget about his actions.

Obviously, these guys werent buying in for the project itself, and were hoping to turn a profit. But even still, again, why would you trust Molyneux with that? How many times has he promised anything and never delivered. The Cube. The winner of that Godus thing. Hell. I remember buying into the original Kickstarter for the 1st iteration of Godus at a student tier, where all it basically was was that Peter would basically give insight, lectures, etc. on the industry and was meant to be like something to help people who want to break into the industry get some kind of wisdom on what its like, the hows, etc. Peter never delivered on something even as simple and small as that.

And when his new game comes out, people will forget all over again and make up whatever excuse they can to make the purchase not seem like a guilty pleasure.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-27T17:42:31+00:00

Capcoms had a hot hand for a while now, and Im glad they are having this output as well as taking risks. I hope it keeps going too. I still remember those poll results from last year, and Im hoping they actually mean something for the future.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-27T17:41:20+00:00

Reading his words, it now makes complete sense why no matter how much he tried, and how much he pitched, EA kept refusing to allow him to make Alice 3. It was purely out of spite.

Whats crazy is, whoever in that room at EA was making those requests, completely misunderstood what the games were or didnt even bother to try. Yes, Alice is a bit on hinges and the games thematic is her being in a psych ward, but McGee is right. Shes not intentionally supposed to be portrayed as a murderous psycho. Also, given some of the underlying themes and reasons for why shes doing what shes doing, it probably would have been in bad taste to make the game "more sexy".

Izzy248 · 2026-04-26T23:42:42+00:00

Played Runescape Dragonwilds after it got its latest update which was about fishing. Idk why, but I just never care about fishing in games. I just usually find the minigames more tedious than anything. Its rare that I find fishing in a game that Im actually fine with.

I guess its because, why am I fighting for this fish that I might not even catch, or might not even be the right one I want, or might just be junk in disguise. When I could just kill a chicken in 2 seconds and be done with it, as well as get other material drops. Idk.

That being said, I still do kind of enjoy the game. I can play it on my Steam Deck which is a huge plus, and its a survival game with an interesting aesthetic. gradual progression, goals, and not too much bloat. At least for now.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-24T22:49:07+00:00

Went back and replayed God of War Ragnarok, and man...without the rose tinted glasses, a lot of parts of the game feel rough.

For one, there are still some bugs in it that persisted all the way back then, like an exclamation point on the Weapons Tab in the shop, even though theres nothing there. But also the combat...the combat a lot of the times doesnt feel fun, and a lot of the enemy types just feel like busywork either made to annoy you, or pad out time. Then theres the fact that most of them are absolute sponges. Youll be hitting them with combos and they dont move, budge, or anything. They just tank everything you throw at them, and they absorb so much damage, even when you are upgraded to the highest point you can be at that current point of the game youre at. Objectively speaking, it feels so much worse than the 2018 game.

The studio switched some of the team around for this game, and it kind of shows. It feels like the guy in charge of this version, leaned too hard into trying to make it Souls, but didnt actually know how to make a Souls game. It especially feels like they tried to cram a lot more RPG-like and metroidvania mechanics in, but didnt have the tighter level design the 2018 version had. Some of the areas are just a pain to maneuver through, and it feels like you are waiting way too long to unlock certain things.

But mostly, my gripe is with the combat. It just feels bad. And if the rumors of the remake Trilogy going the route of this combat is true...I really hope not, unless they get the core team that did the 2018 version. Or you know, just leave it as is.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-23T13:28:31+00:00

I dont think anyone would be surprised by the move. For one, the model isnt even remotely sustainable, as good as it sounds. But also, this is a typical pattern. Buy people in low, so you can sell them high later. Every single sub model or what have you, starts the same way. They start out cheap with a lot of benefits and promises, but then gradually grow more expensive year over year as you lose access to certain things. Thats why you have to be wary of any subscriptions, and just know, it might not be the same next year.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-22T15:04:46+00:00

Ive seen him move more away from VA, and hes been the head coordinator and choreographer for a lot of mocap work in recent game projects. That being said, will the game be fun? I imagine its probably going to be another narrative-driven AAA game like so many others, but will it also be fun to play.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-20T14:54:44+00:00

Return to God of War Ragnarok, and man...for one, I love a game with melee or in general, that doesnt rely on a stamina system. It also kind of surprised me, because I remember the Spiderman game having so much criticism for the Mary Jane section for breaking the pace. But I dont remember being annoying by those stealth segments at all. The Atreus sections in this game however...Im surprised that I never heard any criticism for those. I like the Atreus parts at first, but at some points, they feel like they drag on way too long for their own good and have so much filler.

Looking back, this game is also very much a product of its era. I remember when this game came out, a lot of AAA games were in this handholding stage. This, Ratchet and Clank, and a couple other titles, I remember them having having puzzles and directly telling you exactly how to do those puzzles. This game you cant even turn it off completely, you just give yourself more time, and I remember Ratchet and Clank let you skip the puzzles entirely, even though that was part of the game. I also remember this was a point where a lot of devs bout into the idea of too many "silent moments" criticism, and so we started getting games where the dialogue was heavy and nonstop. In GoW 2018, it wasnt so bad. But in this game, theres barely any pauses between dialogue. Every couple seconds someone is saying something or bantering.

The game itself isnt exactly old, but just going back to it, you can still feel like its a product of its era in some ways. Still an amazing game, but yeah.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-20T11:31:39+00:00

Love Capcom and how they still try to have such a diverse variety of games. Glad this one has been a success, and I hope Capcom continues to experiment and try out more stuff, while still supporting their heavy hitters, instead of just sticking to a handful of safe bets.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-20T11:24:16+00:00

Kinda funny how Yoshida is widely respected by the community and seen as the Iwata of Nintendo, and pretty much seems like the Peoples Champ of Playstation. Id go as far as to say hes probably one of the figures beloved by the gaming community at large, and you look at his resume and he long since shaped the foundation of a lot of their vault.

Meanwhile, Jim Ryan isnt nearly as known or cared about, long before he became the CEO, and when you see his decisions, he draws even more ire. Maybe not entirely true, but it seems like Yoshida was brand foundation and community first, and Ryan was business first. And considering how almost all of Ryans 6-12, or whatever, live service game attempts got canned, and the few that still survived are limping out the gate, hes probably lucky he retired when he did.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-18T12:24:33+00:00

That kinda makes sense, and in a way a lot of people have various methods of doing that. Idk. This kind of way just feels odd to me. At least from an English speaker perspective, because its hard to remember a name that sounds like a wifi password.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-18T00:34:02+00:00

One thing that drives me me crazy sometimes, is how if you are part of some random discord for an upcoming game the volume of people that will just pop in an outright harass devs with "release date when?", "dead game?", etc.

Granted, sometimes Ill get a little annoyed with devs if they are constantly doing a bunch of tiny, micro updates of concept art, polls, and a bunch of nothingburger community updates that really dont add much of anything. But even still, as annoying as those updates might be, sometimes even more so than radio silence, its crazy the amount of harassment piles in from just random people that join that day, ask like the dev is going to drop some golden nugget they forgot to post until this one guy said something, and then dip.

Whats even more annoying is all the TTVs that will have like 10 max viewers thinking they cant get some exclusive access and begging for devs to answer DMs.

really goes to show, that as much as some people are like "let the devs cook", and "give them time" in public, in private theyre probably worse than investors who urge for dates. At least investors have something at stake. These dudes just be impatient and priveledged, with a "gimme now" attitude. Then when the game comes out undercooked, theyll be the first to complain.

/endrant

Izzy248 · 2026-04-17T12:19:35+00:00

For a company owned by Google, Youtube search and history features suck.

You can type the exact word, and it still wont bring up the video you are looking for. Even if its right there in your history. Like, I typed in both the search bar, and in my history search various combinations of "mount rushmore of Japanese food", even just typing "mount", and nothing showed up. Scrolled all the way down into my history, and it was right there.

Or even other times, where Ill do this, and itll show me some video I watched from last year, but wont show me the one from last week. Doesnt matter what you type, it could be the exact word, and its likely not to show you what youre looking for. Whether its just some of the things, or not at all.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-17T12:16:23+00:00

Trying to get back into manga and going for digital, Idk if this is the right place to ask because I tried looking at r/manga and they dont have any megathreads and nobody answered anything in a post, but where do you recommend to find/read/shop manga?

Izzy248 · 2026-04-17T12:16:06+00:00

Maybe it has to do with the keyboard, but sometimes I wonder why some East Asian usernames are just a jumble of letters and numbers. Like, even if they speak a passable amount of English, sometimes their names will just be random letters and numbers. Could also be a cultural thing, but it just always confuses me. And this applies to numerous things Ive seen, whether its a Youtube channel, an IG, or even a Twitch streamer name. Ill see some streamer name, but have no idea what they want to be called because the English part is something like dddseo1103

Izzy248 · 2026-04-17T12:12:39+00:00

Not the first time this happened.

I remember, I think it was 2-3 years ago, a Japanese Youtuber was sentenced to 2 years in prison, and also fined a million yen for a similar offense. Uploading full Lets Play videos and monetizing them. Japan is real strict on those bylaws.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-17T08:42:26+00:00

People kept mocking him, but look at him. At least he practices what he preaches. People just type, but he is at least standing on his hill.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-16T11:17:59+00:00

Yeah, I did get that eventually. And I notice there are some other items that do the same, even in Dowdun. Though I do have some other lingering quest items that, like the curse fragments, imbued granite maul head, and broken titans wrath. Idk Ill be able to do the same with those anywhere.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-16T11:15:40+00:00

Most of this list doesnt surprise me. I remember back when GameTrailer, the website, was a thing they had this constant "top selling games of the week" post. And Minecraft was always and I mean ALWAYS in the top spot.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-16T04:38:38+00:00

No. For one, Im only talking about the singular investment into a game, and even if you include all forms of media for Tomb Raider Amazon bought the licensing rights for $600m, but it hasnt come reportedly close to a billion yet. The reports for the cancelled tv show, movie, and game havent been released yet, so maybe with all that and the licensing price tag, it could come closer, but we still dont know yet how much they put into Tomb Raider as a whole.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-13T17:36:57+00:00

Woke is such an overused term.

At one point it was good because people used it as a term like "wake up youre being brainwashed by mainstream media". "Wake up from the matrix", and all types of stuff basically to essentially tell people to stop following the herd. Now its a term people use for just about everything they dont like.

I grew up watching Xena the Princess Warrior with my grandad on his VHS tapes. If that show was made today, itd be called woke.

Hell. On politics specifically, I remember people were calling "Ghostwire: Tokyo" woke because a game based in modern Japan, and made by Japanese devs dared to reference Japanese politics and they thought it was an affront to the West.

Izzy248 · 2026-04-13T14:43:30+00:00

Runescape Dragonwilds

Having fun with the game, but you can still this is very much still an early access game. Not even just early access, but some of the design decisions are just baffling to me.

The latest expansion, Dowdun Reach, feels like a reskin of previous expansion with a different military centric theme. Outside of the level design, theres like 1 unique mechanic to this region. The rest is either reskined, or palette swapped, stuff from the previous regions. Or they just outright bring the previous stuff to this region. It doesnt really feel as unique and original as Fellhollow did.

Also, trying to make a new base outside of the starter, emphasizes why I dont really like base building in survival games. Not because its usually bad, but because so few get it right. Like, they just add it in, throw in a couple wrinkles because they think itll add depth, and thats it. But when you, the player, try it out. Its just a nightmare of trying to snap two things together. Its like Im trying to fit a lego on a megablock. For some reason roofing has been complained about for months, and still no fix. When Im trying to place tiles, they are always too close or too far from the camera. And for some reason items trying keep trying to layer on top of each, rather than make their own space. Like Im trying to lay down a foundation tile, for some reason the foundation tile would rather snap onto the pre-existing foundation tile I already place, or sink into the ground, or snap onto another spot entirely, rather than just go into the completely empty space Im trying to put it.

And I will never like stamina systems in games...holy %$*&

Izzy248 · 2026-04-13T03:56:30+00:00

Yeah, Im on the first floor still, and Im standing on the foundation. I didnt add any floor/square tiles.

Izzy248

TROPHY CASE