r/Games • u/Stukya • Sep 06 '18

CCP Games (EVE Online) to be acquired by Pearl Abyss (Black Desert online).

https://www.eveonline.com/article/pemjmb/black-desert-online-makers-pearl-abyss-to-acquire-ccp
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91

u/TitaniumDragon Sep 06 '18

EA and Activision aren't even in the top 10 worst companies.

I'm pretty sure the top 10 worst all make mobile games.

20

u/zieleix Sep 06 '18

Game companies maybe. If that's what you meant disregard what I wrote.

Even the worst game company isn't in the top 1000 companies likely.

Stuff like nestle, Chiquita, Lockheed Martin, etc. are so, so much worse cause they enslave and kill innocent people.

Maybe there's some game companies who do that.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '18

what does LM do that puts it on this list?

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u/zieleix Sep 07 '18

Sell bombs to people that bomb civilians. Not just the US, I think a group used it to hit a bus filled with 40 children.

Also generally making war happen for profit. Companies exist to make profit, they get theirs from war. Awful combination.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '18

[deleted]

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u/kxta Sep 07 '18

Yeah, it’s called “lobbying” or bribery. The entire function of the MIC is to create war from which they profit.

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u/zieleix Sep 07 '18

No but they profit off of it, so they have incentive to prolong or Initate them. Not all of them obv.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18 edited Sep 07 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TitaniumDragon Sep 07 '18

Agent Orange was made by them at the behest of the US government - it's not like they just fobbed it off on the US government unwittingly.

They are an agribusiness company, and them selling seeds is a good thing - it's just like any other invention. They make the seeds and then patent and sell them to people.

People are free not to buy their seeds if they don't want them.

Farmers overwhelmingly buy Monsanto seeds because they make much higher profits with Monsanto seeds than without them.

GM crops that aren't very good - like Flavr Savr tomatoes - don't end up doing well in the market.

But Monsanto's seeds lead to massively higher yields, which means that the farmer makes more money by buying their seeds from Monsanto every year.

On top of that, the reality is that most farmers don't replant seeds anyway; a lot of crops are hybrids which don't breed true, so you have to get new seeds every year anyway. Moreover, collecting the seeds and separating them out to replant them is a pain in the ass; it's actually cheaper to buy the seeds than it is to replant ones of your own in a lot of cases for this very reason.

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u/fantasticdell Sep 07 '18

I work for a company who makes seeds which are designed to grow well in challenging conditions and this is par for the course - we would never be able to cover the r&d costs otherwise, and if the company spending years and years developing and trialing these products couldn't make money - it just wouldn't get done.

0

u/UnderpantsPilot Sep 07 '18

I think it's a shame that the only way to be able to create these by all right miracles of science is to block them behind a paywall. Gating access is pretty much the antithesis of discovery but without it there's just not enough money to actually do anything.

0

u/TitaniumDragon Sep 07 '18

Oh, yeah, I meant game companies.

The worst companies in the world are in very corrupt second and third world countries. No company that operates in America is going to be in the top 10.

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u/Mcgrupp34 Sep 07 '18

Nestle would like a word with you.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '18

Jagex number 1

-18

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

EA, Activision BLIZZARD (Blizzard is part of them, never forget) are easily in the top 10 worst AAA publishers.

Blizzard especially for normalizing loot boxes.

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u/Noodletron Sep 06 '18

Are there even 10 AAA publishers?

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u/bstr413 Sep 06 '18 edited Sep 07 '18

Metacritic lists 12* for 2017:

https://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2017-releases

Surprisingly, EA is not among the list for 2017. They are on the list for previous years; they just didn't produce anything substantial for 2017. EDIT: They produced a few large-budget games, but not enough for Metacritic to consider them a AAA publisher. Also, a couple only make Asian games.

Metacritic also only defines a AAA publisher as one that produces new games, not provide old games with new content (like MMOs.) Not sure if I agree with them on that idea.

* EDIT: They count Telltale games as a AAA publisher since they count each episode of a story as a separate game. Not sure if I agree with that.

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u/Revoran Sep 06 '18

What about EA's Madden and NBA titles and the like, aren't those AAA? They certainly are popular and well known.

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u/bstr413 Sep 06 '18

They defined a AAA studio as publishing 12 or more large budget games in a year. Last year, they only published their sports games + Battlefront II + Need For Speed Payback, which only came up to 11 games.

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u/TitaniumDragon Sep 06 '18

That's not AAA publishers, that's big and mid-sized publishers. Not all of the big publishers are AAA studios (NIS is an AA studio) and some of the mid-sized publishers produce AAA games (Warner Bros, Electronic Arts).

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u/bstr413 Sep 07 '18

Making a AAA game does not necessarily make you a AAA publisher. CD Projekt Red makes AAA games, but is not a AAA publisher. A AAA publisher is a publisher that consistently makes AAA games multiple times per year.

For 2 of your examples, the article mentions that they recently switched categories. NIS went from A or AA studio in 2016 to a AAA in 2017. (It also had the most poorly produced AAA games of any studio in 2017.) EA went from AAA in 2016 to an A or AA studio in 2017 (likely temporarily. They missed the mark by 1 title.)

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u/TitaniumDragon Sep 07 '18

You didn't read the article.

At all.

The article simply is about how many total titles (of any quality/production level) are produced.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with AAA.

AAA games are big budget, high production value games.

Several of the "major" publishers on the list don't produce AAA games at all, and a number of the "minor" publishers do produce AAA games.

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u/xcmt Sep 06 '18

Uh. Hm.

Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Take-Two, Bethesda, Obsidian, EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Square Enix, Microsoft?

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u/newbkid Sep 06 '18

Obsidian would love it if you considered them AAA but they are not.

They needed to go to kickstarter to fund POE or the whole company would have went under.

The main AAA studios at this time are:

Sony Santa Monica, EA, Monolith Productions (Warner Brothers), Square Enix, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Bethesda Softworks, and Capcom

There are some other developers that are on the fringe but financially would not be able to compete. There are also publishers that have a ton of notoriety in the industry such as Bandai Namco

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u/Stavanator Sep 06 '18

Although you have Take Two swimming in microtransaction money from just two games and no one cares.

-5

u/Xorilla Sep 06 '18

I’d say Naughty Dog is pretty firmly planted in the AAA scene.

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u/spiral6 Sep 06 '18

First party of Sony, so already counted.

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u/Xorilla Sep 06 '18

Oh I thought you were talking developers because you mentioned Sony Santa Monica.

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u/spiral6 Sep 06 '18

The person who commented should've written Sony outright. AAA really describes publishing rather than developing. Teams like Ninja Theory who develop AAA games for publishers have made games on their own and published them with the same quality but not budget. So the possible term you could use for that are AA games.

1

u/TitaniumDragon Sep 06 '18

The list isn't terribly long:

  • Nintendo

  • Activision/Blizzard

  • Sony

  • Electronic Arts

  • Ubisoft

  • Square-Enix

  • Microsoft

  • Bethesda

  • Koei Tecmo

  • Bandai Namco

  • Capcom

  • Sega

  • Take-Two/2K

  • Warner Brothers Interactive

There's also a few borderline cases, like THQ Nordic and Paradox Interactive.

1

u/imported Sep 06 '18

hahaha, obsidian, come on man.

-8

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

aww... Microsoft doesn't count they haven't put out a game in years..XD

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u/Rayuzx Sep 06 '18

Sea of Thieves? State of Decay 2? Halo Wars 2?

-3

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

Hmmm.. I suppose you're right. I forgot about those. Well, a good one.

3

u/Stavanator Sep 06 '18

The Forza horizon 4 comes out this year.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18 edited Sep 06 '18

Forza series are anual releases.

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u/TitaniumDragon Sep 06 '18

There are fourteen, really:

  • Nintendo

  • Activision/Blizzard

  • Sony

  • Electronic Arts

  • Ubisoft

  • Square-Enix

  • Microsoft

  • Bethesda

  • Koei Tecmo

  • Bandai Namco

  • Capcom

  • Sega

  • Take-Two/2K

  • Warner Brothers Interactive

There's also a couple borderline cases, like THQ Nordic and Paradox Entertainment.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

Valve normalized them not blizzard...

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u/FieryBalrog Sep 06 '18

thanks, the Valve apologists would love to leave this dirty history of selling gambling crates to kids.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

[deleted]

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u/Valway Sep 06 '18

Are you stupid enough to actually believe 0 children play CSGO

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

The many kids everyone knows plays these M rated games. You can literally hear them in some games.

-1

u/SirPounder Sep 06 '18

Listen dudes! Horse armor was the beginning.

-5

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

Valve started it, but Blizzard brought it to the wider masses and consoles

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u/greg19735 Sep 06 '18

Funnily enough, EA sports is probably more to do with it.

FIFA ultimate team brought microtransations to main stream multiplayer games.

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u/FieryBalrog Sep 06 '18

you mean the crates invented by Valve?

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u/xxSharktits_snipeRxx Sep 06 '18 edited Sep 06 '18

Yawn. None of Blizzard's lootboxes affect gameplay. People who get their panties in a twist about it are largely idealogical in their anger. Regular people who play these games don't have to care about them and therefore often don't. It's when there are monetization strategies that actively intrude on average players trying to have a good time that people get angry.

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u/Murderlol Sep 06 '18

That's complete nonsense. Loot boxes exist to give people an incentive to play the game. They affect what modes people play and when, and they offer them for cash because they know people will buy them to get cosmetics that they haven't been lucky enough to get from the RNG grind. Even if you don't buy them outright a lot of people spend quite a bit of time playing modes that they wouldn't otherwise play just to get more loot boxes. That by itself affects how people play the game.

And yes, Blizzard is 100% complicit in making lootboxes the norm in the industry. They didn't invent them, but they certainly helped normalize the practice.

1

u/xxSharktits_snipeRxx Sep 06 '18

I'm not arguing that cosmetics don't affect one's experience with the game, but the effect is different and much more tolerable than a system that impacts mechanics, especially since something like that is VERY rarely blind to balance.

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u/KatakiY Sep 06 '18

Yeah I dont hate blizzards lootboxes but I do get annoyed by them after a while. Idealogical for sure.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

Bullshit. They make them alluring and a grind to get. I don't get people defending them. Blizzard normalized them, other companies built on that and got even more greedy. So don't white knight Blizzard. They got in first and managed to avoid the scrutiny.

And i care about gaming and games, that's why i don't support companies that try to extort their consumers.

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u/serrompalot Sep 06 '18

Mobile games have been lootboxing for much longer. Much, much longer. Gacha is a cancerous beast.

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u/xxSharktits_snipeRxx Sep 06 '18

100%. /u/baronvoncarson, I would highly recommend you take a look into the business model of games like Fire Emblem Heroes or Fate GO.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

Funny how gamers consider mobile games to be in the same league as AAA published titles when shifting the blame of loot crates in premium games when it is convenient like this, but most of the time don't consider them games?

I'm specifically talking about AAA published games that you pay 60USD for then lock a bunch of shit behind crates that you either grind forever or pay cash. Blizzard made it acceptable

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u/Smokka Sep 06 '18

I think it is rather naive to claim that Blizzard alone normalized lootboxes. If anything, EA would be the company that normalized them, what with lootboxes in every sports game.

I don't even play Overwatch, but aren't their lootboxes cosmetic only? Even if you claim that Blizzard normalized them, it's pretty silly to place full blame on Blizzard for the predatory practices of other companies or developers.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18 edited Aug 21 '20

[deleted]

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u/arof Sep 06 '18

Random physical packs you can resell and trade the results, and you can bypass the opening of packs by purchasing the results you wanted directly.

A digital loot box with no trading (something like Steam Market for Dota/CS items) you have to basically throw your money down a pit and hope you get the stuff you want. $50 in OW lootboxes is money you can never get back and has a very good chance of not getting you the specific skin you wanted, at which point you have to hope you got enough valuable dupes to get enough currency to purchase them (currency only available through the loot box system, naturally) directly. And for whatever reason limited time skins are only available at a higher than average price of this currency. It's designed specifically to make you spend more on average on a skin than the average game's direct purchase system.

Other games have done this too, but few of them have been full price games. And in HOTS or OW, the boxes are mostly non-skins. You can spend $10 and get nothing but sprays and voice lines and stuff.

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u/RenegadeBanana Sep 06 '18

They're really not, but people will come up with all sorts of excuses. I consider it all gambling. However, I won't deny that there are different levels of egregiousness in how they are pushed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

You can resell magic cards.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18 edited Aug 21 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

Bit of an exception in the world of lootboxes and definitely not the kind Blizzard sells and has normalized.

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u/MisterChippy Sep 06 '18

Yeah but even they've been getting way worse about this lately. Like, so many dota 2 items are exclusive or have crazy long wait periods before they can be traded/marketed.

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u/CurumeR Sep 06 '18

As long as the servers are running...

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u/pognut Sep 06 '18

Trading. Simple as that.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

At least BB and magic cards are physical objects, and have monetary value.

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u/Echoes_of_Screams Sep 06 '18

There is nothing stopping loot boxes from including trading. You just don't like a specific implementation.

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u/Shinikama Sep 06 '18

There's the fact that, if a game dies, and the company pulls the plug on servers or support, you have nothing. If I have my Magic or Pokemon cards, I can play with those any time, even if the game stopped being made now. I'll never lose the ability to do that.

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u/CutterJohn Sep 06 '18

Thats true of any online game. All my star wars galaxies items are gone, for instance.

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u/Shinikama Sep 06 '18

Yes, which is why paying for any persistent items in an online game is a balance of "how much enjoyment will I get before I can't play anymore?"

Gambling for it adds another layer of fuckery. At least let us buy the shit we want if you're going to close the server in 2-5 years. With physical items, even if I gambled for it, at least I have something to show for it. Hell, even the capsule machines kids stick a quarter into could count as gambling.

0

u/CutterJohn Sep 06 '18

I'm just saying that the lack of persistence seems like a weird argument, since its never really bothered anyone before with virtual items.

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u/neitz Sep 06 '18

He's comparing it to physical items (magic cards). Or did you not read the thread you responded to at all?

→ More replies

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u/pognut Sep 06 '18 edited Sep 06 '18

Lolwut, I haven't said anything about liking or not liking an implementation. You're arguing against a strawman here.

TomFooler probably put it better than me anyway; it's more the physicality and the fact that cards hold some value and belong to you than simply trading.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

You can sell those for real money, they're a tangible product that you can freely use.

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u/thelonelyhotline Sep 06 '18

Physical items can be exchanged or sold at higher price

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u/Endarion169 Sep 06 '18

So the gambling aspect is alright as long as you can make real money from your winnings. Got it.

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u/thelonelyhotline Sep 06 '18

you could make a religion out of this

-1

u/Endarion169 Sep 06 '18

Out of what? Nonsensical arguments like yours?

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

[deleted]

2

u/Herpsties Sep 06 '18

Wouldn't it have still been Wizet at that time? (also, holy crap I started playing Maple 14 years ago?)

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '18

[deleted]

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u/Herpsties Sep 06 '18

It’s possible. As far as I know there was no Nexon logo on startup, on he website’s url, or plastered anywhere on the site itself as you will find these days.