men, we have been outgooned https://t.co/DnLlgP3QCs

— Dinho (Punished Venom Dinho) (@Romulproduce) January 31, 2025

!animalposters

Video Games Can't Afford to Look This Good

The gaming industry spent billions pursuing the idea that customers wanted realistic graphics. Did executives misread the market?

By Zachary Small

Dec. 26, 2024

One way to understand the video game industry's current crisis is by looking closely at Spider-Man's spandex.

For decades, companies like Sony and Microsoft have bet that realistic graphics were the key to attracting bigger audiences. By investing in technology, they have elevated flat pixelated worlds into experiences that often feel like stepping into a movie.

Designers of last year's Marvel's Spider-Man 2 used the processing power of the PlayStation 5 so Peter Parker's outfits would be rendered with realistic textures and skyscraper windows could reflect rays of sunlight.

That level of detail did not come cheap.

Insomniac Games, which is owned by Sony, spent about $300 million to develop Spider-Man 2, according to leaked documents, more than triple the budget of the first game in the series, which was released five years earlier. Chasing Hollywood realism requires Hollywood budgets, and even though Spider-Man 2 sold more than 11 million copies, several members of Insomniac lost their jobs when Sony announced 900 layoffs in February.

Cinematic games are getting so expensive and time-consuming to make that the video game industry has started to acknowledge that investing in graphics is providing diminished financial returns.

"It's very clear that high-fidelity visuals are only moving the needle for a vocal class of g*mers in their 40s and 50s," said Jacob Navok, a former executive at Square Enix who left that studio, known for the Final Fantasy series, in 2016 to start his own media company. "But what does my 7-year-old son play? Minecraft. Roblox. Fortnite."

Joost van Dreunen, a market analyst and professor at New York University, said it was clear what younger generations value in their video games: "Playing is an excuse for hanging out with other people."

When millions are happy to play old games with outdated graphics — including Roblox (2006), Minecraft (2009) and Fortnite (2017) — it creates challenges for studios that make blockbuster single-player titles. The industry's audience has slightly shrunk for the first time in decades. Studios are rapidly closing and sweeping layoffs have affected more than 20,000 employees in the past two years, including more than 2,500 Microsoft workers.

Many video game developers built their careers during an era that glorified graphical fidelity. They marveled at a scene from The Last of Us: Part II in which Ellie, the protagonist, removes a shirt over her head to reveal bruises and scrapes on her back without any technical glitches.

But a few years later, costly graphical upgrades are often barely noticeable.

When the studio Naughty Dog released a remastered version of The Last of Us: Part II this year, light bounced off lakes and puddles with a more realistic shimmer. In a November ad for the PlayStation 5 Pro, an enhanced version of the Sony console that retails for almost $700, the billboards in Spider-Man 2's Manhattan featured crisper letters.

Optimizing cinematic games for a narrow group of consumers who have spent hundreds of dollars on a console or computer may no longer make financial sense. Studios are increasingly prioritizing games with basic graphics that can be played on the smartphones already in everyone's pocket.

"They essentially run on toasters," said Matthew Ball, an entrepreneur and video game analyst, talking about games like Roblox and League of Legends. "The developers aren't chasing graphics but the social connections that players have built over time."

Going Hollywood

Developers had long taught players to equate realism with excellence, but this new toaster generation of g*mers is upsetting industry orthodoxies. The developer behind Animal Well, which received extensive praise this year, said the game's file size was smaller than many of the screenshots used to promote it.

A company like Nintendo was once the exception that proved the rule, telling its audiences over the past 40 years that graphics were not a priority.

That strategy had shown weaknesses through the 1990s and 2000s, when the Nintendo 64 and GameCube had weaker visuals and sold fewer copies than Sony consoles. But now the tables have turned. Industry figures joke about how a cartoony game like Luigi's Mansion 3 on the Nintendo Switch considerably outsells gorgeous cinematic narratives on the PlayStation 5 like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

!bookworms to discuss the 4th chapter of our book club choice Petersburg. I'm delayed and still in the middle of chapter 4 so I'll post on the following days or catch up by the next thread like I did last week.

Do you guys think Nikolai Apollonovich is like that because of inceldom?

breathtakingly prehistoric physiognomy. an forgotten hominid ancestor terrified of fire.

it’s a crime this fine specimen is in a suit. he should be adorned in handsome pelts of cheetah, mammoth, boar… https://t.co/LKPbyJDn5m

— pagliacci the hated 🌝 (@Slatzism) February 10, 2025

He's a poser guys.

YALL GONE STOP TELLING ME TAYLOR SWITCH IS JEWISH THIS JEWISH LADY IS CLEARLY NOT JEWISH pic.twitter.com/lHAAredbAc

— ye (@kanyewest) February 9, 2025

!tmz

!nooticers

@jesus

The end is here and they’re literally crying pic.twitter.com/PChhWBqU6c

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) February 16, 2025

SMDH

NEW NGO REPORT: After years on the run, the fugitive leader of the Trantifa terror cell linked to six violent deaths has finally been apprehended. Jack "Ziz" LaSota, Michelle Zajko & Daniel Blank were arrested in a forested area in western rural Maryland. https://t.co/TP4htslzR9

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) February 18, 2025

PATCHNOTES https://www.nomanssky.com/worlds-part-ii-update/

Worlds Part II 🪐

🪐Gas Giants
🌋New Terrain
🌞Lighting Overhaul
🧑‍💻Inventory Sorting
✨New Solar Systems
🪸Deep Oceans
🌴New Biomes
🥶Weather Hazards
🛸Starship Archiving
👻Abandoned Mode
🦑Deep Sea Creatures
🌊Dynamic Water
🧑‍🍳Improved Cooking
📖Evolving story
🤖Titan Expedition pic.twitter.com/ar8M3ejtGa

— Sean Murray (@NoMansSky) January 29, 2025

Sean did another little behind the scenes video

!nms

Highlights:

Jungles

Mountains miles high

Oceans miles deep

Local environmental hazards

+18 ship storage

MOON WATER IS BACK 🥹

Krakens and other deep sea megafauna

Sea atmospheric pressure

Supermassive planets with heck gravity

Gas giants

New stellar class

Water worlds

Enhanced variety for existing planets

New ocean flora and fauna

New surface fauna

+18 MT slots

Cooking overhaul

Auto eat options

Exocraft flamethrowers

Customizable fishing rods

The usual massive modernization of graphics and lighting

THEY GAVE THE FISHING BOAT A GRILL

9 YEAR OLD INDIE GAME CONTINUES TO LOOK BETTER AND PLAY BETTER THAN AAA RELEASES IN CURRENT YEAR

Socks is such a good big sister as a former feral herself, this cannot be easy

!animalposters !cats

If you're at all familiar with Bernie Sanders, you'd know that despite being a self-declared socialist, he has some takes that are outright right wing (he generally opposes gun control) and other takes that are so far left it defies typical American left/right balance; he's always opposed things like NAFTA or increased immigration and especially H1-B due it's benefits for Indians because the man has consistent beliefs - power to the worker's no matter what. BECAUSE HE'S THE FRICKING GOAT

With Musk shilling for Indians and Trump bending the knee to Musk, Bernie has reminded people that he hates Sexy Indian dudes and called Elon Musk a cute twink (more or less, don't bother reading the letter that's what he says)

Elon Musk is wrong.

The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire “the best and the brightest,” but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.

The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make. pic.twitter.com/Mwz7i9TcSM

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 2, 2025

Libbers are NOT happy (chuds are either going "wha? Based bernie? wha?" because they're drooling r-slurs or seething that Daddy Elon is being argued with)

(Bernie's Jewish)

I hope "Kevin Levy" dies painfully, and soon.

That's not what the Horseshoe is about!!!

Now you have to love him Chuds

i dont think he really said that

This post was sponsored by Bernie Sanders Pac, please contribute to a 4th house

Women be crying

I posted about this too... I hated him being abusive and now this "he died" gaslamping stuff is giving me serious panic

Almost all comments have already been deleted so I couldn't entirely figure out what is going on, but it seems the CEOs main Nazi behaviours are:

1. Refuses to stop using Xtter and Facebook

2. On his Xtter there are some statements to the effect that women in games should be attractive

3. He has changed character creation labels from Body Type A/B to Male/Female

You're a good writer - with a bit of editing you could get some work published (not an attack, I'm a writer and editor myself). I've also done a fair amount of research and had some journ*lism published around the topic of johns and the type of people they tend to be, albeit in a different country to you - I agree with you, it really is horrifying

Nice write-up, I like your writing style. The first third of your post almost sounded like a Pavement song lmao.

I've never really understood the "female empowerment" angle of strip clubs (not exactly a unique thought on this sub). Even if women feel empowered doing it, their customers obviously see it through an objectifying and purely sexual lens. And, obviously, strip club owners operate like large-scale pimps, with the same exploitive relationship and habits with their dancers that pimps have with their prostitutes.

...do RS girlies have no taste whatsoever and equate length with quality? Like if it's banging painfully into the metaphorical cervix of your brain, that must be a darn hot post?

Didnt watch anything new this week either. Last season was kinda whack, not much I wanna see, and the stuff I wanted to see turned out mid. Hope this season will be better.

!anime

@Kongvann pin pls

I checked rdrama to see if someone had posted something about it, and low and behold Carp had posted it in Chud drama. And then he didn't post any seethe!? And no one else did!? Chuds are r-slurred man. Nonetheless, enjoy the seethe from people who have gone from to right side of history to the dustbin of history.

It is funny how if you don't want trans people in your movies, you're a genocidal dictator that wants to kill ethnic minorities and many more in a war.

>anti-art

2016 is back...

There are a few people using this as a chance to shill, but I included this guy because look at it. I was gonna ignore it, but he's fricking 22. my art is much worse but i'm not posting it publicly

Someone posted an animatic of this plotline, so I'll post some cope now

Finally, some words of wisdom to reflect on.

bls explain

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-congress-political-violence?fbclid=IwY2xjawIjU4lleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWY58vwuFMWpU-fvIpT-N0m-642z77FrXt04Y2kz8bOb8RhT08EnNLCDWA_aem_chzf2U_FADNk_Ht_88-_NQ

Client confessed love for me and then ended their life

Tragic, tragic, heartbreaking loss. Won't go into any details to protect client privacy, but it's hard to swallow. Would be so grateful for any resources, groups, or advice as I grieve.

I've canceled most of my sessions for the week, but have kept a few. My backlogged notes for other clients are creating some anxiety. What a rollercoaster.

The most captivating client I've worked with to date, and they continue to be so even in their death. Grateful to have known them.

Update: Unbelievably thankful for the outpouring of support. It's been incredibly helpful to read and utilize ❤️ Very unfortunately I just got news of a second client passing. Two in the same week. This one was not by suicide.

Edit:

Erotic Countertransference

Looking for personal experiences navigating romantic/erotic countertransference (especially that in response to erotic transference)... I'm seeking supervision and being mindful about how I'm showing up with this client, but I'd love if anyone would be open to sharing more about their own experiences with this, and what the ultimate outcome was for you. Interestingly, this client has expressed their own attraction to me, and we're working through it/making use of it in our work together. They are not aware of my feelings beyond the genuine care I have for them. My framework leans relational psychodynamic for reference.

desuarchive

Previous thread containing more cope desuarchive

another dramatic thread desuarchive

It's never been more over for techlet /aicg/ zoomer subtards and they deserve it, considering your average /aicg/tards are low IQ r-slurred libertarians lmao.