I’m not sure EA can do much to Codemasters they haven’t already done to themselves, to be honest. The F1 franchise is very EA - licensed, iterative. Dirt’s trajectory from Colin McCrae is almost a parody of EA-isation. And they barely make anything else these days. A Grid reboot nobody asked for. A half-assed Fast & Furious cash-in game. Onrush was the last original IP they released, I think, and that tanked so I doubt they’re doing anything similar any time soon.
Although, that Fast & Furious game was essentially almost ready to boot out the door by the time Codemasters acquired Slightly Mad Studios. So if Codies hadn’t have acquired SMS they wouldn’t have even been remotely associated with it. Management does seem to love their minimum viable products though, love myself some DiRT Rally 2.0 but even that felt like it was pushed out the door earlier than it should have been.
What’s this about DiRT’s trajectory? DiRT Rally 2.0 is the best rally game in existence. It’s amazing. It’s one of the best games ever made. And that team is working on the next one, which will have the WRC license they just acquired. I like that they separated the Rally series from the more arcade style DiRT games. I enjoy both types, but DiRT Rally 1 and 2 are just the best thing Codemasters has ever produced.
Wonder how Dirt Rally 3.0 will work in the Frostbite engine?
Dirt Rally 3.0? whats that? Are you thinking of Need For Speed: DiRT Rally 2021?
Look who is bowing to China this time.
Devotion is the horror game from Taiwanese studio Red Candle that was removed from Steam because it contains a reference to Chinese president Xi Jinping as a moron and Winnie the Pooh.
Fuckin weak.
I’m offended for poor Winnie.
Unsurprising, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing a reversal from GOG any time soon. I hope the game appears on another digital platform like Itch.io or something because I would love to support the developer.
Too bad. It’s a really cool and creepy little horror game.
Winnie the Pooh and random indie games pose threats to China’s national integrity apparently.
This might be so inconsequential to even be worth mentioning, but taken in context with the GOG decision it raises an eyebrow slightly.
I was skimming through comments on the RPS review for 2077 and came across this comment:
@Halk Also worth noting that in the game, the Taiwanese super-corp Kang Tao from the pen-and-paper game has transformed into a Chinese company for no readily explicable reason. The lore indicates that it was always a Chinese corporation with no mention of Taiwan anywhere in the game at all.
The wiki has tried to reconcile this by suggesting it’s a Taiwanese corporation that fell on bad times after Cyberpunk 2020 and was bought out by the Chinese, but it’s clearly a retcon.
Kang Tao originally was located in Taiwan. Taiwan became a manufacturing haven in the late 2000s, after the country declared independence with the help of Japan and Arasaka. Kang Tao became an industry giant among the Taiwanese companies. However unlike the rest it kept its independence by not selling out to the Japanese business. Kang Tao manufactured weapons that were distributed through Asia and made it’s way to the US.[1]
In 2050, Kang Tao was restructured into a Chinese-based company, quickly making its way to the top tier of weapons manufacturing at a tremendous pace thanks to bold choices, courageous strategy, and government backing.[2] In 2077, the corporation is mainly known for their firearms, especially their newest generation of so-called “smart-gun” weapons that employ gyrojet technology to fire caseless guided ammunition, but they’re also becoming players in the mercenary and security markets.[3] The restructuring began in 2046, when the former Kang Tao, then considered obsolete and collapsing, was appointed with a former army colonel. The colonel, Shiming Xu, gave the company new direction, managing to put the company on the market, debuting with the A-22B smartpistol. Throughout the next 20 years, through new research facilities funded by the government, Kang Tao overcame its old rivals, coming out as a top-tier weapon manufacturer on par with Tsunami Arms and Arasaka. Since 2072, Kang Tao has tripled its stock value, becoming a leading weapon exporter in Asia.[4]
As of 2077, an explosion at a company refinery in Hangzhou left over 50,000 dead. Although the company was cleared of negligence by official accounts, many still blame them for the explosion.[
I don’t know enough about the source lore or books from Pondsmith to add much, but it seems like for the CDPR game a Taiwanese company was restructured into a Chinese-based company for no particular reason.
Again, this might be nothing or it might be another case of placating the vast Chinese market.
There’s a new Riot game in the works unrelated to all these other newish Riot games:
Valorant - Riot Games’ Counterstrike Overwatch
Legends of Runeterra - Riot Games’ Hearthstone
Project L - Riot Games’ King of Fighters
Team Fight Tactics - Riot’s Auto Chess, TFT
Riot Games (League of Legends) may be teaming up with the MLB
The world needs a new MMO right now. You know this, and Riot knows this.
Ouchy:
Oh dear.
Whoa.
Wow sounds like issues on both PS4 and PS5. I’ve been looking over my boys’ shoulders as they play CP2077 on a Series X and a Series S and they seem to be doing fine with no complaints.
I think it might have been CDPR’s insistence that players go to Sony for refunds that made Sony say “We don’t have time for this shit.”
Is there something wrong with rewarding someone for working harder? This is a serious question, because that seems… like what should happen if you work harder.