ZombiePie

I mentioned it here, but there have been early, and I do mean early, discussions about having parts of Giant Bomb cross-posted on Fandom's network. We are not alone. Guides from GameFAQs are already being cross-posted across their network and the same for GameSpot and its news and editorial content. For us this would possibly include the portions of the site that rely on user-generated content. What will that look like and what parts of the site would work best or most deserve some extra attention? I'm all ears. Pitch me or dtoast an idea.

At the end of the day, I can tell you that there are ideas floating around about wanting to drive more engagement. That said, the priority is to fix the video player and then tackle the site search engine, especially the forum search engine, and get them functioning.

I played and finished Anthem's story in light of its 5th anniversary. Go with God.

@sethmode: right, and I think no one is disputing that there are still people out there were COD is one of the five or six games they play per year. I think where this becomes a make or break is how many of the people that do sign up for Game Pass for COD renew their subs beyond the three month mark. This franchise has engaged in the seasonal format that all multiplayer shooters these days utilize for over a decadr, so, there might be something in MS's favor in terms of people sticking around a month after its release. But you need millions to stick around at least four to five months to fully recoup from playerw not buying the game outright.

After Phil Spencer signaled repeatedly that it would eventually happen, Microsoft and its subsidiary, Activision-Blizzard, have confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is going to release on Game Pass day one. The announcement came in a trailer from Xbox which features live action actors playing former world leaders like Margaret Thatcher, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, and Saddam Hussein. In the trailer all of the actors are seen delivering vague hints about the game's setting and timeframe which many have hinted and speculated will take place during the 90s and depict some version of either Operation Desert Storm or the Gulf War conflict. And before we get into the big discussion point about Call of Duty coming to Game Pass at launch, I do want to note that I think it is HILARIOUS that Call of Duty has completely thrown in the towel with its numbering system. Calling this game Black Ops 6 is incredibly funny and absolute cowardice.

Nonetheless, this move by Microsoft isn't just risky, it might be one of the biggest Hail Mary plays we have seen in the gaming industry in literal decades. As articulated in IGN's report discussing this news, Call of Duty games were one of the last games in Microsoft's portfolio, through its ownership of Activision-Blizzard, that retailed for $70 and, when Bobby Kotick was still in charged of the division, actively avoided Game Pass at launch. Even in a "down year" Call of Duty games would sell around 20 to 25 million units. For reference, 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfaresold over 30 million units and generated over $1 billion. By putting Call of Duty on Game Pass at launch, Microsoft is possibly forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars. Nonetheless, will this decision drive new subscribers to Game Pass? Absolutely. The question then becomes, how many new and renewing subscribers will Microsoft need for them to make the difference of that lost revenue? Here's one estimate, but generally, there isn't a consensus on that number and there's no telling what Microsoft would view as their "magic number."

One thing that could be working in Microsoft's favor in terms of making the numbers work is a possible price increase to Game Pass Ultimate. The Verge and The Wall Street Journal both reported that Microsoft is aware of the risk of putting Call of Duty and the rest of Activision-Blizzard's upcoming game titles on Game Pass, but believes that a price increase to the higher tiers of the service will hedge their bets. There have been rumors that a special Game Pass tier that nets players access to Call of Duty, and just Call of Duty, is possibly coming and that elite or AAA games like Call of Duty or the next edition in The Elder Scrolls franchise would be locked behind Game Pass Ultimate instead of lower tiers of the service. A free, ad-driven version of Game Pass has been rumored to be in the works for a while as well. Also, with Game Pass on PS5, there's no doubting that it will still have that as an available source of revenue as well.

To echo a point Grubb made on social media and on Game Mess Mornings, if you are Microsoft and really think the success of Xbox and games within your portfolio can only be marked by Game Pass growth then what you should do is put Call of Duty on Game Pass and don't launch it on Xbox One and PS4. If that still doesn't move the needle even a little bit when it comes to directing people into the Xbox ecosystem of next gen consoles... then that's that. Microsoft is still probably in too deep to justifiably give up on hardware, but if this trump card of putting one of the biggest games of the year on Game Pass doesn't do anything... I don't know what will.

Back in March of 2024, the head of Warner Bros.' gaming division affirmed that they would continue to invest in live service games, even though they viewed Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to be a "disappointment." With the conclusion of the first financial quarter of 2024, we now know the full extent of WB's disappointment as the company has officially listed the game as the primary reason why it took a $200 million hit to overall revenue. To be more specific, Warner Bros. Discovery's chief financial officer (i.e., CFO) Gunnar Wiedenfels disclosed to shareholders:

Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart's Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter.

Now, regardless of how you feel about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as a finished product, the idea that WB thought that it could generate revenue on par with Hogwarts Legacy is simply absurd. Also, while the hit to WB's revenue is massive, with Hogwarts Legacy already being an over $1 billion profit making venture on sales alone, WB Games doesn't seem to be signaling its complete exit from games, which was the rumor when David Zaslav first took over WB-Discovery.

Nonetheless, the path forward for Rocksteady Studios still remains murky. Recently, they debuted a new "season" in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League which centered around the Joker, and it appeared that this was making some nominal positive gains regarding its concurrent online player count. The "peak" of this Joker season was 3,049 concurrent Steam players and that happened during the launch of the first episode. If true, that unfortunately represents approximately 22% of the 13,549 peak players the game had around its launch. The second episode of this new Joker season has been a complete disaster with its launch day peak being just 561 concurrent players. That's NOT GOOD!

Obviously, take these numbers with a grain of salt considering they only track concurrent online Steam users. Nonetheless, this game simply is not doing well. Admittedly, this current Joker season has been met with controversy with the small, but active, online community still playing Suicide Squad. When Rocksteady revealed a new batch of skins to coincide with the game's latest season, they were universally derided by even Suicide Squad's most ardent fans as being 'ugly' and some even posited that they appeared to be minor modified versions of pre-existing prison-themed skins. All that's to say that what is being added to the game is not driving what many would call sustainable numbers for a live service game and it is not getting even those playing the game excited. Nonetheless, all of this could possibly be a reflection of the tight budget and limited resources Rocksteady is working with to try and turn the corner with the game.

With Zaslav being a noted IP cutter, I do wonder how much more time Suicide Squad has before we hear the announcement that it is either being delisted from marketplaces or its severs are being shuttered. Given the circumstances, it is incredibly difficult to be optimistic about this game's future.

I might look at this more but Square Enix was kind of it in terms of being the last third-party developer that was still willing to cut deals to make console exclusives. While the stipend and marketing help they got from Sony made sense one or two console cycles ago, it just isn't where games have been for a while.

Yeah... it's almost as if Yoko Taro's entire career involves him doing things that are visually interesting but with cobbled together mechanics and gameplay that feel like a complete afterthought or suck total shit.

I will mention that there were some that bought into the Amico on the premise of it being a culturally sanitized version of the medium, with Tommy Tallarico promising that it would be free from the influences of self-perceived left-wing biases. The same people leading this second pitiful call to action against what remains of the gaming press, did get behind the Amico to a degree, and saw a console they thought was worth supporting because they bought into the falsehoods about the dangers of DEI and diversity in games. To those that did invest in the Amico with hopes of furthering this false notion that games should be free from politics or socially conscious topics, I can only extend a nominal sense of pity.

I recently found out one of the grifters responsible for all of this Gamer Gate 2 and anti-Kotaku stuff was an Amico supporter. How much did they invest in the console's Fig campaign, you might ask? Why, a meaty $10,000!

I guess that would explain why they are so excited to court this army of culture war vultures; our guy here needs to make back $10,000.

I would honestly give Microsoft the past two generations for having the best controller designs in the industry for the Elite Controllers alone, but I can't/won't because their asking price is completely bonkers. Those things have probably the best ergonomics in the history of the hobby but paying over $100 for a controller that doesn't have hall effect sticks is a complete robbery.