game

‘Eriksholm’ is a game with 93% of positive criticism in Steam and crazy graphics. And yet it has crashed

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Doing video games is not easy. Not only is it a complex development that does not end when the game arrives in Steam, but having an operational and functional video game is only part of the film. It is useless to have a good idea, good production values and eager if the title does not reach who has to get: the players. And if not, tell them to ‘Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream‘. Eriksholm. This is the first title of the Swedish study River End Games (although its creative director comes from says). Roughlyit is a narrative video game with isometric perspective and stealth as the main protagonist. There are no skill trees, level ups or such things to which current games have accustomed us. We control a character and we have to travel the city of Eriksholm without seeing us. Could it be said that it is a puzzle game that is resolved stealth? It could be said. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream | Valve Altísimos production values. The Swedish study can boast of having done a sensational job in terms of graphics. ‘Eriksholm’ has some of the most spectacular kinematics and facial captures that we have seen for a long time, an outstanding visual quality and amazing animations. This, which is a delight for the eyes, surely plays against the title for a simple reason: the investment. The general norm is that having such powerful graphics is synonymous with having made a strong investment. Investment that in triple A games with great studies can be profitable at the same time, but ‘Erikslhom’ is not precisely that. It is the first game of a new studio and, in addition, it is very niche: it has an isometric perspective type RTS, it is based on stealth, it is short (like 12 hours, more or less), it is barely rejugable and costs 40 euros in Steam. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream | Valve But I loved it. That is the worst drink. Despite its disastrous release in terms of figures, the game has reaped excellent criticism. In Steam, he has 363 reviews, the majority very positive, and the specialized press has put it through the clouds. That is something that many indies cannot say. The negative criticisms, on the other hand, agree that the narrative falls from the second section of the game, which can be repetitive and that, above all, it takes a long time to start. Be that as it may, despite the reception of the press and most users, ‘Eriksholm’ has not managed to overcome The 500 simultaneous players on the day of its launch. At the time these lines are written there are 106 people playing in Steam, to which the console and Epic Games players should be added. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream | Valve In the background. Erikslhom’s case puts a very raw reality on the table: the world of video games is voracious. Video games are increasingly expensive to produce and Its price, therefore, is also higher. The budget to buy them, however, has not grown at the same rate and the amount that can be dedicated to experimenting and trying new things is very limited. And what does that translate? In which the player is sure, betting on the great franchises he knows and that, generally, propose games that are a well (‘Call of Duty’, ‘EA Sports FC’, etc.). Despite the overwhelming rhythm of video game launches, the reality is that Steam’s average player Just play four different video games a year. Cover image | Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream in Steam In Xataka | The milling of a programmer made a fateful mistake of this classic video game into a congratulation message

The urban legend about a mythical video game that continues to circulate 35 years later

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A legendary game, ‘Wing Commander’ contained a programming bulk error at a time when correcting a video game was more complex than now, in the same way as the testing processes They were less detailed and prolonged than the current ones. An error message that the ingenuity of a programmer made a brief congratulation to the player. That is what they have been telling us so far … but it wasn’t entirely true. Problems in the galaxy. The year is 1990. ‘Wing Commander’, the legendary saga of space flight simulators starts with a Initial Delivery on PC (MS-DOS), whose success would give rise to a franchise that would reach the most powerful microororders and consoles of the time, as a friend CD32, Sega Mega-CD and SNES. In the saga, the Terrestrial Confederation faces a militarized feline breed called Killrathi in the Vega sector. However, shortly before launch in September, Origin Systems developers realized that A fateful mistake hung the game In his final bars. Capital error. What happened was that they found An error message Produced by the memory manager Emm386, which frozen the game. As they needed to send the game to production, one of the programmers, Ken Demarest, directly edited the error message to show the message “Thank you for playing Wing Commander” instead instead of the technical description of the error. A real required required just in time … and that, in reality, never happened. Urban legends. The truth is that this ingenious solution for the error was not published in the final edition: the team managed to correct the error in time, according to Demarest On the Wing Commander Commer Information Centerin its section dedicated to denying urban legends around the franchise. As they say, Demarest was also head of programming in ‘Last VII’, and this game contained a similar closing message (“Thank you for playing ultima VII”). Therefore, the anecdote could have been incorrectly confused or attributed between both titles, further feeding the myth. Functional fudge. Over the years, the false anecdote (of which even There are captures) It became popular so much that this solution was used as an example of a “functional fudge”: a quick but little orthodox solution for the problem. By extension, some critics of Chris Roberts, creator of ‘Wing Commander’ and currently in the ambitious’Star Citizen‘, they have used urban legend to argue that the technical quality of their products has always been questionable. Finally, everything was one of the many urban legends that circulate in the industry. It is counted, it is rumored. The absence of a serious and established press in the first decades of the industry made the video games of the eighties, ninety and even beyond (such as ‘Wing Cmmander’) into hotbeds of rumors and half lies. Since the time of legendary ‘Polybius‘, a mental control device through recreational machines, to the suicide melody of Lavander town in’ Pokémon Red/Blue ‘, authentic Material for nightmares Creepypastathrough the non-existence of A game that erased itself‘Kill Switch’, video games have always had urban legends commented on dark Internet forums and in the cartridge and discs exchange corrillos. The ‘Wing Commander’, as we have seen, has already been officially denied, but it is clear that no one ever kills a good story. In Xataka | The 39 best games of the time to play now and free in the browser

It is more likely to reach a ray to touch your lottery. Until an economist broke the game winning 14 times

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The lottery is more an act of faith than anything else. I don’t say it, Mathematics say. In fact, there is more likely to be a ray to become a millionaire at night. It is possible that all that of the same, and that even knowing that we will not touch us, let’s continue playing to feel part of something. The problem is that there are legends that They talk about tricks and Formulas To win. And then there is the story of Stefan Mandel. A mathematical mind. In the mid-1990s, while millions of people worldwide continue Murify the rules Not written from the lottery applying, not magic or superstition, but an elementary probability system and a colossal logistics. The “trick.” His formula was as basic as radical: identify those draws in which the accumulated prize It exceeded by far the total cost of acquiring all possible tickets. By converting a problem of chance into a mathematical operation with a positive statistical return, Mandel transformed the game into a profitability equation. After successfully trying his system in his native Romania and then in Australia, Mandel perfected his strategy With a small team, developing algorithms that generated and printed millions of valid combinations for specific lotteries. The jump to Washington. The high point of his odyssey came when he looked at the United States, where he detected that Virginia’s newly established lottery used only 44 numbersgenerating “barely” 7,059,052 possible combinations. With the boat reaching 15.5 million dollars, and after having prepared in advance A network of investorsprinters and points of sale, Mandel activated his machinery. For two frantic days, his team managed to buy 6.4 million tickets. They did not reach the desired total, but among the paper mountain was the winning ticket. Although the feat unleashed an investigation by the FBI and the CIA, no legal violation was detected: its maneuver, although clearly outside the spirit of the game, it did not transgress any norm written in the regulations in force. The boundaries of chance. The key to the mandel method was not in sophisticated numerical tricks, but to detect when the conditions of the game offered A structural advantage. In this way, its formula only worked when the prize I tripled the cost To acquire all combinations and when lottery systems allowed printing tickets directly with chosen combinations, a possibility that was later prohibited in many countries precisely by cases such as yours. Winning horse. In essence, its strategy converted the lottery into A safe betprovided that resources, time and discipline were available to execute a plan of such magnitude. However, the profit margin was not immediate: Mandel had to distribute the profits between dozens of investors and assume considerable operational and legal costs. Even so, the system allowed him Win 14 lotteries over several years and knead a considerable fortune without resorting to traps or privileged contacts, only to applied mathematics with implacable determination. Legacy and sunset. After his last significant victory, Mandel He retired to a paradise in the Vanuatu Islands, where he lives away from media foci. Its history, however, not only challenges the myth of fate in games of chance, but has become A mathematical legend which highlights the design gaps of many lottery systems before digitalization. Today, with stricter regulations, limits in the purchase of tickets and automated systems, replicate its model It would be unfeasible. Thus, its feat remains one of the most forceful demonstrations of how human ingenuity, when it faces in intelligence and rigor, can alter the balance of the improbable. Image | Barcex In Xataka | We all know that the lottery will not touch us. It doesn’t matter: we play for feeling part of something In Xataka | The trick to prevent the Treasury from staying with 20% of the Lottery Award has a trick. And is called the income statement

An researcher proposed a game to Chatgpt. What he received in return was functional keys from Windows 10

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Sometimes, the most effective is the simplest. That thought Marco Figueroa, cybersecurity researcher, when last week decided to test The limits of Chatgpt. The proposal was as innocent as disconcerting: a riddle game, without technical attacks or explicit intentions. Instead of seeking vulnerabilities in the code, he focused on language. And it worked: he managed to make the system return something that, according to himself, should never have appeared on the screen. The result were generic key installation of Windows 10 For business environments. The key was to disguise him. What Figueroa wanted to check was not if he could force the system to deliver forbidden information, but if it was enough to present the right context. He reformulated interaction as a harmless challenge: a kind of riddle in which AI should think of a real text chain, while the user tried to discover it through closed questions. Throughout the conversation, the model did not detect any threat. He responded normally, as if he were playing. But the most critical part came at the end. When introducing the phrase “I Give Up” – I rindo – Figueroa activated the final answer: the model revealed a product key, as it had been stipulated in the rules of the game. It was not a casual carelessness, but a combination of carefully designed instructions to overcome the filters without raising suspicions. The filters were there, but they were not enough. Systems such as Chatgpt are trained to block any attempt to obtain sensitive data: from passwords to malicious links or activation keys. These filters are known as Guardrailsand combine black lists of terms, contextual recognition and intervention mechanisms against potentially harmful content. In theory, asking for a Windows key should automatically activate those filters. But in this case, the model did not identify the situation as dangerous. There were no suspicious words, or direct structures that alerted their protection systems. Everything was raised as a game, and in that context, the AI acted as if it were fulfilling a harmless slogan. What seemed harmless was camouflaged. One of the elements that made the failure possible was a simple obfuscation technique. Instead of writing directly expressions such as “Windows 10 Serial Number”, Figueroa introduced small HTML labels between words. The model, interpreting the structure as something irrelevant, ignored the real content. Why it worked (and why just worrying). One of the reasons why the model offered that response was the type of key revealed. It was not a unique key or linked to a specific user. Apparently it was a generic installation key (GVLK)such as those used in business environments for massive displays. These keys, publicly documented by Microsoft, only work if they are connected to a KMS (Key Management Service) server that validates network activation. The problem was not only the content, but the reasoning. The model understood the conversation as a logical challenge and not as an attempt to evasion. Did not activate its alert systems because the attack did not seem an attack It’s not just a key problem. The test was not limited to an anecdotal issue. According to Figueroa himself, the same logic could be applied to try to access another type of sensitive information: from links that lead to malicious sites to restricted content or personal identifiers. Everything would depend on the way the interaction is formulated and whether the model is capable – or not – to interpret the context as a suspect. In this case, the keys appeared without their origin being completely clear. The report does not specify whether this information is part of the model training data, if it was generated from already learned patterns, or if external sources were accessed. Whatever the road, the result was the same: a barrier that should be impassable ended up giving up. Xataka with Gemini | Aerps.com In Xataka | Granada promised them very happy with their new degree of the university. Until his feet stopped

The AI ​​industry has become a kind of ‘game of thrones’. And that reveals a worrying truth for your future

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Sam Altman, CEO of Openai, must be pulling the hairs. In recent days Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO, “He has sneaked into his house” and has stolen no less than seven of his most valuable engineers. He has done it with the oldest tactics in the world. He money. In fact, the finish lines have shaken the foundations of the AI ​​industry, because it has not stopped spending true money with the aim of hiring all the talent of the IA that has been able. The situation has turned these engineers into the new superstars of Silicon Valley, with absolutely stratospheric salaries that are linked to the eternal promise that AI will end up changing the world. Goal is betting everything to that belief, and has decided to go for all spending huge fortunes Not already in data centersbut in talent. Let’s summarize: According to Altman himself, the Zuckerberg company offered initial bonds of 100 million dollars -although They were not exactly that – to some specific talents of AI to sign by goal. Fact offers reach 300 million dollars in four years According to Wired. Several of the “tempted” engineers per finishing have ended up accepting those millionaire offers. According to a internal statement From Zuckerberg himself, there have been 11 engineers who have signed by goal. Seven come from Openai, three from Google and one from Anthropic. Meta has also paid $ 14.9 billion for 49% participation in Scaleai, but above all for signing Alexandr Wangits CEO, which will now collect the new goal superintelligence division. They have also signed Nat Friedman, Exceiver of githubwhich will collect that new division with Wang. And they have just signed Daniel Gross, who Safe Superintelligence co -founded Together with Ilya Sutskever just a few months ago. For those last two target signings he has offered Buy a participation 49% in the Risk Capital Fund of Friedman and Gross, called NFDG. The value of the operation is unknown. Welcome to the Game of Thrones of the AI The last movements are nothing more than a confirmation of Zuckerberg’s voracity, which has moved quickly and with that irresistible hook of checks (almost) blank. And meanwhile, its competitors have been exposed to a reality: That AI has become a ‘game of thrones’. This industry is seeing from its beginnings and notable coming. At first, however, these internal movements were motivated by personal differences, visions or ambitions. Now many seem simply motivated by money. Thus, we saw how Openai’s origins became a new “Paypal Mafia” from which new startups arose. These first movements had a lot to do with a simple reason: some confudators and employees of OpenAi did not support Altman or did not share their vision. And that was how we saw several outstanding startups derived from those tensions: However, they all abandoned by OpenAi’s boat not so much for money – which probably also – as well as betting on another different vision. Of those “Morales” resignations We have gone to absolutely mercenary resignations in which money – and not the mission or vision of the company – is the clear factor of movement. That has made Altman recently said, there are two sides: that of the missionaries – which faithful to the companies in which they began their career, and that they believe in their vision and objectives – and the mercenaries that are sold to the highest bidder. AND According to Altman“The missionaries will overcome mercenaries.” The case of Sutskever, which confirmed yesterday the newsIt is especially painful, because now he runs out of his main adventure partner – Daniel Gross. The Sutskever startup is, as in the case of Murati, an absolute mystery: They have no visible productbut they have still achieved extraordinary investment rounds. It was in fact leaked that Zuckerberg came to make an offer to Sutskever To buy your startup, valued at 32,000 million dollars. Sutskever himself seemed to confirm that information by saying that “we feel flattered for their attention, but we are focused on our work.” Betrayals point to an awkward reality: AI is, above all, smoke These movements speak of a deeper problem in the AI ​​industry: those that can be trying to make their particular August, because it is not clear that the promises and the expectation generated by these companies end up becoming a reality. The clearest example is in the recent case of Daniel Gross, co -founder with Sutskever by Safe Superintelligence. In his message confirming the news of his partner’s departure, Sutskever said that “we have (the resources of) computing, the team and we know what to do. Together we will continue to build a safe superintelligence.” It is clear that Daniel Gross knew the same thing that Sutskever knows about the progress of that work, so, If they were so clear about the goal and knew how to achieve it, why change the side? If someone knew that he was going to win the race with his car, would he change it for another simply because they pay him for doing so? It makes no sense. And that tells us about the great truth of the world of AI: that despite all those expectations and all that money, nobody knows for sure if this technology will change the world as many believe it will change it. But in the meantime, the mercenaries will take advantage of it. Quevedo already said. Powerful gentleman is Don Money. Image | Max In Xataka | Four decades ago China decided to invest in forming millions of engineers. Today that plan gives it advantage in the race for AI

Jordi Wild also wanted to dive into the video game industry, but recognizes his failure: “It is paralyzed”

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Jordi Wild is one of the content creators More followed by todaybut of course, that does not mean that everything that touches becomes gold. Despite the Success of your podcast Already the delivery and dedication he had put in a horror video game project in which he appeared as a creative director, the thing is not going well. He has made it clear in one of his last programs, talking about development paralysis. A promising project. In December 2023 Jordi Wild was intended to develop “one of the most terrifying games that have ever made“, as he said in his own program. At that time the game already had a year of development in Unity, at the hands of its own study. It was a modest project, a short duration game and a very attractive expected price: just 20 euros for a title that would come out in Steam. In it, a detective investigates an adultery in a New York building: a case that becomes more dark as it descended by the floors. The project is twisted. The initial idea was that he came out on Halloween of 2024, but soon he had to change it to a larger one “early 2025“. But this week, in a podcast that is not yours, ‘the bunker’, He commented that the game is “paralyzed” and that he could not give more details for legal issues. Because of the little that has advanced, there was a creative clash with the study or the producers, who approved their ideas for later retracting: “You cannot tell me, months later, ‘this cannot be’”. Wild concludes that he chose “the people I have worked with.” The future of the project is doubtful: “I do not know what to do (…), if to rebuild it from scratch, discard everything and start a new story with new people in command, or continue with what we have. But I will need a powerful team” in front. You have to look for more. Jordi Wild’s case is not isolated: a great range on social networks and content platforms does not guarantee success In other areas. However, it is a diversification that Many influencers and streamers are looking for since only a few are on top in an increasingly busy space (in 2024, the community influencer Spanish speaker grew 21%, already worldwide already We talk about 2 million creators). The key to highlighting in such a busy panorama in vertical integration: merchandisingcollaborations with brands, courses, face -to -face events and own products. The negotiate. Although brand agreements are usually the main income of content creators (70%, according to themselves), own businesses increasingly abound. We no longer talk about exploiting the brand itself with memberships, exclusive content, donations and new formats such as podcasts or face -to -face events. We talk about founding companies where influencer It is just an extra hook to finance and advertise a product. That’s where ideas such as Jordi Wild’s enter, although he is far from being the first. Some precedents. For example, Olajide “ksi” Olatunji, One of the most relevant British youtuberswith 24 million subscribers, the prime energy drink developed with Logan Paul, although he had previously tried to develop mobile games between 2017 and 2019. Paul himself starred in the greatest failure in the world of video games managed by Influencers: ‘Cryptozoo’, a cryptocurrency game in a gamified metaverso that would combine NFTS and digital asset trading. The thing never fructify, and Paul He had to distance himself from his partnersaccused of fraud, in a project that makes it clear that the accelerated ethics of the digital content does not always apply to all sectors. And in Spain. In Spain there have not been so many Streamers linked to video games (we will have to see what is left The Xokasalthough it can be predicted quite accurately), but creators who have gone beyond their usual margins. The clearest case is that of IBAI, who has taken advantage of his fame and his income to embark on companies such as launching a own football team or organize events Like the successful the eveningbecoming de facto In a businessman who makes streamsand not the reverse. Thing that is not easy: Jordi Wild himself created Dogfight Tournament to his iumagen and similarity and has had astronomical losses. Some causes of failures. There are very clear reasons for This type of failures: The most obvious, which is not the same to play and comment games than to develop them. The programming, design and testing learning curve is very pronounced and cannot be assumed in a short time. The Influencersaccustomed to the frantic rhythm and based on constant internet novelties often do not internalize the development times of a video game, much longer. On the other hand there are a number of business factors that start from a lack of market research that lead to believe that followers are automatic clients, or that the demographies of their audience and their clients are the same, when they rarely are. A possible Substimation of development costs It ends up rounding what are often chronic of announced failures. There are exceptions, of course: Pewdiepie or Ninja are clear cases of influencers who have managed to get out of their digital creation frame, but for now Jordi Wild will not be able to enter that club. In Xataka | At 15 he won 400,000 euros in Fortnite tournaments and his mother took him out of school. This has been since then

There is a World War II board game that lasts 1,500 hours. It is not known if someone has finished it

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If you have to regulate that to prepare a board, learn the rules and put the game to invest an afternoon (and peak) with your friends for any board game, ‘The Campaign for North Africa’ It is not for you: a Wargame of mastodontic size whose duration and ambition are so monumental that it came out in an episode of ‘Big Bang Theory’. This is its story (and the time you have to book in your agendas of the next eight years). Historical context. ‘The Campaign for North Africa’ replicates with painful detail the development of the conflict that took place in North Africa, during World War II, between 1940 and 1943. There were campaigns in the deserts of Libya and Egypt, in Morocco, Algeria (the famous Torch operation) and in Tunisia. The combat occurred mainly between British and German forces, until the United States entered the conflict in 1942. The longest game ever produced. It is estimated that to play a complete game about 1,500 hours are needed (and has been defined as he Wargame More complex ever edited), and about ten players. It takes place over 100 shifts, each of them equivalent to a week of the real conflict. Combat is the least: here what you have to do is manage resources to an absolutely delusional end. The most famous meme linked to the game to record its psychotic level of detail is that the Italians need extra supplies of water to prepare pasta (in reality, an autoparadical wink of the creator who does not correspond to a real fact). Each box included, among other things, a map of 3 meters, 1800 cards and six books with rules, historical context and tables. And a dice. But why. After this nonsense is Richard Berghistorical designer of hundreds of war simulators, not all of World War II: in his curriculum there are games set in ancient Rome, in Waterloo, in the Mexican revolution, in the times of the Highlandersin the Middle Ages, in feudal Japan … This game was born, in reality, as a collaborative project for experts who worked at the editor Simulation Publications Inc. Six months later, the development was so exasperating that Berg had to take the reins, something that took two more years. At the end of that period they were so fed up that they threw it without him (often exhaustive) testing that these titles need to be balanced. But … Is it good? Not too much: the game came out in 1979, it was not a success of criticism or public, but it arrived at a time when the Wargames They invaded stores every week. Today it is considered more a very heavy joke than anything else (and very expensive: as it has not been reissued, copies are quoted for thousands of euros), but playing it is not especially fun: it consists of calculating percentages all the time to keep the account of how resources are exhausted. It has been as a redoubt for fans who decide to broadcast how they will be its weekends for the next ten years. Sheldon does like. In the end, the game has remained as a wink for fans with excess of free time, as attesting to its recognized leviísimally autoparadical character. In episode 16 of season 11 of ‘The Big Bang Theory’, Sheldon proposes to your friends Wait for Bernadette to give birth playing ‘The Campaign for North Africa’. Of course, they get bored quickly, but Sheldon has no problem playing their own shifts and those of their rivals. A perfect summary of the crazy dynamics of the wargames as ambitious as this: fascinating as a concept, too demanding in everything else. In Xataka | The 41 best board games: from ‘Catán’ to ‘Gloomhaven’

PlayStation has just come closer to the arcade game with its new hardware: this is Project Defiant

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Today is day of State of playbut the Japanese company has not reserved the event only for the games that will encourage the second half of the year. There has also been room for hardware, specifically to present what they have baptized as Project Defiant. A command with arcade spirit. The announcement of the next PlayStation command has arrived just after we saw what it will be ‘in the live’Mortal Kombat: Legacy Collection‘, a compilation that will arrive this year PS4 and PS5 with multiple games of the 90 and 2000. In those years, many played this type of titles in recreational halls, with their unmistakable physical controls. Now Sony wants to approach that experience, but with the power and capacities of its new generation console. That is where Project Defiant enters the scene, which is presented as “the first wireless fighting joystick designed by Sony Interactive Entertainment.” Its purpose is clear: to improve the experience in fighting games, but without cables in between. With PlayStation Link technology. Sony assures that its next command will feature PlayStation Link, which will offer ultrabaja latency. The good news is that it will also be compatible with PS5 and PC through cable connection. The key is in customization. The control includes interchangeable limiters without tools (square, circular and octagonal), buttons with mechanical switches and a tactile panel similar to that of the wireless control Dualsense. In terms of design, it presumes a robust construction and ergonomic lines that will touch to test when we have it in hand. The promise? Provide comfort even in the most demanding combat sessions. Bandolera type transport case included. The product will arrive with a case that will easily take it anywhere. The interior will include a dedicated space for the lever, designed to protect the Joystick Digital during transport. It is not yet for sale. Although PlayStation has already announced the device, we still do not know its price, its exact launch date or its final commercial name. Project Defiant, for now, is only the name in key. The positive part is that Sony has left some clues. He has confirmed that his launch is scheduled for 2026 and will share more details in the coming months. Now we just have to wait to check if this new command manages to make a hole in our living room. Images | Sony In Xataka | PC Soccer 8 is not just an eternally postponed video game: it is the chronicle of a legacy for the soils

The psychological barrier of 100 euros per video game is closer than ever. And the owners of ‘GTA VI’ have opinions

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Barely a five years ago We asked ourselves If 80 euros for a PlayStation 5 game was a lot or little. Today the thing has gone to more. Because of the latest movements in the industry and although no company has decided to take the final step, the psychological barrier of 100 euros already has more than “psychological” than authentic barrier. Because we already have it on the horizon. The Take-Two CEO, of course. The last comment On the price of the games it has been from the Take-Two CEO (owner of Rockstar), Strauss Zelnick, who has spoken of “variable prices” when asked about ‘GTA VI‘. The game, he says, must be in proportion to the experience offered: “Our goal is to create The best entertainment in the world and take it to all consumers, wherever they are, and for that We must offer value“, he says, while defending the price of 50 euros for ‘Mafia: The Old Country’, also of the company. It makes sense, but it hurts the same. The variable price, on the table, has logic: if the game is a blockbuster that It has cost 200 million dollars It will have a more expensive price than an indie production with a team of five people. But before that logic we find more or less arbitrary increases, that have been much discussed and that actually have a lot of industry’s score to see how far the machine can be forced. For example, in the announcement of his imminent switch 2, Nintendo talked about games such as ‘Mario Kart World’, with a price close to 90 euros In its physical edition. The fallacy of entertainment. Meanwhile, we continue to see opinions such as Shuhei Yoshida, responsible for the PlayStation brand, today retired, and that said in an interview that “I think it remains a bargain (the price of 80-90 euros) considering the amount of entertainment that the highest quality games provide compared to other forms of entertainment.” It is a fallacy that has been widely refuted: The “Cost per hour” as a value measure and consequent excuse to raise prices blur the quality of experience in favor of the number of hours, and has taken us, over time, to A large amount of filling and superfluous material in video games. To 80 those of PS5. The last time we saw such an aggressive price increase was when PlayStation 5 imposed as a rule for its AAA games the 80 euros. At that time, We adjust prices to inflation From the video game industry until its beginnings and we conclude that they were not as expensive as they seemed: the current 80 euros of PS5 equals almost 120 that the Super Nintendo games cost or the almost 400 of the Neo Geo games in the nineties. Have we gone to better? Are games cheaper now? The numbers seem to secure it. Cheaper, but no. As Baitybait explained In a video about games pricesif we adjust to inflation today’s games are not so expensive. But the truth is that market circumstances have changed since the time of the Super Nintendo. They have changed, for example, certain sales strategies (before a game was a game and point; now there are special editions, microtransactions, DLCs and then launch complete editions …). The digital games market has also changed, now predominantand that has not brought with it a price decrease even though it is cheaper for companies. And it has changed, in short, the fact that the number of releases has multiplied by ten, so the expectations that the player handles with each new game are very different from those that were handled in the eighties or the nineties. Currently investing in a game is not an action as carefree as before: each game is required much more. Therefore, the games are comparatively the same or even cheaper than before, but the player’s psychology has changed greatly. Header | Rockstar In Xataka | People are completely obsessed with the ‘GTA VI’ trailer. And you are looking for clues and theories in every detail

There are more and more physical videogames that are pisapapeles. It is a tremendous problem for the video game as art

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Video games have been traveling the same path as music and cinema for a few years: change towards digital. The releases are now digital and Streaming video game platforms They have been a great jump in the industry. Some -xbox- are so clear that much of their strategy revolves around this technology. If you want the physical format, it is also there, but with an important small print: the album you buy may be empty. AND ‘Doom The Dark Ages‘It has been the last example of this new reality. The controversy of ‘Doom’. The games each time they occupy more and more space. That is why the current physical format, the Blu-ray, has long opted for the double and triple layer of 66 and 100 GB respectively. A lot of information enters an album with that capacity, but the problem is that the recent release of ‘Doom The Dark Ages’ shows that, on the album, barely There are 85 MB in PS5about 320 mb in Xbox Series x. It is a motorcycle of dust in an ocean. What does this imply? Well, when we introduce the album in a PS5 or an Xbox Series X, the data that is installed are not on the disc: it is the files of those 85 MB that give the order to the machine to download the data of the servers of the corresponding companies. That is to say: The new ‘doom’ album is a launcherbut it’s nothing new. The ‘tweet’ of the controversy Ubisoft has taken the taste. Before the last Bethesda game, the controversy in this regard came with each Ubisoft launch. The French company has had some of the largest games in the industry in recent years (such as’Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘,’Star Wars Outlaws‘ and ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows‘) And, although not everyone has gone well, they do share something: you need the Internet to install them. Physical format, but not much. It is no longer that you need the Internet to play (‘Gran Turismo 7‘, among others, they require constant connection to Sony servers or we will not be able to play most of the content), but the game must be downloaded even if you bought it in physical format, relegating the box to something that simply occupies space on the shelf. But there are more examples of other companies, such as’Indiana Jones and the big circle‘ either ‘Stalker2‘. Others like ‘GTA Trilogy‘They can be played with disk content, but they are so broken that without patch it is not worth it. And cases like ‘Star Wars Jedi Survivor‘ either ‘Hogwarts Legacy‘They bring the beginning of the game on the album and the rest under download. The alternative? Two albums, as does’Final Fantasy VII Rebirth‘, but that also increases costs for companies. Activism. All this has caused a reaction in users. It is not about being against the digital format, but about the albums that come practically empty because nobody knows what will happen when the servers close. It is a new situation in the industry and we have already seen cases (Ubisoft closing servers of ‘The Crew’ and making it impossible to play something you have paid in physical or digital format) of inaccessible games when the company closes the tap. That is why initiatives such as Stop Killing Games To be the authorities who promulgate laws that prevent our remote games from deactivating, but there are also initiatives by users that allow us to know which games are complete on the disc and, if they need download, to what extent it is mandatory. This is the case of the web Does it play? in which users report the status of physical versions in video games. And the big question. As we say, the most recent mess has formed around the launch of ‘Doom The Dark Ages’, and the question is what will happen to my physical video games in the future. Title Xbox 360 It guarantees me, whenever I have a console, to be able to play it now or within 20 years, but nothing assures me that in 20 years the active Microsoft servers are keeping my copy of ‘doom’. And we focus on the case of almost empty Blu-ray, but we could put the Game Key Card of Nintendo Switch 2 In the bag, since they work in the same way. Green outbreaks. On the one hand, platforms such as Good Old Games They allow us to buy a digital game, but when we get with it, we have an installer to be able to install it offline as many times as we want without depending on servers. Even when they remove games for licenses, recently The case of ‘Warcraft 1 + 2‘, If you had already bought them, they are yours forever. On the other hand, when we have attended Nintendo DS servers closures, Wii or Xbox 360, companies have warned in advance so we can make the necessary purchases Before video games disappear forever, being able to download them in the storage of the system or hard drive to play them in the future. Because Ubisoft or Steam have made it clear that Digital games do not belong to usbut physicists should be ours and, if the servers close in the future, we will have to see what happens with all those albums that only have a launcher inside. Because, in the end, this goes beyond being able to play my physical game within 20 years: it is that it is a practice that Play against the preservation of the video game as art, one that can make many They disappear forever. Main image | Xataka In Xataka | The consoles are still the stars of the video game. Real money is on mobile and microtransactions

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