WW2?

I am not going to get into the discussion around the “boomer shooter” name, but surely HL1 would be considered part of the Gen X experience.

The youngest millennials were in their early teens in 1998. The last members of Gen X were finishing up secondary school in 1998.

I say this as a relatively early to mid generation millennial born in the late 80s.

The whole generational cohort approach can be very limiting. IMO late cohort Gen X and early-mid cohort Millenials have a lot in common.

It was all right. It was fun to try something new.

I was more into RPGs and strategy games even back then.

I remember playing Jill of the Jungle in early 1997, it was on one of those “100 in 1” pirate CD that were common around the time the CD-ROM was introduced (became somewhat common in my region).

That same pirate compilation had Commander Keen, Dune 2 and many other games.

Baseline research on support for the fullscale invasion:

https://www.levada.ru/en/2024/05/17/conflict-with-ukraine-assesments-for-march-2024/

The level of support for the Russian armed forces has not changed significantly since the beginning of the conflict – the majority of respondents (76%) support the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine, including 48% “definitely support” and another 28% “rather support” the action of Russian army. 16% are against.

Research with preference falsification adjustments with respect to support for the full scale invasion:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20531680221108328

when asked directly, 71% of respondents support [full scale invasion of Ukraine], while this share drops to 61% when using the list experiment

Support for annexation of Crimea:

https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/05/19/crimea-3/

The vast majority of Russians (86%) consistently support the accession of Crimea to Russia – this indicator has fluctuated slightly since 2014. 9% do not support the accession.

Research with preference falsification adjustments with respect to support for annexation of Crimea:

https://www.jiia.or.jp/en/column/2022/09/russia-fy2022-01.html

Using the list-experiment technique, Timothy Frye and others showed that Putin’s approval rating after the annexation of Crimea was actually high, at around 80%. In their study, they made a list of famous Russian politicians and had respondents answer how many of these politicians they supported. They then estimated Putin’s approval rating by adding the name “Putin” to the list for only one group[*]3 and thus concluded that the high approval ratings after the annexation of Crimea were not very different from the findings of opinion pollsters.

A high level overview of russian support for the invasion of Ukraine (a summary, but with links to relevant research, albeit some sources will be in russian):

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/russia-tomorrow/reluctant-consensus-war-and-russias-public-opinion/

Younger people still support the war in high numbers, though their support is lower than that of the older generation: 75–80 percent of people fifty-five and older support the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine, while 61 percent of young respondents in Levada polls share this sentiment.

Let’s agree to disagree in that case.

I hope I was able to at least share my own reasoning (even if you don’t agree). And I think we can both agree that TCR does not have any experience in RPG games.

It’s not like that at all.

I enjoy walking sims (Soma is one of my favourite games of all time) in general and TCR’s releases as well.

That doesn’t mean one can’t recognize that TCR tends to struggle even with relatively simple gameplay and that a game like Bloodlines requires strong gameplay design/implementation skills.

While I loved the atmosphere of Still Wakes the Deep, there were many situations where weak gameplay undermined the ambiance and immersion.

An earlier statement from one of the Paradox PR reps (before release):

“I actually played Bloodlines 1 quite recently, and it is a good game, but it is also an old game, and there are many things that would not fly today,” Lilja said. "But I understand why people were super psyched by it in 2004, because it had a lot of cool [elements], and the feeling of being a vampire is really strong, regardless of other features. But I think people, they remember their feelings about it. And if they replayed it, I think they would see that it’s a competently good game by 2004 standards, now that it’s patched.

Seems like their approach to Bloodlines 2 isn’t much of “high flyer” in the year 2025.

In defence of the PR rep, they were open about Bloodlines 2 not having much to do with the original and that it was more of vampire themed linear action game.

But in that case, why would you have internal targets of 2M+ initial sales if your plan is to have a radical departure from a well known cult classic RPG known for its roleplaying and strong writing?

Chinese Room is clearly a bad fit for Bloodlines. They have zero experience with RPG games.

They make good walking-sim style gaming experiences with strong atmosphere and world-building, but they’ve never made any RPGs. Bloodlines was a living world full of dynamism (remember the Voerman twins missions?).

Their gameplay also tends to be subpar. The original Bloodlines had some flaws with gameplay (combat), but you still had a lot of different gameplay options and approaches.

Why shouldn’t people have expectations for a strong roleplaying experience and player freedom for a Bloodlines game?

That’s so true. Murray’s publicity game become so much more cautious and focused after the initial disasterous release of NMS.

Respect to them for supporting the game for so long for free while having a simple and fair monetisation approach.

Cheers!

What’s the Euro population like? With the timezone and all.

Honestly, that’s very surprising.

They are not running out of oil money.

They have the best cost per barrel economics out of all countries (at scale) and they still hold a stupid high % of the market (10%+).

Their game investment strategy is of course a massive failure. They will exist in 24-36 months. You don’t need to be a financial analyst to understand this.

Wannabe American oligarch.

The things he allegedly argues against (Apple/Google app store restrictions) is what he would implement (word for word copy/paste arguments) if he was in their position.

Typical corrupt scum.

I work in market research. Data at this level of granularity (price band view) is extremely expensive.

Around 300K per year and that would also likely only include a few retailers GameStop, BestBuy, Walmart. I don’t remember off the top of my head, but I believe Steam data wouldn’t be included.

It’s very likely Valve doesn’t share the full dataset with anyone. Maybe partial data with some of their biggest partners.

That’s in terms of games.

If you look at the content on Steam, there is lots of pro-russian genocidal imperialism messaging (even in charity DLC releases), Nazi stuff and annoying fake anti-woke posturing.

They don’t do anything about it because of their alleged committment to “free speech”. I find that unconvincing, they simply can’t be bothered.

I am more into the indie side with psychological/existential horror and horror RPGs, but I do like the early Silent Hill and Resident Evil releases.

Based on the trailer seems like a game version of a gore/torture/faux-snuff horror movie.

You’re welcome to perceive what I am saying as a reflexive “America bad” outburst driven by current developments.

And I will take the liberty of saying that it is possible that there is significant nuance to my arguement.

Not to mention that I’ve lived for several years across multiple countries in North America, Europe and Asia and visited another 25 countries.

Btw, I am not only flexing with the “I have travelled the world!!!” comments. :)

I am also pointing out that it would be difficult for me to enjoy living/travelling in other countries if I reflexively said things like “This place sucks! What a shithole!”.