So Riot Games just announced like 4 games...

[MrKnubbles]

I've been wanting Riot to make more games for a long, long time. Even though I stopped playing League of Legends several years ago, I always enjoyed the world they created and would love to explore that world in a more friendly environment like solo or group play (non-pvp). Looking forward to that ARPG.

[Tic Tacs]

They are all equally as bad...

I will completely disagree, Heroes of the Storm was charging so much more than League of Legends on release for skins. If I remember correctly the pricing was in some cases more than double the amount for a skin than what League of Legends was charging. This is pure greed, milking their player base, exploiting their fan base or whatever you want to call it.

Now, I'm not saying that League of Legends isn't charging a lot for skins, DOTA 2 has much cheaper skins/sets and so many more possibilities to customize but saying that they are all equal is just a blunt statement to make... and don't get me started about WoW, this is pure greed -

$30 for faction change?
$25 for race change?
$50 to watch Blizzcon on their website on top of couple of skins

This is pure insanity.

[Beastiel]

You said "Fighting games are so insanely hard to monetize" I said there are still plenty fighting games that are not struggling at all. How can you not comprehend that?

Because that's not what you actually said. Streetfighter and Tekken are surviving, but they aren't exactly cash cows. They both have just barely enough of an audience to sustain putting new content out. Capcom cannot afford to risk putting out any fighting game that doesn't have the raw brand appeal of street fighter or "marvel" in the title, which is why they haven't in over a decade. They literally tried but could not get the thumbs up from upper management to create a new Darkstalkers title because they know that simply being a good fighting game is not enough to survive in this day and age.

Netherrealm is irrelevant.

[Kathranis]

DAMMIT!
I cant enjoy videogames anymore knowing the China situation.
You know that character on the Matrix's movie who says "Ignorance is Bliss" (cypher)...yeah...i cant simply enjoy games anymore...
I feel bad and feel like an hypocrite

Capitalism is inherently exploitative, but you can participate in a system while being critical of it. That's the basis of democratic systems (not that private companies are democratic, per se).

There are far greater injustices going on in the world than a company not wanting people to get political on their esports streams, and there are more effective ways to go about bettering the world than refusing to play a video game.

[Big Thanks]

SUMMARY VIDEO (pretty good one)

[Kathranis]

You said "Fighting games are so insanely hard to monetize" I said there are still plenty fighting games that are not struggling at all. How can you not comprehend that?

I don't think people understand just how narrow the profit margins are on fighting games compared to other genres. Speaking with some degree of industry experience, I can say that they are far more expensive to make than you probably realize. A single character usually costs $200k to $350k (including VO, music, QA) to develop, depending on the studio (Capcom's being some of the most expensive). $250k is about industry standard, from what I've seen, and usually 2-3 months of development time. This is for a modern, traditional-style 2D or 2.5D fighter -- obviously a game like Smash has less work going into each individual character.

And most fighting games aren't million-sellers. There are a few stand outs in recent years (SF4, DBFZ, and MK11), but if you look at your SamShos and your BlazBlues, you're probably looking at launch numbers in the tens of thousands, and maybe a few hundred thousand lifetime sales. It took Skullgirls five years and lots of deeply discounted sales to hit a million. Worse, player retention for fighting games is extremely low.

And yet people expect huge rosters at launch and free or cheap DLC characters. That's really hard to make financially viable.


That all being said, I think fighting game developers definitely need to shift how they publish and monetize fighting games, because the old monetization models really aren't working for people. Though I question whether the genre can ever truly penetrate the mainstream, anyway.

This League fighting game will be, if nothing else, an interesting experiment, but also it might be coming a bit too late. Between GranBlue Fantasy Versus and the new Guilty Gear game launching next year, Arc System Works, hot off the buzz of DBFZ, is already working on a more broadly accessible push into the mainstream, and they have a damn near impeccable track record for making great fighting games.

I mean, the brief clips they showed looked pretty nice, but is the League IP enough to compete with these visuals and this pedigree?

[bloodykiller86]

so looks like theyre attacking games from blizzard and valve lol interesting next couple of years

[Kathranis]

so looks like theyre attacking games from blizzard and valve lol interesting next couple of years

I mean, I don't know what else I'd expect from Riot Games. They're a "Blizzard style" studio to begin with. Competition is a good thing though.

[Sencha]

They just look like generic games of already existing genre. Not hyped at all.

[valky94]

Oh look, another card game that'll be dead in a month. And a shooter that will survive until the twitch sponsorships end.

nah they got big daddy tencent behind their backs, they will force it down everyones throat, especially in china

- - - Updated - - -

MOBA players will not just hop on whatever Riot offers. That's not how preferences work.

look at TFT vs underlords, from what ive read online, underlords looks like the better game mechanic and gameplay wise (atleast it did a few weeks after launch), but TFT is bigger just because of the league brand

[Tic Tacs]

I really hope Blizzard has something new cooking behind the scenes, otherwise, they are pretty much going to lose significant share of the market with another major player around who by the looks of it knows what is up. Classic MMO years are over, maybe it is time to reinvent MMO genre?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It's pretty funny how Blizzard's last new game they released was Overwatch in May of 2016. 3 and a half years ago. Ooof.

Riots last and only game was released in 2009 ten years ago, what’s your point?

[letssee]

Woah, another Overwatch and another Hearthstone.

Animated series is the only good news.

Im getting more surprised by porn games in itchio than those big game companies doing the same crap everyday.

dont forget the diablo style mmo game

[Ausr]

What we needed, another card game and another hero based shooter. This is like watching Trion doing the same thing.

[Orby]

They take good moment for that announces, when Blizzard got bad press. Really good moment.

I wouldn't praise Riot as a golden child in this matter when they are reinforcing Blizzards views on China...

https://www.latimes.com/business/sto...roadcast-rules

Where is all the #boycottRiot tweets?

[Edge-]

I wouldn't praise Riot as a golden child in this matter when they are reinforcing Bl;izzards views on China...

https://www.latimes.com/business/sto...roadcast-rules

Where is all the #boycottRiot tweets?

Because they haven't taken any action against players. Yet.

[Big Thanks]

What we needed, another card game and another hero based shooter. This is like watching Trion doing the same thing.

Actually, yes, we needed another card game that is not that aggressive on the PAY WALL GATING.
We needed this card game.

It seems so much fun.

A little bit of a story going on "live" about this game:
Kripparrian fought Trump with an insane deck he made up that seems overpowered
video:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Kripparrian

And then Trump got salty and implemented Krip's tech into one of his decks and made a Hybrid of the best of both worlds
video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W889ApyEec

We are seeing "strategy-making" and "theory-crafting" happening LIVE.
Exciting times

(i love card games)

[Orby]

Because they haven't taken any action against players. Yet.

It doesn't matter, they are literally threatening their broadcasters to say "don't do this or we'll do the same to you". you shouldn't have to wait for them to do something because said they would.

[Corroc]

Because they haven't taken any action against players. Yet.

They already made it so its not even possible. They prerecord interviews, even the post game ones. I have no idea how you prerecord post game interview but there is no live interviews in their tournees.

[Edge-]

It doesn't matter, they are literally threatening their broadcasters to say "don't do this or we'll do the same to you". you shouldn't have to wait for them to do something because said they would.

It's not the rules that were the problem for Blizzard, it was their response that was the problem.

Riot is clearly laying out guidelines for what is/isn't acceptable. If Blizz had been as clear, this wouldn't have blown up the way it has.

We can agree that the rules may be shitty, but they're actually owned by a Chinese company, Tencent, so they're not playing by the same set of rules as Blizzard. And they haven't been as vocal about their "values" as Blizzard has either, especially in the wake of their internal harassment/sexism/etc. scandals.