All the superhero games are leaking today.
FUCKING SPOILERS (BUB): I have very mixed feelings about Jean being in the game, one the one hand it looks like she plays right out of Control on the other hand I fucking hate it when they try to pair her with Wolverine, stop trying to make it happen because it won’t happen!
Nintendos mobile game inconsistency annoys me they stop updating Mario kart tour then like 5 months later hey remember that mobile game we haven’t mentioned since 2018 it’s update time baby but for the 5 Mario run fans today is a good day
So Spider Man 2 took 350 Million to make.
That being said where did that money go for a game where so much assets were reused all the way down to the map. My theory is Insomniac is part of a Money Laundering Scheme.
Programming, voice acting, pre production, at least a quarter or so for marketing i could imagine?
Are you saying that Insomniac used the money they were given to make the game to make the game? Nah, gotta be a scheme.
Though I would say you are forgetting the biggest cost: the licensing fees.
So money laundering.
Yes, the best money laundering schemes always end with you not actually getting the laundered money. As shitty as IP laws are this is just how they work and sometimes rights holders like Marvel (especially Marvel) ask for steep fees to use their characters.
Swang the game cost a lot for the same reason superhero movies cost a lot: hiring AAA talent, licensing the heroes and working on all of the visual and mechanical development is costly in both expenses used and as payment for employees not even factoring in distribution, publicity and advertising as well which are also costly most of the time it is the biggest expense made for a production. Just because not much changed in New York over two years to warrant a whole new version of Manhattan made from the ground up doesn’t mean Insomniac did nothing but sit on their asses and asset flip for several years.
It isn’t a big conspiracy and perhaps the most obvious culprit is that the largest portions of the money went to executives, it always goes to the executives and sadly it always will until the Triple A industry collapses under its own weight like a Bangladeshi garment factory because supporting a model of infinite growth for such a subjective thing as an entertainment experience is unhealthy
In short it is not money laundering to waste money on getting what is best and newest but it is a sign that Triple A gaming’s model is unhealthily dependent on trend-chasing so it can fuel an unstable development model, it is not money laundering to pay Marvel a quarter of your earnings or budget to make a game and it is a sign that IP laws are terrible and it isn’t money laundering for Triple A publishers to extort their workers for pennies and then sack them all in layoffs to give yourself a bigger bonus but it is wildly unethical and a sign that there are now really big problems with how the triple A gaming industry is trying to adopt the capitalistic infinite growth model.
Speaking of getting rid of the executives, Bobby Kotick has left Activision-Blizzard.
Christmas came early. But I’m still not satisfied with the severance package he probably got.
With his severance I would say Christmas only came early for him and no-one else Microsoft are said to be replacing him with Matt Booty, so things will get slightly better before becoming a whole new different type of worse as Matt helps integrate the company into the MS Monopoly.
It happened again…
I don’t know if anyone will find these interesting but here are three pieces of game news that have no connection at all first pizza tower 
is getting a update sometime soon I have never played the game but just like 70% of indie game soundtracks I have listened to I love it’s soundtrack so if this adds more music I’m happy
https://twitter.com/PizzaTowergame/status/1738278742051475899
secondly the Sims 4 currently has two dlcs available for free weird considering EA however the second one is only free on pc
and lastly the game Disney speedstorm added wall-e as a racer today so he can now commit vehicular manslaughter
https://twitter.com/SpeedstormGame/status/1738242997681115405
Freebies. Freebies never change.
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/fallout-3-game-of-the-year-edition
Posting this here since I can’t post more replies in its proper thread 
Something to play until STALKER 2 gets released 
So unfortunately this didn’t happen yet. Delayed to Q1 2024…
Dang what is it with unique/interesting indie PC games getting delayed on console so much recently
(Apparently they just added Dedicated Servers earlier this month so that’s cool)
Hard Drive, the comedy/satire gaming news site, is facing hard financial times. Has to turn to crowdfunding/Patreon.
Posting it here instead of the PS thread, since there are several multi-platform games in there, but notably this seems to confirm that the remakes of SH2 and MGS3 will arrive this year.
