#apartments for sale in

[geryone]

Trying to stop myself from buying a church pew

[syn4k]

IN THIS HOUSE WE STAND FOR THE FLAG 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

[swiftviolets]

one thing about lori is that you WILL be seeing her at the estate sale

also lori at any given time:

[devsgames]

Every so often I'm reminded of how many people don't realize just how high the bar is for indie titles to actually make enough money or gain enough recognition to be sustainable.

Like someone will say "I think it's great that mildly successful indie titles exist that no one has heard of before, such as [multi-award winning indie game that was incredibly financially successful that has had coverage by multiple major news outlets]! It's so nice small indies exist" :)

[chronurgy]

Taking a look at Dragon Age sales figures -

Origins - 3.2 million copies sold (as of Feb 2010, about 4 months after its launch)

Two - 2 million copies sold (as of two months after launch)

Inquisition - over 12 million copies sold (10 years post-release, unfortunately I can't find a more comparable time frame for sales)

Veilguard - 1.5 million "players reached" (about 3 months post-release, expectation for 3 million copies sold, unclear definition of players reached)

Awhile ago, when the generally positive critical reviews for veilguard came out, I said I was pretty sure bioware would be fine and would make it long enough to at least produce mass effect 5. Now, looking at these stats, I'm not so sure. Dragon age 2 was generally treated as a bit of a commercial flop for bioware, so seeing veilguard undersell it by a minimum of half a million units is not encouraging. Especially when it undersold ea's expectations for it by at least half. And I don't think ea's expectations were unreasonable! Three million in sales would put it in between the first two games and well below inquisition, the game it's a direct sequel to. That honestly feels a little odd, since it would imply that the studio didn't believe they picked up any new fans from inquisition's success.

I think that the 10 year gap was absolutely corrosive to the fan base. I understand why it happened on a development level, but it was an absolutely massive mistake. They completely lost the ability to capitalize on the excitement and name recognition inquisition generated as the incredibly popular game of the year for its direct sequel. Again, I completely understand what happened. I just think that all of the decisions that allowed this to happen (canceling project joplin, generally putting the series in the back burner, etc) were incredibly bad. They lost hype and momentum and ended up with far less in excitement and sales than they could have, especially since they lost a lot of long-time, key employees because of the development hell that ensued. This is on both bioware and ea. Bioware for their incredible mismanagement and just constant bag-fumbling and terrible working conditions and choices generally, and ea for allowing this to happen and generally pushing their studios toward a live-service model (plus all the other general ea fuckery).

It's also worth mentioning the "players reached" wording. That obviously doesn't mean the same thing as "copies sold," which likely means that the game sold less than 1.5 million copies. Admittedly, it's probably worth asking exactly how relevant sales numbers still are as we enter the era of game streaming services. It's genuinely hard to say, and that's going to be an industry-wide shift. But no matter how you slice it, the game clearly didn't do well commercially.

Looking toward the future, the first question has to be not what bioware will learn from this, but if bioware will even survive long enough to learn from this. They've had three poor releases in a row in an industry that isn't exactly forgiving. There have also been a few high profile departures recently, and while that might not be particularly unusual after a game launch, it can't be overlooked entirely. The studio is very much at risk of shutting down at this juncture.

But assuming bioware doesn't shut down, where do they go from here? What lessons will they learn from veilguard's failure? While it clearly wasn't a commercial success, it reviewed fairly well with a metacritic score of 82 (compare Andromeda's score of 71, Inqusition's of 85, origins' of 86, da2's of 79, and the Mass Effect trilogy's low 90s). Player reviews, on the other hand, were more mixed. Will bioware decide they made a good game and players just didn't get it? Andromeda and veilguard's writing definitely had some similarities, so maybe this is just the direction the studio has decided to go in and nothing will shake them from it. Or will they see the feedback and lurch too far in the opposite direction? They have a habit of doing that (they did it with inquisition after da2 and anthem's facial animations after Andromeda, for example). It could be that they decide it needs to be even more generic, even safer, to make sure they get the broadest possible appeal. It could be that they decide they need to double down on the nostalgia factor to attract the players of the older games. I don't know. I don't think anyone really does, at this point.

Honestly, I don't think bioware knows either. The studio clearly has a lot of issues that will take a lot of time, money, and introspection to fix. These issues are likely very entrenched in the studio's culture, and have been present for at least a decade, if not longer. And I don't know that bioware has the resources or the willpower to address them, given the circumstances.

[vinceaddams]

There's another estate sale coming up soon and I fear I am at risk of finding more cool and useful thingies.

I hope I find a nightstand, my bedside lamp is just on a stack of boxes. And it's also more of a desk lamp, which I will move to my desk once I come across a more nightstand sort of lamp. I also need a short, small, sturdy table to put my sewing machine on, because the big work table is much too high. Hopefully the dead guy had at least one of those 3 things!

[dirt-juice]

my pictures aren't great but i wanna show off my pins lol

angel pins and shield/flail pair are from @ultrainfinitepit , sorcerer and cleric symbol pins are from Knewlore, blackbird and dragonfly are souvenirs, heart brooch from a flea market, beaded sun and moon brooch was a gift so i'm not sure.

[mango-sideburns]

I feel like the absolute funniest resolution to the graphic novel blue Taako era would be to keep him blue but make Lup a normal human colour. Just make his twin sister an average skin colour and keep Taako blue. He's actually just like that for the drama TM. It's a constant glamour bc he thinks it makes him look cooler.

[dr-wormman]

I bought Cyberpunk 2077 cause it was on sale for half off and I didn’t like it but I do like the World of cyberpunk so made an OC. for funsies. I imagine this guy is some sort of musician. Like a mix of Hijokaidan and Swans if you can even imagine that

[cicada-heart]

watercolor butterfly and moth on muslin, hand embroidered on lace 🦋🌙

etsy / kofi

[otrtbs]

brb about to escape and enter my magical fantasy world

[after-witch]

I wish 90s & older horror paperbacks weren't so expensive nowadays... I just want the entire collection of Fear Street without having to spend like... $600... is that too much to ask.

[sleepyslag]

Between Dimension 20 Live My Chemical Romance and the Terrible Influence Tour I'm getting the sense that people online do not understand how touring works and will get very very angry about things that artists actually can't control.

[stellewriites]

someone talk some sense into me and tell me not to buy them,, that i don’t need them and that they’re too expensive 😭😭

…. but they’re so cute fuck

[katesimblr]

Hello everyone,

Summer is here! It's hot and dry, how is it with you? :)

I thought, so that your Sims can also enjoy the summer in new, cool buildings, apartments or parks, there is a 15% discount on all my buildings on my website katesimblr.com. Simply use the code: SUMMERSALE24

The sale is valid until 25th August