so like. at what point are we going to stop listening to game companies saying "the game was poorly received and didn't meet our sales targets, and that's why we're removing it from storefronts and taking down all the servers mere months or even weeks after release" for titles that had a long expensive development, were barely marketed, and nobody knew they'd even released until after they heard they were getting shut down and couldn't be played/purchased anymore?
I feel like the prevailing takeaway for anyone who doesn't just conclude "yeah, game was pretty mid, makes sense to me" has usually been "this company just has unreasonably impossible sales expectations and treats every project like a failure if it doesn't print a trillion dollars". but these ARE allegedly experienced business execs who aren't complete idiots, and after this most recent debacle with Concord I'm starting to wonder if a bunch of these "games getting wiped out of existence when they underperform instead of just being allowed to persist as they are and maybe improve with time" cases in recent years might be more of a Warner-Discovery type situation, like nuking an entire animated series or film that was worked on for years and preventing it from being sold because it has to be officially unprofitable for the company to use it as a tax write-off. I look at a game that was worked on for 8 years and only made available for 2 weeks, and it's hard not to see the parallels.
great work, AAA games industry, really normal and sustainable stuff you're doing over there as usual
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ghost fucking soap so hard and so good he passes out but he utterly panics about it
he thinks he must’ve ignored soap asking to stop; was it pain that made him pass out? how bad could it have been to make him pass out when he’s been shot and kept going? should he bring him to medical? he’ll never touch him again, he’ll never so much as look at him again; he’ll ask for a transfer- fuck that, a dishonourable discharge. there’s no coming back from this
he spirals, guilt chasing hatred chasing despair chasing fear, until soap finally wakes back up
soap's still floating, loose-limbed and buzzing; fucked so thoroughly out of his head that it takes him a while to notice ghost isn't in bed with him anymore. he frowns, lifting a heavy head off the pillow and freezes. ghost's on the other side of the room, curled up tight in the corner as far away from soap as he could get without leaving him alone
(he would've left, would've made sure soap never had to see his face again and be reminded of what he did to him, of the monster he’d let into his bed- but he couldn't just leave him unconscious; what if he didn't wake up, he had to make sure he was safe first even if he'll rightfully hate him forever when he does wake up)
soap's voice when he calls out to him makes him flinch, his head burying deeper in his knees. cold worry chases the bliss from his blood and soap pushes himself up but his shaking arms can't hold his weight
the sound of him collapsing back onto the bed makes ghost rear up, his panic growing and soap's heart breaks at his red rimmed eyes
it takes a long time for soap to coax him back to the bed, countless loops of, "sweetheart, please, come here, what happened? it's okay, everything’s going to be okay.”
(and how ghost’s self-hatred grows hearing soap comforting him; hearing the concern and love in his voice when he doesn’t deserve a drop of it)
it takes even longer for ghost to believe soap when he says that he passed out because he felt so good; that he never asked ghost to stop, never wanted him to stop. that he trusts him more than anything and knows he'd rather die than ever hurt him, especially like that
“you’re not a monster, love,” he promises, soft with conviction and it’s as much a surrender as a relief when he collapses into his lap and lets him hold him close
ghost believes johnny but he still can't bring himself to be intimate with him for a while; that fear still haunting him, but soap doesn't hold it against him, doesn't complain about ghost's perceived "step back" in their relationship
hell, ghost seems to hate it more than he does; he misses being with soap, misses the connection, the closeness they shared, the safety and quiet he found in his embrace, but he's always trusted soap more than he trusts himself
soap doesn't let him be consumed by his fear or worse, sabotage them and turn it into a punishment; doesn't let him even get through the suggestion of switching because he knows how much he hates it and he won’t let him twist something as good and pure as their physical love into something self-harming
instead, he brings them back to the basics, working through the steps to get ghost comfortable with intimacy again, to get him to trust himself again; spends happy months just grinding and exchanging handjobs like when their relationship first started
and it's a happy day for them both when soap finally falls apart on his cock once again, anxiety the farthest thing from ghost's mind when his arms are wrapped so tightly around him, kissing a smile against his lips
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okay, because i saw a poll earlier and i thought the choices weren't clear enough and also the answers i saw to it annoyed me and also i'm curious:
NOTES:
I am including having watched gameplay of a game and not having played it as having watched the source material
In this context if you are writing fic/making art and you are not being commissioned to do so. This is purely for funsies
You getting into something because you saw a post/gifset/video about it and then watched the source material does not count. That's just how you get into new things.
Goncharov does not count because it's not real. I'll break kayfabe here I don't care.
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tbh my latest biggest theory for why HoO and onwards is such a dramatic drop in quality and consistency is just. Rick stopped making teaching guides.
Like, the Lightning Thief teacher's guide is SUPER in-depth with even stuff like sources about middle grade child psychology and exact specifications of where he's applying that, explaining what different character's goals/motivations are, their dynamics with each other and their environments, etc etc. Even specifying which specific myths certain plot elements are supposed to reference or be about.
That stuff just doesn't exist for later books. There's activity guides and smaller, significantly more simple teacher guides for later books but they don't go into anywhere NEAR the same level of depth. The TLT one is a full lesson plan that breaks down the book at every level and explains what's going on and more or less why Rick did that. The others are all basically just glossaries of terminology and some simple question guides.
And they didn't even use the TLT teacher's guide for the Disney+ show because they clearly aren't adhering to any of what's discussed in that breakdown of the book.
By creating a teaching guide alongside writing the actual book, that's forcing you to document what you're doing, why, your sources, and information about your characters and the story they're in. It's like an even more in-depth version of a series bible. But that's lacking for later books (and etc) and it shows because that level of thought and depth and attention just isn't there anymore.
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