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So I give the SkillUp crew a gentle ribbing every now and then here in the comments section. But I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone on the team. Not a lot of gamers in my day to day life so I always look forward to this week in video games. I appreciate all the coverage. It's always great to hear and talk about this hobby/art form that I love. Thank you and here's to another year of the Shills still going Up.
0:14 Gamers / Summary 2:13 January - rumors of Xbox games to PS5 - Layoffs - Palworld 5:45 February - more layoffs - MS "business update" - Big game releases 9:55 March - Embracer sell Sabre, Gearbox - Bungie - Overwatch 2 - DragonsDogma 2 13:09 April - Stellar Blade - App store emulators - The Crew servers - Fallout 16:27 May - Square Enix exclusives - Helldivers psn - PS5 outsell Xbox 5 to 1 - MS closing multiple studios 21:07 June - Hawk Tuah - game showcases - Elden Ring Erdtree - Bungie Last Shape 23:24 July - Halo TV cancelled - GamePass changes - Bungie layoffs and "new path" 27:01 August - Raygun - Borderlands movie - Black Myth Wukong - Concord - Star Wars Outlaws 31:32 September - PS5 PRO - more MS Layoffs - Nintendo sues Palworld - Destiny mobile game - Ubisoft bad releases and change to Steam - Big game releases 35:36 October - Game releases like Silenthill 2, Dragon Age Veilguard & Metaphor 39:13 November - more bad game releases - Talk of Sony and MS makinjg Handhelds - Xbox advertising (these timestamps are akk Xboxes) - Sony & Kadokowa 42:16 December - Indiana Jones - Infinity Nikki - Marvel Rivals - XDefiant & Soocide Squad shutdowns - Game Awards 47:35 Outro
Skill up I just want you to know I am protesting this video for your inclusion of an uncut hawk tuah joke. I will return to liking your videos every week going forward
Amazing show. I seriously don't understand why anyone who works in this industry would miss this stellar recap. 2022 and 2024 have something in common for me, both years impacted me with a loss of a job through the closure of the studio where many talented people worked so hard on creating worthwhile experiences. As a senior Game Designer, I'm losing hope for a stable income by the minute, truly a great year for video games, but a terrible one for those who pumped these games out. Thank you Ralph (and the team of course) for taking the time to address both the ups and downs of this industry. Happy holidays, wish you all the best.
IMO gacha *is* the result of the reckoning we had with lootboxes. By making the games free, it becomes way harder to argue that the lootboxes are unfair monetization. They, in theory, provide a “Pay what you wish” model, which is really good for people without a ton of income, unless they also have a propensity for gambling addiction, at which point it’s really bad.
Gacha existed long before lootboxes. Lootboxes are effect of trying to implement monetisation model from east into west ecosystem, but not removing previously existing western style monetization. What is often forgotten is that gacha comes in a lot of ways from necessity - a lot of people in these cultures consider paying up front 60 dollars for the game much worse than slow tricking that gacha does, as this can be unobtainable for many people compared to smaller payments over time or just playing for free. With a big part of population being unable to pay such high prices gacha model became very popular, as it can be financed by much fewer amount of dedicated players. while keeping game available to public.
IMO Rocket league does it right. Only cosmetics, and you can just buy the thing you want. I suppose there's a bit of RNG involved with what blueprints you get, but at least you know what you get. The whole idea of randomized lootboxes is very much repulsive and predatory to me.
@@DivyanshBalchandani We also have like 20 other bangers to look forward to in 2025. So even if GTA6 is delayed, 2025 is still set up to be a strong year for gamers.
I really hate that Ralph has this really strong bias against gacha, when pretty much all monetization schemes, whether it's DLCs, paid cosmetics or battle passes offer just as equally insidious pricing and FOMO inducing tactics, just that it has existed for so long it was scoffed at and was ignored, let slide, or not getting enough backlash. It really reeks of "we had it better back in my age!" kind of thing , when back then you had to content with Capcom releasing new versions of the same game releasing within months at full price.
@darrylaz3570 he definitely doesn't like battle passes either. He's entitled to his own opinion, just like you are of course. Dlc has never been as insidious as gacha, it can be bad but for the most part it's usually pretty fair
@@darrylaz3570 I somewhat agree. But while paid cosmetics/battle passes heavily use fomo inducing tactics, most mainstream western games that are discussed(apart from sports games which are ridiculed and never discussed much) do not even have lootbox mechanics for cosmetics, let alone that for actual items in game. That was the case in the early 2010s and everyone pushed back against it. Nowadays the big ones largely do, or try to do that through collaborations in other IPs. On the other hand, gacha games have all that stuff, and I guess western gamers, at least ones active on the internet like Ralph hate how shameless it is about it while also raking in millions or billions, right after spending the previous decade pushing back against western developers on lootboxes and any kind of P2W mechanic. So, while there is a bit of a double standard, when it comes to completely excusing VALVe literally allowing not only lootboxes but literal underage gambling through their choice of making CS cosmetics tradeable on other platforms while gaining billions, and to a lesser extent ignoring EA and 2K milking sports games, I think they're mostly consistent with their beliefs.
They have a lot of opinions in their videos and it's not usually backed by objective research, just anecdotal evidence and lack of business understanding. There was that one video where they said a company made trillions in profits but it was revenue
'when you reach that event horizon, everything starts to feel untethered'. We're lucky to have your head in the game. Thanks for all the work and insight this year!
I feel like your May segement is a shining example of how uninteresting the entrie AAA space has become and the beautiful variety of indies shows how much value there is to taking risks, creating something you're passionate about, and trying to innovate. I know we all know it, but the big game devs/publishers NEED to understand this to survive.
I sincerely hope that this year is the turnaround point for the AAA industry. MULTIPLE games this year were overbloated, overpriced, terribly designed and absolutely refused to listen to player feedback, hell, even proceeded to antagonize their own potential playerbase. All of them ended up being a massive financial flop. Start listening to the players.
@@DaveVoyleseh I’d be inclined to disagree, the hawk tuah girl (can’t believe I’m saying this unironically) if she didn’t do a rug pull she probably could a made enough money to late her a good while
Excellent round up of the year and looking forward to your game of the year video. With the weekly news show, reviews from Ralph and Austin and the FPS podcast I have been extremely well served by your channel this year! I can only hope that next year brings more stability for the industry and that execs finally stop trying to have their cake and eat it and then laying off all the people who make the cake!
@SkillUp, no mention of Path of Exile 2 at all??? Players count of 100,000 more than Marvel Rivals and had over 1,000,000 sales before the game even launched. Path of Exile 2 is still sitting at 350,000 players three weeks after release.
What did I say, Shill up would rather go to a diddy party oiled up than talk about POE2. Now he will do a small first expression for the EA just because
Great wrap up, ShillUp. It's been a pleasure to experience this year in video games through your reporting and commentary. You are my #1 source for gaming news and I always look forward to your weekly update. I've discovered and played so many great games because of you! Happy new year and may your channel continue to be a success.
This channel has become my go to for all things video game related. Kudos to the whole SkillUp team for growing this channel into what it has become and I look forward to another year and whatever it may hold for this industry.
Thank you for another year full of usefull information. Thank you for making so many videos and putting so much work into it, with Austin and the rest. Happy new year
Do not feel bad for it being as long as it is. Your honied words, your dedicaton to the craft, the puns, the jokes, the moments of clarity, the reflections on the industry, the call outs for some to "do better," and others to get the recognitionand praise they rightfully deserve is the very reason I've rocked with your videos since when I first found your channel during Division 1. Please keep it up, annd i will "look forward to it."
The layoffs in IT isn't just a game development problem, this is happening all over almost every industry while large corporations keep trying to increase "shareholder value" at the expense of customers and employees. I love seeing indie devs doing so well right now and hope it keeps getting better.
Liking Phil Spencer now is like trying to like your uncle that just got out of jail after 20 years on a murder charge. "He was always really great to me"
I very much doubt western publishers who cannot make live service games work will magically be able to do so with gacha. The key to live service is consistency, gacha game systems just gives you the time to deliver the content drops while the retention mechanics keep people around. The western publishers will keep making the mistakes of trying to sell big on 1.0, never deliver the 1.1 and because gacha game addiction is very replaceable people will move on. And this even ignores the unwillingness to create "waifu" characters. Like a Concord gacha game would've figured out how to fail even harder. Also none of the big gacha games of today came outta nowhere, all those devs have previous, very successful games they have built from nothing.
I mean take the gacha away. Genshin, Wuthering Waves, ZennlesZoneZero, Honkai Starrail would work without them and they are great games without mentioning the gacha aspect. What is Dragon Age Veilguard without the name? Garbage. What is Concord? Garbage. What is Suicide Squad KTJL? Garbage.
@@SilverShot114yea that’s the thing a lot of people miss. People are willing to fork over some money for gacha because the gacha games are fun to play and are honestly pretty consumer friendly compared to most other free-to-play games, plus they usually work very hard to keep customers happy and it pays off with people willing to pay for some gacha rolls
Ralph is 4 years late on that take. If western publishers wanted to dig at that goldmine then they'd have started making them over 4 years ago after genshin released. Now the market slowed down while multiple eastern companies release big budget gacha games. Eastern gamedevs are also just built different. The output for the likes of hoyoverse is insane while still being very polished, Imagine every patch of your live service game just fucking working without gamebreaking shit day 1.
exactly, as long as clueless corporate officials over here see it as a cheat code to get out of actually having to make good content consistently, none of these business models will work.
I mean another huge reason they won't succeed is that they actively have disdain for storytelling at this point. You need to have massive rolling narratives to make gachas work. The plotlines, themes, character arcs required might as well be a black hole for how impossible it would be for any big Western dev to actually try to fill. Also, like someone else mentioned they do not deliver aesthetically pleasing characters anymore seemingly on purpose. No one wants to spend gacha currency, let alone real money on whatever dysgenic create-a-sim creature in a fantasy outfit they cook up. Anyway go play Limbus Company
Important to note: Gacha games got their names from Gashapon, which are vending machines in Japan that spit out capsule toys. You don't know exactly what toy you'll get after you put money in, and that concept is what spawned gacha games in Japan, and now the rest of the world.
Those jokes going hard this year. MKBHD bit got me grinning. Anyway, interesting year. In a way, funny to see quite a lot of corpos just stumbling around, desperately trying to figure out wtf are they supposed to do.
41:56 of course I’d still want a dedicated handheld - streaming sucks balls, especially when you’ve got pish internet, so I will always take something I can actually install my games on over streaming.
I think it's more that the steamdeck and switch already exist and people trust valve to give them a good handheld experience way more than microsoft. The weakest part of the ROG Ally are all the parts that microsoft made.
@ yeah, and I’ve got the Steamdeck for that handheld experience for sure. But as I’m also deep into my Xbox library & associated gamerscore (😝) I’d love to be able to play that untethered (but not streaming). I’ve tried the Xbox remote play options on the Steamdeck, but would love to be able to install the games directly. Can’t say I’d buy another handheld just for that though either.
I hate that people use that picture of the oompa loompa girl. She seems really sweet and was basically volunteering to make kids happy, while being totally unrelated to the group putting on the event.
I'm just as surprised that it still hasn't happened, but the true reckoning that will await big western publishers if they hard-pivot into gacha is that the same things apply there as they do for the current live service rush, and that - and i know this might be hard to believe for some - the words of Vinke apply to almost ALL of the major global gacha success stories we've heard over the years. They all hail from small indie development studios (some who have since scaled up due to their success), making games they themselves want to play, with the monetization not existing to extract all the money in the world from customers to generate shareholder value (they're all privately owned, actually), but to fund a style of game development that's obsessively focused on realizing their creators' dream games at all costs.
@@JAN0L That is absolutely correct, and while it undeniably still has that effect, my point is that it's not chosen as a monetization method for that reason. I know that's a VERY tough sell, but I've researched this specific branch of the industry down to its very roots for the past 5 years. At the risk of sounding full of myself, there are very few people outside of these studios that know why they do what they do as well as me.
Arknights, Limbus Company, NIKKE are the three biggest games that I can think of that align with what you're saying. I definitely agree with you, most of the god awful IP tie in gachas dry up and die pretty quickly outside of the DBZ ones. Arknights and Limbus are also basically huge epics in terms of story content and I hear NIKKE has a storyline too, so they have good reasons to need the constant income because the game is constantly being made still.
@@Arrestedrabbit To add: The Girls' Frontline franchise is the Big Daddy of all of them, and where the entire industry can trace back to. It also features by FAR the longest and most dense story of the bunch. And while again it's a tough sell, it even absolutely applies to miHoYo/HoYoverse titles. From a side-scrolling horde shooter inspired by Highschool of the Dead, over an Evangelion (and Girls' Frontline) inpsired late-2000s style character action title, all the way to the Big G, they've worn their love for the media that inspires them on their sleeves. They've just managed to outgrow their peers to an unprecedented degree.
It's forever become an interesting subject for how completely unfounded hate can tank a live service game. The game can get almost everything right (like Concord did) and be a good game but if people straight up refuse to play it it'll just die
@@mechanicalmonk2020 Concord didn't get everything right xd. Let's not talk about characters design - it's highly subjectively, someone may like it, someone may not. But doing a p2p hero shooter in 2024, when OW2 with bigger player base and more recognizable character design is free, is a fatal mistake
@thgink9wannabe360 - Looking like an overwatch clone wasnt concords issue. The characters were just extremely tame and genetric and it cost like $35. Marvel rivals is as close to copy paste overwatch as it gets and it did well most notably because it has already established comic/film characters and it is free.
“Almost everything right” brooo that has to be satire, you just know whatever good points you can say for concord there will be hundreds saying otherwise. The ONLY good thing was how the guns looked, what else was there?
Which part of his speech didnt apply to bg3? My only guess is that "it didnt exist already", but whilst bg3 is a sequel by name anyone that has played them will know that bg3 shares far more dna with divinity than it does the other baldurs gate titles.
I enjoy the neutrality and common sense of the channel as well as not being afraid to report positive things - so many gaming channels are all about the negative news which is extremely tiring.
I'm a game developer who works for a major studio that has, so far at least, escaped layoffs. I'm feeling the squeeze on the incredible differential between wages and cost of living, and frankly I am concerned that some trimming will happen once we release our game, regardless of performance, simply because that's what I've seen from every other studio!
Ralph, as always has been, you, Austin and the new guy Stu's presence in the gaming news and review has never been more profound than this year. Thank you for everything. See you next year!
Thinking about it, Tekken 8 is my biggest disappointment this year; it truly sapped the live out of my competitive fighting games spirit. Even though it heralded designs by Mari Shimazaki, one of my all time favourites, it to is but a vehicle to jam overpriced monetisation down our throats in exchange for shallow, mid at best, gameplay. Fighting games used to be about player expression through mastery and fighting style, now everything is homogeneous and only the whales stand out by virtue of the dollar amount spend on cosmetics. Truly a sad state for a legacy genre that pioneered the entire industry…
Hey Ralph I’ve been watching since the division days and I gotta say it’s awesome to see how this channel has grown and shifted. I barely play games these days but I never miss a this week in gaming. Thanks for all the hard work
Thank you for once again being such an important part of my year in video games. You guys crushed it this year, enjoy your break. I can't wait to see what you guys bring in 2025
Thank you to SkillUp and the team for another year of great coverage and reviews. Not only for the big games but also shining spotlights on the indie scene makes this my go to channel for What to Play. Already hyped for the next year. Keep it (Skill)up!
Only 3 GOTY winners in the past 10 years fit all of Swen's criteria (BG3 does not as putting a story based game in a full priced early access program is not respectful of audiences)
Sad we'll never see a Final shape review, but I understand the distaste you have for the current bungie. But man, I enjoyed quite a few games this year. Elden Ring DLC was peak, Astro bot was super fun and made me shed a tear, Metaphor: ReFantazio is fun as hell and currently 40 hours in, Persona 3 reloaded, final fantasy rebirth, Hades II, and ending the Year with my grinding going through Path of Exile 2. Maaan, I've been having crazy amounts of fun. I don't understand how there's people saying there aren't good games anymore. 2024 was a total 10/10 for me.
God I really hope devs learn their lesson from live service with gacha. I’ve been playing Star Rail since it launched, and recently picked up limbus company after playing through all of Korean Dev Project Moon’s stuff (totally recommend to anyone reading this, they’re great). I tried to play Wurthering Waves as well, and basically hit a wall. It’s SO hard to play more than two of these games regularly, and I even struggle with that. If we end up with a gacha game from every single popular IP, there’s gonna be another wave of so so many failed games. Fingers crossed that future doesn’t come to pass.
@@thelaughingrouge your just awful, blaming devs makes you an idiot, devs never want to put out a bad game, but publishers force them to make games the devs don't care about, and when the devs lack passion, they make a bad game if the devs were allowed to make games they wanted to make, I promise you we would get nothing but quality games
Yup. They will make a gacha game with not a single interesting or attractive character, get puzzled by why nobody is spinning the machine 24/7 and sack the whole studio. Mark my words.
@@Scarecr0wn From what I've seen, most gacha games (like genshin impact and others) involve fairly generic, underage looking bland cartoon characters. Do you guys find that 'attractive?' Very interesting. I thought you guys played those games for fun, but it seems there's a perverse element to it.
Your videos have become a regular part of my gaming hobby since 2023. I look forward to getting ready to go to work while catching up on all the gaming news and updates you put together for us. I'm a fan of the explanations and justifications in your reviews, and I super appreciate how you give the barebones takeaway in the video's title (rather than click baiting us), leaving it up to me where, if I want to know more, I can watch the whole video. Hoping you are in this for the long game. Cheers to you and the whole team! ❤
I say this every year but thank you so much for making this yearly roundup. It keeps my faith in the industry at a positive point after the schlock of terrible news we have become accustomed to.
Ralph i just want to say that you are my favorite games journalist. I love your honesty and opinions on the games medium as a whole. Watching a video of yours is like watching my own opinions on games being presented to me (especially our toxic relationship to destiny that we keep returning to). So enjoy your holiday and I'll see you in 2025
Thanks for a fantastic year of entertaining and insightful content. Wishing you and yours a great holiday season and an amazing 2025. Peace and Blessings from Canada.
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INCONGI 0:08
Honey is going to steal your affiliate link.
Switch 2 next year, let's see if nintedo dominate like they did in 2017
Lara Croft Vs Helena Douglas from Kosmic the TH-camr is Absolutely Epic!😊😮🎉😂❤
FAFO = F*cked Around, Find (Found) Out. 😅
Luigi and Diddy were clearly tired of being sidekicks in 2024.
diddy kong didn't deserve this 😢
Diddy dong
Hilarious
Might be Nintendo getting their karma for changing their patent to sue pocketpair
Luigi and Diddy are also real people the most talked about this year (Luigi Mangione and P. Diddy lol)
I can't wait until December of 2029 when Ralph releases a 3 hour documentary called This Decade In Videogames
bro thought he could end the year with me forgetting that the Final Shape review still hasn't dropped
Pretty sure he said its not coming
Not the first time he’s weaseled out of doing a review
"Its good, bungie isnt"
@@EliteEpicGamerz Aww.
Did he say why he decided not to review it?
It's like the last hurrah of Destiny.
@@cykeok3525
Too late + doesn't play anymore + doesn't approve of what's going on with Bungie
putting concord in the thumbnail was def a choice lol
A decision of all time.
_I was literally about to comment this as well "I recommend..." and a picture of Concord. That's a kick in the concords if I ever did see one._
I saw game of the decade on the thumbnail. I clicked
@@valk5041 Same here.
But Concord is game of the year….game of the biggest bust.
So I give the SkillUp crew a gentle ribbing every now and then here in the comments section. But I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone on the team. Not a lot of gamers in my day to day life so I always look forward to this week in video games. I appreciate all the coverage. It's always great to hear and talk about this hobby/art form that I love. Thank you and here's to another year of the Shills still going Up.
21:11 I'd managed to avoid ever actually seeing the "hawk tua" video until just now. You bastard. 😅
Same…
No one is allowed to escape 2024 without being hawk tua'd
It's not like it's lemonparty or tubgirl.
0:14 Gamers / Summary
2:13 January - rumors of Xbox games to PS5 - Layoffs - Palworld
5:45 February - more layoffs - MS "business update" - Big game releases
9:55 March - Embracer sell Sabre, Gearbox - Bungie - Overwatch 2 - DragonsDogma 2
13:09 April - Stellar Blade - App store emulators - The Crew servers - Fallout
16:27 May - Square Enix exclusives - Helldivers psn - PS5 outsell Xbox 5 to 1 - MS closing multiple studios
21:07 June - Hawk Tuah - game showcases - Elden Ring Erdtree - Bungie Last Shape
23:24 July - Halo TV cancelled - GamePass changes - Bungie layoffs and "new path"
27:01 August - Raygun - Borderlands movie - Black Myth Wukong - Concord - Star Wars Outlaws
31:32 September - PS5 PRO - more MS Layoffs - Nintendo sues Palworld - Destiny mobile game - Ubisoft bad releases and change to Steam - Big game releases
35:36 October - Game releases like Silenthill 2, Dragon Age Veilguard & Metaphor
39:13 November - more bad game releases - Talk of Sony and MS makinjg Handhelds - Xbox advertising (these timestamps are akk Xboxes) - Sony & Kadokowa
42:16 December - Indiana Jones - Infinity Nikki - Marvel Rivals - XDefiant & Soocide Squad shutdowns - Game Awards
47:35 Outro
thank you for doing the lords work 🙏 praying for chapter timestamps in 2025
Thank you very much for taking the time to do this, much appreciated.
Ty, I can skip the layoff whinging that's not news in the slightest to anyone that has ever had a real job.
Thank You!!
This is why angry Joe doesn’t do timestamps. This basically saved me from even watching the video
He did it, he skipped POE 2. Just like he said he would.
Because it's coming out in 2025?
Skipped ff7 rebirth too and I’m genuinely kinda salty about ir
He said he’s making a video on it
@@johnwrath3612he mentions it at 9:06
I remember him talking about it on fps and how he is going to play it and enjoy it without reviewing it atm.
16:19 MKBHD catching strays from Ralph and I’m here for it
That part hit me like a Lambo going 96 in a school zone!
SAVAGE SKILL UP
@@hope_youhaveagoodday Right in the annual $50 wallpapers
Literally laughed out loud as soon as he mentioned that
Skill up I just want you to know I am protesting this video for your inclusion of an uncut hawk tuah joke. I will return to liking your videos every week going forward
20:29 respect to that cameraman .. whoever he or she is.
My man puts 4 Arcane S2 scenes in the introduction and then proceeds to ignore it completely in November review. Why'd you do me like that?
Fr
Amazing show. I seriously don't understand why anyone who works in this industry would miss this stellar recap.
2022 and 2024 have something in common for me, both years impacted me with a loss of a job through the closure of the studio where many talented people worked so hard on creating worthwhile experiences. As a senior Game Designer, I'm losing hope for a stable income by the minute, truly a great year for video games, but a terrible one for those who pumped these games out.
Thank you Ralph (and the team of course) for taking the time to address both the ups and downs of this industry.
Happy holidays, wish you all the best.
I Recommend: Skillup videos for the year of 2024. Thanks for all your work Ralph and Team! Keep it up!
In retrospective we had new Lies of P in every single month of 2024 with Microsoft & XBox 🥂
IMO gacha *is* the result of the reckoning we had with lootboxes. By making the games free, it becomes way harder to argue that the lootboxes are unfair monetization. They, in theory, provide a “Pay what you wish” model, which is really good for people without a ton of income, unless they also have a propensity for gambling addiction, at which point it’s really bad.
Gacha existed long before lootboxes. Lootboxes are effect of trying to implement monetisation model from east into west ecosystem, but not removing previously existing western style monetization.
What is often forgotten is that gacha comes in a lot of ways from necessity - a lot of people in these cultures consider paying up front 60 dollars for the game much worse than slow tricking that gacha does, as this can be unobtainable for many people compared to smaller payments over time or just playing for free. With a big part of population being unable to pay such high prices gacha model became very popular, as it can be financed by much fewer amount of dedicated players. while keeping game available to public.
IMO Rocket league does it right. Only cosmetics, and you can just buy the thing you want. I suppose there's a bit of RNG involved with what blueprints you get, but at least you know what you get. The whole idea of randomized lootboxes is very much repulsive and predatory to me.
Cave of Qud mentioned....your water is mine and my thirst is yours brother.
So happy he acknowledged it. It's in my top 5 games of all time, even before 1.0. Live and drink.
I just started playing it this week and I am hooked, GotY for me easily
Next year's title: "I *strongly* recommend: 2025 | This Year in Videogames"
... or maybe not (depending on current TikTok trends)
GTA6 is most likely gonna be delayed (no trailer yet, so...). So maybe not "strongly".
@@DivyanshBalchandanigta isn’t releasing till fall 2025, no trailer doesn’t mean a delay right now
@@DivyanshBalchandani it was always like that with rockstar games
@@DivyanshBalchandani
We also have like 20 other bangers to look forward to in 2025. So even if GTA6 is delayed, 2025 is still set up to be a strong year for gamers.
What lootbox reckoning? EA is making billions with ultimate team gambling boxes and valve has their case opening scheme going on stronger than ever.
I really hate that Ralph has this really strong bias against gacha, when pretty much all monetization schemes, whether it's DLCs, paid cosmetics or battle passes offer just as equally insidious pricing and FOMO inducing tactics, just that it has existed for so long it was scoffed at and was ignored, let slide, or not getting enough backlash. It really reeks of "we had it better back in my age!" kind of thing , when back then you had to content with Capcom releasing new versions of the same game releasing within months at full price.
@darrylaz3570 he definitely doesn't like battle passes either. He's entitled to his own opinion, just like you are of course. Dlc has never been as insidious as gacha, it can be bad but for the most part it's usually pretty fair
@@darrylaz3570 I somewhat agree. But while paid cosmetics/battle passes heavily use fomo inducing tactics, most mainstream western games that are discussed(apart from sports games which are ridiculed and never discussed much) do not even have lootbox mechanics for cosmetics, let alone that for actual items in game. That was the case in the early 2010s and everyone pushed back against it. Nowadays the big ones largely do, or try to do that through collaborations in other IPs.
On the other hand, gacha games have all that stuff, and I guess western gamers, at least ones active on the internet like Ralph hate how shameless it is about it while also raking in millions or billions, right after spending the previous decade pushing back against western developers on lootboxes and any kind of P2W mechanic.
So, while there is a bit of a double standard, when it comes to completely excusing VALVe literally allowing not only lootboxes but literal underage gambling through their choice of making CS cosmetics tradeable on other platforms while gaining billions, and to a lesser extent ignoring EA and 2K milking sports games, I think they're mostly consistent with their beliefs.
Gacha games are pure poison. Simple as.
They have a lot of opinions in their videos and it's not usually backed by objective research, just anecdotal evidence and lack of business understanding. There was that one video where they said a company made trillions in profits but it was revenue
'when you reach that event horizon, everything starts to feel untethered'. We're lucky to have your head in the game. Thanks for all the work and insight this year!
I feel like your May segement is a shining example of how uninteresting the entrie AAA space has become and the beautiful variety of indies shows how much value there is to taking risks, creating something you're passionate about, and trying to innovate. I know we all know it, but the big game devs/publishers NEED to understand this to survive.
I sincerely hope that this year is the turnaround point for the AAA industry. MULTIPLE games this year were overbloated, overpriced, terribly designed and absolutely refused to listen to player feedback, hell, even proceeded to antagonize their own potential playerbase. All of them ended up being a massive financial flop.
Start listening to the players.
Raygunn would’ve been huge if she’d rolled with the punches, but she wanted to play victim a little bit too badly.
More money to be made in playing the victim than anything else unfortunately
@@DaveVoyleseh I’d be inclined to disagree, the hawk tuah girl (can’t believe I’m saying this unironically) if she didn’t do a rug pull she probably could a made enough money to late her a good while
Excellent round up of the year and looking forward to your game of the year video. With the weekly news show, reviews from Ralph and Austin and the FPS podcast I have been extremely well served by your channel this year!
I can only hope that next year brings more stability for the industry and that execs finally stop trying to have their cake and eat it and then laying off all the people who make the cake!
This comment! 💯
Merry Christmas all! Hope you had a good one.
That “speaking of geriatrics fighting younger opponents” transition was absolutely beautiful
@SkillUp, no mention of Path of Exile 2 at all??? Players count of 100,000 more than Marvel Rivals and had over 1,000,000 sales before the game even launched. Path of Exile 2 is still sitting at 350,000 players three weeks after release.
because it’s a 2025 release. it’s just in beta rn.
Oh yeah like palworld @@azuln.3760
What did I say, Shill up would rather go to a diddy party oiled up than talk about POE2. Now he will do a small first expression for the EA just because
Great wrap up, ShillUp. It's been a pleasure to experience this year in video games through your reporting and commentary. You are my #1 source for gaming news and I always look forward to your weekly update. I've discovered and played so many great games because of you! Happy new year and may your channel continue to be a success.
The only thing that is missing for me was the march release of Unicorn Overlord
This channel has become my go to for all things video game related. Kudos to the whole SkillUp team for growing this channel into what it has become and I look forward to another year and whatever it may hold for this industry.
Thank you for another year full of usefull information.
Thank you for making so many videos and putting so much work into it, with Austin and the rest.
Happy new year
Do not feel bad for it being as long as it is. Your honied words, your dedicaton to the craft, the puns, the jokes, the moments of clarity, the reflections on the industry, the call outs for some to "do better," and others to get the recognitionand praise they rightfully deserve is the very reason I've rocked with your videos since when I first found your channel during Division 1. Please keep it up, annd i will "look forward to it."
Blud glazed him more than a Krispy Kreme donut at a Diddy party
Man, Stalker 2 is so good. Finished it yesterday after 123 hours and it was the best game of 2024 for me.
The layoffs in IT isn't just a game development problem, this is happening all over almost every industry while large corporations keep trying to increase "shareholder value" at the expense of customers and employees.
I love seeing indie devs doing so well right now and hope it keeps getting better.
BROOO, that nintendo joke at the beginning😂
What’s the context?
@@Shylteryne bro you live under a rock or something?
@@Shylteryne(P) Diddy and Luigi (Mangione)...
@@luizhenriquem1634 yes, that’s why I asked
took me by surprise lol
Liking Phil Spencer now is like trying to like your uncle that just got out of jail after 20 years on a murder charge. "He was always really great to me"
The blue shell joke with Luigi has layers!
I very much doubt western publishers who cannot make live service games work will magically be able to do so with gacha.
The key to live service is consistency, gacha game systems just gives you the time to deliver the content drops while the retention mechanics keep people around.
The western publishers will keep making the mistakes of trying to sell big on 1.0, never deliver the 1.1 and because gacha game addiction is very replaceable people will move on.
And this even ignores the unwillingness to create "waifu" characters. Like a Concord gacha game would've figured out how to fail even harder.
Also none of the big gacha games of today came outta nowhere, all those devs have previous, very successful games they have built from nothing.
I mean take the gacha away.
Genshin, Wuthering Waves, ZennlesZoneZero, Honkai Starrail would work without them and they are great games without mentioning the gacha aspect.
What is Dragon Age Veilguard without the name? Garbage.
What is Concord? Garbage.
What is Suicide Squad KTJL? Garbage.
@@SilverShot114yea that’s the thing a lot of people miss. People are willing to fork over some money for gacha because the gacha games are fun to play and are honestly pretty consumer friendly compared to most other free-to-play games, plus they usually work very hard to keep customers happy and it pays off with people willing to pay for some gacha rolls
Ralph is 4 years late on that take. If western publishers wanted to dig at that goldmine then they'd have started making them over 4 years ago after genshin released. Now the market slowed down while multiple eastern companies release big budget gacha games.
Eastern gamedevs are also just built different. The output for the likes of hoyoverse is insane while still being very polished, Imagine every patch of your live service game just fucking working without gamebreaking shit day 1.
exactly, as long as clueless corporate officials over here see it as a cheat code to get out of actually having to make good content consistently, none of these business models will work.
I mean another huge reason they won't succeed is that they actively have disdain for storytelling at this point. You need to have massive rolling narratives to make gachas work. The plotlines, themes, character arcs required might as well be a black hole for how impossible it would be for any big Western dev to actually try to fill. Also, like someone else mentioned they do not deliver aesthetically pleasing characters anymore seemingly on purpose. No one wants to spend gacha currency, let alone real money on whatever dysgenic create-a-sim creature in a fantasy outfit they cook up. Anyway go play Limbus Company
Just finished the yearly video with matty, skill up and jake. Let's go!
16:10 Pure comedic genius right here
Thanks for the new content even around a holiday. Cheers from Columbus, Ohio!
Important to note: Gacha games got their names from Gashapon, which are vending machines in Japan that spit out capsule toys. You don't know exactly what toy you'll get after you put money in, and that concept is what spawned gacha games in Japan, and now the rest of the world.
16:18 RALPH GIVE A GUY SOME WARNING NEXT TIME. Now I got coffee all over my monitor.
Those jokes going hard this year. MKBHD bit got me grinning. Anyway, interesting year. In a way, funny to see quite a lot of corpos just stumbling around, desperately trying to figure out wtf are they supposed to do.
41:56 of course I’d still want a dedicated handheld - streaming sucks balls, especially when you’ve got pish internet, so I will always take something I can actually install my games on over streaming.
I think it's more that the steamdeck and switch already exist and people trust valve to give them a good handheld experience way more than microsoft. The weakest part of the ROG Ally are all the parts that microsoft made.
@ yeah, and I’ve got the Steamdeck for that handheld experience for sure. But as I’m also deep into my Xbox library & associated gamerscore (😝) I’d love to be able to play that untethered (but not streaming).
I’ve tried the Xbox remote play options on the Steamdeck, but would love to be able to install the games directly.
Can’t say I’d buy another handheld just for that though either.
3:30 Jez Corden famously said that Xbox going 3rd party was made up by trolls and has slowly back peddled throughout the year
Thank you for all the hardwork man. This channel quicly became my favorite and I anxiously wait for my "this week in video games" every week. :)
It sure was a year.
I hate that people use that picture of the oompa loompa girl. She seems really sweet and was basically volunteering to make kids happy, while being totally unrelated to the group putting on the event.
Sven Vinke was correct, another year dominated by Knack 2 and The Outer Wilds
0:24 😂 Diddy and Luigi defo on papa Nintendo's naughty list this year...
An hour show was perfectly fine. A 2 week break? I'll have to get back to you on that, but do enjoy the two week vacation. You all have earned it. 😊
I'm just as surprised that it still hasn't happened, but the true reckoning that will await big western publishers if they hard-pivot into gacha is that the same things apply there as they do for the current live service rush, and that - and i know this might be hard to believe for some - the words of Vinke apply to almost ALL of the major global gacha success stories we've heard over the years. They all hail from small indie development studios (some who have since scaled up due to their success), making games they themselves want to play, with the monetization not existing to extract all the money in the world from customers to generate shareholder value (they're all privately owned, actually), but to fund a style of game development that's obsessively focused on realizing their creators' dream games at all costs.
Agree with the first part of your statement, but the monetization is definitely designed to extract as much money as possible from players.
@@JAN0L That is absolutely correct, and while it undeniably still has that effect, my point is that it's not chosen as a monetization method for that reason.
I know that's a VERY tough sell, but I've researched this specific branch of the industry down to its very roots for the past 5 years. At the risk of sounding full of myself, there are very few people outside of these studios that know why they do what they do as well as me.
Arknights, Limbus Company, NIKKE are the three biggest games that I can think of that align with what you're saying. I definitely agree with you, most of the god awful IP tie in gachas dry up and die pretty quickly outside of the DBZ ones. Arknights and Limbus are also basically huge epics in terms of story content and I hear NIKKE has a storyline too, so they have good reasons to need the constant income because the game is constantly being made still.
@@Arrestedrabbit To add: The Girls' Frontline franchise is the Big Daddy of all of them, and where the entire industry can trace back to. It also features by FAR the longest and most dense story of the bunch. And while again it's a tough sell, it even absolutely applies to miHoYo/HoYoverse titles. From a side-scrolling horde shooter inspired by Highschool of the Dead, over an Evangelion (and Girls' Frontline) inpsired late-2000s style character action title, all the way to the Big G, they've worn their love for the media that inspires them on their sleeves. They've just managed to outgrow their peers to an unprecedented degree.
Ralph woke up and choice violence with that MKBHD joke
Sure, Concord didn't win any awards or was not long for this world, but it win one thing: becoming a permanent exhibit in the Museum of Failure.
It's forever become an interesting subject for how completely unfounded hate can tank a live service game. The game can get almost everything right (like Concord did) and be a good game but if people straight up refuse to play it it'll just die
@mechanicalmonk2020 The customer is always right in regard of taste. Refusing to buy a product is never unfounded.
@@mechanicalmonk2020 Concord didn't get everything right xd. Let's not talk about characters design - it's highly subjectively, someone may like it, someone may not. But doing a p2p hero shooter in 2024, when OW2 with bigger player base and more recognizable character design is free, is a fatal mistake
@thgink9wannabe360 - Looking like an overwatch clone wasnt concords issue. The characters were just extremely tame and genetric and it cost like $35. Marvel rivals is as close to copy paste overwatch as it gets and it did well most notably because it has already established comic/film characters and it is free.
“Almost everything right” brooo that has to be satire, you just know whatever good points you can say for concord there will be hundreds saying otherwise.
The ONLY good thing was how the guns looked, what else was there?
Thanks you Skill Up team. I really love your unique voice and extreme diligence. Please take a healthy vacation!
My favorite part of Swen's speech is that it doesn't even apply fully to his own game (and does only to 3 out of the last 10 GOTY winners)
Which part of his speech didnt apply to bg3? My only guess is that "it didnt exist already", but whilst bg3 is a sequel by name anyone that has played them will know that bg3 shares far more dna with divinity than it does the other baldurs gate titles.
I hate how you use the same foreshadowing joke a dozen times and I still laugh every time. This really has been a bizarre year in gaming.
Remember, Bethesda *still* has not unbroken fallout 4 after the update
Can't wait for 10 years in the future when TH-camrs start making essays on Concord when it becomes long forgotten.
I enjoy the neutrality and common sense of the channel as well as not being afraid to report positive things - so many gaming channels are all about the negative news which is extremely tiring.
And unfortunate, several of the people who call themselves "Critical" are just Grifters.
Ralf is an adult speaking to adults. That's what I want. Sadly rare in this industry.
I'm genuinley just such a fan of this channel. Ralph your writting and commentary is superb. GG.
I'm a game developer who works for a major studio that has, so far at least, escaped layoffs. I'm feeling the squeeze on the incredible differential between wages and cost of living, and frankly I am concerned that some trimming will happen once we release our game, regardless of performance, simply because that's what I've seen from every other studio!
Get your woke cult out of gaming and you will have success.
@bricktop7352 you're going to be so mad when our game comes out and your tears will be delicious.
My dude popping OFF with the writing in this one. Excellent video as always, appreciate the work done here!
41:56 accurate representation of XCloud’s quality, in a city with fiber internet and MS datacenters within 15 miles of you
Ralph, as always has been, you, Austin and the new guy Stu's presence in the gaming news and review has never been more profound than this year. Thank you for everything. See you next year!
Concord was truly the game of the year.
I really love how your year reviews include a lot of cultural touchstones outside of gaming as a way of taking us back to the moment.
Thinking about it, Tekken 8 is my biggest disappointment this year; it truly sapped the live out of my competitive fighting games spirit. Even though it heralded designs by Mari Shimazaki, one of my all time favourites, it to is but a vehicle to jam overpriced monetisation down our throats in exchange for shallow, mid at best, gameplay. Fighting games used to be about player expression through mastery and fighting style, now everything is homogeneous and only the whales stand out by virtue of the dollar amount spend on cosmetics. Truly a sad state for a legacy genre that pioneered the entire industry…
Hey Ralph I’ve been watching since the division days and I gotta say it’s awesome to see how this channel has grown and shifted. I barely play games these days but I never miss a this week in gaming. Thanks for all the hard work
The MKBHD joke is a masterclass in setup and delivery.
Belly laugh / 10
Thank you for once again being such an important part of my year in video games. You guys crushed it this year, enjoy your break. I can't wait to see what you guys bring in 2025
Indies and Game Pass content was what made this year the best.
I really like incogni, i barely get spam calls or messages now. One major flaw I have with it is it never tells me what companies have my data.
16:10 MKBHD catching strays 😂
Thank you to SkillUp and the team for another year of great coverage and reviews. Not only for the big games but also shining spotlights on the indie scene makes this my go to channel for What to Play. Already hyped for the next year. Keep it (Skill)up!
Swen's speech. Thumbs up.
Only 3 GOTY winners in the past 10 years fit all of Swen's criteria (BG3 does not as putting a story based game in a full priced early access program is not respectful of audiences)
Sad we'll never see a Final shape review, but I understand the distaste you have for the current bungie. But man, I enjoyed quite a few games this year. Elden Ring DLC was peak, Astro bot was super fun and made me shed a tear, Metaphor: ReFantazio is fun as hell and currently 40 hours in, Persona 3 reloaded, final fantasy rebirth, Hades II, and ending the Year with my grinding going through Path of Exile 2. Maaan, I've been having crazy amounts of fun. I don't understand how there's people saying there aren't good games anymore. 2024 was a total 10/10 for me.
This video was more anticipated than Christmas in my house! Love you SkillUp, and happy holidays to you and yours!
God I really hope devs learn their lesson from live service with gacha. I’ve been playing Star Rail since it launched, and recently picked up limbus company after playing through all of Korean Dev Project Moon’s stuff (totally recommend to anyone reading this, they’re great). I tried to play Wurthering Waves as well, and basically hit a wall. It’s SO hard to play more than two of these games regularly, and I even struggle with that. If we end up with a gacha game from every single popular IP, there’s gonna be another wave of so so many failed games. Fingers crossed that future doesn’t come to pass.
Since many studios double down on their failures, expect a lot more layoffs and studios closing in 2025.
With the crap most of them are putting out? Cry me a river.
@@thelaughingrouge your just awful, blaming devs makes you an idiot, devs never want to put out a bad game, but publishers force them to make games the devs don't care about, and when the devs lack passion, they make a bad game
if the devs were allowed to make games they wanted to make, I promise you we would get nothing but quality games
@@thelaughingrouge Most games that come out are pretty good. I haven't played a bad game in years.
Yup. They will make a gacha game with not a single interesting or attractive character, get puzzled by why nobody is spinning the machine 24/7 and sack the whole studio. Mark my words.
@@Scarecr0wn From what I've seen, most gacha games (like genshin impact and others) involve fairly generic, underage looking bland cartoon characters. Do you guys find that 'attractive?' Very interesting. I thought you guys played those games for fun, but it seems there's a perverse element to it.
Don't ever apologize for more content, homie. Love you guys, and Happy New Year!
The games are the best they've ever been. The gaming industry has been the worse it has ever been.
Your videos have become a regular part of my gaming hobby since 2023. I look forward to getting ready to go to work while catching up on all the gaming news and updates you put together for us. I'm a fan of the explanations and justifications in your reviews, and I super appreciate how you give the barebones takeaway in the video's title (rather than click baiting us), leaving it up to me where, if I want to know more, I can watch the whole video. Hoping you are in this for the long game. Cheers to you and the whole team! ❤
After watching the Concord episode on Secret level, I'm starting to wish it was released with a campaign
It was hilarious to me that the Concord Secret Level episode was one of the best ones.
@seem_okay_studio it did baffle me why they didn't just make it a story driven game after seeing it 🤣
@@olit4063they did ...
I say this every year but thank you so much for making this yearly roundup. It keeps my faith in the industry at a positive point after the schlock of terrible news we have become accustomed to.
Not mentioning No Rest of The Wicked... was wild!
Thank you for being here Ralph and doing what you do
I've been waiting for this. Let's go.
Happy New Year Skill Up! And thanks for all the great content.
Can't wait to hop on a game of Concord later today! Firewall are killing it with the new season, so many fire skins!!
Love the work that’s put into these videos. Have a great holiday!
March gave me one of my favorite movie experiences of all time, Dune Part 2 in IMAX.
Ralph i just want to say that you are my favorite games journalist. I love your honesty and opinions on the games medium as a whole. Watching a video of yours is like watching my own opinions on games being presented to me (especially our toxic relationship to destiny that we keep returning to). So enjoy your holiday and I'll see you in 2025
My goty was Indiana Jones, a very pleasant surprise :)
Thank you Skillup. I hope you, Austin, Edmund, and the rest of the team have a happy and prosperous new year.
Spoilers: The Secret Level Concord experience ID way better than the game.
Spoilers: OP never played Concord
@mechanicalmonk2020 proof?
Thanks for a fantastic year of entertaining and insightful content. Wishing you and yours a great holiday season and an amazing 2025. Peace and Blessings from Canada.