The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[Mothhive]

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture was barely being developed all this time, that is what makes it a special case, not a symptom of something common happening these days, while SOMA is nearing it's completion, it would be completed even without the deal with Sony.
While The Chinese Room considered Kickstarter to fund their new game, they are obviously the more desperate of the two.

That's an awful lot of assumptions.

First, what leads you to believe EGTTR was barely being developed, especially since it's supposedly out this year?

Second, what makes you think SOMA is nearing completion? Frictional had to create a new engine as well as a new game. That's an awful lot of work!

Third, what makes you think Frictional haven't also taken money from Sony and just haven't mentioned it yet? They've clearly been in contact with each other if SOMA is coming to the PS4.

[Zgroktar]

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture was barely being developed all this time, that is what makes it a special case, not a symptom of something common happening these days, while SOMA is nearing it's completion, it would be completed even without the deal with Sony.
While The Chinese Room considered Kickstarter to fund their new game, they are obviously the more desperate of the two.

That's an awful lot of assumptions.

First, what leads you to believe EGTTR was barely being developed, especially since it's supposedly out this year?

Second, what makes you think SOMA is nearing completion? Frictional had to create a new engine as well as a new game. That's an awful lot of work!

Third, what makes you think Frictional haven't also taken money from Sony and just haven't mentioned it yet? They've clearly been in contact with each other if SOMA is coming to the PS4.

Yes, basically those are assumptions, we are all assuming something.
But considering the latest interview with Dan EGTTR is not coming anytime soon.
Secondly, tweets from Luis, and other Frictional members make me believe that SOMA is nearing it's finish.
And thirdly, it is pretty obvious that Sony and Frictional are in contact, but that is something that probably happened just recently.
It is just a strong hunch, and I might well be wrong, but SOMA is surely a multiplatfrom release.

[Sakonosolo]

Matt Skynner, the company's Corporate Vice President and General Manager of AMD's Graphics Business Unit, reassured PC gamers in an interview with Forbes that the days of neglect are likely over. The PC gaming segment is alive, it's doing well, and growing. With the new generation, the architectures are similar, therefore development costs are reduced, and much easier to create multi-platform games than before.

(Talking about PS4.)

I'll have to see more requirements but the fact that the new CoD game has a 780 as its recommended GPU leads me to believe that devs are likely to, at the beginning at least, not optimize their games for PC to get people to either buy the new consoles, or to convince people to upgrade their GPUs if Nvidia or AMD are involved. Optimization is really a lost art and it sucks. Just because hardware is advanced doesn't mean you can just throw your console game onto the platform. That's incredibly lazy and I've seen many games do that or just do the minimum of optimization.

That being said, I want to trust Frictional but the fact that the only platform we've had hinted is the PS4 kind of worries me.

[Sampyli]

I'll use the same quote from Thomas once again

With these figures at hand, we must confess that it gives us new confidence for the PC. The sales that we have had (and are having) are more than enough to motivate developing a game with the PC as the main (and even only) platform. Based on what we have seen, the online PC market is just getting bigger and bigger, and we are convinced we are far from the end of this growth. We think that other developers that consider making their game exclusive to a console might want to think again.

Note: this was when Amnesia had sold about 200k. At the moment it has sold about ten times that, I think.

Another quote from 2011 (with about 400k sold):

Another big change for the future will be consoles. The main reason for choosing consoles is purely financial. Right now our main income comes from very few channels, and we need to spread out the risk somehow. The other reason is that we feel we are missing out on exposure by not being on a console and not reaching as many players as we should be able to. Unfortunately consoles are really old compared to the PC right now, so it will be far from straightforward to develop for two platforms. Our current thinking is to make the console get a lower end version and make sure console specs influence the PC version as little as possible.

[Cuyir]

Didn't want to partake in mere hearsay but oh well:

1.That website is talking out of their unknown assholes.

2. FG doesn't require as much capital as TCR needed, so I doubt they'd have gone for full on exclusivity.

3. It'll be a multiplatform title. If FG are bros it'll be simultaneous release. If they aren't it'll be a time PS4 exclusive.

4. Calm the fuck down, people.

@Sampyli: Thank. And. You.

[Sakonosolo]

Timed PS4 exclusive is still unacceptable for me.

[Mothhive]

I'll use the same quote from Thomas once again

*snip*

Why are you using quotes from 2 years ago, long before the PS4 was announced and Sony began aggressively trying to buy exclusive indie titles?

[Zgroktar]

Matt Skynner, the company's Corporate Vice President and General Manager of AMD's Graphics Business Unit, reassured PC gamers in an interview with Forbes that the days of neglect are likely over. The PC gaming segment is alive, it's doing well, and growing. With the new generation, the architectures are similar, therefore development costs are reduced, and much easier to create multi-platform games than before.

(Talking about PS4.)

I'll have to see more requirements but the fact that the new CoD game has a 780 as its recommended GPU leads me to believe that devs are likely to, at the beginning at least, not optimize their games for PC to get people to either buy the new consoles, or to convince people to upgrade their GPUs if Nvidia or AMD are involved. Optimization is really a lost art and it sucks. Just because hardware is advanced doesn't mean you can just throw your console game onto the platform. That's incredibly lazy and I've seen many games do that or just do the minimum of optimization.

That being said, I want to trust Frictional but the fact that the only platform we've had hinted is the PS4 kind of worries me.

I understand your concerns, but Sony is a representative of their platform so it is to be excepted they will try to market it anyway it can, but who is a representative of PC?

[Cuyir]

Timed PS4 exclusive is still unacceptable for me.

Same here and i'm getting a PS4 so....yeah.

Just laying down what I think will happen and trying to dispel the smog of shitty journalism that infected this thread.

---

FYI: Sony never specified which games they showed were multiplatform in the shows. They only specified their exclusives and didn't even say that the rest were multiplats. So relax.

[Paddy™]

I think it's safe to say that FG are now well aware of these concerns and will fill us in if/when they're able to. Until they do, there's no point talking about this; it will lead to fights, text-walls which have nothing to do with SOMA and everything to do with Sony/consoles, and a general headache-inducing torrent of white noise.

The last SOMA-related discussion to take place is now buried one-and-a-half pages back.