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Liam Deane

@liamdeane.bsky.social

730 followers 730 following 430 posts

Games analyst at Omdia. Once Cork, now Amsterdam. You can see some of my work on IGN, Wired, Game Developer, etc. and the rest here: https://omdia.tech.informa.com/advance-your-business/media-and-entertainment/games-tech-intelligence-service

omdia.tech.informa.com

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Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 1d

Having a familiarity with the Ikea product range really ruins your enjoyment of Airbnbs

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 3d

The a weeb world now and I'm just living in it

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 3d

I've never seen Scarface which is weird because I like mob movies.

But it increasingly feels like my biggest generation-specific hole might be never having seen any Studio Ghibli film (which five years ago I'd heard of).

Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 3d

Inspired by a post I just saw in which someone admitted they hadn’t seen a single episode of Friends nor the film Love Actually… what cultural hole do you have that’s a bit weird for your generation?

I’ll go first: I haven’t seen Dirty Dancing.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 3d

Would be crazy if the experience strained but ultimately strengthened and deepened their relationship

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 3d

Also his teenage daughter is there for some reason

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 3d

Sad dad reboot of Ratchet & Clank would slap though

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 3d

*guy firing up Astro Bot*

Great, another brutal tale of betrayal and vengeance

IGN @ign.com · 5d

After Ghost of Yotei's tale of revenge and grief, is it about time PS5 exclusives got some new ideas?

I’m Getting Bored of Every PlayStation Game Telling the Same Story

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 5d

That it got rave reviews from British outlets and universally panned in Ireland tells you all you need to know really.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 5d

Side question: what's happened to Tyler Cowen? He's always been very right wing but until quite recently generally came across as smart and thoughtful.

Brain melted by AI? Or Trump? Or just old-fashioned neurological degeneration?

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 6d

We proud h-pronouncing Irish have been living with this curse for generations

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 7d

11. Don't Get Your Hopes Up

Lovely little game of househunting in Amsterdam turned into a demented fever dream. A lot of delightful local touches if you know the city but should be relatable to anyone who's interacted with a major city property market in the last decade. Completely free on Steam!

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

10. Mafia: The Old Country

Deeply derivative in many respects, though the setting is somewhat novel at least. But it looks great, is well written and generally well made and demands very little of you (including crucially of your time). Plenty to like overall.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

Yes, finding good non-mainstream games is hard and that's a problem. But it's a problem that exists just as much for other media as it does for games, and if you're not at least aware that serious games *exist* then sorry you're just incredibly incurious.

Jon Ingold @jon.inkle.co · 8d

Seems to me that the fact that interested people can’t find games they find interesting and maybe don’t even know they exist is (a) obvs true so dunking on it is dumb and (b) a massive fucking problem for the artform that the corporate sector of the industry has no interest *at all* in solving

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

The fact the the most common reply to the post was RDR2 certainly supports that thesis

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

Yeah, absolutely true that *individual* independent films are just as invisible as indie games, if not even moreso. But the fact that someone, somewhere is presumably making sophisticated and intellectually challenging cinema is something everyone is aware of.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

I mean it's also true that arthouse films get less media coverage than Hollywood blockbusters but everyone is nonetheless at least vaguely aware that high concept film is a thing that exists

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

I think if it was ever going to happen it would have to include the South African (and I guess Italian) sides. It wouldn't be a B&I league but an everyone-but-France league. That seems like a fairly likely consolidation long term as the Top 14 continues to pull away from the rest financially.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

Something similar is true of the gaming arms of Tencent and to a lesser extent Sony. The overall trend is definitely towards less and less public visibility of what's actually happening in the games industry.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

This trend has already been going on for a while. E.g., while Activision Blizzard is still technically part of a public company, it's now such a small part of Microsoft's overall operations that we know how hardly anything about its financials anymore.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

EA is about 3% of the global games market so it going private means a modest but meaningful reduction in the level of transparency in the industry overall.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

Roughly half of the games market is fairly financially transparent in that it's made up of publicly traded companies that mainly or exclusively produce games and so have to publish fairly detailed information about their revenue, costs, headcount, etc.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

And all the replies from people who have clearly only played 3 games in the last decade

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 8d

Easy to forget for those of immersed in games that plenty of people out there are still asking incredibly tedious questions like this

Matt @tiredgenerally.bsky.social · 9d

(honest question) what are the “good” video games? artistically i mean, not in a “i enjoyed this escapist slop” kind of way

James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 9d

Well. It's not Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's like one of three video games I'd genuinely consider good.

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 13d

You'd think the giant letters G, D, and C would be some hint

Liam Deane @liamdeane.bsky.social · 13d

Not triggered by any specific event but it tracks a broader shift in elite European opinion on Israel which is only now catching up with a shift popular opinion that happened some time ago.