Disco Elysium.iam8bit.com Download
Renita Lukins
I figured this award-winning rpg would make its way to Switch eventually. Until today it hadn't been confirmed yet. But now one of the devs for the game finally confirmed that a Switch port was in the works. It probably won't arrive for a while considering everything that's going on in the world, but it's nice to know it's coming.
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Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
@JoeDiddley aah . I was a massive fan around 2008 - 2016, once saw them 5 times in a week, including the Tan Hill festival. I've kindof lost track after the last album didn't really do it for me. But the Disco Elysium soundtrack is lovely (and BAFTA winning).
Assuming this is a competent port when undocked, I'll probably be picking this up at full price. I could have played this on my PC at any time, but unless a game is a FPS, I like having that hybrid freedom.
So here was are, now into Q3 of 2021. I wonder how the Switch port of Disco Elysium is coming along? I know the boutique publisher iam8bit delisted the preorder for the $250 collector edition shortly after it opened. Will Disco Elysium ultimately be a streamed game on Switch? No clue, just speculating. All I do know is that I'm still very eager to play it.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,275 games (as of July 23rd, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
I played it to death a while back on the PC (it actually came out in 2019) and it's great; there is genuinely nothing like it. The closest thing I'd liken it to is Undertale, in that they're both RPGs on the surface, but constantly undermining the genre's established tropes. Still, they look and play nothing like each other, so can be considered equally out there.
The only other point of reference I'd have is if you really liked the detective parts of Astral Chain and thought that they could make for a great game if the story was more engaging. It's absolutely not like the rest of that game though. There's no combat as such, just a heck of a lot of conflict that you'll either have to resolve by dialogue choices or skills.
So far as the Switch being able to do justice to a port of it, I'd think there's a decent chance. It runs pretty well on potato PCs with only 4GB RAM and integrated graphics. The only thing is that it tends to chug a bit on slow CPUs, and the Switch isn't overly blessed in that department so a few optimizations will probably be required. I'd be very surprised if a streaming solution is deemed necessary though. Oh, and it's a pretty big game too; 32GB cart (so forget about a $40 release) or download, I'd guess.
@Rambler Things with the Cloud games so far you need constant internet to connect to play it-that's the issue here. People can't afford internet that cost $$ in NA to keep it constant going and when you leave your wifi paid internet you can't just hop onto other internet to keep playing Cloud game. They make it sounds like you fireUP the Switch and go. But that is so far from the truth.
The video games industry has passed the digital tipping point, with the bulk of software purchased accounted for by downloads rather than boxed product. Yet demand remains high enough for physical items that many businesses can still justify the cost and complexities of manufacturing.
Founded in 2005 and started as the world's first pop culture themed art show -- that theme, of course, being video games -- the US company not only sells boxed editions of previously download-only titles, but also more specialist items such as vinyl soundtracks and art prints. During our GI Live Online event earlier this year, GamesIndustry.biz spoke with Iam8bit founder Jon Gibson about the role of physical media in today's industry and how it has evolved in recent years.
Before starting Iam8bit, he was an animation writer working for Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel at the time. Previous to that, he was in the games media space writing for magazines. He knew many different artists through his animation career, and saw both his animation and video game worlds collide. Through the art show, he wanted to showcase a medium for young artists who also loved them, to share with the world.
Eventually, the brand grew and he met his business partner, Amanda White, who came from film production. They're both curious people, and get stifled by cookie cutter approaches. That's why Iam8bit tries to always make its business personal, specific, and nuanced.
One of Iam8bit's first projects was an LP for the video game Tron Evolution, in response to the Tron Legacy movie that was released at the time. The company only made a few hundred as a mailer, and then some of them were being sold for about $1,000-$1,200 on the aftermarket.
Iam8bit did the same thing with Wolfenstein when Bethesda bought the IP. The LP had a collection of iconic German songs that were used in the game's trailers and advertising. There were three versions and they were given away to random people. They were given one of the three versions but not guaranteed all three. These LPs were going for high prices in the aftermarket as well.
"You look at those two examples, and you start to realize people want video game soundtracks, on wax. So we just started approaching companies to license video game soundtracks, and we were laughed out of the room on so many occasions," explained Gibson.
It took many conversations to convince other parties that this would be a worthwhile endeavor. A few companies gave Iam8bit a chance, namely Devolver Digital with Hotline Miami and PlayStation with Journey. Rare was one of their first clients as well. From that point on, it was just a matter of proving that there was a market for this.
The market for physical copies of video games was similar. There were many signs that pointed to physical media being on its way out, but Iam8bit took the approach of a premium collectible. Gibson mentions that a large portion of customers still don't fully download games. Not everyone has the same broadband connection or lives in New York and Los Angeles or any of the big metropolitan areas in the United States.
There's been talk about the switch to a digital future, but both digital and physical game sales increased last year, particularly due to the pandemic. One of the recent successes that Iam8bit had was with the Nintendo Switch version of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The company had worked with developer Moon Studios for many years on the vinyl soundtrack for Ori and the Blind Forest, and so when Will of the Wisps was released, the license had already been secured. However, the company wanted to leverage its expertise to deliver something truly unique for fans of the series.
With the Collector's Edition, Iam8bit wanted to bring the Ori experience into someone's life in a permanent way. As a result of the pandemic, the company had to evolve its perspective on how to approach products and how meaningful they could be when done right.
"That's where you get the transforming box, the stained glass art piece. It's not junk, and it's not stuff that you're just going to toss in the garbage, or is going to get lost in a drawer. It's stuff you're going to proudly display as part of your life," Gibson continued. "Even the box itself is something that looks nice, and can be used in showing off in a way that you can be proud of."
Gibson also touched upon the differences between direct-to-consumer sales versus retail. In retail, you have to be much more on the noise and have to explain what the product is to a customer because it might be their first time discovering it on the shelf. Whereas direct-to-consumer has much more freedom. You can create different aesthetics for the packaging and don't have to include a verbose product description for every gameplay feature because the customer that you're capturing is already a fan of the property.
"The power of retail is much more about grabbing people where they buy games and consume media, and exposing them to things that they otherwise wouldn't discover at all," Gibson explained. "Direct-to-consumer is about celebrating for the fan. This beautiful opportunity to give them something really special that is meaningful to their life, you know, someone who's played two games for hours and hours and hours in the universe, they have an emotional connection to that game."
In terms of manufacturing, the number of units created for a physical copy of a game can make a difference. If only 500-1,000 units are being created, it's harder to create certain physical goods. However, if there are 5,000-10,000 units in production, then that opens up more options. For example, Iam8bit released Untitled Goose Game physically, and wanted to innovate within the direct-to-consumer space, so they added eco-friendly packaging. But there were limitations to that because some supply chains are lacking.
It's expensive to produce eco-friendly products, and if you're going to manufacture them on a global scale, the materials don't exist in all the places they need to. You would have to ship all of those materials into different markets and then would effectively waste more energy and polluting more by doing so.
Untitled Goose Game was used as a test model for the direct-to-consumer eco friendly packaging model because the title had broken into the zeitgeist. Kids were dressing like geese for Halloween, so Iam8bit already knew the game was a hit. The company partnered with SkyBound Games to go mass retail globally, and developers House House and Panic saw the potential in the release.
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