[RUMOUR] FairGame$ has been cancelled. [Update: Pachter says he "misspoke"]

They are trying to grow their market by appealing to new, or at least currently un-tapped audiences.

Its not like they've stopped serving their original audience as the majority of this effort is being made by newly acquired devs.

The problem of course comes from grifters and ultra-fanboys treating it as a zero-sum situation where anything they don't want is always taking away something that they do want... Transparently, obviously ridiculous but... some kids just want an excuse to throw their toys out of the pram!

Its not a conspiracy guys, just business.
I didn't say anything about conspiracies, legit question here, what's the "un-tapped audience" we're talking about? Social media "audience"? They support everything with their likes and upvotes, but not with real money, which is what make or break any product, IF devs think getting many likes from some random artwork of a fat robot with an specific pronoun posted on their wall will transfer to actual purchases, then LMAO...

Failgames probably has a lot of good "word of mouth" on twittard or other media sites, but to the general consumer, that shit looks fuggly and unappealing

It's not that difficult, devs should give people that buy games, what they actual like, not what devs think they should like, just business.
 
Competence cannot just be judged by revenue and profits. It's entirely possible for a company to generate short term revenue and profits with dubious methods and behaviors that end up sinking a company long term. We are seeing that with Intel now.
Can you tell me what intel you're looking at that shows PlayStations has pursued short term profits that will sink the company?

A good manager focuses on both long and short term and I would argue Sony's crop of leadership starting with Ryan has been focusing exclusively on short term at the cost of long.
I guess we'd have to see a steady downward trend in profits / revenue for a few years before we know if that's the case.
 
Well I consider myself "their original audience" and for me and many others here they definitely stop serving the "good stuff" ... chasing the golden egg goose is great .. just dont fuck up your business while you are doing it.. and consequences of this choices would never appear in short term, so lets see if ps6 launch is going to be as successful as the ps5 .. and if not I wonder how the shills will spin it

What exactly are they supposed to be missing ? And more importantly who exactly is supposed to be making it ?

Take, as an example, Housemarque who they acquired in 2021. Still doing single player focussed stuff, still doing a game (Saros) that gives every sign of being built upon the success of their previous (also PS5) title, and there's still no gameplay trailer 5 years on from Returnal.

No drama, no bullshit, that's just how long it takes to make a AAA game in the 2020's.

So. Factoring that in, plus the fact that basically the entire industry lost a year due to Covid, do tell exactly how far behind are they on their release schedules bearing in mind how late in the PS4 cycle most of their most noteworthy titles were released?

Also, bear in mind, that first-party publishing also needs to work around platform exclusives that are coming from third party providers like Stellar Blade, Rise Of The Ronin, Nioh 3, and also returning franchises that are associated with Playstation like FF7 remake part 2, Silent Hill, and so on.

Sorry. But I reject the argument that they've even dropped the ball that hard on their single-player output. Particular with Xbox shitting the bed on big surprise hits like Wukong and Baldur's Gate.

Bottom line: Who in the industry is actually doing better ? It sure as shit isn't Xbox who despite spending almost the equivalent of Sony's entire market cap on acquisitions, are so stuck they are seemingly porting their entire line-up onto Playstation!

Sorry, but this argument that somehow PS6 is looking like having a worse line-up to the extent the platform is no longer worth bothering with, is a conclusion borne out of the most insane mental gymnastics I've ever come across.
 
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Are they doing a game to play themselves or so people, you know, consumers, find say product appealing and support it by purchasing it?

Concord failed miserably, people didn't like it, to double down on the same trash and expect a different result is what's dumb here 🤷‍♂️
Pretty sure they're not making Concord 2 at the moment.
 
What exactly are they supposed to be missing ? And more importantly who exactly is supposed to be making it ?

Take, as an example, Housemarque who they acquired in 2021. Still doing single player focussed stuff, still doing a game (Saros) that gives every sign of being built upon the success of their previous (also PS5) title, and there's still no gameplay trailer 5 years on from Returnal.

No drama, no bullshit, that's just how long it takes to make a AAA game in the 2020's.

So. Factoring that in, plus the fact that basically the entire industry lost a year due to Covid, do tell exactly how far behind are they on their release schedules bearing in mind how late in the PS4 cycle most of their most noteworthy titles were released?

Also, bear in mind, that first-party publishing also needs to work around platform exclusives that are coming from third party providers like Stellar Blade, Rise Of The Ronin, Nioh 3, and also returning franchises that are associated with Playstation like FF7 remake part 2, Silent Hill, and so on.

Sorry. But I reject the argument that they've even dropped the ball that hard on their single-player output. Particular with Xbox shitting the bed on big surprise hits like Wukong and Baldur's Gate.

Bottom line: Who in the industry is actually doing better ? It sure as shit isn't Xbox who despite spending almost the equivalent of Sony's entire market cap on acquisitions, are so stuck they are seemingly porting their entire line-up onto Playstation!

Sorry, but this argument that somehow PS6 is looking like having a worse line-up to the extent the platform is no longer worth bothering with, is a conclusion borne out of the most insane mental gymnastics I've ever come across.
Looking at your tag, I'm assuming you were a big 360 fan. If you started gaming there you probably are unaware of just how many PlayStation games they used to put out. They basically had the market for almost all niche Japanese games, had lots of Japan studios and development teams all focused on bringing what we wanted back then.

They are a shell of their former self these days and there's really no comparing them with what they've become today.
 
well, they failed. They made a massive investment into this shit and they've come up with jack shit. And I would argue the process was the problem. All the stuff that happened was easily predictable. In the end their most successful multiplayer games are stuff they've had around for 10+ years like Gran Turismo.

That money would have been better spent on more singleplayer games in hindsight.
Sony cancelled the wrong projects. I was really looking forward to Factions 2 aka TLOU online.

Even Days Gone could've made a decent live service game, a survival game like State of Decay.

Just rewatched the FairGames trailer, the game needs to be F2P and launch on all platforms to stand a chance at mild success. If it's $40, it will be a second Concord.
 
Looking at your tag, I'm assuming you were a big 360 fan. If you started gaming there you probably are unaware of just how many PlayStation games they used to put out. They basically had the market for almost all niche Japanese games, had lots of Japan studios and development teams all focused on bringing what we wanted back then.

They are a shell of their former self these days and there's really no comparing them with what they've become today.
During the PS3 days, they also had lots of shooters, more sports games beyond baseball, and even some kart and PS all stars fighting games. It was amazing how many genres they covered back then. Even for community creations games, MM released way more games like LBP and other ones. Now, their Dreams game is the last one since 2015.
 
Sony cancelled the wrong projects. I was really looking forward to Factions 2 aka TLOU online.

Even Days Gone could've made a decent live service game, a survival game like State of Decay.

Just rewatched the FairGames trailer, the game needs to be F2P and launch on all platforms to stand a chance at mild success. If it's $40, it will be a second Concord.
I think that their plans for Factions 2 was a mistake. It should have been a mode in TLOU2 like the first one, and go from there. They also should have just kept UC4 MP alive and get people playing that (it's honestly fun).

Like I think their move to get ARC to make a Marvel fighting game is a great idea and exactly the sort of thing they should be doing. It appeals to gamers, it ties into their existing PS ecosystem (they own EVO), and it can have long legs. And while I don't think the game is cheap to make it also isn't costing them $400 million.

The point is they could have emphasized MP in a smart way that tied into what they were already good at but instead decided to go balls-to-the-wall on stupid bullshit and spend billions of dollars on stuff nobody liked. Just total mistake. And I think Fairgame% at F2P is more cooked than it at $40, people don't want to waste their time on BS just because it's "free".
 
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During the PS3 days, they also had lots of shooters, more sports games beyond baseball, and even some kart and PS all stars fighting games. It was amazing how many genres they covered back then. Even for community creations games, MM released way more games like LBP and other ones. Now, their Dreams game is the last one since 2015.
Exactly right. I hate to say it, but modern PlayStation is just a different beast from what we grew up with.
 
Exactly right. I hate to say it, but modern PlayStation is just a different beast from what we grew up with.
calling it a beast when it's not even a chicken is just lol.

The whole system suck. they just rely on 3rd party games. high end PC for that that are far superior than a PS6 even. I don't need this shit. Playstation is for PlayStation exclusives. and in that they failed
 
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I think that their plans for Factions 2 was a mistake. It should have been a mode in TLOU2 like the first one, and go from there. They also should have just kept UC4 MP alive and get people playing that (it's honestly fun).

Like I think their move to get ARC to make a Marvel fighting game is a great idea and exactly the sort of thing they should be doing. It appeals to gamers, it ties into their existing PS ecosystem (they own EVO), and it can have long legs. And while I don't think the game is cheap to make it also isn't costing them $400 million.

The point is they could have emphasized MP in a smart way that tied into what they were already good at but instead decided to go balls-to-the-wall on stupid bullshit and spend billions of dollars on stuff nobody liked. Just total mistake. And I think Fairgame% at F2P is more cooked than it at $40, people don't want to waste their time on BS just because it's "free".
That's the issue. When Sony goes big, they go big. Ya, they got their smaller scale games like Returnal and R&C, but for LOU and a shooter, it's going big budget. So they had to splice it.

I'm sure they could had just added modest MP modes to LOU2, but you cant with their GAAS push with Bungie, Concord, buying out studios like Haven etc.... they arent doing MP being modest. They are going (as you said) balls deep shotgunning a ton of splashy high budget shooters at the market hoping as many stick to the walls. Helldivers 2 stuck, the rest so far flopped or cancelled. They want the shooter modes to be their own game, not as side modes.

If ND had issues finishing Factions 2 (that was the rumour), I dont get why another studio couldnt take it over. Does Druckmann have veto power or something? From what I remember gamers said Factions 1 was a super gritty MP that was pretty good. And a lot of gamers like grounded soldier kind of shooters as opposed to crazy ass sci-fi stuff (a lot of those kinds of games fade away).
 
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Looking at your tag, I'm assuming you were a big 360 fan. If you started gaming there you probably are unaware of just how many PlayStation games they used to put out. They basically had the market for almost all niche Japanese games, had lots of Japan studios and development teams all focused on bringing what we wanted back then.

They are a shell of their former self these days and there's really no comparing them with what they've become today.

Dude, the business is not what it was. Cost and timescale have continually risen beyond that which is viable/sustainable without an equally large increase in volume sales.

Margins are thinner, and the consequences of failure are larger as an extremely large number of industry workers have discovered over the past year.

Unless we return to 12-24 month cycles with much smaller team headcounts, it is fundamentally impossible to return to the same sort of release frequency as previous generations. This is a just the cold, hard, truth.

I took a lot of flak for pointing out that everybody's favourite feelgood success story of 2025 Expedition 33 still took 6 years to make and had a not inconsiderable budget of around 50million Euros. Hardly a scrappy upstart budget, and a production schedule equivalent to or greater than several previous software generations.

Sometimes the truth is inconvenient and upsetting,

PS. In related news I got saddled with the tag for basically agreeing with Cliffy B in essentially spilling the tea on how a lot of devs really feel about their critics and their audience. A position based on my own experiences/observations working in the industry between the mid/late 1980's and the 2010's
 
Unless we return to 12-24 month cycles with much smaller team headcounts, it is fundamentally impossible to return to the same sort of release frequency as previous generations. This is a just the cold, hard, truth.
That 360/PS3 gen was insane.

So many top tier franchises would get sequels every 2 or 3 years no problem.

And that gen online became standard. So you had studios jamming in online modes into everything. So even a Mass Effect game could have MP, and the studios still had time to figure that out,
 
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Dude, the business is not what it was. Cost and timescale have continually risen beyond that which is viable/sustainable without an equally large increase in volume sales.

Margins are thinner, and the consequences of failure are larger as an extremely large number of industry workers have discovered over the past year.

Unless we return to 12-24 month cycles with much smaller team headcounts, it is fundamentally impossible to return to the same sort of release frequency as previous generations. This is a just the cold, hard, truth.

I took a lot of flak for pointing out that everybody's favourite feelgood success story of 2025 Expedition 33 still took 6 years to make and had a not inconsiderable budget of around 50million Euros. Hardly a scrappy upstart budget, and a production schedule equivalent to or greater than several previous software generations.

Sometimes the truth is inconvenient and upsetting,

PS. In related news I got saddled with the tag for basically agreeing with Cliffy B in essentially spilling the tea on how a lot of devs really feel about their critics and their audience. A position based on my own experiences/observations working in the industry between the mid/late 1980's and the 2010's
And that's why, when it comes to next gen hardware investments:
Im Out Shark Tank GIF by ABC Network
 
I took a lot of flak for pointing out that everybody's favourite feelgood success story of 2025 Expedition 33 still took 6 years to make and had a not inconsiderable budget of around 50million Euros. Hardly a scrappy upstart budget, and a production schedule equivalent to or greater than several previous software generations.
Let's have more 50 million and less 200 million then.

/Industry fixed
 
Dude, the business is not what it was. Cost and timescale have continually risen beyond that which is viable/sustainable without an equally large increase in volume sales.

Margins are thinner, and the consequences of failure are larger as an extremely large number of industry workers have discovered over the past year.

Unless we return to 12-24 month cycles with much smaller team headcounts, it is fundamentally impossible to return to the same sort of release frequency as previous generations. This is a just the cold, hard, truth.

I took a lot of flak for pointing out that everybody's favourite feelgood success story of 2025 Expedition 33 still took 6 years to make and had a not inconsiderable budget of around 50million Euros. Hardly a scrappy upstart budget, and a production schedule equivalent to or greater than several previous software generations.

Sometimes the truth is inconvenient and upsetting,

PS. In related news I got saddled with the tag for basically agreeing with Cliffy B in essentially spilling the tea on how a lot of devs really feel about their critics and their audience. A position based on my own experiences/observations working in the industry between the mid/late 1980's and the 2010's
Sure but at $50m, that's 8 times smaller than the production cost of Concord.

Or as another comparitor; about 64 times what Sony spent on the Bungie M&A.

If Sony spent an additional of Concord's budget on Clair Obscur sized projects, staggering the spend over 5 years, it could knock out at least another 1.6 games per year.

If they spent the equivalent of the Bungie M&A figure every 10 years to bolster their software stable they could shift an additional 6.4 games per year.

Either way, there is gigantic scope for the company to invest more into smaller, more riskier titles more frequently, to scale the library volume of content for their platform.

Maybe 20-30% would break even but 5-10% could be break-out successes, doing huge sales figures, bringing in enough revenue to cover the losses and more importantly; seeding new franchises that can both setup and de-risk future AAA $200m+ budget tentpoles (since they can just all become bigger production value sequels from proven new IPs).

Since they're going out of their way to go multi-platform now anyway, I don't see any reason why they aren't asa company looking to drive growth through portfolio expansion and diversification, because they can recoup more on smaller investments against the wider multiplatform install base, whilst also exploring wider trans media channels to drive returns for cult franchises that may not sell well directly, but carry enough critical reception to make it worthwhile expanding the IP into e.g. kids TV shows, film & most importantly merchandising.
 
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Dude, the business is not what it was. Cost and timescale have continually risen beyond that which is viable/sustainable without an equally large increase in volume sales.


Which means that they need to rethink the whole thing. This is the same as gambling your savings at a casino, losing and then gambling again to earn them back. Peak idiocy.

If the industry is not sustainable, the first thing to do is to reevaluate every cost involved, every salary and every tech. Rising prices and trying to appeal to non-existent audiences is recipe for disaster.
 
I dont think the people that actively push for "toxic positivity" will ever see it as a bad thing and will just distribute blame as usual since nothing is "their fault" ever .. .. so the lesson to learn is to fire these people and put a competent individual in its place.

And I dont see that happening if Hermen is still in place. Because the first one would be him .. or simple demote him back to making shitty horizon lesbian down again

Given what happened to the studio that made Concord, it would seem Sony understands that firing people is the right move. They went full scorched earth so that even the studio no longer exists. I do wonder if the few employees who were moved to other departments within Sony learned their lesson, though. For their sake, let's hope so because Concord has definitely set a precedent for what will happen when toxic positivity and tone deaf activists unite to create a game no one wants. That's why I doubt Fairgames (if it even releases) will be like the last trailer. It's clear no one liked it and so changes will be made.
 
What exactly are they supposed to be missing ? And more importantly who exactly is supposed to be making it ?

Take, as an example, Housemarque who they acquired in 2021. Still doing single player focussed stuff, still doing a game (Saros) that gives every sign of being built upon the success of their previous (also PS5) title, and there's still no gameplay trailer 5 years on from Returnal.

No drama, no bullshit, that's just how long it takes to make a AAA game in the 2020's.

So. Factoring that in, plus the fact that basically the entire industry lost a year due to Covid, do tell exactly how far behind are they on their release schedules bearing in mind how late in the PS4 cycle most of their most noteworthy titles were released?

Also, bear in mind, that first-party publishing also needs to work around platform exclusives that are coming from third party providers like Stellar Blade, Rise Of The Ronin, Nioh 3, and also returning franchises that are associated with Playstation like FF7 remake part 2, Silent Hill, and so on.

Sorry. But I reject the argument that they've even dropped the ball that hard on their single-player output. Particular with Xbox shitting the bed on big surprise hits like Wukong and Baldur's Gate.

Bottom line: Who in the industry is actually doing better ? It sure as shit isn't Xbox who despite spending almost the equivalent of Sony's entire market cap on acquisitions, are so stuck they are seemingly porting their entire line-up onto Playstation!

Sorry, but this argument that somehow PS6 is looking like having a worse line-up to the extent the platform is no longer worth bothering with, is a conclusion borne out of the most insane mental gymnastics I've ever come across.
If this gen sony output is good for you and everything is perfectly fine thats great.. thats your opinion and I cant change that.. i can only give mine and for me its dogshit
 
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Now you boys need to leave Madame Raymond alone! I feel like this anti-FairGames$ movement blatantly derives from misogyny, and may happen to even come from a bit of anti-Quebecois... ...-gyny.

Though, mostly I blame Sony. They are losing excellent talent, such as Jade Raymond and Alanah Pearce. What's going on over there?!

Hmmm, but wait?... ... I have an idea.... What if- there was a new gaming studio- one that absorbs all of this amazing available talent, but also encourages new talent to enter the industry. Perhaps, we need a studio... for gamers- by gamers - like gaming enthusiast/streamer Sasha Grey. It'd be a studio that I'd onboard many other E-Thot E-Entertainment Artists. Perhaps, not the bigger and more, well-known ones, as they may cost a bit too much. But, the lesser known ones... the more... desperate ones, will do.

And while I'm not really familiar with the process of how gaming studios get funded, I think this studio has the chance to make a game, with a certain exclusivity clause, that will make the Epic Game Store overtake Steam. So, Mr. Sweeney, all I'm asking for is like $300- $400 million. It's really a no-brainer investment.

But, I need Jade's expertise.

So, Jaaaaaaaaaaaaade, I need to your leadership background for this studio. And, unlike those jerks at Sony Interactive Entertaiment, I will never interfere in your vision for a great game. So, please help me, Jade. I need your expertise- I need to be.... nutured.
 
Sure but at $50m, that's 8 times smaller than the production cost of Concord.

As a multiplatform title being sold at mid-price, especially with the GamePass buy-in, its done pretty good. But if it had come out just on Playstation would it be perceived as such a success? I really don't think so.

Now, its not to say that wouldn't have made a decent profit. But, here's the thing: Just because this time everything worked out, it doesn't mean to say that it would work out everytime. Which is a big problem if its part of a slate of product, because suddenly this one moderate win suddenly has to underwrite all the losses incurred from the others that didn't do nearly so well.

Its like placing a handful of small bets versus making one big one. The former means that you need to be really unlucky to lose on every one, but your chance of making major gains -which you need to fund the next round of bets- is much less likely.

Its why Embracer was always going to be a fucking disaster, but that's another story.

I'm not defending the GAAS strategy on any grounds other than its earning potential. A really successful game of that type is a fucking money machine! Personally - zero interest. BUT its not hard to see why investing in that sort of product is appealing to a publicly-traded company.

Big bet, potentially big loss but also chance of massive gains.

GAAS or PSVR2 the impulse is the same: Expand the market because we're hitting the limits based on production cycle and cost for a market that's been stagnant in terms of size and potential income for well over a decade.

The ugly truth is that the only thing keeping the market growing in recent years has been GAAS. So it is objectively the logical choice as an area for exploration/exploitation.

Which explains Concord - which if the "modern audience" actually existed could have been a great success! However...

Look: Bottom is at no point is great success on a project guaranteed. So magnitude of success matters.

What boggles my mind is the way people are acting like no Sony first-party title should or could ever fail! Hence had they spent their GAAS budget on a bunch of standard products they'd be sure to do better. Especially considering that they aren't just a publisher, they are a platform holder and so are looking to the wider ecosystem -third parties included- to fill their coffers.

Like I wrote earlier, from a business standpoint its the right move, even if I personally have no interest in it. And its really not going well outside of Helldivers 2.

The only issue I have is people acting like there's been a shortage of games to play as a result of the GAAS initiative. I disagree, and my backlog is actually bigger than ever and there are exclusives I remain looking forward to on Playstation while my Xbox continues to gather dust in the corner.
 
I swear, every single time when a game made a bad first (and second, and third) impression, the final game came out and proved to be every bit as bad as we feared (or even worse)

See also: Destruction Allstars, Redfall, Saints Row, Forspoken, Veilguard, Star Wars Outlaws, Immortals of Aveum…You can go on and on.

Of course Fairgame$ has the added stink of the studio founder & head leaving shortly before their first game launches. But maybe @yurinka is right and she just decided she has enough money so she retired at 49.
Call me crazy but i thought Destruction All stars was fun for what it was. Some of thode games aren't bad also, ie Outlaws- that game was a victim of the Ubi hate campaign online and gamers propensity to accept whatever they hear online as fact.

Maybe Im just crazy though because I don't even think Forsaken is a bad game
 
I think that their plans for Factions 2 was a mistake. It should have been a mode in TLOU2 like the first one, and go from there. They also should have just kept UC4 MP alive and get people playing that (it's honestly fun).

Like I think their move to get ARC to make a Marvel fighting game is a great idea and exactly the sort of thing they should be doing. It appeals to gamers, it ties into their existing PS ecosystem (they own EVO), and it can have long legs. And while I don't think the game is cheap to make it also isn't costing them $400 million.

The point is they could have emphasized MP in a smart way that tied into what they were already good at but instead decided to go balls-to-the-wall on stupid bullshit and spend billions of dollars on stuff nobody liked. Just total mistake. And I think Fairgame% at F2P is more cooked than it at $40, people don't want to waste their time on BS just because it's "free".
Spot on comment for every point made.
 
Pachter being wrong is not surprising, but nothing about the game makes sense to keep funding. I've only seen Fairgame get dunked on every time they've shown it or talked about it.
 
I think that their plans for Factions 2 was a mistake. It should have been a mode in TLOU2 like the first one, and go from there. They also should have just kept UC4 MP alive and get people playing that (it's honestly fun).

Like I think their move to get ARC to make a Marvel fighting game is a great idea and exactly the sort of thing they should be doing. It appeals to gamers, it ties into their existing PS ecosystem (they own EVO), and it can have long legs. And while I don't think the game is cheap to make it also isn't costing them $400 million.

The point is they could have emphasized MP in a smart way that tied into what they were already good at but instead decided to go balls-to-the-wall on stupid bullshit and spend billions of dollars on stuff nobody liked. Just total mistake. And I think Fairgame% at F2P is more cooked than it at $40, people don't want to waste their time on BS just because it's "free".


OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! The bolded is the most true statement in this thread. How can more people not understand this?! It's literally what GTA 5 did and look how that turned out.
 
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! The bolded is the most true statement in this thread. How can more people not understand this?! It's literally what GTA 5 did and look how that turned out.
That's what MS plan is with Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer. Introduce the audience to Gears Reloaded, release the prequel with multiplayer, then if the multiplayer thrives, keep it going on all platforms.

Other strategy is to do what Halo did with Infinite multiplayer, or what Battlefield 6 is doing with the Battle Royale, separate it but make it F2P and launch at same time.
 
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