Author Topic: The state of the industry  (Read 4542 times)

Offline Draco18s

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #15 on: February 23, 2016, 02:36:57 am »
I mean, gamers are terrible at boycotting games and companies.
I read that that was a 4chan manipulation. I have no way to confirm that, but I'm staying skeptical. That in no way disproves your point, of course.

In finding that picture I saw a couple others, including a Left 4 Dead boycott group (with a bunch of people playing L4D).
But you're right that it could be faked (I found two of the players in the image and they are not in the group).


Offline Wingflier

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #16 on: February 24, 2016, 12:50:41 am »
I honestly don't know why any of this either surprises or bothers you that much Misery.

Big companies are going to get away with... Whatever they can get away with. That's just Capitalism for you. In the end, it's all about the bottom line, not the customer and certainly not the employee.

Gaming companies are no different than any other type of companies and I'm not sure why you'd expect them to be. I just watched an excerpt of the documentary "The Corporation" that showed that every corporation has basically been caught doing something illegal in order to increase their profits. Everything from tax evasion to hiring foreign terrorist cells to take out vocal union workers, it's been done.

Hell, I'm sure if they could get away with it, they'd still be using child labor in every industry where it's possible, and paying people slave wages. There's nothing to see here, move along.

Either stop buying their games, or you can do what I do. I've found a way to get the latest 3 AAA titles for free (legally). Rise of the Tomb Raider, XCOM 2, and now The Division without paying a penny on them. It's silly but it's like my own personal way of sticking it to the man. I'm not buying your games but I'll play them.
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Offline Misery

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #17 on: February 24, 2016, 01:13:13 am »
I honestly don't know why any of this either surprises or bothers you that much Misery.

Big companies are going to get away with... Whatever they can get away with. That's just Capitalism for you. In the end, it's all about the bottom line, not the customer and certainly not the employee.

Gaming companies are no different than any other type of companies and I'm not sure why you'd expect them to be. I just watched an excerpt of the documentary "The Corporation" that showed that every corporation has basically been caught doing something illegal in order to increase their profits. Everything from tax evasion to hiring foreign terrorist cells to take out vocal union workers, it's been done.

Hell, I'm sure if they could get away with it, they'd still be using child labor in every industry where it's possible, and paying people slave wages. There's nothing to see here, move along.

Either stop buying their games, or you can do what I do. I've found a way to get the latest 3 AAA titles for free (legally). Rise of the Tomb Raider, XCOM 2, and now The Division without paying a penny on them. It's silly but it's like my own personal way of sticking it to the man. I'm not buying your games but I'll play them.


Ehh, it's moreso my thoughts/observations partly on what the industry is now, compared to what it used to be, and also partly the AAA groups VS... those that arent.  But also how so many will fall for these things, and then defend them.  I think that's the part that just gets me the most.

That, and also to an extent actual design trends and things like that.  The neverending flood of FPS games, or the fact that every game tries to be a movie nowadays... that's another bit that just bugs me.  And sure isnt helping with the rising costs...  Of course, that's what we have devs like Arcen for. 

Also though I just find it an interesting topic.  But not one I'd discuss on most forums; anywhere else I go to, this'd have turned into a flamewar within 2 posts!  Sad but true.  Gamers can be just a bit hotheaded, cant they...

So far I've mostly just avoided buying AAA titles.  I'll accept them as gifts, if a friend were to buy me one for whatever baffling reason, or something like that (though even then, there's ALOT of them where I'd refuse and say "I'm just not interested").

Though, also frustrating is when developers that I do like end up under the wing of one of the big guys.  THAT is... irritating.

Offline Cyborg

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #18 on: February 24, 2016, 01:49:03 am »
I'm not part of the fighting game community, and I knew about the streetfighter thing. I think we are just holding up today's scenarios in front of 10 years ago and saying, wow that's different. Okay, yes it is.

Today's scene, there are more ways to evaluate games than ever before, including demos. We have twitch, we have YouTube. We have review sites everywhere. The expectation in today's world is that you can do your research on what a game offers before you purchase it, and you have to read what's on the virtual packaging these days because we no longer have physical boxes anymore.
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Offline Misery

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #19 on: February 24, 2016, 07:54:18 pm »
I'm not part of the fighting game community, and I knew about the streetfighter thing. I think we are just holding up today's scenarios in front of 10 years ago and saying, wow that's different. Okay, yes it is.

Today's scene, there are more ways to evaluate games than ever before, including demos. We have twitch, we have YouTube. We have review sites everywhere. The expectation in today's world is that you can do your research on what a game offers before you purchase it, and you have to read what's on the virtual packaging these days because we no longer have physical boxes anymore.

Consumers, as a rule, dont do that though.  Many dont have time, or maybe it just doesnt occur to them... too many other things on their mind!  They have obligations of their own... they dont necessarily have time to browse gaming news sites, or watch gaming news on Youtube; even alot of hardcore gamers dont do that.  Many are content to wait until they have the game in their hands... particularly when it's from a developer that's produced quality products in the past (which Capcom has done).  Or they're just used to getting complete products when they buy things; an expectation not just drilled into them by game purchases, but by purchasing... basically any other damn thing.   Or, you also get people like parents buying the games for their kids, or friends buying it for other friends as a gift, or even hardcore fans that, for one reason or another... just plain miss the info.  Sometimes even people that have bad internet!  Maybe they *cant* get at that news.  And when they buy a fighting game, they're after the singleplayer experience, or just local-multiplayer, or both of these, but not the online bit.  Those people arent going to know either.

But yeah, that's a simple fact about consumers in a general sense, when it relates to ANY type of product. 

Capcom needed to do one, and ONLY one, thing to prevent this entire fiasco:  Tell EVERYONE, very blatantly, on the box (NOT just in videos or on the internet, which you might notice, has 10 SQUILLION OTHER THINGS ON IT to drown that out) and on the store page, in some really obvious, unmistakable way, that this is an early access game.  Had they done that ONE thing... which is the right thing to do anyway... nobody would be complaining, because nobody would have spent $60 on something that was missing content without them knowing about it.  Just like how any PROPER early access product works.

As such... consumer anger is absolutely justified.  Frankly, in most other industries, this sort of behavior from them would be unacceptable.  That it is not just accepted but DEFENDED in this one just... baffles me.

Me, I'm a hardcore fighting game fan.  Have been for... too long.  But my response?  I didn't buy it.  I'm not GOING to buy it.  There are other fighters... and I"m tired of supporting companies that do this.  Sadly, I've found that I've had to make this sort of decision (not to buy something I otherwise would have) pretty often these days.  Which I guess is part of why I made this topic... to see what some of the others here think about this sort of thing when it happens and hear what they might have experienced with it.

....and nobody has exploded in anger!  This really is a good forum, eh?

Offline Draco18s

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #20 on: March 01, 2016, 08:26:15 am »
Re: Ways to preview

And none of those options are available during the exclusive, limited time only, 30% off + extra swag, buy-now preorder system.

Find me one review, twitch stream, lets play, or demo that is representative of the title in question and was available more than 2 weeks before the game released.

Offline chemical_art

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #21 on: March 01, 2016, 02:58:36 pm »
was available more than 2 weeks before the game released[/i].

To be fair this is hard because games are being updated to the very last minute, so it is hard to get a full grasp of things. For smaller titles the updates can occur up to the last few days, and for larger titles the a majority of the game's visual development is in the last quarter of the production.
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Offline KingIsaacLinksr

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #22 on: March 01, 2016, 03:03:27 pm »
Re: Ways to preview

And none of those options are available during the exclusive, limited time only, 30% off + extra swag, buy-now preorder system.

Find me one review, twitch stream, lets play, or demo that is representative of the title in question and was available more than 2 weeks before the game released.
This is generally why pre-ordering is a bad idea.
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #23 on: March 01, 2016, 05:32:55 pm »
was available more than 2 weeks before the game released[/i].

To be fair this is hard because games are being updated to the very last minute, so it is hard to get a full grasp of things. For smaller titles the updates can occur up to the last few days, and for larger titles the a majority of the game's visual development is in the last quarter of the production.

No, its because the industry has realized that early reviews ruin sales.  Yes, the game could be partially unfinished, but a lot of times that's never actually fixed.  That's why I said "representative of the released product" because a lot of pre-order games are shit, even after they're released and hit with Day 1 Hotfix Patch #12 and the reviews that are available on Day 1 tell people "this game is shit, also I knew that 2 months ago, but I was legally prevented from saying so."

Offline chemical_art

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #24 on: March 01, 2016, 08:40:39 pm »
was available more than 2 weeks before the game released[/i].

To be fair this is hard because games are being updated to the very last minute, so it is hard to get a full grasp of things. For smaller titles the updates can occur up to the last few days, and for larger titles the a majority of the game's visual development is in the last quarter of the production.

No, its because the industry has realized that early reviews ruin sales.  Yes, the game could be partially unfinished, but a lot of times that's never actually fixed.  That's why I said "representative of the released product" because a lot of pre-order games are shit, even after they're released and hit with Day 1 Hotfix Patch #12 and the reviews that are available on Day 1 tell people "this game is shit, also I knew that 2 months ago, but I was legally prevented from saying so."

That still doesn't change the fact that games cannot be judged accurately 2 months ahead of time, as many games are in a barely playable state in that early before release. Every game has crunch time during those last few weeks and during that time for better or worst is when the game truly takes its identity.
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Offline Misery

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #25 on: March 01, 2016, 10:06:46 pm »
was available more than 2 weeks before the game released[/i].

To be fair this is hard because games are being updated to the very last minute, so it is hard to get a full grasp of things. For smaller titles the updates can occur up to the last few days, and for larger titles the a majority of the game's visual development is in the last quarter of the production.

No, its because the industry has realized that early reviews ruin sales.  Yes, the game could be partially unfinished, but a lot of times that's never actually fixed.  That's why I said "representative of the released product" because a lot of pre-order games are shit, even after they're released and hit with Day 1 Hotfix Patch #12 and the reviews that are available on Day 1 tell people "this game is shit, also I knew that 2 months ago, but I was legally prevented from saying so."

That still doesn't change the fact that games cannot be judged accurately 2 months ahead of time, as many games are in a barely playable state in that early before release. Every game has crunch time during those last few weeks and during that time for better or worst is when the game truly takes its identity.

That is, though, rather the publisher's fault, if they're shoving it in everyone's faces that early.  I've no sympathy for those that make that mistake.

Of course, for them, it's often not a mistake, and is often done in the form of those accursed "cinematic" trailers, which get a facepalm out of me every single time.  They know how to build hype with these things.

Though, on the idea of pre-orders themselves, I definitely say that it's best to never, ever do them.  Regardless of what issues a game may have a couple of months before release, the big guys are more and more lazy these days, and holding back more and more things on purpose, or just trying to skimp on basically everything as much as possible to maximize profits.  Rarely is a game's problems ever fixed, or even close to fixed, in those last couple of months.   I always tell people, dont pre-order such and such game, it's got all these problems, and you'll regret it.  Every time, they do it anyway.  Every time, this results in an endless litany of complaints upon release, much to my amusement.   Like with Star Wars Battlefront:  I kept repeating that over the entire YEAR before the game came out.  I already knew exactly what was going to happen.  Nobody listened.  And when it came out... I was completely right.  Everything I'd said was going to happen, pretty much did happen.  Those I know that bought it were like "But how could they get this wrong?  It was going to be so great!" and I just wanted to bash my head against a tree for 10 minutes.


The last time I pre-ordered something myself... and I intend on this being the very final time... was when the most recent Anno came out.  2070 had been FANTASTIC.  So I pre-ordered the newest one.  ....which is absolutely awful.  Yeah.... not doing that again.

Ugh.  Really, ALL of this stuff is just such a mess these days.  As always, I miss the old days of gaming, where this kind of crap really just didn't happen.  As much.

Offline chemical_art

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #26 on: March 01, 2016, 10:26:18 pm »

That is, though, rather the publisher's fault, if they're shoving it in everyone's faces that early.  I've no sympathy for those that make that mistake.

I was referring to just game design in general. It is just as true for smaller game companies as for larger ones. Smaller game companies don't sit on a finished game for a couple of months (or even weeks) unless they are absolutely fantastic at businesses. If they truly were so fantastic at it, they probably would choose a more lucrative career. The game design business is instead filled with ambitious people with grand ideas. The result is proper amount of development time is rarely given. Big publishers have to meet dates so as to put games on the shelves, smaller companies have to meet dates so they don't go bankrupt. In either case there is not a lot of room to delay things. So either crunch happens or game features are cut, and the ambitious people and the grand ideas people probably would rather crunch.
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Offline TheVampire100

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #27 on: March 02, 2016, 08:39:35 pm »
I'm rarely pre-ordering games for various reasons but the main reason is: I don't want to buy a product that is not released and I don't have any clue about what it is. You can take some research about released games, several other people played it already and all you have to do is to look up what their experience was.
unreleased games give you no measurement about this, all the information comes fromt he developers or (most of the time) the publisher themselves, so of course the information is biased, they want to let the product shine in the right spotlight. Of course they won't tell you is something is off with the game, why should they? No one would preorder/buy it then.
The rare cases where I DID preorder a game were very memorable.
There was the South Park game (Stick of truth). really good game, awesome, very close to the show. However, in Germany (and I think in one or two other countries) there was a problem with the release, where the physical copy of the game had uncut scenes of Nazi-Symbols in it (which is forbidden in Germany since WW 2), so the game was on hold until this mistake was fixed, for both physical and digital version despite the digital version just needed a patch that was already there but was left out because of a mistake. The reason for holding back the digital version as well was because the people who bought the retail version shouldn't feel left out. But this does not make much sense because the whole world could play the game anyway, so we were left out anyway. And it was hard to avoid any spoilers until it was released, some genius thought it was funny to spoil the final endboss.

Another example is XCOM 2. Great game but it came out unoptimized and buggy, alot of people have perfomance problems on their expensive systems. The developers acknowledged, that XCOM 2 may have some starting problems and they tried to fix it but still haven't done very much (a patch came out but even Rock Paper Shotgun said it literally did nothing).

And then there is A Hat in Time. God, how I hate this game now. I welcomed this game with open arms. i was one of the first people who preordered right at the day when it was announced. This was three years ago. This whole game might become a new Duke Nukem Forever. The developers are totally blind toward thwe fact that people are waiting and are getting annoyed about the fact that there are no new information about the game.
The developers publish once a week a new screenshot of the (unfinished) game ont heir faceboo page without giving away what the screenshot is actually about. It's like some random crap that people on steam do (like me, I do this a lot). Rarely they show something useful, like what features are in the game, screenshots of the new menus or how the world selection will look like.
when we reordered, we were promised to play an alpha version of th game. And after that a Beta version. we got both but we expected, well, more. What we got was a very unrefined game that had nearly nothing of the amount the game should have (the game shall have about 7 chapters with 10 levels/missions per chapter, there were only 3 chapters in the Beta which weren't even complete). I fear this game might never be complete because the developers show always the same three chapters 8the one from the Beta but not the levels we got to play fromt hem), so if they still are struggling on chapter three, I think they take too long. Sometime their money must run out and what then? early release? they take way too much time to do a single thing, their time management is aweful. And it also seems that they are actual clueless what the player should do in the game, there were some missions int he Beta that weren't really inventive or fun to play (one mission was only to reach a certain person which was easy to do in 2 minutes).

Offline Aklyon

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Re: The state of the industry
« Reply #28 on: March 02, 2016, 09:20:11 pm »
The xcom2 patch that I know did literally do something (fix modded voicepacks from crashing the game in the armory), its just...not especially relevant to the performance problems (which I haven't had, being on the low settings and all) or the occasional weird animation stalling (which I've had numerous times, not sure why). Or anything besides being a bugfix, really.

 

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