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  • LostNinjaLostNinja Registered User regular
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Mc zany wrote: »
    And that is why DLC and season passes became a thing.

    And they're still aren't enough, as the last news cycle has made abundantly clear.

    Not sure what you're referencing?

  • OwenashiOwenashi Registered User regular
    Digital's getting bigger but it's still not completely over physical copies yet. Not when there's bandwidth caps and/or slow download speeds getting in the way. For example, I'd much rather get a physical copy of Prey at Best Buy and deal with a 2.14GB update since that means I'll actually get to play it today rather then wait a day or two for a 32-37GB download of the digital copy to finish.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Mc zany wrote: »
    And that is why DLC and season passes became a thing.

    And they're still aren't enough, as the last news cycle has made abundantly clear.

    Not sure what you're referencing?

    "Last news cycle" as in "the rapidly-expanding controversy over lootbox-style transactions" implemented on top of other features.

    The emphasis is that this isn't a new thing, but it recently exploded.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    I'm taking a talking point from Jim Sterling but Shadow of War had

    -A $60 base game
    -$80 and $100 special editions / A $40 season pass
    -A $300 physical collector's edition
    -A marketing deal with Microsoft
    -A marketing deal with Totino's

    And still they felt they needed to add microtransaction lootboxes.

    How much money do companies need these days, and why?

    Undead Scottsman on
  • MulletudeMulletude Registered User regular
    I'm not defending shit like loot boxes but AAA video games cost a lot to make.

    XBL-Dug Danger WiiU-DugDanger Steam-http://steamcommunity.com/id/DugDanger/
  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    I've had enough conversations featuring Jim Sterling talking points, videogames and money for today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    They want to make all of the money. It is in their nature.

    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Mulletude wrote: »
    I'm not defending shit like loot boxes but AAA video games cost a lot to make.

    But why?

    Or more importantly, do they need to cost as much to make as they do? Why is the answer "Find other ways to get money out of our users" than "find ways to produce good games with less money"

  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    I hear child labor is all the rage if you really want to make some hard cash

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    I hear child labor is all the rage if you really want to make some hard cash

    But is the next step down from "teams of thousands pushing as many polygons as they possibly can" really "child labor"

    Is there no happy medium?

  • LostNinjaLostNinja Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    I think lootboxes are forgivable in a games like Overwatch and Destiny, but that's about it. In both of those they are mostly superficial appearance stuff and don't offer any type of advantage (Destiny does offer some gear in the bright dust shop, but it low level and would need powered up). And they are also able to be earned fairly regularly just by playing the game.

    In Overwatch's case it also supplements the solid flow of new free content.

    LostNinja on
  • HefflingHeffling No Pic EverRegistered User regular
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Mc zany wrote: »
    And that is why DLC and season passes became a thing.

    And they're still aren't enough, as the last news cycle has made abundantly clear.

    What do you mean by that?

  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    I hear child labor is all the rage if you really want to make some hard cash

    Really, Jay? This is where you want to try and take this?

    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    I hear child labor is all the rage if you really want to make some hard cash

    Really, Jay? This is where you want to try and take this?

    They don't care about you, me or the kids right? Money at any cost

  • MulletudeMulletude Registered User regular
    Mulletude wrote: »
    I'm not defending shit like loot boxes but AAA video games cost a lot to make.

    But why?

    Or more importantly, do they need to cost as much to make as they do? Why is the answer "Find other ways to get money out of our users" than "find ways to produce good games with less money"

    I don't have any answers but I personally don't want to give up having games that look like Forza. Not that they all have to look that good but I want them around.

    XBL-Dug Danger WiiU-DugDanger Steam-http://steamcommunity.com/id/DugDanger/
  • ProhassProhass Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    producing good games isnt a predictive algorithm, and making a fantastic game doesnt guarantee profits. But where do you cut corners to make "smaller less expensive games that are just as good"? They might be able to find a way to make certain types of games with less money involved, but "good" is a difficult qualifier to hit. They can look at whats successful in hindsight and try and replicate it and thats about it.

    Do you cut something obvious like advertising? What if you hamstring a great product, and under-advertising it spoils its potential and you have to fire everyone anyway. This is a section of cost-cutting where hindsight is 20/20, everyone can point to where they shouldnt spend so much on advertising when a game does well (like say destiny), but if you make that decision before the game goes to market, you can be left with your advertising budget saved and losing everything else.

    Do you cut writers? Content producers? Texture artists? What aspects of game development should they shave off to make smaller but just as good quality games. What if their competition keeps making larger games with just as good quality levels as their smaller games? This isnt a vacuum problem. If you chose to look at it as bloat, its not as easy as just saying "theres the bloat". In recent years misc-quest bloat has become an issue I personally hate, but I dont know how much development time cutting that would save?

    Say you hire a bunch of writers and then scale back your texture artists for example, and you might strike it big as a company that focuses on story, but you also might find out that not enough gamers buy less flashy looking, but better storied games. And hell, sometimes the best writers can still produce a dud story.

    yes the obvious "best" answer is cut executives salaries, or investor profits, and in some cases some companies do that, it still doesnt always guarantee long term success (and im with you on it being frustrating that this would be the last option they take, fuck capitalism is what im saying)

    The argument can be made that microtransactions hurt the brand and therefore will eventually hurt the bottom line

    But so far that isnt happening

    I cant give you an answer as to why games cost so much to make, or why they choose to make such expensive games, but the answer to "why do this" with microtransactions, is pretty much that they can probably fairly reliably predict how much money they will make directly from these kind of digital purchases, and so as a profit-model company, they have every incentive to do it and keep doing it until it starts not being profitable or the negative press convinces enough people not to buy it or not to support companies that use it

    To clarify Im agreeing with you, there is massive room for a scaling down and a shift to smaller "A"s in that AAA market, its just its not a simple and obvious shift, and if a company moves too fast it could find itself just as fucked as if it were too big

    A good example of "smaller" AAA games is Ghost Recon Wildlands. Its massively successful and I dont think cost nearly as much to make as their usual fare.

    Mid-tier games have a lot tougher go of it lately, they essentially still have to "look and feel" like theyre one of the big boys, they have to "fake" AAA qualities. I think Ghost Recons Wildlands is an interesting example people arent really aware of in terms of "second tier AAA", and more companies might be pushing in that direction. Rainbow 6 as well.

    However, games like Rainbow and Wildlands benefit a lot from the pipeline production of modern super AAA games their publishers also make. Assets, resources and tools which only exist because of the demands of AAA games, and their reliable profit margins, might allow for more big publishers to make more second tier or mid tier games.

    Outside of relying on miracles, like minecraft or PUBG style lightning in a bottle games, its harder for bigger publishers to let go of the tiger's tail theyve been riding and downscale their productions.

    People also like to point to games like Witcher 3, showing that big and detailed games can come from lower cost development pipelines. But im hearing a lot of bad shit come out about CDProject behind the scenes, and theyre likely even more exploitative of crunch and demanding of their workers than the big publishers.

    Prohass on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    Great post. And obviously this is basically just me yelling at the sky here, as you said, there's no simple answer.

    Now, personally I would say that I'd be absolutely fine with scaling back on graphics. I've found that good looking games have looked great for years now, and the idea that now they're all going to be pushing 4K sounds like a nightmare for budgets. I'm genuinely not sure how much of a selling point graphics are now though, so I could be in the minority. Microsoft seems to be banking on that being the selling point for the X, so I guess we'll see if that gets them the sales their looking for.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • ProhassProhass Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    Great post. And obviously this is basically just me yelling at the sky here, as you said, there's no simple answer.

    Now, personally I would say that I'd be absolutely fine with scaling back on graphics. I've found that good looking games have looked great for years now, and the idea that now they're all going to be pushing 4K sounds like a nightmare for budgets. I'm genuinely not sure how much of a selling point graphics are now though, so I could be in the minority. Microsoft seems to be banking on that being the selling point for the X, so I guess we'll see if that gets them the sales their looking for.

    Yelling at the sky is the best. Im pretty sure thats how I'll get my Deathrow backwards compatibility

    Interestingly theres actually not going to be much of a difference to budget costs for a lot of games going 4k, depending on the game and the company. This is because production of big AAA games tend to over-produce texture quality and visual settings initially anyway, and then scale them down during the course of development, especially for games that are going multiplatform and especially especially for games where PC is one of the platforms. Itll definitely take an investment, but nothing compared to where the bulk of money goes for a AAA production

    Visual quality scaling overall can be costly of course (depending on where in the pipe-line its done), but my suspicion is that the big drain with major games is just content creation (even when the content is "low" on the pretty scale, if it is complex in another way, it can still be a massive time sink) and just programming time, fixing things together. Getting missions to work together, level designs, VO recorded and fitted with animation (both unique animation and system wide animations), testing, scrapping, etc. In terms of time investment this seems to be the hardest area to easily reduce. You can build up a library of textures and models, use the same helicopter in 10 games across your company, use the same tree building program, but you cant do the same thing with Voice work and with mission design, not without it arguably being more obvious to gamers that corners have been cut.

    the answer might be not in making games less pretty, but in simply making them smaller in 'scope'. Ive noticed a lot of games have suffered recently as companies try and make fundamentally 'smaller' games stretch their scope out way too much. Id argue that Andromeda suffered the most from this. If they had made Andromeda a game with 15-20 hours content, max, it might have ended up a more polished and engaging experience than stretching it out to 50 hours with endless misc quests, empty planets, thousands of lines of voice work that players ignore or instantly forget because it isnt important to the central narrative they care about, etc. Its definitely in this area where I think they can save the most money in terms of time and production costs. Instead of making the world feel real by making it a huge planet with a thousand voicelines, make a stunning and memorable small hub with 100 really fantastic voicelines and well crafted characters rather than wasting time making 20 "fetch 10 of these" quests

    Im not even saying this is the right solution for every company or every game, I just feel like its the one that might work for a lot of big AAA games with narratives. Because if a games a great game, looks stunning, has great writing, engaging gameplay, but it feels a bit short, thats going to get more positive buzz than a game thats long, but the overall quality suffers because its stretched thin. This is a very broad approach, as again the devil is in the details, what do you cut to make it shorter? Do you write shorter stories, or do you make less gameplay? I feel like thats a decision for the developer on a case by case basis, but its definitely one they need to start making

    People are worried about developers making games without stories or where the story isnt as important as the "game as service" grind. I think that its a valid concern, but I dont think they should be worried about one replacing the other. Its possible we'll simply get more games that fit between 25-50 hour rpgs, and 4-5 hour "spectaculars" like the COD campaigns.

    Another approach is diversification, like what ubisoft is trying with their games like Child of Light, etc. Making much much smaller games alongside the big ones.

    Prohass on
  • Crippl3Crippl3 oh noRegistered User regular
    Prohass wrote: »
    fuck capitalism is what im saying

    yo same

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Now I'm wondering what videogames would be like if the US was a non-capitalist society.

  • ProhassProhass Registered User regular
    Now I'm wondering what videogames would be like if the US was a non-capitalist society.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI

  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    My god I told myself I'd not get another dumb expensive controller after the Elite burned me

    But the remappable buttons are so much better. No wireless does harsh my hype but, if I see this on sale at some point gonna maybe snag

    https://youtu.be/4s1-oJGpJLc

  • LBD_NytetraynLBD_Nytetrayn TorontoRegistered User regular
    I was just mentioning this to my wife the other day: You've heard the expression "too big to fail"?

    I think AAA games are getting too big to succeed.

    qjWUWdm.gif1edr1cF.gifJZuC7sH.png
    Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    Now I'm wondering what videogames would be like if the US was a non-capitalist society.

    I'd argue that they would be "unfair" in a different way. Kinda like that Randy Newman song.

    People tout the Witcher 3 as a win for low budget game development, but it was primarily developed in Poland with some outside help. The cost of living is significantly lower, as are the comparative wages, in Poland vs the states. As they used their own engine, they wouldn't have to worry about that licensing cost, outside of the secondary engines and tools (like PhysX, etc). That's the other major cost in development; the licenses to use the software to build the game.

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • Local H JayLocal H Jay Registered User regular
    There's certainly shades of gray to that discussion and I tend to let my feelings about big publishers interfere with looking at stuff like this. I don't think day one DLC, Microtransactions/loot boxrs, and season passes are inherently bad as tools to fund game development. It's just that publishers tend to abuse their customers to hit their bottom line. I'm guilty of buying loot boxes and collector editions because when you love a game it feels like an easy decision to make. It's when they fork open a game and start fiddling around to sell more boxes that I feel the sales angle starts to overtake the entertainment.

    It's like going to the movies and the concession stand. Movie theaters don't make a ton off the films, so they try to make it back selling candy and buckets of soda at a premium. Do I need this 4 dollar box of sugar? No, but knowing it actually does help the theater stay open means I can forgive the kinds gouged prices there. I don't have the same feeling that lootboxes and other stuff really is going back to the guys working in the trenches.

    I understand they get paid what they get paid, but when the games get muddied up with pointless DLC to the point it hurts the final product and then people get fired, I can't blame anyone but the guys singing the checks. If movie theaters started adding in intermissions again to sell more candy, turning off the movie randomly to offer me more treats, that ruins the movie. I don't care you have candy to sell, let me enjoy my damn movie.

    It all comes back to phone games. Phone games are cheap to make and rake in cash. Publishers know they can crap out a really cheap game just good enough to sell packs of items. My roommate's son is 6 and constantly begs his mom to buy him diamonds to level up his monsters. I sound all grandpa here, but goddammit that phone game is Pokemon where you literally pay for rare candies. They figured out people are lazy and okay with paying to skip busywork. So why not make the whole game busy work and cut out the middle man?

  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    How much did the new South Park game cost? The game felt like a nice middle ground of being a big release with good polish (a few hiccups in places), giving you a solid 15-20 hour story, and DLC will come later that isn't necessary. The only real problem in this instance of game development is apparently getting Matt & Trey to stop changing things at the last minute, but the delays seem on par with every other AAA game these days.

  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    There isn't any budget info for South Park: FBW publicly posted that I know of?

    However many staff (where staff includes not just artists, devs, and engineers but IT support, etc) worked on the project and however plus software to build it would be a ballpark? Ubisoft San Francisco is the studio that worked on it.

    They made it with Snowdrop, their proprietary engine, but what else do they use with it? IDK...

    tastydonuts on
    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • Le_GoatLe_Goat Frechified Goat Person BostonRegistered User regular
    Owenashi wrote: »
    Digital's getting bigger but it's still not completely over physical copies yet. Not when there's bandwidth caps and/or slow download speeds getting in the way. For example, I'd much rather get a physical copy of Prey at Best Buy and deal with a 2.14GB update since that means I'll actually get to play it today rather then wait a day or two for a 32-37GB download of the digital copy to finish.
    I totally get where you're coming from. When I initially started going pure digital, it was a pain in the ass. You're excited for a game, so you click download and have to wait a long ass time to play that game. However, I began adjusting the way I purchased games. Now, I purchase something, then do other shit while I wait. Or I purchase something before going to work or bed and it's ready when I'm able to play. I've essentially just adjusted my expectations and how I purchase to account for the time it takes to download. For me, it's not a big deal and just part of the nature of being pure digital.

    And even better is that when I pre-order something, it downloads automatically for me when it's available. Sometimes it pre-downloads and just waits for a single unlock file to download, so then I'm even more ready. And as a bonus, I can go onto Xbox.com while at work or on my phone, purchase a game, and it's ready to play when I get home. Until physical discs can fly through a doggy door and set itself to install, that's hard to beat.

    It all boils down to a matter of personal preference, much like choosing which phone OS you'd rather deal with. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here.

    While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    Le_Goat wrote: »
    Owenashi wrote: »
    Digital's getting bigger but it's still not completely over physical copies yet. Not when there's bandwidth caps and/or slow download speeds getting in the way. For example, I'd much rather get a physical copy of Prey at Best Buy and deal with a 2.14GB update since that means I'll actually get to play it today rather then wait a day or two for a 32-37GB download of the digital copy to finish.
    I totally get where you're coming from. When I initially started going pure digital, it was a pain in the ass. You're excited for a game, so you click download and have to wait a long ass time to play that game. However, I began adjusting the way I purchased games. Now, I purchase something, then do other shit while I wait. Or I purchase something before going to work or bed and it's ready when I'm able to play. I've essentially just adjusted my expectations and how I purchase to account for the time it takes to download. For me, it's not a big deal and just part of the nature of being pure digital.

    And even better is that when I pre-order something, it downloads automatically for me when it's available. Sometimes it pre-downloads and just waits for a single unlock file to download, so then I'm even more ready. And as a bonus, I can go onto Xbox.com while at work or on my phone, purchase a game, and it's ready to play when I get home. Until physical discs can fly through a doggy door and set itself to install, that's hard to beat.

    It all boils down to a matter of personal preference, much like choosing which phone OS you'd rather deal with. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here.


    I decided to change things up this year and got a windows phone. I feel like that was the wrong answer...

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    Skull2185 wrote: »
    Le_Goat wrote: »
    Owenashi wrote: »
    Digital's getting bigger but it's still not completely over physical copies yet. Not when there's bandwidth caps and/or slow download speeds getting in the way. For example, I'd much rather get a physical copy of Prey at Best Buy and deal with a 2.14GB update since that means I'll actually get to play it today rather then wait a day or two for a 32-37GB download of the digital copy to finish.
    I totally get where you're coming from. When I initially started going pure digital, it was a pain in the ass. You're excited for a game, so you click download and have to wait a long ass time to play that game. However, I began adjusting the way I purchased games. Now, I purchase something, then do other shit while I wait. Or I purchase something before going to work or bed and it's ready when I'm able to play. I've essentially just adjusted my expectations and how I purchase to account for the time it takes to download. For me, it's not a big deal and just part of the nature of being pure digital.

    And even better is that when I pre-order something, it downloads automatically for me when it's available. Sometimes it pre-downloads and just waits for a single unlock file to download, so then I'm even more ready. And as a bonus, I can go onto Xbox.com while at work or on my phone, purchase a game, and it's ready to play when I get home. Until physical discs can fly through a doggy door and set itself to install, that's hard to beat.

    It all boils down to a matter of personal preference, much like choosing which phone OS you'd rather deal with. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here.


    I decided to change things up this year and got a windows phone. I feel like that was the wrong answer...

    But... now you can access Square Enix's library of phone games that they refuse to port onto Windows tablets! That's... a win, right?

    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    I'm surprised the Square Enix ports are even on there. Prior to getting this phone, I'd been using an iphone 3s that I got back in 2009. I was very excited to finally get to use stuff like Ishtar Command for Destiny, and all the neat looking game tie ins... NOPE! None of that stuff. Not even Fallout Shelter... That's on XBone, but not your dang phone?!

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • ArchsorcererArchsorcerer Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Now I'm wondering what videogames would be like if the US was a non-capitalist society.

    Well, if you want governement endowments and subsidies for games you would have to compensate with a rise in taxes. Or have the corporations of your country exploit the resources of other places. :P

    Here is my simple answer:

    Modern videogames are a bourgeois art form just like movies. They need a big budget and a highly specialized set of skills mostly from first-world countries where the cost of living is subject to competition, inflation and devaluation of currency.

    Developers now need more cash to pay their debts and to afford an upper middle-class lifestyle in a place like the Bay Area or Montreal. No one wants to go back to the days of eating instant noodles and crunch.

    People are complaining about the price of that upcoming Dragon Ball game. I wrote:
    Modified Unreal Engine, worldwide distribution, licensing from Shueisha with Toriyama's input, voice acting, Steam/MS/Sony fee for digital distribution, matchmaking servers and a story mode resembling the OVAs.

    Add the costs of a multiplayer beta and the stupidly detailed graphics from Japanese 3d animators (pricey!):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wDCTKTjB_k

    Videogames are a privilege. There are other works of art you can use to enrich your life: poetry, music, theather, etc.

    If you want AAA, pay AAA. 60 bucks isn't enough for some games, for some it's too much but you don't have to buy day 1.

    Been a while since I dropped here.

    Archsorcerer on
    XBL - ArchSilversmith

    "We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
  • Crippl3Crippl3 oh noRegistered User regular
    People always talk about how cheap Witcher 3 was because of living costs and such.
    It still cost $81,000,000 and took 240 in-house staff and 1500 other people from companies around the world. It was not a cheap game;

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MyMiT4OUy4
    https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/

  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    I don't have a problem with DBFZ's price tag. It's the $40 character pass for 8 additional characters that I don't particularly like.

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    Crippl3 wrote: »
    People always talk about how cheap Witcher 3 was because of living costs and such.
    It still cost $81,000,000 and took 240 in-house staff and 1500 other people from companies around the world. It was not a cheap game;

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MyMiT4OUy4
    https://www.gamespot.com/articles/this-is-how-much-the-witcher-3-cost-to-make/1100-6430409/

    Yes, I believe it was also stated to be the most expensive polish game developed to date (at that time). Thought it was 31 million USD though? *watches video*

    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    Heffling wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Mc zany wrote: »
    And that is why DLC and season passes became a thing.

    And they're still aren't enough, as the last news cycle has made abundantly clear.

    What do you mean by that?
    Synthesis wrote: »
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Mc zany wrote: »
    And that is why DLC and season passes became a thing.

    And they're still aren't enough, as the last news cycle has made abundantly clear.

    Not sure what you're referencing?

    "Last news cycle" as in "the rapidly-expanding controversy over lootbox-style transactions" implemented on top of other features.

    The emphasis is that this isn't a new thing, but it recently exploded.

    (Because I'm very inelegant when it comes to thread navigation, and thought you deserved an answer.)

    Synthesis on
  • Le_GoatLe_Goat Frechified Goat Person BostonRegistered User regular
    edited October 2017
    Skull2185 wrote: »
    I don't have a problem with DBFZ's price tag. It's the $40 character pass for 8 additional characters that I don't particularly like.
    I don't blame you, but it's not like this is something new. That's $5 a character, which isn't unheard of. Shit like this has been going on for a while. Plenty of Batman games, Borderlands, Evolve... the list just goes on and on. Hell, Diablo 3 just released a not-so-new-playstyle Necromancer for I think $15 over the summer. That was pretty crazy, but people coughed up the dough for it. *waves hand*

    Paying for new toons is the same as paying for new maps. Evolve thought they figured out a system by allowing people free maps but pay for new toons... it unfortunately failed. Load-times played a large factor, but tons of people screamed foul play when they announced the price structure.

    Le_Goat on
    While I agree that being insensitive is an issue, so is being oversensitive.
  • tastydonutstastydonuts Registered User regular
    Le_Goat wrote: »
    Skull2185 wrote: »
    I don't have a problem with DBFZ's price tag. It's the $40 character pass for 8 additional characters that I don't particularly like.
    I don't blame you, but it's not like this is something new. That's $5 a character, which isn't unheard of. Shit like this has been going on for a while. Plenty of Batman games, Borderlands, Evolve... the list just goes on and on. Hell, Diablo 3 just released a not-so-new-playstyle Necromancer for I think $15 over the summer. That was pretty crazy, but people coughed up the dough for it. *waves hand*

    Paying for new toons is the same as paying for new maps. Evolve thought they figured out a system by allowing people free maps but pay for new toons... it unfortunately failed. Load-times played a large factor, but tons of people screamed foul play when they announced the price structure.

    Koei games offer tons of outfit and weapon packs. I think Attack on Titan is the first one I haven't bought the costumes for because they kind of suck imo (all holiday themed).

    “I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited October 2017
    Now I'm wondering what videogames would be like if the US was a non-capitalist society.

    In the fine American tradition of "Only knowing one of x from another country," the first version of Tetris as an electronic game was produced by the Dorodnitsyn Computing Center in Moscow, part of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (but in the US, we all just known the name of the designer, Alexey Pajitnov). That was that country's equivalent of a national academy of sciences, a very big one.

    In the 1980s, electronics companies in the USSR produced a bunch of arcade cabinets for domestic audiences that are still well remembered in Eurasia. They were made for the same basic reason as all other public electronic entertainment: there was a desire for video game arcades in the USSR, there was already a domestic computer industry throughout the country (like in Armenia, where motherboards were made), and eventually a bunch of cities decided they wanted to have the first arcades in the USSR and ordered the arcade cabinets they'd need from civilian or military computer factories that could actually make them. Behold, the methodical pace of a mostly-centralized economy. They were not particularly cheap apparently--15 Soviet kopeks would've been in the area of 25 cents, in what was a poorer country (25 million people dead in a world war will do that), if memory serves (this was before the currency collapse of Yeltsin's time, the price currency calculations are kind of weird). Your basic stuff, soccer games, hockey games, hunting games, shoot down NATO bomber games, etc., that would not seem out of place in the US.

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    I assume they were patently worse than the ones made in the USA or Japan in the same time period...I really only know the Japanese ones, because that's all we had in Taiwan because we certainly weren't make arcade machines of our own in the 1980s--now, if you want to know what video games were like in a capitalist dictatorship, I can tell you about that! But they were there, and people liked them, enough to go out of their way to preserve them long after they were obsolete. Of course, crappy 1980s arcade machines, whether American or Soviet, are pretty different from AAA gaming which did not exist at the time--Soviet cinema also made huge theatrical films as big as any made in Western Europe or even North America from time to time, but that doesn't necessarily translate to huge stonkin' games.

    Synthesis on
  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    PUBG on Dec 12th.

    I'm sure it will sell loads, but I wonder if it will retain players. Apparently Fortnite's BR thing is just as good, but is less buggy.

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Skull2185 wrote: »
    PUBG on Dec 12th.

    I'm sure it will sell loads, but I wonder if it will retain players. Apparently Fortnite's BR thing is just as good, but is less buggy.

    For a lot of people the PC experience for Battlegrounds is....mildly miserable, I suppose? Not enough to keep huge numbers of people from buying into the beta, but enough that a lot of people aren't happy with it. The game seems to take the bad hardware optimization of the Arma series to the next level.

    If they can make it a consistent (and much lower fidelity) experience on Xbox, they might be able to lure some people there (on top of people who just don't have a meaty enough machine to handle it, WoW it isn't).

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