You know I honestly never understood why more companies didn't do this. I mean sure you probably don't want to with every game.
But as far as games go that center around MP its like, hey...free beta testers.
[Cynical Hat]
Because they're absolutely terrified of an uncontrolled, unregulated look at the game before it's released for official sale, particularly when it's not even done. You can't control the message being put out, and the expectation is that players will only post about how badly implemented the game is when it's... well... incomplete. It's usually way safer to build up hype through carefully controlled press walkthroughs and trailers. And it's also the reason that demos have been on the decrease.
This is all the worse given several years of "beta-but-not-really" beta's which have raised the nutty expectation that a beta is effectively meant to be a finished product.
The new chairman of streaming games firm OnLive has criticised the press for what he says was misrepresentation of OnLive’s “restructuring” last year.
Things appeared to have gone very wrong for OnLive back in August 2012, with significant job losses and a change of ownership as well as the loss of former boss and founder Steve Perlman.
Tales of woe swiftly followed, with claims that OnLive had just 1,600 concurrent users.
The events of August were later described by then new CEO Charles Jablonski as a “transition”, stating: “I’d never minimise both the emotions and the pain when you go through a transition like that.”
However, in a new blog post by chairman and majority owner Gary Lauder – his first since taking the job – plays down the events of last year.
“When the restructuring of OnLive happened in August, many misunderstood it to mean that the service and company were shutting down,” he wrote. “Neither occurred, nor did we go bankrupt. We should have communicated better.
“As Mark Twain wrote, ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’. Same with us. Our service continued without interruption both in the USA and overseas, and we have about 90 employees.”
Lauder is also optimistic about the year ahead, adding:
“It has been seven months since I jumped in to save OnLive from a financing mishap, and I have had the opposite of buyer’s remorse: buyer’s elation! 2013 is shaping up to be a great year at OnLive, and I want to share some of our good news.
“We have already delivered some significant milestones for the OnLive Game Service, in particular, being incorporated into our first third party device, the VIZIO Co-Star, and into Google TVs, starting with the impressive LG G3 Series – with more to come.
“We continue to bring new game publishers and games into the mix, and released Witcher 2:Assassins of Kings Enhanced release from CD Projekt RED on Thursday, February 28th with a special promotion, which includes a free a digital download copy of the game for PCs with purchase of a Full PlayPass. We are busy exploring other new ways to serve our users’ and publishers’ interests capitalizing on our unique abilities.
“We’re expecting great things in 2013, and with Don’s vision and expertise to fuel us, you can trust that it’s only the start.”
So are the sales any better or are they still the shits?
I had a couple free games from OnLive, but honestly I never really played them much. You could sense the slight lag in the game and it just felt off. Perhaps in some games it would be fine.
I'd never buy a game from them though, not at the prices they were charging and pretty much there's no way to keep anything if the service went out or out of business. Too risky for a young company like that with big dreams and large expenses.
Yeah, the kind of alpha funding that KSP and Mount and Blade used is better for the type of games with some new ideas where people can see the potential right away.
I wonder how that idea compares to using Kickstarter for funding. I guess it does give you more flexibility since you don't have to come up with a bunch of ideas for stretch goals which may more may not work out once they are added to the game.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
So Sony kinda forgot PlayStation Mobile existed for a little while.
I've been covering PS Mobile over on Pocket Gamer since its inception, and each week has seen a new release or two ever since launch. It's been but a trickle, sure, but for a new platform it's been a great start. The coverage for PS Mobile on the official PlayStation blog has been great too, with each new title getting its own "Spotlight" post, and every new release rounded up in the weekly releases lists.
That was up until mid-January anyway. All of a sudden the regular posts about PS Mobile games on the PS Blog stopped, and PS Mobile was no longer mentioned in the weekly roundups. In fact, the only way to find out which new games had been added to the PS Mobile store was to boot your PS Vita up and hit the "Recent" tab.
And yet at the very same time a PS Mobile promotion, giving away a free game each week for six weeks, continued to trundle on via the blog. I was concerned, as without the full weekly promotion on the PS Blog, PS Mobile would no doubt go the same way that PS Minis did. I decided to get in contact with Sony, and a handful of recent PS Mobile devs, to find out what was up.
The overwhelming response from devs on the service was that the team handling the platform is struggling to handle the workload.
For example, Chris Egerter of Rocking Pocket Games, which has released titles like Dungeon Bandit and Blue Skies on PS Mobile, told me that "The mobile division seems to be pretty understaffed and it takes a long time to get things done."
Other studios backed up this theory, with developer Thomas Hopper offering more detail into what's going on behind the scenes. Hopper is perhaps the more prolific PS Mobile developer, having release five games for the service already, including Meltdown Moon and Still Life.
"I did find it a bit strange that the blog posts don't seem to cover PS Mobile anymore," he says, "but it appears to me that this is down to internal communications issues."
It seems that the PlayStation Mobile team handles the service globally, rather than having a team for each region, as is the case with the rest of the PlayStation business. This means that the single team is finding it difficult to keep in contact with each of the regional PSN teams.
Regarding shoehorned multiplayer, at least in the case of ME3 it has very definitely had a positive effect on the game. A lot of the experience gained from releasing new character power combinations, creating combat areas and more balanced enemies to fight in the multiplayer is directly reflected in the later DLCs, particularly Omega and Citadel.
There was overwhelming sentiment against it before launch, with people feeling that it would have come at the cost of resources that might otherwise have been used for the single player, but people now feel completely differently. Releasing it all for free also helped keep the playerbase from fragmenting and generated a lot of good will, it's definitely an example of doing it right.
You know I honestly never understood why more companies didn't do this. I mean sure you probably don't want to with every game.
But as far as games go that center around MP its like, hey...free beta testers.
[Cynical Hat]
Because they're absolutely terrified of an uncontrolled, unregulated look at the game before it's released for official sale, particularly when it's not even done. You can't control the message being put out, and the expectation is that players will only post about how badly implemented the game is when it's... well... incomplete. It's usually way safer to build up hype through carefully controlled press walkthroughs and trailers. And it's also the reason that demos have been on the decrease.
This is all the worse given several years of "beta-but-not-really" beta's which have raised the nutty expectation that a beta is effectively meant to be a finished product.
[/Cynical Hat]
For the record, a beta is supposed to be a nearly finished product. The original idea was that you're in a lockdown state where features are complete and all that's left is finishing content, tweaking numbers, and killing bugs. The modern day implementation of a beta ends up being something that's unfinished that opens up a lot of space for complaints.
Im probably in the minority here but if an always online xbox with installed games means I can launch all my games from the dashboard without ever having to switch discs? I am 100% onboard.
The mandatory Kinect thing could be a dealbreaker thing for me depending on how they handle it.
You're not in the minority. A lot of people own PCs.
Uuum, I play almost exclusively on the PC and always-on is dumb as shit, not to mention that every PC game that has come out that used extraneous always-on DRM has had massive scandal and failure involved. Steam is most definitely not always-on DRM, which is definitely the standard for PC gaming.
Plus having mandatory installs removes one of the conveniences consoles have over PCs. It's a small thing, but it's there. I own a 360 and a PS3, and I still get annoyed whenever I have a PS3 game that requires me to sit around for 10 minutes rather than let me play immediately.
Though again, I'm hoping the 720 mandatory installs are because the in-development dev kits haven't been optimized.
The "leak" in question says "you can start playing few secs after installation starts" so I'm not seeing the problem. Sounds like they want to play from the harddrive (which is just flat out better) and they want to institute a system where you can play the game while installing. So it seems to me like the best of both worlds, so I have no idea why people are complaining.
You know I honestly never understood why more companies didn't do this. I mean sure you probably don't want to with every game.
But as far as games go that center around MP its like, hey...free beta testers.
Uh, don't most big MP games already do this? Maybe that's just PC stuff.
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Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
edited March 2013
You get the impression that most big-name betas are just demos in disguise used to drum up preorder business. Fer instance, the Battlefield 3 beta was based on a build months out of date on the most current one, making a lot of the data and response players were giving to be useless. And the game came out and it turns out there was a bunch of broken and unbalanced ass shit anyway. SimCity's beta for given for about weekend (or a few hours on a weekend), with many of the features turned off. So I don't know what the hell these testers were actually fucking testing.
This sounds like they're going along to a much longer, more substantial test at the alpha or even pre-alpha stage when the games are still in heavy development, but I guess that also depends the individual developer.
Im probably in the minority here but if an always online xbox with installed games means I can launch all my games from the dashboard without ever having to switch discs? I am 100% onboard.
The mandatory Kinect thing could be a dealbreaker thing for me depending on how they handle it.
You're not in the minority. A lot of people own PCs.
Uuum, I play almost exclusively on the PC and always-on is dumb as shit, not to mention that every PC game that has come out that used extraneous always-on DRM has had massive scandal and failure involved. Steam is most definitely not always-on DRM, which is definitely the standard for PC gaming.
Plus having mandatory installs removes one of the conveniences consoles have over PCs. It's a small thing, but it's there. I own a 360 and a PS3, and I still get annoyed whenever I have a PS3 game that requires me to sit around for 10 minutes rather than let me play immediately.
Though again, I'm hoping the 720 mandatory installs are because the in-development dev kits haven't been optimized.
The "leak" in question says "you can start playing few secs after installation starts" so I'm not seeing the problem. Sounds like they want to play from the harddrive (which is just flat out better) and they want to institute a system where you can play the game while installing. So it seems to me like the best of both worlds, so I have no idea why people are complaining.
If you wanted to be paranoid, having to install the game would probably make it easier for them to tie the game to an account or to the console, i.e. it would help them cut out used sales.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Beta is supposed to mean it's feature complete, at least for its launch state.
The term beta has sort of become muddied by things like Google's perpetual beta cycles, and game devs treating betas as advertisement/demos.
Nintendo UK has pledged to meet with retailers worried about the performance of its Wii U games console.
Growing dissatisfaction towards the new hardware has seen retailers Amazon, Asda, ShopTo and GameStop slash £50 off its price. But even that has failed to stimulate sales.
“We have taken the decision to reduce the price of the Basic Wii U to test the market and assess the impact of a price change for a short period of time,” ShopTo purchasing director James Rowson told MCV. “This has resulted in a smaller than desired increase in sales at this stage.”
Meanwhile, some chains have told MCV that it will be ‘looking at’ the amount of shelf space it gives to Nintendo platforms.
“Currently Nintendo has not lost space, but their mix of sales is down,” says a top buyer at one of the UK’s biggest games retailers. “We are looking to reduce slightly but must admit their silence on strategy is deafening at the moment. They’ve got to do something otherwise it is GameCube all over again.”
Nintendo has told MCV that it has a plan to stimulate Wii U’s performance in the UK. And that it will meet all its retail partners in the coming weeks to reveal its strategy.
“We’ll be speaking to our retailers directly over the next few weeks to take them through our plans for building Wii U momentum over the course of 2013,” said a Nintendo spokesperson. “We have a strong and broad line-up of software launching this year and we look forward to updating – and exciting – our partners over the coming weeks.”
Wii U has suffered from a poor release schedule since debut. This week marks the first new software from Nintendo for the platform since January. Releases include LEGO City and Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate.
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Who knows whether this is related to the previous Street Fighter X Tekken debacle, but there's this.
Street Fighter X Tekken came out early last year, to a ... reception, but the other half of the Namco/Capcom deal, Tekken X Street Fighter, is still nowhere to be found.
Responding to a fan question on Twitter, producer Katsuhiro Harada said "We are changing & considering platform strategy. That's why we don't say anything." It's likely from this comment that the game is moving to next-generation platforms, which is plausible given its timing; however, we've contacted Namco for clarification.
In any case, putting more time between this and Street Fighter X Tekken is probably a good idea.
Sooooo.... who's doing the new thread? I call not it.
Though whoever does do it should probably add an entry to the OP stressing that this isn't a news thread, something like this:
This is NOT a general new game announcement or date change thread. There are a few exceptions to this that are on-topic for us -- unexpected collaborations between companies, games that mark unusual new directions/risks for a company (like Nintendo announcing a microtransaction-based dating sim or something), delays of games so big they cause quarterly reports to be affected and stockholders to freak out, or scheduling conflicts with other games that almost guarantee someone will fail. Beyond that, don't just post that a new game exists. There are plenty of people on this board who would like to talk about Game X in its own thread without us rambling on about financial crapola.
So Ben Teasdale of Twisted Pixel (formerly Harmonix) did some data mining on PAR on video game industry layoffs last year, and the results were interesting:
He also notes that studios that made games with a metacritic score below 80 were much more likely to suffer layoffs, and that of the studios that had layoffs/closed even after releasing games of 80 and above, most of them were making MMOs.
If you're in this thread, you'll find the article fascinating. Go read it.
Sheeeeit, I work for an MMO company. But I'm PR not development so I'd hope my job is safer.
If you're working for an MMO studio, your job security is nil. Especially as PR or a community rep (which are often the same thing). Hell, Bioware Austin's lost something like 80% of their community team and haven't replaced a single one. They're down to having to manually translate announcements and updates into French and German because they no longer have French or German PR.
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- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Sheeeeit, I work for an MMO company. But I'm PR not development so I'd hope my job is safer.
If you're working for an MMO studio, your job security is nil. Especially as PR or a community rep (which are often the same thing). Hell, Bioware Austin's lost something like 80% of their community team and haven't replaced a single one. They're down to having to manually translate announcements and updates into French and German because they no longer have French or German PR.
Yeah didn't Blizzard lay off a shitload of people about a year ago?
Sheeeeit, I work for an MMO company. But I'm PR not development so I'd hope my job is safer.
If you're working for an MMO studio, your job security is nil. Especially as PR or a community rep (which are often the same thing). Hell, Bioware Austin's lost something like 80% of their community team and haven't replaced a single one. They're down to having to manually translate announcements and updates into French and German because they no longer have French or German PR.
Though didn't Bioware Austin focus on the Star Wars MMO? That probably explains the cutbacks.
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The_SpaniardIt's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Sheeeeit, I work for an MMO company. But I'm PR not development so I'd hope my job is safer.
If you're working for an MMO studio, your job security is nil. Especially as PR or a community rep (which are often the same thing). Hell, Bioware Austin's lost something like 80% of their community team and haven't replaced a single one. They're down to having to manually translate announcements and updates into French and German because they no longer have French or German PR.
We have multiple games in the docket, so I'm hoping I can remain steadily busy within the company for the next few years.
Im probably in the minority here but if an always online xbox with installed games means I can launch all my games from the dashboard without ever having to switch discs? I am 100% onboard.
The mandatory Kinect thing could be a dealbreaker thing for me depending on how they handle it.
You're not in the minority. A lot of people own PCs.
Uuum, I play almost exclusively on the PC and always-on is dumb as shit, not to mention that every PC game that has come out that used extraneous always-on DRM has had massive scandal and failure involved. Steam is most definitely not always-on DRM, which is definitely the standard for PC gaming.
Plus having mandatory installs removes one of the conveniences consoles have over PCs. It's a small thing, but it's there. I own a 360 and a PS3, and I still get annoyed whenever I have a PS3 game that requires me to sit around for 10 minutes rather than let me play immediately.
Though again, I'm hoping the 720 mandatory installs are because the in-development dev kits haven't been optimized.
I'm with you on that. I'm not entirely convinced not having mandatory installations is somehow cutting a huge number of options from developers--especially amid rising prices for development. At the same time, I think there's something to the idea of not making optional installations mandatory for all games either (that is, requiring every game run of the disc). It's a case where standardization across the board is not desirable, I suppose.
With the launch of the Relics of the Gree event behind us, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the general state of the game and the launch of our Free-to-Play option.
Judging by the conversation in the forums and elsewhere, there appears to be a level of curiosity among many players to learn how things are going at the studio since the launch of the Free-to-Play option. Of course, that’s natural. We’re now about 120 days post-launch and more than 5 months into our new series of content updates, so we’re just starting to get a feel for it ourselves. In our commitment to improve the overall player experience, it’s important to reflect on all of the changes that we have made since last year.
Last spring, there was some uncertainty surrounding Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ as we were starting to lose subscribers and players were growing frustrated. In fairness, many of the complaints and worries were justified. In an effort to try to address everything, we just weren’t sufficiently focused on improving the core experience.
At the end of the summer, we announced that were going to make the game more enjoyable than ever before by working to improve three key aspects of the game: making it easier to find friends to play with (via Group Finder), increasing the cadence of our content updates (so players wouldn’t have to wait around for new stuff), and bringing back vitality to the game by reaching out to new players via a Free-to-Play option. In addition we introduced some cool new items for everyone to check out via the Cartel Market.
So how did it go? Well, you can see for yourself when you log in to the game. Our new, high capacity servers are teeming with people. Since launch of the Free-to-Play option we have had over 2 million new accounts created and have thousands of new players jumping in every single day. This means more people to play with, more growth for your guilds, more Warzone matches, and more ways for players to continue to advance their characters.
Even though there’s bound to be dissent about every aspect of MMOs on the internet these days, player feedback, in general, has been very positive about the new things in the game. We’re committed to continuing our 8-week new content cadence, and are looking forward to the launch of the first Digital Expansion: Rise of the Hutt Cartel this spring.
And I’m happy to announce that we’ll be introducing several new features along the way, like a new customization feature, which will allow you to change your character's hair style, eye color, body type, or even species (including the upcoming Cathar!) using Cartel Coins. Look for it in early summer.
We know that there are still a lot of things we need to do to make playing Star Wars: The Old Republic the best experience it can be. We hear you on features such as hood toggle (as one example of many), Asia Pacific server populations (we are actively looking into solutions that make the most sense given our current tech and should have an announcement soon), continued improvement to the Cartel Market pricing and content, and the need to keep working on performance improvements and bugs. In fact, our major focus after Rise of the Hutt Cartel launches is going to be on "quality of life" improvements. We will keep at it, I promise. We’ll keep listening to your feedback and continue to dedicate ourselves to making the game the best it can be. Nothing is more important to us than getting it right.
Thanks for your continued support and see you on Makeb!
-Jeff Hickman
Executive Producer, Star Wars: The Old Republic
But how many people stuck around after creating an account? How many people paid money? I remember reading the transactions in the game were pretty annoying.
Im probably in the minority here but if an always online xbox with installed games means I can launch all my games from the dashboard without ever having to switch discs? I am 100% onboard.
The mandatory Kinect thing could be a dealbreaker thing for me depending on how they handle it.
You're not in the minority. A lot of people own PCs.
Uuum, I play almost exclusively on the PC and always-on is dumb as shit, not to mention that every PC game that has come out that used extraneous always-on DRM has had massive scandal and failure involved. Steam is most definitely not always-on DRM, which is definitely the standard for PC gaming.
Plus having mandatory installs removes one of the conveniences consoles have over PCs. It's a small thing, but it's there. I own a 360 and a PS3, and I still get annoyed whenever I have a PS3 game that requires me to sit around for 10 minutes rather than let me play immediately.
Though again, I'm hoping the 720 mandatory installs are because the in-development dev kits haven't been optimized.
I'm with you on that. I'm not entirely convinced not having mandatory installations is somehow cutting a huge number of options from developers--especially amid rising prices for development. At the same time, I think there's something to the idea of not making optional installations mandatory for all games either (that is, requiring every game run of the disc). It's a case where standardization across the board is not desirable, I suppose.
I believe what's being suggested is that you install the game as mandatory, but you can play the game streaming as it does so.
MS actually kicked this off way back when they were trying to make GFWL a competitor to other services. They called it "Tray and Play". The only title I can remember using it at the time was Halo 2 PC. You inserted the disc, and you could play the game streaming whilst it installed off of the disc. IIRC there were one or two visual glitches but on the whole, the process actually worked. Surprisingly. It was actually a neat little feature that stopped being as relevant since most of the PC games market went heavily into digital-download pretty soon afterwards.
So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that was what they were aiming for console-side.
But how many people stuck around after creating an account? How many people paid money? I remember reading the transactions in the game were pretty annoying.
My experience was that TOR hates it's free users. It's basically "sign up for an account and we will kick you in the balls repeatedly. Pay money to make us stop!"
But how many people stuck around after creating an account? How many people paid money? I remember reading the transactions in the game were pretty annoying.
I logged back in after the F2P went live, and I wasn't impressed. To be fair, I've heard they've made some changes, and I also don't have a lot to compare it to, but I wasn't real happy that the currency that I "earned" through my past sub was locked until I paid them more money.
Back in June, Chinese company Tencent Holdings purchased a minority stake in Epic Games, but it turns out that stake is substantial. Tencent snatched up 48.4% of Epic Games shares last year – that comes to around $330 million invested – and even has the right to nominate individuals to Epic Games' board of directors.
"Since the Group has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games, Epic Games is accounted for as an associate of the Group." This is all laid out in Tencent Holdings' 2012 financial report, available as a pdf document through the source link below. Epic Games was the second US gaming investment from the Chinese outfit following its acquisition of Riot Games in 2011.
Following Tencent's purchase of Epic shares, Epic Games announced it had founded a new studio in Baltimore, saving some Big Huge Games folks from the collapse of 38 Studios to work on Infinity Blade: Dungeons – only for Epic to eventually shutter the studio in February of this year.
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Sheeeeit, I work for an MMO company. But I'm PR not development so I'd hope my job is safer.
If you're working for an MMO studio, your job security is nil. Especially as PR or a community rep (which are often the same thing). Hell, Bioware Austin's lost something like 80% of their community team and haven't replaced a single one. They're down to having to manually translate announcements and updates into French and German because they no longer have French or German PR.
Yeah didn't Blizzard lay off a shitload of people about a year ago?
they laid off somewhere around 4400 customer support people
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SirUltimosDon't talk, Rusty. Just paint.Registered Userregular
Back in June, Chinese company Tencent Holdings purchased a minority stake in Epic Games, but it turns out that stake is substantial. Tencent snatched up 48.4% of Epic Games shares last year – that comes to around $330 million invested – and even has the right to nominate individuals to Epic Games' board of directors.
"Since the Group has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games, Epic Games is accounted for as an associate of the Group." This is all laid out in Tencent Holdings' 2012 financial report, available as a pdf document through the source link below. Epic Games was the second US gaming investment from the Chinese outfit following its acquisition of Riot Games in 2011.
Following Tencent's purchase of Epic shares, Epic Games announced it had founded a new studio in Baltimore, saving some Big Huge Games folks from the collapse of 38 Studios to work on Infinity Blade: Dungeons – only for Epic to eventually shutter the studio in February of this year.
That might explain a lot of the departures Epic has had lately and why they seem to be going in a different direction lately.
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Saint's Row the Third is an Early Access game?
[Cynical Hat]
Because they're absolutely terrified of an uncontrolled, unregulated look at the game before it's released for official sale, particularly when it's not even done. You can't control the message being put out, and the expectation is that players will only post about how badly implemented the game is when it's... well... incomplete. It's usually way safer to build up hype through carefully controlled press walkthroughs and trailers. And it's also the reason that demos have been on the decrease.
This is all the worse given several years of "beta-but-not-really" beta's which have raised the nutty expectation that a beta is effectively meant to be a finished product.
[/Cynical Hat]
I had a couple free games from OnLive, but honestly I never really played them much. You could sense the slight lag in the game and it just felt off. Perhaps in some games it would be fine.
I'd never buy a game from them though, not at the prices they were charging and pretty much there's no way to keep anything if the service went out or out of business. Too risky for a young company like that with big dreams and large expenses.
...no? Where are you even seeing that? The list of early access games is:
Arma 3 Alpha
Kerbal Space Program
Kenshi
StarForge
Prison Architect
Kinetic Void
Under the Ocean
Gnomoria
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They must have fixed it. There were a bunch of older games like that in the list here
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Early Access/
Given the way the FAQ is worded, the developer/publisher has to work with Valve's release team to get classified under the tag.
I wonder how that idea compares to using Kickstarter for funding. I guess it does give you more flexibility since you don't have to come up with a bunch of ideas for stretch goals which may more may not work out once they are added to the game.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/188705/What_happened_to_PlayStation_Mobile.php
http://kotaku.com/the-walking-dead/
http://www.polygon.com/game/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct/7980
http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct-isnt-just-a-bad-walking-dead-game-its-a
It's a horribly-made cash-in. Also kind of a throwback, since we don't see too many awful licensed games on consoles anymore.
Hey, this sounds a lot like what War Z did. I guess they were just too far ahead of the curve?
There was overwhelming sentiment against it before launch, with people feeling that it would have come at the cost of resources that might otherwise have been used for the single player, but people now feel completely differently. Releasing it all for free also helped keep the playerbase from fragmenting and generated a lot of good will, it's definitely an example of doing it right.
For the record, a beta is supposed to be a nearly finished product. The original idea was that you're in a lockdown state where features are complete and all that's left is finishing content, tweaking numbers, and killing bugs. The modern day implementation of a beta ends up being something that's unfinished that opens up a lot of space for complaints.
The "leak" in question says "you can start playing few secs after installation starts" so I'm not seeing the problem. Sounds like they want to play from the harddrive (which is just flat out better) and they want to institute a system where you can play the game while installing. So it seems to me like the best of both worlds, so I have no idea why people are complaining.
Uh, don't most big MP games already do this? Maybe that's just PC stuff.
This sounds like they're going along to a much longer, more substantial test at the alpha or even pre-alpha stage when the games are still in heavy development, but I guess that also depends the individual developer.
If you wanted to be paranoid, having to install the game would probably make it easier for them to tie the game to an account or to the console, i.e. it would help them cut out used sales.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
The term beta has sort of become muddied by things like Google's perpetual beta cycles, and game devs treating betas as advertisement/demos.
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http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/20/namco-changing-and-considering-platform-strategy-for-tekken-x/
Sooooo.... who's doing the new thread? I call not it.
Though whoever does do it should probably add an entry to the OP stressing that this isn't a news thread, something like this:
He also notes that studios that made games with a metacritic score below 80 were much more likely to suffer layoffs, and that of the studios that had layoffs/closed even after releasing games of 80 and above, most of them were making MMOs.
If you're in this thread, you'll find the article fascinating. Go read it.
http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/na
If you're working for an MMO studio, your job security is nil. Especially as PR or a community rep (which are often the same thing). Hell, Bioware Austin's lost something like 80% of their community team and haven't replaced a single one. They're down to having to manually translate announcements and updates into French and German because they no longer have French or German PR.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Yeah didn't Blizzard lay off a shitload of people about a year ago?
Though didn't Bioware Austin focus on the Star Wars MMO? That probably explains the cutbacks.
We have multiple games in the docket, so I'm hoping I can remain steadily busy within the company for the next few years.
I'm with you on that. I'm not entirely convinced not having mandatory installations is somehow cutting a huge number of options from developers--especially amid rising prices for development. At the same time, I think there's something to the idea of not making optional installations mandatory for all games either (that is, requiring every game run of the disc). It's a case where standardization across the board is not desirable, I suppose.
I believe what's being suggested is that you install the game as mandatory, but you can play the game streaming as it does so.
MS actually kicked this off way back when they were trying to make GFWL a competitor to other services. They called it "Tray and Play". The only title I can remember using it at the time was Halo 2 PC. You inserted the disc, and you could play the game streaming whilst it installed off of the disc. IIRC there were one or two visual glitches but on the whole, the process actually worked. Surprisingly. It was actually a neat little feature that stopped being as relevant since most of the PC games market went heavily into digital-download pretty soon afterwards.
So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that was what they were aiming for console-side.
My experience was that TOR hates it's free users. It's basically "sign up for an account and we will kick you in the balls repeatedly. Pay money to make us stop!"
I logged back in after the F2P went live, and I wasn't impressed. To be fair, I've heard they've made some changes, and I also don't have a lot to compare it to, but I wasn't real happy that the currency that I "earned" through my past sub was locked until I paid them more money.
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they laid off somewhere around 4400 customer support people
That might explain a lot of the departures Epic has had lately and why they seem to be going in a different direction lately.