Pay to Play, Pay more to Evolve

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So Evolve, is trying to evolve the way we pay for games. Sorry though, a few other games have been doing what you did. (how did you decide on which version of Watchdogs to buy anyway?) If you were thinking of buying Evolve, you would have feasted your eyes upon the number of options/add ons that the game can come in. Options are good right? Sure! Unless you are chopping up your game into individual little pieces and selling them off one bit at a time.

All these are available for pre-purchase and will be available on day one, meaning they are already spending time developing it before the game is out. To most of us, this means it should belong in the game. When we think about it, it's true that the developers should have the option authority to decide what to include in the package. But games these days are getting lighter and lighter on content, and truth be told, if we give developers and publishers free reign on this, we'll soon be paying for each individual level and character or even weapon and map. There is no historical proof that they will put their customers first and every evidence that they will screw gamers over and exploit them at every opportunity, down to the very last cent.

This Is how the market works I guess. Sellers will make their products as least value as possible while consumers will pay until it becomes too ridiculous. Gamers however, are willing to pay for the most ridiculous things and will even defend their purchase. I would like to see if there are enough idiots falling for their marketing for more companies to follow suit in this format. As for me, even though I was looking forward to Evolve, I will have to give it a pass. I guess I am not ready yet for this evolution.

Has Early Access Made It OK to Publish Buggy Games?

Another post about buggy games, haha. But I will try to focus this on a different area - Early Access (or, what it really is, Paid Alpha/Beta Access).

Arguably, Early Access is a good way for developers who are facing financial difficulties to receive funding to complete their games. Let's look at it this way, if you've spent years developing your game to a playable state and still need a year or a few months to finish it, then it would be a real shame if your studio closed down just short of completing your hard work. There's where Early Access, and also Kickstarter can help. Also, support for your yet completed game can be a good indicator of how the game will do and possibly attract investors.

Gamers who decide to buy into Early Access, though, must remember that these games are not completed. Well, I'm sure most of us are intelligent enough to figure out as much. Yet, seeing the complains we sometimes get, I do wonder if that is the case. Not to say all feedback is bad though, since it could very much help improve the game. But if you're screaming for the developers to go kill themselves, I really wonder if you like to see the game get completed. (Even zombie games cannot be developed by dead people you know? )

Like it or not, this idea of releasing first, fixing later, has permeated into every facet of the games industry, affecting even those who have the budget and resources to finish development before publishing. (Have you been playing any of Ubisoft's games recently? Ever feel like you're playing some no name indie free to play game?[Oops I lied. Talking about Ubisoft again...]) More indie developers actually take more pride in their work then some of these better known studios these days. A SHAMEFUL DISPLAY!

Do we blame Early Access then? Possibly. The fact is, no matter what new practice of taking advanvtage of thier customers or monetizing format it is, Activision, EA, and Ubisoft will want a slice of it. Free-to-play? Check. "Indie"? Check. Micro-transactions? Check, check, double, triple, quadruple, milliono,  billiono-luple check. Ultimately, players decide whether this is "good" practice by our purchases; we pay, they exploit.

Is gaming going to crash again? I hope not and I doubt so. But if publishers continue to find ways to screw gamers over, we might eventually push back, hard. And the increasing reliance on the internet is worrying.  If internet providers continue to limit the bandwidth and speed of their customers in exchange for higher subscription prices, always online and huge monstrous patches might really cause a video game crash.

Can It or Use It?

Most of us have heard of Blizzard's cancelling of Titan as well as the reveal of Overwatch by now. It's also no secret that Overwatch is most likely what Titan evolved into. Take the Overwatch trailer for example. The ending scene that "the world could use more heroes" just seem like an MMO recruitment speech.

When Titan was cancelled, many were surprised that Blizzard was willing to do so after the time and money spent into making the game, even more so when we learnt that no employees were fired after the announcement. If we just look at other companies in the industry, we'd see that most news of game cancellation would be followed by a studio closing down, even if it were no fault of the developers. But I suspect that more of these 'bad' games would still be published anyway just so they can minimise the losses. But from the looks of things, the developed assets aren't actually wasted, but put to use in 'another' game.

Still, Blizzard's willingness to can games is respectable. Developers get attached to their games, whether it be good or bad. After all, the time and effort that one puts into a game is not to be underestimated, especially 1 of Blizzard's scale and quality. Blizzard has the advantage of being able to reuse their assets in other games, however, a privilege that not all studios have. Most studios work on only a game at a time, and publishers tend not to be so forgiving of a 'bad' project. And does the publisher actually have the right to take the assets and give it to another studio working on another game?

I guess we really can't blame a developer for not being willing to cancel a game that's not going to be too good. At times, developers may be so attached to their baby that they can't see that it is bad. Publishers will also pressurise the developers to publish something that they can at least recoup their losses from. But given time and resources, perhaps change can be made to make it more serviceable? Buggy games though, are less forgivable. All in all, much as I like to say so, but we can't really expect bad games to be cancelled altogether. We just have to exercise better judgement and not jump into games based on hype and marketing. Another repeat of the same lesson... Re you getting sick of it yet?

Triple A, Triple Trash?

I hate to start the year with such a negative post, but what in the world is wrong with publishers these days? It was Activision, then EA and now Ubisoft. For EA though, who has been trying to get their act together and failing, having Ubisoft take over gamer ire is a good thing.

It is no longer news that Ubisoft publishes buggy, and unfortunately, outright broken games. I had stopped boycotting them for their always-online DRM. But before they could publish anything worth my time, they start with their nonsense yet again. Granted, other companies like Blizzard has also been punishing gamers with always-online DRM, and also games that don't work on launch (yes, if your game requires an online connection and the problem is not with the game but the server, it is still NOT working) but at least they keep their products up to date with constant patches and fixes. Ubisoft, however, takes too long to patch their games, instead, focusing their efforts on the next game in the series. With them constantly eroding their customer's trust, I wonder how long it will be before we totally lose faith in them?

I have talked about this before, and I feel that I'm beating on a dead horse, but publishers are taking the internet for granted. Instead of it being a tool to help keep their games updated and providing quality content post launch, they are using it as an excuse to publish games without proper testing, the assumption being that they'll get around to fixing it. Gamers, expecting them to actually take pride in their work, purchase these games on day 1, often times ending up downloading a patch nearly as large as the game itself on installation, only to find game breaking bugs preventing progress. And what makes it worse is that the fixes either take too long or don't happen at all. Have we been too naive to think that the devs will patch their games? After all, they did not actually promise they'll do so, and nowhere on the box does it state that they will. Recently, there are cases where developers have come out and outright say they will no longer patch their games. So, the internet is only for DRM as well as for us to buy DLC, right? And if the sequel is coming right up, do you seriously think that fixes are coming? Which is going to make them money, a fix to a published game, or developing a new title? There have been talks on whether reviews should be updated as games are patched. Granted, this probably applies more to MMOs and free to play, where games can change a lot over time, but it seems more important now that bugs be mentioned in reviews and updates are really necessary since patches aren't necessary.

Perhaps I'm a bit too harsh because I'm not really interested in most Ubisoft games. They tend to follow the same style, borrow mechanics from each of their games and more or less play the same. These days, I tend to wait for game of the year or complete editions since they have all the DLCs and bug fixes, but recently, even complete editions don't have all DLCs (cough, Gearbox, Borderlands 2, cough) and even come with bugs the developers never got around to fixing. Its disappointing, but I do think if games aren't working, they are not complete and do not deserve full price. It sucks that we can't support developers for the games they make, but if this goes on, perhaps more people will stop buying games at full price and wait for discounts. Perhaps more people will choose to wait for fixes and, at that time, pick up used copies that would have inevitably be available by then, denying the publishers and developers the money for those sales. A shame for sure, but I can't really bring myself to say they don't deserve the lost in sales.

The lesson to learn here is the same as the lesson from every other post I've made. Don't but games on day-one, wait for reviews. And if it is a sequel of a sequel of a sequel of a sequel that comes out every year, why in the world are you still paying for the same game!? (OK not really the same game, I'm exaggerating. Go ahead and buy the sequel if you really like the series but don't keep complaining that it's the same thing year after year if you're willing to pay for the same thing year after year.)

Streaming Blizzard Games through Steam

The Nvidia Shield is really tempting. Having just one PC at home capable of gaming, and having it situated in my bedroom means that sometimes, I just can't play if my wife and child are sleeping. When Steam Home Streaming was announced, I was thrilled. The problem was, the only other laptops I have are a netbook, and a notebook more than 10 years old. Would it actually work on these devices?

The amazing thing (or perhaps not if you understand how streaming works...) is that it does work. While I've yet to try it on the netbook, I can play games on the old machine. Frame rate does become an issue on certain games, and I've yet to properly troubleshoot so I can't say if it can be improved, but, it does work quite well. Ideally, you want to stream Steam games, but you can actually add other 'non-Steam' games to Steam to make it work.

Simply clicking 'Add a Non-Steam Game to my Library' does not work with Blizzard games though, likely because of the laucher app. Here are some troubleshooting tips I got from forums:

1) Select 'browse' at the 'Add a Non-Steam Game to my Library' window and navigate to the folder with your game and select the .exe file.

2) If you can't find the .exe file, or it doesn't work with Steam, try the folder 'Support'. Sometimes, the file will come with a 'Switcher' in the file name. For example: "E:\Program Files\Heroes of the Storm\Support\HeroesSwitcher.exe"

3) Add a -launch after the file name. For example: "C:\Program Files\Diablo III\Diablo III.exe" -launch

Hope these tips help if you want to stream through Steam. I haven't been able to get Hearthstone to work though, but when Android tablets and smart phone support comes, we won't need to. For now, Splashtop streaming to tablet works for me if I don't manage to steal my wife's iPad 2 to play.

FPS and Resolution

Next gen has become current gen, and gamers are expecting better graphics on their games. 1080p is the talk of the town, and the debate between 60 and 30 frames per second (fps) continue to rage on. Developers tout 30fps as the way to go for the 'cinematic' feel and that 1080p is not important if the game looks good.

Frankly, I don't really care how 'amazing' a game looks if it plays well and controls are responsive. And that's why 1080p or not, it doesn't really matter to me. And that is also the reason why 30 fps doesn't cut it for me. You see, 30 fps makes the game feel laggy - control input just doesn't reflect on screen fast enough. I never understand why people can't tell the difference, but I'll try to guess.

Perhaps these people just aren't experienced gamers. For example, fighting game experts can get the timing of combos down to the frame, while noobs like me struggle to even understand recovery frames. Perhaps the majority of people simply are not good enough at gaming yet to sense the lag in the control on a 30 fps game. Perhaps all they've been exposed to are console 30 fps games and thus are unable to realize how much smoother 60 and above is.

It is best then, that game developers keep these gamers ignorant, and can continue to get away with a lower frame rate. Then, they can continue to push intense graphics at the expense of game play. For people like me who have been exposed to higher frame rates though, it is too bad. It's a shame, but the games we get to enjoy will be much less.

Why Cater to Casuals and 'Free' Players?

Nothing upsets a hardcore player more than to hear of his favorite series becoming more 'accessible' or 'casual friendly'. Certain games like the Souls series can be punishingly hard, and yet have a huge following. Yet in general, games are getting easier and easier, so much so that normal mode has become easy and easy is basically faceroll.

What we gamers sometimes fail to realize, is that it might not be the devs that make the call, but it is the publishers' attempt to get more sales. Hard and deep games might attract gamers looking for a challenge but a majority of gamers will not be able to get into it. It is no wonder then, that catering to casual gamers becomes very attractive.

That's not to say that devs don't have a reason to simplify their games too. No matter what, much effort have been put into making these games and it is natural that we want others to see the fruit of our labor. Blizzard's choice to include Raid Finder in World of Warcraft has allowed less hardcore players to experience their raids. Yes, it's more effort to create different difficulties, but the art assets, the encounter designs and the lore are not wasted. It also gives casual gamers something to do in the end game and keep them subscribed.

And when it comes to multiplayer games, having more players make for a vibrant community. Be it hardcore or casual, having a larger number of players is crucial at the very least, for the matchmaking to work. Even if they are non-paying players in a free-to-play game, devs have to keep them playing. Imagine having to queue for hours to get into a game. 'Casuals' do get better too, and with proper matchmaking, hard core players shouldn't run into the not so skilled (provided there are enough players playing; see where this is going?)

Ultimately, it boils down to good game design. A good casual and hard core friendly game should be easy to pick up, hard to master. And even then, the balancing between the hard core and casual will remain a delicate art.