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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.
Showing posts with label pre-order bonuses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pre-order bonuses. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Gamers Pre-order Win
Well, there you go. Someone has come out to say that pre-orders are dropping. With the large numbers of crap games coming out and the anti consumer pre-order bonuses, it's no wonder that even the fan-boy-iest of fan boys have started to rethink pre-ordering.
Something that has been happening more and more is that developers are removing parts of the game and using them as pre-order incentives. Alien: Isolation is one example where they are clearly working on the dlc before the game is out but those who don't pre-order will be paying full price for part of the game.
Pre-orders have their place like for limited stocks of collector's editions or niche games which retailers do not want to stock up too many copies of. But if you continue to exploit people like these, especially when the games are sold digitally, you're going to lose your customers.
I am still not buying games with pre-order bonuses where you get an incomplete game if you don't. Sorry, but I'm not going to pay full price for part of the game. I may get it when the price drops out when a game of the year edition with all the dlcs is released. Or I may just play the newest game that is released then and skip yours altogether.
Something that has been happening more and more is that developers are removing parts of the game and using them as pre-order incentives. Alien: Isolation is one example where they are clearly working on the dlc before the game is out but those who don't pre-order will be paying full price for part of the game.
Pre-orders have their place like for limited stocks of collector's editions or niche games which retailers do not want to stock up too many copies of. But if you continue to exploit people like these, especially when the games are sold digitally, you're going to lose your customers.
I am still not buying games with pre-order bonuses where you get an incomplete game if you don't. Sorry, but I'm not going to pay full price for part of the game. I may get it when the price drops out when a game of the year edition with all the dlcs is released. Or I may just play the newest game that is released then and skip yours altogether.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Pay to Beta Test?
Once upon a time, the purpose of beta tests was to detect and iron out bugs before games were released. Betas were free and sometimes, testers were even paid specially to search for bugs that normally wouldn't be detected in a casual play through.
Now, a 'beta' is more like a demo for the masses to try out a game. Sometimes, they were an incentive to pre-order a title. But mostly, they are hype builders and advertisements, and as such, betas are open only if the developers know the game is any good, or is it?
Betas can get away with a lot of issues; after all, a game that is still a work in progress can be excused right? Well, currently, people can purchase games that are still incomplete in the form of early access games. Some of these games are like this because of kickstarter backer rewards in the form of alpha and beta access. However, there are games that have been in 'beta' for a long time, raking in sales while being excused of their brokenness. And what is the incentive of coming out of beta? Will people still be interested in a game that has been on the market for so long? Can a game get away with bugs and incompleteness by being perpetually in beta or alpha?
Free to play games have gotten in the 'beta' fever as well. In closed the alphas and betas of many games, we are given the option of buying into the game. These 'founder packs' are a way to make impatient people pay for an otherwise free title. Should the game be officially 'released' and open to everyone, will these people actually pay any amount of money? It's hard to tell, but certainly there will be some who won't. Is there an issue to this? Probably not, but it's important to note that for most of these games, you can buy stuff with real money even in alpha or beta, and there are cases where the game gets shut down, never to be 'released'. What happens to the money spent on buying in and on items in the cash shop?
I have a few games on early access because I helped kickstart the games, and in the initial phases, they were pretty unplayable, which, funnily enough, meant it was a real beta. However, I realized this would spoil the game for me on official release if I spent too much time, not story-wise, but in the sense that the game might start to bore me. Probably this won't be an issue for most people and most games, but for multi player games, losing people before official release is not a good thing.
Yes, I know you feel like a beta tester playing Battlefield 3, but at least they were brave enough to put it out for critique, so that might be another post. I am not too keen on paying to beta test, but if playing broken games is your thing, feel free. But beware of games that never get released, or you might just end up like a kickstarter backer who gave money for a game that ends up in the void, never to see the light of day.
Now, a 'beta' is more like a demo for the masses to try out a game. Sometimes, they were an incentive to pre-order a title. But mostly, they are hype builders and advertisements, and as such, betas are open only if the developers know the game is any good, or is it?
Betas can get away with a lot of issues; after all, a game that is still a work in progress can be excused right? Well, currently, people can purchase games that are still incomplete in the form of early access games. Some of these games are like this because of kickstarter backer rewards in the form of alpha and beta access. However, there are games that have been in 'beta' for a long time, raking in sales while being excused of their brokenness. And what is the incentive of coming out of beta? Will people still be interested in a game that has been on the market for so long? Can a game get away with bugs and incompleteness by being perpetually in beta or alpha?
Free to play games have gotten in the 'beta' fever as well. In closed the alphas and betas of many games, we are given the option of buying into the game. These 'founder packs' are a way to make impatient people pay for an otherwise free title. Should the game be officially 'released' and open to everyone, will these people actually pay any amount of money? It's hard to tell, but certainly there will be some who won't. Is there an issue to this? Probably not, but it's important to note that for most of these games, you can buy stuff with real money even in alpha or beta, and there are cases where the game gets shut down, never to be 'released'. What happens to the money spent on buying in and on items in the cash shop?
I have a few games on early access because I helped kickstart the games, and in the initial phases, they were pretty unplayable, which, funnily enough, meant it was a real beta. However, I realized this would spoil the game for me on official release if I spent too much time, not story-wise, but in the sense that the game might start to bore me. Probably this won't be an issue for most people and most games, but for multi player games, losing people before official release is not a good thing.
Yes, I know you feel like a beta tester playing Battlefield 3, but at least they were brave enough to put it out for critique, so that might be another post. I am not too keen on paying to beta test, but if playing broken games is your thing, feel free. But beware of games that never get released, or you might just end up like a kickstarter backer who gave money for a game that ends up in the void, never to see the light of day.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Why Can't I Buy the Game I Want to Play?
I spoke up a lot on this blog with regards to why I don't want to support certain games. It could be a certain form of DRM, or some monetization issue, or a piece of pre-order bonus. Why is this an issue to us gamers? Shouldn't we be thankful to the developers for making such great games for us? Shouldn't we cut them some slack and give them the money they deserve?
Actually, it is understandable when companies choose to use DRM like always-online requirements to fight piracy. Piracy is a problem, and it does eat into sales, and in truth, having a game connect to a server and having parts of the game run server side is a very powerful form of DRM that can be almost impossible to crack, unless the pirates manage to duplicate the server's role somehow. Whether or not having DRM will get people, who would otherwise download the game to actually pay for the game is another matter (there's no reason to believe they would still want the game if it's not free), but we can understand where game developers are coming from. The problem with always-online is obvious, server issues, internet provider issues, companies closing down, or shutting down servers; the fact is, technology is just not good enough yet, whether it's the game company or internet providers. And in many countries, internet is limited by data caps, and subscription is not cheap. Perhaps one day, when speeds can finally be fast and internet, reliable, and accessible anywhere and anytime without latency issues and wiring requirement, perhaps then, can we accept always-online. Now, however, it is just not acceptable, though we tend to be more forgiving if it's free-to-play.
Other issues like pre-order bonus and DLCs are just there to encourage sales, which technically isn't wrong. But it opens up abuse. Pre-order bonuses are content created before the game is released, meaning potentially, it could be something originally in the game, something purposely removed from the game just before release to, 1) encourage people to buy before reviews are out, i.e. trick people into buying a bad game, and 2) get people who didn't order the game to fork out more money for content that should be in there originally, effectively increase the price of the game by $5 to $15. Not a bad deal for the company at all.
These are things gamers don't want, and yet, we still buy games that have all these issues. The message we are sending to companies is that we don't mind their exploitation, as long as we get good games. They can inconvenience us however they want with DRM; they can sell us five minutes of content at a time for $15 dollars each; they can make crappy games full of bugs, log in issues and with server issues and we'll pay for them without waiting for reviews. They can do all these, and we won't mind. If we keep sending out these signals, companies will keep testing the waters, keep exploiting us more and more, trying to see how far they can go before we react, and they will do it with games that people really want to play.
I'm not sure if it's worth fighting anymore. Perhaps gamers don't really care, and people who are complaining are just the vocal minority. Or people are really just stupid fan boys, complaining about every little misstep EA makes but worshipping at the feet of Blizzard that does no wrong. You know, both Sim City and Diablo 3 use server processing always-online DRM but only one of the companies finally made their game playable offline.
Actually, it is understandable when companies choose to use DRM like always-online requirements to fight piracy. Piracy is a problem, and it does eat into sales, and in truth, having a game connect to a server and having parts of the game run server side is a very powerful form of DRM that can be almost impossible to crack, unless the pirates manage to duplicate the server's role somehow. Whether or not having DRM will get people, who would otherwise download the game to actually pay for the game is another matter (there's no reason to believe they would still want the game if it's not free), but we can understand where game developers are coming from. The problem with always-online is obvious, server issues, internet provider issues, companies closing down, or shutting down servers; the fact is, technology is just not good enough yet, whether it's the game company or internet providers. And in many countries, internet is limited by data caps, and subscription is not cheap. Perhaps one day, when speeds can finally be fast and internet, reliable, and accessible anywhere and anytime without latency issues and wiring requirement, perhaps then, can we accept always-online. Now, however, it is just not acceptable, though we tend to be more forgiving if it's free-to-play.
Other issues like pre-order bonus and DLCs are just there to encourage sales, which technically isn't wrong. But it opens up abuse. Pre-order bonuses are content created before the game is released, meaning potentially, it could be something originally in the game, something purposely removed from the game just before release to, 1) encourage people to buy before reviews are out, i.e. trick people into buying a bad game, and 2) get people who didn't order the game to fork out more money for content that should be in there originally, effectively increase the price of the game by $5 to $15. Not a bad deal for the company at all.
These are things gamers don't want, and yet, we still buy games that have all these issues. The message we are sending to companies is that we don't mind their exploitation, as long as we get good games. They can inconvenience us however they want with DRM; they can sell us five minutes of content at a time for $15 dollars each; they can make crappy games full of bugs, log in issues and with server issues and we'll pay for them without waiting for reviews. They can do all these, and we won't mind. If we keep sending out these signals, companies will keep testing the waters, keep exploiting us more and more, trying to see how far they can go before we react, and they will do it with games that people really want to play.
I'm not sure if it's worth fighting anymore. Perhaps gamers don't really care, and people who are complaining are just the vocal minority. Or people are really just stupid fan boys, complaining about every little misstep EA makes but worshipping at the feet of Blizzard that does no wrong. You know, both Sim City and Diablo 3 use server processing always-online DRM but only one of the companies finally made their game playable offline.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Blizzard's Shift into Anti-Consumer Policies
Reaper of Souls has pre-order bonuses. And always-online DRM. And it almost has micro-transactions and pay-to-win elements. Almost.
How long will it be before we get into expensive, overpriced DLCs? And in-game content purposely removed from the finished product as pre-order bonuses or DLC? Or pay-to-enter betas?
I ranted about pre-order bonuses before. They encourage people to buy games before knowing if it will be any good. Granted, Blizzard is only giving out cosmetic items as pre-order incentives, but with regards to the Demon Hunter, not enough is known about Heroes of the Storm so it leaves to be seen if it will be an issue.
I guess I'm just sore because I've made it a point not to pre-order, and to not buy anything that has always-online at full price, and because I'm a collector, since I won't be getting the full package when I don't pre-order, it means I won't buy it in future even if there is a sale. (Yes, there are sales on the Blizzard store - Christmas and Black Friday.) AND because it crosses over to other Blizzard games, and I won't be able to complete my 'collection', I'll be giving up on collector's editions, digital deluxe editions or what not. Yes, I know I'm dumb for collecting games, but thanks to Blizzard, I won't have any IP that I'm devoted to anymore, so I can save my money.
The Aliens: Colonial Marines incident should have been a wake up call against pre-ordering games, and really, since it's on the online store, there is no need for Blizzard to get the numbers so they can stock up on copies. What reason is there but to bait people into making rash purchases? What annoys me is that because it is Blizzard, they can get away with absolute anything. If it were EA, the internet would have exploded in a rage equivalent to the detonation of a million nuclear warheads.
Edit: My bad. Turns out Blizzard actually announced that the 'pre-order loot' will be available till 31st March, i.e. after the launch so people can actually wait for reviews before purchasing, instead of buying blind. But then again, people thought Diablo 3 was good for the first few hours...
How long will it be before we get into expensive, overpriced DLCs? And in-game content purposely removed from the finished product as pre-order bonuses or DLC? Or pay-to-enter betas?
I ranted about pre-order bonuses before. They encourage people to buy games before knowing if it will be any good. Granted, Blizzard is only giving out cosmetic items as pre-order incentives, but with regards to the Demon Hunter, not enough is known about Heroes of the Storm so it leaves to be seen if it will be an issue.
I guess I'm just sore because I've made it a point not to pre-order, and to not buy anything that has always-online at full price, and because I'm a collector, since I won't be getting the full package when I don't pre-order, it means I won't buy it in future even if there is a sale. (Yes, there are sales on the Blizzard store - Christmas and Black Friday.) AND because it crosses over to other Blizzard games, and I won't be able to complete my 'collection', I'll be giving up on collector's editions, digital deluxe editions or what not. Yes, I know I'm dumb for collecting games, but thanks to Blizzard, I won't have any IP that I'm devoted to anymore, so I can save my money.
The Aliens: Colonial Marines incident should have been a wake up call against pre-ordering games, and really, since it's on the online store, there is no need for Blizzard to get the numbers so they can stock up on copies. What reason is there but to bait people into making rash purchases? What annoys me is that because it is Blizzard, they can get away with absolute anything. If it were EA, the internet would have exploded in a rage equivalent to the detonation of a million nuclear warheads.
Edit: My bad. Turns out Blizzard actually announced that the 'pre-order loot' will be available till 31st March, i.e. after the launch so people can actually wait for reviews before purchasing, instead of buying blind. But then again, people thought Diablo 3 was good for the first few hours...
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Metro Last Light Pre-order Bonus
Watching Angry Joe's rant on Metro Last Light brought this title onto my radar, and not in a good way. Actually I totally overlooked Metro 2033 even though I really like horror games, especially survival ones. I guess it was during the period where I was getting sick of first person shooters. If I had found out what kind of series the Metro games were in another circumstance, I might have purchased Metro 2033, and bought Metro Last Light once it's out. As it stands, removing a hard difficulty that's "the way it was meant to be played" and forcing players to either pre-purchase or buy it, is like selling the endings to games as DLC.
Is the publisher forcing players to pre-purchase because the game sucks, like Aliens: Colonial Marines did, or is this just a cash-grab? Should pre-order bonuses include essential content so that gamers can't play "the way it was meant to be played" so people will have to pre-order, without the chance to wait for reviews before deciding on the purchase? Would there be ridiculous pre-order bonuses in future, like mouse support for RTS and controller support for action games in future? Either way, things don't seem to bode well for gamers.
PC Gamer asked the publishers "If Metro: Last Light Ranger Mode is “the way it was meant to be played” why isn’t it included for all players? We ask Koch" Read it and see if you agree with them. At least they can now push the blame to retailers for whatever crap day-one, pre-purchase DLC they want to do from now on. Too bad gamers, deal with it.
Well, that's more money saved on a couple of games I would have bought. Thanks!
And here is AngryJoe's rant.
What bonuses do you think is ok and what's not? Is this pre-order trend good or bad, or is it just getting out of hand? Let us know in the comments.
Is the publisher forcing players to pre-purchase because the game sucks, like Aliens: Colonial Marines did, or is this just a cash-grab? Should pre-order bonuses include essential content so that gamers can't play "the way it was meant to be played" so people will have to pre-order, without the chance to wait for reviews before deciding on the purchase? Would there be ridiculous pre-order bonuses in future, like mouse support for RTS and controller support for action games in future? Either way, things don't seem to bode well for gamers.
PC Gamer asked the publishers "If Metro: Last Light Ranger Mode is “the way it was meant to be played” why isn’t it included for all players? We ask Koch" Read it and see if you agree with them. At least they can now push the blame to retailers for whatever crap day-one, pre-purchase DLC they want to do from now on. Too bad gamers, deal with it.
Well, that's more money saved on a couple of games I would have bought. Thanks!
And here is AngryJoe's rant.
What bonuses do you think is ok and what's not? Is this pre-order trend good or bad, or is it just getting out of hand? Let us know in the comments.
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