Piracy never has and never will impact the industry sufficiently.FPSMadPaul said:
OT: Fascist DRM, inflated prices and clones are hurting the industry.
Poll: What's really hurting the Game industry?
- Thread starter UnknownGunslinger
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OT: Fascist DRM, inflated prices and clones are hurting the industry.
Honestly, I think the biggest problem is that modern devs seem to view Piracy and Used Games on about the same level.
We not only get DRM, but those stupid online passes as well. If the industry would just accept that used games are a HUGE market, it would be better for everyone.
We not only get DRM, but those stupid online passes as well. If the industry would just accept that used games are a HUGE market, it would be better for everyone.
That everyone here has just lost The Game?UnknownGunslinger said:
Nothing's hurting the game industry. It's evolving and losing strands that it can't support. The problem is the feral pirates and publishers that want everything for nothing. And it's their warfare through DRM that's causing huge chunks of money to be wasted.
The massive wait between decent games, with bloated AAAass games coming out all the time with critics sucking their asses, only the games to be average and...well...short, for a fullgame price. I've spent more time on Dead Island for $100NZD than the five hours of Modern Warfare 2 for $150, and Dead Island got a lot of average reviews, while people worship MW2 like it came from gods own golden rectum.
I think pre-owned sales are most hurting the industry but I think piracy is what is most hurting the players.
It is causing fearful publishers and keeping creativity low. They have to sell what a LOT of people buy not just what enough people buy because the less than Triple A stuff gets pirated out of turning a profit.
It is causing fearful publishers and keeping creativity low. They have to sell what a LOT of people buy not just what enough people buy because the less than Triple A stuff gets pirated out of turning a profit.
I'd really have to say all of the above and other. Just like there was no one reason that caused the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, there's no one reason for the dip in the game's industry. Here's my reasons and my logic behind it:
Piracy: This is definitely hurting PC games more than anything else, I remember reading somewhere that something like 50% of people playing PC games are using pirated copies. Now I don't put much faith in statistics, but even if there's a slight truth to that, it's a pretty high number. Now there are a lot of reasons for this, one is the fact that it's not always easy to find PC games by means other then download, and that doesn't always sit well with people. I find it kind of pathetic that the Target next to my GameStop has a better PC game selection. Sure there are download clients like Steam and GOG to give an alternative, but there's also a lot of torrent sites, and for some people free will always be the first option.
Pre-owned sales: I guess this one still kind of baffles me because I've been buying games pre-owned from EB Games and GameStop since the '90's and it's only really the last year or two that I've heard publishers and developers bemoaning like it's the end of the industry. Now perhaps that's my fault for not listening, but the idea is still pretty new to me so my mind is still set in the old gamer mindset. I can definitely see their point, game retailers like GameStop make huge profits off of buying used games for minimal costs and selling them for higher costs. Besides that, online distributors like Amazon, Half.com, and Gamefly all have a system set up for selling used games that ensure it's all profit for the seller. Again, it kind of touches on my piracy argument that people will go for the cheaper option most of the time, and with the fact that pirating games for consoles is much harder, people will look at the used rack and find that the game they're looking for is $20 cheaper. I had this happen when I went looking for Time Shift, new it was $29 and used it was $5.99, which one do you think I went with? I think that once developers start withholding important parts of the game because you've bought a pre-owned game, that's when the industry will really be in trouble.
DRM: Again I think this is more of a problem with PC gaming at the moment, but it'll definitely start to affect console gaming in the near future. In my mind it's a symbol is distrust and animosity between the provider and the consumer. This "always online" thing can be really annoying for people like me who have spotty internet that constantly drops them because of old wiring, or the percentage of people who don't have Internet. I know it might seem hard to believe, but there still is a number of people who only use the Internet in public places. Besides the always online stuff, there's the only 1 save file like in the new Resident Evil Mercenaries game for the 3DS, which pretty much means you can't sell it, and with that kind of gameplay, the amusement will subside, and then you're stuck with something you can't really get rid of for something that might be more interesting.
Micro transactions: Because I've scorned online play completely I'll have to feign ignorance to this one. That said though, I really have a tough time trying to figure out how a hat in Team Fortress 2 could be so damned important that you're going to shell out real money. When I listened to the Escapist Podcast where they were talking about micro transactions I was pretty shocked that hats have become a currency. It also really illustrated how much the industry has changed since I stopped playing online multiplayer in 2004. I don't know if games are already doing this, but if developers and publishers start giving people that extra edge in multiplayer for shelling out real money (on top of what they paid for the game) for a new weapon that unbalances gameplay, that's a sign that a line has been crossed.
Inflated AAA Costs/ Reviews: I think Jim was really onto something last week in that little column with Yahtzee and MovieBob. AAA games do cost a lot, but they also cost a lot to make, so there's no real way to recoup costs unless they charge that much. That said though, $60 is quite a bit of money, and not everyone is going to be willing to spend it on a new IP, so I think a tier pricing system is a good idea. Games that you know are going to sell well no matter what should be $60, but games that are a bit of a gamble should cost less, to entice people to give them a try without fear of wasting a chunk of change. Worked for me with Deadly Premonition. I also think that video game reviews are part of the problem here, because a game that gets under 80/100 really has a hard time getting people to take a chance.
Focus on Multiplayer: This can kind of be tied to the high costs argument I suppose, but charging $60 for a game that is only fun when other people play is just fucked up. I was genuinely intrigued when Game Informer published an article on Borderlands in the September 2007 issue, that was really the only media of the game I read before I bought the game shortly after it came out in 2009 and I was incredibly disappointed with the final product. As I've said a couple of times already in this post, I don't play online anymore, and I haven't for about 7 years now. Games cost too much for a developer to really only focus on the multiplayer aspect while confining the single player campaign to a second thought. I know this isn't the case with all games, and that this point is usually over exaggerated by proponents of a single player focus, but in the last 4-years I've really felt like my wants in a game have taken a backseat to please the multiplayer audience, which probably vastly outnumbers us.
Lack of a future vision: Back in June (around the time of E3) Cracked published an article about the 6 ominous trends in video gaming, and I think lack of a future was the number one ominous trend. The Xbox 360 has been around for 6-years now, that's usually shelf life of a console, and yet the only confirmed new console for the 8th generation is the Wii U, which seems to be Nintendo's feeble attempt to recapture the hardcore gaming demographic they lost with the Wii. I can't blame Microsoft or Sony for letting their current consoles go on beyond the usual timeline, what with the high costs of creating a new console and getting developers to pump out the launch titles for the console. How much better can graphics really get though? I mean I've been playing games for over 20 years now and I've been them evolve from 8-bit to what we have with Battlefield 3 and it really looks like we're reaching the limit. I mean that was always the goal for the next generation of console and PC technology, get to that next stage of realism, and now it seems like we're on the verge of it, where do we go from there? People will get tired of series' pumping out sequels every year (I mean just look at the Guitar Hero series) and will demand something new, yet do we really have any idea of what that new thing will be? I don't see it yet, and I don't think a lot of other publishers see it yet either.
Games becoming popular: Okay I think I probably should put up this warning, I'm going to be speaking in HUGE generalities but there's just no way to really talk about it without sounding like a massive elitist douche, so I apologize in advance if I offend anybody and please feel free to tell me how full of shit I am. It won't change my mind, but if it makes you feel better then at least it's something right?
Video games for the longest time were made for geeks/ nerds/ whatever you call it. Geeks/nerds/whatever tend to be smarter than the average person, and that intellect was usually thrown into the games in some way. Looking back at the PC games I played as a kid in the late '80's, early '90's, I see a lot of the higher concept ideas were more openly discussed. Games had bit more of a "highbrow" attitude to it, a narrative that was a little more complex and well designed puzzles that are really a shell nowadays of what they use to be. I was a PC gamer in the '90's and my only console experience was playing with friends, so my augmentative points are more geared towards PC games, this isn't elitism, just me pulling points from my own experiences.
I first really noticed the popularity of games explode in 2004 with the releases of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2, which were both hugely popular with the jocks in my senior year of high school. Before then, talking openly about video games was a sign of your nerdity (for lack of a better word), but after 2004 I really noticed that video games were becoming accepted among mainstream society. As Nietzsche said in his arguments against democracy, focusing your attention on the most popular things will usually result in the intellectual aspect diminishing. I can't help but see this in popular music and movies, with far less thought provoking entertainment, and far more pretty pictures/ sounds to zone out to. Without that mental stimulation, the medium suffers, and I think that in the last 6-7 years, video gaming has suffered from a huge lack of mental stimulation in favor of pleasing the larger audience who just want something to zone out to.
Again please feel free to call me an elitist prick.
Lastly... old gamers like me unwilling to change with the times: The older you become, the more hostile to change you become. I still have a hard time seeing a console as a computer in which I can download games and stream movies from. To me that's what a computer is, a console was always the alternative to installing a game and hoping your computer can handle it. A console was far more limited in what it could do, but it was reliable in ways that a computer isn't always. I didn't have to download updates for a console game, or wait for it to boot up, it was just turn on the console, set the TV to channel 3 and go at it. Hell it even took me awhile to view downloading services like Steam as the way to go for my computer gaming needs.
I have very strong memories attached to gaming from a time that seemed more simple and happier, and with current gaming I just don't get that same feeling that I remember. My old man mind just has trouble comprehending the idea of micro transactions, of DLC, of completely skipping out on the single player campaign to exclusively play online, of disregarding the medium as a story telling device in favor of turning it into a competitive experience.
So yeah, I think I'm just as much a problem with the industry that has changed in the 20-years that I've been playing. It wants to cater to the new generation of gamers, but at the same time knows that there's millions of people like me who have certain expectations when it comes to a video game. Who's side does it choose? Or does it? Is there a middle ground?
I think the video games industry needs to find that middle ground in order to dig itself out of this rut it's been in for the last half decade, but how it does that I really have no answer.
Piracy: This is definitely hurting PC games more than anything else, I remember reading somewhere that something like 50% of people playing PC games are using pirated copies. Now I don't put much faith in statistics, but even if there's a slight truth to that, it's a pretty high number. Now there are a lot of reasons for this, one is the fact that it's not always easy to find PC games by means other then download, and that doesn't always sit well with people. I find it kind of pathetic that the Target next to my GameStop has a better PC game selection. Sure there are download clients like Steam and GOG to give an alternative, but there's also a lot of torrent sites, and for some people free will always be the first option.
Pre-owned sales: I guess this one still kind of baffles me because I've been buying games pre-owned from EB Games and GameStop since the '90's and it's only really the last year or two that I've heard publishers and developers bemoaning like it's the end of the industry. Now perhaps that's my fault for not listening, but the idea is still pretty new to me so my mind is still set in the old gamer mindset. I can definitely see their point, game retailers like GameStop make huge profits off of buying used games for minimal costs and selling them for higher costs. Besides that, online distributors like Amazon, Half.com, and Gamefly all have a system set up for selling used games that ensure it's all profit for the seller. Again, it kind of touches on my piracy argument that people will go for the cheaper option most of the time, and with the fact that pirating games for consoles is much harder, people will look at the used rack and find that the game they're looking for is $20 cheaper. I had this happen when I went looking for Time Shift, new it was $29 and used it was $5.99, which one do you think I went with? I think that once developers start withholding important parts of the game because you've bought a pre-owned game, that's when the industry will really be in trouble.
DRM: Again I think this is more of a problem with PC gaming at the moment, but it'll definitely start to affect console gaming in the near future. In my mind it's a symbol is distrust and animosity between the provider and the consumer. This "always online" thing can be really annoying for people like me who have spotty internet that constantly drops them because of old wiring, or the percentage of people who don't have Internet. I know it might seem hard to believe, but there still is a number of people who only use the Internet in public places. Besides the always online stuff, there's the only 1 save file like in the new Resident Evil Mercenaries game for the 3DS, which pretty much means you can't sell it, and with that kind of gameplay, the amusement will subside, and then you're stuck with something you can't really get rid of for something that might be more interesting.
Micro transactions: Because I've scorned online play completely I'll have to feign ignorance to this one. That said though, I really have a tough time trying to figure out how a hat in Team Fortress 2 could be so damned important that you're going to shell out real money. When I listened to the Escapist Podcast where they were talking about micro transactions I was pretty shocked that hats have become a currency. It also really illustrated how much the industry has changed since I stopped playing online multiplayer in 2004. I don't know if games are already doing this, but if developers and publishers start giving people that extra edge in multiplayer for shelling out real money (on top of what they paid for the game) for a new weapon that unbalances gameplay, that's a sign that a line has been crossed.
Inflated AAA Costs/ Reviews: I think Jim was really onto something last week in that little column with Yahtzee and MovieBob. AAA games do cost a lot, but they also cost a lot to make, so there's no real way to recoup costs unless they charge that much. That said though, $60 is quite a bit of money, and not everyone is going to be willing to spend it on a new IP, so I think a tier pricing system is a good idea. Games that you know are going to sell well no matter what should be $60, but games that are a bit of a gamble should cost less, to entice people to give them a try without fear of wasting a chunk of change. Worked for me with Deadly Premonition. I also think that video game reviews are part of the problem here, because a game that gets under 80/100 really has a hard time getting people to take a chance.
Focus on Multiplayer: This can kind of be tied to the high costs argument I suppose, but charging $60 for a game that is only fun when other people play is just fucked up. I was genuinely intrigued when Game Informer published an article on Borderlands in the September 2007 issue, that was really the only media of the game I read before I bought the game shortly after it came out in 2009 and I was incredibly disappointed with the final product. As I've said a couple of times already in this post, I don't play online anymore, and I haven't for about 7 years now. Games cost too much for a developer to really only focus on the multiplayer aspect while confining the single player campaign to a second thought. I know this isn't the case with all games, and that this point is usually over exaggerated by proponents of a single player focus, but in the last 4-years I've really felt like my wants in a game have taken a backseat to please the multiplayer audience, which probably vastly outnumbers us.
Lack of a future vision: Back in June (around the time of E3) Cracked published an article about the 6 ominous trends in video gaming, and I think lack of a future was the number one ominous trend. The Xbox 360 has been around for 6-years now, that's usually shelf life of a console, and yet the only confirmed new console for the 8th generation is the Wii U, which seems to be Nintendo's feeble attempt to recapture the hardcore gaming demographic they lost with the Wii. I can't blame Microsoft or Sony for letting their current consoles go on beyond the usual timeline, what with the high costs of creating a new console and getting developers to pump out the launch titles for the console. How much better can graphics really get though? I mean I've been playing games for over 20 years now and I've been them evolve from 8-bit to what we have with Battlefield 3 and it really looks like we're reaching the limit. I mean that was always the goal for the next generation of console and PC technology, get to that next stage of realism, and now it seems like we're on the verge of it, where do we go from there? People will get tired of series' pumping out sequels every year (I mean just look at the Guitar Hero series) and will demand something new, yet do we really have any idea of what that new thing will be? I don't see it yet, and I don't think a lot of other publishers see it yet either.
Games becoming popular: Okay I think I probably should put up this warning, I'm going to be speaking in HUGE generalities but there's just no way to really talk about it without sounding like a massive elitist douche, so I apologize in advance if I offend anybody and please feel free to tell me how full of shit I am. It won't change my mind, but if it makes you feel better then at least it's something right?
Video games for the longest time were made for geeks/ nerds/ whatever you call it. Geeks/nerds/whatever tend to be smarter than the average person, and that intellect was usually thrown into the games in some way. Looking back at the PC games I played as a kid in the late '80's, early '90's, I see a lot of the higher concept ideas were more openly discussed. Games had bit more of a "highbrow" attitude to it, a narrative that was a little more complex and well designed puzzles that are really a shell nowadays of what they use to be. I was a PC gamer in the '90's and my only console experience was playing with friends, so my augmentative points are more geared towards PC games, this isn't elitism, just me pulling points from my own experiences.
I first really noticed the popularity of games explode in 2004 with the releases of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2, which were both hugely popular with the jocks in my senior year of high school. Before then, talking openly about video games was a sign of your nerdity (for lack of a better word), but after 2004 I really noticed that video games were becoming accepted among mainstream society. As Nietzsche said in his arguments against democracy, focusing your attention on the most popular things will usually result in the intellectual aspect diminishing. I can't help but see this in popular music and movies, with far less thought provoking entertainment, and far more pretty pictures/ sounds to zone out to. Without that mental stimulation, the medium suffers, and I think that in the last 6-7 years, video gaming has suffered from a huge lack of mental stimulation in favor of pleasing the larger audience who just want something to zone out to.
Again please feel free to call me an elitist prick.
Lastly... old gamers like me unwilling to change with the times: The older you become, the more hostile to change you become. I still have a hard time seeing a console as a computer in which I can download games and stream movies from. To me that's what a computer is, a console was always the alternative to installing a game and hoping your computer can handle it. A console was far more limited in what it could do, but it was reliable in ways that a computer isn't always. I didn't have to download updates for a console game, or wait for it to boot up, it was just turn on the console, set the TV to channel 3 and go at it. Hell it even took me awhile to view downloading services like Steam as the way to go for my computer gaming needs.
I have very strong memories attached to gaming from a time that seemed more simple and happier, and with current gaming I just don't get that same feeling that I remember. My old man mind just has trouble comprehending the idea of micro transactions, of DLC, of completely skipping out on the single player campaign to exclusively play online, of disregarding the medium as a story telling device in favor of turning it into a competitive experience.
So yeah, I think I'm just as much a problem with the industry that has changed in the 20-years that I've been playing. It wants to cater to the new generation of gamers, but at the same time knows that there's millions of people like me who have certain expectations when it comes to a video game. Who's side does it choose? Or does it? Is there a middle ground?
I think the video games industry needs to find that middle ground in order to dig itself out of this rut it's been in for the last half decade, but how it does that I really have no answer.
They're paying people that have nothing whatsoever to DO with the games industry, but whatever. As long as they're paying someone, right?FPSMadPaul said:
Heck if pirates started dropping $20 dollars down a well every time they downloaded a game, people would probably start to think that piracy was perfectly fine.
/sarcasm
Well, one thing to consider is that if "wait for the price to lower becomes a common mindset in an economy, it means the pricepoint is too high for a lot of people. Not that they are stingy. The best way to explain this is an example from an old commission job of mine.Veldt Falsetto said:
There was a product I had to sale because it was perishable. It lasted roughly 3 months and then was no longer good for sale. It's "sticker price" was $60. We were not allowed to sell them for less tha $25 and selling for $25 was looked down on. The compny didn't want you to sell it for less than $35-40 but you wouldn't get in trouble so long as you also were pulling in high sales too.
Anyways, the point is me and a guy I worked with had different views. I was OK with taking any $25 dollar sale I could and he would not do them. He swore by hardball sales because the company told him (they told everybody) that THAT is where the money is. That is how you become an awesome salesman. THAT is how you make high paychecks every week. There is definitely truth in that but there is one problem. I sold on average probably ~20 $25 sales month. The bulk of my sales, like anyone else, was $40s - probably ~55. Then I had around ~25 $60 sales. Now, figure I made about 35% commision off of my sales. Without the 25s, that is $1295 which isn't bad. But those $25 sales would pull me in an additional $200.
But $25 dollars is such a low price point on a $60 dollar item, I used it to fish out who was interested at all vs. those who weren't. "Tire kickers" will act like they don't give a shit about the item trying to play hardball. As well, 90% of my 25 dollar sales I honestly believe were just people having a rough time monetarily and I would bend for them. That is an average week though. The point of this, is there were weeks where times were tough and I made bread and butter out of $25 sales. There was a month where I got a check for $800 of which most of them were $25 sales. It was rough, but in that same month other guys I worked with were getting paid $100-200 from commission.
The moral is know your customer. Your example shows that price point is hurting things. A stubborn salesman will swear by his price point to play hardball. But if it just isn't worth it to the customer they just won't buy and there is nothing "bad" about that. They re trying to pay a morgage and grocery bills with their income, not raise a stock. The salesman needs to bend to consumer demands.
Dropping your price is a last resort in sales. However, the first rule in sles is that a lower price point means a larger market. If games dropped to $40 tomorrow on consoles, how many people do you think would engorge themselves in games for the next few years because of it? I think dropping the price point to $40 would make game sales triple on release day. 2 million copies at $60 is less than 4 million at $40 and that is only if it doubled. They get their price low enough, and they could even enter into the "impulse buy" market again.
They know it too, don't think microtransactions have went unnoticed:
OT: I think it is PR that is hurting it the most. Pubs and devs are actually trolling their own market. Calling used game buyers "worse than theives". The use of the term "hardcore". DRMs and the "War on piracy" is basically a campaign to treat your paying customers like criminals, dropping highly wanted titles because they can't "exploit" them in multi-sequels. I get pissed almost everytime I read an interview with an executive in gaming. They don't know their consumer base. They have no idea who they are marketing what to. The people that own X-com have no fucking clue why the original is praised so much. Hell, up until Xenonauts no one has made a good reiteration of the game. Every attempt to remake that success they add something fucking retarded and it turns out not as good. The just don't identify their market. I voted Other but it is really a "all of the above" vote.
For me it's the ridiculous prices. Have you SEEN Modern Warfare 3's price? 50 ... EURO!!! That's waaaaaay to much a game like this. And you know what the sad thing is? People will buy it. Little children pestering their parents will get it. The devs will swim in their money pool and I will cry.
Also, DRM. It's like the developers are doing everything they can to piss us off. Seriously devs, a cracked version is released literally HOURS after your game hits the shelves. Why do you do this?
Piracy is the product of those two evils. If developers do everything they can to please their audience, without selling out, their game will sell. Squeezing out our wallets and forcing us to have internet connection is not gonna win them any favors.
Also, DRM. It's like the developers are doing everything they can to piss us off. Seriously devs, a cracked version is released literally HOURS after your game hits the shelves. Why do you do this?
Piracy is the product of those two evils. If developers do everything they can to please their audience, without selling out, their game will sell. Squeezing out our wallets and forcing us to have internet connection is not gonna win them any favors.
I'd take that but games are £40 here and people are sitting here complaining that a game like Skyrim that'll easily reach 100 hours is too expensive but going out and going to buy Modern Warfare 3 on release even though it's ten pounds more expensive. How does that make any sense? And when people think like that, how on earth are they going to buy experimental games at full price, they won't, they'll ignore anything that isn't safe because it costs them too much. I personally think £40 for about 18 hours of entertainment plus replay value and some money back if you trade it in is a very good deal. Films give you max 3 hours of entertainment and can often sell for £20 yet no one complains about that.Savagezion said:
I think we're doing pretty well all considering, but if I had to say what's doing the most damage to chip away at the huge cliffs of money that is most developers like E.A.
Probably piracy, people are swiftly realizing if they don't want multiplayer that badly - torrenting is terribly easy to do if you like a game enough to want it but not enough to actually buy it.
Probably piracy, people are swiftly realizing if they don't want multiplayer that badly - torrenting is terribly easy to do if you like a game enough to want it but not enough to actually buy it.
I voted AAA prices
The more expensive a game gets to make, the less risks the people making the games are going to take, which is going to lead to some ridiculous stagnation that we're kinda already seeing. And as game prices rise, consumers that want to play the games but can't afford to will either not buy the game or pirate it instead. And to prevent people from taking that second path, the honest consumers will get hit by worse DRM.
And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if harsher DRM actually pushes more people toward piracy. Remember back when it was claimed that Spore had unbreakable DRM, then went on to be one of the most heavily pirated games out there? I remember reading about people who had no interest in playing the game pirating it anyway, then immediately deleting it, just out of protest.
So yeah... I see a whole lot of problems with the game industry, but I see the money being put into AAA releases as being he source for a number of the bigger problems.
The more expensive a game gets to make, the less risks the people making the games are going to take, which is going to lead to some ridiculous stagnation that we're kinda already seeing. And as game prices rise, consumers that want to play the games but can't afford to will either not buy the game or pirate it instead. And to prevent people from taking that second path, the honest consumers will get hit by worse DRM.
And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if harsher DRM actually pushes more people toward piracy. Remember back when it was claimed that Spore had unbreakable DRM, then went on to be one of the most heavily pirated games out there? I remember reading about people who had no interest in playing the game pirating it anyway, then immediately deleting it, just out of protest.
So yeah... I see a whole lot of problems with the game industry, but I see the money being put into AAA releases as being he source for a number of the bigger problems.
Yeah, I'll concede to that. That is an interest thing. Anyone who is willing to buy MW3 at full price and Skyrim wait for a price drop is probably more of a casual social gamer. It is even possible that that was many of the people the industry is marketing all these brown FPSs to. I have a hard time getting on board with MW3 is worth full price but not a triple A RPG. I won't be getting Skyrim but I will be buying Arkham City on release. Will probbly also be buying Dues Ex soon. Personally, I wish games were $50. That 10 extra dollars is costing me a game every year at this point in time. BUt I also recognize I am squabbling over 10 dollars. However, I will admit it is 20 bucks is the reason I don't own Dues Ex right now. Unless we use my extra game a year if they were 50 argument. Then that is the reason. I want it, but things are too tight right now. It will probably be a one to three months before I get Dues Ex already.Veldt Falsetto said:
There are two things hurting the game industry. The game industry itself, and consumers. They keep remaking the same unoriginal shit year after year, then each of these shits gets 5 sequels each. Even then, after so many years of practice, they still manage to fuck up gameplay, ports, graphics etc. without actually improving anything. And guess what? Millions of people still buy them.
I'm told the economy is screwed up, yet there are so many people with more money than sense that can afford to buy this crap.
I'm told the economy is screwed up, yet there are so many people with more money than sense that can afford to buy this crap.
Developers. Some are lazy, most are out of touch. Examples include Blizzard and their copy & paste methods, Gearbox and their opinion that 2 weapon systems are old school and 2K thinking nobody likes turn based strategy.
Then there are those developers that like to shove scripted events in your face every five minutes down a linear path as if they were sitting next to you and screaming "SEE THAT? IT'S GREAT ISN'T IT! SHINY!" every time.
I wont even start on developers who think things like phones and Apple OS gaming are the ways forward. They are beyond help.
And as for used sales? If they don't want customers to trade them away they should ask themselves why they are doing it. Not punish them for doing so.
Then there are those developers that like to shove scripted events in your face every five minutes down a linear path as if they were sitting next to you and screaming "SEE THAT? IT'S GREAT ISN'T IT! SHINY!" every time.
I wont even start on developers who think things like phones and Apple OS gaming are the ways forward. They are beyond help.
And as for used sales? If they don't want customers to trade them away they should ask themselves why they are doing it. Not punish them for doing so.