Todd Howard called out for blowing off PS3 owners.

[AndyFromMonday]

Being a 360 owner I want to feel as if this is unfair (which it is) but I see it as Karma saying 'here you go' as I can't get MGS4

MGS4? It's an interactive movie, I mean the gameplay is somewhat nice, but for f**ks sake I don't wanna spend half the time watching a damn movie.

Don't worry about MGS4, even Halo is better than that.

 

[GloatingSwine]

* Because some gamers suspect it, you should be asked this: Did Microsoft offer you money, for any given purpose, and did you accept, in order to make sure only their approved platforms (360 and the PC) were able to be given this sort of support, and if so, what was your reason for accepting?

See, this is a silly question.

Did they offer you money, and if they did, why did you accept?

If the answer to the first part is yes, the answer to the second part is "Are you fucking stupid? They offered us money"

 

[Jumplion]

But business is also caring for your customers so you can make more money.

You have to spend to gain, and the more people trust you the more you can gain.

Except gamers have shown that they are willing to swallow no end of bullshit from companies, no matter what they do. Look at EA, it seems like every 3 months they do something that pisses off masses of people, yet those same people continue buying their games. The industry has discovered that it can screw people over with minimal consequences.

While I won't say that if Bethesda would release a patch then PS3 owners wouldn't whine for the DLC, there's a difference between EA's situation and this one.

DRM is entirely different than a simple patch, and while the simple patch may leave PS3 owners whining for more it's not that hard to please most of your customers if the solution is a simple god damn patch.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

OMG!!1! Someone from Bethesda Software gave the middle finger to gamers! To all PS3 owners, I feel your pain. Xbox owners got the same treatment from the same company with the Oblivion Expansion packs released before Game of the Year edition.

Horse armour for Oblivion still sells on a daily basis.

Really? A lot of stupid people out there aren't there.

This is Bethesda folks, they do things like this. Chalk it up to experience and don't buy any other Bethesda products in the future.

 

[DirkGently]

Jumplion, why do you need to play after the ending? You can just reload a save from beforehand and not do the final quest. It's not like you get anything special, and you'd only be able to play if you choose the evil the ending, and there'd be nothing to do if you did the evil-evil ending. Also, stop for a second. You want to keep playing after the end of the game. The End. Ending. The finale, the last part of it after which there are no other parts because it's the ending.

 

[Liverandbacon]

But business is also caring for your customers so you can make more money.

You have to spend to gain, and the more people trust you the more you can gain.

Except gamers have shown that they are willing to swallow no end of bullshit from companies, no matter what they do. Look at EA, it seems like every 3 months they do something that pisses off masses of people, yet those same people continue buying their games. The industry has discovered that it can screw people over with minimal consequences.

While I won't say that if Bethesda would release a patch then PS3 owners wouldn't whine for the DLC, there's a difference between EA's situation and this one.

DRM is entirely different than a simple patch, and while the simple patch may leave PS3 owners whining for more it's not that hard to please most of your customers if the solution is a simple god damn patch.

I'm not only referring to the DRM. I'm referring to every stupid, inconsiderate thing EA has done over the course of its existance. I realize that a patch to continue the game would be simple, but companies don't like spending time dealing with people who are whining when they know that the majority of those people will buy their next game anyway. It's sad, but it's true.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The PS3 isn't the most friendly console to program for, I'll give you that much. But 3 years is more than enough time to at least get used to the hardware.

And how much do you think a simple patch allowing gameplay after the ending would cost? Maybe a $1000 at worst, compared to the millions they earned from the game. "Oh no! We're going to lose a $1000 if we make a patch for the PS3! How could we ever live without that money?!?!"

I very much doubt a patch would cost as little as $1000. That wouldn't pay Bethesda's daily wage bills. And it would take more than a day to strip out the whole ending code, replace it with something that allows post-game play, and then test that to make sure it doesn't break anything else in a game the size of Fallout. You're probably looking at more like five or six figure cost, minimum, before you submit to Sony for certification.

 

[squid5580]

The whole "PS3 is harder to develop for" (if true) is a very valid arguement. Making games is hard enough, eats alot of time and costs alot of money. So if a company who is attempting to make money has a choice of either developing for one who will take more time and manpower (which = more cost) or one that is faster and easier which one should they choose? I am not saying that it is right cuz they are flipping off PS3 owners who bought their game. No doubt about that. Just that they are trying to make money and I assume that taking this route will net them more. Otherwise they wouldn't have done it.

The PS3 isn't the most friendly console to program for, I'll give you that much. But 3 years is more than enough time to at least get used to the hardware.

And how much do you think a simple patch allowing gameplay after the ending would cost? Maybe a $1000 at worst, compared to the millions they earned from the game. "Oh no! We're going to lose a $1000 if we make a patch for the PS3! How could we ever live without that money?!?!"

On the moral ground you are absolutely right. 1000 bucks is a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately this is a corporation who is there to ultimately make money. Not to lose it. They got shareholders who will rage if they were to throw money around for nothing. It is sad and it sucks. But that is how business works.

But business is also caring for your customers so you can make more money.

You have to spend to gain, and the more people trust you the more you can gain.

Correction it is about faking you care. If the PS3 can find its sea legs and get going then Bethesda may find they screwed up. As it stands right now they are catering to the largest install bases (PC and 360) and earning thier trust. My guess is they don't have much faith in Sony being able to pull out of thier tailspin.

And since when did "blowing off" mean "blowing"? If the OP had said sucking off or blowing I could understand but blowing off has a completely different meaning than blowing.

 

[Jumplion]

Thats a little unfair on Valve and its not so much lazyness. The PS3 is a pain to develop for and if they had released Left 4 Dead on the PS3 as well as the 360 and PC then it wouldn't have come out when it did and we would still be waiting now most likely. Its not Valve fault Sony made a system architecture thats very difficult to work with.

I think they made a smart but hard decision no release a PS3 version because they know they can't fully support it so instead of releasing a sub-standard (like the orange box ps3) version they didn't release it at all. They don't even like the setup with xbox360 100% and have often voiced frustrations at the xboxlive system wanting to charge people for DLC which Valve wants to give to people for free. (People on xbox360 could have had all the PC updates if MS wouldn't be so fucking greedy.)

They haven't make and deals with MS like Rockstar and other some other devs. They just want to get the game out the door.

What Bethesda and other devs are doing is wrong, if your going to release a game on a platform then you should be fair in supporting it.

Everything you have said is true. I'm more angry at VALVe for stating that they'll consider porting L4D if it sells well because they know it's going to sell well. They're VALVe for Christ's sake! If they had just said "We don't intend on releasing it for Ps3" then it wouldn't be as self-centered, but they're pretty much yanking our chain on this.

If L4D ever did come to Ps3, then I would expect the same treatment it would get as the 360 and/or PC. Like you said, MS is forcing VALVe to make the TF2 updates costly. I don't know if the same thing would happen for the PS3, but at least I would know that they care for their customers who own a PS3.

And the Orange Box was ported by EA, and VALVe patched it after everyone went haywire. That is another reason why I'm annoyed at VALVe because that shows that they didn't even care to port the game themselves and let some half-assed port go through their spotless record.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Except gamers have shown that they are willing to swallow no end of bullshit from companies, no matter what they do. Look at EA, it seems like every 3 months they do something that pisses off masses of people, yet those same people continue buying their games. The industry has discovered that it can screw people over with minimal consequences.

Too true.
Look at how much money Gamestop makes. They found that they can completely rip off their customers who will just keep running back for more.

IF it's true, MS learned that by pushing a RRODing 360 out a year ahead of the competition knowing the hard core gamers that couldn't wait would buy it regardless. Now some gamers buy another while the original is out getting fixed. NO I'm not insinuating that EVERYONE who bought a 360 is a sucker; hold the flames)

So gamers have proved(from the business and even political perspective) that they are a bunch of suckers who will buy anything.

 

[squid5580]

Jumplion, why do you need to play after the ending? You can just reload a save from beforehand and not do the final quest. It's not like you get anything special, and you'd only be able to play if you choose the evil the ending, and there'd be nothing to do if you did the evil-evil ending. Also, stop for a second. You want to keep playing after the end of the game. The End. Ending. The finale, the last part of it after which there are no other parts because it's the ending.

It is more of the principle of the matter. PS3 owners paid the same as everyone else and are not given the same options as everyone else.

 

[Jumplion]

Jumplion, why do you need to play after the ending? You can just reload a save from beforehand and not do the final quest. It's not like you get anything special, and you'd only be able to play if you choose the evil the ending, and there'd be nothing to do if you did the evil-evil ending. Also, stop for a second. You want to keep playing after the end of the game. The End. Ending. The finale, the last part of it after which there are no other parts because it's the ending.

It's a problem that shouldn't be in the game. I saved right before I put in the code (I have a memory of a rock sometimes) and then I died.

Saving the game right before it is only delaying the problem. Bethesda has said that they learned to not let their game end. As UsefulPlayer_1 said, the end to the game is pretty much a glitch that should be dealt with. It's having a game-crashing bug in a quest and saying "Well, why don't you play the other quests first and then go to that one?".

Besides, there's a weird satisfactory felling of seeing the ending of the game, going to the main menu, and click continue and start exploring again. They don't even need to make up a reason of how you survived, just make us play as we normally would.

EDIT: Or what Squiddy said above me (ninja'd!), mainly the principle of the matter.
EDIT 2: I couldn't miss a chance to say it; PS3 owners paid the same as everyone else and get "nary a teet to suckle on" from anyone else.

 

[bigbrian206]

Did anyone stop to think that if Bethesda just patched the ending so that you could play after you died, they would have to rewrite parts of the end cinematic, and figure out something for the player to do. If the player chose the evil ending the narrator said that the Wasteland had become a graveyard. Can you imagine the bitching if they let you loose in a completly barren wasteland, with no quests, no enemies, and no npcs? Bethesda would have to do so much to make the ending fit and or give the player things to do after finishing Take It Back! that it would just not be worth it in the long run.

 

[GloatingSwine]

It is more of the principle of the matter. PS3 owners paid the same as everyone else and are not given the same options as everyone else.

Except the options everyone else gets require them to pay some more.

Also, cry moar.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Did anyone stop to think that if Bethesda just patched the ending so that you could play after you died, they would have to rewrite parts of the end cinematic, and figure out something for the player to do.

No, of course not. No one thinks about that sort of stuff when bitching about games, because coding is easy and art just springs into being when needed... if developers won't change the game they're obviously lazy or incompetant, and if they want to charge people for new content they're just milking their audience because code flows freely from the wellsprings of the heart.

/bitter-sarcasm

-- Steve

 

[Jumplion]

Did anyone stop to think that if Bethesda just patched the ending so that you could play after you died, they would have to rewrite parts of the end cinematic, and figure out something for the player to do. If the player chose the evil ending the narrator said that the Wasteland had become a graveyard. Can you imagine the bitching if they let you loose in a completly barren wasteland, with no quests, no enemies, and no npcs? Bethesda would have to do so much to make the ending fit and or give the player things to do after finishing Take It Back! that it would just not be worth it in the long run.

No they wouldn't, just allow the player to play after the ending. I'm pretty sure even the DLC stuff doesn't show a frolicking landscape of purified water and trees if you got the good ending. Just plop us in front of the Vault 101 entrance and let us loose again, no need to rewrite any script.

 

[Clemenstation]

But I too look forward to the day when the consoles will have some sort of standard so 360ers can download Echocrome and PS3ers can download Braid. But maybe I'm just a hippy that's smoked too much.

Did you mean "when the consoles are ONE AND THE SAME"?

Yeah that would be pretty rad, if only to stop the powny versus xbot fanboy flame wars which account for about half the internet traffic and 80% of the grammatical atrocities on the net today.

 

[Jumplion]

Also, cry moar.

*sniff* You bring a tear to my eye, Mr. Swine *sniff sniff*

No, of course not. No one thinks about that sort of stuff when bitching about games, because coding is easy and art just springs into being when needed... if developers won't change the game they're obviously lazy or incompetant, and if they want to charge people for new content they're just milking their audience because code flows freely from the wellsprings of the heart.

/bitter-sarcasm

-- Steve

Never said coding was easy, but making a patch that drops us in the Vault 101 entrance and let's us play from our level we left off when we died shouldn't be that much of a pain in the ass. Atleast not as much as making complete new DLC.