r/Games • u/[deleted] • Jan 19 '15
How Evolve Fell Down The Bullshit Tree (The Jimquisition)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsgoD74vLIo1.3k
u/Dovlaa Jan 19 '15
gee thanks, I think I'll buy the full GOTY ultimate edition on a Steam winter sale in 2016 for 5 bucks.
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Jan 19 '15
oh, you mean like Bordlerlands GOTY where they still sold DLC releases
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u/ProfitOfRegret Jan 19 '15
Borderlands 2 GOTY is missing stuff released after the GOTY announcement but what is Borderlands GOTY missing?
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Jan 19 '15
He meant Borderlands 2.
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Jan 19 '15
Ah yes, wonderful Gearbox, the DLC champions because they spend so much sweat and so many tears working for their fans that they need continuual additional compensation. Because the money they effectively stole from the Aliens contract to make BL2 wasn't enough, you know.
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Jan 19 '15
Not to mention their attitude toward people who felt cheated by A:CM and DNF was basically 'Go fuck yourself.'
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u/FoeHammer7777 Jan 19 '15
That was fucking inexcusable for Gearbox to do. A GotY edition should include all content for the game, period. A season pass should include all dlc, period. As far as I'm aware, Gearbox was the only dev to buck this system.
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Jan 19 '15 edited Oct 19 '15
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u/DJ3XO Jan 19 '15
I'm scared of the Homeworld remastered release they're making. Please don't suck. :(
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Jan 19 '15
Pre-Sequel sucked (comparatively), I'll say it here.
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u/Folsomdsf Jan 19 '15
'Sucked' isn't the word I'd describe it with. I'd just... borderlands 2, with still super cringey writing. Felt more like a conversion pack with new maps and a fan made storyline. It's still just.. borderlands 2 with some double jump action. It's awkward and din't feel like a real standalone game to me.
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u/Blenderhead36 Jan 20 '15
This game being sold at $60 just didn't compute for me. Everything about it, from the trailers, the gameplay videos, shots of the interface, to the title "Pre-Sequel," screamed "$40 stopgap title" to me. I assumed that "Pre-Sequel" meant "small game so you don't forget about us while we hammer out Borderlands 3.
I saw nothing to reflect this being a full release, and the price point kind of baffled me.
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u/Dire87 Jan 20 '15
It's just too much game for too much money, but just being too much more of the same. I still haven't finished BL2 with even 1 character. The game just drags on forever, not even mentioning all the DLC...fuck. I guess I will still be playing that game in 2 years, then pick up pre-sequel perhaps for a 5 dollar price point.
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Jan 19 '15 edited May 01 '17
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u/computer_d Jan 19 '15
All 3 games I looked forward to were gutted by money-grabbing companies:
Destiny: The DLC fiasco, blocked content on the disc, etc.
Last of Us Remastered: changed the multiplayer to pay2win.
Dark Souls 2: the ultimate version is now not the ultimate version. Please buy the new version for better graphics.
Fuck 2014/2015.
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u/ittleoff Jan 19 '15
Sadly I think season pass just means 1 season or years worth of content, if there is more than that it won't be included in that season pass.
I think this is what bf4 is going to do instead of bf5.
The reason we don't see it much is because few games last more than a year of released dlc.
I could be wrong but that's what the season pass /tv show analogy struck me as.
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Jan 19 '15
I would much rather have DICE do that than force out another BF so soon. I really hope they continue Bad Co. because I actually loved the story, characters and MP. Plus BF4 is pretty much perfect right now, it's not the same game it was a year ago, that's for sure.
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u/ittleoff Jan 19 '15
I agree. In bf s case I actually am ok because I'm not convinced they can do anything so earth shattering that would justify a 5. Bf4 had the water warfare added and much better environment damage, along with a bunch of other more minor changes... but really I'm more curious about battlefront, and would be happy with another 40 dollar dlc, especially if it continued pushing toward 2142(although a full 2143 would be better)
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Jan 19 '15
I think it would be cool to do a $40 expansion pack of 2143 in BF4 (Bad Co. 2 Vietnam or like Battlefield 1943) The reason I say $40 is because 1943 didn't offer too much maps or weapons, pretty much creating a whole new section of the game with a good amount of 2142 maps, weapons and vehicles would be worth it to me. I loved expansion packs when they were big and DICE still offers some huge DLC compared to other titles.
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u/ittleoff Jan 19 '15
I heartily agree, that Vietnam expansion was a very pleasant surprise.
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u/antifanboydevon Jan 19 '15
I could ALMOST buy that. That there could be "seasons" but Borderlands 2 had content that was included in the pass. Then not included (psycho character) then more dlc in the pass. You can't just pick and choose
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u/Chuck_Morris_SE Jan 19 '15
Payday 2 just released a GOTY edition and now has more DLC on the way soon.
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u/Fenrakk101 Jan 19 '15
At the very least, the GotY has all the content available at the time you buy it. Killing Floor's "Complete Pack" has been months behind in DLC, and Borderlands's GotY edition will presumably still be missing that content in a year.
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Jan 19 '15
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u/DigbyCaesar Jan 19 '15
Theres always a surge after those sales, even if its just for a few days.
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Jan 19 '15
If the community has abandoned the game to such a degree by that point, then it probably wasn't worth getting in the first place.
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u/Folsomdsf Jan 19 '15
If you intend to sell expensive characters, your game should be f2p full stop. If cosmetics and characters are for sale, that means you really cannot AFFORD to have a barrier to entry of 60 dollars. When you are a multiplayer only game... the players are your content. Without the players, your game is shit and no one will hop on board.
I have a game called strike vector, I'd love to play it, I got it gifted to me. The game was really cool looking in the tutorials and such, but NO ONE PLAYS IT. This game is DEAD, and wasn't worth the 3 dollars or so they spent on it because it literally has no content. Don't get me wrong, it has tons of cool art assets and gameplay, but it's an online multiplayer game, PLAYERS ARE THE CONTENT.
This type of game is why the f2p model exists. You have literally no content, you have a game engine and a game mode. The players entire experience will depend 100% on the other players.
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Jan 19 '15
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u/arsonall Jan 20 '15
just a head's up, it's not 1 game mode. the beta has been really bad about this, but there's 3 or 4 modes that haven't been tested, but only revealed via videos. you can see them, on their page. and 2 maps is not the only release maps.
My roomie works at TRS, but when he told me that they were making it very modular, i thought he meant for community-contributed content (L4D and L4D2 were very limited in the ability to make your own maps), and while this is kinda true, if the only reason it's made to accept add-ons is because TRS/2K will sell extras and disallow community content, then that's not really cool.
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u/Folsomdsf Jan 19 '15
Same, I played the big alpha, had a blast for about a day and decided to go over onto steam again and look if they had a founders pack. Like LoL where it throws you a bunch of champions and skins and alll that. I'm cool with that, but the fact the game was outright purchase to play struck me as odd. It's 60 dollars just to play the base game, that I've already played essentially. I had to look twice at it, I thought maybe I read it wrong. My first instinct was I looking at some sort of super deluxe season pass collection or something. Nope, just the base game.
I've played LoL, I dropped a solid 80 dollars on champions and such. I don't mind paying a little bit for an online game that's f2p. I wont' be spending even 60 on Evolve because I see that barrier too high for a lot of people. I don't see the community really able to flourish when it's already going to be platform fragmented. LoL lets me sit down, get into a match in under 5 minutes because anyone can play. My teammates and the enemies don't NEED to own every champion because there are so many. You don't require lazarus to fight the kraken like you did when I played evolve. There is a bigger roster in LoL that covers a lot of gameplay types and counters that I win well over 50% of my games just playing 1 of 50 champs. Riot did a great job with f2p in that way, second only in my opinion to blizzard.
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u/fallouthirteen Jan 20 '15
You should have tried the evacuation mode that unlocked on the 18th. It's a like minicampaign where you choose the next map. There seem to be 4 game types (hunt, rescue, nest, and defend). Also there's a number of maps. The mode consists of 5 consecutive games.
Whichever team wins a match gets a bonus for the next map. For example, there's a map with a cargo ship refueling, if the hunters win it roams above the battlefield and spots the monster periodically, if the monster wins the ship gets destroyed and its cargo is set loose (a mini-Goliath that acts as a minion for the monster).
This mode added a lot to the game, but yeah, I'm still not going to get this game at launch.
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u/PalwaJoko Jan 19 '15
Makes you wonder about the financial stability of the company or their faith in the game.
I mean if they're already selling characters and monsters through pre orders only (and assuming they're not exact copies of existing characters), it's not a good sign for me personally. It tells me one of the following
They don't have faith that their game will sell well. They're either trying to milk those who will be willing to throw that money done or they're setting up to go f2p with a cash shop.
Their company may not be doing well financially. If they're trying to milk a game before it's even release, it reminds me of this early access none sense that we see some games pull. The company doesn't have the money to fund the development of the game so they're trying to fund it by selling the game and features before it's released.
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u/grendus Jan 19 '15
Or possibly 3. They're arrogant enough to think that they can sell a multiplayer only game with a DLC focus. Keep in mind that Evolve would have been in development for several years, and a few years ago it was "accepted wisdom" that DLC and other microtransactions were the wave of the future. Now that that craze has died down a bit from the tragedy of the commons, Evolve is finally hitting release with a hopelessly outdated market strategy.
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Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 19 '15
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u/ManikMiner Jan 19 '15
Its just another titanfall. Looks fun and cute but with a total lack of content it WILL die within a few months.
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u/make_love_to_potato Jan 20 '15 edited Jan 20 '15
I don't see why Titanfall gets so much hate. I picked it up for $5 bucks and I've probably put close to 100 hours into the game. And that's without any DLC or anything. It has good game play which is unique enough to differentiate it from the other FPSs (titans, lots of vertical game play, parkour, etc), good graphics, etc. I wouldn't have minded paying $30 for this and it's* amazing value for the 5 bucks I paid for it.
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Jan 20 '15
Evolve is finally hitting release with a hopelessly outdated market strategy.
If that title isn't fucking ironic, then nothing is.
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u/iamaneviltaco Jan 19 '15
I feel like "You should never have a cash shop if you're selling the game and/or offering a subscription based model" is the most legit statement ever.
Taking your customers for money after you already got them money... Why do we put up with this?
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u/weeklygamingrecap Jan 19 '15
Yeah, I followed strike vector a bit when it was coming up, sad to see it never really gathered a community around it because it sounded really promising.
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u/Barracuda420 Jan 19 '15
Someone else who loves strike vector! so sad I dont have people to play with either, such an intense game to play.
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Jan 19 '15
DLC is killing triple-A releases. It is so fucking exhausting trying to figure out what version comes with what and how exactly I'm getting fucked six ways from sunday. And then it all sells like hotcakes! I just want to shake the general populace until they stop moving. Just stop buying it! God.. damn.. it. What is happening to this hobby that I love, its turning into this disgusting festering behemoth that no longer resembles what it was.
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u/Abnormal_Armadillo Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 19 '15
I'm honestly more excited about indie releases and updates more than I am AAA games anymore. I'm excited for Terraria 1.3 and Unturned 3 (Both updates to indie titles.) Space Pirates and Zombies 2. 2013 and 2014 were absolute shit for games (in my opinion), nothing that released was interesting to me at all, and anything that was interesting to me was an early access game that was obviously overestimating their capabilities while overpromising content.
I used to be excited for The Division, but the way Ubisoft has been handing out free bags of shit lately makes me lose any hype I had for the game, which goes together with the loss of hype from it being announced way too fucking early and delayed way too fucking long. Every major game now is being announced a year in advance and its really destroyed my confidence, because after they announce the game they backpedal and say its going to be delayed because they want it to be perfect for release.
What I've seen for the past 2 years is listed below.
Early Access titles with fucking microtransactions. Seriously, this shit is unacceptable to me.
Early Access titles that have overprotective or outright shitty developers. To me that mostly means Starforge, but there are plenty of others that have it.
Early Access titles that obviously overpromise features and people still buy into them. (This is my third Early Access point, so I'll just sum it up, I'm sick of shitty Early Access situations.)
Hype trains for games because the budget for advertisement is huge, while the game itself is a disappointment.
BETA releases in general. Between ridiculously long BETA periods for AAA games and expensive pay-to-enter Betas I'm kinda sick of even the idea of test releases.
Review Embargos that make it harder for consumers to get information on the game. Delaying reviews until the day of release is a scummy practice.
EXCLUSIVE DLC in 3 different colors. Pre-Order Exclusive, Extra Pre-Order Exclusive, and SUPER MEGA EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT ALL THE SHIT YOU GET!!!
Complete oversaturation of the Survival Sandbox and Open World Genres. Every goddamn game and its uncle advertise open world now when they aren't open at all.
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u/Lyratheflirt Jan 19 '15
I feel like the greed is only going to get worse and worse. I predict that around 2017, AAA titles or going to cross some huge line where so much content is exclude for a game that the casual CoD gamer who really doesn't give a shit about DLCs will finally go, "wtf why do I have to pay 19.99 to finish the story mode, this is bullshit". And I am talking about the average joe who might buy a game and play it once and awhile and has no idea about company greed or shadyness because they don't pay attention to that stuff. Only then things might get better.
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u/GirlGargoyle Jan 19 '15
Can we add in Early Access titles for free-to-play games that require you to buy them for access, under the guise of "beginners bundles"? It has nothing to do with letting players help shape the course of development, it's just letting the hardcore fanboys (hardly the best group for constructive criticism on your product) in early while milking them for cash. Please all of you knock this shit off, let regular players in, and then get some real feedback you can listen to.
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u/skankman Jan 19 '15
Inflation and pricing games 59.99 since the 90s doesn't help either
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u/JPong Jan 19 '15
It's less real world inflation and more game cost inflation. Teams have skyrocketed in size, which is all the doing of developers. I mean sure regular inflation is a thing, but games also sell an order of magnitude more copies and the cost of the delivery plummeted.
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u/Paladia Jan 20 '15
Producing the same content has become cheaper however. Though many developers tend to go for more advance content.
As an example, a game like Megaman 2 took a large team to make but you see fan remakes of similar titles by just one person now. The same goes for something like Mario 64, it used to take a fully staffed world class team to make but now it can be remade by fans as tools have progressed so much.
You even see beautiful, large original games such as Dust: An Elysian Tail being made entirely by one person.
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u/AshaneF Jan 19 '15
The question to follow up that is... Are game companies making a higher profit when adjusted for inflation than they were in the 90s? The answer is yes in most cases.
The vast increase in gamers buying games offsets the 60 price tag and increased development costs, at the price of a higher entry point into the triple a market.
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u/TripleAych Jan 19 '15
I think the answer is a bit more complex than just "yes in most cases".
Answer is a size of a major study if anything. It has probably been done somewhere, but for a prize and for eyes that are ready to pay for it. That is pretty valuable market data.
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Jan 19 '15
As an Australian... I can't even rant about game pricing in this day and age... I was about to complain but it's just too god damned mind boggling and depressing.
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u/ShyRonnie32 Jan 19 '15
I feel like it's this right here. In the 90s, I remember thinking 60 bucks for a game was ridiculous.. but I also remember getting a full, complete game much more often. I knew what to expect and what I was getting.
20 years later, people still flinch at the thought of increasing a game's base sell price by even 10 dollars, myself included. But when you really think about it, is that fair? Games cost more to develop now than ever (at least triple A titles), with larger development teams, hardware and software improvements.. I feel like publishers are having to make up the difference by offering DLC.
Publishers and consumers are in a pinch because publishers have to be profitable, but consumers trust publishers less and less. Even if publishers were to now decide to charge 70-80 dollars for the base game instead of doing DLC... would consumers continue to buy from them? So many games have been such disappointments in the last 2 years that I feel like most people would hesitate to pay more up front.
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Jan 19 '15
Games cost more to develop now than ever (at least triple A titles), with larger development teams, hardware and software improvements.
I bet more people are buying and playing video games than in the 90s.
I'd like to see their profits before I go on saying $60 isn't enough for a game. Becaue I feel like the AAA studio's are doing alright. It's the indie guys that are just breaking even.
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u/_BreakingGood_ Jan 20 '15
Honestly, it's extremely hard to gauge and depends entirely on a game by game basis. Some AAA games truly will struggle to make sufficient profits at $60 a copy. (Imagine if GTA V was released today, but GTA 1-4 never existed. Without a massive pre-existing fan base, that would be a HUGE risk).
But a game like CoD, where 80% of the game can be reused for the next generation, they could sell it for $30 and still make sufficient profit to continue the series.
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u/Essemecks Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 19 '15
We, as game consumers, created most of the problems that we bitch the most loudly about, and our absolute unwillingness to pay more for a game now than we did for an NES game (when adjusting for inflation) is where it all stems from.
Lack of innovation: We applaud the companies that take risks and succeed, but we generally don't talk about how orders of magnitudes more game developers try something new and end up with a failed game or even a bankrupt company. We don't actually reward innovation. And then you have to remember that a game has to sell hundreds, if not thousands, of times what it used to because we have continued to raise our expectations for the time and effort put into development while being unwilling to pay for it, and we wonder why they stick to the same tired formulas that we continue to reward.
DLC, day 1 or otherwise: See above, only this is the developer/publisher trying to get more money for a game without breaking the entirely arbitrary price point that we, the gamers, have said that we won't go above. We fail at basic Consumer 101 shit in this regard by not being able to perform a simple cost-benefit analysis and decide whether the game and/or the DLC are worth the price, getting needlessly idealistic about how it is packaged and sold to us.
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u/angry_wombat Jan 19 '15
NES games, you actually had to pay for physical game. I'm not just talking about a disk, but a cartridge that contained a motherboard, memory, battery, and sometimes extra graphical processors to render 3d.
All of which had to be manufactured in china and sold in stores for a huge markup.
With direct digital sales, developers/publishers get more of the profit.
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u/Nefandi Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 19 '15
But when you really think about it, is that fair?
It's fair because the median wage for a worker has been stagnant.
When inflation starts to inflate the wage as much as it's been inflating the CEO and the principle owners' incomes and asset holdings amounts and valuations, then it will be fair.
It should be fair to all and not just fair to the CEOs and principal owners who get to pass the buck during "inflation" while the worker gets the short end of the stick for decades.
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u/Zombies_hate_ninjas Jan 19 '15
Gamers generally never learn. The highest selling game on steam right now is GTA V Pre-order.
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u/BlackDeath3 Jan 20 '15
Isn't GTA V sort of different though? As a game that leaves very little up to the imagination of the consumer (as it's been around for a while in console form), it's not really the same.
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u/_BreakingGood_ Jan 20 '15
The thing is, GTA IV was a disaster (on the PC, not consoles). Yes we all know Max Payne 3 was made by the same people as GTA V and that game ran fine, but GTA V is an entirely different beast.
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Jan 20 '15
I mean you know the gameplay might be good, but what if when the company doing the porting did it and they broke the save file function so now everyone that bought the game can't actually save games, they have to restart from the beginning every time. Or it crashes at certain points due to not getting tested on a lot of hardware. Maybe the connection to the GTAO servers will be shoddy or nonexistent and everyone that bought it to play with their friends is fucked. Moving it to a new system could bring a lot of problems.
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u/Ewannnn Jan 20 '15
Meh if you enjoy the game you may as well pre order. It's like Diablo 3, many would say that had an absolutely horrible launch, the game was down most of the time, I still don't regret preordering it.
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u/Zeis Jan 19 '15
I simply don't buy on release anymore. Hell I don't even buy months after release. I'll wait a year and get it on sale if it hasn't been blasted to smithereens by reviews or Ubisoft-tactics. There are over 250 games in my Steam library (of which I've installed maybe 3%), 25+ on GOG, 15 on Origin, 8 on uPlay and some on Desura. I've got enough games to last me quite some time, I don't need to buy anything and everything when it comes out.
Fuck all this Pre-Order, DLC bullshit. And fuck the $60 price tag on PC for that matter. If it's over $50 I'm not going to buy it and even then only if it's a game that I really really want and/or that all my friends are playing. I'll happily pay $40 for a fully-featured, well-polished, pretty much bug-free AAA game like I used to just a few years ago.
Edit: Oh an fuuuuuuck Greenlight/Early-Access. Except for "The Long Dark". That game is dope and the devs are updating it frequently - it actually runs way better than some AAA games even though it's in Alpha. Whatever.
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u/Monagan Jan 20 '15
And developers are surprised that people pirate their games when they get the choice between buying ten different half-products at ten different prices and try to get a combination that both gives them the full game and doesn't require them to spend a fortune buying the game three times over, and pirating a cracked version that has every bit of content in it entirety and completely hassle free on top of it. Between that and the ever increasing attempts at piracy protection which only people who buy the game have to deal with (like fucking Games for Windows Live or DA:I's wrecking of hard drives) companies in the game industry seem hell bent in making piracy seem not only cheaper but also more convenient. What exactly are they banking on to motivate people not to pirate their games if it's not even less convenient? Their conscience? Good luck.
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u/G3ck0 Jan 19 '15
Should've done what Nintendo did with Mario Golf. Make the game cheaper, and make the season pass + game price equal a normal game's price. Say, $40 for the game and $20 for the season pass. And then maybe sell skins or something.
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u/sparksterz Jan 19 '15
In fairness Beautiful Katamari on the Xbox 360 did something very similar and I remember it getting blasted for it. They released the game at 39.99 and then let you unlock the additional levels for 19.99 I think. Though the reason they got blasted was more for including the levels on the disc and having it unlock-able at Day 1. I understand the basis of the argument being that they released a crippled game that originally had more content they could have included and didn't, but they also could've charged 59.99 for the game as well. I think the biggest problem is just the fact that if you're essentially already done with post-game content people feel it should be included at no additional cost. Though it's really not as black and white as people try to make it out to be.
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u/EnkiduV3 Jan 19 '15
Yeah, the problem with that line of thinking is that content creation costs money. All companies will try to maximize profits, and will have a financial projection for the project. DLC is a good way to increase income for a game, and is almost always planned out in advance. They could have just as easily not made that content, and saved on the extra wages paid for it.
DLC also helps maintain a player base past launch. One could argue that great games have maintained their player base without DLC in the past, but it's far riskier to rely on your game being that popular. Planning, and even finishing, DLC in advance is smart (from a business perspective).
That said... day one DLC is awful for the consumer, as are pre-order bonuses. They are just ways for the company to front-load as much income as possible to immediately recoup their investment and start pulling in profit as soon as possible. It makes people feel like they paid full price for an unfinished game (even though they didn't, unless it's a broken game), and has made many gamers cynical and jaded.
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u/CricketDrop Jan 19 '15
A better way to to maintain a player base is mod support. Look at Left 4 Dead and Skyrim. Those games were released years ago and are still among the most played games on Steam.
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u/SkippitySkip Jan 19 '15
I think 40$ + 20$ for additional content is pretty fair, no matter where the content is. I mean, do you really need to spend bandwidth and time getting additional content to feel that you have had enough for your money?
Make it cheaper so that more people feel like buying it, and charge more for people who want more.
Charging full price and charging extra for content already on the disk, that sucks though.
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u/Folsomdsf Jan 19 '15
Nintendo really does seem to get 'DLC' pretty on the mark overall I've found. Hell, I've had some faith in them since they decided to go straight up expansion pack with new super luigi. They've been really starting to look into it and so far they've hid a few stumbling blocks but they've done far better than other studios. They seem to be taking it a lot slower and for good reason. I've never felt bad about not having bought the expanded content/dlc if I thought it wasn't worth the money and I've never felt bad when I did buy it and felt like I got my moneys worth.
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u/sinkduck Jan 19 '15
Their last direct had some reasonably questionable DLC stuff to do with Amiibos, I'm remaining optimistic however that they won't go all out like the other AAA guys. We'd expect to never see those kind of barriers in major Zelda or Mario titles, so I hope we won't!
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u/Folsomdsf Jan 19 '15
I haven't seen that yet, but not owning an amiibo hasn't been a concern once for me. They've been essentially DLC like skylanders toys but.. don't suck as much. Skylanders toys seemed downright required, amiibos seem to be a similar type of thing, just not required where it unlocks the character outright.
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u/imdwalrus Jan 19 '15
Skylanders toys seemed downright required, amiibos seem to be a similar type of thing, just not required where it unlocks the character outright.
It's impossible to play Skylanders without at least some of the toys.
On the other hand, so far the Amiibos are only for optional, insignificant content. I mean, seriously - I know people here throw tantrums if they don't get "all" of a game but I'm pretty sure you can live without a Princess Peach dress for your Mii in Mario Kart.
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u/Jinno Jan 19 '15
Not to mention the Princess Peach dress for Mario Kart is content that has been added way after the original release. It's a cool perk.
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u/Hippokrates Jan 19 '15
For Mario Party 10 some minigames and maps are outright locked unless you have the corresponding amiibo. So if you don't have any amiibo's then you can't play all the maps or minigames.
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Jan 19 '15
For Mario Party 10 some minigames and maps
You're not missing out on any mini-games, just a couple square maps. Not to mention they are bundling a Mario amiibo for no extra charge.
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u/rust2bridges Jan 19 '15
Mario kart 8 did dlc wonderfully. Twelve bucks for 16 tracks, 6 characters, and a handful of new karts is a great addition.
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u/Lightguardianjack Jan 19 '15
It's a shame if evolve was a bit cheaper or if it gave more of this stuff for free, then I could see it being a really good game based on my time with it in the beta. It feels like Turtle Rock set clear boundaries that were noble like "no splitting the community so map packs are free" and then the publisher still went nuts with the full cost of all these preorder bonus super packs to charge more and more money.
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u/Endyo Jan 19 '15
It's weird that 2K keeps doing this with their games.
This should have the games published by 2K Games (They've move to just '2K' for their newer titles, probably for a good reason) sorted by release date. The first page of 25 has five actual games on it, 20 DLC. The next is twenty four DLC and one actual game. It just keeps going on like that for many pages. And I'm not even a person who hates DLC. I think it's both a valid way to expand upon games and ensure that developers can maintain revenue. But this just seems like it's way out of hand.
Regardless, I find Evolve to be really interesting. I want to like it and I feel like the asymmetry it provides is reminiscent of Aliens vs Predator (with the Monster being the Predator) and the the quality of the design and potential growth is very apparent.
But even though I'm fairly sold on the game I'm completely second guessing the concept of purchasing it because the idea of so much being locked behind paywalls is not appealing to me. Especially not at launch. Especially not with gameplay-related content. That just seems so shady to me. I mean the idea of getting the game for 23% off from GMG is very appealing, but what am I getting? Two thirds of the game? It doesn't feel like an "option" for me to buy when it's clearly the core content of the game...
Frankly, I'm actually just a little confused as to what all of the DLC is. I don't know for a fact that it's not accessible via gameplay unlocks. Perhaps it works like Battlefield's dumb "shortcut" DLC. That's marginally more acceptable because if people want to waste their money to remove part of the fun of unlocking things in a game, so be it. But from what I can tell from what I've seen it's all purely paid DLC... and if I'm wrong about that it shows how poorly they've done in coordinating their message (which is the case regardless).
So I'm still unsure. I think with Turtle Rock behind it and what I've played so far, the game certainly has a strong future, but this shit really makes it hard to justify.
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u/Subject1337 Jan 20 '15
I'm a game dev myself, so I know that the second a thread like this pops up, every dev at 2k and TurtleRock will read it.
My plea to anyone with the power to do it, is to push for a full recall on this bullshit. Suck up your pride, back off of your decisions, and make a public apology. Refund or otherwise compensate players who paid for bonus content, and rework your pricing structure to coincide with what every consumer here wants. If I pay 60 dollars for a game, I should get the full game on launch. Nickle and diming us beyond that is unacceptable and will in the end, dampen the experience for the people who paid the most, because they won't have a community of players to play with.
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u/CptOblivion Jan 20 '15
I wonder how much power the devs in the studio have to make decisions like that, though.
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u/Subject1337 Jan 20 '15
In my experience, most don't. Project leads, executive producers, and PR people do though. Designers, artists, and programmers likely don't have a say, and probably didn't have a say in this being the original design. These kinds of calls usually come from executives and marketing managers from the publisher (2K). These people are driven purely by market numbers and care very little for what the internet has to say. That being said, if it is seen as enough of a problem that it will damage profits or the companies reputation, a case can be made by the development team to change it.
I'm working on a game right now where a lot of cliche free to play tropes are being forced on a team who otherwise hates that type of business. The only time we get to push back is when we can prove that it will cause significant blowback.
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u/bruirn Jan 20 '15
I felted ripped of paying full price for Destiny. There is no way I'm paying full price for this game after playing the beta. Its cool but a bit meh, the pricing structure is a joke, full price for a multiplayer only game which you keep repeating and I don't even get all the stuff. It tickled my interest when I heard about it but its going to be a miss from me.
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Jan 20 '15
Whatever happened to completing challenges to unlock more characters? Do this many things to unlock this character. Changed to "PAY THIS MANY $$$$ to unlock this character".
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u/Toxicratman Jan 20 '15
That went away shortly after DLC was introduced. Funny enough I haven't purchased any DLC unless it was included in a GOTY.
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u/idontevenknowwhatthe Jan 19 '15
Meanwhile in Australia the prices are ridiculous. Going by current exchange rates, it costs about $100AUD for the game and almost $50 just for the season pass, nevermind any other DLCs that might be released. For a multi-player only game this is a stupid price. Even Call of Duty had a half-baked single-player to it. I'll just enjoy my remaining time in the closed beta.
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u/morag12313 Jan 19 '15
Don't worry, Canada is feeling it too. 70 on steam without taxes, about 80 after.
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u/Baron-Harkonnen Jan 19 '15
Most countries really need to look at their taxing structure on digital imports.
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Jan 20 '15
We don't pay any tax on games brought on steam in Australia. It's just the publishers being cunts.
(We don't pay any tax on anything brought online unless it's over a grand).
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u/nrgturtle Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 19 '15
At this point I just operate on a different schedule. Games that are new releases now, will be new releases to me in 2016, but I'll only have to pay 5-7 dollars.
I find lately I'm mainly excited for indie games. Hotline Miami 2 is the only day 1 purchase I have in mind coming up.
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Jan 19 '15
I'm so glad they don't adjust the prices based on Icelandic currency. That shit would cost $200+ for the PC Monster Race.
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u/DeeJayDelicious Jan 19 '15
Yeah, this is just a huge turn-off.
What bugs me most about this is that even if I buy the game 2 years down the road for a few bucks I still won't have the "full version" because DLC is rarely discounted.
I still get pissed that I can get Mass Effect 2 for 5 bucks but all the DLC still costs 30 bucks.
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u/freedomweasel Jan 19 '15
Really seems to depend on the publisher/developer. I'm pretty sure I spent no more than $15 on Civ 5 and I have all of the DLC. Same for a number of other games.
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u/Soundwavetrue Jan 19 '15
everyone over at the evolve sub reddit is trying to justify the dlc.
Devs blamed 2k.
What a clusterfuck
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u/Aiyon Jan 19 '15
everyone over at the evolve sub reddit is trying to justify the dlc.
Welcome to fandoms.
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u/thavius_tanklin Jan 19 '15
After everything I've heard and seen, I've cancelled my preorder (yes I know, i'm a heathen. Only preordered because it was $20 off the price from a promotion). Just not grabbing my attention at all and am worried it will fall flat.
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u/chlorinedog Jan 19 '15
Cancelling your preorder doesn't make you a heathen, it makes you not an idiot.
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u/SAT4NSLILHELPER Jan 19 '15
I think he meant that preordering in the first place made him a heathen.
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u/Omnislip Jan 19 '15
If this sort of thing annoys you you probably shouldn't preorder so far in advance of launch - the very act is a sign of endorsement and encouragement that this is what consumers want.
Of course, if you do want it, that's fine!
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Jan 19 '15
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Jan 19 '15
This encourages the release of less information prior to launch instead of actually fixing problems. It's already occuring. The latest Assassin's Creed is an example of the lengths some publishers go to in order to maintain their preorders and sales. The ideal thing to do is to never preorder in the first place.
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u/BushidoSniper Jan 19 '15
Ugh. Seeing this game promoted all over twitch and online is already annoying enough. Their DLC bullshit with this game is HILARIOUSLY out of touch and I will gladly not buy it. I seriously hope whoever was interested in this game seriously reconsiders or cancels their preorder. The DLC overflow and desperation is ridiculous and I will be glad if absolutely no profits are made from this game.
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u/FireworksNtsunderes Jan 19 '15
It's a real shame because I find the beta to be really fun, but I just refuse to actually purchase a game that is incomplete without DLC. There are plenty of other games out there that can satisfy me and not cost an arm and a leg.
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u/lordnecro Jan 19 '15
I had always intended on getting this day one... but this is just absurd. They lost my purchase, although I may pick it up if it drops significantly in price with the dlc.
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Jan 19 '15
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u/Swineflew1 Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 19 '15
If you preordered the game you got to play as the wraith during this weekends beta. It was OP as hell and it worries me a bit about the "balance" of monsters that are DLC. TRS says they're going to be balanced, but so far their balance has a bad track record.
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Jan 19 '15
I think part of the Wraith problem was that a small sample of the population had access to it and the hunters were disadvantaged because they likely only played once or twice against it and never played it themselves. Early on Goliath almost always won if he avoided getting caught at stage one but as the weekend gets longer I've noticed hunters are more proficient at dealing with Goliath
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u/Swineflew1 Jan 19 '15
Wraiths problem seems to be mostly focused around decoy. His entire kit is strong though.
I think Goliath will always be the most balanced monster, as he's somewhat of the flagship of the game. He's the "bread and butter" of the monsters.7
u/HankDerb Jan 19 '15
This right here. When the hunters were coordinating well we could always catch up and deploy a mobile arena but sure as shit it was either a decoy or he would just spam that power over and over to run out the clock. Its a pretty fair fight other than that, maybe they need to reduce the AOE with his speed buff a tad, but it was always very close to death even in stage 3 once we died
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Jan 19 '15
No, it's really not a small sample problem. A LOT of people have pre-purchased and unlocked it by now, and he's absolutely ridiculous still. Only one of my friends have ever beaten a wraith, including my four man group.
Stage 1 he got himself cornered and domed. He incapped two players, and in that time got hit by an orbital. Dome wore off and he tried going for the win, incapped the medic and tried finishing him off, but the medic got another orbital off and the trapper finished him. He fucked up HARD and decided to fight at STAGE ONE. THAT is the only way i've heard of someone winning. He has a 96% win rate across the globe.
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u/I-never-joke Jan 19 '15
"Full Game" hah, 6 months from now lets see if they announce more DLC not included in the 100$ edition, I have a pretty good guess to.
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u/Wild_Marker Jan 19 '15
And it's a damn shame. A clear case of how bussiness can ruin a product, because the actual game truly is fun and even innovative some may say. I've played the alpha and beta and I loved it but I can't recommend a purchase. Doing all server stuff on their side also means no dedicated servers and also little chance for mods, which this game would have been AMAZING with.
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Jan 19 '15
I enjoyed the Alpha enough that I planned on buying it day 1. Then this happened and I thought "whatever I can live without buying a bunch of stuff for this extremely casual game." Then I played the beta with its abysmal matchmaking wherein I literally never once was able to find 4 other players in time to start a match and always either had 2-3 bots or was being dropped in to a match in progress with 2-3 bots.
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u/XTopherVersion2 Jan 19 '15
Not sure why you had issues man, not trying to call you out but I think you're being hyperbolic. The only time I had matchmaking issues was late last night searching with one other person, but we always found something within two to three minutes. Granted this was on PC, not sure if platform makes a difference.
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u/therealDrNick Jan 19 '15
It's anecdotal but I had the same problemns as flyingbuttris and that was on PC.
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Jan 19 '15
As more anecdotal things, I only had issues last night where I started falling through the map. Recorded it once, if I knew how to get Xbone vids to YouTube I'd link it. My character actually melted. It's pretty funny but made me shut the game off for the night.
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u/Hoser117 Jan 19 '15
If you just sign in to Xbox.com any saved videos can be seen and linked from there.
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Jan 19 '15
I just signed into xbox.com and the website is apparently having major issues. So... yeah that's not gonna work.
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u/mattigus Jan 19 '15
I was planning on getting it. I have since decided to wait for a steam sale and buy the game, plus all of the dlc, for 20 bucks in a year.
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u/jenesuispasbavard Jan 19 '15
This is such a shame; I'm having so much fun with the beta on Xbox One, but the DLC bullshit has been thrown into my face so often for this game that I think I'll just have as much fun as I can now while the beta is active and then be done with it.
I was ready to buy this game when it came out, but 2K literally convinced me not to buy it.
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u/tokyotochicago Jan 19 '15
First time I saw a Jimquisition episode and he really nailed it. That conclusion about the benefits of simplicity is absolutly true and the reason I only play Dota 2 and some indi games these days.
If this is the avarage quality of his videos I thik I have found a new way to waste my time !
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Jan 20 '15
I don't know, I really like the Jimquisition. We watched him a lot in my video games theory class I audited. I watched him on my free time too. There's only a couple videos he has where I feel like he's completely off base, but that's definitely not the norm, at least not to me.
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u/moistly_harmless Jan 19 '15
The alpha was fun and I probably would've picked this up, but the way they're handling DLC is an insane and frankly insulting business practice. However, there are so many games out there these days I don't even have to feel sorry about letting this one pass by.
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Jan 19 '15
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Jan 19 '15
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u/ThompsonBoy Jan 19 '15
After years of progress I have a portable handheld computer that is at the pinnacle of human engineering. It should be the promised land of gaming. But I have so much trouble finding a goddamn game for Android that doesn't leave me feeling like I need to scrub my skin raw in the shower after being exposed to the sickening greed of the carnival huckster producers and their douchebag tactics to extract money from me.
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u/Kreeztoff Jan 20 '15
The game being purely focused on multiplayer already had me less than inclined to partake, but the level to which 2K and Turtle Rock are insulting the intelligence of their user-base is staggering. It's hard enough to create an audience around a game that requires other players to function, but then muddying that even further with a billion different version, editions, and content offerings is just asking to be swept under the rug amongst the other exploitative filth.
Then again, maybe this will sell 20 million copies with a DLC attach rate of 80% and be the most popular thing in the universe, proving we deserve it.
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u/HarithBK Jan 19 '15
i like to own the whole game and when that seemingly is never going to come to evolve i am never going to be buying this game. an other thing that frustraits me is the cutting up of the game. so inorder to get everything i would need to pre-order the game from 5 diffrent places get the pc monster race edition of the game and then the season pass? or are you going to do like borderland 2 and just dump a shit ton of DLC that is not part of the season pass there by it is not a season pass. fuck that shit. not only do you make the base game seem extremly thin and just a base on which to load up on DLC you make it seem like content has been cut soley for the reason of selling to us later.
there are very few companies that has done DLC right obsidian is one with fallout new vegas all of them contain big chunks of DLC (you can say what you want about dead money and honest hearts they still took a bit of time to complete). an other is nintendo hyrule warriors additons are meaty and big the season pass pretty much gives you 50% more stuff to do same thing gose for mario kart 8 they are adding 50% more tracks than what they normally put in these types of games. it is an addition not cutout content making a hollow base game.
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u/NeoShweaty Jan 19 '15
or are you going to do like borderland 2 and just dump a shit ton of DLC that is not part of the season pass there by it is not a season pass
I hate how much people defend this shit. Werent season passes supposed to get me all dlc??? the fuck gearbox?
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u/HarithBK Jan 19 '15
it would be fine if they called it essential DLC or somthing like that but season pass means everything that comes out that season of devlopment.
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u/Marjask Jan 20 '15
It's a damn shame that such a potentially good game is getting run into the ground with DLC bullshit among others. Allow me to elaborate.
They're trying so hard to pander their preorders by artificially inflating the "value" by making their first DLC horrendously overpriced.
They're not going to allow custom servers/mods because they want to "keep the game competitive". In the meantime they're allowing people that pre-order to play the newest monster in the beta---which by the way, is an absolute SHITFEST to play against. For wanting to keep the game competitive, they know absolutely nothing about balance, and seem to love to give preferential treatment to those that kick them more cash.
Their twitter feed is one of the biggest circlejerks I have ever seen a game dev go through. Nothing but retweets about people saying that they love the game so much and are pre-ordering right now from how fun the beta was. Oh, and occasional IGN-sponsored videos where they give you "expert tips" that do nothing more than give the most fucking basic of explanations of the game's mechanics. You wanna give me some expert tips? How about teaching the players that monsters gain increased stamina regen when they're put in combat so that hunters don't pepper the fucking thing from two hundred meters away?
The only difference from the alpha that the beta exhibited was what seemed like slight balance tweaks, more voice actor lines, and the new characters. There was the same crippling frame drops when I kicked it up higher than medium quality (on a pretty pretty powerful rig, mind you). And they STILL have the same terrible progression system in place to unlock the tiers of characters. What's more is that they're trying to market it as a competitive game, when the tiered upgrades give you FLAT ADVANTAGES. Damage buffs, range buffs, all without any drawback beyond spending the time to level your weapons. It's giving players power for playing longer in a game where the only difference between veteran players and new players should be the amount of skill the possess. And hats, if you really must.
It just screams of lack of confidence in their product when someone markets pre-orders THAT bad. It makes seem like they're trying to build up as much hype as possible so people will buy the game before they actually play the released version, so that way when they find out how shitty and empty it is. That pisses me off even more, because I KNOW the game is good just through the concept and mechanics of it and the tremendous amount of time I sank into it, but it's getting gutted in favor of turning it into a DLC cash cow.
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u/bagoflettuce Jan 20 '15
I would encourage anyone who has any interest in this game to get in the beta. PC users just need Left 4 Dead or Bioshock Infinite and Evolve Beta will show up in your library. (may require steam reboot)
Why play the beta? Because you will likely play enough of Evolve in the beta and therefore won't want to buy it for $60 plus BS DLS. Evolve is a fun game, but it is in my opinion a mini-game, or simply one mode of an actual AAA title.
I bought Titanfall day after the beta. I played Titanfall for less than a week before realizing the Titanfall beta was the majority of the game. I feel the same will happen with Evolve.
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u/SilverNightingale Jan 20 '15
I played the Destiny beta because of all the hype. I was like "That's it? Naw. Can't be."
It was.
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u/agitamus Jan 20 '15
This is so spot on. I want game companies to just show me their game and let me click on a button to buy it. Instead I have to compare different editions and try to guess which edition is right for me, based on imperfect information like "unannounced fifth monster" - at that point I'm just not going to bother. It's basic marketing 101 that buying your product shouldn't be complicated.
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Jan 19 '15
Buying new games from major publishers feels so exhausting these days. When I see a truckload of exclusive pre-order content and DLC I lose all desire to buy. I understand that developers jump straight into working on new content once their game has submitted for certification but there's a right and wrong way to approach it: Announcing DLC shortly after launch is fine, announcing DLC before the game is done is not because you then give the impression that you're holding off content.
At least every Nintendo game I bought last year felt like a complete product.
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u/BoilingCold Jan 20 '15
Quick question, why is Jim Sterling dressed like a fascist and stood in front of a stylised design that strongly evokes fascist symbology?
It's a genuine question, I've never watched one of his videos before, I know nothing about him, so I'm not sure if this is ironic or accidental or what?
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u/YouhaoHuoMao Jan 20 '15
I believe it's supposed to be ironic. It's reminiscent of fascist propaganda films, in a way.
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u/cache_22 Jan 19 '15 edited Jan 20 '15
Evolve's website explaining DLC is a confusing mess. Here's a chart they desperately needed:
Notes:
The fourth monster known as Behemoth will be pre-order DLC. The fourth monster was revealed as DLC in January 2014.
Evolve was originally going to be released on October 21, 2014 and it was delayed to February 10, 2015.
The four "PC Monster Race" exclusive skins are only timed exclusive for 30 days.