Caveat Emptor/Video Game Developers

The Game Room
1

In my not so humble opinion, I am getting really irate with the way video game companies are screwing gamers these days. As a 29 year old who plays them, I can remember the times when they were made and even the poorest ranking games were actually made with some modicum of quality. Electronic Arts is on top of my sh*t list as always. They keep cranking out games that are half finished in terms of content and charging $60+ for them, then releasing content that should have been included to begin with, as Add-Ons or DLC (Downloadable Content) for an extra $20-30, multiple times.

To the outside observer this may not make much sense, but for gamers, it does when you have a plethora of other games out there, from other companies that don’t try to deliberately screw you. Bethesda is a big example. They make tremendous games in terms of scope and content, replay value is unbelievably outstanding and the story lines (which actually exist in these games) are engrossing. They have good voice acting, the game makes you think and it actually challenges you. You play games like these and it almost feels like you are ripping off the company as you get at least 80-120 hours out of them (not including replaying the game). They release downloadable content that is actually much larger in content and fun that some of Electronic Arts’ ‘Full Release’ games.

What I see happening is smaller gaming companies and some of the larger ones (that care about their fan-base) are making quality games and content, and the ultra huge companies, which by all means have the resources over advertise and keep cranking out low quality, repetitive games that are typically smaller than other games Add On’s and are usually filled with bugs or are just the same game with different texture packs or weapons, as if they have no idea what quality control is. The smaller companies have no chance and the gaming market sucks.

Don’t even get me started on the whole “Loot Box” fiasco going on in games. For the outside observer;
This is where players can either pay REAL money for the same stuff in games (typically weapons or credits) whereas everyone else has to struggle, challenge themselves and play the game to actually earn the same stuff. It is not fair for gaming because there will always be some 10 year old with his parents debit card just buying his way to the top, while everyone else has to earn it the old fashioned way, by working for it. They make this worse by actually turning the part about earning it into a repetitive chore, thereby increasing your likelihood to pay more physical cash to get the same stuff. Its sick and goes against the spirit of gaming and merit.

Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Activision (in this order) are the worst offenders, even as publishers they screw things up. Its no wonder a few years ago EA got voted as the worst company in America. It should be illegal for this bait and switch to happen, but unfortunately stupid suckers out there will keep paying them by buying games like “The Division”, “Battlefield” and “Call of Duty” and keep getting burnt. Go with Bethesda, or the makers of The Witcher (CD PROJEKT RED), or Flying Wild Hog… great companies, great games and guess what, the products they create are 10x or more original, creative and vast, in comparison to what shitheels like EA and Ubisoft crank out to part you with your money.

To any who are thinking “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it” or anything along that train of though, you are woefully missing the point as well. Once you buy it, you are stuck with it, whether or not they gave you a kiss beforehand.

2

I heartily endorse this pitting.

3

heh what are people gonna do when a major game maker tries the apple/android “free to play” model on the consoles

people are already used to it on consoles because of the mmorpgs like neverwinter the old republic … ect

its going to happen sooner than we think and the next gen or two wont even blink because they all ready do it on the tablets and phones

4

Thanks! I should have put in the BBQ Pit, but I had to put it here so other gamers would see it.

Yep, the next gen or two won’t blink because they are used to it, which is sad, but its all they know. I don’t want to be that guy saying “When I was young, when you bought a game, you actually got the whole thing! On a DISC!” When it comes to free to play, maybe that is a double edged sword. Maybe it will force these crappy game makers like EA to actually create a full and quality game. They are churning out stuff that feels like Demo’s (remember those?) and so cheaply made, it feels like they should be free to play type games.

I challenge anyone to play Star Wars Battlefront (1), vanilla, no mods or dlcs, and tell me it feels like a full game or rushed to make a profit. ARGHH!!

Here’s some hope

5

Some companies do it well and other companies don’t.

Paradox releases a lot of DLC for their games; however, their base games are great and they provide a LOT of support for their games. Every single DLC comes with a huge free update that typically includes content. Now the free content is normally done as a bit of a tease to encourage you to buy the DLC, but … of course it is. They do want you to buy the DLC after all.

Firaxis is another great example. A lot of their major DLC packs are almost completely new games. E.g. XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.

Other companies like EA don’t do a very good job managing this (it makes me kind of sad, since EA made so many of my favorite games from my childhood, e.g. Bard’s Tale, Starflight, Archon, M.U.L.E., etc). However, the reality is that regardless of how anybody feels subjectively about the games and their publishers, they sell a lot of copies and that’s a very good objective measurement. I.e. clearly it doesn’t bother the vast majority of gamers. As an example, I bought Shadow of War, and although I pre-ordered it before the loot boxes were announced, I still would have bought it because I knew it would be a great game. I’ve not purchased any loot boxes (with real money) and they’re completely unnecessary to purchase anyway.

6

That was never true. The Video Game Crash happened precisely because so much garbage was being churned out that nobody trusted any games to be worth buying. And if you’re only 29 years old, that happened before you were even born. Games today are of so much better quality overall than they used to be, you don’t even know how good you have it.

I’m not saying that you don’t run the risk of buying something that’s crap, because sure, there have always been and will always be crappy games, even big budget ones. But I remember a time when (for example) every game built on an existing license (movie, TV show, tabletop game, etc.) was garbage because it relied solely on the popularity of the original source for sales. Now those are often among the best games you’ll find. Overall gaming is a much better experience than when I was growing up.

7

I suppose that’s me. I agree with your overall point about some of these developers, but (as you said) they’re a totally known quantity. If I buy the new Battlefield or Call of Duty and am shocked to discover its business model, then I clearly haven’t been paying attention.

If I spend 60 bucks to preorder a crappy game instead of waiting a few days for initial user reviews, that’s on me for buying a product sight unseen.

Yep. Figured that out on the free demo weekend prior to release and never bothered to pick it up as a result. The modern gaming world is terrible in that a lot of content is rushed, but it’s wonderful in that staying informed is super easy.

8

For anyone who wants some insight into how games are made, including some mentioned in this very thread (Witcher 3) I highly encourage everyone to read Blood Sweat and Pixels. It’s a fantastic book that takes you behind-the-scenes as to how games are made.

Since reading this, and seeing turmoil that my beloved Mass Effect Andromeda went through I have a better appreciation for just how hard it is to make a game, make it on time, and on budget. The book tends to pain the overall developers (like EA and Microsoft) in a bad light, but I can also see how frustrating it can be for them as well.

9

Yeah, “shovelware” isn’t a new term.

Bethesda is working hard at monetizing what used to be the premiere feature of their RPGs, the fact that they would eventually have near infinite mods. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to push out modding entirely with their next game, aside from stuff approved and sold through their store. Even at launch, FO4 felt like a fight between the modders and a reluctant Bethesda, probably because they knew their paid mod program would be on the horizon. And, of course, Bethesda was the originator of the “Horse armor” meme, charging five bucks for garbage DLC.

CD Projekt Red lost some credibility with me over the ridiculous notion that “expansions aren’t DLC” and so their previous remarks that they wouldn’t have paid DLC for Witcher 3 didn’t apply to the paid DLC they released. Amusingly, someone who was arguing with me about this before is now upset that Ubisoft said that their upcoming DLC for Steep wasn’t included in the Season Pass because it’s an expansion, not DLC. So, uh, hey – who paved the way to that semantic nonsense? :stuck_out_tongue:

All that said, I don’t really spend much time being mad at specific developers or publishers. I don’t even make the above points to say “These guys suck!” but to point out that they’re all looking to separate you from your cash because that’s what companies do. As you said, caveat emptor.

10

I’ll also point out, just to complain, that the FO4 Season Pass was pretty trash especially compared with the ones for FO3 and New Vegas. Far Harbor was the only real story/play content (then Nuka-World which was pretty terrible) and Far Harbor felt half-baked with only one companion having new lines or interaction because they only wanted to pay companion one voice actor. So you had someone like Curie standing around mute in a synth colony which made zero sense. Then the other DLC was all settlement/building oriented stuff that you could mod anyway. For this, they jacked the price of the Season Pass up to a ridiculous fifty bucks because you were getting so much ‘awesome’ stuff.

I lucked out and had gotten the SP for about $16 before the price increase but the end results were not anything to praise Bethesda for.

11

This is the kind of market-speak pigshit that makes my eyes roll so hard my optic nerves hurt.

Did I DownLoad the Content? Then it’s DLC. Quod Erat Fucking Demonstrandum, you gaming company marketing Humpty-Dumpty* trolls.

12

Yeah, “DLC” is pretty commonly accepted to include any additional content purchasable to augment the base game from minor cosmetics to new story chapters or regions. “Expansions” are a type of DLC, not separate from it. I expect this will continue and spread so you buy something with “All 2019 DLC” and then hear “Oh, new purchasable character classes aren’t DLC. Only costumes & weapon skins are DLC…”, etc.

13

Unlike the videogame crash days of yore, most of the stuff put out still works, has great graphics, voice acting, and the other hallmarks of AAA publishing. The problem is that the games themselves are vapid, devoid of actual content, and as pointed out by OP, frequently carry a large pricetag since all the extra content comes in the form of DLC.

But that shit sells, unfortunately. As annoying as it is I find myself less and less upset with the companies making it and more upset with the blind idiots who buy it. Which sometimes includes myself - I recently bought Destiny 2 on PC (having not played the former, as it was console-only) and kinda regret it, as it feels like another under-contented, empty game that’ll require many DLC purchases down the road. But I bought it Day 1 because my friends did, and I suspect we’ll all stop playing it soonish. As Johnny Bravo points out, that’s on me. I at least plan to not spend another dime on anything Destiny, but that $60 is already gone.

Eh, this is the same sort of reasoning that would basically make any an RPG. “Is it a game where I play a role? Then it’s an RPG.” It’s definitely a blurry line (probably to the point of worthlessness) but I’m fine with trying to make a difference between “expansion” for large, entire add-on campaigns, and “DLC” for smaller stuff that can range between something as big as a mission or two or as small as a new weapon or shiny hat. An example would be the Civilization series where they have a couple of large expansion packs but also DLC in the forms of adding individual new civs.

14

Nintendo seems to be doing this pretty well. They just had a Direct for Xenoblade, and they listed everything that you’ll get with the “expansion pass”. I’m not particularly interested in that game, but it looks like it will have enough content to justify its price, and you know (basically) what you’re getting with the pass. They did a similar thing before Zelda came out.

Most of this is just being up-front and not over-hyping stuff.

15

You can still use the word “expansion” while accepting that it’s a subheading of “DLC”. No one is going to hear you say “expansion” and think “Oh, they must mean three new costumes and a flaming axe skin”.

Trying to use the word as a semantic escape is more weaselly though. However, even if you’re okay with that, I had to laugh at people upset when Ubisoft pulls the same semantic trickery but they get castigated because it’s Ubisoft so obviously they’re jerks but heavens forbid anyone speak ill of gaming darlings CD Projekt Red.

16

Mostly I wish Steam did a better job distinguishing between cosmetic and substantive DLCs–things like Crusader Kings II where the DLC list is a mile long, and the “Here’s a completely new nation, religion and play mode” is completely mixed together in the list with “Here’s a Hun uniform for your armies” which makes it hard to know exactly what I might be in for if I want a full “game” experience.

17

Old article (2011) but still relevant: The 10 Most Insulting Things Video Games Charged Money For. Number 8 is my favorite, truly nuts: Dead Space (among others) gives you the opportunity to pay about two bucks for slightly better versions of the weapons in the game. Not even all the weapons, just some of the weapons.

As the article says, “Increasing weapon speed is just changing a variable. That’s not even a single line of code, and they’re charging over two dollars. By this math, the whole game should cost Saudi Arabia. Even Microsoft knows this is a sucker deal, as the only description text is “Includes faster-firing Force Gun, Line Gun, and Plasma Cutter. There are no refunds for this item.” Half its own sales pitch is “Ha ha, you’ll never get that cash back, sucker.””

18

I endorse any pitting of EA. They screwed me (and I imagine a lot of other people) over on a promotional offer. It was supposed to be that if you bought some of their games from a list, you got a free game from the list. I bought the games, send in all the required paperwork, and waited. And waited. The promised game never arrived.

I contacted EA after three or four months. They told me they weren’t going to deliver the game. Their excuse? The promotion was now over.

Of course the promotion was over, you words-I-can’t-use-in-this-forum. But it was still going when I bought the games and send you the paperwork. It ended while I was patiently waiting for you to deliver the product. They were using their failure to deliver the product on time as an excuse to not deliver the product at all.

19

I’ll tell you what pissed me off. With Destiny I had an online FPS that I really enjoyed. At least until I could no longer connect to the servers. Eventually I figured out that it wouldn’t work over WiFi no matter what settings you used (DMZ, port forwarding, nothing helped) but once I hooked up a LAN cable it was fine. And I was okay with that.

No, what pissed me off was that when I finally figured out how to get it working again and I tried playing, content was gated off because I needed the “Taken King” expansion. I’ve been down that road before, I’ve played MMOs for as long as they’ve existed so I’m used to it. But what really got me is that I couldn’t buy just the expansion. They only sold it with a new full version of the game. I owned the digital deluxe and season pass already but to get new content I needed to repurchase what I already own? (And even re-purchased already so I could play on the Xbox One, I originally bought it for my 360). Microsoft can bite me. I think that’s the most insulted I’ve ever felt from a developer.

20

Thanks for the insight everyone, its nice to know others are tired of the crap too. Maybe some changes could happen (doubtful), but at least the awareness of their games is out there. I too am angry at the idiots who buy the low quality stuff, not the ones who buy it hoping its good, but the ones who keep buying it, they are bringing down gaming for the rest of us.

I also agree that gaming is much better these days, but in the times of yore, I meant that the games had everything you needed to play it decently, included, and didn’t prevent you from doing certain things by paywalling it in a way (this is why I can’t play MMORPG’s) It was more of a personal perspective, value in games increases their attractiveness, for me at least.