Escapist Podcast: 010: SOE Fan Faire and Day 1 DLC
- Thread starter The Escapist Staff
- Start date
Good podcast, but shorter than normal. What the hell? You gypped me! 
Ah, spoilers. I was once told off by someone for spoiling the end of a 10-to-15 year old game. Really. A game so old it was impossible for anyone new to the game to play it without buying second-hand hardware or resorting to emulation. And I apparently "ruined the end" for some people. WHAT PEOPLE?
Ah, spoilers. I was once told off by someone for spoiling the end of a 10-to-15 year old game. Really. A game so old it was impossible for anyone new to the game to play it without buying second-hand hardware or resorting to emulation. And I apparently "ruined the end" for some people. WHAT PEOPLE?
*Glances at job ads.* Could someone tell my industry that?Don Reba said:
Maybe in your country, but sure as hell not in the United States.Don Reba said:Some random comments:
? I wonder if yuplay.ru will sue Ubisoft's Uplay for name infringement ?probably not.
? I've been blaming Doom 3 since before it even came out.
? The economic downturn has long ended.
? The podcast is not too long. I listen to it while catching up with my RSS feeds for the end of the week.
? Backgrounds are a huge part of many games. For all their wonderful storytelling, Mass Effect would not be the outstanding games they are without the art. Also, I disagree that graphics are already good enough. Engine and graphics card demos still look mesmerizing. Graphics have a very long way to go. For example: global illumination and raytracing are only being done in very limited ways and accomplished with tons of hacks.
Formica Archonis said:
There are multiple opinions about it, but the banks have repaid the bailout, the auto industry is growing, high-tech is doing great, the gaming industry is booming. The country is not in a boom phase overall, but the bust phase bottomed out in 2009 and mostly ended in 2010.Eri said:
My country is Canada, by the way. Canadian banks are disciplined and regulated, but the economy is strongly tied to the US.
Wanted to ask this too, because I feel like you missed the point about people arguing against Day 1 DLC a bit.vxicepickxv said:
Day 1 DLC is always annoying, but what is blatant money grabbing, and what makes people bring out the torches is content that was completed when the game went to print, and is actually in the disc. Then you buy the DLC and its only a 50kb file that unlocks the content that was in the disc already.
I understand dlc that was worked on after the game went to print, and happened to be ready at launch, but if it is already in the disc, they have no right to charge us extra for it.
That's what I think is wrong about dlc nowadays.
Exactly, because if they weren't wasting resources making that DLC during the games development cycle then they would of had those same resources availiable to just put the content into the full game anyway... So what is day 1 DLC other than a cynical money grab?Rayansaki said:
Also on a more general note, I do worry that perhaps DLC is leading the core game to be watered down, I believe you can only go so far down the road of spending time and effort designing DLC without the main game suffering. After all, if the main game is fully fleshed out then there is less need for the player to buy the DLC right?
DLC is a rip off for the most part, day one DLC is especially bs. 10 years ago we have games with just as much content and they don't need a DLC to break even. They are cutting out contents from the game as day 1 DLC. I haven't bought any DLC for any game so far, and I will keep avoiding buying it unless there's something game breaking that I need from the DLC.
So you find it fine to sell single player day one story DLC but not multiplayer, darm I know the escapist values gameplay over story but too openly call people out that they are entitled for not liking that the story in games spilt up and at the same time complain companies that do it too multiplayer seems a hypocritical at best.
Always nice to hear someone else calling out far too many gamers for being whiny entitled brats.
DLC is a bit of an interesting topic, and I think we're seeing a bit of a backlash to the sort of regularly released downloadable content that I actually consider to be the best sort. There seem to be a lot of people, at least here on the Escapist, who claim they will be waiting for the inevitable "GOTY" version of a game knowing it will not only be cheaper but will also include the entire DLC roster in a complete package. I don't tend to get into much DLC (I'm generally the sort that will buy and play the main game, complete it and then move on, leaving any future DLC unpurchased) but this could throw a bit of a wrench into developers DLC plans if it's not just a vocal minority talking. I could potentially see developers relying more on the totally optional yet often totally valueless sorts of DLC to compensate, which would be a bad thing for those who do like to extend their playing experiences.
DLC is a bit of an interesting topic, and I think we're seeing a bit of a backlash to the sort of regularly released downloadable content that I actually consider to be the best sort. There seem to be a lot of people, at least here on the Escapist, who claim they will be waiting for the inevitable "GOTY" version of a game knowing it will not only be cheaper but will also include the entire DLC roster in a complete package. I don't tend to get into much DLC (I'm generally the sort that will buy and play the main game, complete it and then move on, leaving any future DLC unpurchased) but this could throw a bit of a wrench into developers DLC plans if it's not just a vocal minority talking. I could potentially see developers relying more on the totally optional yet often totally valueless sorts of DLC to compensate, which would be a bad thing for those who do like to extend their playing experiences.
I'm actually waiting for that for Dragon Age 2. Yeah, I've heard about all the boring environment copy pasting, but I'm still eager to experience the characters. And if it doesn't have the DLC all lumped into one, the savvy consumer in me will turn it down.StriderShinryu said:
Yea.Blazingdragoon04 said:
It seems that lately many gamers like to just say that those they disagree with have an overinflated sense of entitlement and that alone wins their argument. It doesn't work like that.
I personally don't have anything against dlc as a concept but it's usually overpriced and only meagerly expands a game that didn't have $60 worth of content to begin with.
The fact is that the game industry has been pulling out a lot of predatory practices and seem more inclined to try and hype/trick gamers out of their money rather than earning that money with great products and/or services. This has hurt the industry overall: most of the ps2 owners I know never moved on to the 360 or ps3.
Also if we were still seeing more games with that San Andreas amount of content on the launch disc, I think we would also hear fewer arguments against dlc. However, the amount of content seems to be shrinking.
Alright, this week again I have quite a few things to say, so here's another long rant. I'll hide it in a spoiler to be save space.
With that out of the way, I'd just like to thank you all for saving and repopulating the world sometime in the not to distant (?) future. Be sure to let us know how you figured out how to send the podcast back in time or to another dimension where whatever cause the world to almost end never happened.
Alright, starting from where I'm at in the video, the spoilers area. I think that spoilers, at least for games, should lose their taboo after about 3 years or so. The reasoning is that it takes around that long for a sequel to come out to a game, giving time for people who are interested in it (including those who may not become interested until the sequel comes out). Most game sequels are continuations after all. The knowledge of the first game's events are normally required and/or explained in the second game anyways, so I don't see anything wrong with it.
Then there are the big spoilers that basically become so wide spread that it's almost impossible to avoid them. I can name at least three off the top of my head: "Darth Vader is Luke's father" "The guy from the Sixth Sense is a ghost the entire time" and "Dumbledore dies." Now, I didn't see any of the movies these spoilers are from, nor did I ever care to watch them. But the Sixth Sense spoiler was so widespread I actually heard the spoiler in the middle of a TV show as the setup for a joke (Scrubs, when Dr. Cox spoils the ending of the movie the Janitor). Then the Harry Potter spoiler was one that became so widespread because it was so shocking that I ended up hearing it before I could even start the book It actually made me decide to stop reading/watching the series there.
Music in games is pretty important for me. Not quite as big as it is in movies most the time (I loved Scott Pilgrim and Sucker Punch at least in part because of the way they handled their music), but they're still pretty important. The obvious areas of importance for music is in the music games. I love the DJ Hero series because of how unique the game's music is and how it's handled. But most the time the music in the background is lost. It's meant to simply help the atmosphere. I'd say if I did notice it, then it wouldn't be doing it's job right.
The graphics comment kind of pissed me off, mainly due to the part where he stated 'no gamer wants that.' He can speak for everyone? Going off that, I still completely disagree. The visuals are actually very important. It's not just looking at the same area like Susan mentioned, but the fact that it gets old very fast to look at bad-looking graphics is more important. I think that's why so many people are tired of the brown/gray games that are always produced. They are looking uglier with every installment in that they look bland, and I honestly think it makes the game harder to enjoy.
Some games, like Minecraft, can use style choices to get around this problem; that doesn't work for every game though. The next Halo would be burned if it had minecraft-level graphics, as would pretty much every other AAA game. I know DNF was bashed for it's outdated graphics (though it sounds like that was just one of many issues). It's also not just the number of polygons you can get in a game, a lot of focus is put on textures, which is very important. I know that OoT3D didn't have a lot of updates in it's polygons, but the updates to the textures made a huge difference in my opinion.
That's not to say that AI doesn't need to improve, but that's not something that, as the podcasters mentioned, you can just throw money at or will likely appear in gaming at first. AI is something that's still in development and I would argue that no game has gotten it perfect. Some do it better then others, but it's not like they can take code from one game and use it on a different one as it likely wouldn't work correctly. Maybe someday we'll get to the point where AI is perfect, but by then we'll all be enslaved by our robot overlords (who I completely welcome and bow down to as long as they don't kill me and use my skull as an oil container). As for dynamic areas that change based off players, that's still far from actually being good for creating unique worlds I think. The creation algorithm would likely have a lot of bugs, creating some points where you can, say, phase through walls or be blocked off from areas where you think you can walk off. The Left4Dead AI director is a step in the right direction though, and it would be interesting to see it all.
Finally, Day 1 DLC. I think that it's not a bad thing per say. I can understand (that's not to say that I agree with it) the idea of doing things like blocking off the multiplayer experience. I mean, the publisher needs money from sales, and getting people to pay for online if they buy the game used by getting them to buy a pass to play online with others is better then people who buy the game new and may not be able to download their extra content because they don't have online (a problem that people who play multiplayer won't have as they have to get online, unless they also block the local which would make this be much more filled with my rage).
This could also be used as a way to lower the price for the initial game used from places like Gamestop to make up for the lost sales that they'd see due to the need of a code. That way Gamestop isn't digging as much into the profits of companies and those buying the games don't have to spend as much if they don't want to play online or can't play online. I'd argue, and I think most would disagree, that the problem is companies like Gamestop keeping the prices of these games so high for used copies. If they cut the price of these games that need these codes used (also, of course, giving less trade in for them) by about $7-10 dollars, the people buying them would be able to get it cheaper and then use the money they saved on the game to buy the online or pass portion if they want it. That way Gamestop can continue being the 'evil middleman' with the constant battle against them dying out a bit.
My main problem with the actual DLC version of Day 1 DLC is the fact you have to download them. That's not possible for everyone, and DLC can get to be a pain if you need to switch consoles due to one breaking down or similar situations. I have the problem where I can't play most of my zombie maps for WaW offline as I've switched my console due to the old one breaking down and needing to get it replaced. You can switch the rights over, but it's such a hastle that you have to switch the rights over to the new system, go to your history, redownload everything, and then hope it works. I see the same problem being present in Day 1 DLC, moreso then online multiplayer that you would have to, by nature, be online for. Not to mention those who just don't have internet in general of course.
Then there are the big spoilers that basically become so wide spread that it's almost impossible to avoid them. I can name at least three off the top of my head: "Darth Vader is Luke's father" "The guy from the Sixth Sense is a ghost the entire time" and "Dumbledore dies." Now, I didn't see any of the movies these spoilers are from, nor did I ever care to watch them. But the Sixth Sense spoiler was so widespread I actually heard the spoiler in the middle of a TV show as the setup for a joke (Scrubs, when Dr. Cox spoils the ending of the movie the Janitor). Then the Harry Potter spoiler was one that became so widespread because it was so shocking that I ended up hearing it before I could even start the book It actually made me decide to stop reading/watching the series there.
Music in games is pretty important for me. Not quite as big as it is in movies most the time (I loved Scott Pilgrim and Sucker Punch at least in part because of the way they handled their music), but they're still pretty important. The obvious areas of importance for music is in the music games. I love the DJ Hero series because of how unique the game's music is and how it's handled. But most the time the music in the background is lost. It's meant to simply help the atmosphere. I'd say if I did notice it, then it wouldn't be doing it's job right.
The graphics comment kind of pissed me off, mainly due to the part where he stated 'no gamer wants that.' He can speak for everyone? Going off that, I still completely disagree. The visuals are actually very important. It's not just looking at the same area like Susan mentioned, but the fact that it gets old very fast to look at bad-looking graphics is more important. I think that's why so many people are tired of the brown/gray games that are always produced. They are looking uglier with every installment in that they look bland, and I honestly think it makes the game harder to enjoy.
Some games, like Minecraft, can use style choices to get around this problem; that doesn't work for every game though. The next Halo would be burned if it had minecraft-level graphics, as would pretty much every other AAA game. I know DNF was bashed for it's outdated graphics (though it sounds like that was just one of many issues). It's also not just the number of polygons you can get in a game, a lot of focus is put on textures, which is very important. I know that OoT3D didn't have a lot of updates in it's polygons, but the updates to the textures made a huge difference in my opinion.
That's not to say that AI doesn't need to improve, but that's not something that, as the podcasters mentioned, you can just throw money at or will likely appear in gaming at first. AI is something that's still in development and I would argue that no game has gotten it perfect. Some do it better then others, but it's not like they can take code from one game and use it on a different one as it likely wouldn't work correctly. Maybe someday we'll get to the point where AI is perfect, but by then we'll all be enslaved by our robot overlords (who I completely welcome and bow down to as long as they don't kill me and use my skull as an oil container). As for dynamic areas that change based off players, that's still far from actually being good for creating unique worlds I think. The creation algorithm would likely have a lot of bugs, creating some points where you can, say, phase through walls or be blocked off from areas where you think you can walk off. The Left4Dead AI director is a step in the right direction though, and it would be interesting to see it all.
Finally, Day 1 DLC. I think that it's not a bad thing per say. I can understand (that's not to say that I agree with it) the idea of doing things like blocking off the multiplayer experience. I mean, the publisher needs money from sales, and getting people to pay for online if they buy the game used by getting them to buy a pass to play online with others is better then people who buy the game new and may not be able to download their extra content because they don't have online (a problem that people who play multiplayer won't have as they have to get online, unless they also block the local which would make this be much more filled with my rage).
This could also be used as a way to lower the price for the initial game used from places like Gamestop to make up for the lost sales that they'd see due to the need of a code. That way Gamestop isn't digging as much into the profits of companies and those buying the games don't have to spend as much if they don't want to play online or can't play online. I'd argue, and I think most would disagree, that the problem is companies like Gamestop keeping the prices of these games so high for used copies. If they cut the price of these games that need these codes used (also, of course, giving less trade in for them) by about $7-10 dollars, the people buying them would be able to get it cheaper and then use the money they saved on the game to buy the online or pass portion if they want it. That way Gamestop can continue being the 'evil middleman' with the constant battle against them dying out a bit.
My main problem with the actual DLC version of Day 1 DLC is the fact you have to download them. That's not possible for everyone, and DLC can get to be a pain if you need to switch consoles due to one breaking down or similar situations. I have the problem where I can't play most of my zombie maps for WaW offline as I've switched my console due to the old one breaking down and needing to get it replaced. You can switch the rights over, but it's such a hastle that you have to switch the rights over to the new system, go to your history, redownload everything, and then hope it works. I see the same problem being present in Day 1 DLC, moreso then online multiplayer that you would have to, by nature, be online for. Not to mention those who just don't have internet in general of course.
With that out of the way, I'd just like to thank you all for saving and repopulating the world sometime in the not to distant (?) future. Be sure to let us know how you figured out how to send the podcast back in time or to another dimension where whatever cause the world to almost end never happened.
Here's how I feel about spoilers:
No matter how long the piece of media in question has been out, there will always be someone who wants to see/read/play it, but hasn't yet. This doesn't mean that you can't discuss the work in question, but it does mean that you should keep in mind that those people exist, and not write them off with a statement of "it's been long enough, so they don't matter".
I agree with the previous poster that spoiling Book Three of The Game of Thrones right now would be a jerk move, because anyone who was introduced to the series by the HBO show hasn't had a reasonable amount of time to read it yet.
The main thing is this: I agree that personal responsibility enters into it, and you shouldn't seek out information on a piece of media you haven't seen if you don't want spoilers. The Escapist has several articles about The Game of Thrones, and I don't want spoilers, so I avoid them. However, if there's an article on Shadows of the Damned, and the author writes "The opening reminds me of that scene in Bioshock where {big spoiler} happens", that's not my fault. Bioshock is several years old, but I'll be playing it in a couple weeks, and I don't want spoilers. I've been actively trying to avoid them, but the author gave me no choice. I was looking for information on Shadows of the Damned, not on Bioshock.
Edit: One thing I'll add: I can sorta see the "one year" line being a good rule of thumb for books and movies, since at the one-year mark you can almost always buy a paperback version of the book, or a cheap (less than $10) copy of the movie. However, in gaming there's a big problem with the one-year-mark that other forms of media don't have to deal with: Console Exclusivity. I'd love to play Red Dead Redemption and Alan Wake (among plenty others), but right now I only have a PC, so I either have to wait for a port to come my way, or buy a 360. Hell, I'm just getting to play some old PS2 classics this year for the first time.
No matter how long the piece of media in question has been out, there will always be someone who wants to see/read/play it, but hasn't yet. This doesn't mean that you can't discuss the work in question, but it does mean that you should keep in mind that those people exist, and not write them off with a statement of "it's been long enough, so they don't matter".
I agree with the previous poster that spoiling Book Three of The Game of Thrones right now would be a jerk move, because anyone who was introduced to the series by the HBO show hasn't had a reasonable amount of time to read it yet.
The main thing is this: I agree that personal responsibility enters into it, and you shouldn't seek out information on a piece of media you haven't seen if you don't want spoilers. The Escapist has several articles about The Game of Thrones, and I don't want spoilers, so I avoid them. However, if there's an article on Shadows of the Damned, and the author writes "The opening reminds me of that scene in Bioshock where {big spoiler} happens", that's not my fault. Bioshock is several years old, but I'll be playing it in a couple weeks, and I don't want spoilers. I've been actively trying to avoid them, but the author gave me no choice. I was looking for information on Shadows of the Damned, not on Bioshock.
Edit: One thing I'll add: I can sorta see the "one year" line being a good rule of thumb for books and movies, since at the one-year mark you can almost always buy a paperback version of the book, or a cheap (less than $10) copy of the movie. However, in gaming there's a big problem with the one-year-mark that other forms of media don't have to deal with: Console Exclusivity. I'd love to play Red Dead Redemption and Alan Wake (among plenty others), but right now I only have a PC, so I either have to wait for a port to come my way, or buy a 360. Hell, I'm just getting to play some old PS2 classics this year for the first time.
Man, I forgot all about San Andreas and the HUGE amount of content that it had. I don't think I've ever gone back and played the game and compared it to the amount of gaming experience included in other games, such as Oblivion, Fallout 3, or even GTA 4, but I think the point still remains. Maybe we were spoiled in the PS2 era, maybe for 60 dollars we SHOULD be getting upwards of 20 hours of gameplay with single player alone, but the point is that huge games were what was expected at the end of the PS2 era. Huge, complete games that came with a one time 50-60 dollar fee and nothing else.GonzoGamer said:
As an argument that I didn't bring up before, I'd also like to add that I believe that DLC, in its current form, is leading to a rise in the second hand game market, buying used from Gamestop and Amazon and what not. Why pay 60 dollars and then have to pay more for DLC, when I can buy a game for 20 dollars and then buy the DLC later with the money I saved. Makes sense to me, and I bet it makes sense to a LOT of other people, hence Gamestop's record profits DURING A RECESSION.
I kinda feel like Jim Sterling at the moment; I really wish people in power actually read these comments from time to time to get good ideas and hear what the public has to say...
First time I listen to the podcast and I liked it.
Actually, first podcast ever for me.
Anywho, I'll keep my eyes, or ears, peeled for upcoming podcasts.
Actually, first podcast ever for me.
Anywho, I'll keep my eyes, or ears, peeled for upcoming podcasts.
There?s a lot of reasons Gamestop does well: like the fact that they?ve somehow convinced gamers that they have to hand over at least a $5 deposit for a game that isn?t coming out for months or else they wont be able to buy it.Blazingdragoon04 said:
Of all the games from this gen, Bethesda?s are the only ones that come close to offering that San Andreas amount of content.