Evolve Dev: "I Don't Like People Thinking We're Doing Dirty, Underhanded S***"

[Lightspeaker]

Honestly, people are too whiny.

For example, if the marketing implies that you get x amount of monsters when you buy the game, when in fact you only get some and the rest are dlc, that's a problem, they sold a product through false advertisements. If that is not happening, then shut the fuck up, voice your opinion on the value of their offerings with your wallet.

That's a horribly toxic attitude; not just for the gamers in question, but the industry as a whole. There are a thousand reasons why any offered video game could be found objectionable; if consumers just "shut the fuck up" and "voice your opinion on the value of their offerings with your wallet", then how on earth are the developers supposed to know what the problem is? If they don't, then how is anything supposed to improve? We developed the ideas of communication and feedback for a reason; ignoring them just because they're sometimes misdirected is nothing short of madness.

To add a supporting note to your reply: the silly part is that the "just shut up and vote with your wallet" attitudeis the exact same reason we have things like "all protagonists are mute, grizzled white males because they sell" being an issue for publishers. Not to mention the general ever present pressure on AAA games to become "safe" and generic. If they DON'T know why games don't sell then they're just going to make assumptions that its because they did something different and instead revert to a tried and tested formula; as opposed to realising that customers are getting sick of a previously "successful" thing.

Given that DLC has been "successful" in the past (i.e. its made people money) then they're unlikely to guess that this is the problem if people "shut up and vote with wallet".

 

[Belaam]

First off, I love that they guy they designated to talk about DLC being considered a rip-off is named Robb. Are we being trolled?

There are tons of great ways to keep making money after the game is out.
My favorite has always been the Civilization route: adding core elements while generally giving you several new characters.
Guild Wars' "here you can buy skins or extra character slots" is great as is their "Hey, we're finally making an expansion, but we're doing it in a way where your current gear isn't instantly made obsolete." Is also awesome.
Even GTA Online's "here's a bunch of cosmetic crap you can pay real or in game money for" is fine.

Evolve seems like buying dinner at an Italian place and being told that your dinner is coming out without the Alfredo sauce. We have it, right over there. And your dinner is at the point where we could add sauce. But we're not going to give you the sauce on your $60 dinner unless you give us an extra $20. ... And then being annoyed about poor Yelp reviews.

 

[Glaice]

Turtle Rock sure has nerve to come out and say this knowing they did mention the game being built upon DLC and the reasons why they're getting this backlash. Very likely 2K as usual screwing a developer over.

Like most publishers do.

 

[Manthraxx]

If you don't like people thinking you're doing dirty, underhanded shit, then stop Ubisofting and focus on the quality of the gameplay

 

[Monoclebear]

I don't get the people who say that they don't really care and are happy to get more of the game.
The point is that we are not getting "more game", that they have all of these DLC already planned and in the works proves that they hacked of ideas from the base game to sell to people extra.

 

[lord.jeff]

Maybe they should do something to actually show their consumer good will like the occasional free expansion along with all the DLC you know so we don't get to the point where people who paid full price have less then half the content for the game.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

Yeah, I understand why people would be upset about the fact that the sheer volume of DLC announced, as well as the fact that the season pass was being advertised before the game itself.

I cannot say I agree with people being angry at the 'built from ground up to support DLC' bit though.

To me, that is obviously a very poor choice of wording (him saying that confirmed the suspicion). Just like with that dragon's crown fiasco (the picture of four burly dwarves which most people assumed was a gay joke and I just took it to mean to say men would be overly muscular and half-naked just as well as women), I prefer to interpret words in terms of their overall intended meaning inferred from context and not literally based on their face value. Words have limitations and misunderstandings are that much easier if you don't at least try to understand the meaning behind them and immediately jump to conclusions.

In this case, I do not think they are actually leaving content out of the original game. They are building it in as a complete experiene with a more open-ended structure that supports additional content. You know, like most multiplayer games? Like Destiny? or map packs in call of duty?
I assume they wanted to boast about how the game will be supported with additional content after launch and overdid it with promoting that and in backfired right into their faces.

 

[Prankman]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, as I've only skimmed the thread, so forgive me if I'm echoing here, but I do want to clarify that the fourth Monster that you get free for pre-ordering is not day one DLC. It's more comparable to the Mechromancer with Borderlands 2; if you preorder, you get a DLC character for free post-launch when it's complete. Everybody else pays for it, but everybody gets it at the same time.

Behemoth's little released footage shows missing animations and untextured, incomplete attacks that have probably not been balance tested yet, either, so it's definitely not complete content being cut from the game, and the rest of the planned DLC probably isn't even at that prototype stage yet.

Of course, the fact that this wasn't made properly clear in a majority of the marketing how this stuff works is just further proof of how godawful it's been. I've followed Evolve since Spring of last year and have been able to try both the Big Alpha and Beta, and have seen the inside information on the forums from the devs, so I've been able to see the game minus it's shady marketing attached, which is why I'll continue to support it. The marketing has been absolutely terrible about how they've handled things though. The free maps, free game modes, unsplit community and ability to test-drive DLC characters are all being swept under the rug to promote the paid DLC. And yes, you can try DLC characters before buying them. If you join a game in progress, the game will have a chance to drop you on a DLC character, and the devs are promoting doing this in custom games with friends who own the DLC so you can try before you buy. They're also posting telemetry data on the forums and even have patch notes with changes made after the Beta for a day one patch, and are extraordinarily active on the forums asking the community there for ideas and answering questions. And if you ask them about damage data? They'll end up posting charts and exact damage calculations. The devs are absurdly informative there.

Not that you'd ever know this without scrubbing the forums, because the marketing seems to be allergic to promoting any actual cool features in favor of pushing pre-orders.

 

[MeatMachine]

I don't think it's shady and underhanded, only because they are laying their bullshit, greedy money-vaccuum tactics right on the table on full display and sincerely trying to refer to "customer-shagging" as "optional bonus features".

 

[bdcjacko]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

 

[Denamic]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

Yes. That is pretty much what should be the case with a full priced game like this. Free content patches used to be the norm, even for some free to play games. Holding content hostage is not okay.

 

[jackpipsam]

I have no problem with DLC in concept, hell I buy DLC for games.

But the problem is that they've announced so much of it, they're gating content.

This isn't like the Democracy 3 DLC's where they ADD onto the game, nothing was gated and nothing was lost as a result of it being amde later.
This isn't like Halo's map packs where they're made after launch.


Content made after the game comes out generally speaking I have no problems paying for, because in that case it truly is an extra.
But for content made BEFORE the game, that content is no doubt made for the base content and should be part of the base content.


2K and EVOLVE so far have disgusted me with how they're handling things, I am avoiding EVOLVE like the plague.
The Jimquisition episode on it sums it up for me entirely.

 

[bdcjacko]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

Yes. That is pretty much what should be the case with a full priced game like this. Free content patches used to be the norm, even for some free to play games. Holding content hostage is not okay.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was stating that video games are a luxury item because they are in no way a necessity to live. And I posed my statement ironically to highlight what a silly notion it is to get bent out of shape that a brand new video game is being priced like the luxury item it is.

Seriously if the fact that a game company announced that a game is going to have DLC and expansion packs (things that have been fairly standard for the past 15 years) gets people passed off really says how little real problems our society has.

 

[Prankman]

I have no problem with DLC in concept, hell I buy DLC for games.

But the problem is that they've announced so much of it, they're gating content.

This isn't like the Democracy 3 DLC's where they ADD onto the game, nothing was gated and nothing was lost as a result of it being amde later.
This isn't like Halo's map packs where they're made after launch.


Content made after the game comes out generally speaking I have no problems paying for, because in that case it truly is an extra.
But for content made BEFORE the game, that content is no doubt made for the base content and should be part of the base content.


2K and EVOLVE so far have disgusted me with how they're handling things, I am avoiding EVOLVE like the plague.
The Jimquisition episode on it sums it up for me entirely.

None of the DLC will be complete before launch, or even for day one. Even the farthest DLC along is still prototyping and has had footage showing placeholder animations for it.

The Jimquisition video also is pretty misinformed and really doesn't sum up anything at all. It neglects to mention the free maps, modes and post-launch support and gives the false impression that there's day one DLC in the game when that is patently untrue. The only thing that could count as "day one" DLC is the skin that comes with the pre-order, which nobody cares about because its a cosmetic item.

 

[Denamic]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

Yes. That is pretty much what should be the case with a full priced game like this. Free content patches used to be the norm, even for some free to play games. Holding content hostage is not okay.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was stating that video games are a luxury item because they are in no way a necessity to live. And I posed my statement ironically to highlight what a silly notion it is to get bent out of shape that a brand new video game is being priced like the luxury item it is.

Seriously if the fact that a game company announced that a game is going to have DLC and expansion packs (things that have been fairly standard for the past 15 years) gets people passed off really says how little real problems our society has.

I did not miss your point; I ignored it and responded to what you said instead. If we can't complain about things because there's more important issues elsewhere, we basically couldn't complain about anything. You couldn't be complaining about other people complaining about things you don't consider important enough to complain about, for example.

 

[bdcjacko]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

Yes. That is pretty much what should be the case with a full priced game like this. Free content patches used to be the norm, even for some free to play games. Holding content hostage is not okay.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was stating that video games are a luxury item because they are in no way a necessity to live. And I posed my statement ironically to highlight what a silly notion it is to get bent out of shape that a brand new video game is being priced like the luxury item it is.

Seriously if the fact that a game company announced that a game is going to have DLC and expansion packs (things that have been fairly standard for the past 15 years) gets people passed off really says how little real problems our society has.

I did not miss your point; I ignored it and responded to what you said instead. If we can't complain about things because there's more important issues elsewhere, we basically couldn't complain about anything. You couldn't be complaining about other people complaining about things you don't consider important enough to complain about, for example.

Don't use your reverse psychology on me. Quit complaining and just find a game you find worth your time/money.

 

[Atmos Duality]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

How dare anyone notice said luxuries being sold as less-for-more offerings based on blind faith.
They should be happy with whatever they're offered.

 

[Kajin]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, as I've only skimmed the thread, so forgive me if I'm echoing here, but I do want to clarify that the fourth Monster that you get free for pre-ordering is not day one DLC. It's more comparable to the Mechromancer with Borderlands 2; if you preorder, you get a DLC character for free post-launch when it's complete. Everybody else pays for it, but everybody gets it at the same time.

Behemoth's little released footage shows missing animations and untextured, incomplete attacks that have probably not been balance tested yet, either, so it's definitely not complete content being cut from the game, and the rest of the planned DLC probably isn't even at that prototype stage yet.

Of course, the fact that this wasn't made properly clear in a majority of the marketing how this stuff works is just further proof of how godawful it's been. I've followed Evolve since Spring of last year and have been able to try both the Big Alpha and Beta, and have seen the inside information on the forums from the devs, so I've been able to see the game minus it's shady marketing attached, which is why I'll continue to support it. The marketing has been absolutely terrible about how they've handled things though. The free maps, free game modes, unsplit community and ability to test-drive DLC characters are all being swept under the rug to promote the paid DLC. And yes, you can try DLC characters before buying them. If you join a game in progress, the game will have a chance to drop you on a DLC character, and the devs are promoting doing this in custom games with friends who own the DLC so you can try before you buy. They're also posting telemetry data on the forums and even have patch notes with changes made after the Beta for a day one patch, and are extraordinarily active on the forums asking the community there for ideas and answering questions. And if you ask them about damage data? They'll end up posting charts and exact damage calculations. The devs are absurdly informative there.

Not that you'd ever know this without scrubbing the forums, because the marketing seems to be allergic to promoting any actual cool features in favor of pushing pre-orders.

That right there confirms every single one of the suspicions I've had, in that all of this is outrage is the direct result of horribly mismanaged marketing. Thanks, Prankman. I doubt anyone else here will listen to you, but thanks.

 

[bdcjacko]

How dare anyone put a price on luxury goods. They should be given away for free.

How dare anyone notice said luxuries being sold as less-for-more offerings based on blind faith.
They should be happy with whatever they're offered.

Anyone that puts blind faith into a product or company deserves what they get.

BTW, I am on the side of voting with your wallet, but not making a big stink out of it. I don't fault companies for trying to money, that is what they do. I just know how to plan around it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Anyone that puts blind faith into a product or company deserves what they get.

Agreed.
Though that only reinforces why being vocal about shady business practices is useful.

BTW, I am on the side of voting with your wallet, but not making a big stink out of it. I don't fault companies for trying to money, that is what they do. I just know how to plan around it.

I'm a bit more discerning.
If profit was the only criteria I cared about, I might as well be advocating organized crime.