Jimquisition: Breaking the Bones of Business

Magmarock

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Videos like this always make me angry, not because I don't agree but because I agree too much. Also I love Event Horizon too maybe I should play dead space.
 

MaxwellMouse

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I agree completely. There are so many blatant BS business moves impacting games made by big publishers it is not even fit.

I was never a supporter of DLC as I feared it would beoome what it now has. Has with F2P micro transaction games. There are good DLC for sure, but most of it is not.
 

GAunderrated

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IamLEAM1983 said:
GAunderrated said:
Please don't bring the whole correlation = causation fallacy to this video discussion. It is a nice little scapegoat that they tricked you into believing has become a relevant issue as if it never existed before.
Oh, right. Because my purchasing a game or pirating has about zero influence whatsoever. Because there's no reasoning behind the increase of the average triple-A title's budget. It's all just a happy sack of coincidences that nobody can possibly try to sort through. Game publishers are inherently evil and they do what they do because John Riccitello, Bob Kotick, Peter Moore and others are absolutely fixated on getting themselves a Scrooge McDuck-sized vault of gold coins.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was so naive.
If you have hard statistical proof of every person pirating or buying a game and have hard evidence to support this then I am all ears. Until then it is all conjecture and as I have said the whole correlation = causation is a fallacy. There is no proof to this there is only people's opinions, rumors, and excuses being stated as fact.
 

irishda

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I made it about halfway through the video before I couldn't watch anymore. Why? Because this entire video operates under the ridiculous premise that if something is being offered for money, then the customer has to buy it. Therefore the devs/publishers are fucking us over. Here's a tip, and this is just me, perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

DON'T BUY THE FUCKING DLC AND FRANKLY RETARDED EXTRAS THAT COME ALONG WITH SOME GAMES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO!

Are hardcore gamers so fucking compulsive and lack so much self-discipline that when someone says, "Hey, would you like some extras for more money?" they can't get their wallets out fast enough? I'm sure this advice is going to go right over Jim's head, as I see a lot of collectibles there from the incredibly useless collector's editions of various games ("$60 is too much for games! $10 is too much for DLC! But I'm willing to pay $100 if there's a statue in it and an artbook!").

Don't take this as a defense of EA. Don't even take this as a defense of charging people for on-disc DLC, etc. This is a defense of common fucking sense. Jim and a lot of gamers are mad because they think that these types of games are lessening their experiences by holding extra content hostage for more money (that's the nice version, the alternative is they're just mad cause they want free shit). But its impossible on EVERY LEVEL to lessen an experience. Short of giving you amnesia or killing you, an experience can never be taken away from. It can only be added to. That's all these DLC and pay-to-unlock-or-upgrade-content are; ways to add to the experience. If you feel the experience is great and you want more? Fine. Buy the fucking extra costumes. If you feel you can take a risk in trying to make your experience better? Great. See if the DLC is worth it. If you just hate the fact that there's other stuff out there that might make it better, but you either can't or won't buy it, then guess what? Tough shit. Who cares? The game didn't kill you or destroy your memory by NOT buying the extra shit, so it hasn't taken away ANYTHING of your experience with that game. I didn't buy any of the extra costumes the original Dead Space offered right from the start. ZOMG! BUT THEN HOW COULD YOU PLAY THE GAME?!!! The only time this practice is worth bitching about is for games don't work without paying for certain things. And no, that doesn't include on-disc DLC, multiplayer passes, etc. You know why? Cause the game doesn't need those to work, unless it's a purely multiplayer game, and even then a monthly fee to maintain servers is understandable isn't it? I mean really, bitching because CHEAT CODES cost money now? Really? "Why can't I run around in big head mode for free!!!!!" Fuck you, Jim.

It's shit like this that turns me off not from the industry, but from the gamers. Only the fucking gamers who prop up shit business practices by buying into them, would have the balls to rip on those very same practices. You can buy games. That's fine. I encourage it. It's because people didn't buy games that THQ shut down. But you DON'T HAVE TO BUY ANYTHING EXTRA ATTACHED TO IT! So no, EA isn't destroying gaming by perverting certain business models. Gamers are perverting it by buying into them. And even then EA's models don't preclude other companies from carrying out their models. It's like the old riddle, "If the devil tempts a man, and the man succumbs to temptation; is it the devil's fault for tempting him? Or is it his fault for falling to temptation?"

TL;DR: If you don't like the extras, don't buy them. You're not losing anything by NOT purchasing DLC, extra costumes, or fucking cheat codes.
 

GonzoGamer

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Urh said:
How many Jim Bucks do I need for the hidden erotic gay fanfiction ending with Yahtzee?
Best post, and 3 posts in too.

If I were a trucker, I would probably listen to a lot of Peter Gabriel too.

It seems that this whole generation has been sandbagged by publishers (and even the console makers) trying to balance off how much money they can choke out of the hardcore fanboys without disenfranchising too many of the less regular gamers. I keep thinking that they keep overestimating how many gamers are suckers, but they usually tend to prove me wrong.

I may be a bit picky (I thought the GTA4 DLC was way overpriced at $20) but it seems for now that the most heinous ripoffs aren't so widespread that the whole industry would crash.
 

Erttheking

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Coreless said:
erttheking said:
Makes me glad that I never played Dead Space. See Jim, what's happening to Dead Space now is what happened to Mass Effect not too long ago, that and the introduction of really fucking stupid plot elements.
Ok...what? so first you say you never played Dead Space and now you say they are introducing stupid plot points because Mass Effect did...right.
Noooooooo, I said that MASS EFFECT had been introducing really stupid plot elements.
 

Metalix Knightmare

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omgeveryone9 said:
At 3:13, Jim talks about Mann Co spearheading the idea on forcing us to buy things already in the disk or something similar to that. What is he talking about? I have not yet heard about this, and while I do love TF2, I recognize that there are flaws in the game.
He said NAMCO. Hence the picture of Darth Vader who was in the PS3 version of Soul Caliber 4, and was DLC for 360 owners.
 

Airon

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Thumbs up!

Support the good publishers(like Valve).

I'm selling TF2 hats for Jim Bucks. I need more, 'cause Jim said so !!!!!
 

Trishbot

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I'm still buying Dead Space 3 because I love the franchise, BUT, depending on how the micro-transactions go, I may be writing EA directly.

People all the time say "vote or speak with your wallet", but that's missing 50% of what you need to do. Silence about it can send either no message or the wrong message. Don't JUST speak with your wallet, but also take that next step and tell the companies in charge WHY you didn't buy it. I'm amazed at how almost nobody does that second part.

When I was upset with Capcom's frequent DLC scams, I didn't buy their games. But I also told them why. When they refused to answer or to listen, I wrote the Better Business Bureau, listed my complaints against their anti-consumer behavior and business practices, and the BBB contacted Capcom on my behalf... and that definitely got results.

You gotta do more than "not buy". You gotta be vocal directly at them.

YOU are the customer. YOU are the buyer. YOU have the power of companies. Big companies like EA and Activision and Ubisoft and Capcom want you to think you don't have any power or influence over them, but they're entirely wrong. They are at the whims of their consumers, and there are PLENTY of laws in place to defend you from anti-consumer practices and behavior. They just want you to think they don't exist and you're helpless to resist or change anything.

You've all the power in the world to show them they're wrong.
 

Beryl77

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Beryl77 said:
I see sometimes people defending EA's decisions by saying that "they're just a company doing business". Fuck that, what a load of bullshit. There are tons of companies who do very well without behaving like they're related to the Antichrist. It's still their own, conscious decision to do those things, nothing else. Them being a company doesn't excuse that in the slightest.

Also, nice ending. Very well done.
To be fair, they ARE just a company doing business. Doing it wrong. And amazingly, people will try and save them like THQ.
Yeah, it was just directed at people that defend the bad decisions and say that that's what a company is supposed to do, that those are actually good decisions for a company. I've seen that argument quite a few times on these forums.

Anyway, I agree with you. Some of the companies grew too big, too quick. People were willing to pay for many things and companies started to get the feeling that they can push the boundaries much further but that willingness to pay only goes so far. While I love games, in the end they're still "just entertainment" and while EA is one of the top players, they hardly have a monopoly. There are too many other companies who are willing to listen to customers, to afford that kind of behavior and contrary to popular opinion, people aren't idiots.

The problem for companies like EA is often that they care too much for the shareholders. Nowadays, investors just want quick money. They invest in a company, wait until it makes profits and leave it again. They're only interested in short term money making. EA want to make sure that those people keep investing in EA, so they promise quick money. Most of their decisions are based on that idea, they don't care about whether someone will buy a game in five years, they just want to sell it now, to make profit now. They don't care much about the future, they just live in the present but that's not good for a big company.
Out there are many gaming companies coming up with new things, trying to figure out where the industry is heading and following that trend, not attempting to bend it to their will.

I mean, when was the last time that Riccitiello actually spoke to gamers? Most things he's said in the last few years were aimed at shareholders, showing them that EA has great ideas to make money. Like in Dead Space 3 with the in-game 'microtransactions', as mentioned in the video. That feature is solely there to make money for EA and make the shareholders happy, it has nothing good to offer for consumers that couldn't have been there for free.

They seem to forget however that it's their customers who make them profitable, not the shareholders and I think that's why EA won't last much longer if they keep operating the way they do. Like you said, they'll crumble under the weight of their bad decisions, eventually.
 

braincore02

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Amen brutha! I wish people would stop playing into these games. We need to vote with our wallets en mass, that's all these people listen to.
 

lasati

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I don't see why gamers have a right to dictate a game's business model. The day game studios can DEMAND that players buy their game to keep the bills paid and the developers employed is the day that a given player can DEMAND that a studio caters to what that specific player wants to pay. Note I say "want to pay" rather than "willing to pay." Clearly, gamers are willing to pay $60 for a box, tolerate an in-game itemshop, and then buy DLC. For now. From some publishers, on some franchises. Because they do.

"When will it be enough? When the market crashes again?"

Yes. And this is a good thing. The media dinosaurs will die by their own hand, and it is a long time coming. Today, a couple of guys/girls can use Unity and make a $15 steam game fairly easily. How revolutionary is this -- you pay once, and get all the content! The point at which most gamers feel such "AA" games offer MORE value that the high budget money-grabbing monstrosities is the day the industry will crash, and be rebuilt as something leaner and better poised to deliver quality products.

The fact is that "publishing" as a service is dying rather quickly. EA and Ubi used to sell games only by virtue of the fact the barrier to entry for getting a game on the market (any game at all) was quite large, and quite exclusive. Used to be the case that getting your product "on the shelves" was the sole dominion of the big publishing houses. But the Age of Shelves is almost over, due to better and easier forms of digital payment and distribution.

Once EA and Ubi are forced to into genuine competition with developers who are paying none of their bloated overhead (legions of Marketing and Publishing executives earning six figure salaries, for starters... which you honestly did need to get prime shelf space at the Best Buy), it will be over.
 

Colt47

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I never thought I'd feel dignified playing the old infinity engine games, Terraria, and Dark Souls. Honestly, I've already given up on buying new AAA titles because there's no point to it.
 

Akytalusia

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is really what they're doing these days? that's really fucked up. i hope people start getting the message faster and start acting sooner. the momentum of this thing is ready to be confronted.

also, fuck your dlc. call me a pirate if you want, but i'm gonna thank god for you anyway. and i didn't even pay.
 

Atmos Duality

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irishda said:
TL;DR: If you don't like the extras, don't buy them. You're not losing anything by NOT purchasing DLC, extra costumes, or fucking cheat codes.
I agree that's the proper consumer response: If it costs too much, don't buy it.

But there is absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing the practices that cause those costs to go above acceptable in the first place. ALL of the practices mentioned in the video are unquestionably "less for more" cash-grabs or equivalent price hikes.

If you want to advocate change, you have to speak. If you want to cause change, you have to act.
 

Aeonknight

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Airon said:
Thumbs up!

Support the good publishers(like Valve).

I'm selling TF2 hats for Jim Bucks. I need more, 'cause Jim said so !!!!!
My head just exploded over the irony of that statement. In a video where Jim trashes on micro-transactions, you bring up Hat Fortress 2?

also: