Jimquisition: Buyer Beware

Redlin5_v1legacy

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Aug 5, 2009
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The new music was a nice experiment but please, your theme is so good Jim! D:

It's too easy to mock those who don't keep up with gaming news about new releases. I laughed at a friend who bought Colonial Marines. Then I stopped laughing and was angry with him for about a week because I too would have liked to have the game they advertised. I didn't buy it because of this show for instance but he isn't a Jimquisition viewer and missed all the news about it.

[sub]I know, he's a heathen but I'm working on it.[/sub]
 

Rellik San

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Feb 3, 2011
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Imperator_DK said:
Well, I think most of the criticism of consumers isn't so much a defense of the industry, as it's disgust with people who'll complain as persistently and as loudly about their gripes with a $60 luxury item as they'll do.
If I paid $60 or in real money £35.99 for a luxury item... an item purchased for my extremely limited leisure time, I think I'm well with in my rights to complain if it isn't fit for purpose. It's like saying: "Oh you're £50,000 car doesn't work, well you shouldn't complain, it was a luxury item after all." It doesn't matter if it's a luxury, my hard earned cash went on that and I have certain expectations... like for the product to work as advertised and if it doesn't I'm more than within my rights to receive a replacement or a refund for the product, be it a videogame or car.

Edit: I'm aware you're not necessarily saying this as your opinion, just pointing out how others see it. :)
 

Zipa

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Dec 19, 2010
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holy balls that opening tune transported me back to my childhood. Thanks Jim.

And it would be nice to live in a world where you can actually trust review sites and not have to rely on Youtubers like totalbiscuit to get a more honest overview of a game.
 

Rellik San

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Thoralata said:
That's really the center of all of this. And Jim even said it at the end. Watch the video again, and imagine he's talking entirely about Electronic Arts. The only reason a lot of people on here are crying "Buyer Beware" is because now their precious Valve is coming under the same fire a lot of other companies have been coming under.
I believe Yahtzee once put it best:
I like Valve, it's like a benevolent dictatorship, it works whilst the cool guys are in charge, but what happens when they day and the not so cool guys are in charge?

Well I guess this is a preview of a dark, dark future.
 

Flatfrog

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I think there's a real trend at the moment towards aggressive, even antagonistic pricing, where shopping is turning into a battle between consumer and seller. I've noticed this trend more and more in supermarkets, where 'deals' have increasingly turned into psychological tricks and the customer has to do enormous amounts of mental arithmetic to ensure they aren't getting a bad deal. But the same attitude of 'caveat emptor' seems to be applied here as well - no one seems willing to hold the chains to account and introduce some basic controls.

You would have thought this is exactly the kind of thing modern-day politicians would want to regulate, because essentially it's a barrier to a properly regulated free market, since customers aren't making fully informed buying decisions.
 

Darth_Payn

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Wait, wait, WAIT!
People are still buying Aliens: Colonial Marines?!

Also, Jim, I thought one of your earlier videos told us to "vote with our wallets" to show the shitty-behaving publishers what we want.
 

maximara

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Jul 13, 2008
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Rellik San said:
Pallindromemordnillap said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
Pallindromemordnillap said:
...sorry, did I miss why the Record Breakers theme was being used?
Well, it sure as shit ain't the Record Breakers theme, for one.
...isn't it? I see people saying its Grange Hill but I remember that music being completely different.
Depends when you were a kid, it's the 90's Grange Hill theme specifically.

Aardvaarkman said:
The question is, beyond physically damaged or otherwise defective games, how does regulation relate to other issues in games, such as glitches or bugs? That would be very difficult to define and regulate legally, most companies would just try to work around that with a EULA. But there probably should be some legal limit to how much they can wash their hands of liability for buggy software. But I don't think too many legislatures have much interest in regulating software in that way (unless it comes to censorship of content, of course!)
I think the worst offender is the little nugget in the EULA that states, should the software damage any information or hardware on the machine, the publisher will not be liable for such damage. Now I understand such disclaimers with overclocking machines... but when simply installing software requires that level of protection on the corporate end, you know something, somewhere is seriously wrong with that. Hell I once had to completely replace my RAM because Fallout 3 fried it... even with the expectations of bugs in a Bethesda title, that's a little extreme. But again this also leads into with PC Gaming the minimum spec debacle where apparently the game running at 5fps on all the lowest settings is acceptable. In general the industry truly is lazy in terms of quality assurance, I mean even CDP Red have to release 2 versions of their games to quash the bugs.
The thing to remember about EULAs is they may have parts that are unenforceable due to being considered contracts of adhesion, unconscionable, and/or unacceptable pursuant to the U.C.C. see Step-Saver Data Systems, Inc. v. Wyse Technology and Vault Corp. v. Quaid Software Ltd for examples. Also in the US some states have laws on the books that might limit what kind of liability an EULA can protect the company against. It is a very grey area that sadly will only be decided by more court cases.
 

Blade_125

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Sep 1, 2011
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LameDuck said:
Aardvaarkman said:
Is this really anymore prevalent today than it was in the past?
I've skimmed through most of the posts, but it seems like people missed the biggest point:
In the past you almost always needed a publisher to release a game. This publisher acted as quality control to some degree and with the industry crash it was no longer profitable (or even possible, after console manufacturers banned publishers if they abused their trust) to release broken games.

Now we have self-publishing and small publishers who release whatever they can to make a quick buck, as Steam (just like the Xbox Indie Arcade) doesn't care what is sold through their market. Is it worse than before? Maybe not, but that was the infancy of the video games market. We don't need to revert to those times, especially not now that everyone and their dog can create a game that barely works and release it online for minimal (or no) investment. It gets even worse when Early Access is flooded with broken "games" who get away with it because "they might be good eventually", making the average consumer expect games to be like that.
I'm not sure what you are trying to prove. You are not fooled and I applaud you. Should you stop being a smart shopper because others are not? Or should the government step in and forbid gaming companies from making shitty games (although as a caveat I will say false advertising should be punished with severe fines, I'm looking at your Colonial Marines)?

I'm really saying that we are not going to change the game companies until they feel a change in their profit, and there will not be a change in their profit until more consumers are educated.
 
Dec 16, 2009
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Jimothy Sterling said:
Buyer Beware

Caveat Emptor is the "get out of an argument free" card for people who want to defend shoddy business practices. It's friggin' bollocks, though.

Watch Video
Nice video (as always)

I disagree with some aspects, agree with others.
I do say on here "vote with your wallet" but I feel the people stung on here should know better. We come to this site to (amongst other things) keep up to date with gaming news. We read the horror stories of shoddy practices. I feel if you are invested in this industry as a serious fan, you have an obligation to let certain publishers see we wont blindly preorder.
Were as Joe public, who casually plays, casually buys, I do have sympathy for.

Either way, 100% agree, it shouldnt be this way.
 

maximara

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Zipa said:
holy balls that opening tune transported me back to my childhood. Thanks Jim.

And it would be nice to live in a world where you can actually trust review sites and not have to rely on Youtubers like totalbiscuit to get a more honest overview of a game.
Assuming said review isn't taken down due to abuse of the DMCA as what happened with his review of Garry's Incident.

Only Totalbiscuit's publishing of this abuse combined with his mammoth popularity got the developer to back down. But what about people who don't have the kind of viewership Totalbiscuit has or feel they can't fight back because they don't understand how the DMCA can (and is) abused?
 

lostlevel

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Nov 6, 2008
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Kmadden2004 said:
Can we start putting in requests for CBBC theme music to be used as intro/outro music?

Because the Roobard & Custard theme would be kind of fitting, I think.
Very much agreed!
 

Zipa

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Dec 19, 2010
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maximara said:
Zipa said:
holy balls that opening tune transported me back to my childhood. Thanks Jim.

And it would be nice to live in a world where you can actually trust review sites and not have to rely on Youtubers like totalbiscuit to get a more honest overview of a game.
Assuming said review isn't taken down due to abuse of the DMCA as what happened with his review of Garry's Incident.

Only Totalbiscuit's publishing of this abuse combined with his mammoth popularity got the developer to back down. But what about people who don't have the kind of viewership Totalbiscuit has or feel they can't fight back because they don't understand how the DMCA can (and is) abused?
Well it was more likely to of been the weight Maker Studios who own the network he is with, Polaris that got the DMCA flagging sorted out.

Though the shitstorm it caused would of helped I imagine.
 

Mahoshonen

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Jul 28, 2008
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Jim, I doubt that most of the people saying that the people should exercise skepticism are trying to absolve companies of the blame. Rather, it's just advice going forward.

Yes, the game market should be one where we can trust game publishers and developers to sell the game they said they were going to make. But that's not the world we exist in, and given the minute influence a single buyer has in the market, the most useful thing they can do is to exercise caution in making buying decisions.
 

GonzoGamer

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Apr 9, 2008
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Thank you for once again validating my feelings on this subject.
When it comes to non-essential goods, a buyer who has to beware eventually becomes a buyer who doesn't bother.
 

softclocks

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Mar 7, 2014
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He's always been touting "vote with your wallet", now he's turned all of a sudden?

I agree that steam quality control would benefit everyone.