Jimquisition: Companies Exist To Make Money

[irishda]

I was with Jim up until On Disc Locked Content. When will people stop with this bullshit! Location of content is not relevant! If it's good, it's good, if it's bad, it's bad be it on disc or on iterwebs! It's not like on disc stuff is made prior to the game launch and content you actually have to download later. In majority of cases both are made during the main production phase and team shifted to next project when the game is finished relegating just a bit of time towards patching up bugs later.

Murder is bad whether it happens in center of the richest town or in the poorest slums, even if we don't like to see it as such. Feeding hungry people is good thing be they out next of kin or our enemies even if we, for our personal reasons, don't see it as such. Don't attack On Disc Locked Content because the solution is not to improve the game, it's just to make you download more. You still have to pay for it, it's just that you have to download it too now. This feels like chasing a mouse around the kitchen while people get sick because food you get from suppliers is spoiled.

We, the gamers, as a group are retarded. Mob mentality at its finest, or worst if you wish. That means that people who have high soapboxes steer that ship. Don't steer it into the fucking rocks you blithering idiot! Fight the battles that are worth fighting, not some pathetic distractions!

And when will people like you stop with this bullshit of making excuses for companies locking content on the disc? I am totally with Jim on this. This is a perfect example of you bending over and making excuses for a company. Yeah, where dlc is placed DOES actually fucking matter. When I buy a game at retail, I damn well better get access to every single thing on that disc. Don't lock content on the disc that I can't access because you want to gauge more money off me. That's just fucking stupid, and I will make my complaints heard when it happens. You may be okay with companies like crapcom locking content on the disc you pruchased, but many of us are not.

That's an argument of semantics and expectations. Are you, the customer, entitled to additional content on the medium you purchased to deliver said content? Or does it just feel that way because the past methods of delivery have given you the expectation that everything on a disc should be unlocked? Let's put it this way. If you bought a game off Steam, are you entitled to all the related extras of said game that were also released the day it was launched? What's the difference between that and the extra content on the disc? If the entirety of the game was locked on the disc, I might be inclined to agree with you. But, as it is, usually it's just some mini episode or a few extra missions, neither of which are necessary to play the game.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I appreciate your efforts to try and bring a reasonable light to this topic, but I feel your pleas fall upon deaf ears. As the last few years have proven, (particularly with bioware, EA and Capcom), some companies butthole's are so insanely clenched around their sycophants, even superman couldn't pull them out. And that is the reason why these companies still exist and do the things they do, regardless of how bad their business practices are or how terribly they view their own fanbase. Seriously, I have never seen any other industry actually call their customers names. Objectively speaking, that should be the death of any company right there... so why isn't it?

I get the feeling that the AAA Publishers are desperately trying to prevent an even bigger market backlash to pay for their rising costs. One that doesn't involve directly raising prices on the core package.

It explains a great deal of their increased emphasis on "less-for-more" (content-to-cost) DLC practices, hyper-conservative attitude towards market variety (read: If it isn't "safe", it's not getting made) and dismissive of criticism (that they didn't pay for anyway).

Can you imagine the drop in sales if they priced games for 100 bucks a pop flat out rather than introducing the rest of the cost as optional DLC? It'd make the Laurentian Abyss look like a playground slide.
(and yes, I am aware that Australia puts up with that already, look at the bigger picture; I'm talking primary markets, and not just those who they pork in the arse with arbitrage)

It may also explain why they spend extraordinary sums on marketing while paying the developer peanuts in comparison.

 

[hickwarrior]

Well, I've skimmed over this thread, but I think I wanted to address the 'vote with your wallet' point.

From my perspective, a game is more than just a business. A game is something you can hold dear, have memories of while playing it. I think it's something all works of art have. You associate certain experiences with books, maybe paintings or what have you.

What this means for me is kind of like this: A game, or a franchise, has a setting where stories are told. These settings can influence characters in certain ways, or make the world have a certain style to them. Something like Pokemon, Dynasty Warriors or Shin Megami Tensei. There's also gameplay to consider. All of these things create unique experiences, or as unique as possibly can be achieved.

However, the way I'm hearing and reading about how businesses and/or suits tend to handle it, is entirely the wrong way to do it. It's like the AAA games industry thinks it owns these unique properties that are guaranteed to always sell. But, videogames are 'unique', have a certain feel for people that want that kind of 'emotion'. And are willing to pay out of a place where the sun don't shine for it.

I hope this is clear enough to get my point across, cause it's kind of a hard thing to explain. The best way I can put it is heart.

 

[Undeadpool]

I...very seriously take issue with games now having the least content for the most money in...ever. I remember paying $80 for Kirby's Superstar. Great game, but that was $80 ~15 years ago. Breath of Fire 1 & 2 were around $50 in mid-90s terms and LITERALLY half of their gameplay is grinding. LITERALLY. Hell, in 2's case maybe MORE than half. JRPGs in particular are infamous for padding their length with mandatory grinding. I understand games like Skyrim, Mass Effect, The Witcher, and hell I'll just say Alpha Protocol to a great extent. I'll admit: it's getting a little freaky. For instance: Leviathan DEFINITELY should have been in Mass Effect 3, there's NO QUESTION, especially with the amount of squad dialog, that that was a piece of content held back to bilk consumers out of money (or at best: held back to get the game out in a certain time frame). That is crappy, disingenuous, and worrisome.

Also: I've noticed a flaw of this series (a series I love, mind you) is that it tends to, somewhat ironically, marginalize downloadable games. I remember when a video brought up that Prototype 2 had sold absolute crap compared to what came before, it COMPLETELY ignored the fact that both Trials HD and Minecraft had SHATTERED records within a week of one another for download sales. I love that large companies with their AAA games are being held accountable, but I also love that I can get a game like Cthulhu Saves the World, a full-on JRPG (without all the grinding and with a few different play modes) for THREE DOLLARS on modern systems. A game that probably would've run $80 in this odd, bygone (fictional) golden age. I'm not saying we shouldn't hold companies accountable for what they do, I'm saying we NEED to let go of this notion that videogames used to be somehow more "pure." Cause they're more pure, and by that I mean egalitarian, now than they've EVER been.

 

[cefm]

That statment skips over some pretty important ground. Game companies exist not to make money (only the Treasury gets to do that) but to make a product (games) that customers hopefully like enough to buy them in sufficient quantities and at a sufficient price that the company makes a profit. This only happens (in an ideal world) if the product is good enough to deserve the customer's money. Therefore journalists, reviewers and customers have every right to be insulted and angry when a game company produces a piece of garbage and have the gall to ask us to pay for it when someone accross the street has a much better product.