There's any number of games that I would never buy. But if a friend or coworker's really into something, shares it so I can try it out, I might end up buying a copy for myself.

Particularly if it's some kind of multiplayer/co-op game.

• Implement draconian 'always online' DRM to keep people from stealing your game.
• Legitimate customers can't play.
• End up giving away free games to try and placate them.

ASeven wrote on Oct 1, 2012, 20:53:
This only shows that publishers are walking towards redundancy. Devs are finally realizing they don't need a middle man and get a lot more profit if they ditch said middle man.

Indies, they are rising more and more.

There will always be a role for publishers as long as games are being sold on the shelves of GameStop, Walmart, Best-Buy, Target, etc.

If anything, this will change the relationship and role of publishers. They won't be fronting the money, so they won't be nearly as involved in the content of games. All the have to do is take a game that's done, publish it, distribute it, market it, and the developers will have a lot more power to dictate the terms of that arrangment to ensure they're not cutting into their own revenue stream for someone else's benefit.

Apart from the 'keeping the brand' part, what's the big deal? Kickstarting money won't publish, market, distribute, and do all of the behind the scenes wheeling and dealing to get a boxed game on the shelf of Walmarts and GameStops of the world. There's still unarguably a market for boxed games. There's a market, money to be made, and for all of the shitty things that publishers have done to the game industry, knowing how to make money with a complete game ready to go into a box and be sold is not one of the problems.

Asking for a portion of the profits from those sales isn't unreasonable. It's still a huge investment of time and resources to publish a finished game.

Demanding onwership of the IP to publish a game you haven't paid to develop is pretty greedy. That's an entrenched mindset from decades of an established business model where the publisher is fronting and advance so a game can be made in the first place.

Stupidly short-sighted, greedy, slow to adapt...but not malicously evil.

This comment was edited on Sep 20, 2012, 14:34.

7.62WorldOrder wrote on Apr 9, 2012, 17:12:
What annoys me is that they spent development time that could have been used on making the game better/more polished/less buggy for release and do this instead to try to wring a few more bucks out of people. The more successful this tactic is, the more it encourages developers to spend more time on DLC stuff during the "normal" development cycle. The percentage is going to go nowhere but up.

Of course the pirated version will have everything including the DLC characters available on day one.

Do I need to make a damn website explaining how the final stages of software devlopment, particularly software going on consoles, actually works. People seem to be under this misconception that developers are just tooling away making shit for a game up until they personally hand it off to people at midnight release parties.

Literally months before a game hits the shelves, all new development on a game completely stops. The majority of time spent fixing bugs and making sure a game passes TCR is done by programmers. The majority of designers and artists, the content creators, can continue to develop new content for future DLC, even in some cases having it ready to go on day one.

And that doesn't even appear to be the case here. They're talking about content that will be released months after the game launches.

nin wrote on Sep 4, 2012, 10:43:

reisub wrote on Sep 4, 2012, 10:08:
I don't think having an optional "easy mode" is a bad thing at all. It harms no one and at the very least it might allow disabled gamers to have more fun.

It's not a bad thing at all. If it's single player, it shouldn't matter how you play the game.

The screenshot of DX there is one of my favorite examples. I'm here to have fun, and enjoy the game (and story). I'm not here to bang my head against the wall, and do the same section of the game over and over. That's not fun, to me.

There's challenging gameplay, and then there's just badly designed gameplay that's hard because you're learning through failure.

I don't mind a challenge, but I don't have the time to devote hours and hours to mastering some obtuse set of button combinations with precise timing to be able to get through a game. Likewise, I don't have the time to bang my head against a wall and replay the same 10-15 minutes of a game because the checkpoint is at the beginning of the level, before the 5 minute cutscene and boss fight where you're just supposed to figure out what the gimmick is through trial and error. Fuck a bunch of that nonesence. If you're going to present me with a trial and error fight then restart that thing instantly when I die.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 18:17:

Ruffiana wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 18:01:

Mission Architect was never designed to bring subs back. It was just one feature of many in an attempt to stem the loss of players over time.

It was presented to us as the feature designed to perk up the sagging numbers. We never heard about anything else.

Ruffiana wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 18:01:
Lot of mistakes made with MA and how it was implemented, but the underlying idea of letting people who've invented a superhero character also write their own story content to play and sahre was a good idea no matter how you spin it.

I agree it is a good idea. I appreciate your input and clarification on the matter. It certainly lets me know there was a lot more going on that we were told of. Though, I guess in hindsight, I shouldn't be surprised. The communication within NCA was always terrible, let alone between NCA and the various studios.

Hey, what we're doing and what marketting does with what we're doing are two wholely seperate things. We thought we'd see a bump from it, and we did, but I don't think anyone believed it would turn CoH into a runaway success.

You just stem the flow and ride that pony for as long as you can. If anything, we were at fault for thinking that NCSoft was reasonable and realistic about the business and that when it did eventually reach a point of being usustainable, we'd move on to the next project and start over with something else. Sadly, they seem to be more of the mindset of cutting their loses early when they have something that's marginally successful and doubling down on huge gambles.

Just hearing this news today makes me feel like I've been laid off again.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 17:38:

Ruffiana wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 17:33:
When I was laid off from Paragon almost two years ago, I thought they had another 6mos, maybe a year left in them. I was wrong apparently. They managed to scrape by for another 22 months.

I'm sad to see my friends and former co-workers set loose today, but I'm confident they'll find greener pastures soon enough.

Admittedly, it's always a bummer when people you know personally get handed a setback that alters their life. You know how stressful it's going to be for them.

Still, I remember hearing about the Mission Architect and saying "Really? That's your plan to bring the sub numbers back up?". It didn't go over well. It reeked of desperation at the time.

Mission Architect was never designed to bring subs back. It was just one feature of many in an attempt to stem the loss of players over time. Fact is, very few games can maintain relevance for years and years on end, MMO or not. You'll always have your small, hardcore, slightly insane group of players who will be there playing until the end, but the majority of the playerbase is just recycled out for new players and not a damn thing you can do about it.

Really, it started out as a tool to allow Joe M. to create burnable content more easily and at some point it expanded into a 'Hey, why don't we let the players use this too?'

Lot of mistakes made with MA and how it was implemented, but the underlying idea of letting people who've invented a superhero character also write their own story content to play and sahre was a good idea no matter how you spin it.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 17:27:

TheRedfox wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 16:33:
NCSoft posted a $6M loss last quarter (rumored to be mainly from AION). It's a shame that CoH had to feel the pain from this.

The writing on the wall for CoH/CoV and Paragon has been apparent for a touch more than three years now. Aion was a bloodbath...and that was largely due to hubris. Oh sure, North American players just love Korean grindfests run with no effective control over RMT. How could that not make billions?

I think the only thing NC has left that is profitable in the states is Guild Wars. Auto Assault = Crashed and burned. Tabula Rasa = Crashed and burned after blowing through more money than several AAA titles put together use for budgets. Dungeon Runners = crashed and burned (but only because the publisher didn't know what to do with it. The development team was great and it had a wicked sense of humor that was smart). Lineage 2 was is being milked to death. Wildstar is going to crash and burn, too. It's space WoW with nothing about it that truly sets it apart from the already badly overpopulated MMO market.

When I was laid off from Paragon almost two years ago, I thought they had another 6mos, maybe a year left in them. I was wrong apparently. They managed to scrape by for another 22 months.

I'm sad to see my friends and former co-workers set loose today, but I'm confident they'll find greener pastures soon enough.

Beamer wrote on Aug 22, 2012, 10:46:

RailWizard wrote on Aug 22, 2012, 10:42:
Who's ass were those stats pulled out of? (edit:dammit beat me by 1 post! lol)

..and how does one pirate a F2P game?

Geez these guys are some whining babies. Blame everyone and everything but yourselves, that's right.

No one said anything about pirating f2p games...


I'd like to see one of these companies show how they get to these numbers. I'm guessing it's comparing trackers to sales, but even then it's probably more like 50% at the high end...

Number of copies sold / Number of copies downloaded illegally + sold. Not that difficutl to come up with the number. Keep in mind they're not saying these are 'lost sales', they're simply saying that of the people playing their game, only a small percentage has actually paid for it.

More to the point, this is the number they've determined for themselves to steer their business model. They've tried sans-DRM, they've tried draconian DRM, now they're shifting to free-to-play model because it's proven, is pretty much immune to piracy, and the percentage of people playing and paying is roughly the same as it is now...except there's more of an opportunity for a constant revenue stream.

I've been saying this for years, this is the way the entire game industry is headed. Like it or not, a real problem or not, piracy is the 300lb elephant in the room that's forced this shift. I stopped caring about piracy/used-game trade a few years back because it had become moot. Game companies had tested the waters for a free-to-play/micro-transaction model and found it to be more secure and more lucrative. They don't give two fucks that it fundamentally changes how games or made or the scope of what's put out as a "game"...it makes money, and that's the way it's going to be.

So blame whoever you want, won't change anything. The number of holdouts making traditional, AAA 'boxed' games with complete experiences for $59.99 will continue to dwindle away like the coin-op games of old.

This comment was edited on Aug 22, 2012, 12:58.

necrosis wrote on Aug 22, 2012, 10:28:
Maybe people are driven to piracy to spit in your face because of draconian DRM? Not to mention PC versions of their games coming out MONTHS after consoles.

God the industry is still fucking clueless.

Because nobody pirated games before DRM.

StingingVelvet wrote on Aug 9, 2012, 16:02:
I wonder what evidence they have that tacked-on shitty multiplayer really prevents used sales. As a singleplayer gamer that multiplayer mode couldn't matter less to me, and I would guess people who like multiplayer would rather play a game with multiplayer that was a focus for the game developers.

I mean, they must think it works, I just wonder what they see that convinces them of that.

When Bioshock 1 came out, I really wanted it to have multiplayer. I thought it could have been fresh, interesting mechanics.

By the time 2 came out, I no longer cared. Played through the single-player campaign and had my fill of underwater steampunk weapons and flashy super powers.

It's not that I feel the game suffered for having multiplayer, or that what it had was lackluster...just that it missed its window.

Mr. Tact wrote on Jul 31, 2012, 11:16:
Turning "The Hobbit" into a trilogy is silly at best.

When was it two movies? Now it's a trilogy?

Beamer wrote on Jul 27, 2012, 08:10:

Sepharo wrote on Jul 26, 2012, 22:34:

jdreyer wrote on Jul 26, 2012, 22:07:

Sepharo wrote on Jul 26, 2012, 21:47:
Why even bother putting that in the listing? They can just check it on their own when reviewing resumes.

It's a filter: if you didn't make this grade, don't even bother, we won't even look at you. But I've found in hiring that you often make a job description as your ideal candidate, but never reach that ideal, usually compromising on some things when you hire.

Oh I get that. It was more of a rhetorical question. Whoever put that in there should've known it would stir up articles like these and they could've kept the score part of it secret. "Must have worked on a critically acclaimed game."

Yeah, but every jackass argues that their flop was critically acclaimed. Like everyone says, this is an aspirational filter. It hopefully gets the guy that designed a game rated 50 to keep away so they have fewer resumes to go through.

Remember, it isn't like this is looking for an artist, it's looking for a design manager - a person directly in control of the quality of the title. As flawed as metacritic is, it's fair to pin quality of the shipped title to them, and metacritic is the only metric out there for it. I'm sure Irrational hates the metric as much as anyone else, but by putting it in there it will help keep unqualified people away.

If the design manager of New Vegas were to apply I'm sure he wouldn't be ignored because it was an 84...

You vastly overestimate how much influence an individual manager has on the quality and/or aggregate rating for a game they worked on.

The whole thing just reeks of laziness. I can't be bothered to look at the games this candidate was responsible for so if they're highly rated, they must be good and therefore he will make good games for us if we hire him. Right. No consideration for type of game, budget, timelines, genre. You think the budget doesn't have a huge impact on how well a game is received. You think the marketting budget alone doesn't have a huge impact? Explain how the design manager is responsible for the publisher refusing to pay for a quality game or properly market the game once it's done.

Arguably, failure is much more valuable experience. If you fail to make a good game, chances are you probably know exactly why. If you make a moderately successful game, you run the risk of now knowing how to make a good game and losing the drive to do better.

It's a dumb req and willing to bet that ultimately they hire someone who has more relevant experience and is a better fit personality wise, but hasn't actually worked on an 85+ rated game. That or they'll end up paying out the ass for some rock-star talent and end up with a game in the 85 range.

Frijoles wrote on Jul 20, 2012, 12:00:
My thoughts exactly. On the other hand, if the game is locked down, can DLC still be added to it before launch? Maybe locked code doesn't count DLC.

No, you can't add anything without restarting the certification process. You have to pay a sizeable amount to submit for certification each time.

You can put the data on the disc if it's done by the time it needs to go to gold master, but it can't be integrated into the game. Essentially like putting a copy of what you'd download through a patch on the disc.

Techie714 © wrote on Jul 3, 2012, 11:19:
This is the last thing business in the U.S. wants to see. EA & Valve have no interest in you reselling your games. Hell, the rumors are all around that the next consoles wont allow resale of games. I could be wrong though. It would open the door to new business models in the U.S.

Not entirely true. Publishers wouldn't mind people reselling their games if they didn't see it as a direct threat to their primary business model: selling new copies. Argue all you want about whether piracy affects the bottom line one way or the other, it is impossible to argue that the Gamestops of the world most certainly do insert themselves between a buyer with money and the publisher attempting to sell a new copy of the game they've paid to develop. Sure, it's great for the consumer, but it's lousey for the business of developing the product they like to consume.

Sad fact is that, unlike a physical good or product, there is no diminishing utility for digital media. The game I sell you is exactly the same experience and level of quality as the one you in turn sell to someone else, and someone else, and so on and so forth. There's no such thing as a high-mileage game. The storage media for a physical game may see wear, but when dealing with the actual data it's essentially immortal. The only consideration is 1) does it work and 2) is it cheaper than a new copy at retail price?

This business model of making and selling games is being forced to change. It was prodded in that direction long ago before any legal decisions upholding a consumer's right to resell their games. That's practically unenforceable whether it's legal or not. People will continue to trade, lend, sell, buy used, and pirate games whether it's legal or not and in all of those scenarios the publisher does not get a dime for the product they've paid to develop and put into the market. It is an unsustainable business that's become worse every day as more and more people start finding ways of getting their games cheaper or for free. The mass market has opted to not support the pre-exisiting business model and thus the business model will adapt to the market.

Ultimately, that changes the type of games made. We've already seen the move towards sequels, established franchises, and licensed games because it's a safer bet. It changes the quality of games as developers have struggled to meet the demands of increasing complexity on leaner, less risky budgets and timelines. And it fundamentally changes how games are distributed and monetized...which gives us things like more emphasis on micro-transactions, server-based accounts, and DLC.

Beamer wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 10:19:

Verno wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 10:09:

Shineyguy wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 09:39:
I agree, it's great to see someone step in and help all the people put out by Curt Schilling and his shady dealings.

I don't think it was shadey so much as Curt is just an enthusiast who didn't realize what a huge endeavor this was. His only other successful business was a little boards game company and this wasn't exactly to that scale. They quite simply tried to go way too big, too soon. Amalur wasn't even a terrible game, it was just very average. Unfortunately for a company employing nearly 400 people your first product can't be simply average in this industry.

They just misspent the money (things like millions to Salvatore and Mcfarlane), I don't think it was particularly shadey so much as just poor decision making from top to bottom. I do get why people are upset with Curt though, he needs to take some responsibility for this mess. Their problems were obvious for awhile now and not having sufficient cashflow to even meet payroll indicates a terrible lack of planning.

I get Schillings' point, though - the RI government owed them more money, and had it paid that money they'd still be in business. Had they not opened their mouths 38S would have had opportunities for external funding, too.

But I get the governor's point, too. That cash would have allowed 38S to survive longer, but there's no proof it would have led to sustainability - there's plenty of reason to believe it just would have held this disaster off 6 months or so. And it's flat-out stupid for a local government to invest this kind of cash into video games.


Whole thing is a disaster, but the only finger I'll really point is at the idiot that approved this deal in the first place. Schilling definitely had too big dreams and didn't control his studio or spendings well, but I won't call someone "shady" for being a bad businessman with huge dreams that's offered $100million to realize them.

Yes, except the vast majority of the money lent to 38 studios goes right back into the local economy as they use it to pay interest on said loans, taxes, rent, utilities, and payroll to their employees (who in turn turn around and put their share back into the local economy through taxes, rent, utilities, food, gas, clothing, etc etc.)

It's not like this money just vanished into the ether or ended up in a foreign bank account.

This franchise is bankrupting me. It's like crack for me and my family.

Bhruic wrote on May 24, 2012, 17:02:
It'll be interesting to see if all of "the ending was horrible" has any impact on DLC sales.

I'm personally not buying any DLC for ME3 because of the ending. No idea how many others feel the same, but I bought all of the DLC for ME2.

News about game delays don't affect me in the slightest. When things are on the shelf, I'll pay attention.