Cutter wrote on Apr 16, 2021, 14:46:

thestryker wrote on Apr 16, 2021, 13:34:
People rushing to buy Metro Exodus before the Steam pre-orders went away at $10 higher than the EGS price proves the fallacy of competing just on price. There are definitely a lot of us who do care about price, but there appears to be an even bigger amount who just don't care.

No it doesn't. Those same people are have the same POV as I and most other gamers do in this regard - no to exclusives, their client sucks. People would rather pay that extra 10 bucks than support Epic because of how they do business and barebones client. That's what it proves.

You're trying to say you're taking a stand against exclusives yet paying more of your money to the company who chose to make it an exclusive backs this up? People wanted it on their preferred platform now is all that was really about, because if there was some stand to be made about exclusives it would be to not buy the game or wait until it was back on Steam and at a lower price.

Orogogus wrote on Apr 16, 2021, 14:52:

thestryker wrote on Apr 16, 2021, 13:34:
Every time a new game comes out and is on the Steam top seller I just don't understand why. Outriders is a great example: GMG had it at least 20% off for the 3-4 weeks leading to launch and at least a week after launch so why would anyone buy it direct from Steam at full price?

GMG has a more restrictive refund policy -- 7 days from purchase (14 in the EU), no refunds once a game is activated or downloaded, no refunds for 48 hours before a launch.

I didn't even think about that, because I do research on games before I spend any money, and the only game I've ever refunded was one I didn't so this isn't something I usually consider. I still wouldn't pay full price, but I could see someone gaming the system and refunding on Steam then buying through GMG at the lower price.

I will note the game in question had an extensive demo released over a month before it came out which reflected everything but end game (you obviously wouldn't get to end game in the refund window) so it shouldn't really apply in this instance.

People rushing to buy Metro Exodus before the Steam pre-orders went away at $10 higher than the EGS price proves the fallacy of competing just on price. There are definitely a lot of us who do care about price, but there appears to be an even bigger amount who just don't care.

Every time a new game comes out and is on the Steam top seller I just don't understand why. Outriders is a great example: GMG had it at least 20% off for the 3-4 weeks leading to launch and at least a week after launch so why would anyone buy it direct from Steam at full price?

Even with feature parity I can guarantee that EGS would not have made a big enough impact to be a viable general storefront. EA's Origin proved this as they almost had feature parity when it launched (plus refunds) and they originally offered all sorts of third party games. This didn't work out third party titles were dropped pretty quickly.

I'm not particularly a fan of game exclusivity, but at the same time I take a gander at consoles and I'm just happy it's barely an inconvenience for me to play a game I want which launches on PC.

Braden wrote on Feb 3, 2021, 12:42:
Ah yes, the "robust IP catalogue" that includes recycling other people's IPs (Homeworld, Bulletstorm), a failed MOBA shooter (Battleborn), two high profile bombs (Duke Nukem Forever, Aliens: Colonial Marines) and a once-decent WW2 franchise that they've mostly consigned to mobile phone ports since 2008 (Brothers In Arms). It would seem that Borderlands is the only "robust" cash cow they've had to milk in the past decade.

You gave them too much credit, Bulletstorm and Aliens definitely aren't their IP.

China is super paranoid about stuff like this because of how high up the US had managed to get people in their country due to bribery. Chances are execs at Tencent saw what happened with Alibaba and found some people to throw under the bus like a good loyal company would do.

Just a point of clarification: platform isn't the same as a distributor which is why a place like gmg could offer a steam key for less while the game couldn't be sold for less on egs.

As for the lawsuit it's definitely only going to benefit businesses.

Gadzooks wrote on Jan 15, 2021, 10:03:
No option to disable motion blur

And post processing is low, medium, high, etc.... So too bad for turning off specific features like bloom, depth of field, FXAA, etc without turning everything off.

When will these "PC" devs ever learn?

Definitely with you there, and hopefully they're going to change that before launch. Given how far out launch is and the fact that they are seemingly being rather transparent about the game I'd like to think they will.

Paragon of Virtue wrote on Jan 14, 2021, 10:27:

VaranDragon wrote on Jan 14, 2021, 09:02:
I could get behind a Cyberpunk77 like Star Wars game though. Shiiiiiiiiiit, imagine what CDPR would do with a Star Wars license?

Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.....

Never going to happen. Disney are way too politically correct and goody-feely to ever allow CDPR to make anything close to what we want them to. Disney are an american entertainment conglomerate with a huge leftist lean, and CDPR are Polish people mostly. ;-)

They gave the Star Wars IP to a French company who's protected sexual abusers for over a decade and barely did anything when found out... I'm pretty sure from a "politically correct" and "lean leaning" standpoint CDPR would be a huge upgrade over that.

As for this game Massive has said its going to be a big departure from anything they've done so I very much wouldn't expect it to be star wars division style. I wish I could get excited for the possibilities, but ubi being such a shit company has managed to ruin even the thought of buying their games.

natx wrote on Dec 22, 2020, 23:05:
so i received this as an xmas present, and i have a good rig to play it on but i'm waiting til xmas to install. in light of the free refund offer, and a particularly scathing review I read, i was inclined to return it. what do you think about this review https://www.npr.org/2020/12/22/948827323/in-cyberpunk-2077-the-only-truly-punk-move-is-not-to-play

I've yet to finish the game (have been having way too much fun running around exploring the city doing random side quests) so I can't speak to the main story conclusion, but that review reads like something an angsty teen would write. I don't get the impression the reviewer was ever going to like the game no matter the presentation.

For me it has felt somewhat similar to Deus Ex Human Revolution in setting/tone. I've done a fair bit without murdering everyone, but that does seem to be a way to speed through many things.

Seeing as a director is the one in control of a team delivering a product on a set timeline they very much are a part of the crunch problem. They allowed the scope to exceed the timeframe they had to deliver it, and the rest employees paid the price. This means they failed to do part of their job well, and thus shouldn't be winning an award for it.

The video title, and quote used is hyperbole. The point of the video is actually the toxic nature of a large chunk of people within the "gaming" community and the fact that CDPR does some of the standard employee abuses like US AAA games companies do. The abuses at CDPR are well documented and if you choose to ignore them that's on you. I prefer my eyes being wide open before I choose to toss money at a game/company.

It's interesting how many people here jumped onboard to make stupid comments without knowing what they're talking about.

While I don't generally do videos myself as I also prefer just reading pieces this is how content creators make a living. Jim used to put up a fair chunk of content on his website, but has largely stopped because that's not what the majority of people want. One of the many unfortunate things we're losing these days.

Yeah... an independent developer opting to take a payout from Epic and get more revenue is totally the same thing as companies holding entire platforms hostage so they can take more money from developers. Totally the same thing.

If you don't like EGS exclusivity by all means feel free, but there's no reason to conflate two different things.

Bill Borre wrote on Jul 20, 2020, 12:27:

manage their PC games library independent of where their games were purchased

Does that mean I can buy DLC on sale from a store different from the one I bought the base game on?

No. GOG Galaxy 2.0 is just an attempt to unify the library aspect so everything can be viewed, installed and launched from one place. I know ideally they wanted all of the friends capabilities as well, but without official integration parts are lacking right now.

Ideally the way anti-cheats would work for multiplayer would be sandboxing the game. I know UWP apps can leverage this and it effectively acts similar to the way Xbox loads games. I'm assuming there are likely other ways to do this outside of UWP, but it's the only built in way I know of on windows. This wouldn't prevent any hardware macro type issues, but it would prevent anything hooking into the game itself.

I get that not being able to touch the files would annoy a certain chunk of people, but I'd much rather deal with that than running any of these company's anti-cheats whether built in house or contracted.

Avus wrote on Jul 6, 2020, 12:07:
The only game i will pay full price at launch in this year will by Cyberpunk 2077. I haven't bought full price game for at least 9 years.

FWIW if you're sure you're going to buy it, and are in the US, Amazon is still selling ps4/xbox/pc physical copies for just under $50.

On Topic: While I personally wouldn't do it as I can just wait for the game to get to a price I'm willing to pay (I do think $50 is a joke, $30-40 would have been far more appropriate) I get why people do. As was previously mentioned capitalism gives no shits and swings both ways.

The $50 usd price point stops me from buying this until it's lower as it's just another example of a big company taking advantage of the market. They haven't done anything that justifies charging 150% more for the PC version. All of the assets are the same, which they lay out on the steam page, so all they've done is a standard port of the complete edition.

This should have been in the $30-40 range like most late ports, but they know people will still buy it so they're going to make the extra money. I won't support it, and I wish more people would grasp the economics at work, but I get that isn't likely.

JohnBirshire wrote on May 22, 2020, 16:19:

thestryker wrote on May 22, 2020, 16:12:
I'm guessing you don't feel the same way when Steam is the only available choice for playing a game?

That's not really an accurate analogy. If a game is only on Steam it isn't because a bribe was paid to keep it off of other platforms.

The poster was talking about choices, and that's what I'm referring to. I don't like a lack of choices period whether it's due to exclusivity or not, but that isn't a barrier to purchase by itself.

Xero wrote on May 22, 2020, 13:14:
No wonder I didn't get my Steam notification of it being available today despite being on my Wishlist for months if not a year. That sucks. If anything EGS has become such an annoyance more than anything else.

Rather than buy exclusively, how about just offer it at a cheaper price at launch or something? Let people have OPTIONS! I hate being forced and will not abide by it.

I'm guessing you don't feel the same way when Steam is the only available choice for playing a game?

Personally I care more about the games themselves and developers in my choices of buying games rather than which billion dollar company gets part of the proceeds.

Blue wrote on May 4, 2020, 14:32:

thestryker wrote on May 4, 2020, 12:58:
I'd argue that Rise is exactly what you get when you decide to make a new trilogy, but clearly do not have anyone overseeing the structure of said trilogy. Force Awakens wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't break any new ground either. The Last Jedi was a perfectly fine movie, or rather it would have been if it wasn't supposed to be the middle movie of a trilogy and hadn't ignored everything that happened in the first one. There was simply nowhere logical to go to tie everything up in Rise so you get this movie which is largely just set pieces designed to tick the Star Wars boxes.

I'd love to know who over at Disney thought that having a trilogy with such dramatically different visions was ever going to end well. Sure they all made money, but I can't help but think at the same time they've also managed to sour people towards the series which is never good in the long run.

Giving Rian Johnson such free reign on the Last Jedi was a ridiculous decision. He made it impossible to even pretend there was a cohesive plan for the series. "Hey, I know... I'll shatter all the expectations from the first movie! That will be so awesome!" Yeesh.

Exactly, and this coming from Disney home of the Marvel movies which have to be meticulously curated in order for everything to make sense. I don't particularly think that has been to the benefit per se, but the fact that this never even seemed to have crossed their minds for Star Wars is baffling. At least we got Rogue One which, despite making me sad, is the best movie to bear Star Wars since the original trilogy.

I'd argue that Rise is exactly what you get when you decide to make a new trilogy, but clearly do not have anyone overseeing the structure of said trilogy. Force Awakens wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't break any new ground either. The Last Jedi was a perfectly fine movie, or rather it would have been if it wasn't supposed to be the middle movie of a trilogy and hadn't ignored everything that happened in the first one. There was simply nowhere logical to go to tie everything up in Rise so you get this movie which is largely just set pieces designed to tick the Star Wars boxes.

I'd love to know who over at Disney thought that having a trilogy with such dramatically different visions was ever going to end well. Sure they all made money, but I can't help but think at the same time they've also managed to sour people towards the series which is never good in the long run.

Kxmode wrote on Dec 13, 2019, 22:49:
Before this year, tribalism existed between PC and consoles. "PC Master Race" was a badge of honor for anyone who shelled out the money to build an excellent gaming system. Being a PC gamer meant any game available on PC either through Steam, GOG (for those who prefer DRM-free), or Uplay and Origin (for when the publisher wanted to force first-party exclusivity). No one had a problem with this ecosystem.

...

You're either being willfully ignorant or you're not old enough to have been gaming when Battlefield 3 was announced with Origin exclusivity. It was review bombed back to the stone age and people started making up shit about Origin to fit their narrative. Gee this sounds awfully familiar to the response that we all saw regarding Epic exclusivity. Don't act like Epic created this shit storm when it's simply modern gamers have a lot of loud shitty people counted among the whole.

Kxmode wrote on Dec 13, 2019, 22:49:
...

The day they reach parity with Steam and compete on merit not forced exclusivity or are marginalized will be a great time. I'll take either.

If Epic did this alone they'd end up like Origin and would never take customers from Steam. Origin for a while had refunds with an equal platform to Steam and sold several third party games. Guess what nobody gave a shit because they're lazy and want everything in one place. The only way Epic could compete outside of what they're doing would be by offering lower prices and we all saw how that went over when they took $10 off the price of everything. Certain devs/pubs shit a brick and their titles weren't on sale anymore despite the fact that Epic was eating the discount.

It's fine to not like what Epic is doing as it's pretty shitty, but don't pretend that there's some magical world where there can be real competition.