Shagger

Isn't Trump enough proof that eccentric celebrities should not be elected into office?

I was exited to hear EA's Battlefront 2 would have a proper campaign mode, especially when the trailer for it indicated that it would be from an Imperial perspective. The game's now infamous launch and lookbox controversy stopped my buying it, but I figured I'd waif for a sale so I check out the campaign. Then I found out that the protagonist in the story turns to fight for the rebels before the campaign is even half done, which was great because I was now out of reasons to buy that piece of shit.

I'm sorry, what other games charge for HD texture packs? Especially amongst the kind of ongoing games that receive updates all time.

That is literally the first time I've heard a joke about that this century.

Read all about it.

A very warm welcome to VGR. Anyone who lists FFX as one of their favourite games is a friend of mine right away. Very glad to have you here. If there's anything you help with or if you have questions please let me know.

No problem. Note that the word processing tools on this forum include a hyperlink tool that allows you to create a text overly for links in your posts. It sits in between the underline and quote tools.

I addressed the latest issues with PS2 themed PS5 in the previous post and quoted from the same article.

Sending death threats to people is not an acceptable way to behave under any circumstances, doing so over something like a video game just makes it arbitrary and completely stupid. However, that doesn't change the fact CDPR created that situation for themselves, not when the announced the delay, but when they announced the original release date. That was in June 2019 at E3 for a release in April 2020. That's 10 MONTHS earlier. There is no way that anyone at CDPR knew, and I mean knew, the game would be ready by then. Anyone who did was either an optimist, an idiot or a liar, but most likely all three. A full 18 months passed since E3 2019 and game finally came out... completely unfinished. And the worst part? CDPR knew it. That's why they only sent out PC copies for review and is also why reviewers weren't allowed to use their own captured footage. That's as dishonest as it gets. I'm sure there was a lot of pressure to announce the release at E3 so the pre-orders could start there, and goes right back to the point I made earlier. That's what always about. Money. So, even though the aforementioned death threats are not acceptable (And it happened again over PS2 themed PS5 again if anyone is interested. Check the end of this thread.), nobody should offer CDPR any sympathy. They were greedy, crunched their employees, disrespectful to journalists and were downright dishonest to us all. The responsibility ultimately falls to publishers, but you're right, it's not as straightforward as that. Investors are just businessmen/woman putting in cash to earn a return with little care of the ethics or complexities involved, but they can put alot of pressure on publishers. If investors want something included, or even absent from the game, because they think will make them more money, they'll probably get it. The same thing goes for how the game is publicised, promoted and even manufactured. As for the developer, well, I work at a dockyard for a big engineering firm, and we have a saying, "Shit rolls down, but not up". Somebody takes a "dump" of an idea in board room somewhere, it's the people further down that have to clean up the mess. It's doubtful developers agree with even half the ideas publishers and investors have, but still they have to deal with it.

Investors would never ask a game publisher to not open pre-orders for a game, even if it were to prevent delays or a messy release. Investors may even be the reason game publishers have turned pre-ordering into the hair brained, greedy scam that it is these days.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The problem isn't game developers/publishers pushing games out the door to early to meet deadlines, it is letting greed drive them to be irresponsible when setting those deadlines to begin. Delayed releases and games coming out broken in desperate need of patching would never happen if publishers simply waited untill they knew, and I mean really knew for a fact, that game would be completed to the standard we as customers expect for a certain day. Then, and only then, announce the release date and allow people to pre-order. However, that just doesn't happen, does it? Game publishers need all the money before they even have a product to offer in return, that's what pre-orders are all about. Games offering pre-orders up to a year before the game is supposed to release are commonplace now, and that's the route of the problem. Game companies can't sell a pre-order unless they have a shipping date, that's why release dates for video games are announced so ridiculously early. It just takes game companies, for just one meeting, to value common sense over greed, just once and this problem we all share will be all but eliminated. Game developers wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of a game being delayed, game publishers wouldn't have deal with backlash from broken releases and we gamers would avoid the frustration of having to wait longer than we were promised for a game that may still come out busted. Everybody would win.

Why can't the world have anything nice due to somebody's stupidity? This new PS2 themed PS5 sold out almost immediately of course, but mere hours later the company behind it cancelled all the orders and are not proceeding with project due to "credible threats" to their safety. Beit disgruntled customers who missed our whoever it was, this is now not happening. I am so sick of idiots who seems to bulling and threatening people is an acceptable way to behave. An article from tech radar.

You're not wrong, but why do I get the feeling you've thought just a little too hard about this?

Some people like the idea of game controllers being compatible with removable AA batteries, some prefer the permafitted rechargeable batteries like PlayStation and Nintendo use, and I can understand either view. I'm also ready to believe that a deal between Duracell and Xbox exists, but this article still feels like desperate clickbait to me. The deal is most likely with Microsoft and not Xbox specifically for ALL battery powered goods they ship with. This just an effort by a low rent game's journalism site to drum up a drama over nothing. All this means is you get Duracell batteries with your Xbox controller instead of cheap crap. I'd frankly like to be able to remove the batteries from my PS4 controllers because I've had to bin no less than two of them because they were no longer able to retain a charge. This was never a problem on the PS3 because the controllers always broke long before that became and issue.

The reason completionists do what they, at least to me, is very simple. Pride and accomplishment. And not the fake, EA trying to justfy lookboxes to in Star Wars Battlefront 2 kind of pride and accomplishment, the real kind. I'm not something I'm desperately bothered with, I've only ever earned one platinum trophy (or equivalent), but I always try to at least beat a main story. Still, completionists I really feel deserve a certain amount of respect, especially if it's a frustrating, unsatisfying game. That takes a level of discipline most of as lack.

I've been keeping an eye on TV's in recent months in preparation for a move to next-gen, and finding a TV that has HDMI 2.1, applicable HDR, the right refresh rate and the other things you want to get the best out of a PS5 or XBSX that doesn't have a pointless 8K panel is not as easy as you think, and it certainly isn't cheap.

Agreed, TV manufacturers jumped the gun. It's the only way they could justify selling that crap at the prices they do.

That's short sighted. Computers have been used to develop games for decades, but people are far to quick to forget modern game development is far younger, and if it wasn't for the development of home console hardware within that time, PC Gaming as we know it, would simply wouldn't exist. But consoles play an even more important role than that. Let's be honest, PC gaming is expensive (and it is, I'm not prepared to debate that. I'll explain it, like I'm about too, but not debate it.) and it's expensive because hardware manufacturers have to make a hardware profit as they don't gain any sustainable income from software sales, and that's whare you make money in the gaming industry, now more than ever. Microtransactions, sales of games, DLC and subscriptions is whare the real money is made, and the company that made your PC's power supply or motherboard don't see a penny from that. That's why the console giants like Microsoft and Sony over the last 2-3 console generations can sell their hardware with barely breaking even, or sometimes even at a loss. Now, I know what some people may be thinking reading that, what has any of that got to do with my aforementioned "critical role" the consoles play in sustaining the gaming industry? Well, it's very simple. This helps keep gaming, both on console and PC, affordable, for both the consumer and industry by holding game development back. PC fanboys would undoubtedly challenge this compliment, but that the existence of consoles sustains the survival of thier platform more than any other factor, and that is the truth. Think about it, if the PC as a gaming platform was suddenly the only option, the plug that so many PC Fanboys claim hold back PC development would disappear. I not only don't deny that plug exists, I would go further as to say we all count on it. First off, computer hardware manufacturers make console components as well. For example, AMD may only make $100 or less from each sale of a PS5, but that's still $100 over what will likely be around 100,000,000 sales over the next 5-10 years. Getting that sustainable income is well worth it for these companies, especially when it is a sustainable percentage earned through contract. That helps keep these kind of companies successful, bringing me onto my next point. The simple statement that these companies cannot rely on PC hardware sales alone to remain sustainable. They would not be able to weather this by selling PC hardware alone because not every country and every economy can support enough households to buy this more expensive hardware, and even if they could, said households wouldn't necessarily be willing to by into PC gaming as it does have it's drawbacks. Lack of physical media, exclusive titles, consumer doupts over game ownership and not to mention the higher up-front cost. That shrinks the market for video game hardware, and thus, software. So, what would the industry have to do? Raise prices for software (and possibly hardware) even more, shrinking an already shrunk market. This escalating cost of gaming would not stop because that aforementioned plug on the cost of game development, the console, would be gone. There is an elitist and sadly loud attitude shared by PC gaming community that would demand games that ever justify the increased (and increasing) cost of thier hardware, third party games (and it would only be third party games) would have to get more expensive to own through even higher prices and/or even more bullshit monotisation because of a higher cost in game development. I'd predict that the entire gaming industry would become to expensive for all concerned and it would all basically collapse. And all for this for fanboy nonsense and a vain demand for graphics that are already hitting a glass ceiling that more and more power is going to improve less and less? That's why I hate fanboyisum, especially on PC. If thier arrogance, ignorance and short sighted stupidy was followed, it can only end badly. I genuinely believe that consoles play an important part in keeping gaming sustainable and affordable for all of us.

Welcome to VGR

I tend to avoid Star Citizen as a subject matter because I know from experience that trying to engage with the fanbase is a waste of time. They are the most illogically loyal people you will ever find. They take fanboyism to a whole new level. They will feed this scam, and it is a scam, tens of millions of dollars year after after year. I'm actually dead serious, as a forum mod, when I say l will ban people for peddling this scam on VGR, and I'm not kidding.

There are two kinds of people in this world. People who buy EA Sports video games and people with an IQ high enough to actually spell IQ. Those games are made for idiots without any recognition that they're being exploited and are completely beyond help. A change in developer is not going to cure that. Those people like being exploited and the game company involved, whether it be EA or somebody else, would be more than happy to provide for them. So the short version of this answer is no, a change in developer would make no difference.

The "freemiun" platform needs to fuck off and die. End of discussion.

I don't think you understood my post. Gambling as a form of mini game in larger games may seem harmless in that they don't involve real money, but they achieve legislation and warnings from the the ESRB, PEGI and other such organisations for reasons, reasons such organisations themselves tend to acknowledge, yet strangely and conveniently ignore. Implementing such mechanics can be considered "harmless" by not involving real money, but still imitating the deliberately harmfull and addictive mechanics is rightfully considered dangerous by these ratings boards. However, the same mechanics disguised as random loot drops are currently not taken as seriously by the very same legislative boards. That's why, as gamers, we should not be as comfortable with such policy as we are. Not unless lootboxes and other such mechanics are taken as seriously. So no, with all due respect to @StaceyPowers, I will not engage in this conversation without bringing up monotisation of random loot and item's in video games. It's not right to separate the two topics. That's exactly what ass hole game publishers want.

I'm not sure I like the idea of discussing this without considering lootboxes in the discussion. Yes, several videogames include simulations of real world gambling that don't involve real money, but that kind of discussion the impact of predatory practices. With some exceptions, like the poker minigame in RDR, Gun, the slots in Fallout New Vegas, there is there's really no reason to include them. Some games include them for thematic reasons, and that's fine, but I just don't trust random chance mechanics in videogames, even when there's no real money involved. Like I said, the possible negative effects should not be desensitizied. That's one way they have roping people in.

I have disagree with you to some extent. There's a lot of indie games that appear on PC and not on console, but just about all of them don't make it to console for good reasons. When it comes to exclusive content, I value quality over quantity, and consoles tend to offer that, especially on PlayStation and Nintendo. Aside from some very fine strategy games (like the aforementioned C&C games), a smattering of other MMO's and some quality indie's, the PC actually has very little to offer in terms of exclusive games. I believe you're thinking of Red Alert 2. Loved that game.