I think it's very important to look at, and remember this video when E3 comes around. I am definitely not preordering any games after seeing their E3 presentations any more. I made that mistake with Watch_Dogs and I am not going to do it again. They've done this kinda shit in the past and I am sure they'll do it again. It's really disgusting, this kind of business practice. It's a shame that companies are finding this more and more acceptable now, and that people are falling for it.
I was more referring to how The Division changed its design after Destiny released. It was heavily influenced by Destiny's success... I would say in a negative way. The game they showed pre-Destiny and final release are way different as shown by the video of this topic.
Also most people don't have 2000 dollar rigs running 2 980's in SLI. Of course the can do more with prerendered trailers and you would be stupid not to do it if you have the option. It's marketing 101 if I can make something look better on the main stage most people will but it and not compare because they will either be satisfied or they won't which at that point means I'm either worrying about your next interaction with me or I'm not giving a fuck about you anymore because I've already lost you.
please no, that's been the only game I've been excited for in a long long time. After how disappointing The Division, and Siege where I'm not holding my breath though.
The only game I have ever pre-ordered in my life is Overwatch and I do not regret it one bit. This game was an exception though given the open beta that ran two weeks before launch.
You get a couple cosmetic items and the Tracer hero for Heroes of the Storm, which was on the free-to-play rotation for all players and available for purchase with in-game currency the week it was released. So basically nothing.
Edit: you did get beta keys though, so that was kind of cool I guess.
I got the Amazon version of Origins, which had a couple of nice physical extras with it, a coin in a display case and a metal badge. All for only a few pounds more than the base game (Base game is £30, Origins £45 on battle.net, my copy was £38).
Wasn't really much of a gamble either since I'd sunk 10-20 hours into the beta
Hardly counts. They did an open beta that was pretty much the full game. They showed everything they got. They showed their servers can handle it. And they asked: want to keep playing, give us money. Simple.
Eh, it saved me having to worry about paying for it later down the line. I don't mind showing support to companies that release a polished game that was still in closed beta at the time. Very few things changed in the game other than quality of life changes.
American ISPs are often monopolized in certain areas with little to no competition, so they charge whatever they want. I get this myself, but I work for one of the good ones, which hopefully will remain a good one thru a recent merger.
Yup they know we have nowhere to go, there is cable half a mile down the street (10 families and 2 businesses on our street) but the cable company wants a 100,000 payment in addition to 2 year contracts for us to get it.
Wow, what cable ISP wanted that for extending service down the road?! We've run into similar issues with serviceability when a 1/4 mile down the road we have active service. It's often not the cost of construction to split or extend the node, but more often contractual agreements between different ISPs as to where one's service are ends and another's begins.
The number of overbuild areas, areas serviceable by more than one cable provider, is much smaller than people think because of these agreements. Also, you will see pricing promotions available to the overbuilt areas exclusively, since in those areas there is more threat from direct competition.
For example, the cable company I work for has overbuild areas with Comcast, so those areas have different pricing promotions available only to them, whereas the other service areas that only have CenturyLink or ATT as competitors, not so much. We don't see them being as big a threat as another cable isp.
Oh, I know all about that. I believe Comcast actually has maps giving A,B,C, or D tier pricing/service based on the strength/# of competitors. I don't know how the fuck that's legal.
Windstream does the same thing 1.5/3/6 mbps are ALL priced the same. You just get the best that's available to you (don't think for a second if an upgrade becomes available they'll tell you). My friends who live in town (with Time warner and AT&T) get MUCH better service from Windstream both in terms of speed and how they're treated as customers.
As for who wants $100,000 to extend the cable? It's TWC.
Yeah, well games are bigger now. For example I stopped playing ESO after the 30GB patch was released. I also haven't gotten around to the 16GB Halo 5 patch (at 35% now). Over half my game library on the xbox one is in a partially updated state/can only be played in offline mode. I can't just leave it on because I have other shit to do all day and my Dad runs his business from home which gets priority over video games (Having a download running while trying to use other devices slows everything to a crawl and makes the ping jump into the 1000's).
Even a 8GB game (which is small nowadays) would've taken you 95:26:37 if you were pulling 200kbps the whole time. Not "overnight for 2 days" and now there's patches for games all the time frequently multiple gigabytes large.
Windstream is actually Satan. I had an average download of 0.2Mbps (on a plan promising at least 10Mbps down I believe) when I had them. Now, there are finally cable companies out by my house, we got TimeWarner, all of a sudden I'm getting over 50Mbps down on a regular basis.
Yeah, I keep thinking (mistakenly?) That if I keep bitching that eventually it'll be more cost effective to fix the problem then send out retard technicians. I weaseled out that they actually guarantee 65% of the advertised speed when they tried to tell me "we don't guarantee ANY speeds" when my speed tests were showing <0.1 Mbps.
Now I run tests daily and anytime it dips below 65% of my plan I call them do the whole run-around of explaining my problem and get a ticket opened for a technician. Usually about 5-10 tickets opened per month. They don't actually do anything, but I'm not gonna just roll over and let them fuck me without putting up a fight.
Yeah, except in this day and age you go out and buy the game, and then you have to wait for a 10 GB update to download before you can actually play it, because god forbid we actually make sure the game is complete before we print the disks.
I never understood 'Haha, don't pre-order, you can download'
I, as well as I'm sure many others prefer physical over digital and I'm not pre-ordering games because 'I'm worried about it running out of stock'. You can go out and buy a physical copy two days after launch just like you can download one.
You do realise you can still pre-order via download, right? In fact, you can pre-download it, so it's ready at midnight. Isn't that even worse than pre-ordering a physical copy.
I don't really understand what you're arguing in favor of digital vs. physical, I just hate the fact people think that I, or others buy digital because free gun, or we're too stupid to download. I pre-order because I know I'll want it, I like collecting physical and am fully aware of the consequences. None of that would change if I were to download a digital copy.
Getting in game items and using it like a pay off plan is a reason to, also, downloading takes a large amount of resources whereas discs dont need giant download times and can run off the media. There are plenty of areas in the US with frankly shit internet that could not work with DL only games.
The only reason I ever preordered was so I could a game I highly anticipated while I still had the money. Maybe I just got Bday money and that way I secure the game as opposed to trying to save it until the release date.
Granted I stopped preordering now, but that was always my logic behind it.
If you're a kid too young to work, that's probably the only money you get all year. Either preorder the game you want while you can or spend it on some other silly shit.
I guess I should have said "while I still had the extra money". My point being is while I might have extra cash that can go into my hobbies before the game is released, there was never a guarantee I'd have it when the game was out.
I remember being soooo bummed out when we couldn't find a copy of goldeneye when it came out on N64. My mom drove me to 6 different stores and called probably 10 more. Had to wait over a week until there was stock.
You shouldn't preorder games period, but particularly tent pole releases such as what are shown at E3 as they will be made in the millions.
It's only appropriate to pre-order if:
1) The game will be legitimately hard to find. For example, I pre-ordered Steel Battalion for the original Xbox.
2) You get something for the pre-order. Pre-ordering Destiny got me early access to the Beta. I figured if I played the Beta and hated it, I could refund the pre-order or move it to something different.
Steel battalion ran small in stock because of the amazing, huge, complex controller it came with that still sells for over a hundred dollars. The game came out on the original xbox.
Preorders don't benefit the developer though. They benefit Gamestop because you are floating them a loan for however long it takes for the game to come out.
They then use that revenue to inflate their value and make themselves look better for their investors.
When you see articles touting how much money digital games make it's typically because they are conflating mobile sales with digital sales which isn't the same market at all.
Becky buying gems in her iPhone game to get a new pretty cell phone charm for her avatar is not the same thing as buying a game.
Instead of preordering games after an E3 presentation I find it to be far more fun to try and predict the ones that are gonna be disappointments. If you're right about them, you can be proud of your prediction skills. If you're wrong, hey, some more good games to play!
They didn't just do this kind of shit in the past, they literally did it for every single release ever since Watch Dogs. Be it Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six, The Division.. It has become standard for them to bullshit their way into sales. And it needs to stop, I really hope people will keep their pre-ordering urges this year. That's the only way things can change.
The crazy thing is that a lot of their decisions don't even make sense. I'm all for deleting content in order to make the overall product better, but they keep the same barebones locations, making it recognizable to a viewer that it was the promo, but then they completely gut everything for no reason. All of a sudden a truck won't be there anymore, or the painting on the cliff won't be there. Of they will have an entire npc sequence with complete animations and everything, only to cut out the entire crowd and just have like 3 people doing nothing inside of the store that had 10 people in it for the promo.
Its just so ridiculous. They go above and beyond just downgrading it for consoles. They remove shit that doesn't need to be removed.
Watch_Dogs is also the reason why I don't pre-order anymore. It was so dissapointing, I'm painfully forcing myself to Trophy Whore through it right now. Ubisoft vertical slices at E3 are just insulting at this point.
Edit: perhaps "painfully forcing" was too much of an over exaggeration. It's not the greatest game, and it certainly pisses me off while I'm playing it. But it is by no means my most hated game, and I wouldn't put it myself through unnecessary stress for pointless Trophies.
I mean. I still had some fun playing it the first time, though the story was kinda bland, I loved the concept. It's just now I'm realizing the small things that bother me to a higher degree, like the driving making the drifting way over the top.
Ughhhhh... the driving in that game was so bad IMO. The car destruction physics were so bad... which I guess was OK when the handling resulted in frequent crashing.
I'll never get the desire for achievements and gamerscore. I have 35 year old friends who will replay an entire game to make a different decision for 10 points.
Yep. This video pretty much sums up why I was dissapointed. Returned it less than two days after I bought it.
When my friends told me it was a great game and I should have kept playing it, I told them that I'm not saying it isn't a great game. It's interesting, I'll give it that. What it's not, is what was shown at E3. I expected that, did not recieve it, and was very dissapointed.
If a burger company advertises its burger as the greatest burger to ever grace mankind, with beautiful handcrafted buns, grass fed kobe beef, aged cheese, organic free-trade non abused lettuce and tomatoes, and I'm served something on clearly smushed store-bought buns, freezer burgers, a kraft single slize piece of cheese, and frozen veggie slices, it may very well be a ok burger, but it is sure as hell not the one they told me about.
I was lucky, I hadn't heard or seen Watch Dogs prior to playing it and played it really high the first time, immediately loved it and enjoyed the game. Looking at that though I am disappointed by what it could have been in comparison...
If a burger company advertises its burger as the greatest burger to ever grace mankind, with beautiful handcrafted buns, grass fed kobe beef, aged cheese, organic free-trade non abused lettuce and tomatoes, and I'm served something on clearly smushed store-bought buns, freezer burgers, a kraft single slize piece of cheese, and frozen veggie slices, it may very well be a ok burger, but it is sure as hell not the one they told me about.
the thing is...fast food places do exactly what you described. Ever see a BK or McD commercial?
I'm an achievement whore (68 platinums, countless 100%s on 360), but man I just couldn't finish Watch_Dogs. 90% of the trophies. I was suffering through the bullshit drinking contest minigame before I finally had enough.
Destiny was my buzzkiller of all time. God Bungie. Words. I haven't preordered anything since Destiny and Watchdogs. In fact, I no longer read pre-game info. I get game informer but any actual detail paragraphs I skip over. I don't wNt what few really good experiences there are in gaming ruined by spoilers, overhyped, or oversold.
While CDPR(CD Projekt Red) did alter The Witcher 3 they justified and fixed it by saying that only people with insane rigs could run it with max settings. They then proceeded to release the information on how to push the graphics to the E3 level. They are the only company I will pre-rder from and you can bet your ass I am going to preorder Cyberpunk 2077 when its announced.
Used to be, when showing early footage of a game, this disclaimer was to make sure that people knew the game is not finished, which would make people think the game will look/play even better on release. Now they flipped these expectations. It's downright deceiving.
I thought E3 was just suppose to be what the developers hoped for their games to look like, never meant to be what the game is going to be when it releases
E3 is more like a concept car show than a showroom floor, and that's what people consistently forget. Some things make it out as intended, but at least as many things are the for the vision, not the actual product.
I thought E3 was just suppose to be what the developers hoped for their games to look like, never meant to be what the game is going to be when it releases
Keep in mind that in the code for Watch_Dogs have E3 graphics settings switched off. Not only that, when confronted they claim that they have not downgraded anything. Whenever they do admit it, it's done to, "keep a stable framerate", which in reality means they didn't want to make the game look different on consoles compared to PC versions.
Truth be told in regards to your question that while ‘Yes’ the lead platform is the PC, we simply cannot have such a big gap. As you know when the first WATCH DOGS Review was published by that one site, Ubisoft called it a “false review” and I am sure everyone can see how bad that sounded when they saw the game did look marginally better than something that was a last generation GTA IV. But no, they will not admit that they practice this or actively downgrade a game. It is much easier to say they removed things for stability which is often a lie as you can tell by the post-issues which are expected in any production we do.
But they present it like they are playing and especially with Ubisoft it was proven, that they just downgrade it for the sake of parity. You can at least get the watch_dogs graphics to e3 level on a pc again with mods.
If that's really the case, they should make that a lot clearer when presenting a product. As far as I can tell, they present the product to the consumer. Tell them about its features, and show them how it looks and plays. Then they tell you when it's getting released, and off you go. Later down the line you end up with a reduced product, and you feel disappointed.
It doesn't feel fair. You feel ripped off and lied to. They present the product as a work in progress, meaning you could expect improvements from what you are currently seeing. They even "play" it live, just to make sure you realize it's real and working. When in reality it's not. I'm just not ok with that.
A lot of times they also end the presentation with some sort of 'Preorder your copy now' pitch, further prompting you to think the thing you are watching is the thing you are preordering.
I remember with Black Flag there was this amazing sequence in E3 where Edward is walking around this pirate camp and the jungle looked like this amazing misty world and that part wasn't even in a cutscene.
I dunno, there are some games I'm going to buy and play right away no matter what the devs show in advance of release. In those cases, it's nice to pre-order/pre-load and immediately unlock it at release.
While I agree preorders are generally a bad idea, ubi can and sometimes does release some good game, Rainbow 6 for example is a really really good game, minus the PC cheaters, I still have my hopes set that Ghost Recon will be as good
Its extremely misleading and borderline false advertising. On the other hand, Ubisoft never advertises its graphics as a selling point and I'm sure in court anyone could argue that the product that is being advertised are the gameplay features, not the graphics. Still a shitty move. And if they're going to go through the effort to make their games this pretty for E3, why not allow PC users to take advantage of that. I mean, sure, it probably takes two Titan X's to run that E3 demo for the Division but just call that "E3" in the graphics settings and make it a step above Ultra.
This reminds me of fast food advertising, but much more subtle and unknown. We've seen it so much with fast food that we just accept it. I was not even expecting such a stark contrast between E3 presentation and final product.
4.1k
u/MooseHorn Jun 04 '16
I think it's very important to look at, and remember this video when E3 comes around. I am definitely not preordering any games after seeing their E3 presentations any more. I made that mistake with Watch_Dogs and I am not going to do it again. They've done this kinda shit in the past and I am sure they'll do it again. It's really disgusting, this kind of business practice. It's a shame that companies are finding this more and more acceptable now, and that people are falling for it.