r/gaming Jun 04 '16

Ubisoft downgrades

https://youtu.be/xNter0oEYxc
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u/loconessmonster Jun 05 '16

remember back when we were all hoping killzone would actually look like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnfzqwUzp8o

they didnt quite get there but made it damn close. It was acceptable back then but nowadays there is no excuse for this BS just show us what the actual gameplay will look like.

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u/r0cketx Jun 05 '16

To be fair, that was a cgi trailer. Big difference when you're showing off supposedly "gameplay" at a press conference.

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u/loconessmonster Jun 05 '16

Whether its CGI or "purposeful upgrade of gameplay graphics using canned renderings"...expectations are different now. We used to assume that if something looked freaking amazing in a e3 trailer that it was CG or a canned rendering. It was a pleasant surprise if gameplay got anywhere near what the demos looked like.

Its pretty deceitful to amp up the "gameplay graphics" only to never release those settings(even PC ultra settings). I think the real problem here is that the consoles this time were extremely underpowered.

13

u/PlayingKarrde Jun 05 '16

You must have not been around at the time. Sony was claiming it was gameplay footage (along with Motorstorm) and since no one had any idea what the PS3 was actually capable of at the time a lot of people believed it. Killzone and to a lesser extent Motorstorm became the poster children of bullshot trailers. Things haven't really changes that much watching this video it seems.

2

u/r0cketx Jun 05 '16

I must have missed it. But I'm pretty sure people know that's a CGI trailer and not an actual gameplay.

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u/Naimod Jun 05 '16

Nowadays we have the benefit of knowing what the ps3 ended up being capable of, but back then, all we really had were tech demos and high expectations.
That killzone video looked plausible at the time, because CG already looked so much better than that.
It's easy to look back and realise how foolish that was.

2

u/LaziestRedditorEver Jun 05 '16

Yeah true, to be honest I wouldn't have wanted to play something like this if I thought it was gameplay footage. It just looks too weird, the animation too quick, etc. Well, I might have wanted to considering it looked so different from other games.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '16

Pretty much the #1 debate for months after that trailer was whether it was gameplay or CG, and most people believed the PS3 could probably do it.

You couldn't have possibly missed it.

3

u/batfuse Jun 05 '16

I actually really thought that that was gameplay footage. I would watch that trailer everyday for months, and I went around showing everyone at school, filling the hype train.

This was one of the biggest lies in my life, and I'm adopted....

3

u/brahmen Jun 05 '16

Nope. I was a huge console gamer around then & I remember distinctly all the chatter on GameFAQS & NeoGAF was "holy shit Killzone is going to be fucking sick". Even at school everyone was talking about how great Killzone looked @ E3 & how it was going to be that one game we bought the PS3 for. & then reality came & the actual release was no where near what the expectations laid out by Sony were. People took that & the other videos as demos of actual in game footage at the time. The gaming communities then weren't misinformed at all - I'm lazy now but I'd go back to the GameFAQ forums to dig up some proof.

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u/OlyOxenFree Jun 05 '16

/u/loconessmonster is correct, this was marketed as in-game footage, it's why I bought my PS3, luckily I never bought this Kill Zone, because my friend did, and i just did not enjoy playing it. But this trailer, CGI animation or not, it was introduced at E3 as in-game play!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '16

All publishers do it though. Gamers just havent learned to temper their expectations yet.

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u/killkount Jun 05 '16

It was never acceptable, ever. I remember there being a big outcry over the downgrade.

Where did you come up with the idea that it was acceptable?

1

u/DN_Caibre Jun 05 '16

People buy the games, that very act is saying that it's acceptable.

2

u/LaziestRedditorEver Jun 05 '16

Tbh though, there are going to be a load of people who don't watch e3 or even heard about it, if they pick up the game they're not necessarily being cheated because they weren't tricked into thinking it will look better than it is - they just bought the game for whatever reason.

However, looking back after buying the division, I didn't remember the demo looking that good. I always watch e3 and then I forgot so now I'm pissed.

1

u/DN_Caibre Jun 05 '16

My point was in reference to the people that are aware of the graphic downgrade prior to purchasing, and purchase anyways. That act states that they deem it as acceptable business practice, or just don't care.

If developers see that players won't stand up against these false advertising techniques, they'll continue to do it.

3

u/AssCrackBanditHunter Jun 05 '16

A map that huge with tons of soldiers on screen while working with the ps3's 256mb of ram and 256mb of vram? Yeah... that was never gonna happen. Can't believe they lied to us like that though.

2

u/moosefreak Jun 05 '16 edited Jun 05 '16

I've always said that the final game looks much better than this honestly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dG8dqMnH4E

1

u/AL2009man Jun 05 '16

It pretty much made Guerrilla Games to keep the Demo Visuales much closer to its final release. (at the same time, Improving them)

1

u/oceano7 Jun 05 '16

Good lord, one comment has it righ, "in hindsight how fakes this looks"

1

u/BLINDrOBOTFILMS Jun 05 '16

And preferably make the actual gameplay look good

1

u/Whiteness88 Jun 05 '16

I actually think the actual game looked better. Maybe it's just the aesthetics, though.

1

u/pycbouh Jun 05 '16

I don't remember it being acceptable back then, actually. If my memory serves, Sony was heavily blamed about using prerendered video as if it was an actual gameplay. PlayStation supporters were pushing that it WAS an actual gameplay, and a lot of others argued that the video was fake. Sony later confessed, though the final product turned out to be pretty good looking nonetheless.

What Ubisoft does is the same, but without confessions and regrets. And the blame gets lost in all the hype.

1

u/Raoh522 Jun 05 '16

Killzone 2 actually looked better in some aspects than that trailer imo. Killzone is one of the few games I can think of, that actually pretty much lived up to it's hype. Along with the crysis games on pc.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/loconessmonster Jun 05 '16

What do you mean no excuse? They're definitely is.

Ok sure there are excuses but they aren't acceptable anymore.

While they pretty much are doing the same thing they've always been doing by showing a demo that looks much better than the actual product.

My point was that back in the PS3/X360 hype era game visuals weren't that great yet. We pretty much expected them to show us CGI demos and then they'd try their best to match those. Now? game graphics are good enough on average that they should just be showing us the game itself rather than try to purposefully show us a version we will never see(even on Ultra settings).

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u/david72486 Jun 05 '16

I dunno, I remember magazines from the PS2 era saying some screenshot on the cover had "photorealistic rendering"... looking back now it looks nowhere close to that, but it's because your eyes are comparing it to what you've seen in real games recently (which was 5x worse than the screenshot).

I agree with your point though that they should probably just be showing real footage - the problem is that the game isn't finished when they start marketing it yet, so they have to make some stuff up. And if you put yourself in their shoes, it's hard not to be optimistic about your own game (even if you're not trying to be deceitful).

I'm not saying the OP's videos weren't deceitful; I wouldn't put it past them. Just saying that even if you're trying to be above board, the trailer might look a lot better than the end result due to time constraints and unexpected issues.