JUST SAY NO TO PREORDERS!
It is that simple, if you want companies to stop offering supposedly magic beans to people who are willing to shell out money to an established corporation for a product that is still in development then do not preorder anything. If a company has already broken even on a product they haven't even finished, do you really expect them to work as hard at polishing the final release when any copies sold after the release date are pure profit?
Not only that, this habit leads to worse habits such as offering the chance to pay $30 for DLC that doesn't exist for a game still in development. That's right, if you toss another $30 at Bethesda right now then you will get a "Season Pass" for Fallout 4 which will contain $40 worth of DLC that even Bethesda doesn't have a clue as to what it will be. Maybe Dogmeat will get a hat and your character can sport a merkin. Seriously, as much as you may love the Fallout franchise, do not help to ruin it by giving Bethesda about $100 for a product which is not finished yet! The news about modding tools which will be available which was shared with Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN is nice, hopefully that is not considered DLC.
“Since we’re still hard at work on the game, we don’t know what the actual DLC will be yet, but it will start coming early next year,” quoth Bethesda. I bet they have some idea, given Fallout 4 itself is surely deep in bug-splatting, QA, and certification at this point and there’ll be a whole load of devs hanging around needing things to do."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Ant Simulator Looks Pretty, Also Real Ants Make Terrifying Traps @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Wot I Think: Pillars Of Eternity – The White March Part 1 @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Guild Wars 2 Is Going Free @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Stealth service – Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain @ The Register
- Dustwind: Real-Time Tactical Post-Apocalyptic Action @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Not Dinosaurs: Dragon Age’s Trespasser DLC Released @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- The Recreated ZX Spectrum launches @ HEXUS
- Company of Heroes 2 Is The Latest Linux Game Showcasing AMD's Performance Wreck With Catalyst @ Phoronix
I agree, but i got the
I agree, but i got the collectors edition which cant follow that rule. I do find it annoying they are doing a seasons pass though 🙁 Id pass on them but mods sometimes require them. If they are good ill buy em of course but there has been some no so good ones from them before. like the hearth one for skyrim, basically a expensive mod
AMEN BROTHER, SHOUT IF FROM
AMEN BROTHER, SHOUT IF FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS.
And to ye, readers of the word, GO FORTH AND SPREAD THE WORD!
And on the whole “Season
And on the whole “Season pass” thing, it actually kinda ruined Far Cry 4’s Valley Of The Yeti. On it’s own it’s amassing, fun new 6-10 hour game in a sexy new setting, BUTTTTTTTTT if you got it with season pass you have access to a super powered golden elephant gun from very early on giving you a one shot kill on the yetis takes alot of the challenge outa it.
kinda like
kinda like kick-starter-type-gamble on DLC
Naw, Kickstarter should be a
Naw, Kickstarter should be a place where you bet on people who claim to have the talent and the idea but not the money. You might get a great game, you might get crap or even nothing but if it is the latter 2 you can bet that team is not going to be getting any more work.
Bethesda has the cash, the question is if they have the idea and talent. Since people are already throwing money at them, they don't need the idea nor the talent, they can just ship a piece of trash because they've already made a profit from preorders … and know people will buy their crap again just based on the name of the series.
I despise “modern” gaming
I despise “modern” gaming industry.
I really don’t understand
I really don’t understand “pre-orders” on digitally-delivered, non-scarce goods. I mean, I can buy it the day it comes out and there it is.
My one note on the article is using the phrase “bug splatting” with Bethesda. I’m sure they’re working on multiplying bugs.
I agree with everything
I agree with everything you’re saying… but it’s Fallout 4 man! I want all of the pre-order swag, no matter how stupid it is.
I’m sorry, I’m that guy.
Remember way back in the day
Remember way back in the day when PC gaming was the only place for games to have “DLC” which was actually an expansion pack only made if the game sold well?
That’s what we need to get back into, being sold a complete game and then have an expansion pack roughly half the gameplay of the original for ~$20 if the original sells well.
But gone are the days of games having their own engines and developers caring about their vision I fear. Anywho, great article Jeremy, keep calling out the crap the modern day gaming industry does. Don’t sell out!
Look, I know this shit is
Look, I know this shit is fucking me up, but I just need this one last pre-order. I promise, I’ll stop after Fallout 4, okay man?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/
The one advantage(possibly
The one advantage(possibly only as well lol) Of having a large steam library of backlogged games, Is the fact you can just wait all the BS out and pick up games/dlc on the next steam sale!
So many other games to play, Why get anything on day 1 anymore and paying for overpriced buggy games/dlc, When you can play something else while new game is patched and is on sale!
Use your head people, Throwing hard earned down the toilet for stress induced gaming.
People who perorder deserve
People who perorder deserve to suffer.
I see only justice when i look around how everything is shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY0Qjx5K53o
Me too.
Piracy is going up every day
Piracy is going up every day one of the causes is shit PC ports or plain bad PC games that were made just for the cash. Now days you can get the full game pirated with all preorder bonuses if you just wait a few days after the release date. Why pay $100 upfront if you will end up getting an unfinished game? Like someone above stated, back in the days you bought a game and a few months later an “Expansion Pack” would be released if the game was doing well. We need this back.
Please, save me the B.S.
Please, save me the B.S. about piracy.
People can claim that they pirate to protest DRM, pirate to protest incomplete games, pirate and then buy the game, etc. That’s all B.S. People pirate games because they don’t want to pay the asking price to get that game.
CD Projekt Red (one of the most customer-friendly publishers when it comes to DRM) released Witcher 1,2,3 completely DRM-free. And they reported the piracy rate is the same (~95%) as games with tons of DRM on them. Ubisoft saw the same thing with Assassins Creed: Director’s Cut. Released that game DRM-free, and saw it pirated at the same rate as DRM-locked games. Claiming that people pirate for honorable reasons is just complete B.S.
So what DOES work against piracy? When you have a paid game that is BETTER than the pirated version. That game may have online multiplayer. It may get lots of patches, or content updates that are inconvenient for pirates to keep updating. Whatever it is, the one thing that works against piracy is when you have a paid product that is a superior product to a free pirated copy.
Piracy going up every day?
Piracy going up every day? Care to back that up with numbers?
With Steam sales and free 2 play games I would say piracy is pretty much a non issue. I don’t know anyone who pirates anymore.
I know I will get a lot of
I know I will get a lot of hate for saying this, but I would like to think that Bethesda is innocent until proven guilty. What I mean by this is that I fully expect them to deliver on their promises. That is what they are selling with preorders and season passes: promises. Elder Scrolls and Fallout from Bethesda have been great not because “we won’t pay until we have a product in our hands”. They have been great because the studio has a work ethic and culture of excellence in game creation. They don’t mind waiting 5 years or more to release the next iteration in their most profitable franchises. If they were only motivated by profit, then they would be releasing subpar games every year like many other industry leading game studios or publishers. I understand the slippery slope concerns that “spoiling” Bethesda by paying them early might cause. Reputation means a lot in this industry, and I think Bethesda understands that deeply.
I don’t see them as innocent,
I don't see them as innocent, I see them as a for-profit company. Skyrim was essentially unplayable on AMD cards at launch, Morrowind and Oblivion had many bugs at release, especially dialogue glitches, Fallout 3 and New Vegas both did, including the infamous corrupted save bug.
Rage.
No game is perfect at launch but it you take away the incentive to make the game good enough at launch that people buy it then why would a company invest the time and money to do so. By being able to sell it to people before it is done the quality will get worse as there is no reason to make it better or even maintain your current quality. Hell, fire your whole QA staff and get people to pay you for the privledge of alpha and beta testing.
If reputation of the publisher mattered then Ubisoft wouldn't be raking in huge amounts of cash on preorders, yet they do even after the screaming on the Internet after the release of various Assassin's Creed, Batman and other games, about how those consumers would never buy another Ubisoft game.
I've shortened my list of games for brevity but the list is long.
You can inform buyers of what
You can inform buyers of what they’re getting themselves into, but unless the market responds appropriately, Bethesda can do this as much as they want.
Battlefront 3 for PC is a
Battlefront 3 for PC is a perfect example. Lots of hype, pretty graphics and a cool setting. Well, we recently learned that there will be no server browser (September 1st) and i believe that preorders started April 17th. Never ever preorder!