4 ms·

Not sure how people keep getting tricked by this company. They must’ve built up such a large amount of goodwill from Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim

Not sure how people keep getting tricked by this company. They must’ve built up such a large amount of goodwill from Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Now they seem determined to cash it all out. Sad. Does anyone know of a game company that hasn’t gone through this sort of cycle after several decades? We saw the same story with Activision, Blizzard, EA, Wizards of the Coast…

evo_9 4y ago
FromSoftware
- Arnavion 4y ago
  The company that delisted DS1 from Steam after they released the remake?
  - Eavolution 4y ago
    I get your point, but tbf the remaster is identical for all intents and purposes, other than it includes the dlc and has a few optimisations
    - ioseph 4y ago
      I definitely prefer the visual style pre remaster, it has a much more painterly aesthetic. It also runs on old systems
    - Arnavion 4y ago
      The original also included the DLC. In any case, the point is not that the remake shouldn't have been made. The point is that there was no reason to delist the original other than to force people to buy the (more expensive) remake.
      - Cpoll 4y ago
        I can think of another reasonable reason, not that I agree with them delisting it: Reducing consumer confusion. You don't want people buying the wrong one by accident.
    - misnome 4y ago
      That's the point. It's basically identical, except they charge full price again.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    This is extremely common. And tbh it’s not the worst thing ever, prevents some people mistakingly buying the old one too.
    - account42 4y ago
      I'm sure Steam would come up with ways to reduce the chance of people mistakenly buying the old one. The bigger problem for the publisher is usually people intentionally buying the older (cheaper, and sometimes sadly even better) copy. And being common does not make it less scummy.
      - Arnavion 4y ago
        Or the developer can do it themselves. When the new Dead Space was released, the original was renamed to "Dead Space (2008)". Similarly the Mass Effect titles had years appended to them when the Legendary Edition was released, even though the names were not the same. XIII was renamed to XIII - Classic when the new one was released. Also XIII is an example of why you'd want to buy the original even when the remake is released, because the remake is significantly worse.
        Arrath 4y ago
        Huh, I had no idea that XIII had received a remake.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    Delisting the old one when you have released the remake seems completely reasonable to me - they want people to buy the new one. A company isn't compelled to keep selling every product they ever made in perpetuity. If you want to buy most products you can buy the current version, you can't buy either the current version or any other version (your choice) from the past.
    - Arnavion 4y ago
      >A company isn't compelled to keep selling every product they ever made in perpetuity. Of course a company is free to stop selling a digital product if it wants to. Just as I'm free to point out the shittiness of that choice.
Springtime 4y ago
Bethesda is just the publisher. The developer is Arkane and none of their prior games have required always online for singleplayer, even their prior game which had an emphasis on online elements. The reason it's even surprising at all is coming from Arkane's heritage.
- Arnavion 4y ago
  Publishers do force these kinds of decisions on developers though.
- account42 4y ago
  Arkane has been (hostile-)acquired by Bethesda a long time ago and the founder Raphaël Colantonio has since left to form a new studio. It's better ot think of acquired studios as brands than separate entities, even if they still keep their own physical location open. Ultimately, this decision rests on Microsoft and considering that they also acquired Activision-Blizzard recently it's not too surprising. Heck, even Windows has been blurring the line between an offline install and an online service.
logicchains 4y ago
Paradox?
ehnto 4y ago
Bethesda's suite of games for all their faults, are in interesting worlds, and offer gameplay that's hard to find done well anywhere else. A few of them are also very moddable which gave them long lasting success. Anyway, they made great IP purchases, made some great unique games with them, and now you can't get that IP anywhere else. Do I wish they weren't so scummy? Yeah. But I am not the Corporation Morality Police, I just want to play Fallout.
krageon 4y ago
Any corporation that is bought by another corporation or starts buying smaller ones is a corporation that invests a significant fraction (or even most) of it's money in MBA things. Consequentially, it's not going where it should go (games). Thus, as soon as either of those things happen you should assume it has died.
PoignardAzur 4y ago
Valve solved this problem by not making games anymore. (Though jokes aside, Half Life: Alyx is one of the best single-player games I've played in years, with no micro-transactions, tacked-on online mode, forced crafting systems, tons of collectibles and sidequests to pad out the game, etc; they do have collectibles and crafting in the form of resin and fabricators, but they're incredibly lightweight compared to most games.)
- account42 4y ago
  > (Though jokes aside, Half Life: Alyx is one of the best single-player games I've played in years, with no micro-transactions, tacked-on online mode, forced crafting systems, tons of collectibles and sidequests to pad out the game, etc; they do have collectibles and crafting in the form of resin and fabricators, but they're incredibly lightweight compared to most games.) I wouldn't call turning exploration rewards into a mindless grind for weapon upgrade currency "lightweight" crafting. It's pretty central to the game. It may be better than other recent games in the nickle and diming department but it is not free of the modern skinner box game design plague. Exploration is also extremely limited with e.g. no manual control for the flashlight. And many things that are supposed to be physics interactions are entirely scripted or unimplemented, e.g. try leaning something on one of the rolling shutter doors and then raise them. Changing Alyx' voice actor was also a pretty meh move - they would have been better off keeping the protagonist mute. Don't take this that I think the game is bad, but I do think they could have done a lot better. There were many impressive things in there (entirely shader-based fluid "simulation" in bottles) as well some parts that are simply cool (being able to doodle on the windows at the start is such a VR wow factor). And in their other games, Valve are as bad as other publishers when it comes to unethical monetization. Don't forget that we can thank Valve for normalizing loot boxes and doing their part in pushing microtransactions. Now I don't want to shit on Valve too much because of their contribution to Linux gaming and because Steam isn't that anti-competitive compared to what other companies would do but Saints they are not.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    I agree. Alyx was a lot of smoke and mirrors. I think it is the best VR has. But VR sucks. Alyx highlights 3 issues in combat. 1) you can’t move irl enough to dodge bullets. You can duck behind cover. But moving is hard. I also suspected some enemy types would target you based on where you had last teleported not where your body should be. 2) enemies hitting you in melee are awkwardly far and you have no ability to hit them in melee. For good reason. Melee in VR is kind of dumb. See boneworks. 3) teleporting and stick movement is very overpowered in addition to nausea. When you can move by stick, it is far superior to moving irl, which undermines the point. This is a fundamental problem in VR. You can’t do both irl movement and stick movement at the same time. And enemies have to move at irl speed to be “fair” to people who want to “do the motions”. The reloading and general sense of ducking is good. Very good. But it only goes so far.

evo_9 4y ago

FromSoftware

Arnavion 4y ago
The company that delisted DS1 from Steam after they released the remake?
- Eavolution 4y ago
  I get your point, but tbf the remaster is identical for all intents and purposes, other than it includes the dlc and has a few optimisations
  - ioseph 4y ago
    I definitely prefer the visual style pre remaster, it has a much more painterly aesthetic. It also runs on old systems
  - Arnavion 4y ago
    The original also included the DLC. In any case, the point is not that the remake shouldn't have been made. The point is that there was no reason to delist the original other than to force people to buy the (more expensive) remake.
    - Cpoll 4y ago
      I can think of another reasonable reason, not that I agree with them delisting it: Reducing consumer confusion. You don't want people buying the wrong one by accident.
  - misnome 4y ago
    That's the point. It's basically identical, except they charge full price again.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  This is extremely common. And tbh it’s not the worst thing ever, prevents some people mistakingly buying the old one too.
  - account42 4y ago
    I'm sure Steam would come up with ways to reduce the chance of people mistakenly buying the old one. The bigger problem for the publisher is usually people intentionally buying the older (cheaper, and sometimes sadly even better) copy. And being common does not make it less scummy.
    - Arnavion 4y ago
      Or the developer can do it themselves. When the new Dead Space was released, the original was renamed to "Dead Space (2008)". Similarly the Mass Effect titles had years appended to them when the Legendary Edition was released, even though the names were not the same. XIII was renamed to XIII - Classic when the new one was released. Also XIII is an example of why you'd want to buy the original even when the remake is released, because the remake is significantly worse.
      - Arrath 4y ago
        Huh, I had no idea that XIII had received a remake.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Delisting the old one when you have released the remake seems completely reasonable to me - they want people to buy the new one. A company isn't compelled to keep selling every product they ever made in perpetuity. If you want to buy most products you can buy the current version, you can't buy either the current version or any other version (your choice) from the past.
  - Arnavion 4y ago
    >A company isn't compelled to keep selling every product they ever made in perpetuity. Of course a company is free to stop selling a digital product if it wants to. Just as I'm free to point out the shittiness of that choice.

Springtime 4y ago

Bethesda is just the publisher. The developer is Arkane and none of their prior games have required always online for singleplayer, even their prior game which had an emphasis on online elements. The reason it's even surprising at all is coming from Arkane's heritage.

Arnavion 4y ago
Publishers do force these kinds of decisions on developers though.
account42 4y ago
Arkane has been (hostile-)acquired by Bethesda a long time ago and the founder Raphaël Colantonio has since left to form a new studio. It's better ot think of acquired studios as brands than separate entities, even if they still keep their own physical location open. Ultimately, this decision rests on Microsoft and considering that they also acquired Activision-Blizzard recently it's not too surprising. Heck, even Windows has been blurring the line between an offline install and an online service.

logicchains 4y ago

Paradox?

ehnto 4y ago

Bethesda's suite of games for all their faults, are in interesting worlds, and offer gameplay that's hard to find done well anywhere else. A few of them are also very moddable which gave them long lasting success. Anyway, they made great IP purchases, made some great unique games with them, and now you can't get that IP anywhere else. Do I wish they weren't so scummy? Yeah. But I am not the Corporation Morality Police, I just want to play Fallout.

krageon 4y ago

Any corporation that is bought by another corporation or starts buying smaller ones is a corporation that invests a significant fraction (or even most) of it's money in MBA things. Consequentially, it's not going where it should go (games). Thus, as soon as either of those things happen you should assume it has died.

PoignardAzur 4y ago

Valve solved this problem by not making games anymore. (Though jokes aside, Half Life: Alyx is one of the best single-player games I've played in years, with no micro-transactions, tacked-on online mode, forced crafting systems, tons of collectibles and sidequests to pad out the game, etc; they do have collectibles and crafting in the form of resin and fabricators, but they're incredibly lightweight compared to most games.)

account42 4y ago
> (Though jokes aside, Half Life: Alyx is one of the best single-player games I've played in years, with no micro-transactions, tacked-on online mode, forced crafting systems, tons of collectibles and sidequests to pad out the game, etc; they do have collectibles and crafting in the form of resin and fabricators, but they're incredibly lightweight compared to most games.) I wouldn't call turning exploration rewards into a mindless grind for weapon upgrade currency "lightweight" crafting. It's pretty central to the game. It may be better than other recent games in the nickle and diming department but it is not free of the modern skinner box game design plague. Exploration is also extremely limited with e.g. no manual control for the flashlight. And many things that are supposed to be physics interactions are entirely scripted or unimplemented, e.g. try leaning something on one of the rolling shutter doors and then raise them. Changing Alyx' voice actor was also a pretty meh move - they would have been better off keeping the protagonist mute. Don't take this that I think the game is bad, but I do think they could have done a lot better. There were many impressive things in there (entirely shader-based fluid "simulation" in bottles) as well some parts that are simply cool (being able to doodle on the windows at the start is such a VR wow factor). And in their other games, Valve are as bad as other publishers when it comes to unethical monetization. Don't forget that we can thank Valve for normalizing loot boxes and doing their part in pushing microtransactions. Now I don't want to shit on Valve too much because of their contribution to Linux gaming and because Steam isn't that anti-competitive compared to what other companies would do but Saints they are not.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  I agree. Alyx was a lot of smoke and mirrors. I think it is the best VR has. But VR sucks. Alyx highlights 3 issues in combat. 1) you can’t move irl enough to dodge bullets. You can duck behind cover. But moving is hard. I also suspected some enemy types would target you based on where you had last teleported not where your body should be. 2) enemies hitting you in melee are awkwardly far and you have no ability to hit them in melee. For good reason. Melee in VR is kind of dumb. See boneworks. 3) teleporting and stick movement is very overpowered in addition to nausea. When you can move by stick, it is far superior to moving irl, which undermines the point. This is a fundamental problem in VR. You can’t do both irl movement and stick movement at the same time. And enemies have to move at irl speed to be “fair” to people who want to “do the motions”. The reloading and general sense of ducking is good. Very good. But it only goes so far.