Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

[marcus]

I don't know if you guys have been keeping up on the latest news, but a relatively recent (week old) interview with Mike Capps, president of Epic Games (bringers of fine products like Gears of War) revealed a pretty ridiculous business plan. I mentioned this in the Mirror's Edge topic but yeah it definitely deserves it's own topic!

Some highlights from the interview:

You recently made quite a pertinent point about Wii - that it's like a virus - the appeal passes from person to person, before the interest dies out...

Michael Capps: It's got the same transmission pattern. Someone put out an interesting statistic - that 70 per cent of Wii Fits were used once.

And I thought I hated the Wii, this guy has statistics on it!!

[B]and my mum's playing videogames because of the Wii... and when I make her play Gears.

I think that's great - we're solidly cementing the videogame generation. Reggie and the guys at Nintendo of America have done a wonderful job of making it a more pervasive part of culture. How can we not win?

Nintendo... pervasive culture. Is this European humor? This guy is vicious!

Michael Capps: I'm not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but the secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code.

I've talked to some developers who are saying "If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free". We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it...

This right here is the scary thing. Epic ISN'T a small company and this generation of games has pushed the Downloadable Content market. Just look at Crystal Chronicles When I am King (or whatever it's called), Mega Man 9, Oblivion (here's a mod that's inferior to what one person can make in a week 5$ please) or that new Tales of... game where you actually PAY to level up. One could argue "Well, if you don't want the extra stuff then you don't have to pay for it" but can you imagine games coming out where you have to pay to unlock crap that was supposed to be there in the first place but was removed so you could spend more money on it? Jesus Christ, this is ridiculous. I already hate the preplanned trilogy fad that seems to be going on but now I have to possibly worry about games that I have to pay to finish.

AND THE BIGGEST HINDSIGHT this guy seems to miss is that companies don't support games forever. Imagine buying UNFINISHED GAME A 10 years from now and realizing that you can't finish it because who ever's website is dead.

express your fears here, pav, or just call out capps and the video game industry in general and pray they aren't moving in such a stupid direction.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Other than Gears and Unreal what has EPIC games put out?

Somthing tells me we don't have a huge amount to worry about.

[highwind]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

I'm at the point in my life where I wait until "greatest hits" to buy a game.

Or I'll just buy an old game off eBay that I missed during its heyday.

So I assume I'm not even in their demographic.

But the idea sounds awful.

[Perversion]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Capps....more like Crapps, M I RITE? olol


But, yeah, I think the writing's been on the wall ever since Oblivion was first released on the 360 (horse armor, anyone?). I've not read that something this extreme was even being talked about, but I know that more and more games are giving incentives to buy new, some of which are given for purchasing at release or shortly thereafter (special armor for the first two weeks, the 20 song code in Rock Band 2, etc). Of course, a way to slightly circumvent this is if you are online, and are planning on buying a game at some point in the future, just not within the first few weeks, download the free stuff when it comes out, and wait to install it until when you purchase the game 4 months later. Of course, I see this being negated soon by only being able to get the free stuff from a link within the game itself, rather than on an "open marketplace."


And if you've been playing games for the last few years, and have not seen this new propensity to force you to pay for stuff that should rightfully have been included in the original game (bonus maps for shooters, I can see to some extent, but games like Lumines for the 360, and Mega Man 9, where you are nickled and dimed for extra MODES...time trials in the case of Mega Man, playing vs CPU in Lumines, etc, to me, is just ridiculous. But we still buy 'em anyway, don't we?), you're really just plain blind.




And who can forget Sony's original plan to only sell you the license to play the game, and not the game itself? You can see how far THAT got. I think the "free bonus stuff" for original purchasers is a decent model, so we all do not become parasitic leeches, "pirating" games by buying them used, and thus, causing the collapse of the industry (olol), and playing devil's advocate, SOME non-pertinent add-on stuff I can support, due to the developers not making money from used sales, but on the other hand, it's not as if the developers (aside from maybe the producer and director) are seeing any of it; it's going right into the publishers' pockets, which is not necessarily a BAD thing, because it probably affords the opportunity to continue publishing games.


But, yeah, literally "incomplete" games should not be allowed to happen.


On another note, when I read the topic's title, I thought this was gonna be another discussion about patches for console games, and how all the "early adopters" are basically bugtesting for the developers. I'm happy it was the current topic instead.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Y'know what I find funny is that this guy is raggin' on Wii and Nintendo yet as far as I know they have yet to put any DLC that you have to pay for in their games.

[marcus]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

On another note, when I read the topic's title, I thought this was gonna be another discussion about patches for console games, and how all the "early adopters" are basically bugtesting for the developers. I'm happy it was the current topic instead.

shoot this is a discussion of its own. whatever happened to metal gear online? wasn't it supposed to be a full game or something released on the side from mgs4 and the mgs4 version of mgo was basically a demo for the final thing?

i know i'm way off here but i could have sworn mgo was supposed to be a FULL GAME and not handful of maps + skins.

EDIT: Actually this topic should be dedicated to hilarious things vidya big wigs say. Here's a quote from Gabe Newell

>In regards to the PS3, Newell was once quoted as claiming that developing processes for the console in general is "a waste of everybody's time" and "a disaster on many levels ... I'd say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a do over. Just say, 'This was a horrible disaster and we're sorry and we're going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it"

[Alzar]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

They're fighting back against Gamespot and their stupid business plan which only makes money on trade-ins and resales and screw the game companies.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

this is the direction companies are going. it was bad enough that pc games where/are released with glitches and other problems that require patches. now its just ugh.

people want just a few things: they want to be part of a fad, they want to feel like they are getting a deal, and they want it right now. once you cater to these things then people will eat it up.


i never sell my games but i do like buying used. it taps into a market that either, cant afford/doesnt feel its worth it, to buy when they come out, or would rather have a wait and see approach to the game. bogging that market down would hurt these people.

if game companies go the "buy a license" approach then the price would have to dip progressively. i dont want to pay full price for an old game, nor do i want to pay some fee just to beat the game or "unlock" anything more then a demo. the secondary market would drop considerably if such was implemented, though i think it would balance itself out if done correctly.

[The_Real_Crunk]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

They should stop selling their products to all the big chain stores that specialize in selling used games. Theres plenty of stores that sell games, but dont sell used ones.

[pinkymadigan]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

I also thought this was going to be a "why am I paying $60 to bugtest this game?" ***** fest upon reading the title...

Guess I've been hanging around the Fable 2 forums a bit too much...

[Perversion]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Karr, the "buy a license" scenario was a bit different than how you described it. Before the PS3 was released, in order to try to circumvent PS3 games being sold used, it was only going to sell the license to play the game (at $60), but you technically were not going to own the actual game itself. It was still the property of Sony. Thus, you could play it yourself, but would not be able to sell or trade it, because you would be breaking the EULA. Even letting a friend borrow it would break the EULA in this case. Of course, this never happened. I think if they'd gone through with that, the PS3 might have sold 100 units total worldwide.


Speaking of Gamestop, they have this buy two, get one free used thing going on at my local store. I asked the guy how long this was running for, and he said probably through January. I asked him why, and he told me there's a new store opening in the mall area next week called Play and Trade, and that when any new game store opens, Gamestop's intent is to crush them, and put them out of business. I left a few minutes later without buying anything, called 411 on my phone, and asked for the number for Play and Trade.


I guess they actually carry stuff from Atari up to current gen, including those third party top-loading consoles that play both SNES and Genesis games or something. I talked to the guy on the phone for about 10 minutes, and am determined to try to find a way there in the coming month.


I wish I didn't have to frequent Gamestop for my games, but it IS in the mall, and without a car, it's hard to go anywhere else. It just pi**es me off that the manager has that attitude, and, no surprise here, but he knows next to nothing about games.

[DK]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Yeah there's 3 of those by me good stuff

[Perversion]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Yeah, there's three Gamestops within 5 minutes of my work.....

[Red Dragon]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

I have a EBGames and a Gamestop pretth much right across eachother in the same mall.

[Perversion]

Re: Incomplete Games: Wave of the Future???

Are you drunk, RD? That's two slurry posts I've noticed from you tonight.