Honestly, I don’t think it’s a big deal. But it’s just stupid as a developer to act like this.
I often ask about risk vs reward in these situations. What were they going to gain by acting like this and what were they going to risk by acting like this?
Eh. I went and looked at the comments. Sometimes people get a little lippy and it’s whatever? Shit happens. But basically telling the customer ‘i get off on you crying about this’ is definitely going to cause some issues for the company.
Could just as well have gone the other way though. Sassy CM telling some loud, annoying, entitled brat to git gud or cry more? Instant cool-dev meme. But if a lot of people feel similarly you get outrage and controversy. Just depends on the local culture on that particular day in that particular place.
It’s cool to be rude as long as you also feel that it’s warranted. It’s cool to offend people you don’t like or deride ideas you think are stupid. Everyone isMost people are always just one wrong audience away from being a horrible person.
Of course CM or PR staff have different expectations, but I can understand why they might make a gamble sometimes trying to be cool and causual.
Will, first and foremost, these were devs not CMs. Shouldn’t have been posting in the first place for exactly this reason.
But in my experience in the industry, it’s never worth the risk to try to look cool. You lose more often than you win, even when you think it’s the right time. Because even if people agree with the sentiment, there will always be people who object to the tone itself and that tips the scales against you
“I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?”
Larian Studios does technically have a single shareholder in Tencent—which owns around 30% of the company. However, an important piece of context is that Tencent appears to own what’s called a “preference” share, meaning that Tencent doesn’t have voting rights when it comes to Larian’s decision making. The rest of the company belongs to CEO and Founder Swen Vincke and his wife.
Few people do because Larian keeps lying about it. Part of me understands you don‘t go around telling people a Chinese government asset has big money in your company, given the ongoing genocide and all (speaking of toxic work environment eh) but it‘s publicly accessible information anyway. They‘ve been so consistently dishonest about it that I can‘t take them all that serious about anything anymore. Because alternatively to lying they could just… shut up and keep making great games. They don‘t need that sugar coating.
Tencent own preference stock. They could sell their stock, which could potentially harm the company, but they hold no voting rights and carry no decision making power.
I am not a fan of China, nor Tencent, but spewing bile without understanding the context does NOT help this discourse.
Well, penny stocks exist. It’s possible that Tencent suddenly liquidating their 30% share could bottom out the share value temporarily. If the market decided that Tencent liquidating their holdings was a sign that the company was going under, that should drive the price down, correct?
Can’t see how it would harm the company. Stocks and shares are just a way to raise money in a company. I’ll sell you x% for $yk and own that amount now.
Even with normal shares 30% is a minority stake especially if a single entity owns the other 70% (ie. You can express your opinion but I outvote you every time). Unless Larian are planning to raise additional funds by selling equity and need the stock price to remain high for that reason, Tencent are free to sell their portion without any impact to Larian. (Heck a drop might even let Larian buy itself back)
They’re not publicly traded, and the only shares are the ones that Tencent owns. The shares are worth whatever someone buys them for. The price doesn’t fluctuate because there’s no market with which they are traded on
It is true that a non publicly traded firm won’t see an immediate effect if one of the shareholder leave the ship, but businesses work on trust. If Tencent sell its share, it is a sign that it doesn’t trust the studio anymore. Thus, potential private investors, like banks, will be more hesitant to work with them, and will ask for higher rates to compensate for that perceived lose of trust. Thus, hurting the Studio.
Shareholders have a right to sell their shares. If there is no other buyer, then the company will have to pay them for it. They may not have enough liquid capital to pay off 30%. Other assets might have to be sold off, which may make it difficult to operate.
I did a little more research, and it tends to be only specific circumstances and shareholder agreements, but there are times when a shareholder can force a company to buyback the shareholder’s stock.
It’s so irritating to see how eager people come to defend Larian on their lies every time someone calls it out. You’re acting like I said Tencent has Larian on the leash. I mean you’re not even disagreeing with anything I said. Tencent holds shares. They are shareholders, as the article states. Maybe read it again? Do you also claim Larian didn’t receive funding from Tencent? Because Larian was very vocal about not receiving any funding, playing dumb when people wondered how Larian even made such a huge game.
Rumors have it Hasbro’s gonna sell D&D and Tencent is the most likely buyer. We’ll see how much of Larian’s soul will be left when they get approached to make a huge D&D mobile gacha or whatever Tencent comes up with.
I’m getting whiplash from your logic. You just accused another user of acting like you said tencent had larian on a leash, which we can all agree is not true. Then you go on to say Larian is going to lose its soul when tencent approaches them with a gacha game, as if larian would take them up on this like Tencent has any say in what Larian does.
Also, Hasbro isn’t selling DnD. Tencent is attempting to buy adaptation rights to the DnD IP, which may not even be true. By all accounts, WotC is the most profitable division of Hasbro. Sounds like you read another headline and didn’t read the article…
No, I am saying Larian will do it on their own accord rather than losing out on money in the end. It‘s a tale as old as the gaming industry. We‘ve seen so many downfalls that parallel this pattern and if they‘re already this dishonest at their peak, then I‘m really worried how bad it will be when they‘re at the bottom. Even CDPR didn‘t show nearly as many red flags prior to the Cyberpunk debacle.
Oh yeah if Habro says so it must be true… boy oh boy.
This is great but my fear is that one day he will go public and not share the profits with the employees. I worked at a company like that. Said they would never sell until they did for a record amount that they didn’t really share with the employees.
Surface-level article, Nintendo’s main angle of attack here is financial, they’re pointing to a lot of evidence on Yuzu’s Patreon, such as posting Xenoblade DC running well a day before official release, and subscriber money doubling around TOTK launch. This approach to emulator lawsuits is new territory apparently.
It was fairly quickly demonstrated IIRC that Yuzu could emulate TOTK at higher res and 60fps. So it’s entirely possible to me that Yuzu’s Patreon sub soared because users wanted to play their purchased game on better hardware.
I hope the courts find in favor of Yuzu and set the legal precedent that it’s legal to dump secret numbers and purchased software from a device you own.
Love how the courts are framing this. “ROMs are illegal software.” “Emulators are for playing pirated software.”
Fuck you, Nintendo. You made $1.6bil in profits last year. I bet the number of pirated copies of Zelda: TotK barely amount to a fraction of a percent of that.
Love how the courts are framing this. “ROMs are illegal software.” “Emulators are for playing pirated software.”
Ngl I kinda want them to use this logic and see what happens when they try to apply it to Nintendo’s own Virtual Console, which are emulators playing ROMs basically.
Hell, the games you can play in Animal Crossing are literal emulators with ROMs since they found iNES data in the headers.
Emulation has already been litigated to hell and back. It's very clearly legal, including relying on users pulling a blob or two from their hardware for the whole thing to function.
Yeah that would make sense except you missed a key point:
Connectix’s development strategy was based upon reverse engineering the PlayStation’s BIOS firmware, first by using the unchanged BIOS to develop emulation for the hardware, and then by developing a BIOS of their own using the original firmware as an aid for debugging.
The whole point here is that Connectix used Sony’s BIOS to develop their own BIOS. Yuzu is not doing that. They don’t have their own BIOS they are providing to their users. They are telling people to use Nintendo’s bios, but that they aren’t providing it.
This. This seems to be the argument that Nintendo is hinging on. In order for Yuzu to play the games properly you need a prod.keys file. I guess Nintendo is claiming that the keys in this file are owned by them and it’s illegal to have that number much in the same way the number used to represent the C code for decoding DVD copy protection is illegal: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number#Illegal_pr…
I am no lawyer but seems tenuous when you can run a program to get the prod.keys from your own console. Especially when that code is legal and exists on GitHub: github.com/Decscots/Lockpick_RCM
I am legally allowed to make backups of my hardcopies. I can very legally buy TOTK and dump a ROM for Yuzu. In fact, that is precisely what I did to get my copy for Yuzu.
I choose to try not to pirate, and thus this kinda thing absolutely pisses me off because this is so disingenuous, because I dig into the nitty gritty of how to do all this stuff legit.
Randomizers alone make Nintendo games in particular so much more alive, and all but require the use of ripping software and quite often emulators.
These emulators can make even current titles look even more beautiful and play more smoothly than their native platform, too.
Yeah, people are going to pirate using this stuff, but its wrong to treating the tools themselves as being inherently bad. They are quite often used by people who care very much about these games, and do give fair financial support to Nintendo.
It’s utterly ridiculous how copyright law has been twisted to erode the very idea of ownership. Does it have software on it? Well then it’s not just against the terms of service… It’s illegal!
It can be the least predatory mtx system ever, being in a paid game is still not acceptable and I’ll die on that hill. Never bought anything with a shop or battle pass and won’t start now.
I agree if those things leverage fomo to get people to pay. In helldivers you can earn that currency just playing the game so if you have less time to play you have the option of purchasing the currency and their versions of battle passes are always available to buy and work on at your leisure.
It started with “It’s just a silly horse armor DLC, just don’t buy it!”, continued with “It’s just cosmetics bro, just don’t get them!”, then we got “The shop is fine though, you can get the currency ingame!” and got to “The timed battle pass is fine, you also get free stuff!”. You can draw your own line for mtx, but slowly we’re both approaching and crossing it if you accept anything before that.
The way I see things, “the least pressured to buy stuff” reads like “the least aggressive cancer”. Sure, it could be worse, but like, you’ve still got cancer. There’s still the ideal option of being healthy instead.
I’m actually not making any of those arguments and disagree with all of them myself. My issue with mtx is generally that they prey on people with psychological tactics that are proven to work on a lot of (generally vulnerable and younger) people. Helldivers does none of that, it’s not “least pressured to buy stuff”, you’re not pressured at all.
And I know I’m being a little sensitive here but it really sucks to lose someone from cancer and see someone comparing it to a shop in a video game of all things.
I appreciate the consideration and at the end of the day I really agree with you and it sucks to see the state of the industry as a whole right now and really hope we can get back to being respected as consumers some day.
Having the option to use real money is the problem. Nothing is stopping them from adding more and more expensive stuff until you cannot grind it anymore. That’s how we went free cosmetics to 60+ bucks for skins.
Oh, they can add content not included in the original purchase? And they ask me to buy those things they worked on if I want to play with them? Fucking monsters… someone needs to stop them.
You know, drip feeding stuff is no fun. Paying for trivial things is no fun either. We used to get full-blown expansions for the price some companies want for a single skin.
Instead of adding stuff to a shop, games could get actual new content. Instead of buying every asset separately, they could all be thrown in with said new content. Like, yeah, they should get paid for their continued work, but that does not mean the consumer should be milked for every penny.
Sure, and it’ll be unacceptable when that actually happens. Saying “X is unacceptable because think about what they might do in the future” isn’t really an amazing argument if they’re not doing it now.
Unpopular opinion but I think it’s acceptable as long as its optional especially as multiplayer game where they are hosting servers. Those aren’t cheap and I don’t have the game so I wouldn’t know but if they do release more multiplayer content for free, I think it’s further justification because that’s better than paid content packs. As an example, CoD on PC had a recurring issue of DLC content being useless since too little people would buy them. Titanfall saw this issue as well and it was even worse due to the smaller player base. So with Titanfall 2 they just made it free and added cosmetics microtransactions that were actually reasonably priced.
Maybe this is not the solution for everything but as long as it has no bearing on gameplay what’s the harm? If you’re not one to spend on microtransactions then you only get the benefits. I don’t think a more benign implementation should be criticised just because we fear the potential of it potentially becoming worse.
To each their own, but I think this is a bit extremist. Life isn’t black and white. Free games with mtx can be good or bad, paid games without can be good or bad.
Just not buying solely because it has a shop/battle pass means you miss out on a lot of games where it has zero meaning and you’re not allowing any nuanced discussion to happen on the issue.
There are so many games available without microtransactions that I can happily never play one and not feel I’m missing out. We’re having the nuanced discussion now!
I think there need to be a balance. If it’s a service game, they need money to keep servicing the game. There is a fine line between a reasonable voluntary option to support a game in exchange for some symbolic cosmetic and gross predatory practices.
I don’t think every topic deserves nuance. Every mtx shop is predatory, every successful service game lives off whales. You’d just draw an arbitrary line at how aggressivly they hunt whales, but they need them all the same. Even if you can get everything with ingame currency drops, if people wouldn’t spend enough, the game wouldn’t get new content.
The only fair solution is to scrap mtx entirely and make all service games subscription based. But people aren’t ready for that, this conversation often comes down to “as long as they don’t exploit me, I’ll take my free games”.
I would not call Deep Rock Galactic predatory… They release one! cosmetic pack for each season, and that’s it? There is no whales to catch, because in that case it’s very limited how much you can even spend. Like 10 euro every 4-5 months and that’s it. Is that predatory to you?
I honestly can’t answer you, I don’t know anything about the game besides seeing it everywhere for years. Stuff like: How in your face is advertising? Do season even add anything besides these packs? Are they missable? The only thing I can say for sure: I dislike how they present multiple bundles with varying amounts of DLC on their steam page. Without prior knowledge I’d have to go through everything and check if I’d be missing out on some actual DLC content and I’d assume there are people buying an actually reasonably priced game for over a 100 bucks because they want all DLC assuming it’s real content. Sure, that’s on them not checking, but also kinda on the developer naming it stuff like “Deluxe” or “Master” Edition instead of “All Cosmetics Edition” or something among those lines.
Regardless, even if it is an genuine exception, they add massive content updates and don’t push these packs at all. Do they even make a profit then? Massively successful games like DRG, Terraria or Stardew Valley can do whatever they want - they have funded themselves more or less for life already and probably would still sell anyways. Normal service games need to turn a profit with their updates which still means either having a subscription or predatory mtx.
It’s OK for people to spend as much money as they want supporting a game. If you enjoy the work that a developer does for a live service game, it makes sense to fund their business.
I paid for a couple of the cosmetic packs in DRG for example. They genuinely made a great game, and they released additional content as well. I like that I’m not pressured into a subscription, and I can choose how much extra money I want to throw their way.
Destiny 2 is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. The DLC is very expensive, each pack corresponding to the cost of a full game, and there are several of these packs at least. That being said, some people really like Destiny 2. Who am I to say that their spending is wrong? It’s their hobby, and they’re funding it by supporting the company that makes the content for them.
It’s OK for people to spend as much money as they want supporting [gambling]. If you enjoy the work that a developer does for a [gambling service], it makes sense to fund their business.
Would you feel the same about your paragraph with these changes? Destiny 2 used to have full blown loot boxes after all.
I think it is important to still ralley against predatory mtx mechanics even if they don’t work for you. Other people don’t necessarily have full control over their own spending habits and by allowing these systems we openly allow developers to exploit these people. Luckily we started having laws against gambling mechanics (although Gacha is still a thing), but there are still many other psychological tricks at play for almost all of these shops.
If it were a level playing field I’d be inclined to agree with you, but it isn’t. These companies are hiring specialists in the psychology of creating a sense of need where there is no need. It doesn’t work on everyone for everything but there are people who are susceptible to these techniques and they’re the people funding everything. The issue isn’t people spending their money on what they want, it’s them being put in the situation where they feel compelled to purchase things and encouraged to do so by companies who know full well that these people can’t handle it and will cough up the dough no matter what comes their way.
There’s merit to that, but keep in mind that sometimes the game is bound to a service for the sake of enabling microtransactions to begin with, and if not for that they would have let players to host their own servers. This has happened to most multiplayer games from larger publishers.
The reason is the cash shop of course. I know, it’s cheap and fair compared to every other live services, but it still limits your play to be online only.
We can only hope the game does an Avengers when it closes down and patches offline play, but we can’t trust these companies.
My partner and I just played through this together in co-op and had a great time. We thought it was a good game.
I read the whole discord drama stuff, and I’m more on Crema’s side. I think they’ve made the mistake of trying to talk to a fanbase like they are just a group of reasonable people that will understand and empathize if you just lay out the facts. But they aren’t. They’re just going to pick apart anything you say and relentlessly shit on you because they are, collectively, not able to be reasoned with.
They released an MMO in its final state, minus some Kickstarter promised stuff, that they have said they will deliver. They tried to monetize the game how they felt was best, it didn’t work out, so they’ve moved on and left a functioning, small-scope MMO. You can argue the quality of it or whether you agree with their decisions, but they made what they said they were going to make.
And they are still releasing small updates to a community that is, frankly, awful. The subreddit is just a hivemind of asshole armchair developers.
Honest question: can you name an asshole gaming community that isn't tied to a live service game? Because I feel like the shitty community comes from expecting everything to be continually improved, and lots of those improvements are subjective, so someone's improvement is someone else's regression. I'll happily revise my hypothesis with some good counter examples though.
Sometimes. The chess community is very weird in my experience. Like, anarchy chess is a thing and shitposting seems to have permeated chess culture. Case in point, the double bongcloud being played in tournament (1:32 length clip). (For context, the bongcloud opening is very bad, playing it is basically a self nerf. Because of the way that tournaments and points work, the end outcome of this game was basically a mutually agreed draw, but they did it in the most shitposting way possible.).
Personally, I think this is great, it’s made it harder for some people to be gatekeepy arseholes within the chess community. I am always slightly perplexed by the memes though - with absurd humour, it can be hard to tell whether I’m missing the joke, or whether the joke is that there is no joke.
Warframe’s community is the nicest, least toxic community I’ve ever encountered. Not saying there aren’t toxic ass holes, there certainly are, but compared to other online game communities I’ve been part of the Warframe community is a breath of fresh air.
No, there are asshole in all types of games including Single player. Even if Souls has multiplayer, I’ve seen toxic communities in even games like Breath of the Wild
Half the community is from the intelligence community, it’s in their interest to keep it nice so new players keep joining and leaking top secret technical specs
It's because the fanbase is a bit tired of the developers.
The developer already set the tone very early on by being a pompous prick over the whole ban nonsense. No one could prove it but it seemed like certain key remappers (like for joysticks and things like that) were causing the anti cheat to trip even if they weren't being used, just running in the background. The CEO was a real jerk about it on twitter when people asked why there wouldn't be any appeals.
That kind of arrogance and behaviour came out several times. There isn't any reason for the community to give them the benefit of the doubt.
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Aktywne