Ironic. If he could stay away from interviews and just let someone else PR for him he’d be remembered as a legend of the gaming industry. Bullfrog and Lionhead put out quite a lot of bangers for their time.
The guy has been a con artist for decades, and he hasn't made a playable game since the 1990s. He also hasn't "over-promised his games", as the title of the article so cutely claims. Rather, he has lied through his fucking teeth to steal money from people, over and over and over again, and lied some more to steal more money, and lied some more, and lied some more. I'm sick to death of these pathetic redemption pieces for this no-talent loser. He's a thief and a liar, nothing more. He's not a genius. He's not a creative maelstrom that needs to be reined in. He's just a fucking liar and a thief, same as Elon Musk, same as everyone else who has tried to sell this particular brand of con artistry over the years.
I mean, you can blame him for a lot of stuff but he designed quite a few iconic games. Most game designers will spend a lifetime and not achieve just what molineux achieved in the 90s.
GOG does this too they will sell you cracked games and the money goes to whoever currently owns the IP, there is almost no point giving money to GOG at that point since they don’t do anything and the IP holder didn’t do anything either. Actually GOG might steal mods and claim they made them like with system shock.
Just a point against the second thread you linked, Gog selling cracked games, according to the thread you linked, allows them to be run without a disc on modern hardware
The crack also means it’s not altering the source code, according to the user’s in that thread
As for the first thread, yeah that’s pretty shitty.
I don’t think this is about removing copy protection to sell it.
It is more about that the crack they are now selling officially has been seen as illegal by the publisher/game developer itself. People have worked on this for no monetary compensation and therefore provided free labour to remove DRM. Now the publisher is banking on this free work, pretty much legitimising the crack. But none of the money actually goes to anyone who cracked the game, since that was still illegal.
If the publisher had just removed DRM themselves and sold those copies, no one would be outraged. But they exploit the work of people they keep condeming for cracking their games.
Well, if someone spray painted the door of my car without my permission, it’s vandalism but still my car. If it later turns out that it was done by Banxie and that “vandalism” is worth millions, I can still sell my car however I like and owe Banxie nothing.
Btw, freeware is a thing. Did those cracks ever get released without the permission to freely distribute? If not, those cracks may be used by the rights holder however they like. That’s not the problem. Releasing broken shit is the problem.
Seriously… a car analogy. Wow. And a pretty bad one at that.
But I will help you fix that analogy for free, since I feel nice today. A crack for DRM isn’t like adding artwork to a car to make it worth more.
If anything this is about a car that has certain defects that make it work less well than it should. E.g. you cannot switch into gear 5. It runs slower than it could. So people go and fix that, for free. Now the automobile maker takes that free fix and sells all new cars with it. Is that ok? There, still a crap analogy but arguably better than yours.
You ask if the cracks are released with permission to freely distribute? Actually no, they are not. Because they are marked illegal by the law. They should not be distributed since thats against the law. But its of course convenient for the publisher to use that work and distribute themselves. They are technically breaking the law themselves since they are applying illegal cracks to their own software. So thats ok then?
So people go and fix that, for free. Now the automobile maker takes that free fix and sells all new cars with it. Is that ok? There, still a crap analogy but arguably better than yours.
OK, cool. Too bad you forgot that in modern jurisdiction buying a game is merely like leasing a car. So yeah, if a workshop fixes the car for free the actual owner of the car can make use of those fixes however he likes.
Maybe target your energy at the actual shitty thing Rockstar does: Selling broken games. The means how they removed Securom is irrelevant. The fact that the games are broken garbage is not.
It’s not GOG that does that. A lot of developers that publish there having lost the source code or the tools and knowledge to build it upload cracked or patched releases themselves. And it’s not a GOG thing either, as for example Sam & Max: Hit the Road is just the cracked DOS game bundled inside a ScummVM runner on both Steam and GOG releases.
This honestly sounds like the perfect distribution model. You get the game, IP holder gets paid, no one is bothered by DRM. If you don’t want to pay because you don’t want to pay, well that’s up to you.
Like I’m kind of confused by the premise of your argument and excuse me if I got it wrong but certainly you’re not saying if you pay, it better have some kind of DRM?
Look if i’m going to buy torrented and cracked files owned by whatever billion dollar company has vacuumed up a 1000 ip’s in a go I at least want to know 0 effort has been put into packaging the game and that all I’m doing is buying a pirated version of the game with other peoples stuff resold without credit or reimbursement. Like cracks and mods they package into these releases.
Well with system shock 2 they just downloaded mods and fixes and added it to the game and then claimed they worked on them. Given that one would think that’s basically all they do.
So the game is done and could be released earlier. But just let people give some FOMO and pay extra so they can play “sooner”.
Sometimes I just wish games were like in the past. They released a full game, get some patches to improve. Throw in some extras for free if you’re lucky. And DLC were actual expansion packs that could practically be a whole new game.
No, for releasing a solid game and following it up with a solid performance patch. If the game sucked at launch, I would understand criticism, but it didn’t.
We should not be applauding a company for doing what should be the right thing from the start. I used to think the Bethesda glitches were cute too until 76 came out.
It’s not cute, it’s not funny and I refuse to participate in games until all the major bugs are worked out.
I still have not bought or played the new Diablo and I likely won’t at this point because of the ongoing issues I keep hearing about. Honestly, my money is better off in my pocket to be used for literally anything else. I know it’s sucks but if you really want these devs to change you’re going to have to suffer for the cause a little bit.
Indie dev games are just as good anyways and the smaller developers work hard to earn your money. Try looking in that direction to fill the void. I’ve found some really awesome and addictive games this way.
I used to think the Bethesda glitches were cute too until 76 came out.
I enjoyed Fallout 76, but I also ignored it until something like three years after release, at which point it was in a decent state.
It wasn't Fallout 5, which is what I really wanted, but I got my money's worth out of it.
Only bug I hit that was kind of obnoxious was the occasional inability to pick up an item from a corpse, where one would have to look away from the corpse and then back. While being a bit immersion-breaking, it was also pretty easy to work around.
Honestly, the whole Fallout series has been pretty buggy, starting with Fallout 1, but still, a good series. Some of it just comes from the complexity of having a bunch of scripts running that can interact in odd ways in a relatively free-form world.
One of my bigger wants for Fallout 5 is easier diagnosing of problems with mods and trying to be more-robust against such problems. Maybe produce more-foolproof API functionality for common script tasks or something.
a big part of the hate for fallout 76 wasnt even about the bugs, to this day i am 100% convinced that it was stoked massively by folks that bought it expecting a game it was fundamentally never trying to be, never marketed to be and never going to be
That's probably part of it. A big chunk of the aspects that I didn't like about it relative to Fallout 4 -- from killing off slow-mo/pause VATS, to not having a world that can change much, to limited-size "settlements", to limited moddability, to having immersion-breaking other players jetpacking around with not-in-theme names, to having limited story content -- come from the fact that they built it to be a multiplayer game.
But even so. I've seen some footage of the game at release, and it was pretty bad. And not just bugs, but the content...I mean, a Bethesda game not having human NPCs?
I will give them props for putting a lot of effort into fixing the game post-release, but I still feel that the thing shouldn't have shipped when it did. It simply wasn't ready when it went out the door.
Also, some of the fixes they did do that I think people did like -- like reducing the severity of the food/water/radstorm survival elements, which many players didn't like having to hassle with, or reducing the role of PvP, which a lot of the playerbase didn't like -- didn't result in game rebalancing. Like, the player shelters were clearly intended to be a significant element to deal with radstorms, but radstorms are essentially ignorable. Food was intended to play a bigger role, and there are features oriented towards things like reducing the rate of one's demand for it, but that was removed.
If you look at Fallout 4 or even moreso Skyrim, modders went through and rebalanced the game long after the release. I'm not saying that everyone who played those games got to enjoy those changes, but I think that they were good ones. Fallout 76 isn't really moddable in that way, so it's dependent on Bethesda's devs to do all that...and they didn't really do that.
There were no really memorable moments from the game, the way, I don't know, the battle for The Castle or the arrival of the Brotherhood of Steel's aircraft or some other moments in Fallout 4 really stuck with me. I guess to some extent that's part of just having to make a lot of the content something that you play over and over, but it still was kinda disappointing.
And I'm not demanding that they work for free. I bought all the DLC for Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I'd happily have bought something like the (excellent) DLC packs for earlier games in the Fallout series for Fallout 76. But, instead, they only sold mostly-aesthetic content in the Atom Store. Which, okay, great, if someone really wants to decorate their player camp and wants to pay for it could be appealing to someone. But they didn't create a route to pay for more story content, more maps or the like. They did create new free content, but that necessarily has a limited budget, and again, was kinda oriented around multiplayer (and didn't catch on much with me and didn't seem to be terribly popular with players on the fo76 subreddit, either).
There are some things that I did like about it, that I don't think it got credit for. The building mode performance was significantly-improved over 4. They toned down the "everything is dark and awful and evil and every person and company is twisted" aspect in 4, which I think was a big plus; there were plenty of people just trying to live their lives in difficult situations, which felt more like 1. I'm not absolutely rabid about the new areas, but the Mire looked nice by the standards of their engine, was a good use of their engine's godrays. They did a bunch of performance and stability work (that had to happen, given that one couldn't just "reload earlier saves" if something broke in a saved game a la the single player games).
I could have lived with Fallout 76 not being Fallout 5, but what I wished that they could have done was to keep selling single-player content in traditional DLC form. A lot of MUDs and similar games have a "remort" feature where one can start with a new character and earn some persistent rewards for doing so, so playing through story content multiple times is still fun. "New Game Plus", kinda. The online aspect for single-player content would just be to provide DRM, so that people wouldn't just go swipe all the stuff that they're selling in the Atom Store. And the stuff on offer in the Atom Store...ugh. If you look at the mods in Fallout 4, people created high-resolution texture packs, new companions, new story content, and they don't have anything like that for sale. You could have segregated anything that affected balance out of the multiplayer areas, had very solid single-player-only content. It might not have been Fallout 5, but I think that it could have done a much better job of making people who wanted that happier while still providing a multiplayer game for those who wanted a multiplayer game.
As an AC veteran greatly enjoying the new game after many years waiting, I feel vindicated.
And don’t worry about sucking at this game! Even I had to spend 6 hours fighting Balteus to finally defeat it. Stick with the game, try different builds until something works for you.
What are the micro-transactions for? Are you at a huge disadvantage by not spending money? What is the game even about? I thought it was just a bunch of kids derping around and building things.
Roblox is a platform where some users create games and other players play them. It’s grown to be a pretty powerful platform/engine, but is now significantly more complex than it used to.
Roblox has the ability for users to add micro-transactions to their game. Essentially, users get a small portion of the micro-transactions back as real-world currency. It’s up to users/developers who make those games to choose what players get in exchange for these micro-transactions.
As far as I can tell, the quality of games has dramatically increased since I quit. My guess would be that the users/developers making games are now adults, and the players are still kids.
Roblox is a sandbox game sort of like Minecraft, but with way more power given to third-party developers and users to develop and distribute content in it. What you’d consider mods for other games are the whole point of Roblox, and MTX can be implemented by those third-party developers using “Robux” as a currency. The MTX can be your usual MTX fare of skins and power-ups, but also often abused for less ethical purposes, like gambling mechanics. The fact that Robux can be cashed out for real money via official and unofficial methods mean that’s it’s ripe for abuse.
Update: Also, I wasn’t aware of this before the article, but apparently gambling sites have figured out a method to link a Roblox account to their external sites, and then use the user’s Robux wallet as currency in their illegal online casinos.
Update: Also, I wasn’t aware of this before the article, but apparently gambling sites have figured out a method to link a Roblox account to their external sites, and then use the user’s Robux wallet as currency in their illegal online casinos.
In all honesty does anyone actually care anymore? Like, I really have no interest in a new Mass Effect or Dragon Age at all now, and I loved both series at one point. Andromeda was a mess, Dragon Age 4 was shaping up to be a live service shitshow until they abandoned it (allegedly), and this is the same Bioware that gave us Anthem. At this point I’d rather they just let both series die
Let BioWare die at this point, honestly. Like, they’ve done nothing of true note in the last decade under EA. At this point, even if they were freed from their prison, so much of the talent that made BioWare worth a damn is gone anyway.
That’s another good point, Bioware now is so far removed from Bioware then that any Dragon Age or Mass Effect may as well be them selling you fanfiction. And I would have no faith in a new Bioware IP after Anthem so at this point why keep it around?
One of the people they just laid off was the writer who created Varric fricking Tethras. I don’t have any faith in them anymore.
I want Dreadwolf to come out just to finish the story they’ve been setting up in the books, comics, and Inquisition, but I’ve accepted we might never get it. They might rush out a book like they did with the quarian arc in Andromeda when Dreadwolf falls through, maybe.
Writers are the cornerstone of any epic rpg. Character development is crucial. Getting rid of the people behind both of those pillars is shooting a nice hole in your foot
Andromeda was half decent (gameplay) the story was kinda lack luster but there was a few good moments with the characters. I would love a fifth installment. They should say screw dragon age and put that into the grave where it belongs
The gameplay was actually pretty good, but the writing, the setting, the characters, none of the rest of it was any good. I gave up after the first planet because I just didn’t care about anything at all, and I don’t have any faith that Bioware could even reach that level any more
“We’re literally stuck in a system where funding decides what gets made, everything that’s successful tightens the noose, and everything that’s unsuccessful is used as proof that we shouldn’t make more like it,” Ismail noted.
“So if you think things are bad now, wait until you see what’s coming, because as things get forced under larger & larger money-umbrellas for not being able to compete with Genshin/DFO/League /Roblox/etc., they’ll have to care more about promising money with whatever they do make.”
Basically, he is saying nothing can beat free-to-play games like Genshin and Roblox, which are earning tons through micro transactions. As for the quote in title, the second part says if you fail it will also lead to fewer games funded in genre.
He also says:
So I don’t know what the answer is & I’ve been looking for it as if my career depends on it because it kinda does. What I do know is that to get better, it’ll either take a full collapse of the industry, or “shorter games with worse graphics made by people paid more to work less”
In other words, as a gamer (specially if you don’t play those free-to-play games), there is nothing you can do.
I also find it funny he talks about risk, litterally, if Genshin Impact wasnt a success, Mihoyo would have went under. Blaming another company who was willing to take the risk of bellying up is a dumb stance to have just because you wanted to play it safe.
I get his general frustration with the F2P and making bank on microtransactions, but I think the Larian story somewhat contradicts that even though the road to BG2 was long and difficult. They've slowly been refining the work since the 90s and you can see this reflected in the reviews their games got. Sure, BG3 with that scale was still a risk, but it's built on so much knowledge they've built from the Divinity series that at least some of that seems mitigated.
I remember the time when I was really excited about this game. The original writer and composer were both returning, it looked so promising. But we all know what happened, and after Rik Schaffer himself said the soul of the project left when Brian Mitsoda was fired my expectations are firmly settled at the bottom.
I’ve tried 3-4 times to get into this game, and I guess it’s just not for me. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be really proud of what they’ve managed to turn the game into. It looked pretty…rough 7 years ago but with a bit of patience and a lot of goodwill and hard work they’ve turned it into a success story.
Same. It’s very broad, but not very deep. I’m generally a deep-system type gamer. Gimme Factorio or it’s kin. I really get frustrated with NMS’s implementation of logistics and stuff. I just gave up. It’s an explorer’s game and I’m not an explorer type.
games
Ważne
Magazyn ze zdalnego serwera może być niekompletny. Zobacz więcej na oryginalnej instancji.