Opinion - Anthem Doesn't Have an Excuse

Sure. It would make me feel hygge.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Erm, sorry, but I don't understand any of that. I'm serious - the reason I know one word (okay, two) is an article on BBC.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
One of the reasons Betas became the new Demo is that the vast majority of "testers" had no interest in reporting bugs and just wanted to play the game as soon as possible and for free.

Beta testers might be part of the developper team and therefore paid (service charged on customers as it must)
As part of their work, beta testers must report bugs.

You'll notice Betas once were the full game but eventually they only offered one or two maps. This is especially evident with EA games like the Battlefield series.
After the crowdfunded scene set the trend of monetizing access to uncomplete products, it was a matter of time before the big guys accessed the idea and take it as their own.
Developers also employ a Quality Assurance team to do most the testing, but in online games it's often useful to do a "stress test" and load the servers with as many players as possible and see how it holds up. Having a Beta test often serves this purpose and gives some indication of how many players are likely to be playing on launch day. It's very important to be able to deal with launch day without having any connectivity issues otherwise players will rage and post 0/10 reviews as we've seen in Diablo3 and many other games.
Test stress versions are usually not betas. Pointless to try this stuff with a beta version.
It's certainly not theft!
Charging for a service that is not delivered is theft. When customers pay for a gold version, delivering them a beta version is theft.
It did have an early access period and a consequential "day one patch" addressing the issues for the full launch.
This product is built on the crowdfunded products model.
Again, this is nothing new. Expansion packs have been around since Warcraft. The bigger threat is withholding launch content as part of the DLC plan. You would have noticed that all games from big publishers MUST have a DLC plan and often full priced games, like Anthem, have the same paid cosmetics that you'd expect from a free2play game. This is far more to do with corporate greed than it is "copying crowdsourced games".
Having DLCs and expansion plans has nothing to do with it.
A product might be released complete on its own, with no access until it has reached that stage. Later, it might be augmented with various expansions.

This has nothing to do with the crowdfunded model with products released on purpose uncomplete.

Can you give me an example of a crowdfunded game that the big publishers are copying for their business model?
Games, hard because the crowdfunded scene does not deliver that many games.
Now, crowdfunded products, citing one would be unfair either to the one or to all the others that follow the model.

Picking any of them randomly should be enough to find an example. Like asking to cite one specific bird that can fly. Take one at random and it is very likely it flies.
In some special circumstances, like Star Citizen, where the funding doesn't end, you can see there's no point in ever releasing a game because it's far more profitable to continue selling people their dreams than allowing people a chance to write negative reviews which could harm further funding, but this does appear to be an isolated case. I'm sure the big publishers would love to make Star Citizens $250,000,000 without having to release a game, but it's not something they can actually emulate.

That is making a specific case of a general case. SC might be better than others at the crowdfunding scheme, they are still playing the same scheme.

For other crowdfunded products, the funding does not end. With every sale made during the early access period, the funding does not end.

SC funding will end the same way as for other crowdfunded products: when the team decides that the money they get through sales is no longer allocated to developpment or when the product no longer sells (first option is the most usual)

SC plays no different scheme, it is your typical crowdfunded product, except maybe very successful.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
Bioware is now a fully integrated EA studio, launching committee-designed games after suit-approved designed games to the roaring approval of their very few real customers.

So, sales being what they are, as shitty as their last game, when do you think EA will do to the Edmonton team what they did to the Quebec team?

Summer, December?
 
Joined
Jan 15, 2018
Messages
262
some-years-from-now-gbrobq.png
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
2,468
I would love if bioware was shut down, tbh.

Should have been done years ago. This might be the only good thing to come out of Anthem.
 
Joined
Oct 2, 2009
Messages
2,244
Location
Pacific NorthWest, USA!
After the crowdfunded scene set the trend of monetizing access to uncomplete products, it was a matter of time before the big guys accessed the idea and take it as their own.

Test stress versions are usually not betas. Pointless to try this stuff with a beta version.

Charging for a service that is not delivered is theft. When customers pay for a gold version, delivering them a beta version is theft.

This product is built on the crowdfunded products model.
I agree that releasing buggy games is a big issue in the industry, but you might as well blame the internet itself for making patches easily accessible. If you bought a game in the days before internet connections were common place it pretty much had to be in a complete state because there was no easy way of getting patches to users. Now everyone has a broadband internet connection so developers are getting lazy and going so far as to put out 40GB patches which is outrageous but nothing to do with crowdfunding.
Games, hard because the crowdfunded scene does not deliver that many games.
Now, crowdfunded products, citing one would be unfair either to the one or to all the others that follow the model.

Picking any of them randomly should be enough to find an example. Like asking to cite one specific bird that can fly. Take one at random and it is very likely it flies.
We're obviously talking about games....

Well, would you like to pick one or should I?

Let's both pick one.

I'll go with FTL because it was the first.

It released in a well finished state without any bugs that I noticed. I has 96% positive reviews on Steam, making it one of the most universally approved games. It did get an expansion at some point and it was free.

SC plays no different scheme, it is your typical crowdfunded product, except maybe very successful.
The thing is, players these days demand more content. People are generally playing less games in total but staying with a single game for a much longer period.

My favourite comparison to Star Citizen is Elite: Dangerous which was also crowdfunded on Kickstarter but started their kickstarter after SC. They were looking for 3 million, they got it and the game was released. Since then it has been added to and has a paid expansion but they found more money was being made from the cosmetics store than the expansion pack so for a long time the extra content has been free. I would argue that the base game at launch fulfilled all the promises made in the kickstarter and they very well could have left it in that state but it was the players who wanted more content. Ongoing sales facilitating the development of further content really has nothing to do with the kickstarter that originally got the game off the ground. Everything gets more content, these days.
 
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
2,974
Location
Australia
From early sale reports it's not looking good and the game is already on sale.



 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,178
Location
Spudlandia
I agree that releasing buggy games is a big issue in the industry,
Buggy releases have nothing to do with the point made: consciously and gradually delivering content over time.
We're obviously talking about games….

Well, would you like to pick one or should I?

Let's both pick one.

I'll go with FTL because it was the first.

It released in a well finished state without any bugs that I noticed.
Of course it released in that state.

The beginning of the crowdfunding movement came with question marks. For example, it was common to state that devs creativity was suppressed by big bad publishers.
The crowdfunded scene helped to remove the question mark.

FTL set no trend. FTL is mostly a self funded game that chased crowdfunding to get some ease nearing its completion.

Crowdfunding helped making it better, to give that polish. They used a crowdfunded platform as a pre sales entry.

FTL was going to be released, the game was nearing its completion. As a sign, they delivered nearly on time. Beta access (and that was a beta) happened when they stated and the other release with one month or so delay.

FTL did not set any trend on the crowdfunding scene. Its core developpment was not crowdfunded, it was self funded.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
Buggy releases have nothing to do with the point made: consciously and gradually delivering content over time.
Do I really have to repeat myself?
The thing is, players these days demand more content. People are generally playing less games in total but staying with a single game for a much longer period.
You just choose to ignore this part or what? Are you denying any of this?
FTL set no trend. FTL is mostly a self funded game that chased crowdfunding to get some ease nearing its completion.
I said we both pick one.

You agree FTL, the original crowdfunded game that started off the kickstarter craze, does not fit your description. Good.

So, which crowdfunded game set the trend of gradually delivering content over time?

I believe you cannot think of a single game to support your argument?

I think this discussion is over. :)
 
Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
2,974
Location
Australia
Probably more than one product that set the crowdfunded trend.

One thing is sure: FTL did not set the crowdfunded trend.

The question could be reversed: which other vid products followed in FTL's steps, that is mostly self funded, ready to go as soon as the funding campaign is over, using crowdfunding as a means to polish etc

Not going to be a crowd of products.

Way easier to find crowdfunded vid products that took a similar path as SC.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
3,444
Back
Top Bottom