Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition Pricing and Release Dates

DArtagnan said:

If you don't mind the state of the industry, then I can fully understand why you're doing it.

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In music right now we have a situation where 'archive' (i.e. more than 5 years old) recordings are outselling new releases ... for the first time EVER. Sure there is a certain nostalgia factor - but like vinyl that accounts for only a small amount of sales. There just seems to be a (relative) rejection of what is new and a further appreciation of what is older.

In movies they have taken a conscious effort to avoid that by controlling the flow of movie availability to create false product scarcity (e.g. Disney), but also by confusing consumers by making certain things unavailable on certain platforms, making it a hassle to watch anything except for what they are trying to push.

DArtagnan said:

10$ is a fairer price - and given the effort required to successfully convert everything to iPad (especially the UI aspect - if handled well) - I think it's reasonable.

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If you read the info on the release, you see that to get the SAME content on iPad as on PC/Mac, you WILL be paying $20 - it is $9.99 for the main game, and ~$3 for the characters and new area through in-app purchase.

And I also agree that the interface is *everything* here - I think Vogel did a really good job with that on the Avadon and Avernum ports, especially after spending more time in the last week dealing with the abysmal Android port for Avadon that he contracted out ...

On graphics.

As far as I've read , Beamdog could not get access to some of the old art assets. Bioware seems to have lost them, maybe in a bad case of binge drinking ?


On the game at hand, they better do something wonderful with the UI, since that is what it would take for me to take the plunge. GoG version and TuTu have worked just fine.

On the pricing, if you get a new game like Krater or Legend of Grimrock for less, how did they spend the money?
Especially in the light of having a finished game to tweak.

Ill probably buy it along the way, gotta keep my backlog growing..., but I seriously hope that they have made serious improvements.

C

txa1265 said:

In music right now we have a situation where 'archive' (i.e. more than 5 years old) recordings are outselling new releases … for the first time EVER. Sure there is a certain nostalgia factor - but like vinyl that accounts for only a small amount of sales. There just seems to be a (relative) rejection of what is new and a further appreciation of what is older.

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Without having any knowledge on the subject - I think that's about wanting to support the "old stuff" because it's established and you have an emotional connection - and you generally feel much more comfortable pirating the new stuff. At least, I know a lot of people who feel that way. I'm generally not into music that much - and I just youtube if I feel like hearing something.

In that same way, I think a lot of gaming veterans have emotional ties to the "olden goldies" - and they'll buy anything with the old names on it. It's irrational and it does nothing to bring back the old qualities.

It's just reliving the past over and over. Developers will jump on that - because it's so trivially easy to do when compared to making something new with the old qualities intact.

In movies they have taken a conscious effort to avoid that by controlling the flow of movie availability to create false product scarcity (e.g. Disney), but also by confusing consumers by making certain things unavailable on certain platforms, making it a hassle to watch anything except for what they are trying to push.

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Well, at heart - it's about the general perception of low prices justifying everything.

If you look at that in a vacuum, it's a very fair assessment. I mean, if you're not really affected by paying 20$ for a mediocre movie - then you're getting a few hours worth of "entertainment". That's what most people do, because who cares, right?

But people are notoriously short-term in their planning - and they either don't really care or don't really understand how supporting the mass market/mainstream approach even when it's not "quality" - is choosing crap over quality. Why? Because it's much, much easier to blueprint crap in the Hollywood factory and offer it up as a product through a streamlined process.

Also, the whole notion of paying for something before you've actually established its value - is incredibly wrong, if you ask me.

If you read the info on the release, you see that to get the SAME content on iPad as on PC/Mac, you WILL be paying $20 - it is $9.99 for the main game, and ~$3 for the characters and new area through in-app purchase.

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Yeah, that's just petty - but at least you can get a functional BG at a lower price.

txa1265 said:

In music right now we have a situation where 'archive' (i.e. more than 5 years old) recordings are outselling new releases … for the first time EVER. Sure there is a certain nostalgia factor - but like vinyl that accounts for only a small amount of sales. There just seems to be a (relative) rejection of what is new and a further appreciation of what is older.

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Isn't some of that just a numbers game? We've been making music for thousands of years, and music from several hundreds of years ago is still being performed, while recordings from several decades ago are still playable. In any given month there is going to be many many times more 'old' music available than 'new' - I'm just surprised it's taken this long for archive to overtake new releases.

DArtagnan said:

Also, the whole notion of paying for something before you've actually established its value - is incredibly wrong, if you ask me.

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But bashing it isn't?

DArtagnan said:

Also, the whole notion of paying for something before you've actually established its value - is incredibly wrong, if you ask me.

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You must really hate gambling.

It's all about risk/reward. $20 isn't that much in the grand scheme of things to me, and given how much I've enjoyed BG each time I've played it, the risk that I won't enjoy EE is pretty low compared to say dropping that on a different game.

Now we'll get a long-winded speech about how foolish it is to gamble and that it's a sign of having an inferior thought process.

Or something like that.

I just remembered what I was hoping for when I heard about the announcement oft bg enhanced. Call me naive, but I hoped for a command stack that you can actually handle as in NWN, because I think that was the feature bg lacked most of. bg2 afair had a simple invisible stack but IIRC you never had a real chance to control it.

I love this part.

DArtagnan said:

Naturally, I've been wrong about these things before - but in all modesty, it's all too rare (unfortunately).

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But actually I agree with Dart on the cash grab impression. I certainly remember that old art assets would be used to increase the resolution without simply blurry scaling the existing in game art. And that was the key part that couldn't be done by the community. From what I can see so far, the rest of the "improvements" are freely available.

Porting to the iPad is a different matter though. But why should PC players pay for something they aren't going to use?

Thrasher said:

I certainly remember that old art assets would be used to increase the resolution without simply blurry scaling the existing in game art.

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They never claimed that. If fact, they specifically mentioned the difficulty of upgrading the graphics without having access to the original art assets.

"With regards to the background art and character art, we are limited in what we can do from a purely graphical context as the original art assets were lost. Since we have no 3D models or textures from the original games to go from we have to make the best of what is available."

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http://www.neogamr.net/news/beamdogs-trent-oster-talks-about-baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition

DArtagnan said:

Without having any knowledge on the subject - I think that's about wanting to support the "old stuff" because it's established and you have an emotional connection - and you generally feel much more comfortable pirating the new stuff. At least, I know a lot of people who feel that way. I'm generally not into music that much - and I just youtube if I feel like hearing something.

In that same way, I think a lot of gaming veterans have emotional ties to the "olden goldies" - and they'll buy anything with the old names on it. It's irrational and it does nothing to bring back the old qualities.

It's just reliving the past over and over. Developers will jump on that - because it's so trivially easy to do when compared to making something new with the old qualities intact.



Well, at heart - it's about the general perception of low prices justifying everything.

If you look at that in a vacuum, it's a very fair assessment. I mean, if you're not really affected by paying 20$ for a mediocre movie - then you're getting a few hours worth of "entertainment". That's what most people do, because who cares, right?

But people are notoriously short-term in their planning - and they either don't really care or don't really understand how supporting the mass market/mainstream approach even when it's not "quality" - is choosing crap over quality. Why? Because it's much, much easier to blueprint crap in the Hollywood factory and offer it up as a product through a streamlined process.

Also, the whole notion of paying for something before you've actually established its value - is incredibly wrong, if you ask me.

Click to expand...

Did you ever stop to think that maybe instead of people just spending their money because they don't care about it, they actually find value in the content that you find mediocre.

I've played the original multiple times and I will play this version multiple times. If I get 200-300 hours out of it, is it still not worth $20?

My idea of quality and value will differ from yours but that doesn't mean that I want to support crap or don't care about spending my money. It simply means our tastes differ. Which is a good thing because if they only made stuff that you or I like I fear the gaming industry would already be dead.

Give me scaled graphics in a fucking window or give me nothing. Playing games full screen is 2002 level bullshit.

I'm happy to pay $20 to play BG1 with higher resolution without having to install TuTu

JDR13 said:

They never claimed that. If fact, they specifically mentioned the difficulty of upgrading the graphics without having access to the original art assets.

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Really? I seem to remember an early missive that said otherwise.

I can't see anything here that indicates it will do much more for me that mods haven't already done. I was hopeful there would be more visual enhancement taking place, but it just doesn't look like there is going to be anything other than increased resolution. Oh well.

Thrasher said:

Really? I seem to remember an early missive that said otherwise.

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Well you evidently remember wrong.

It would have been nice though.

darkling said:

Give me scaled graphics in a fucking window or give me nothing. Playing games full screen is 2002 level bullshit.

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Really? Why do you like playing in windowed mode more than full screen?

I've only played games in windowed mode when working on a modding project or recording a video.

Well there was one early tweet that said "improved rendering." To me that implied assets would be more than just scaled. Wishful perhaps, but not unreasonable.

blatantninja said:

You must really hate gambling.

It's all about risk/reward. $20 isn't that much in the grand scheme of things to me, and given how much I've enjoyed BG each time I've played it, the risk that I won't enjoy EE is pretty low compared to say dropping that on a different game.

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Long-winded speech about the ignorance of gamblers:

Haha, nah.

Yes, gambling is irrational in terms of the monetary gain - but not the entertainment factor. If people are entertained by the "risk" - and they don't go ruining themselves then I think that's good for them.

The difference between gambling and paying for a game you haven't played - or a movie you haven't seen - is that most people don't consider it "gambling" as entertainment, but relying on the marketing and the promises of the developers. People are hoping to be entertained - but they often rely on limited information and half-truths. So, I'd like a different system - where you don't pay until you've established value. Naturally, that can't happen at all in the current climate - so it's a lost cause.

But I don't enjoy how businesses OR gambling enterprises thrive on the ignorance of people - that's true. I don't like it.

JDR13 said:

But bashing it isn't?

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I don't think you get my meaning. I'm not talking about the individual paying for something he doesn't know what is - as something wrong.

I'm talking about the system in itself - as in relying on being supported without customers actually knowing what they're getting. I think the system could be very different - and much more fair, and much less about marketing and hype.

As for bashing or praising a game based on what you know of it - that would depend on context.

I will admit that there's no way to be sure about this game until it's actually released - but I don't feel I'm being wrong in responding based on my experience - which is quite extensive.

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with you supporting the game - based on the same thing. I just have trouble understanding why - and I'm not really convinced you feel it's worth it.

I think you just don't really care about those 20$ - and the chance of the game being worth it - is one you're willing to take, without caring about what they may or may not be doing by remaking games in this way.

That's fair enough - I just don't personally think it's a very rational or healthy approach. Healthy as in how it affects our society, I mean.