Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the days when we didn’t need a spreadsheet to compare nine versions of a game in order to figure out what we were buying, when I could start playing it, and which friend in the group is getting fucked because they bought the wrong one and start a week after everyone else.
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anything to get a headstart on the noobs buying the normal edition, lol
Plebs*
Only noobs call people plebs.
excuse me, is this a peasant joke I’m too rich to understand?
I have underlings to understand jokes for me. Your poverty makes me sick.
I bet they are a rabble of Console jackwads. you know how their youth are always fighting over which faction is superior.
#pcmustardrace
All those editions actually did put me off a lot of games. The release dates don’t bug me as much as the game getting chopped up does. It’s pretty disheartening knowing that you aren’t buying the full product. It’s like buying a book knowing that a chapter or two will be missing.
Things like this is exactly why I refuse to play battle royale games. My cousins really wanted me to play Apex Legends with them… but… its jut not fun any more. They milk the competitive spirit people have and bait them with pay-to-win options. Technically paying extra to play sooner than everyone else is in fact pay-to-win. I don’t mind in a co-operative MMO, because you aren’t really competing. Nowadays to remain competitive you must turn your casual gaming into a full time job. Instead of gaming to relax, its your life’s purpose suddenly. I used to play League of… Read more »
While I agree that nowadays gaming industry is mainly crap, I must disagree that Apex is pay-to-win. Paying only give you skins (weapons, characters, banner) or additional voices/voice-lines. The two locked characters can be unlocked with free in game money, and are unlocked quite fast. Furthermore, they are far from being the strongest characters. League of Legends is using the same concept for years and no one cries that it’s pay-to-win…
I think just about every game where you can play with others has a toxic element these days, regardless of whether it’s free-to-play or with transactions. There’s always a meta-crowd thinking they know better than the rest, and generally they’re pretty toxic elements. That said, I agree with that point wholeheartedly that if people stopped buying things for an advantage…I just think it’ll never happen. There’s always that crowd who want to be ‘meta’. Even games like Overwatch (that don’t have microtransactions) have that toxic crowd who abuse people who don’t play the current meta heroes. Personally I played the… Read more »
Overwatch has microtransactions. You use them to buy lootboxes instead of buying skins or whatever you wanted directly because Activision Blizzard felt the need to be that much more greedy and that much more manipulative.
Wut? The loot boxes are cosmetic…. I’m just not gonna get excited about cosmetic items. I’ve never purchased a loot box and have almost everything unlocked (Seriously, it’s single digits on all heroes) and you can BUY skins with in game earned gold so… The greed is Blizz taking advantage of the impatient with money to burn.
“we gamers are the reason to blame” No we’re not. Every time someone like you takes the blame for something a company did, that company has an easier time getting away with it. You ignore all the psychological tricks these companies use to manipulate customers and just blame the customers for being manipulated. Absolutely shameful. The industry will never get better if you refuse to hold those who are actually responsible accountable and demand better from them. …Also, did you really just complain about a toxic culture, where the “toxic” part is that some people want to play competitive games… Read more »
yeah, “people kill people, guns does not”, no way, not on my watch. Player should sometimes question themselves and stop buying shit, period.
Being competitive is different than being abusive and hence toxic.
Kinda like abusing someone in comments.
Isn’t saying that it will never get better unless we hold the game companies responsible and demand better just another way of saying that gamers are partially responsible? I agree that the fault lies with the companies, but if there are things gamers can do to improve the industry, then not doing so is a fault with the gamers.
Ultimately, I think you and Mindrivet are closer (on that topic) than not. You both think that there are serious problems with customers being manipulated, and the companies need to be taken to task by gamers.
Competitive games and the need to win really do breed toxicity. It’s worst in team based competitive games. For example LoL, Dota and CS. Even I – a normally levelheaded guy who has the patience of a saint – have found myself calling people doo doo heads in a heated game of LoL when getting to the next promotion series was crashed by that one Jungle Nami who made the game basically 4v5.
I’m incredibly disappointed in SEGA and their announcement of Judgement’s release day yesterday. When does it come out? June 25! …Unless you preorder the digital version, then you can play it June 21. ? Some people will defend such nonsense by saying “well at least it’s easy enough to remember without a spreadsheet!” but nope. SEGA doesn’t get a pass for that. Games should have ONE release date. ONE. Every paying customer gets to play the game at the same time. I’m getting really sick of this “you didn’t pay enough money, or buy the version we wanted you to… Read more »
I miss the times when games released in their entirety on a date, and DLC and microtransactions weren’t things.
Cad Comic is the top!
I miss when they actually beta-tested the games in-house before releasing them into the rightfully unforgiving arms of the public.
Call me old, but I just don’t see the point of buying a game right when it comes out, anyways. They’re bound to be broken, incomplete messes anyways. They won’t really get good until months down the line, if at all. All that buying them day 1 does is blind me to what reviewers and gamers really think, because everyone’s waiting for a Day 1 patch to fix it all. Maybe that makes me that one friend who’s screwed himself over because he’s waiting a week to play. But hey, in a week, those friends are off playing a good… Read more »
I tend to enjoy waiting until that year later release and buying the base game, all the dlcs, and whatever else they threw in at a much cheaper price. I get the mostly unbroken “complete” game for less, and I enjoy it way more.
Makes me think of all those lucky XBox One owners who, when No Man’s Sky Next came out on their system, got a solid game that was leaps and bounds better than the 2016 edition. Sony was hyping up that empty mess and parading it around three separate E3s as if it really was something special. There are only a few companies who I really believe when they hype a game… less, now, after Fallout 76. But there is no company that I believe so much that I will buy a game on day 1. OK, well, I bought Mario… Read more »
I jumped on later and I still prefer just Space Trucking in Elite:Dangerous, even without Horizons.
Sorry, repeatedly stranding myself on planet where I slowly die because of environmental reasons in hopes of some decent loot or slightly better crashed ship isn’t quite as much fun as it was made out to be, and the ever-present Nazi Sentinels just make it less fun.
At least get rid of the launch costs! I can’t even walk fast for christ’s sake or make a buggy or anything!
Not only has the publisher made a better game by the time I’ve hunted bargains, the fanbase has made mods and guides and whatnot.
I’ve always enjoyed Destiny 2 myself. Playing it while still playing through Red Dead Redemption 2, Tales of Vesperia and Smash Ultimate.
Fair enough. Did you get it at full price at launch, or did you pick it up later on?
Single player games are, in my opinion, the only possible exception to this. Or, at least, used to be. I bought Mass Effect 2 and 3 day 1 and was by and large quite satisfied. They were completely playable from the start.
But, then again… there’s Andromeda, which needs no further explanation….
I am also really confused where all those people buying most big games at launch day are finding time to play. I can understand this with schoolchildren, but they usually cannot afford $60 every week or two, and the gaming audience is getting older. With a fulltime-job and most games easily taking 20-40h of your time (if not even 60-100h or being infinite hour lifeservices), I don’t have any chance to be ready to play a new game at launchday. Trying to play some older games doesn’t help. I don’t want to completely ignore a 5 year old masterpiece to… Read more »
And if everyone else followed your guys examples the game market would collapse.
Sounds familiar. I preordered the new FFXIV expansion and I’ll apparently get a head start, but mostly I preordered it because I know damn well I’m going to buy it anyways and I had the money right now.
Also the +30% EXP earring. That was nice.
It’s all intentional. AAA game companies want to confuse customers into buying the most expensive version out of frustration. Or tricking them into feeling like they’re forced to buy multiple copies of the game to avoid missing out.
TOO REAL!!!
The entire “early access” isn’t…it’s just the release date and a “F.U.” to everyone else who didn’t suck up and buy it before it was finished.
This is why you just buy the game 3 years late when the online component consists of a set of 40 people who don’t play anything else. It’s cheaper too!
Yeah, with the trend of Day 1 patches and companies shipping broken or incomplete games, I don’t buy any game until it’s deeply discounted on a steam sale. 60% and up or I don’t touch it.
Good thing we have real gamers to support you I guess,
I got sick of all the re order and special addition bullshit (not to mention the unfinished games at release) that I just will not buy a game on release date at all. I will often be months or even in some cases at least a year later before I’ll even consider buying a game. most of the time this works great because you often get em for a lot less than release which makes it an even better purchase especially since they’ve usually fixed all the release issues.
pre order**
https://gph.is/1c5kFVN
You’re old fashioned.* I agree, though. This is why I refuse to buy most games at release. Ok, it MIGHT be because I have responsibilities, not a lot of time and a limited budget – but they’re certainly not winning me over. Actually, it’s something of a silver-lining for me; I know I’m not getting a game at release, so I can sit back and watch from the outside as the prices (slowly) drop, a better version is released, etc. I’ve been waiting some 13-14 years for KH3 and it’s not in my immediate future now that it’s out, but… Read more »
There’s actually a KH collection for PS4. Comes with KH1 Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, KH2 Final Mix, Birth by Sleep Final Mix, and Re:coded. I’m sure there’s one or two side games that I just can’t remember, but that covers most of it.
Because that collection’s already out, I can’t imagine why they’d make a second bundle with just KH3 to add to it. Actually, yes I can, but I’m hoping they don’t.
This is exactly why I stopped playing AAA titles. The only games I buy now, are independent, or the one exception to the rule, Pandemic games.
I do believe that, at this point, we can all agree that games as a service is an utter shit show.
I remember when WoW came out (old man story incoming, look out) and servers were so packed they were lagged to hell and crashing constantly. Stores couldn’t keep it on the shelves. Thankfully, I started a bit later after my friend/roomie suffered through the worst of it. Admittedly, it was an interesting time to be alive. Later, the first expansion, Burning Crusade came out. People preordered like mad, stores packed insane amounts of stock aaaaaaaand.. It was just an expansion. New stuff happened, people max levelled in a few days, store shelves were overstocked with boxes, and it just wasn’t… Read more »
This is easily solved by not playing mediocre “AAA” games
But…. if I didnt play terrible AAA games on release day, then what would I do with my life? IM LOST
I refuse. I buy the edition of the game that merits the purchasing. Red Dead 2 got full purchase, far cry will get purchased eventually. I don’t try to get early access, and even if I buy an edition with early access I’m unlikely to bother with it until I’m ready. Except for Red Dead. I watched that timer tick to zero so I could play.
Tim, I don’t envy you since you need to keep current on games for your comic. I tend to wait a year or several years to play a game, so I can often get a complete experience right away.
Cheaper too, and usually the most toxic/neurotic types have mostly moved on by then
This is obviously an industry-wide problem, because we’ve seen it all around.
But, I just wanna say that, in Anthem’s case… people blew it way out of proportion. There was one release date, and one early access date. You either started on the 15th, or the 22nd. Starting earlier costs more. I take it as a sign of EA’s greedy business practices trying to squeeze money out of gamers.
Doesn’t mean it’s not a problem, naturally. I wish it had just released for everyone at the same time, too.
This doesn’t really bother me. I’m still working on games that were released 5+ years ago. Got like 50 games in my backlog. By the time I get around to buying a game, it’s at most $20 and sometimes DLC is included.
I actually miss the “old days” when we had no idea that the game will be released untill it suddenly was. Now… 6 years of teasing on E3/Blizzcons/Gamescons n stuff. Building hype for almost a decade… and then never meeting expectations compared to our imagination boosted by the promisses.
Well … then there’s Apex Legends… “then came the orcish hordes… no one knew where those creatures came from”. Same deal… came out of nowhere (with no expectations to meet) and just owned Twitch… coincidance?
with how major companies that used to release the top teir games have been releasing discount bin garbage these days I just wait till the damn game is out, wait a week, then if it hasn’t bricked any consoles or burned someone’s house down I’ll watch a review to see if I want to buy it or not.
While I dont mind a bit of a head start for preorders vs retail in some cases the current level of headstart nonsense is going way too far. A day or so early access to the latest WoW expansion you were geting anyway makes sense and it also spreads out the players a bit so you dont have everybody piled in the same spot on day 1. let the gung ho race to the finish players get in and out of the starter zone before the more casual masses show up and arguments ensue, better for all involved. A dozen… Read more »
Just wanted to comment that I’ve been following CAD for a number of years now and this past year has been the most funny, inventive, and inciteful it has ever been. Keep up the good work!
Generally the confusion release date and bonus-content seem to apply to preorders hoping to panic people into buying a more expensive version. My wife summed it up with Anthem – if the only way to get the demo is to pre-order the game, then they’re kind of admitting that no-one would buy they game if they’d seen the demo. If the demo is any good then you’d release it free to prove the quality of the game to boost sales. Considering studios spend more on producing a game than a block-buster movie; there is too much pressure to release (too)… Read more »
Your wife is a pretty smart person.
“Tikkita tikkita”.
That alone made my day.
When Life is Feudal came out of “Early Access”, they did this kind of thing with various groups getting access at various times, and damn did it backfire when they had to reset a ton of stuff when someone in the early group had founda game-breaking glitch inside a couple hours, worlds get reset, and finally they just issued an extra month of subscription to make up for it
You don’t have to worry about version release dates if you can’t afford to buy a game at release. [Insert Meme Photo Here]
Probably the best comic you’ve done.
Their expressions in panel 2 are priceless, and I love the antique calculator. Shame he isn’t hand-cranking it on the side… But I guess I’m old and used to see that in cartoons ‘back-in-the-day’…
Your version is far superior:
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2019/09/11/call-of-daddy