It’s obviously not about the puddle. I mean, I don’t even have a PS but the “puddless” version has obviously less details and effects than the one used at E3.
I’m not even surprised this happened since it seems to be common practice for a few years now, be it on PC or console, but it’s still better to point it out because it’s false advertising.
But it’s not though. Demos shown at E3 or any other convention are just that. Demos. They don’t necessarily reflect the finished product entirely and I’m sure that’s stated throughout each presentation.
I think that’s because they try to make it the most beautiful to generate as much hype as they can and later on they realize “oh shit there’s no way we can run this on a normal PS4 without it blowing up”
it’s not intetional lie tho
The way it works is that artists and programmers make a game that looks a certain way. When you start to add more things, it starts to get slower, so you need to optimize.
You should never optimize before the game is almost finished, because you could spend too much time on unneeded optimaliations.
Oh, its DEFINITELY intentional. Unmistakably and undeniably.
These massive triple A companies know exactly what hardware they’re working with and what it can do. Its not like some indie group that put too much detail in their models and “oops too much detail and it looks good but darn, bad frames”
Problems arise when companies use lines like “ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE” At which point it becomes blatant, flat-out lies. But this has been common practice for a very long time, not just the last handful of years, and I’m surprised that this only became an issue recently.
Oh, he is. Poor guy zapped himself twice already. Fortunately for Spidey, there are some lightning rods under the water. Also highly elastic rubber suits absorb lightning pretty well.
Eldest Gruff
6 years ago
Alright, I’m going to toss my two cents into the puddle here. I’m not a graphics guy at all. I think that 4K is a bit dumb, and that 60fps is indistinguishable from 30fps. My favorite game machine of last gen was the 3DS; this gen, the Switch. But even I can see that it’s not about the amount of water. You can see clearly that the advanced lighting that made the demo really come alive is gone. They stuck huge puddles in the demo to show off the incredible lighting and graphics that Spider-Man had. And then they pulled… Read more »
But I also think you’re outright blind if you cant see the difference between 30-60 😛
But in the context in which you said the thing about frames, I STILL agree, people pay way too much attention to graphics, and the need to meet that expectation pulls away from a game’s other qualities in a bad way
You’re objectively wrong about 60 vs 30 fps (you should check that your displays are capable of displaying 60 fps). But you’re spot on about everything else. Apparently the internet at large is going to turn puddles into a meme and sweep this one under the rug (despite tearing Watch Dogs to shreds for doing the exact same thing). It is blatantly clear that the E3 demo just 3 months ago was not running on real PS4 hardware considering how far they downgraded all these lighting effects. They weren’t honest with us at all. And “demo is not representative of… Read more »
Why do they need to sell the public on PS4? This entire generation, sales haven’t even been remotely close. Xbox lost. Bad. That’s not fanboy anything, that’s just sales numbers. Playstation chose to emphasize upcoming exclusives. Microsoft’s E3 show featured a whole ton of games, but I can play 95% of them on the other console too. Spider-Man didn’t need artificial publicity to build excitement. I work in a place that sells this stuff. Even then it was outpacing presales of Madden, NBA, CoD, and most of the other huge annual titles. I think people are making mountains out of… Read more »
“I get that a demo is not the same thing as a finished product. I get the things can change along the way. But what I also get is that those previews and demos are supposed to be representations of the final product”
Those things you just said are at direct odds with eachother. Demos and teasers are NOT finished product. Only finished product is finished product.
Up until the game goes gold and is being shipped, it is a work in progress. Full stop.
On the other hand when they pass off pre rendered eye candy as actual gameplay or they run said gameplay on a super computer not actual hardware to drum up false expectations you can hardly blame folks for feeling they were promised diamonds and got a polished turd instead.
Frankly I think the main problem is the hype train and the way marketing has evolved to promote said hype train.
Nobody “promised” you anything. An E3 trailer a year or two before launch is “Hey, here’s a thing we’re working on.” It’s not a solemn oath from the developer. It’s a work in progress. And yes, sometimes they run the demos on computers (mostly because they develop these games on computers), or they doctor “bullshots” or over-produce their vertical slice trailers. But you know what happens EVERY time around launch? We get to see the actual game that’s being shipped. So they really have no power to “trick” you into buying smoke and mirrors. In reality, you’re just upset because… Read more »
He was using a figure of speech when he said people feeling that they were promised diamonds. The issue at hand is the consistency of demonstrating impressive graphical demos for games that are almost always reduced in the final product. It’s an intentional marketing tactic to develop this hype for the next 1-2 years (to encourage preorders, etc) and it actually works. We, as a community, have learned to accept and expect that eventual downgrade of graphics further down the line of development, but that doesn’t inherently mean that they’re not at fault for (likely intentionally) drastically over-analyzing the performance… Read more »
Yes, thank you. I understand he was not implying that they literally promised him diamonds. But the argument these people are making is still based on the premise that if a developer shows off early footage of the game, it’s a “promise” that the end result will match or exceed it. And while sometimes these early hype trailers may BE over-produced, sometimes they are merely a bi-product of the way development proceeds and evolves (ie, the fact that they’re all built on PCs before they ever even touch a development console harddrive. I agree that they are incentivized to overestimate… Read more »
I’m mostly indifferent in this specific debate Tim. I dont even own a PS4 and have no particular interest in one as I’m primarily a PC gamer and so wouldn’t be purchasing this specific title either way. Personaly I’m more anoyed with the practice of anouncing/hyping a game 2,3, 5 years(looking at you star citizen) before its anywhere near a launch state. Its encurageing a trend of over promising and under delivering in general (aka anything peter molyneux ever touched) even if specific examples such as puddle gate are relatively minor and stupid. I think it would be much better… Read more »
You want to argue that games don’t need to be shown so early, I’ll be right there by your side. I hate that, and it’s unecessary. Bethesda has been doing it right: The last couple of Fallout games, they announce them and boom, five months later they’re on shelves. None of that “out in three years” super early announcement bullshit.
Tim- I hear you; totally. However, when you’re three months before launch, all you should really be doing is the last rounds of playtesting, bug fixing, and any final touches. You should KNOW if your game is capable of having thato level of graphics – if Spider-Man truly looks that textured and detailed, or (as at least one person with a review copy has said) kind of fuzzy.
The fact that they went back and said that there was no change to the graphics just kind of cemented this. Why lie, if you weren’t lying in the first place?
And just to be clear, I don’t care a bit about the puddles. I’m looking at Peter Parker himself. You can’t look at that character model, listen to Insomniac saying “all we changed was the puddle size,” and -not- know that they’re lying. If they came out and said “Look, we did have to slightly lower some resolution to handle some of the amazing fast paced action you’re going to see,” then I have no problem. Total respect. But people asked you, and you lied about it. No excuse.
“However, when you’re three months before launch, all you should really be doing” Wait, what are you talking about here? The trailer shot that people are comparing to (with the giant puddle, darker contrast, and the extra specularity on Spidey’s costume) is from an E3 trailer from 2017. A year ago. All of the gameplay footage they released at E3 2018 (three months ago) looks exactly like the stuff I’m seeing from people playing the game now (through early leaked copies, etc). I haven’t seen anyone complaining about a change from E3 2018 to now. The complaint about the downgrade… Read more »
Of course it does when you’re looking at the project as a whole instead of just focusing on one aspect of it (in this case, lighting). Some things might have to scale back in order to move everything forward.
There’s no point in progressing all the systems if the end result gets 15 frames per second.
Somewhere
6 years ago
7.8/10 too much water
Insomniac Lied
6 years ago
Yeah sure, that’s what we needed. More people ignoring the actual downgrades to lighting, reflections, and shadows to defend the game because “lol puddles”
I for one am as sick as ever of being lied to. There’s no excuse for these downgrades over just three months. It shows they weren’t using real PS4 hardware at E3. They intentionally misled as several others have done in the past. Watch Dogs gets torn to shreds but we’re supposed to give Spider-Man a pass? Hell no.
Nobody lied to you. You’re getting butthurt because one scene looks a little different between two trailers. And the ONLY difference that you can definitively chalk up to a change is the size of the puddles. The rest of the visual difference could merely be the position of the in-game sun (as the developer stated) when the footage was recorded. And until the game is in people’s hands, and we KNOW whether or not its CAPABLE of having the range of lighting we see in some trailers, you CAN NOT know you were “lied to”. Therefore, as far as I’m… Read more »
I’m not sure if you are being purposefully dense or are really that clueless. People called this out because of the very visible graphical downgrade and here you are straw-manning it to score brownie points with who really?
People are “calling this out” because they need something to bitch about. So they’re latching onto a snippet of compressed YouTube video that shows some lowered specularity and contrast that could be the result of a MYRIAD of different reasons (running on a PS4 Pro vs PS4, the recording brighness/contrast settings, the video compression, the time of day/location of the sun in-game). OR maybe it HAS actually changed from the E3 2017 demo. In which case the complaints are STILL incredibly stupid because it’s STILL a comparison to an in-development teaser from over a year ago. The only “dense” people… Read more »
Well, not exactly a good example being a shot of a tv screen instead of a direct capture. It looks awful in that video 😛
The moment he starts swinging the webs it also makes all the buildings lose all the details. Or maybe it’s that there’s so much blur!
(It’s usually the first effect I deactivate because it makes everything look like a smudge, but this is a console problem, not a spider-man problem.)
Even shot off of a screen you can tell it’s a gorgeous looking game.
Bakamoichigei
6 years ago
One of these days, I wish a company would actually do something like this in response to internet nonsense. Like, flag the PSN/XBL accounts of anybody complaining on any platform or forum that connects them to their accounts, and have their games be subject to a ‘fix’… To remove it they have to go into the options menu, fill out a short apology, and tick a box promising to “be a better person.” ?
You think that people that criticize a product should have that product crippled despite them paying money for it and have to grovel to get it fixed? That sure sounds like a fun dystopian future you’ve dreamt up there.
Brent
6 years ago
Spider-Fish, Spider-Fish, does whatever a Spider-Fish does….
I get that details are important, but trailers and final products are so often different just for movies, let alone games. I don’t give a fuck (mostly) how it looks, I care if the story and features live up to the promised expectations. If it does that, then I’ll start worrying about looks.
Phil B
6 years ago
I haven’t really kept up with the development of Spiderman, so I suppose I’m not super qualified to say anything. I looked at the before/after photos of demo vs. final game, and yeah, I guess the lighting is better in the first picture. But who fucking cares? Do you really care that his suit isn’t photo realistic? Even in the after and the few videos I’ve looked at of the finished one, the game is still gorgeous. Did the gameplay change? People get so dick hard about graphics these days, the game still looks good. “But they lied,” so effing… Read more »
The rAt
6 years ago
Wow, so this is a thing, huh? I think the people complaining about this need to look up the infamous Spaceworld 2000 Zelda Demo and compare it to the game that was actually produced (LoZ: The Wind Waker) for an example of legitimate misrepresentation. Unless they totally reworked the animation style of these puddles from the ground up and converted them to cell shading, then this is not something worth complaining about. Pretty sure these days there are any number of reviews available to learn the pros, the cons and the graphical minutiae of the game prior to purchase, so… Read more »
Why are you defending people who are misrepresenting the game? It’s less than other cases sure, but it’s still lying, specially when you use phrases like “Actual in game footage” or similar shticks (not the case in this one). I agree that no one should pre-order and should wait for reviews, I never do preorders the last one was MGSV and I would’ve bought it anyway (not that I think its a bad game, just a bad MG) but I still dont like when they put oh so gorgeous teasers and then the game looks like a potato. Yes, in… Read more »
Just adding this bit: In fact this doesn’t help in lots of cases, a lot of people will feel lied and won’t buy it, it’s better to do the opposite, show a bit less graphics than the full release and then improve them, then the people will go nuts for it and will buy even more. It’s better lie to then have a better product, than the oposite. One seems like you improved, the other makes you look like a manipulative arsehole.
But you are not taking into account that it is exponentially harder to add in improvements once the engine is complete, than it is to simply scale them back.
Why are buying games from a “manipulative arsehole”? If it bothers you and you don’t buy it, then they won’t have your money. If they don’t have your money, they’ll have to change their tactics in order to get your money. Pretty basic. But that’s not what’s going to happen because what’s being sold is a fully operational game that’s good enough that, recent changes included, people *still* want. And that’s the root of it: people still want the game, or they wouldn’t be complaining. They just caught a glimpse of something slightly better, and whether or not that was… Read more »
I let my wallet do the talking, I only buy games that I like and find the publisher and developer to not have lied to me, I dont buy many games anymore so I chose carefully I dont have all the time, I will spend it in what I feel it deserves it and will make me have fun. Keep saying it’s just the puddles, not everything on the picture what is scaled down. It’s funny how people laugh at this, but when this happened with other games, nah, it’s true, where are those promised graphics. I still remember when… Read more »
I’m just trying to imagine how you think this whole thing went down: Exec: You, minion! Have we finished downgrading the graphics in preparation for release? Minion: Yes, sir! We’ve successfully scaled down the graphics by the 0.6% you requested. Exec: Excellent. When can we have gameplay videos ready? Minion: What? The game hasn’t come out yet – why would we let potential customers see these changes BEFORE they purchase the game? I thought we were trying to fool them, by not delivering what we “promised” in previously released previews of the unfinished product? *Exec slaps minion* Exec: Silence! Take… Read more »
Because car manufacturers don’t SHOW you the many, many prototypes they go through before the first product rolls off the assembly line. So you don’t get to SEE all the features and designs they tried out, worked and reworked. Even one of my comics can go through drastic changes from inception to upload, and that’s over the course of one day. Game development takes YEARS. When you see a game shown at E3, and the release date is still more than a year away, you are seeing a look at a product that is still being built. That is still… Read more »
As Steve said, yes they do show them, and I said car manufacturers but I could say PC part makers, model makers… No, what they should do is wait a bit more to show it, don’t rush to show something you don’t know if you can deliver, it’s not that hard to grasp either, don’t promise what you can’t show. Or do you show in your work projects before you know you can do what you promised? Im sure any boss would fire someone if he/she always is showing something he can’t accomplish. Don’t show games so early, it’s not… Read more »
In fact, let me tell you what car makers do: Car makers say “We will do a new Mustang” (to say just a name). Then they start the design and maybe, 4 years after, they say what it’ll have once they know what’s doable, showing body concepts, engine concepts meanwhile, but just small things that don’t say what the entire car is like and they show just concepts not the real deal. Then, when they are sure they reveal the car as is to the public and to subdue the costs they meanwhile make small econobox cars, family cars etc… Read more »
Go to the LA auto show, or any event like this and you WILL find prototypes of engines, body designs, interiors and other mechanical components that never make it to production.. sorry to boot this analogy
Graphics don’t matter to me one bit. Then again, I’m still gaming with a trusty old Nvidia GTX 275, so… Make of that what you will. Story makes a good game and exploration can make a game more fun, but all graphics do is increase the amount of heat my GPU throws into the room. Plus, anyone wants a good challenge, try running your favorite games with less than 1GB of VRAM. I’d love to tell these companies to have a ‘potato mode’ where it can honestly look at your hardware and set things below the usual ‘low’ settings in… Read more »
Grumblin
6 years ago
Special Snowflakes be……. Special?
Runic
6 years ago
I’d put a longer comment about the difference itself, but most people have already covered that the problem is not the “amount of water” as it is so often flippantly dismissed away, but rather that the water was the largest example of the overall problem of the demo intentionally misrepresenting the final product’s capabilities. But it seems that there is a counter argument that the demo is not the final product and that for some reason means that any inconsistencies, downgrades, or outright misrepresentation is thus perfectly fine and acceptable, if not entirely defendable, because, hey, it was “still in… Read more »
Boronore
6 years ago
Okay, help me understand something… 2 years ago, you were shown X about Game Last week, you were shown Y about Game, and it doesn’t look as good as X Game hasn’t released. Game is not in your hands. You are under no obligation to get Game. So how does this qualify as a lie or bait and switch? So how have you been lied to? It’s not like you opened a bag of Skittles and found Reese’s Pieces. They are literally showing the finished product going “This is what you can expect when you take the game home or… Read more »
Acnari
6 years ago
Anybody ever notice that in commercials for movies, they sometimes show scenes that don’t actually happen in the movie? I’ve seen it happen a couple times. It’s weird, but I get over it pretty quick because the scenes still demonstrate the spirit of the movie…
Kasey Lee
6 years ago
Spider-Man: Wind Waker? I’d play it.
Alvulious
6 years ago
I feel like you are trying to rationalise to the void Tim. In order to try and balance all the other comments I just want to say that you are doing a commendable job in trying to explain some of the things that happen in the industry that a lot of people take to be nefarious.
Good luck. And yeah it does look like a fun game from what I have seen!
Steve
6 years ago
It’s reality. It’s possible all assets were too costly to implement in the final product at the projected sale volume. Have you ever been to an auto show? CES? Any sort of proto-type gathering? Sometimes it’s great to dream big, but when it comes to an actual business decision, the reality is that a certain direction may not be profitable. This is where you may argue, “Ahhhh! Why would they show us this in the first place?!?” Well, that’s because more than just one person runs the show. You have a development team dedicated to this prototype, and their goal… Read more »
Tim van der Meij
6 years ago
What’s funny is that Digital Foundry’s video on this clearly explains that the changes are down to three reasons: 1) The weather is cloudier, which flattens the lighting. 2) The puddles were moved because the tech for rendering them was downgraded for manpower reasons, and 3) The suit doesn’t look as shiny because the specularity is much broader and less pin-pointy. And despite this there are MANY shots in the exact same sequence that look much better, from sparks casting light on the street, to improved room interiors, to higher traffic density on the streets. But NOOOOOO, let’s ignore all… Read more »
24
well, you wanted it, you got it
It’s obviously not about the puddle. I mean, I don’t even have a PS but the “puddless” version has obviously less details and effects than the one used at E3.
I’m not even surprised this happened since it seems to be common practice for a few years now, be it on PC or console, but it’s still better to point it out because it’s false advertising.
But it’s not though. Demos shown at E3 or any other convention are just that. Demos. They don’t necessarily reflect the finished product entirely and I’m sure that’s stated throughout each presentation.
yea demos are made to look better as its the only thing a team works on to make it look perfect
I think that’s because they try to make it the most beautiful to generate as much hype as they can and later on they realize “oh shit there’s no way we can run this on a normal PS4 without it blowing up”
it’s not intetional lie tho
The way it works is that artists and programmers make a game that looks a certain way. When you start to add more things, it starts to get slower, so you need to optimize.
You should never optimize before the game is almost finished, because you could spend too much time on unneeded optimaliations.
Oh, its DEFINITELY intentional. Unmistakably and undeniably.
These massive triple A companies know exactly what hardware they’re working with and what it can do. Its not like some indie group that put too much detail in their models and “oops too much detail and it looks good but darn, bad frames”
Problems arise when companies use lines like “ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE” At which point it becomes blatant, flat-out lies. But this has been common practice for a very long time, not just the last handful of years, and I’m surprised that this only became an issue recently.
It’s ACTUAL GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE (Represents a work in progress).
Just because it’s ACTUAL GAMPLAY doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to look in the end once more of the game is completed
The weather was adjusted to be cloudier. Mystery solved.
Why was my comment deleted? It wasn’t offensive or anything? *confused*
Nevermid, it just didn’t show up for some reason 😐 My bad.
All it needs now is Electro flinging bolts of electricity near Spidey every five minutes
Oh, he is. Poor guy zapped himself twice already. Fortunately for Spidey, there are some lightning rods under the water. Also highly elastic rubber suits absorb lightning pretty well.
Alright, I’m going to toss my two cents into the puddle here. I’m not a graphics guy at all. I think that 4K is a bit dumb, and that 60fps is indistinguishable from 30fps. My favorite game machine of last gen was the 3DS; this gen, the Switch. But even I can see that it’s not about the amount of water. You can see clearly that the advanced lighting that made the demo really come alive is gone. They stuck huge puddles in the demo to show off the incredible lighting and graphics that Spider-Man had. And then they pulled… Read more »
I think you’re totally right.
But I also think you’re outright blind if you cant see the difference between 30-60 😛
But in the context in which you said the thing about frames, I STILL agree, people pay way too much attention to graphics, and the need to meet that expectation pulls away from a game’s other qualities in a bad way
You’re objectively wrong about 60 vs 30 fps (you should check that your displays are capable of displaying 60 fps). But you’re spot on about everything else. Apparently the internet at large is going to turn puddles into a meme and sweep this one under the rug (despite tearing Watch Dogs to shreds for doing the exact same thing). It is blatantly clear that the E3 demo just 3 months ago was not running on real PS4 hardware considering how far they downgraded all these lighting effects. They weren’t honest with us at all. And “demo is not representative of… Read more »
Why do they need to sell the public on PS4? This entire generation, sales haven’t even been remotely close. Xbox lost. Bad. That’s not fanboy anything, that’s just sales numbers. Playstation chose to emphasize upcoming exclusives. Microsoft’s E3 show featured a whole ton of games, but I can play 95% of them on the other console too. Spider-Man didn’t need artificial publicity to build excitement. I work in a place that sells this stuff. Even then it was outpacing presales of Madden, NBA, CoD, and most of the other huge annual titles. I think people are making mountains out of… Read more »
“I get that a demo is not the same thing as a finished product. I get the things can change along the way. But what I also get is that those previews and demos are supposed to be representations of the final product”
Those things you just said are at direct odds with eachother. Demos and teasers are NOT finished product. Only finished product is finished product.
Up until the game goes gold and is being shipped, it is a work in progress. Full stop.
On the other hand when they pass off pre rendered eye candy as actual gameplay or they run said gameplay on a super computer not actual hardware to drum up false expectations you can hardly blame folks for feeling they were promised diamonds and got a polished turd instead.
Frankly I think the main problem is the hype train and the way marketing has evolved to promote said hype train.
Nobody “promised” you anything. An E3 trailer a year or two before launch is “Hey, here’s a thing we’re working on.” It’s not a solemn oath from the developer. It’s a work in progress. And yes, sometimes they run the demos on computers (mostly because they develop these games on computers), or they doctor “bullshots” or over-produce their vertical slice trailers. But you know what happens EVERY time around launch? We get to see the actual game that’s being shipped. So they really have no power to “trick” you into buying smoke and mirrors. In reality, you’re just upset because… Read more »
He was using a figure of speech when he said people feeling that they were promised diamonds. The issue at hand is the consistency of demonstrating impressive graphical demos for games that are almost always reduced in the final product. It’s an intentional marketing tactic to develop this hype for the next 1-2 years (to encourage preorders, etc) and it actually works. We, as a community, have learned to accept and expect that eventual downgrade of graphics further down the line of development, but that doesn’t inherently mean that they’re not at fault for (likely intentionally) drastically over-analyzing the performance… Read more »
Yes, thank you. I understand he was not implying that they literally promised him diamonds. But the argument these people are making is still based on the premise that if a developer shows off early footage of the game, it’s a “promise” that the end result will match or exceed it. And while sometimes these early hype trailers may BE over-produced, sometimes they are merely a bi-product of the way development proceeds and evolves (ie, the fact that they’re all built on PCs before they ever even touch a development console harddrive. I agree that they are incentivized to overestimate… Read more »
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence.
I’m mostly indifferent in this specific debate Tim. I dont even own a PS4 and have no particular interest in one as I’m primarily a PC gamer and so wouldn’t be purchasing this specific title either way. Personaly I’m more anoyed with the practice of anouncing/hyping a game 2,3, 5 years(looking at you star citizen) before its anywhere near a launch state. Its encurageing a trend of over promising and under delivering in general (aka anything peter molyneux ever touched) even if specific examples such as puddle gate are relatively minor and stupid. I think it would be much better… Read more »
You want to argue that games don’t need to be shown so early, I’ll be right there by your side. I hate that, and it’s unecessary. Bethesda has been doing it right: The last couple of Fallout games, they announce them and boom, five months later they’re on shelves. None of that “out in three years” super early announcement bullshit.
Tim- I hear you; totally. However, when you’re three months before launch, all you should really be doing is the last rounds of playtesting, bug fixing, and any final touches. You should KNOW if your game is capable of having thato level of graphics – if Spider-Man truly looks that textured and detailed, or (as at least one person with a review copy has said) kind of fuzzy.
The fact that they went back and said that there was no change to the graphics just kind of cemented this. Why lie, if you weren’t lying in the first place?
And just to be clear, I don’t care a bit about the puddles. I’m looking at Peter Parker himself. You can’t look at that character model, listen to Insomniac saying “all we changed was the puddle size,” and -not- know that they’re lying. If they came out and said “Look, we did have to slightly lower some resolution to handle some of the amazing fast paced action you’re going to see,” then I have no problem. Total respect. But people asked you, and you lied about it. No excuse.
So basically what you’re saying is Ted Price needs to be executed like Sean Murray? Because that’s what I’m feeling here.
“However, when you’re three months before launch, all you should really be doing” Wait, what are you talking about here? The trailer shot that people are comparing to (with the giant puddle, darker contrast, and the extra specularity on Spidey’s costume) is from an E3 trailer from 2017. A year ago. All of the gameplay footage they released at E3 2018 (three months ago) looks exactly like the stuff I’m seeing from people playing the game now (through early leaked copies, etc). I haven’t seen anyone complaining about a change from E3 2018 to now. The complaint about the downgrade… Read more »
To me this is kinda like seeing a scene for a film trailer and then not getting it in a movie even though it’s been advertise a lot in the trailers.
Things change in development and while some might be angry that x didn’t appear, there is no promise that it will be exactly as previewed.
“Progress” doesn’t generally involve moving backwards.
Of course it does when you’re looking at the project as a whole instead of just focusing on one aspect of it (in this case, lighting). Some things might have to scale back in order to move everything forward.
There’s no point in progressing all the systems if the end result gets 15 frames per second.
7.8/10 too much water
Yeah sure, that’s what we needed. More people ignoring the actual downgrades to lighting, reflections, and shadows to defend the game because “lol puddles”
I for one am as sick as ever of being lied to. There’s no excuse for these downgrades over just three months. It shows they weren’t using real PS4 hardware at E3. They intentionally misled as several others have done in the past. Watch Dogs gets torn to shreds but we’re supposed to give Spider-Man a pass? Hell no.
Nobody lied to you. You’re getting butthurt because one scene looks a little different between two trailers. And the ONLY difference that you can definitively chalk up to a change is the size of the puddles. The rest of the visual difference could merely be the position of the in-game sun (as the developer stated) when the footage was recorded. And until the game is in people’s hands, and we KNOW whether or not its CAPABLE of having the range of lighting we see in some trailers, you CAN NOT know you were “lied to”. Therefore, as far as I’m… Read more »
I’m not sure if you are being purposefully dense or are really that clueless. People called this out because of the very visible graphical downgrade and here you are straw-manning it to score brownie points with who really?
People are “calling this out” because they need something to bitch about. So they’re latching onto a snippet of compressed YouTube video that shows some lowered specularity and contrast that could be the result of a MYRIAD of different reasons (running on a PS4 Pro vs PS4, the recording brighness/contrast settings, the video compression, the time of day/location of the sun in-game). OR maybe it HAS actually changed from the E3 2017 demo. In which case the complaints are STILL incredibly stupid because it’s STILL a comparison to an in-development teaser from over a year ago. The only “dense” people… Read more »
Thank you. Picking it up Thursday/Friday.
End of the day, if you care about the size of puddles instead of the gameplay, don’t by the damn game.
Oh man, look at all that “downgrade!”
https://youtu.be/Wxi1bSInhh8
XD
Yeah you said that way better than I did.
Idk Tim, I am not sold. The suit looks like a teenager made it, and when he is swinging, every thing looks all blurry. ??
Well, not exactly a good example being a shot of a tv screen instead of a direct capture. It looks awful in that video 😛
The moment he starts swinging the webs it also makes all the buildings lose all the details. Or maybe it’s that there’s so much blur!
(It’s usually the first effect I deactivate because it makes everything look like a smudge, but this is a console problem, not a spider-man problem.)
Even shot off of a screen you can tell it’s a gorgeous looking game.
One of these days, I wish a company would actually do something like this in response to internet nonsense. Like, flag the PSN/XBL accounts of anybody complaining on any platform or forum that connects them to their accounts, and have their games be subject to a ‘fix’… To remove it they have to go into the options menu, fill out a short apology, and tick a box promising to “be a better person.” ?
You think that people that criticize a product should have that product crippled despite them paying money for it and have to grovel to get it fixed? That sure sounds like a fun dystopian future you’ve dreamt up there.
Spider-Fish, Spider-Fish, does whatever a Spider-Fish does….
I get that details are important, but trailers and final products are so often different just for movies, let alone games. I don’t give a fuck (mostly) how it looks, I care if the story and features live up to the promised expectations. If it does that, then I’ll start worrying about looks.
I haven’t really kept up with the development of Spiderman, so I suppose I’m not super qualified to say anything. I looked at the before/after photos of demo vs. final game, and yeah, I guess the lighting is better in the first picture. But who fucking cares? Do you really care that his suit isn’t photo realistic? Even in the after and the few videos I’ve looked at of the finished one, the game is still gorgeous. Did the gameplay change? People get so dick hard about graphics these days, the game still looks good. “But they lied,” so effing… Read more »
Wow, so this is a thing, huh? I think the people complaining about this need to look up the infamous Spaceworld 2000 Zelda Demo and compare it to the game that was actually produced (LoZ: The Wind Waker) for an example of legitimate misrepresentation. Unless they totally reworked the animation style of these puddles from the ground up and converted them to cell shading, then this is not something worth complaining about. Pretty sure these days there are any number of reviews available to learn the pros, the cons and the graphical minutiae of the game prior to purchase, so… Read more »
Why are you defending people who are misrepresenting the game? It’s less than other cases sure, but it’s still lying, specially when you use phrases like “Actual in game footage” or similar shticks (not the case in this one). I agree that no one should pre-order and should wait for reviews, I never do preorders the last one was MGSV and I would’ve bought it anyway (not that I think its a bad game, just a bad MG) but I still dont like when they put oh so gorgeous teasers and then the game looks like a potato. Yes, in… Read more »
Just adding this bit: In fact this doesn’t help in lots of cases, a lot of people will feel lied and won’t buy it, it’s better to do the opposite, show a bit less graphics than the full release and then improve them, then the people will go nuts for it and will buy even more. It’s better lie to then have a better product, than the oposite. One seems like you improved, the other makes you look like a manipulative arsehole.
But you are not taking into account that it is exponentially harder to add in improvements once the engine is complete, than it is to simply scale them back.
Why are buying games from a “manipulative arsehole”? If it bothers you and you don’t buy it, then they won’t have your money. If they don’t have your money, they’ll have to change their tactics in order to get your money. Pretty basic. But that’s not what’s going to happen because what’s being sold is a fully operational game that’s good enough that, recent changes included, people *still* want. And that’s the root of it: people still want the game, or they wouldn’t be complaining. They just caught a glimpse of something slightly better, and whether or not that was… Read more »
I let my wallet do the talking, I only buy games that I like and find the publisher and developer to not have lied to me, I dont buy many games anymore so I chose carefully I dont have all the time, I will spend it in what I feel it deserves it and will make me have fun. Keep saying it’s just the puddles, not everything on the picture what is scaled down. It’s funny how people laugh at this, but when this happened with other games, nah, it’s true, where are those promised graphics. I still remember when… Read more »
I’m just trying to imagine how you think this whole thing went down: Exec: You, minion! Have we finished downgrading the graphics in preparation for release? Minion: Yes, sir! We’ve successfully scaled down the graphics by the 0.6% you requested. Exec: Excellent. When can we have gameplay videos ready? Minion: What? The game hasn’t come out yet – why would we let potential customers see these changes BEFORE they purchase the game? I thought we were trying to fool them, by not delivering what we “promised” in previously released previews of the unfinished product? *Exec slaps minion* Exec: Silence! Take… Read more »
Because car manufacturers don’t SHOW you the many, many prototypes they go through before the first product rolls off the assembly line. So you don’t get to SEE all the features and designs they tried out, worked and reworked. Even one of my comics can go through drastic changes from inception to upload, and that’s over the course of one day. Game development takes YEARS. When you see a game shown at E3, and the release date is still more than a year away, you are seeing a look at a product that is still being built. That is still… Read more »
As Steve said, yes they do show them, and I said car manufacturers but I could say PC part makers, model makers… No, what they should do is wait a bit more to show it, don’t rush to show something you don’t know if you can deliver, it’s not that hard to grasp either, don’t promise what you can’t show. Or do you show in your work projects before you know you can do what you promised? Im sure any boss would fire someone if he/she always is showing something he can’t accomplish. Don’t show games so early, it’s not… Read more »
In fact, let me tell you what car makers do: Car makers say “We will do a new Mustang” (to say just a name). Then they start the design and maybe, 4 years after, they say what it’ll have once they know what’s doable, showing body concepts, engine concepts meanwhile, but just small things that don’t say what the entire car is like and they show just concepts not the real deal. Then, when they are sure they reveal the car as is to the public and to subdue the costs they meanwhile make small econobox cars, family cars etc… Read more »
Go to the LA auto show, or any event like this and you WILL find prototypes of engines, body designs, interiors and other mechanical components that never make it to production.. sorry to boot this analogy
climate change.
Got ’em
Graphics don’t matter to me one bit. Then again, I’m still gaming with a trusty old Nvidia GTX 275, so… Make of that what you will. Story makes a good game and exploration can make a game more fun, but all graphics do is increase the amount of heat my GPU throws into the room. Plus, anyone wants a good challenge, try running your favorite games with less than 1GB of VRAM. I’d love to tell these companies to have a ‘potato mode’ where it can honestly look at your hardware and set things below the usual ‘low’ settings in… Read more »
Special Snowflakes be……. Special?
I’d put a longer comment about the difference itself, but most people have already covered that the problem is not the “amount of water” as it is so often flippantly dismissed away, but rather that the water was the largest example of the overall problem of the demo intentionally misrepresenting the final product’s capabilities. But it seems that there is a counter argument that the demo is not the final product and that for some reason means that any inconsistencies, downgrades, or outright misrepresentation is thus perfectly fine and acceptable, if not entirely defendable, because, hey, it was “still in… Read more »
Okay, help me understand something… 2 years ago, you were shown X about Game Last week, you were shown Y about Game, and it doesn’t look as good as X Game hasn’t released. Game is not in your hands. You are under no obligation to get Game. So how does this qualify as a lie or bait and switch? So how have you been lied to? It’s not like you opened a bag of Skittles and found Reese’s Pieces. They are literally showing the finished product going “This is what you can expect when you take the game home or… Read more »
Anybody ever notice that in commercials for movies, they sometimes show scenes that don’t actually happen in the movie? I’ve seen it happen a couple times. It’s weird, but I get over it pretty quick because the scenes still demonstrate the spirit of the movie…
Spider-Man: Wind Waker? I’d play it.
I feel like you are trying to rationalise to the void Tim. In order to try and balance all the other comments I just want to say that you are doing a commendable job in trying to explain some of the things that happen in the industry that a lot of people take to be nefarious.
Good luck. And yeah it does look like a fun game from what I have seen!
It’s reality. It’s possible all assets were too costly to implement in the final product at the projected sale volume. Have you ever been to an auto show? CES? Any sort of proto-type gathering? Sometimes it’s great to dream big, but when it comes to an actual business decision, the reality is that a certain direction may not be profitable. This is where you may argue, “Ahhhh! Why would they show us this in the first place?!?” Well, that’s because more than just one person runs the show. You have a development team dedicated to this prototype, and their goal… Read more »
What’s funny is that Digital Foundry’s video on this clearly explains that the changes are down to three reasons: 1) The weather is cloudier, which flattens the lighting. 2) The puddles were moved because the tech for rendering them was downgraded for manpower reasons, and 3) The suit doesn’t look as shiny because the specularity is much broader and less pin-pointy. And despite this there are MANY shots in the exact same sequence that look much better, from sparks casting light on the street, to improved room interiors, to higher traffic density on the streets. But NOOOOOO, let’s ignore all… Read more »
Ick, Ultimatum adaptation? Hard pass.