Gears 2 In-Depth Interview
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It sounds nicer in interviews when you say "the bad sales must be due to piracy!", than saying "we totally phoned it in, thinking people where dumb enough to buy it anyway, but the buggers got wise to us!"
Piracy is the gaming bizz's all purpose face-saving whipping boy and scapegoat, you messed up horribly? you gambled and it didn't go well? you served us gruel and told us it was pizza, and we didn't buy it? its thouse pesky pirates what done did it, yup!
Sure piracy is a real thing and a real problem, but its also an all too conveniant excuse for Dev's and Publishers to hide behind when they mess up, and their crappy games aren't selling.
"As a side note to all of this, regardless of what’s going on with Spore and all that, I’ve come to believe that the kind of person who’s savvy enough to have a high-end PC – to upgrade it, to figure the ins and outs of it and to make sure he has a solid system – probably knows what BitTorrent is. That’s all I’m saying."
WOW, what a dick. What does knowing what a f*cking BitTorrent is have to do with YOUR company releasing sub-par PC games as of late.
Give me a break...
I never really had a problem with him before and I would always defend him when people would say stuff about him. But what he said was rather insulting and short sighted.
WOW, what a dick. What does knowing what a f*cking BitTorrent is have to do with YOUR company releasing sub-par PC games as of late.
Give me a break...
I never really had a problem with him before and I would always defend him when people would say stuff about him. But what he said was rather insulting and short sighted.
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Bottom line is that PC piracy is bad for the industry. In the same way and for the same reasons, console game resales are bad for the industry. Ultimately, this is bad for us as gamers. Is it the death of PC games? No - but for better or worse it does have a direct influence on the current state of the industry, including the quality and number of products that make it to shelf. That's simple economics.
I'm not here to defend Epic, UT, Gears, or make "excuses." I'm here because I really like BU and have been playing Unreal games since day one. But it absolutely breaks my heart to see people venting, threatening, and generally over reacting to a comment that you've taken out of context and warped to your own devices. It makes people like me want to leave, and not look back.
Sadly, THAT is what will kill PC gaming, and sites like this one. Don't become so closed-minded that you drive away the developers you should be influencing. Don't become so insular that you scare off new / casual players. I'm taking this to the extreme, obviously, but I think the general message rings true.
As someone said earlier in this thread, I probablly shouldn't even have poked my head into this. But I'm so tired of the same old melodramatic arguements. I think I'm done with this forum for a while. /shrug
I'm not here to defend Epic, UT, Gears, or make "excuses." I'm here because I really like BU and have been playing Unreal games since day one. But it absolutely breaks my heart to see people venting, threatening, and generally over reacting to a comment that you've taken out of context and warped to your own devices. It makes people like me want to leave, and not look back.
Sadly, THAT is what will kill PC gaming, and sites like this one. Don't become so closed-minded that you drive away the developers you should be influencing. Don't become so insular that you scare off new / casual players. I'm taking this to the extreme, obviously, but I think the general message rings true.
As someone said earlier in this thread, I probablly shouldn't even have poked my head into this. But I'm so tired of the same old melodramatic arguements. I think I'm done with this forum for a while. /shrug
I'm half-tempted to go this route as well.
I understand why they're looking to go console-exclusive. It's a wise business move for them since UT3 sales haven't been hot, and they've been unable to recreate the success of UT99 with the previous games. Unreal II crashed and burned. GoW has been a smash hit on the XBox and they'd be stupid not to focus on that franchise for the time being. It's obvious that their traditional business plan for PC games (cater towards the high-end systems) isn't working for them anymore. That's fine. UT is no longer the only FPS game out there along with Quake, something that id and Epic have both found out the hard way in the last 5 years.
I am royally annoyed by this newfound "party line" of "our core PC audience is a bunch of pirates" that is being bandied about very casually by companies. This is the second time I've heard this line in the last two or three months, the last was a comment by someone at id claiming that hardware vendors like the fact that piracy somehow keeps them in business. When I see companies like Crytek blame flaccid sales on piracy for a game that 99% of the gaming population can't run smoothly, I immediately get a whiff of RIAA tactics in the air.
This is ludicrous. I waited until UT3 dropped in price because my computer was running the demo at 30 FPS at 640x480 with lowest detail settings. Based on three maps covering two of the three main gametypes that didn't give me any incentive to go out and buy the game on release date especially since I wanted to see this new fangled Warfare game. Which by the way, was not included in the demo for some unknown reason. What's the point of teasing us with this ONS/AS replacement and expecting us to pay $50 for a game mode we have no idea if we'll like? I have bigger financial priorities right now, like college and car loans, and I can't afford to drop $600 on new computer hardware on a whim right now. I was very pleased that when UT3 did arrive on my doorstep yesterday that the performance was much better than the demo, even before patching (although I couldn't tell what revision was initially on the DVD). I'm now getting double the performance with the same settings as the demo and I'm very pleased about this.
If Epic wanted to stay in the PC gaming business (which they very well could be, I get a sense that they want to keep GoW tied to consoles, and the fate of Unreal is still up in the air right now), they certainly could if they wanted to put some effort into it. I think the pink elephant in the room is the hardware specs. People don't want to upgrade every 3 years to stay current with games. My current PC performs very well with day to day tasks and I don't see any reason to upgrade outside of games (which I might be able to hold off even longer since UT3 seems to run ok even if it looks like crap) and I find it hard to justify shelling out $600 on hardware that will only be needed for 5 games and will be obsolete in another 3-4 years.
Likewise, why is it that low settings on UT3 look worse than the highest settings in UT2004? This should not be the case. I suspect it's model complexity, but the texture quality is garish on low. This is the exact same problem that happened with UT2003. If you're on the low end of the requirements your game is going to look worse than the previous game. Someone needs to find a solution to this.
I've enjoyed every Unreal game and some of the old Epic series as well (cut my teeth on Epic Pinball back in the day). If Epic wants to switch focus to consoles, that's fine. But please don't give your loyal fans another backhand bitchslap with the "PC gamers are pirates naturally" schtick.
EDIT: Do companies like Epic see any profit from used game sales? I know that's something Mark Rein has brought up in the past. It'll be interesting to see how things go with GameStop aggressively moving towards used game sales as their main profit source. While console games aren't easy to pirate, it's not like Epic isn't losing potential sales to used game trading either. The grass isn't totally greener on the other side.
EDIT: Re: Spore. Yes it'll probably be the biggest pirated game, blah blah blah. Poster child for anti-DRM. I personally haven't had any issues with it, and EA has done an ok job addressing many of the complaints. I personally think that there's a bigger deal being made out of this than needs to be, especially given that a precedent for this DRM system was established a year ago with BioShock. I think people have a right to not like DRM especially when it's intrusive like StarForce which seems to have fallen out of favor. But, I don't think the gaming community reaction to the Spore DRM system is justified at all. There's no reason to throw a temper-tantrum and snipe the Amazon rating for the game. That's petty and only encourages the "us vs. them" mentality. Telling everyone to pirate the game only encourages companies to tighten up the DRM schemes. Not drop them.
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I look at this boxed copy of Unreal Tournament 3 sitting here and just shake my head in disgust. Way to insult people that actually buy your games.
Never again will I buy an Epic game.
Never again will I buy an Epic game.
Play COD4 on the pc...at least Infinaty Ward seems to be making good games for the FPS fan on the pc
Exactly. The next news will be:
"Today epic games has announced that they are completely abandoning the pc and making ut4 an xbox and playstation exclusive, with absolutely no plans for pc."
Just watch, It's only a matter of time.
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A very sad day for me to read the stuff in this thread and the comments that have been made.
There was a time Epic and the game could do no wrong but that seems like a thousand years ago tbh.
Gears is a top notch franchise though and a fine game but without a community behind it it doesn't feel like that.
The Unreal Tournament I remember and the spirit of the fans backing the game seems like a distant memory now
Lruce
There was a time Epic and the game could do no wrong but that seems like a thousand years ago tbh.
Gears is a top notch franchise though and a fine game but without a community behind it it doesn't feel like that.
The Unreal Tournament I remember and the spirit of the fans backing the game seems like a distant memory now
Lruce
I don't understand why everyone is getting so upset over this.
Epic are a business, they exist to make money. And PC piracy is a problem for them.
I was pissed at them because the botched pile of crap that was UT3 killed my previously healthy UT2004 clan. But life moves on.
Seriously, get over it people, its not like they are going out of their way to upset you.
Just do what i did and get a 360. Or just spend your money elsewhere.
Epic are a business, they exist to make money. And PC piracy is a problem for them.
I was pissed at them because the botched pile of crap that was UT3 killed my previously healthy UT2004 clan. But life moves on.
Seriously, get over it people, its not like they are going out of their way to upset you.
Just do what i did and get a 360. Or just spend your money elsewhere.
Nobody is saying that the piracy isn't a problem because everyone knows that it is. The issue I have and I'm sure some may agree, is that it seems as though they are using it as an excuse as to why they seem to be unable to develop a successful title on the PC platform. Also they don't seem to be putting SERIOUS effort in preventing piracy. Can anyone name one thing Epic has done on this front? There are other company's who are happy to release on the PC and don't bitch and moan about piracy, i.e. Valve. But I guess using Steam wouldn't allow them to use the BS excuse of "Piracy is ruining our business so we can't do blah blah blah" so they will probably never bother using Steam. It's pathetic.
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Great to hear that I'm a criminal for owning a good PC and knowing how to use it.
After buying just about every Epic title for the PC this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I expected to buy the next epic title anyway, UT3 has shown me that Epic cannot make polished PC games anymore.
They can keep to Xbox but I will no longer buy their games (I don't even own an xbox), I'll continue to support companies like Valve and id.
Quake Live FTW
After buying just about every Epic title for the PC this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I expected to buy the next epic title anyway, UT3 has shown me that Epic cannot make polished PC games anymore.
They can keep to Xbox but I will no longer buy their games (I don't even own an xbox), I'll continue to support companies like Valve and id.
Quake Live FTW
[QUOTE='os]But I guess using Steam wouldn't allow them to use the BS excuse of "Piracy is ruining our business so we can't do blah blah blah" so they will probably never bother using Steam. It's pathetic.[/QUOTE]
So this page doesn't exist? http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Epic Games, Inc.
So this page doesn't exist? http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Epic Games, Inc.
Selling a game on Steam and being integrated with Steam is two different things. Do I have to log on to Steam when I play ut3???? No.
I'm sorry, but there is nothing out of context about
"As a side note to all of this, regardless of what's going on with Spore and all that, I've come to believe that the kind of person who's savvy enough to have a high-end PC - to upgrade it, to figure the ins and outs of it and to make sure he has a solid system - probably knows what BitTorrent is. That's all I'm saying."
Not in the slightest. There is no context. That is CliffyB saying that anybody who has a good computer is a pirate, flat out. Sure, he's trying to couch it, because he doesn't have the balls to say it outright, but that's his meaning. That's why he threw in "that's all I'm saying". That is a well-known phrase that means "I have more to say, but saying it would get me in trouble. You take it from there".
This isn't about whether piracy is or isn't a problem. There is not one person in this thread saying "piracy is fine l2develop". What this thread is about, and what all this rage is about, is CliffyB flat out, unequivocally and without qualification, saying that everyone with a high-end PC is a pirate. That is a lie. It is ignorant. It is the product of a self-important jackass who thinks he's god's gift to gaming. He's not even acknowledging that console piracy and second-hand sales happen. We are saying that CliffyB is being an *******, and it angers us.
We're not "driving developers away". The developer in question has already left. He walked to the door, took the money and support we've given him over the years, kicked us in the balls, told us to go **** ourselves, and walked right on out cuddling the big bag of money he got from Microsoft for Gears.
It's because they talked about how it was some new synthesis of two gametypes, but it was really just a tweaked version of an old gametype. They didn't want people to know that UT3 didn't have any new gametypes until after they had their money.
Actually, you may be taking that particular phrase out of context. Instead of meaning, "that's all I'm going to allow myself to say," it could be used to mean, "that is all I am saying, don't attach other implications to my words because, I mean only what I said." However, I think what he actually said was plenty, I don't blame any honest PC gamer for being ticked off.
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"No offense, but you smell".
Attaching "please don't hurt me" to an insult doesn't make it stop being an insult.
I am so enjoying this thread ... not as much as T2A and some others I am sure who have been saying from the start what this new Epic is all about. Still isn't it something how many of us paid for every single Epic Unreal related game and kept the company in business when the console ports of their games were failing miserably and now as soon as they make big money off of ONE game they immediately treat us like bastard children by releasing that mess of a game called UT3 and then dump us altogether by using some BS excuse as privacy to lump us all into one boat and then sink it with a "console-only" torpedo. I know I have actually bought at full price UT2K3, U2, UT2K4, UC2, The Unreal Anthology, and UT3 ... many of you have done the same. Now this is the thanks we get. Laugh people laugh people ... today we are all friends no matter what kind of arguments we have had with one another in the past. Today we can all rally against Epic and let them know they have lost the fans that propped them up in the first place. Now they won't care with all their new 360 fans but maybe knowing that they could have made 8 or 9 million instead of just 5 or 6 will wake someone in charge up.
Edit: And yes I do have a 360 but I would not expect every one to rush out and get one ... it is what you are going to have to do but it is shameful that Epic would put people in that position when there is no need. If the PC gaming market is so dead why are there so many great advances still being made and plans to bring even more hi tech games to that market. Anyway I know I will still have Gears 2 but paying for it is another matter. If Epic is going to call us thieves maybe its time they learned what an impact we can really have on their bottom line (but perhaps not as that would only add to their ludicrous and insulting stance). Also I do realize that PCF is going to make games for the PC but we all know that is not the same thing. It's like them bringing in the second string players (no offense PCF but Epic was king in this realm) to perform for the crowd for the same amount of money and that bites.
Edit: And yes I do have a 360 but I would not expect every one to rush out and get one ... it is what you are going to have to do but it is shameful that Epic would put people in that position when there is no need. If the PC gaming market is so dead why are there so many great advances still being made and plans to bring even more hi tech games to that market. Anyway I know I will still have Gears 2 but paying for it is another matter. If Epic is going to call us thieves maybe its time they learned what an impact we can really have on their bottom line (but perhaps not as that would only add to their ludicrous and insulting stance). Also I do realize that PCF is going to make games for the PC but we all know that is not the same thing. It's like them bringing in the second string players (no offense PCF but Epic was king in this realm) to perform for the crowd for the same amount of money and that bites.
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