EA: "We might have you start buying demos."

[Falconeer]

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has WAY MORE than 3-4 hours of gameplay. Has fully functional multiplayer functionalities (which make it endlessly fun) and what is in it is more than enough for dozens of hours of single player enjoyment. I'd say GT5 Prologue really doesn't belong in this thread.

[Velorath]

It was also 2/3's the price of a full game.  I think you're missing the point, which is that charging for a beta/demo of a game isn't a new concept, nor one that's inherently bad.  Also, this is information that is being filtered through Michael Pachter, who has a habit of getting a lot of shit wrong.  There's no indication that $15 for 3-4 hours is something EA specifically stated as the business model they're looking at or if that's just Pachter doing his analyst thing.  All EA has said in response to the story is:

Electronic Arts is indeed examining a "number of projects for delivering premium content to consumers before, during, and after the launch of a packaged-goods version of the game," EA VP Jeff Brown told Kotaku in response to Pachter's comments.

"None of the proposals...call for charging consumers for traditionally free game demos," Brown added. However, keep in mind that Pachter suggested such paid downloads would be longer and/or more full-featured than traditional demos.

[NiX]

Selective quoting by Minvaren. Pachter compares this new strategy to being like selling more games like BF1943.

[tmp]

Selective quoting by Minvaren. Pachter compares this new strategy to being like selling more games like BF1943.

He claims the quality of this "PDLC" would be similar to BF1943. The strategy itself seems to be quite a different animal considering BF1943 wasn't a limited pre-release for boxed, fully priced product but a full game in its own right.

[Minvaren]

My understanding from the article, is that he is extrapolating EA's future direction based on actions that they are/will be soon undertaking.  Hence the "might" in the title and all.

However, if you're charging people for content prior to the game's actual release, what can you actually sell/deliver before then?  A trailer movie, a demo of sorts, or "DLC for the game not yet released."  #3 doesn't seem to make sense, and #1 we'll just grab off of the official site or Youtube, right?

PC gaming? I saw this as console or multiplatform demos pilots. Consoles is where the moneys is at, after all.

I agree - I think console gaming is the real target audience here.  Heck, mom/dad might even think "well, if it keeps them from buying even one new game at $60, I've saved money."

[fuser]

Interesting as recently Sony has filed for patents around degradable demos.

Their plans are the exact opposite where the full game is unlocked at the beginning but the more you play or sample the more they shut down. Like in Gran Turismo limiting the car or track choices to a few after sampling the full game.

[Azazel]

Selective quoting by Minvaren. Pachter compares this new strategy to being like selling more games like BF1943.

He claims the quality of this "PDLC" would be similar to BF1943. The strategy itself seems to be quite a different animal considering BF1943 wasn't a limited pre-release for boxed, fully priced product but a full game in its own right.

Wasn't BF1943 a two-force, one-map small-scope game? The scope and size was far smaller than 1942, I know that much.

[KallDrexx]

Interesting as recently Sony has filed for patents around degradable demos.

Their plans are the exact opposite where the full game is unlocked at the beginning but the more you play or sample the more they shut down. Like in Gran Turismo limiting the car or track choices to a few after sampling the full game.

I doubt they will actually implement that though.  That means all you have to do to pirate a game is to download a 100kb crack executable rather than download the whole game over again.

[Fabricated]

Maximum profit from the minimum amount of content. Go capitalism.

[waffel]

Innovation...

EA, you're doing it wrong.

[Margalis]

The way I'm reading it (while being old and bitter) is that they want to release a preliminary look into what they're building, get feedback on that, and update the finished product accordingly.

I doubt it will play out that way.

For one thing if you release something that needs field testing then that can translate into lost customers for the full version. Also building a slice of a game that has all the functionality and polish of the full game is cheaper but not that much cheaper.

In the end I would guess that the demo/prologue/whatever will be in the bag at the same time as the game and release a few weeks earlier. Keep in mind that one of the reason devs are flocking to day 1 DLC is that you have a pretty small window in which customers will care, and I imagine that applies pre-release as well.

If you release a paid demo thing 6 months in advance that needs major tweaks it isn't going to do much to drive sales of the full game and may actively turn people off.

[tgr]

The way I'm reading it (while being old and bitter) is that they want to release a preliminary look into what they're building, get feedback on that, and update the finished product accordingly.

I doubt it will play out that way.

In a sane world, with sane people, I would agree with you.

In a world with Ubisoft and EA with a current track record of DRM systems that actively fuck you in the ear, and they have the audacity of calling that "adding value to the product", I'm not so convinced.

[Minvaren]

Crytek to EA: We agree with what you said.

(roughly, at least - seems they just don't want to do demos anymore)

[tgr]

"We didn't want those sales anyways."

[tmp]

“Really, what this is, is an attempt to salvage a problem. The industry is still losing a lot of money to piracy as the market becomes more online-based. So it’s encouraging to see strategies outlined to combat this.”

Yes, the way to discourage people from getting free copy of your software is to make them unable to check it out for free.

[NiX]

Crytek to EA: We agree with what you said.

(roughly, at least - seems they just don't want to do demos anymore)

Company known for FarCry and Crysis. Yeah, they have every reason to go along with this. It wasn't that Crysis was a tech demo disguised as a game.

[Azazel]

"We didn't want those sales anyways."

The usual passive-agressive bullshit pumped out by these idiots. "piracy costs us money waa waa so we're going to screw with the people who do buy our games." Will Crytek join Ubi's entire 2010 PC lineup along with games like Spore, Sims 3, etc in being things I'll only ever pirate if I want to play them? 

[Hawkbit]

I'm 100% onboard with the idea of selling the first 20% of the game for $10 as long as I get the rest of it at $40.  Half the time I don't like the game anyways; I'd rather spend the $10 to find that out instead of $50. 

Sadly, it's going to allow developers to create really fucking awesome first chapters and the rest of the game goes to shit.  I see that being a trend, at least.

[Tebonas]

Also, the boss of Crytec is a certifiable idiot. There is no free demo for movies? Never in his life he stumbled upon a movie trailer?

Edit: Them being right around the corner in Germany and all I helped the poor guy out and sent him a link to a movie trailer website. Maybe he can educate himself 

[fuser]

I doubt they will actually implement that though.  That means all you have to do to pirate a game is to download a 100kb crack executable rather than download the whole game over again.

Considering the PS3 is not cracked, it could be a very possible.

[Tebonas]

Wasn't word on street that the PS3 will soon be hacked now that they removed Linux support out of the box? Sony gave them quite some incentives by that.

[tgr]

http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/

[fuser]

http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/

It's still not exploited yet plus they have been removing holes and exploits in old firmwares. The glitching attack still hasn't been in anyway used to compromise the game console to pirate games. The 3.21 update which removed one possible avenue OtherOS is now a required PSN update (they flipped the switch last Thursday or Friday).

[jth]

http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/27/how-the-ps3-hypervisor-was-hacked/

It's still not exploited yet plus they have been removing holes and exploits in old firmwares. The glitching attack still hasn't been in anyway used to compromise the game console to pirate games. The 3.21 update which removed one possible avenue OtherOS is now a required PSN update (they flipped the switch last Thursday or Friday).

But custom 3.21 firmware that will restore OtherOS might be available soon.

[fuser]

But custom 3.21 firmware that will restore OtherOS might be available soon.

Right but considering 3.21 has been out for two weeks now, a required upgrade for one week, and nothing has been said from geohot for over a week now. I'd assume work has been delayed by sony's internal checks for the PSN which would defeat his custom firmware. Anyhoo what's the % of people staying with ps3 fats(it won't work with slims) with 3.15 vs the mass that automatically upgraded, not to mention what kind of requirements to connect to use the PSN for authentication to play the demo would be required. It's still technically secure it remains to be seen if you can get around with an infectus (for the slims or fat 3.21 upgraded) to downgrade and then load otheros for a currently non useful exploit in this case.

[KallDrexx]

I doubt they will actually implement that though.  That means all you have to do to pirate a game is to download a 100kb crack executable rather than download the whole game over again.

Considering the PS3 is not cracked, it could be a very possible.

Yeah but the xbox 360 and the PC versions can be hacked/stolen.  This would require them to make a demo that's PS3 only and a separate one for 360 and PC, which is a lot of work for engineering, design and QA.

[patience]

I find it interesting that the companies making the most money this generation are the ones not trying to nickel and dime people, while how much a company pursues "alternate revenue streams" is highly correlated with how poorly they're doing.

That could be a chicken and egg problem, maybe the reason some companies are going DLC-crazy is that they desperately need money.

It's not a chicken and egg problem. It's a problem of gaining the same proportional return on investment when you are a large business compared to a small business. The established companies doing this are hitting a ceiling of diminishing returns.

[tgr]

Personally I'm starting to look to older games, since I honestly believe them to be better games. Worse graphically, sure, but I don't think the new games really give sufficient value in return, gameplay-wise.

I'd happily go for games with less graphical glitz, as long as I thought it was a better game. And I honestly don't think it really takes 150-300 people working on it constantly for 4+ years to satisfy me in that regard, because most of that time and energy is spent (I believe) on modelling, creating graphics and creating the world itself.

I suppose the PC is going to change from being the playground of the bigwigs like EA, ubisoft etc, to the small 1-10 developer who just wants to create great games.

Now excuse me while I go play openttd. Or Diplomacy 2. Or Jagged Alliance 2. Or any of the good old x-com games. Or planescale torment. or or or.

[Sheepherder]

Or planescale torment.

This wasn't much of a game, but it's still probably the best story I've ever seen in any medium,

[Velorath]

Personally I'm starting to look to older games, since I honestly believe them to be better games. Worse graphically, sure, but I don't think the new games really give sufficient value in return, gameplay-wise.

I'd happily go for games with less graphical glitz, as long as I thought it was a better game. And I honestly don't think it really takes 150-300 people working on it constantly for 4+ years to satisfy me in that regard, because most of that time and energy is spent (I believe) on modelling, creating graphics and creating the world itself.

I suppose the PC is going to change from being the playground of the bigwigs like EA, ubisoft etc, to the small 1-10 developer who just wants to create great games.

Now excuse me while I go play openttd. Or Diplomacy 2. Or Jagged Alliance 2. Or any of the good old x-com games. Or planescale torment. or or or.

Is it really that games were better back in the old days or had more replay value, or does it just look that way to you because you're looking at a small list of some of the best games from a 1-2 decade time span and comparing them to all games released in the past few years?

I think if you looked at the top games released on a year by year basis, you'd probably see that the quality now is about the same as back then.  You have a handful of really great titles that have a lot of hours of gameplay or a lot of replay value, and then you've got a bunch of shit (although some years have had much fewer great games, and many more shit ones).

There's nothing wrong with liking and playing old games, but I think you might want to put it in perspective a bit before saying games used to be better back then.

[Margalis]

It's almost hard for me to see how someone could have played PC games from the 80s onward and not think that they used to be better.

Console games are another story. Although I will say that in many ways simpler abstract graphics are better at communicating gameplay than super advanced tech. Or put another way I never died in Megaman because I jumped onto a block that turned out to be a texture in the same way I did 5 minutes into Uncharted.

It's certainly true that the vast majority of effort put into "AAA" titles goes to graphical content and relatively little goes into gameplay design, basic mechanics and things of that nature. And the focus on "AAA" content means that certain game types just don't get made anymore since they can't make back that kind of money. (See X-Com the FPS)

That's my spiel, now for something a bit more scientific I googled top PC games of 1995:

http://games.toptenreviews.com/list_ranking_pc_1995.htm

Full Throttle, Gabriel Knight, Command and Conquer, Warcraft 2, Descent, Mechwarrior 2 and Myst. It's even worse than I thought!

1996: Quake. Diablo. Duke Nukem. Moo2. Civ2. Red Alert. Descent 2. Tomb Raider. Daggerfall.

These are some killer lineups! Great, genre defining titles in a wide variety of genres that retain a genuine PC flavor.

[tgr]

There's nothing wrong with liking and playing old games, but I think you might want to put it in perspective a bit before saying games used to be better back then.

call of duty 1 was awesome, call of duty 2 was awesome (played it all the way through a few weeks ago, still tons more fun than W@W or MW2), never played call of duty 3, call of duty 4 was awesome, Modern warfare was okay, if a bit short (10 hours or so?), world at war was pretty shit (what with the invisible walls, but the japs were pretty awesomely in your face, I'll give it that), modern warfare 2 was meh. I mean, seriously, 5-6 hours? what the fuck?

Medal of Honor wasn't quite on the CoD level, but it was an okay romp I suppose.

Brothers at Arms brought some tactics into the mix, but I didn't really like the console influences, even if they weren't as visibly present as they have been in other titles.

farcry 1 was okay (it had long viewdistances), farcry 2 was ruined for me with DRM. Not that the demo enticed me to overcome my hate for DRM.

Mass effect was pretty good, mass effect 2 was also pretty okay (although I didn't play through it 2-3 times like I did ME1). I'd still call that a win for this decade.

Wolfenstein 3D was an awesome game back in the day, but probably won't last today. Same goes for doom, doom2, heretic, hexen etc, even if I did spend literally years playing those games. Quake, Quake 2, quake 3 arena were good because they were moddable (which is where I spent most of my time, playing or fiddling with mods), not because they were that good games in and of themselves. Quake4 never really left an impression on me. Doom3 was scary for about 30 minutes, then it got way too predictable. FEAR from monolith did the horror game so right, however. I'd love to get more from them. Wolfenstein (the new one) was pretty annoying overall.

Having said that, I just fired up Serious Sam HD, which is basically a reimagination of Doom, only with proper 3D and high resolution. It was awesome.

Sim city 1-4 was good, sim city societies was god-awful. I was in on the CitiesXL beta, and I really hoped it would be a better sim city, but they fucked that up by having a balancing issue (at least when I bothered to play), and the fact it had to be online.

Civilization 1-4 was good/awesome, I'm not so sure about civ:revolution, and the jury's out on civ5.

I haven't played many of the total war games, but a friend of mine says they also went from awesome to not quite good with the last two iterations.

Grand Prix Legends was awesome (even if it could've had a few improvements on the engine side, mainly just removal of a few bugs), I spent probably 2 years playing that game. I liked the physics in nascar racing 2002/2003, which had me racing on nürburgring for a year there as well. GTR was okay, but the physics seemed a bit off, GTR2 was more of the same, live for speed had me playing almost constantly for 3 years I think. Tried forza once or twice, didn't like it. Tried gran tourismo 3 or 4 (I forget), and wasn't really impressed with anything except the graphics.

Has any game really one-upped Syndicate?

Has any game really one-upped openttd? Its graphics haven't changed, but it's still an awesome time-waster, and I'll probably have a serious problem once they get cargo destination in there. That's seriously the only feature I'm waiting for in that game that I can think of right now. Actually, come to think of it, there's simutrans, but that's also made by a very small team.

Sub games I don't think have much gotten better than silent hunter 3 either, mostly because ubisoft insists on releasing them with massive bugs, or in the latest iteration, hideous DRM.

There are very few flight sims being made, but as this genre improved, it probably got a narrower and narrower niche. Shit happens.

Platform games have moved on to mobiles, haven't they?

I'm just going to stop now, but while there are still gems being made today (I'd be silly to say there weren't), the general trend seems to me to be more glitz, less gameplay, less fun, and less of a chance I'll even consider buying a game.

In this environment I suppose EA's idea of making "small demos" for sale at a lower price makes some sort of sense, but I can't help but think that it's still going in the wrong direction. I'm still thinking they're trying to force the market to support larger development teams, when it's not really required for making fun games.

Fake edit: I'd completely forgotten about games like full throttle, gabriel knight, C&C, warcraft, descent and myst. God I spent so many hours writing down clues in Myst, I even spent time away from the computer just looking over the notations and trying to figure out what they meant.

And by god, duke nukem!

Real edit: I forgot about settlers. That has also gone downhill lately with the consoleitis.

[Velorath]

It's almost hard for me to see how someone could have played PC games from the 80s onward and not think that they used to be better.

Maybe, if you're just talking about PC games and not consoles, and just stuff from the 80's/90's vs. PC exclusive games  (so you could ignore most of Bioware and Valve's output, Fallout 3, most FPS games, Psychonauts, etc...) of the past 5-6 years you have a point.  I mean, I'm not sure who benefits from intentionally ignoring good games like L4D, Portal, Mass Effect, etc... because they're on consoles, but whatever, let's run with it.  In that situation I suppose older PC games do have the advantage since they only have to compete with The Witcher, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Mount & Blade, a lot of the WH40k RTS stuff, Starcraft 2, Civ IV, WoW (depending on how far back you want to go), League of Legends, Torchlight, and probably some other stuff I'm missing.

I do find it funny though for all the talk about how gameplay was better, that 1995's top games that you listed include two point and click adventure games in Full Throttle and Gabriel Knight (which were fun games for the time but by no means an example of great gameplay), 2 RTS games in Command & Conquer 2 and Warcraft 2 (which many would argue have been outdone gameplay-wise by more recent RTS games including the Dawn of War games, the upcoming Starcraft 2, Company of Heroes, etc...) and Myst (which was actually originally released in 1993).

Nothing against Full Throttle, but if you want to try to convince people of the superior gameplay 1995 had to offer, that's not exactly an example I'd go running to since it had pretty standard gameplay for its genre.

[Velorath]

call of duty 4 was awesome, Modern warfare was okay

Which is it?

[tgr]

call of duty 4 was awesome, Modern warfare was okay

Which is it?

Sigh. You're right, I made a bit of a mistake there. CoD4 and modern warfare is the same game, but for some reason I separated it into two games. I'll stand by the classification, however, since it was awesome (especially on LAN parties with 5v5), yet it was okay. The gameplay that was there was awesome, but the game was getting a bit on the short side, which detracts a bit. W@W and MW2 were the most downers in the series.

Portal isn't "a console game", though, is it? I didn't even know it was released on the 360, but seems like it was. Actually, portal reminded me of another great game, "The Incredible Machine". Any equivalent to this that's available on the PC? I would absolutely love a more advanced and realistic version of that.

Also, Lemmings and Worms.

STALKER: SoC is actually a good game, once they got rid of the bugs. Great atmosphere. S:CS I think was ruined by the tages protection with a limit of 5. S:CoP only has a disc check, I keep meaning to pick that up. I'll probably have to do that later today, while I remember it.

I was going to say I should check Company of Heroes out, but I think I see why I haven't done so. A quick google shows it has/had issues with its DRM. It doesn't matter if it's a good game, when DRM drags it into the muck.

One great example I can think of that underlines one of the major problems with today's PC gaming. Compare ArmA2 and OpFlash2, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Actually, I think I can summarize what I think is the problem with PC gaming today into 3 simple issues.
1) DRM. It has killed 90% of my desire to buy new games, and I always google a game before buying it, to check for DRM.
2) Consoleitis. Cutting of classical PC features, restrictions on what you can do with the game afterwards, controls and interface that are clearly not designed to be as good as it can get, but adapted from the console's restrictions.
3) Much larger teams than before, for what? I don't really think OpFlash2 delivers more content than ArmA2. In fact, it delivers less content than the first OpFlash, and I dare say less than ArmA and ArmA2 as well.