It’s like buying a tiara for your fetus, before you even buy a crib.
ALSO, MICROTRANSACTIONS = DLC.
Because Steven Crowder doesn’t deserve to be a meme
Ya know, Calvin really has more in common with Crowder than you might think.
They obviously both childish. They’re fundamentally selfish beings. They have incredibly vivid imaginations, but they only ever use them to amuse themselves and reinforce their delusion that they’re the most important person. They believe themselves to be rebels against a banal and suffocating system, but in reality they’re just irritating little shits, constantly acting upon every rogue impulse of their raging ego and id, with no regard for how they’re making life hard for the people who have to live near them.
didn’t like crowder show is dick to all the bros at his work tho?
Imo, Calvin at least is an imaginative, creative individual with an imaginary tiger that frequently gives him shit for his flaws. Kids also notably grow through self absorbed phases while Crowder acts a similar way as an adult.
Calvin is also only six years old, so he has an excuse.
Good point, but Crowder can suck a dick.
I’m pretty sure you’re threatening him with a good time.
His affinity for homoeroticism and drag is even stronger than your average manosphere chud.
Oh, for sure. I forgot that was even him. In twenty or thirty years, this useful meme template will be the entirety of his legacy. I find that funny, so I’ll continue using the template.
Meanwhile, ConcernedApe is out there quietly adding more and more free features to an eight year old game: Stardew Valley. All while working on a completely new title that will release… eh, eventually.
I have no issue with people shipping unfinished products, as long as they’re transparent about it. But using it as a way to lower expectations for a buggy “final” product, while charging more for the updates, is just crummy. At least bundle it in, turn off “early access”, and raise the price appropriately. If it has DLC, the core game is “done” in my book.
Edit: thanks for the robust conversation on this thread.
I’ll add this clarification: clearly there are outliers and exceptions to all this. It’s entirely possible to have something incomplete, and still be worth treating like a full release, DLC and all.
To me, I think the key dividing line is determined by the overall “buginess” or “playability” of the product. If something has broken mechanics or is full of game-destroying bugs, and it negatively impacts the overall fun factor, that’s the case I’m talking about here. As a game’s main job is to package joy for other people, it’s pretty easy to see how a developer or publisher is just seeking a payday at your expense.
I often play a game called Sailwind. Very relaxing, but impressively deep sailing sim. It’s been early access for a couple of years, but the (solo-)dev is active, new features are added all the time. If he would release a paid, cosmetic dlc: I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I think it would be nicer than to “get him a coffee” or sub to his patreon.
What I’m trying to say is: not all early access is bad, not all paid dlc is plain greed. And the combo is not necessarily toxic.
I’ll give you that. Someone up the thread mentioned Dead Cells, which is/was in the same category for a while. I’ll revise my premise a bit, thank you.
I’m so hyped for the new stardew valley update. I’ll absolutely be buying the haunted chocalatier as well.
Same for Wube and Factorio, and Re-Logic and Terraria. I think we’re on the 8th “final patch” for Terraria.
Motion Twin are finally wrapping up the updates of Dead Cells after the 35th (!) one. While they’re working on a board game and an animated series. Now, granted, they released several paid DLCs, but that didn’t stop them from pumping out free updates with content in between them
I’ll give them a pass. The game has been very playable at nearly every pre-release right up through the present. Granted, for a while there was no mid or late game, but what was on offer was relatively bug free and fun.
Minecraft has been going on this model for over a decade, too.
Terraria is a truly extreme case, the developers truly just can’t stop making updates.
Factorio isn’t amazing in this way, but the developers have a lot of integrity - they delivered their plans for 1.0, released some good extra updates, continue fixing bugs, and went to work developing paid DLC. I do suppose the DLC will come with a major update to the base game, but that’s also because they found they needed to make changes and additions for the expansion.
We as gamers who want this are completely outdone by the insane amount of money some people will spend in this market. Change my mind.
PS. I hate the DLC and micro transaction market as they exist today. But they make 1000x the old market so no way anything changes.
I would consider selling something like a soundtrack acceptable but no game content dlc, absolutely.
Fuck that. Why is that acceptable? A soundtrack is a basic part of a game. You’re so used to paying for extra shit that you forgot that options like those are part of the game that you paid for from non bullshit companies.
OST in a straight audio format has never been part of buying the game unless you ripped the files yourself. Be more entitled.
Be more entitled
Lol, whatever. Keep paying for stupid shit I guess. The studios definitely know their market.
I don’t pay for it, my man. If anyone making video game music was talented they’d be making actual music.
Tell us how you feel about Star Citizen.
Actually gotten good recently.
Ok but actually? I’m an original backer with nothing but the original dinky ship and I’m still waiting for a game worth playing for the money I already spent. Haven’t looked in a year or two.
Is squadron 42 even playable end to end yet?
I’m not the one who said it’s good so can’t comment on that part, but sq42 is supposedly feature complete and in the final polishing phase atm.
So the answer is “no”.
Same as always.
Fuck that bigot
Someone needs to make a new template with that bigot photoshoped out
Found it on the Internet
Who is that? I dunno if I’ve ever seen the original and don’t recognize the person
Stephen Crowder, he’s a right winger YouTuber.
It’s from a series where he’d set up a table like this at a university with a right-wing opinion on the front and debate students over it.
And by “debate”, they mean “talk over the other person, make a thousand shitty arguments a minute, and call it a win when the other person gets frustrated and walks away”
In case anybody else is curious, Stephen Crowder is not the same person as David Crowder (stage name, Crowder), a popular Christian musician.
A spouse-abusing right-winger. That’s the key detail at this point.
I’ve never seen a game in early access have dlc, only micro transactions for stuff like cosmetics and boosts. Can you give me an example of dlc on an early access game?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1604030/V_Rising/
I guess you could define the DLC for this game as “microtransactions,” because it’s basically alternate cosmetic stuff, for equipment and housing decorations. But it’s sold under the label of “DLC,” and I don’t care to make a distinction between “microtransactions” and “DLC,” myself. One is a subset of the other.
If they have time to be making decorative extra shit, they should be spending that time working on the core game, which IS NOT FINISHED YET.
You called for a more nuanced take from the other comment thread, but you would put cosmetics and expansions under the same label in this one because you “don’t care to make a distinction” - do you see the issue?
I don’t see any issue. I can have any opinion I want, with or without your permission.
Yes, you can have any opinion you want. And no one needs to take you seriously. Your senseless unhinged rambling speaks plenty for itself.
Fair enough. But I’m still correct, whether you like it or not.
You are insufferable. Hope you enjoy your debate.
You misspelled “correct.”
I’m right. You’re wrong. Pay attention to me and try to learn.
Yes, but if you opinions are hypocritical, they’re free to point that out. It does undermine both you and this discussion.
In this case, there is nuance between cosmetics and expansion pack type dlc. One is obviously more atrocious, but if you’d engage honestly in the debate, you’d find that many people do distinguish between those things. And many people are asking you to provide examples of a game and you point to cosmetics. For many of us, that vastly changes the conversation.
It may not for you, but for us, that nuance matters. And if you’re going to jump on the badwagon in one post extolling the virtues of deeper conversation because otherwise Lemmy will become a sesspit, I dunno, maybe do some of that yourself. Be part of the solution, not the problem.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go see all the nuances other people are discussing.
Use Calvin and Hobbes template or something like this instead
Like I said before, I forgot who that dipshit even was, especially since the template for the meme is so incredibly low-resolution. Hilariously, his actual dipshit sign looked so stupid that I thought it was a fake, when I saw it in the image search, when I went to get the blank one.
He’s a fucking clown, beyond all description.
Holy shit. I’ve always seen this thing pretty low res, never looked closely, and thought that was billy eichner doing a bit from his on the street show or something!
For real. Now that I realize who it is, I can’t see anything but how punchable his fucking smirking face is.
Crowder, Shapiro and Kirk somehow all have the most punchable faces on the planet. Their personalities sure don’t help them.
Y’all keep buyin that shit tho why would they stop
I used to be vehemently against EA games but there are some good ones. Project Zombiod for one. But a big part of the fun of that game is modding it. And the mod scene is expansive and quality, but I understand lots of people not wanting to mod games.
What pisses me off more is “Released” games like RimWorld that are broken as vanilla and require modding to work properly. That shit needs to stay in EA.
I think thor said it best, horse armor made more money than starcraft 2 expansion. Thus was the beginning of shit DLC cash grabs
horse armor made more money than starcraft 2 expansion. Thus was the beginning of shit DLC cash grabs
The most annoying thing about that aspect of the phenomenon is how it’s based completely and entirely on a false premise. When you do some crazy new shit and it takes off like gangbusters, you CAN’T JUST ASSUME THAT IT’S GOING TO BE POPULAR FOREVER.
Sometimes, a new product or service is immediately popular because it’s genuinely a hot seller. The day hotcakes were invented, people probably said they were selling like blowjobs. Then they somehow sold even better than blowjobs, so they became the new idiom. But the thing is, that’s not a guaranteed thing, for every product, and you shouldn’t base the future of your industry on your bullshit assumptions.
The goddamned horse armor sold like crazy because it was a new thing. The potential market for $2.50 worth of micro-content was beyond wide open. Huge numbers of people were ready to go “LOL, I’LL BUY THAT INSTEAD OF A CRUNCHWRAP SUPREME.” That should NOT have been an indicator of further success, in and of itself. But big business motherfuckers don’t want to use actual logic, or even real intuition. They just said to themselves “I really want this to be the new easy way of printing money,” and so they have spent all the following years FORCING that paradigm into existence.
But I think it’s a false paradigm. Nobody talks about the money that’s being left on the table, when such a huge percentage of the industry has been given over to microtransaction-based nonsense. The Battle Royale, MOBA, and Hero Shooter genres are as saturated as they’re going to be. What about people (like myself, for instance) who play absolutely none of those games?
I’ve never played them. I’m never going to play them. I’m not even refraining from playing them because I hate microtransactions. I just dislike them, as genres. They’re not my cup of tea. I play mostly play a mixture of sandbox games, RPGs, single-player action and shooter games, strategy games, and VR games, as well as a few survival/crafting/fighting games, like Terraria/Starbound.
I’m not alone. There are other people like me, who always want more intentional, in-depth content. If anybody doubts the possibility for better games to make money, you only need to look at Baldur’s Gate 3. That game has made shitloads of money. Money that corporate advocates of the “we can just print money with skins and stickers” philosophy can never have access to, unless they also pry open their wallets, and invest in real content.
Stop fucking buying fucking early access fucking games. Companies do shit like this because it’s profitable
There have been many truly amazing early access games though that might not have been made without it (rimworld, factorio, etc)
So glad I got Factorio when it was in EA and before it shot up to twice the price! Incredible game though, I would have gladly paid full release price.
If that was strictly true, I would agree, and I wouldn’t bother talking about it.
But it’s NOT strictly true. There are Early Access developers who actually use the model to get funds for developing games, within reasonable timescales, and without doing exploitative shit.
It’s important for Early Access to exist, because it’s a way for independent developers to exist, completely outside of any big business control. A truly independent developer never has to deal with corporate jackals, breathing down their necks, demanding that they add more microtransactions and gambling into the game. They can make games that are truly outside the mainstream genres, without having to justify themselves to traditional investors.
These are GOOD THINGS. If I truly believed every single Early Access developer was just a scammer, I wouldn’t bother saying any of this. I think Valve needs to get a handle on the system, rather than just letting it twist in the wind, the way they have been. There needs to be a time limit, before a game has to either be released, or else be cut off from further Early Access sales. They need to disallow DLC and other forms of microtransactions, within Early Access games. They need to establish rules about Early Access developers having connections with outside investors, and what exactly would be considered acceptable, within the system.
The developers who use the Early Access program the way it’s supposed to be used are not making massive profits from it. They are paying for the up-front development costs of a game, and hoping that it will turn out to be a big enough success that it will continue to be profitable, after development is complete.
When people do annoying, scam-adjacent shit like selling DLC content for an Early Access game, it fuels opinions like yours. It makes people throw their hands up and say “Early Access is all a scam.” And that fucking sucks. Because if it goes away, there’s no alternative but for indie developers to sign up with traditional corporate psychos, who always try to make games worse.
Just to piggyback off of this/give an example of good usage of early access: to me BG3 was great usage of early access. It stayed there for a long time and actually used the early access to get player feedback to improve the game. When the game finally released the only dlc they had was given for free to everyone who played early access, and it doesn’t really change the gameplay experience at all, it was only stuff like an art book and some references to their older game.
I agree that Steam should regulate early access more. The best buyer’s policy in my opinion is to only buy games you know you’ll enjoy in their current state. Any future features are a bonus.
I had great success that way with Dave the Diver, Subnautica, and Satisfactory.
I’ve avoided buying Kerbal Space Program 2 despite 400 hrs on the original because it still feels like a cash grab with not enough content yet.
Weirdly, if you look at it from a purely price-per-hour-of-enjoyment perspective, the two all-time champions in my library are probably Vampire Survivors and Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades.
You couldn’t pick two more different games, in virtually every aspect. One is a minimalist, top-down autoshooter game that established its own genre. It cost me 3 dollars in Early Access. It has come out of Early Access, with flying colors. I have spent 170 hours in it. It is a poster child for the “came out of Early Access as a huge hit” phenomenon.
The other is a VR-only firearms simulation sandbox game, with a whole bunch of different game modes, thousands of meticulously simulated weapons, and a wiener fixation. It entered Early Access in 2016, cost 20 dollars, and is still in Early Access. I have spend 502 hours in it, and it’s by far my most played VR game. It exemplifies a weird third-way philosophy, where a game is literally constantly updated, throughout the Early Access period, to the point that it really doesn’t matter how long it remains in Early Access, because anyone who even vaguely enjoys it has spent so much time in it, and gotten so much value from it that…well, it really doesn’t matter if it ever releases, in ANY state.
BeamNG.drive is another example of that sort of game. Because I’m a weirdo who plays weird sandbox games, it should be no surprise that I also fuck with that game. Although I didn’t pick it up until a couple months ago.
As an indie dev myself, I really appreciate this take. Spot on.
Same. We’re almost 5 years into an indie project and while the dream is to release as 1.0, the reality is, building games is really fucking hard and going early access brings about a more forgiving mindset from the consumer and enables our team to further invest in the polishing needed to feel good about calling it 1.0. If only we had the bank roll these AAA studios have, but we’re working with pennies and loads of passion to see our dream to fruition.
Nah there are actually good early access game (Palworld, and predecessor come to mind although predecessor is f2p) but one should use caution when buying Early access games
Palworld is pretty good but it is so fucking buggy it actually makes me want to stop playing sometimes and I feel a lot of resentment for having paid for such trash. It will definitely make me more careful to check bug reports and gameplay videos before investing more time and energy into a game in the future.
Bugs I have found so far include:
- Invaders getting stuck really far away from my base and never reaching the base
- Enemies tunneling through the floor and getting stuck there permanently
- Pals being hungry even though the feeder has plenty of food (had to move my feeder to fix it, but still annoying)
- Pals randomly floating in midair and getting stuck there
- Pals getting stuck at the edge of my base and having to pick them up to get them unstuck
- Escape button (in menus) being super flaky (have to press it twice sometimes)
- Click to attack (with melee weapon) sometimes doesn’t work, have to try pressing random buttons to fix it
- Graphics glitches with the pal sphere that I’m holding - randomly flashes between blue and green, so I can’t tell which one I’m about to throw
Controls also suck bigtime. I still keep accidentally throwing pal spheres with Q and I really suck at using 1/3 to switch between pals. They should make it so you have to left click to throw the pal sphere. Should also maybe allow alternative ways of selecting left/right for pals and in menus, other than 1/3. Maybe Ctrl+scroll or something, idk
It also is taking fucking forever to get a gun. I am level 17 and so far do not feel like it’s “Pokemon with guns” at all. I have a shitty spear which is the most powerful melee weapon at my level, yet does almost no damage to level 18+, and a semi-shitty crossbow which is super annoying to get the arrows for (arrows don’t drop from enemies and the grind to manufacture them is super boring)
Get a base and put a fixy in a pen. They drop arrows spheres and coins. No need to farm the arrows. Also lvl 17 is like 3hours of game time Max. So quite early in the game
