8-bit DRM-removal patcher program music plays
3 command prompt windows pop up in the background and quickly disappear.
“Fuck. What were those?”
Shhhhhhh…
Just let your main HDD get encrypted.
The fact that the game hasn’t been fully released yet and they are including a DLC if you buy the premium version, is just asking me to pirate it.
From what i’ve seen of the game, it’s not even worth the bandwidth to pirate it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with DLC, and I’m tired of pretending that there is. If you think the base game is over-priced, then by all means complain about that - but if both the base game and the DLC are worth the price they’re asking for it, then there is no harm done (and some advantage) in having modular buying options.
Sure, if the DLC isn’t cut content from the game. That’s the problem. If they have already developed the content, then it should be released with the rest of the game, for the price of the game. DLC, should it be developed at all, should be an expansion beyond the original scope of development funded by the excess profit from the game.
the worst fucking offender at this has to be Mass Effect, and this is coming from someone who deeply loves Mass Effect.
I don’t buy DLC on principle, I will buy a proper expansion but not a DLC, so when I started Mass Effect 3 I didn’t understand what the fuck was going on. I had to google it because the start of the game ties in with a DLC from the second game, what a crock of shit.
Yep big fan is Mass Effect here and I will FOREVER be mad at the Day one DLC for Javik. I finally got him in Legendary Edition and oh my God, he is so essential to so many stories, especially Thesia mission. Like holy shit!
I think the start of Mass Effects 3 they change it based off of if you played the DLC of Arrival. Because from my understanding, Shepard is in jail because they work with Cerberus, whereas if you have the DLC it’s because of the Batarians.
If they have already developed the content, then it should be released with the rest of the game, for the price of the game.
Why? Genuine question. What does it matter to you as a consumer when the content was developed?
If the point you’re actually trying to make is “if the game is developed as a whole, but then content is carved out such that the base game then feels incomplete without it”, then this is already covered: a game which feels incomplete is inherently flawed, and so doesn’t justify the price of a full game. That’s my original point - most people are actually just pissed at inaccurate or unfair pricing, and DLC can enable that (but doesn’t have to), so they misdirect their anger to all DLC instead.
When a company actually exists that utilizes your view of DLC, then it might be a valid criticism of the phrasing; but zero day one DLC released for any game has been anything but carving up a complete product into an incomplete main product and several DLCs to increase the price without increasing the price. Oblivion was the first example of this. Horse Armor was already developed.
When a company actually exists that utilizes your view of DLC, then it might be a valid criticism of the phrasing
No, that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make - “every example of X that has existed so far is Y” does not imply “by definition, X is provably and definitively always Y”.
You can claim that all DLC that has ever existed is predatory and exploitative (I suspect there are counter-examples; but, fine, whatever, not relevant to my point). You can say that, because of past performance, you are disinclined to trust future examples of DLC or give them the benefit of the doubt. That is all reasonable. But you can’t conclude “because all DLC so far has been bad, the concept of DLC as a whole is bad and can never be used well”.
As a super-simple example - here are some prime numbers: 5, 11, 37. Are all prime numbers odd? I can give you a bunch more examples if you want!
Day 1 DLC, no matter how optional it might be in practicality, is 100% a tactic to make people feel like they need to pay more to get the “complete” version of the game.
“_Every person who has ever done in the past, has done it with and it had _” does not imply “_The only reason anyone could possibly ever do is with to achieve _”. That’s a valid reason to be cautious, but not a reason to make blanket statements about an entire category of thing.
EDIT: for Day1 DLC in particular, a totally valid and non-exploitative reason for it is “we had a release date that we absolutely had to hit (because of marketing, contracts, etc.), which necessitated calling a production halt well in-advance of the release date for QA and testing - but instead of moving on to the next project, developers worked on more stuff for the same game. If that was too complex or didn’t work out, we could drop it and no-one would complain; but if we’d kept developing it in the base game, and resulted in a slipped release date, there would be hell to pay”
I dont think you’re thinking about this right. Stuff like DLC has never been funded from profits of a specific game, that’s not how company finances work. They may decide to create an expansion or extension of a product they weren’t planning if a product does better than expected, but a lot of time, it’s too late by then and you’ve missed the wave to capitalize on the success. Most things like this are planned pretty early on based on the projected success. The base game and the DLC might even have separate budgets.
And all that to say, the DLC shouldn’t factor into your evaluation of a game at all. If you would like the amount of content in the game if the DLC never existed, then they added enough. You aren’t owed more content because of when they developed it, that’s absurd thinking. And if it for some reason got coded into law, it wouldn’t make anyone add more content to the base game, they’d just wait until after the game is released to start developing it. Which would make for a worse experience for both the company and consumer.
I agree with the person you replied to: if a game feels incomplete, then that’s the problem. I’m not going to pay for an incomplete game, regardless if it has DLC or not. But if a game is complete and I enjoy it, I’ll pay for DLC to get more experience from it and it doesn’t matter to me when the DLC is developed.
It’s great to have someone else who gets it!
Yeah I don’t understand this mindset. It’d be like saying it shouldn’t be allowed for cars to have different versions with more features because they were developed together. DLC is supposed to be an additional feature like lane assist or something. You can get just the base version for cheaper or you can get a version with more features but you pay more. If the product sucks without the extra features than the problem is an incomplete product.
I get that we want to pay less and get more, but they can’t give away stuff for free.
Sorry I can’t hear you over the noise of downloading DLC for free from the internet superhighway
Meanwhile, I’m just happy to see quality content on GamePass again.
Right? Looks like their Bethesda purchase was the best investment for new content. Starfield, Hi Fi Rush, the Quake II remaster (we don’t talk about Redfall).
You misspelled cash cow content
Oh shit this is good news, I looked at it yesterday and it’s $120 here and instantly thought fuck that I’ll wait until it’s cracked
What kind of country are you in that a game cost $120!?
Australia, they love price gouging us here. Just went and checked steam again, the premium version is $170…
How much is a decent middle class income in Australia? I’d say it’s about $45,000 per year in the US.
Average is 90k, median salary is 80k
So higher relative income in Australia.
How much is 4 liters of milk and 4 liters of petrol in Australia? 4 liters because that about equals a US gallon which is our usual measurement for those things.
In the US right now a gallon of milk is about $2.65 and a gallon of petrol is about $3.80.
I donno about cow milk maybe $5-6 is my guess, petrol is like $7-8
So it seems like the scale is just higher in Australia. As of today 1 USD = 1.55 AUD
The real cost of gas and milk is the environment
Yeah I have Game Pass so I was pretty keen to play the early access but when I found out it was $170, just to play 5 days earlier? No fucking thank you.
I’m spending that money on an SSD because my partner bought the deluxe version and running it on my computer is arse. My computer isn’t even that bad!
Just curious. It’s it because of tax/vat or just everything being expensive?
There’s a lot that goes into an Australian release. Shipping all those bits to the bottom of the world is outrageously expensive. All of the map geometry has to be altered to be right-side up there. The physics math has to be re-coded to deal with -1g gravity. Somebody has to be paid to go through all of the scripts to replace every instance of “jelly” with “marmite”. Asset loading code has to be changed to compensate for the Coriolis effect.
All of this adds up to expensive Au ports, the new costs often overshadowing the title’s original development costs.
Close, it’s really because you need to flip all those bits upside down so they can be read properly by the computers down there.
Good one 😂
Best comment here by far lmao
How much is game pass on Australia?
This site says $11.95AUD, the equivalent of $7.72USD.
As for the $170 premium version, that’s $170AUD. Australia has 10% GST (VAT) so 170/110*100 = $154.55AUD excluding tax.
$154AUD is $99.64USD.
They aren’t getting gouged, well, at least not worse than US customers.
thanks
Probably a country where the dollars are worth a different amount.
Metric dollars Vs imperial
Eh. By the time I have hardware that can actually play Starfield, it’ll be a GoG giveaway.
Maybe I’m just old but $70 base is too much for any game let alone one from a studio with known issues
Games have been the same price for over thirty years, they’ve not changed with inflation and production costs have skyrocketed. To an extent the increased market has helped keep costs down for the consumer but it’s not unreasonable to see prices shift upwards.
What about the cost of disc media that’s absolutely disappeared? That was a huge chunk of the overhead. Logistics to get the copies to all the stores, etc.
Now it’s just electricity and servers to download from.
Do you ever notice that no one ever talks about all the advancements that saved money? Of course not, cause then they’d never be able to justify continually hiking the prices up.
Distribution platforms like Steam charge 30% for their service.
Lots of games today force some sort of online element (ex. Cloud saves, workshop content, multiplayer, etc.) I wonder how much that costs them to maintain. I can’t imagine it’s that significant if they are dealing with multiple single player games.
Probably not as much as the money they derive from the live service model.
Businesses do what makes them the most money.
I am genuinely not trying to sound like a studio apologist, because there are myriad reasons to be upset with them, but y’all need to think these arguments through a little better. I haven’t pulled up any numbers, but are we really going to pretend that the cost of producing a game in 1990 is even remotely comparable to that of a modern day AAA game? The fact that video game costs have remained relatively steady and even decreased in some cases for decades should be astonishing.
Pick a different argument.
Pick a non-strawman argument and then we can have a discussion. They had different methods of creating games yes, but were they easier back then than they are now? I don’t think so, they had people inventing the fucking wheel of what could be possible and we still had a consistent price tag with a FEATURE COMPLETE package. They didn’t have as many workers as they did because all of the programming went to those individual developers to figure out. The amount of work is more intricately spread out in these bigger studios, but the passion and creativeness was more alive back in the early days. None of it was automated with fully polished dev tools and externally hired language teams.
The only strawman argument here is yours. Most people wouldn’t play a game released today if it looked like Pong and had the same gameplay features. Also, there are a lot more wheels to invent today.
I’m not just talking about Pong, and that is another good example of a strawman argument ironically.
How are you missing that you are literally comparing a team of 5 programmers and artists to games made by 500+ people?
I mean seriously you can read, that alone should be enough.
Steam is more expensive than discs.
There’s no way in hell that paying steam is more expensive than buying dics, putting your game on those discs, putting those discs in cases, and then paying to ship those cases all over the world.
Know how I know? Because businesses do whatever is the most profitable, and clearly digital distro is cheaper since we’ve been pushing for it since it was invented.
The customer base has increased more than a thousandfold. If anything prices should go down.
Yeah my parents were paying $60 for NES games for me… Which is why I had like 3 NES games. The only reason game aren’t $180 now is competition… And reproducibility vs size of market… And physical media is cheap or non-existent. Ok there are a few reasons, but still…
Eh, to me I usually just convert it to $ per hour of enjoyment. Will I get 10 hours of enjoyment? 100? 1000?
If it’s a great game and I think I’ll get 1000 hours out of it, even if it’s $70 that’s like $0.07 per hour.
Compare that to paying $30 to go see a 1.5 hour movie at the theater and you’re doing pretty darn good I think. Even if you only get 10 hours out of it thats $7 an hour for entertainment vs the $20 an hour for a movie.
I’ve paid 15 dollars to play risk of rain 2 for 500 hours. I gurantee you there is no triple A studio in the world that would get that many hours out of me nor would their game be even double that price
Fair expectations from a complete adult /s
what’d you mean?
Smash Melee cost $86.48 on release when accounting for inflation.
I wouldn’t buy smash bros for 90 bucks either
You’re missing the point. Games are cheaper now then they were then.
So are wages
As opposed to the $60 they have been since the NES was the hot new console?
I don’t buy $60 games either mate
I always found it kinda funny how gamers rage about the poor quality of games, but bugs with Bethesda is almost an expectation
Do you really get that vibe? I feel like a lot of people refer to Bethesda games as a buggy mess. There’s the whole Bugthesda thing.
I think all the mods designed to improve performance have helped the reputation a bit but I still wouldn’t play Fallout New Vegas on a PS3 due to the bugs.
I see both. For some reason there are still a lot of people who like their games despite the bugs and will defend them very vocally. I understand liking what you like (even if I strongly disagree) but it never makes sense to say an obvious issue isn’t an issue
A lot of the time I think they are overlooking the bugs and focusing on the game as a whole. Kind of with the mentality that once you get past the buggy husk you get the tasty kernels inside.
Fallout 3 (through Steam) was unplayable without mods for a while because Games For Windows Live was used as DRM and was shutdown years ago but if you checked the Steam reviews a significant amount of people omitted this or were fine with the game (mostly) working once you got over that hurdle.
Personally I didn’t think this was unacceptable considering the GOG version worked fine but it goes to show the mentality people have.
If you can’t afford Starfield, how can you afford a computer capable of running it?
Where do you think all my money went
Chuckles in dark ski mask.
In my case, it came with the computer. I still haven’t even decided if I want to play it or give it to a friend.
Reading all the comments defending a $70 game with zero day DLC is just bewildering. I mean, HOW MUCH of a fucking cuck do you have to be to not only accept it, but to DEFEND it? You people deserve all the shit you get for being peasants. The rest of us sail the high seas, YARR!
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How much of a toddler do you have to be to not understand that video games were 50-60 dollar for decades? Also, can you give a single example of something that costs $70 but can entertain you for 500 hours? I don’t believe that’s a thing outside a good video game.
This whole “dollar per hour” crap is just another simp tactic that nobody is buying anymore. But hey, if you wanna talk costs, how about the fact that we’ve been paying $60 for games for around two decades now despite the fact that physical distribution and media creation isn’t a thing anymore? Or how about the fact that for most games, we’re renting them since they’re locked by invasive DRM? How about DLCs being a standard now and games being obviously incomplete? GAAS? Shouldn’t that be cheaper since it’s basically gone the next day?
If you want variation towards more expensive, why aren’t you considering all the factors that make shit cheaper? The answer? Because you’re simping hard like some 13 year old console fanboy. The only reason the megacorps that make AAA games need that much money is because they’ve fallen into the classic trap of having too much upkeep and flab.
Indies have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that you can make awesome games with much smaller budgets.
In my lifetime rent has quadrupled, video games have gone up 40% (only very recently). Yeah you’re right that the likely $10 max of distribution costs going away definitely ought to have made games $5 brand new despite inflation making every thing else insanely way more expensive.
Only a fucking baby could mistake being completely rational for being a sImP. Fuck every single corporation. They’re all scum. Fuck irrational idiots harder though.
I haven’t spent over $60 on a game maybe ever so try not to base your entire lifestyle on buying the world’s most expensive videogames as soon as they will take your money, then complain about it because mommy is no longer paying and you have to work for money or whatever
And totally yeah let’s just ignore how easy it is to find images of NES games going for $90 in 1987 and that then dev teams were 1-7 people while now that number might be hundreds of people.
The fact that you’re this mad and this unreasonable tells me you’re unhinged for some other reasons as well and you probably need a lot of therapy. Either that or go back to reddit where interactions like this are considered normal.
Man, your simping and long diatribes are really amusing as hell. Me mad? No, not really. I actually enjoy calling out simps like you and watching them trip over themselves trying to white knight hard for corpos who don’t give a shit about you as customers. Please, do write more, I’m sure someone will make this into a great copypasta someday.
You still sound really upset. Maybe if you ask mommy she will buy you some gamey wamies
Not slightly surprised there wasn’t a shred of a response to the actual logic I laid out lol
It sounds like YOU are 13 years old.
Ooof, I hit a nerve there didn’t I? It’s OK though, I’m just some rando on the internet, no need to get worked up about it. Go talk to some friends, touch grass, you’ll be fine kid.
13 years old indeed…
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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
You clearly don’t understand development if you are so worked up over day one DLC.
Development has always worked in stages.
Imaging being so tilted over a small DLC meanwhile games like BG3 get “released” after 4 years of development which the largest team seen on any one game and it was still basically unfinished mess.
I understand greed perfectly well. I mean, you could write a comedy sketch about it at this point. “No Sir, we absolutely did not create these absolutely fabulous pieces of gear during the development of the game. Nope, not even a pixel! And this gun? This terrific looking and powerful gun that makes all the guns in the game seem meek? Totally something our gun designer thought of when he was taking a piss the SECOND after we stopped development. And this quest line that perfectly fits together with most of the game and completely changes the introduction of our sequel? Well…that’s just us being VERY good writers and not at all greedy bastards who cut off important bits of the story so we can nickle and dime you for it!”
Then you would have someone coming in and smack them around with a trout, because reasons.
Oh and in case you think I’m hyperboling, the examples in the sketch are all taken from actual bullshit that’s happened already.
I never pre order games
I never buy games full price
And I definitely do not buy Bethesda games before playing them and seeing how broken they are and if I enjoy them.
I never ever bought a Bethesda game before cracking it and playing for at least a few hours. Bethesda just does not deserve it.
And I definitely do not buy Bethesda games before playing them and seeing how broken they are and if I enjoy them.
I never ever bought a Bethesda game before cracking it and playing for at least a few hours. Bethesda just does not deserve it.
I mean if a demo isn’t being offered what else can you do?
Buy it on Steam, play for 2 hours, full refund if unhappy? Trying out games has never been easier these days.
That said, I’m in full support of pirating first and buying if you continue playing. I probably have hundreds of hours in Skyrim, but it only shows a few hours on Steam because I did exactly that 😋
Besides the other points already brought up regarding this, 2 hours is just too short. Games like this often have long startup times, long intros, etc… and it’s just not enough to get a good impression of the game. At least with demos you get a good vertical slice preview of what you’re getting into.
Buy it on Steam, play for 2 hours, full refund if unhappy? Trying out games has never been easier these days.
Weren’t there some issues with people no longer being able to refund games after doing it too many times?
That said, I’m in full support of pirating first and buying if you continue playing. I probably have hundreds of hours in Skyrim, but it only shows a few hours on Steam because I did exactly that 😋
That’s what I did with Hotline Miami. Since then I’ve bought it 5 times. No regrets I love that game.
I don’t buy games full price
20 hours and it’s not so broken
Lol, without reading the caption I just assumed this was a shit post comparing Johnny Depp’s likeliness to Jack Sparrow, and I laughed pretty hard at that.
The real cost isn’t the game. It’s the new computer you’ll need to play it.
Runs on steamdeck…
Playable FPS at 1080 with RTX 3060Ti?
not everyone has a 3060, as of right now im on an rx 6500 xt.
980ti here
That card’s a decade old, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect modern big budget games to run well on it
Yes, they don’t, lol. I wish I had decade old money instead
And the time wasted in grinding to get numbers go up.
That’s just life in general
If you don’t want to sail the high seas you can also get it on xbox game pass for like $10 for the month once it’s out for the plebs in like a week.
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Microsoft own Bethesda so I’d rather give them 10 bucks then 120.
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Good. Get a better OS.
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This is the only reason I’m playing a pirated copy. Fuck MSFT for releasing Sept 1st and then punishing any Game Pass users who didn’t want to shell out $35 additional for digital content that isn’t even released. I’ll transfer my saves once my Game Pass version unlocks.
You can transfer your save ?
Can’t transfer saves.
Imagine being so upset that you aren’t getting something you never paid for. Get a fucking grip, kid.
For sure, just some people can be a bit hesitant about downloading a cracked version so I’d rather them give as little money as possible if they still wanna play it.
Mmmm, DRMAAS
It was cracked two hours BEFORE early access launched lmao
That ghost mullet in the second pic, though 😄
The irony
