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[broncobuster]

Beastcast longer than the Bombcast this week. GBEast won.

 

[LiK]

no Bakular. commence whining!

 

[Backfoggen]

I just got excited for the NX launch not because of the console, but because of the GB livestream.

 

[TheMrPliskin]

also visiting Gaming has warned me to have popcorn ready for when No Man's Sky's price is announced.

if it's $60 (it will be), people are going to lose their goddamn minds

Oh God, I hadn't even considered this. It's going to be beautiful.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

There are 2 types of threads I should never visit on the gaming side. Threads about devs removing stuff from games and threads about piracy.

I keep going in thinking it's going to be hilarious, and I always come out a little sad. I always fall for it.

This is way too true. It's always just depressing.

 

[Brashnir]

also visiting Gaming has warned me to have popcorn ready for when No Man's Sky's price is announced.

if it's $60 (it will be), people are going to lose their goddamn minds

I eagerly await the day one user reviews bitching about the price.

 

[yami4ct]

Yeah it's insane. "Yeah I know the game has incredible story telling, great characters, excellent writing, beautiful art, but at the end of the day the combat is mediocre so the game is literal garbage"

People resorting to hyperbole sucks, but I do think the repetitive combat is a major issue in the Witcher 3. The world and writing are top fucking notch, but the act of playing the game can be boring and tedious. I don't think that makes the game garbage by any stretch, but I do think it keeps the game purely 'great' as opposed to amazing.

there's a lot of people shutting down arguments in that Witness thread, but I'm genuinely curious if the high rate of piracy is due to "I have no idea what this game is and $40 is a lot of money for me."

Like, I think there's genuine discussion to be had there about price point versus not really explaining what someone is buying other than some vague notion of puzzles, but it's not going to happen in that thread.

anyway it's a pc game too and it's too early for Blow to be freaking out. give it 6 months and see if it's still disappointing sales-wise.

Price has always been a lame excuse for piracy for me. There are tons of user impressions and reviews as well as video content to give you an idea of what the game is. On top of that, there's Steam refunds now. No real reason to resort to piracy unless the game isn't legally for sale in your territory.

Like, if you think after impressions that the price is still too high for you, wait for a sale. You don't get to dictate the price and try to play the game at launch. Those are diametrically opposed ideas.

 

[Kelas]

Wow, you're fast!



You're fast, too!

I've been refreshing the podcast page every ten mins since vinny said it would be up and got lucky

I'm glad they usually have it out at an exact time because the wait to post the thread was killing me.

 

[yami4ct]

also visiting Gaming has warned me to have popcorn ready for when No Man's Sky's price is announced.

if it's $60 (it will be), people are going to lose their goddamn minds

I saw someone in The Witness thread say they refuse to pay more than $20 for digital games.

I wanted to reach through the screen and throttle them.

 

[skLaFarebear]

I've been refreshing the podcast page every ten mins since vinny said it would be up and got lucky

I'm glad they usually have it out at an exact time because the wait to post the thread was killing me.

Now you know how daydream feels.

 

[broncobuster]

there's a lot of people shutting down arguments in that Witness thread, but I'm genuinely curious if the high rate of piracy is due to "I have no idea what this game is and $40 is a lot of money for me."

Like, I think there's genuine discussion to be had there about price point versus not really explaining what someone is buying other than some vague notion of puzzles, but it's not going to happen in that thread.

anyway it's a pc game too and it's too early for Blow to be freaking out. give it 6 months and see if it's still disappointing sales-wise.

Sometimes I question if it's a perception of, say, The Witness is primarily one guy and a team of six, against larger games with team sizes in the hundreds. A $6mil budget vs. 10x that. It moves away from the value of the game experience, to the value of a production. Always see this hangup with indie software, when the content is often richer than AAA retail software. But I suppose the similar hangups over multiplayer games work against this assumption.

 

[Glitchesarecool]

I saw someone in The Witness thread say they refuse to pay more than $20 for digital games.

I wanted to reach through the screen and throttle them.

So he won't be buying games in our digital future then

I can totally get why someone would be hesitant about the $40 but I also think it's super hilarious/sad to see Blow freaking out about piracy like that. I think it'll do more damage to him in the long run because it makes him seem out of touch with how things work on the internet. It's almost an overreaction.

 

[yami4ct]

So he won't be buying games in our digital future then

I can totally get why someone would be hesitant about the $40 but I also think it's super hilarious/sad to see Blow freaking out about piracy like that. I think it'll do more damage to him in the long run because it makes him seem out of touch with how things work on the internet.

As Bandwidth caps in the US tighten and tighten and game sizes get larger, our all digital future looks further and further off. Given I have absolutely garbage internet, I'm OK with that.

As for him freaking out, it didn't seam like a freakout to me. It more just looked like him saying 'hey, this sucks'. I can see being a bit bummed seeing 6+ years of your life taken without paying. It's a fact of life on the internet, but that shouldn't mean devs can't say that it's shitty.

 

[omgkitty]

there's a lot of people shutting down arguments in that Witness thread, but I'm genuinely curious if the high rate of piracy is due to "I have no idea what this game is and $40 is a lot of money for me."

Like, I think there's genuine discussion to be had there about price point versus not really explaining what someone is buying other than some vague notion of puzzles, but it's not going to happen in that thread.

anyway it's a pc game too and it's too early for Blow to be freaking out. give it 6 months and see if it's still disappointing sales-wise.

As much as I hate it, I can completely see why the price sticks with people. It's a puzzle game with a very colorful art style with no combat. If you're just a normal dude who just play's games sometimes, you're going to see that and think "Why would I spend $40 on that?" There have been numerous people on GAF complaining about the price point as well, and I assume most users on here are at least somewhat educated enough to know what they're actually getting there, but it still happens.

If a game is getting a lot of buzz and is near the top of the new releases like The Witness is, I could see it being very easy for someone to see that price and justify just pirating it. It doesn't matter that it's from "the guy who made Braid." Braid was a $15 game on XBL and is a much easier cost to justify as just trying it out, and it also had a demo. The only argument I don't get is the "I'll wait for a boxed copy!" 99% of all PC games are digital only now. This weird disconnect of console users expecting a disc release for any game over $20 is absurd.

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

I saw someone in The Witness thread say they refuse to pay more than $20 for digital games.

I wanted to reach through the screen and throttle them.

 

[stump sock]

It's not the number of the price that I'm wondering about though. it's that even after reading you guys talking about the game and listening to the Bombcast I'm not entirely sure what about the game makes it so much more than a series of puzzles. I can only imagine what other people think about it. I'll impulse buy things I'm not sure about for sure, but there's a threshold to that. I'm 100% aware that this is probably worth that amount of money. but I don't know why, and that would give me pause.

my main reason for not buying it right now is just that there's too many other games for me to play right now.

lol

 

[Archaix]

I saw someone in The Witness thread say they refuse to pay more than $20 for digital games.

I wanted to reach through the screen and throttle them.

That's about where I am. There's a significant loss in value when you don't have the opportunity to sell a game later, or generally try the game first. There are too many cheaper options available to bother spending more than $20 like once a year.

 

[tuxfool]

So he won't be buying games in our digital future then

I can totally get why someone would be hesitant about the $40 but I also think it's super hilarious/sad to see Blow freaking out about piracy like that. I think it'll do more damage to him in the long run because it makes him seem out of touch with how things work on the internet. It's almost an overreaction.

Except it was a one off twitter comment. Nobody was freaking out, but it was perfect scaffolding for a clickbait article.

 

[Glitchesarecool]

I've also seen a lot of people say they'll just wait for it to appear on PS+ which confuses me, because they also act like it's a free game when it comes up there.

Except it was a one off twitter comment. Nobody was freaking out, but it was perfect scaffolding for a clickbait article.

Twitter strikes again then. Whoops.

 

[LiK]

That's about where I am. There's a significant loss in value when you don't have the opportunity to sell a game later, or generally try the game first. There are too many cheaper options available to bother spending more than $20 like once a year.

whatever works for you. I'm not gonna bash people for wanting to save money. lots of people don't wanna pay more than $40 for AAA games so whatevs.

 

[stump sock]

Except it was a one off twitter comment. Nobody was freaking out, but it was perfect scaffolding for a clickbait article.

a one-off twitter comment saying he fears for his financial future is a pretty clear statement, imo, even if it's exactly the kind of comments those sites live for

also I wait for almost everything to go on sale in every aspect of my life. even groceries. I'm sure that probably sucks for individual developers or companies that I spend less in individual places (but the same amount overall), but too bad?

 

[Archaix]

whatever works for you. I'm not gonna bash people for wanting to save money. lots of people don't wanna pay more than $40 for AAA games so whatevs.

Christ, for the average AAA game my price drops to $7.50

 

[yami4ct]

It's not the number of the price that I'm wondering about though. it's that even after reading you guys talking about the game and listening to the Bombcast I'm not entirely sure what about the game makes it so much more than a series of puzzles. I can only imagine what other people think about it. I'll impulse buy things I'm not sure about for sure, but there's a threshold to that. I'm 100% aware that this is probably worth that amount of money. but I don't know why, and that would give me pause.

my main reason for not buying it right now is just that there's too many other games for me to play right now.



lol

I want to play The Witness really badly, but I know I have too much to get through from like now through March, so I won't bite. It's hard not to. I'm sure I'll save at least $10 by waiting, but had it hit like 2 months ago when I was pretty open, I would've bought it instantly.

 

[LiK]

Christ, for the average AAA game my price drops to $7.50

LOL, that's fine. Steam sales are awesome.

 

[yami4ct]

I've also seen a lot of people say they'll just wait for it to appear on PS+ which confuses me, because they also act like it's a free game when it comes up there.

There's an inherent idea that seems now built into the playstation community that all indy games will and should be free on PS+. That is probably the most frustrating thing of all.

That's about where I am. There's a significant loss in value when you don't have the opportunity to sell a game later, or generally try the game first. There are too many cheaper options available to bother spending more than $20 like once a year.

There's a difference to me between 'I like to save money' and 'digital games can't have value over say $20'. Sure, games might lose value to you by not being physical, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't charge more than a certain amount if the game experience can justify that cost. That race to the bottom is going to end up hurting a lot of indie developers long term. I don't want all game marketplaces to end up like the App Store.

 

[tuxfool]

a one-off twitter comment saying he fears for his financial future is a pretty clear statement, imo, even if it's exactly the kind of comments those sites live for

Sure. However, as per usual, nuance goes to die on twitter.

 

[Incandenza]

It's not the number of the price that I'm wondering about though. it's that even after reading you guys talking about the game and listening to the Bombcast I'm not entirely sure what about the game makes it so much more than a series of puzzles. I can only imagine what other people think about it. I'll impulse buy things I'm not sure about for sure, but there's a threshold to that. I'm 100% aware that this is probably worth that amount of money. but I don't know why, and that would give me pause.

my main reason for not buying it right now is just that there's too many other games for me to play right now.

Yeah, you could dig through my post history and find me saying pretty much exactly this about a week ago. Now that I've actually played it I can say that assuming the quality of the first 8-ish hours are representative of the rest of the game it's easily worth $40, hell it's easily worth $60, but I definitely had to take that risk up-front to find out.

FWIW the game doesn't appear to be like Fez where there's some secret game hidden beneath the surface. It is kinda just a series of puzzles; they're just extraordinarily creative puzzles that are revealed to you in a rewarding and unique way.

 

[Sakwoff]

Dan's writing is always so full of "writing class 101" phrases, it's endearing. :3

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

Yeah, you could dig through my post history and find me saying pretty much exactly this about a week ago. Now that I've actually played it I can say that assuming the quality of the first 8-ish hours are representative of the rest of the game it's easily worth $40, hell it's easily worth $60, but I definitely had to take that risk up-front to find out.

FWIW the game doesn't appear to be like Fez where there's some secret game hidden beneath the surface. It is kinda just a series of puzzles; they're just extraordinarily creative puzzles that are revealed to you in a rewarding and unique way.

eh, i've heard that there's definitely more to the game than what it initially lets on, kinda like braid.

 

[justjim89]

Y'all ever get into a phase where you're not playing games and you feel guilty about it? Like, "Fuck, I should be playing more games!" After getting headaches from every time I played The Witness and kinda giving up on it, these past few days I just haven't wanted to play anything.

What I'm saying is The Witness killed video games.

 

[FStop7]

So he won't be buying games in our digital future then

I can totally get why someone would be hesitant about the $40 but I also think it's super hilarious/sad to see Blow freaking out about piracy like that. I think it'll do more damage to him in the long run because it makes him seem out of touch with how things work on the internet. It's almost an overreaction.

You try dedicating 8 years of your life and all of your money to creating something memorable then get back to us on how you feel seeing it being stolen in quantity the first week of its release.

Y'all ever get into a phase where you're not playing games and you feel guilty about it? Like, "Fuck, I should be playing more games!" After getting headaches from every time I played The Witness and kinda giving up on it, these past few days I just haven't wanted to play anything.

What I'm saying is The Witness killed video games.

No. In fact the further I get away from it the less I miss it. It's about 50% due to the industry's heading down the path of being low key gambling and the other 50% is due to gamers.

I'm happy to play around in Kerbal and leave the rest of it behind. X-Com 2's the only remaining release this year that I'm remotely interested in.

 

[KingKong]

Vinny is really on so far on the beastcast, I think he might have had too much caffeine

 

[ratcliffja]

I want to play The Witness really badly, but I know I have too much to get through from like now through March, so I won't bite. It's hard not to. I'm sure I'll save at least $10 by waiting, but had it hit like 2 months ago when I was pretty open, I would've bought it instantly.

Same here. It coming right after the Steam Winter Sale probably hurt it a lot. Many PC gamers probably have a very large backlog now, and if not, then they probably wouldn't be the type to spend $40 on a mysterious puzzle game without a ton of advertising. I just can't justify spending $40 right now when I still have Grim Fandango, The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The Longest Journey, Tales of Monkey Island, Ni No Kuni, Red Dead Remastered, Transformers Devastation, Life Is Strange, Undertale, Axiom Verge, and Ori and the Blind Forest left to finish, which doesn't even include games that are ongoing like Cities: Skylines, Besieged, Prison Architect, Super Mario Maker, and Rogue Legacy. I really wish I had more time in the day.

 

[Frith]

blows last 3 tweets form 4 hours ago:

The Witness is still hangin' out on the Steam top 10 with the brand new AAA games (it is the only non-AAA in the top 10 right now!)

I am glad so many people are enjoying the game and I think we will be able to make something of comparable intricacy next!

(And yeah, we should be able to do it in way less than 7 years next time).

so i think its nothing to worry about hes clearly saying they have made the money back and can keep on, and i must say im delighted. maybe i'm a pretentious arse but i find jblow incredibly genuine even though his square peg round hole vibe seems to piss everyone off. maybe i will go off the witness but i'm 267

Spoiler

+51+1

puzzles in and its just perfect i want them to keep making more games.

 

[LiK]

blows last 3 tweets form 4 hours ago:



so i think its nothing to worry about hes clearly saying they have made the money back and can keep on, and i must say im delighted. maybe i'm a pretentious arse but i find jblow incredibly genuine even though his square peg round hole vibe seems to piss everyone off. maybe i will go off the witness but i'm 267

Spoiler

+51+1

puzzles in and its just perfect i want them to keep making more games.

he replied to me that PSN sales are about the same as Steam. pretty cool

 

[ratcliffja]

The funny thing is that I found Braid to be fairly overrated, but I do think it was an important step in getting indies legitimized. Everything I hear about The Witness sounds right up my alley, though, aside from a few annoyances like having to take a while to redo a puzzle.

 

[yami4ct]

The funny thing is that I found Braid to be fairly overrated, but I do think it was an important step in getting indies legitimized. Everything I hear about The Witness sounds right up my alley, though, aside from a few annoyances like having to take a while to redo a puzzle.

That's me completely. I didn't hate Braid, but I found it to just be slightly clever. I didn't find it to be a revelation.

As someone who adores weird Myst-like puzzle games like The Room, The Witness sounds amazing.

 

[Archaix]

There's an inherent idea that seems now built into the playstation community that all indy games will and should be free on PS+. That is probably the most frustrating thing of all.



There's a difference to me between 'I like to save money' and 'digital games can't have value over say $20'. Sure, games might lose value to you by not being physical, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't charge more than a certain amount if the game experience can justify that cost. That race to the bottom is going to end up hurting a lot of indie developers long term. I don't want all game marketplaces to end up like the App Store.

I'm not saying it's to save money. I'm saying flat out I don't value digital games anywhere near the $60 (or $40) asking price. They have inherently less value than physical games and I treat them accordingly. I don't necessarily have a problem buying games new, I have a problem with buying digital games new at their full suggested retail price because I disagree that they are worth that price.

Much in the way that I value an always online or multiplayer only title at exactly $0, digital games are not worth more than $15-20 to me with rare exceptions.

 

[Salty Catfish]

I felt fine putting $40 into The Witness both purely for its puzzle content as well as to support people like Blow who are willing to pour years of their time and tons of their own money into their work. 6 hours in and it's been worth every penny.

(And no, opting to pass on it doesn't mean you're against that.)

 

[Xater]

So I'm gonna say this after I have basically seen the whole beta of The Division:

The basic gameplay is fun. They have build a solid third person shooter that incorporates a lot of RPG elements. I also think the idea of the Dark Zone is very fun. I enjoy the risk and reward feeling I get out of it. The potential downfalls I can see for the full game are variety and amount of content. I don't think fighting generic thugs over who knows how many hours would be interesting. I also don't know if just New York is interesting enough of a setting. Most of the streets just feel samey. Content is a concern because I have heard the full game has like 15 story missions and the only one that is in this beta is not that great or long.we also get a glimpse at the side content and most of it is just encounters, which is killing some fools and getting a little bit of loot out of that. There is one side mission and that one was just straight up bad. Had you go to mission markers to find echoes of this one person until you find her. That was it, basically just wandering around the city, following her uninteresting story. So yeah, while I enjoyed the basic pieces of it, I am definitely waiting for reviews to see how the whole thing shakes out.

 

[yami4ct]

I'm not saying it's to save money. I'm saying flat out I don't value digital games anywhere near the $60 (or $40) asking price. They have inherently less value than physical games and I treat them accordingly. I don't necessarily have a problem buying games new, I have a problem with buying digital games new at their full suggested retail price because I disagree that they are worth that price.

Much in the way that I value an always online or multiplayer only title at exactly $0, digital games are not worth more than $15-20 to me with rare exceptions.

People value things differently, and you're free to spend their money how they wish.

No offense to you as a person, I just find this attitude to be crazy. I also hope that more people don't adopt it, because I think that attitude is potentially damaging to the industry.

 

[Glitchesarecool]

You try dedicating 8 years of your life and all of your money to creating something memorable then get back to us on how you feel seeing it being stolen in quantity the first week of its release.

I'm sorry but in this day and age for anyone to make a comment like that seems out of it. Wow, shocking, people are pirating shit. News at 11.

 

[stump sock]

People value things differently, and you're free to spend their money how they wish.

No offense to you as a person, I just find this attitude to be crazy. I also hope that more people don't adopt it, because I think that attitude is potentially damaging to the industry.

my brain just works it out to say "if I wait a few months, I can buy 2 games at half price instead of 1 game now"

it's a pretty compelling argument

 

[yami4ct]

my brain just works it out to say "if I wait a few months, I can buy 2 games at half price instead of 1 game now"

it's a pretty compelling argument

I don't mind the 'if I wait, I can save money' argument. There is inherent value in playing at launch, and if you choose to wait you lose that and get a discount.

I have a problem with the idea that no matter what they offer, digital games can't be worth more than $20. That just creates an environment that promotes a dangerous race to the bottom and the content suffers for it. See the iOS App Store.

 

[tuxfool]

People value things differently, and you're free to spend their money how they wish.

No offense to you as a person, I just find this attitude to be crazy. I also hope that more people don't adopt it, because I think that attitude is potentially damaging to the industry.

Case in point.The best part is that he is "scared".

 

[Meneses]

I mean, i've paid full price for FFXV's demo + some other disc, so The Witness is practically free by comparison.

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

I'm sorry but in this day and age for him to make a comment like that seems silly. Wow, shocking, people are pirating shit. News at 11.

Developer releases DRM free version of his hotly anticipated game

Developer is surprised that DRM free version of his hotly anticipated game is being shared on filesharing networks.

....


Part of me thinks Blow is just pissing himself (no pun intended) because he underestimated the sales for his game. But, really, he had to have expect SOME of this stuff given the release of the DRM free version and the nature of the internet.

I'm not condoning piracy, btw, i'm just questioning what weird set of expectations he had. Is he bothered that there's piracy happening regarding the witness in general or is it the levels at which the piracy is happening?

I dunno, but the game will be fine regardless. This type of game has a long tail, he'll make his money back before the year is out. He just seems to be hyperventilating a bit given early figures

 

[Curufinwe]

I wouldn't play The Witness if you paid me, but I also wouldn't steal it. I haven't done the pirate thing since I was a poor kid copying Amiga 500 floppies in the early 90s.

 

[yami4ct]

Case in point.The best part is that he is "scared".

Yeah, that's an example of what I'm talking about.

I don't think No Man's Sky would be worth $60 for me, but that's because I am not that interested in what they've shown. Given the work they've put in, the crazy scope of that game and the audience they're selling to, I would absolutely not say that the game can't be worth a $60 MSRP or that that would be the wrong price to start at.

 

[stump sock]

I wouldn't play The Witness if you paid me, but I also wouldn't steal it. I haven't done the pirate thing since I was a poor kid copying Amiga 500 floppies in the early 90s.

I think the last game I pirated (not counting ROMs) was a copy of starcraft in 1998 or something