How should reviewers handle Splatoon's online being gradually rolled out?

Okay, let's start somewhere simple. Splatoon is getting an updated with maps in the future. How much will this update cost?

... My God. Please, please just re-read this discussion from the start. You're clearly lost.

Splatoon = launch content + August content

- If you spend $30 on Splatoon, you spend $30 for the launch content + August content
- If you get Splatoon for free, you get the launch content and August content for free.
- If you go to the store on May 29th and spend $60 on Splatoon, you just spent $60 on the launch content + August content.
 
Seeing a handful of justifying in this thread, which I expected...some outright praising too, which I don't even understand. The game is clearly not finished, and I think it just speaks to the fact Nintendo needed SOMETHING for Wii U, otherwise it would have gone 6 months without a major release.

Have you even followed the game since its announcement? We're getting all that was advertised day one. The game is finished. The rest will be released regularly to maintain interest.
 
Let's say I have purchased the game sometime between launch and the release of the maps for somewhere between $0 "Yay, I found it on the street!" to $30 "this store is clearing their shelves of old stock" to $60 "I bought this game on day one."

In each one of those instances how much will the maps cost me?

These instances don't exists outside your mind, so I think those instances would cost you some money.
 
Whats gameplay got to do with it? People are attacking the fact the game is clearly in an unfinished state. Doesn't matter how good it plays, if this were any other company they'd also be getting roasted about it. Nintendo is not exempt. In this day and age, good gameplay does not excuse lack of content out of the box, even if there are promises of patches over summer.

Except its is in a publishable state; namely TF2's on launch back in 07. Just not at a price point people want it.
 
I do think it has been mentioned quite offen that this isn't really uncommon. Driveclub, Killer Instinct, Killzone, TF2 etc.

Killzone? When?

And it was shitty when Driveclub did it (and also indicative of a company that clearly wasn't capable of delivering)

And isn't TF2 free? Big difference there
 
Whats gameplay got to do with it? People are attacking the fact the game is clearly in an unfinished state. Doesn't matter how good it plays, if this were any other company they'd also be getting roasted about it. Nintendo is not exempt. In this day and age, good gameplay does not excuse lack of content out of the box, even if there are promises of patches over summer. This sort of thing should not be made to seem acceptable, lest it become standard practice, god forbid.

You're proving what he said. Unless you have played the game, how can you judge whether it's light on content or not. Everyone in here is acting like this game doesn't have a single player
 
You can observe now why the F2P and micro-transaction exists. People want to be lied about the price of a game and pay much more over the time under the impression of a better business. You can observe the consumer in the wild, ladies and gentlemen.
 
I feel like it's less about people sticking around and moreso drawing them back. Like how many people put Mario Kart 8 down but came back for every DLC update?

I know some people that bought MK8 because of the update.
I wonder if Splatoon will be able to pull off something like that.
 
Have you even followed the game since its announcement? We're getting all that was advertised day one. The game is finished. The rest will be released regularly to maintain interest.
They told us 5 maps with additional content rolled out, content locked behind amiibos, no voice chat, and no easy way to play with friends until months after launch from day one?
 
You can observe now why the F2P and micro-transaction exists. People want to be lied about the price of a game and pay much more over the time under the impression of a better business. You can observe the consumer in the wild, ladies and gentlemen.
the fuck
 
They told us 5 maps with additional content rolled out, content locked behind amiibos, no voice chat, and no easy way to play with friends until months after launch from day one?

You can play with friends from day one, you can't do custom games though.
 
... My God. Please, please just re-read this discussion from the start. You're clearly lost.

Splatoon = launch content + August content

- If you spend $30 on Splatoon, you spend $30 for the launch content + August content
- If you get Splatoon for free, you get the launch content and August content for free.
- If you go to the store on May 29th and spend $60 on Splatoon, you just spent $60 on the launch content + August content.

Do you even remember what issue you took with my original post? I said that you're paying $60 for a game that launches with 5 maps. My issue is with the launch content of the multiplayer portion of Splatoon, which is 5 maps. On may 29th you can purchase a game for $60 that, at that time, has 5 maps. Yes, it also has a promise of more multiplayer maps in the following 3 months! But that does not change my issue with the purchase which is, specifically, the 5 maps which launch with the product.

And there will be tons of people who get $60 of enjoyment out of those 5 maps + the campaign! Good for them. Having fun is great. I do not foresee myself getting $60 worth of enjoyment out of 5 maps + the promise of more maps + the campaign content they've shown, so I decided to air my grievances about Splatoon.
 
You're proving what he said. Unless you have played the game, how can you judge whether it's light on content or not. Everyone in here is acting like this game doesn't have a single player

We know it has SP, but if you're asking people to pay full price for a game and then drip feed them content that probably should have been in there under the guise of good willed 'Free DLC', then expect people to ask questions.

Evolve had excellent gameplay, but had the same damn problem for me.

Have you even followed the game since its announcement? We're getting all that was advertised day one. The game is finished. The rest will be released regularly to maintain interest.

Yes I have been following the game, but the multiplayer content sounds barebones. Am I meant to play SP over and over again until they get their shit together? Especially when they've been pushing the MP community aspect so much. Is it wrong that I expected...more?

They told us 5 maps with additional content rolled out, content locked behind amiibos, no voice chat, and no easy way to play with friends until months after launch from day one?

In 2015 no less. Sums it up really. I don't really see why I shouldn't be allowed to expect more.
 
2. The Amiibo support is downright offensive. Three of the four arcade minigames are locked behind them. Nintendo is now using Amiibo to legitimately lock actual gameplay content behind them, not just skins and fun little extras. It's extremely troubling to me, personally.

The existence of 3 cheap 8-bit minigames that you can't play because you don't want to buy some figures is "extremely troubling" to you? Really?
 
Nintendo constantly does something to spoil their releases or atleast give people various naggles to pass on their games at launch.

Shame too. This game will probably flop moreso and while a potential reason being the weird shit they pulled, they are sure to take it as "should've used Mario" instead of maybe we shouldn't have held off some major features.....

I do however see the idea behind it tho. Mario Kart 8 has seen some major legs thanks to its DLC and such. Smash is seemingly getting the same....so they tried it from jump with this game. That was a poor decision IMO as those other two games have built in audiences. Splatoon has to earn its audience and this could potentiallty sour people from day 1 or make people wait to buy it until august.

Shame really as I think this could be a nice new IP franchise for them...if Splatoon 2 is made tho..it should be pretty packed with content.

I am personally buying it because of single player and to support new IPs, not everyone is that frugal with their money tho (or stupid...which ever word you like to use lol)
 

Nintendo would have been much better to launch this as F2P with 3 maps and $7 for every additional map, $2 per gun, $0,49 per each gear item, $0,29 per color, $10 per multiplayer mode (including custom lobbies). Much less anti-consumer.
 
They told us 5 maps with additional content rolled out, content locked behind amiibos, no voice chat, and no easy way to play with friends until months after launch from day one?

There's still an easy way to play with friends.
The game lets you joint whoever is on your friend's list

It's only hard to play on the same team since it's random.


Nintendo thinking about the kids.

Doesn't want your suicide squad murdering all the noobs in sight until they get familiar with the game.
 
You joke but given how it is to be playing For Glory without all those years of taking Smash "Seriously" there might be a kernel of truth to that.
 
I don't have a Wii U but my brother does. I was pretty excited for this game for a while but now after this direct my hype is just all gone.
for a multiplayer centric game it's just so feature starved at launch, this just isn't like Nintendo at all.

I'm really surprised people are defending this after people bitched about Battlefront only launching with 12 maps, I sense some kind of double standard.

Just because Nintendo isn't known to pull this kind of thing doesn't mean they should be able to get away with it.
 
I said that you're paying $60 for a game that launches with 5 maps.

Stop.

You are not paying $60 for just the launch content. Let me repeat:

- If you go to the store on May 29th and spend $60 on Splatoon, you just spent $60 on the launch content + August content.

That is what your $60 purchase is for. It is not for some magical copy that will never update and is perma-locked to May 29th content.


As for the rest of your post... Yes? That's exactly what I've been saying from the beginning. If the content at the given time is not enticing enough for you do not purchase it. This isn't a big deal, this is how everything should already be. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with the need to purchase everything at launch - the idea is to purchase a product when you are satisfied with what it offers.
 
At this point, what is this thread about? Noone answers the question of the OP anymore, which was arguably pointless to begin with, and no people are attacking/defending a game they never played. This has been kinda run into the ground.

Truthfully it seems about anything you want it to be in terms of Splatoon's general launch plan more than anything and it's easy to feel like everything's just repeating on itself a little no matter what side you're on the issue.

Either it's about the price point, it's about content, it's about the post-launch support or all of the above.

The realistic scenario judging by the reaction here the way I see it, if we bring it back to just the "review" point of the topic, is that if the general quality of the launch content can't sustain it's longevity, we're probably looking at Killer Instinct or Ground Zeroes-esque reviews - games that were heavily lauded for their game play but criticized on the quantity of their content.

Price point is a sore issue for the American side of things and I agree on the stupidity of segregating the price points, but not something I necessarily see many reviewers actually factoring into their judgment. It's going to be based purely on what's there and if it lasts. Private lobbying is something that will probably be more of an annoying point to deal with as something that will actively reflect on reviewer judgment, and that's another factor I also heavily think Nintendo bungled up.

But the way I see it if you have any passing interest what-so-ever in the game itself, chances are you're in one of either two camps. If you think you'll enjoy the game already based on the quality of it's content, people will encourage you to jump into the experience and ride with the content wave. If you think you'd rather hold off on it until more content arrives, it's also a good choice. Splatoon is in it for the long term and is only a game that will get better with time. You probably won't get it for a better price point considering it's Nintendo, but I guess that's just the lame stuff we end up having to deal with.

One thing's for sure though and it's that I really don't think the title would face this much scrutiny if people didn't actually care about it. I can only hope it doesn't screw up.
 
Killzone? When?

And it was shitty when Driveclub did it (and also indicative of a company that clearly wasn't capable of delivering)

And isn't TF2 free? Big difference there

Killzone

http://www.gamezone.com/news/killzone-shadow-fall-to-get-free-multiplayer-dlc-maps-post-launch

The shitty broken netcode was the problem of Driveclub. Adding features was not the problem, ask the community.

It wasn't. And its F2P now, big difference.

Truthfully it seems about anything you want it to be in terms of Splatoon's general launch plan more than anything and it's easy to feel like everything's just repeating on itself a little no matter what side you're on the issue.

It wasn't my intention to give you this wrong impression.
 
Nintendo would have been much better to launch this as F2P with 3 maps and $7 for every additional map, $2 per gun, $0,49 per each gear item, $0,29 per color, $10 per multiplayer mode (including custom lobbies). Much less anti-consumer.

F2P games typically don't charge for maps or modes.
 
Stop.

You are not paying $60 for just the launch content. Let me repeat:

- If you go to the store on May 29th and spend $60 on Splatoon, you just spent $60 on the launch content + August content.

That is what your $60 purchase is for. It is not for some magical copy that will never update and is perma-locked to May 29th content.


As for the rest of your post... Yes? That's exactly what I've been saying from the beginning. If the content at the given time is not enticing enough for you do not purchase it. This isn't a big deal, this is how everything should already be. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with the need to purchase everything at launch - the idea is to purchase a product when you are satisfied with what it offers.

My issue is with the launch content. They could promise 50 maps, 10 modes, voice chat, a 20 hour campaign and a free copy of Zelda U 10 months after launch and I would STILL have issue with the 5 maps that come with the game at launch.
 
Yes I have been following the game, but the multiplayer content sounds barebones. Am I meant to play SP over and over again until they get their shit together? Especially when they've been pushing the MP community aspect so much. Is it wrong that I expected...more?

You're getting more...just a bit later...and for free. Not my problem if you think there isn't enough content at that price on day 1. The game was advertised as it is, with maybe 1 or 2 maps more than what we're getting on day 1.
 
Nintendo would have been much better to launch this as F2P with 3 maps and $7 for every additional map, $2 per gun, $0,49 per each gear item, $0,29 per color, $10 per multiplayer mode (including custom lobbies). Much less anti-consumer.
...You mean like how they're charging 13 bucks for an Amiibo to unlock challenges and a unique costume?
 
This is NOTHING like Evolve

My comparison is skin deep. My problem with Evolve, was that while it played really well, the lack of content at launch left a sour taste in my mouth. Splatoon is giving me the same kind of worries based off of this direct. The comparison, for me, is apt.

You're getting more...just a bit later...and for free. Not my problem if you think there isn't enough content at that price on day 1. The game was advertised as it is, with maybe 1 or 2 maps more than what we're getting on day 1.

You made it your problem by replying to me, though. My complaints weren't directed at you. Whether or not the game was advertised correctly, light content is light content. I don't like it, and I'm voicing my concerns.
 
Nintendo's launching half of a game, they deserve to get slammed. Reviewers should review exactly what's there.
 
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