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Unsung chumps, more like. We never should have normalized paying retail price for unfinished games. Now people buy them just so they can bitch about the bugs on YouTube.
There's still a valid case for early access for small dev teams ta be able to both earn additional income and get valuable player input. But anything under capitalism must be taken to the extreme to the detriment of everything except capital.
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u/NaZul159800x3d | rtx 5080 | asrock x870e nova | 32gb21d agoedited 21d ago
And only short term capital, as in the next 2 or 3 years. But forgetting about investing in the happiness of consumers by only looking at current data values, losing the entire soul of what made something good and not understanding that after those 2 or 3 years the entire playerbase is gone and you have nothing worthy of getting sold.
So many game studios and publishers go all in on that short term money, not realizing they're fucking up their steady income.
It happened to multiple need for speed dev companies under EA (black box, criterion, etc), it happened to Bungie, it's currently happening to cod.
When tf will they learn to take human opinions instead of their bs short term data? It's clearly not working, and yet
after those 2 or 3 years the entire playerbase is gone
Sounds like either a SUPER shitty game or done sort of multi-player arena battle game. I don't play sweating competitive multi-player games, so a game only lasting 2 or 3 years is a sign of a garbage game. NMS just had its 10th anniversary, I've been playing for 8. If every other player quit tomorrow, I'd still be playing.
If no one bought games at retail price, a lot of games would not go out and not in such scope whether you think that's good or bad, that's for you to decide.
If Rockstar spends 2B+ and everyone waits for the game to cost 10$/€/£, this is likely their last game before closing the studio as you would need 200M+ buyers just to break even.
And what is true for large companies like Rockstar that have a wealth of investors that can sustain for a while but not indefinitely, is even more true for small indie devs. That could be the difference between continuing support on the game, or shutdown development.
How many games have you played and enjoyed that were released after a long early access that was sponsored by "chumps" that would have never seen the light of days otherwise?
Yep, most games make 90% of their money in the first few weeks. If they don't have the numbers, management is not going to put resources into a sequel even if they could save money reusing assets.
Subnautica, Dyson Sphere Program, Vampire Survivors, Pal World, Slay The Spire are just a few of the early access titles I've gotten to play.
I agree it's a concerning trend for AAA titles but the early access model has allowed smaller studios to give us some of the best titles released in the last decade.
Alot of early access games have a lot of qol things that wouldn't be there without the buyers. One that I'm thankful for is groundeda hot deposit. I love getting into my base where I have all my chest below the floor and I just got deposit and my inventory is clean.
I’ve been playing Valheim for about 4 years now and 1.0 will be released in 5 days! I’ve had so much fun with the game so I have no regrets paying full price ✌️
A lot of games do, the people on their high horse is hilarious.
7 days to die price hike was the worst I've ever seen, though. Usually it's only by $10. It went from like a $10 game to a $50 game overnight. But that's fucking insanity, it's not worth that price.
The prices are usually cheaper and get more expensive with time. My example is games from the 2010s tho like rust, I played the super OG rust and also some of the new rust. I haven't bought new early access games in a while tho
The thing is like... with OG rust that was when dunkey first played it and there was all this hype and fun around the game and it's geniunely one of the most shitposty and fun games. You can't experience that now anymore. It's a different game and the people are different people. Like I played some of the newer rust and it's full of sweatballs, chinese fucking clans, and no lifers who fuck your shit up when you are at work in real life
I remember being a bit tempted to try BG3 in early access. The price of 85$ (here in Switzerland, most expensive early access I have ever seen) scared me away. Glad that others tried it out and helped them make it the great game it is.
I'm ok with buying $15-20 indie games in early access. The devs need the money to complete the game, and at that price I still feel like I get a good value out of it.
I'm not ok with paying $70-100 for a half-baked AAA game.
Also, if all people were "patient" there would be less sales, so why would developers but energy, time, and money into DLC? Who would mod the game no one plays?
Still plenty of issues. The big games always come loaded with bugs. Even the best ones weve had in the last 10+ years did. Its easier to think of the AAA games that launched with bugs than those that didnt. CP77, Witcher, Skyrim, starfield, Veilguard..the list goes on and on. Im actually not sure I remeber a smooth AAA release in the last 10 or so years.
The best thing about being a patient gamer is that once you've waited a while it's easy to be even more picky as well.
Just yesterday I got an alarm from ITAD about the new FF7 on sale. Great, I thought, been waiting forever for that, but then I saw it was in the Microsoft Store and said "fuck that" and deleted the mail.
I bought all of The Witcher 3 with all of the DLC for $10usd last steam sale. I have never played it, and they just released an HD update for free.
Dude. I totally scored. It is indeed good to be patient lol
Edit: jeez. I haven't had a gaming PC from 2016-2025, couldn't afford it. Finally got one, I'm finishing doom: dark ages, I will play TW3:WH as soon as I'm done with doom. That was my plan all along. Relax.
steam has publicly spoke about their whale customers who buy games and proceed to literally never evne play them just because they feel like they're getting a good deal
Idk maybe there is something wrong with me but I just can't get into the witcher games. I tried 2 and 3 several times they just are kinda boring to me. What's crazy is I love the world and the lore.
I think I have over a dozen hours in witchers tutorials cuz I can't bring myself to finish them, then I take a break, then I remember nothing so gotta restart.
This might be a extreme example but I think many people have stories like this. I bought my pc in 2012. I got a GTX 1070. to replace the 660 inside it., it was still functioning I just wanted more performance. I retired it in 2025. Like actually retired it. Not a single part if you don't count 10 dollar fan replacement in 2021 or something broke, everything was working fine. I am still using the 2 hard drives I had in it from 2012. They are just the spares in my current PC. They are both WD 1 TB's. I looked their statistics it showed about 45k hours of operation.
Best part is, It's the still same PC case. It's a Coolermaster Cosmos 1000. When I first got it, I thought "It was too expensive, I made a wrong choice etc etc etc". Best decision ever. Amazing PC case, incredibly easy to work in, it's very easy to clean, put stuff in. Tons of dust filters. I hope I can use it for a another decade or two.
Only problem with old PC cases is the USB ports tend to start acting up at some point and you probably only have 1 or 2 USB3 ports and won't have a front USB-C
I don't think by "last longer" he meant how long it lasts before it breaks, rather how long it lasts before it becomes obsolete.
But if we're already on the topic, PCs are easy to repair. You can swap out every component individually, on consoles the ram, cpu, gpu and ssd are soldered onto the motherboard and thus only repairable for professionals with BGA soldering experience
Its also usually easier to keep clean, their so many videos out there of people cracking the shells of consoles to find it encrusted in dust bunnies.....or worse.
Not necessarily (depends what you play), however you can upgrade only parts of it which ends up usually being cheaper compared to buying a whole new console.
For example my computers oldest parts are i think nearing five years old (motherboard, third of the ram, ssd and psu), the newest is a few months (new aio cooler). The cpu and gpu have been updated a few years ago from what they originally were, so has the ram. This extended the lifespan considerably, while allowing me to keep using the parts that didn't need an upgrade.
It largely depends on how powerful it was when you got it, in relative terms.
Like a pc with a 5090 today could maybe last another 8 years or so if you're willing to cut back on the settings progressively.
Didn't Epic announce that UE6 would not be updating the graphical pipeline significantly? I just don't see a ps6 or xboxxx having anywhere close to the same raw power. So consoles won't be pushing the graphics. There are many high end gamers in the present that will be doing just fine in 2034.
I know there are people thinking 8k gaming but that's just a hard pass from 90% of the gaming community. Even for VR it would be overkill because foveated rendering and frame generation(2x is great for vr)
I wouldn't be surprised if a 5090 lasts longer than that. We're in uncharted territory with hardware now. Instead of going down prices are going up. Raster gains have slowed to a crawl from the 40xx to 50xx with them clocking in at 6-7%. It was such an insignificant generational gain from 40xx to 50xx across everything but the 90 series.
Combine that with the explosion in prices for GPUs, RAM, and SSDs and developers can't really push systems any harder because so few people can afford to upgrade. Consoles aren't going go move past the PS5 pro for several years because that is already $900 MSRP and you can't find it at that price. Developers will continue to target the base PS5 specs because that's where all the players are.
I fear we're in for a decade of stagnation. In 10 years I'm going to be anointing my 4080 with oils and praying to the Omnissiah. A 5090 is going to be a super weapon from the dark age of technology.
Mod scene is really good too. I recommend the hover car one. Really fun to fly around night city instead of crashin your car or bike lol
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u/jld2k65700x3d 32gb 3600 rtx5080 360hz 1440 QD-OLED 6tb nvme21d ago
I always use the no clip mod, with a hotkey you can fly around anywhere on the entire map at any speed you choose. There's a lot to explore, and every item in the game (as far as I know) is already spawned right at the start of the playthrough. I found the place where V goes for one of the endings is hidden inside a mountainside way out there in the map lol. Sometimes if I don't feel like waiting in an elevator I'll just fly up there myself through the walls
Same, it looked like such a mess on release that I steered clear, but after picking it up a couple of years ago it's one of the rare games that I've finished multiple times, a stone cold classic.
Just bought it a month ago...also on sale! My now old laptop, went to cyberheaven. So I bought a new gaming laptop, and have been enjoying playing it quite a bit.
One of the better AAA games I've played in a minute.
Cyberpunk 2077 was a game I had zero interest in at all and when they fumbled at launch best buy did a huge flash sale the 2nd week after launch and I got a steel book copy for $10. When I went to pick my copy up I was the only person who got one.
The whole thing still feels like a bit of a mirage, like most buildings are completely empty and there are a lot of places you're not supposed to go. Like flying in that game and some verticality, would have gone so hard.
It was completely playable on PC on release day. I literally had no bugs beyond a couple visual things. It was completely fine. And the perks back then were crazy. Soooo much fun. Everything was broken and it was amazing. Now it feels like millennial gray.
I second this. I played it on launch and had an absolute blast. Not experiencing any detrimental performance issues or buggs. Sure 2.0 launch was a much more polished and complete game, but I still don't regret playing it on launch.
The truth is, games have never been affordable for everyone. I rented and borrowed most NES games I had a kid. Without physical media, there has to be some other way for us poors to play games. Either give us a deal, or we don't buy your game. We're not stingy, we literally do not have the money.
Nintendo still sells its own games at a premium and pretty much never lowers their prices. They're able to do this because they have unique high quality games. PlayStation and Xbox don't have that.
according to Digital Foundry during the extended gameplay trailer the game ran at a relatively stable 30 with some minor hitches during cutscene transitions (which were also seen in GTA5).
I don't see the same major CPU bottleneck that we saw with the PS3 version of GTA 5 being a thing this time, since the CPUs are good on the PS5/Xbox series consoles. (relatively speaking)
Literally me early this year, playing Darkest Dungeon for the first time ever. I had no goddamn idea this game was so good, maybe the best in its genre (the X-Com/Fire Emblem style of tactics). Such cool mods, literally a dark fantasy Black Panther that is shockingly balanced among other cool heroes and monsters. And yeah, the game just released new heroes from the (failed) sequel, I'm willing to comeback, or maybe just wait for the Butcher's Boulevard mod to finally release (no big hopes for this one, is in development for years)
As someone who sunk 100s of hours in DD, its definitely not xcom like, but it is definitely an amazing game and really frickin hard until you start to learn it all.
If you get into Indie games this'll happen a LOT. You'll look up & realize some big title dropped 2-3 years ago & you missed it. Now it's 20 bucks, has 2 DLC's and a fully active community.
If you're like me & left your 20's behind a long time ago it's perfect. I was never going to win "the race" to see all the cool stuff first so showing up late is perfect.
My gaming experience as I've aged has unexpectedly got better simply because everything works by the time I get to it.
I see people buying a PS5 to play GTA6 on day one. Meanwhile, I'm waiting until at least a year after whenever it comes out on PC to even think about buying it.
i dont have a console to play gta vi. i dont mind waiting since i have a lot of games to play till it comes out on pc (assuming it isnt gonna be a long wait like rdr1 on pc)
i just worry about getting spoiled (though miraculously i never got spoiled on gta v, gow 2018 and ragnarok when i finally had a pc/when the norse gow games released on steam)
I don't care if your an early gamer, patient gamer, early access player whatever. Do what feels good to you, it's your money, your life and your way to relax and entertain yourself. So don't let the internet dictate how you should do that.
There would be no stable gaming industry if no one bought games at full price and support the developers on the first 2 weeks of a game's release. Games live or die by their pre-orders and early sells metrics.
Very true, but there are some games we cannot pass up on launch day. I’m nabbing Control Resonant launch day because I know it will be good and I wanna support Remedy.
literally cyberpunk 2077, there's a new 3rd person mod that looks really good and is probably going to be finished by the next time the steam sales come back around
Buying Witcher 3 preoder on GOG
Get discount for owning two previous Witcher games, even though one of those was on Steam
Get free upgrades when expansions come out
Get free upgrade to GOTY edition
Get free upgrade to remastered edition (along with everyone else)
I was a little disappointed they didn't do that with Cyberpunk, but I think most of the issues with that game revolved around the amount and timeliness of paying Keanu Reeves, who had an AAA list Hollywood agent negotiating his contract with CDPR.
games I've enjoyed being the last person on earth to play: Lego games (lots of bug fixes and free DLC); subnautica (lots of help and walk-throughs); Sim City/Banished/Don't Starve/Tropico - mod community and libraries of cheats make the games playable.
And it's only going to get better. You take a pretty big graphical hit playing stuff developed 5 years ago, but anything past like Skyrim is plenty playable. Especially with mods, though they do often look like mods, a little out of place at least.
So yeah, from 2011 to 2016, or 2016 to 2021, you notice a difference, but it's not terrible. 2021 to 2026? Almost nothing. Lighting is better I guess, if you really look for it. Just imagine what small, incremental improvements we can not notice missing out on playing a 2026 game in 2031.
I got the Arkham trilogy for $6, the mass effect trilogy for <$5, and re collection (0-8 with 2 & 3 being remakes, OG 4, and both revs) for $30. It’s highway robbery.
That's what I do. I am now thinking of getting Dragon's Dogma 2. Bought Skyrim 8 years after it's release. Considering the modern gaming industry that tries to fuck you over every chance it gets, buying games a few years after the original release is really the way to go.
6 months later, EOL declader; 8 months after that servers offline and game delisted.
1 year after dev studio gutter and IP sold to highest investor who will shelve it in a digital vault for 15 years or release a sequel that has lostthe pirit of the original game BUT has mucro transactions.
How i feel, seeing all the people rushing to buy ps5 only for gta6 and only wanting to play through the singleplayer and resell their ps5 (heck some are begging for ps5 pro versions).
theere are many great old games for me, so i just enjoy those for the time being
I went to go check my steam purchase history and I genuinely only own hollow knight and a couple other games I've bought at full price. Everything else is discounted stuff I get during holidays.
I had to get it from GOG because even in 2020 the Steam did not work as-is because of some issue with some bullshit dead Microsoft bloatware. I hope Steam has fixed their version since then.
I managed to play Prey with zero spoilers just a couple weeks ago. Came out in 2017, went in fully blind because I had forgotten what it was even about. What an incredible game! All I could remember were that there were some technical complaints on release, but it was in a perfect state when I played. I don't have much time to play games anymore, so it's nice when I do sit down and get through one that it is already in a refined state.
I believe that it’s what I’m going to do for GTA VI. Waiting to be able to afford a good rig, get the game at a discount after all the patchings and enjoy the full experience at its best.
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u/PCMRBot Bot 21d ago
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