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News Hitman goes episodic with monthly mission releases

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 15 Jan 2016.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Instagib

    Instagib Minimodder

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    Here's an idea Square Enix; how about you wait until it's finished before you release it? That ones straight out of the Old School playbook. And anything released after the initial release date used to be called expansions, not original game content. God help you when you announce the pricing.
     
  3. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    It's already on Steam pre-order for £39.99! That's a big ask for 2 levels and 1 a month there after.
     
  4. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    Could be Valve's interpretation of episodic release - a couple of eps and then nothing, ever again.
     
  5. Jimbob

    Jimbob Minimodder

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    That's a funny way to say tons of overpriced DLC
     
  6. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    Whilst iirc Squeenix did say that all future levels would be included in that £40 price, doesn't bode well given most 'episodic' games tend to release a couple of episode and then give up.

    EDIT: Re-reading this and the articles elsehwere it comes across as 'the game isn't finished, but the powers that be won't let us postpone the release...'
     
    Last edited: 15 Jan 2016
  7. phinix

    phinix RIP Waynio...

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    WHy the hell all game producers started to release games based on season pass, episodic releases, payable dlc...
    Did you guys notice how pc game prices raised lately? It's not £30 anymore, now its £40-50.
     
  8. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Same development to make a console game as PC. Naturally prices go up to accommodate it. In reality your looking at £50-£60 for PC games by 2020 if buying retail. We may even see a £100 computer game in the next few years.
     
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Is this the part of the thread where I remind people how much computer games used to cost? Akalabeth: World of Doom, when it got properly published in 1980, cost $35; corrected for inflation, that's $100. Converted at the current exchange rate, you're looking at £70.

    We've been through a period where computer games were insanely cheap, thanks to the massive economies of scale involved: Akalabeth sold between 10,000 and 30,000 copies depending on who you listen to, whereas modern equivalent Skyrim has sold an estimated 22.7 million copies to date. Trouble is, those scales are now being eaten away by increased costs: Akalabeth was made by one dude in his spare time, Skyrim apparently had a development and marketing budget of $85 million, 90 full-time developers working over three and a half years, and 83 voice actors.

    Basically, gamers need to decide what's more valuable to them: triple-A games with shiny new graphics and big-name voice actors that cost £50+, or games that look a bit uglier and have nobody you've ever heard of working on 'em but cost £30. Can't have it both ways.
     
  10. edzieba

    edzieba Virtual Realist

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    Personally, I'd take a well-made game of lower graphical quality (or more accurately, lower graphical variety) than vice versa, but I'm clearly in the minority. We've seen several years of turd-polishing 'AAA' releases, but unfortunately all that's proven is that the average consumer can't look past the SHINY SHINY before dropping their cash, and once that cash has been dropped a publisher no longer gives a ****. Backlash against low quality games after they are paid for clearly doesn't work. Hopefully Steam's refund policy may change this by actually taking money back from publishers, but it remains to be seen if that can counterbalance the console market's lack of a similar policy.
     
  11. alecamused

    alecamused Minimodder

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    I can live with that. As i read it there is the option to pre-order the complete package or seperately buy the smaller chunks.
    I'd rather spend 15$ on release to try it out and forget about it if i don't like it than wait 2 years for a sale, spend 15$ and not like it.
    If it turns out i like it enough to "finish" it, I'm fine with spending more on it - wether it's called episodes or dlc.
    I would certainly NOT pre-order the complete package tough.
     
  12. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    That's a horrible over simplification and not at all representative of what's really going on. Most games now are already coming out at £49.99, regardless of if they have 'triple-A' status and big name voice actors or not. Let alone all the issues relating to season passes, potential cut content and games designed around trying to see you DLC from the get go. No one asked for the big names and AAA that is the current focus of many games, it was cooked up by the publishers to try and counter their previous piss poor business practices.
    That aside, there are plenty of early access games for example that have great visuals and/or audio that also play very well, so cost is not always a gauge for quality.

    Yeah, there used to be these things called demos, that were FREE and allowed you to try a game before buying it to help you figure out if it was worth buying.

    Pre-orders and day 1 DLC purchases have done wonders for the quality and cost of games. :/
     
    Last edited: 18 Jan 2016
  13. alecamused

    alecamused Minimodder

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    I remember that thing you're talking about. Good old times :)
    Still, seeing that they don't try to sell a full priced game + 5 locations as DLC (yet) but offer you the option to buy either one game (that you get delivered in small chunks or at the end of the year) or buy the small chunks at relatively moderate prices as long as you're interested, i appreciate the episodic release schedule.
     
  14. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    That's absolutely untrue. Lots of people asked for the big names and triple-A, by buying the big names and triple-A. Again: Skyrim sold 22.7 million copies. That's 22.7 million people who said "yes, this is what we want" in the most powerful way possible: with their wallets.

    Yet compare Skyrim to Daggerfall: the world is a tiny fraction of the size, and the game a tiny fraction of the complexity. Which sold more? Skyrim, by a hefty margin.
    Early access? Isn't this thread filled with people complaining that Squeenix is releasing a game before it's ready?
    I remember the days before gamers had ready access to the internet, when demos came on C20 cassettes on the front of magazines - and before that, when buying a game meant sending a postal order for £15 to some random address in Ipswich, getting a sandwich bag back with a sheet of badly-photocopied instructions and a tape or disk, and hoping against hope that the game was in any way related to the flowery copy and hand-drawn illustrations in the quarter-page advert you ordered it from. Spoiler: you were very rarely rewarded for your hope.
    Now this I agree with. I don't pre-order, and if a game comes from a company with a history of DLC ridiculousness I wait a year and pick up the GOTY version with everything included for a fraction of the price. Now, if we could find a way to convince the other 22,699,999 people to do the same we might actually see some changes in the industry...
     
  15. Pvt_Ryan

    Pvt_Ryan What's a Dremel?

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    DLC done right is fine as is Episodic content. The issue that arises for me is simply that 2 missions will not take me a month to complete more like a couple of hours then I have to wait a whole month to play 1 more mission.

    For this to work they need to make sure there are a lot of different ways to complete the contract without making it too easy / stupid.

    Also i'm all for having skins as DLC as personally I don't care what my gun looks like. I am against putting weapons / tools as DLC as that imo detracts from the game..

    I loved the shed in Hitman 2, running around with all the weapons i had collected killing chickens, pig & crows.

    The mission "A new life" in Blood Money was probably one of my favorites as there were loads of different innovative ways of killing him and getting the microfilm.

    I do object to all the focus on the AAA voice actors, and in fact find they detract from the game. Look at fallout 4 while it is a good game it's not a great fallout game to quote a reviewer on steam. They spent a lot of time on voice acting instead of just text bubbles the result was a substandard dialog experience as the choices were limited as were the responses.
     
  16. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    I never asked for it :p i'm sure Patrick Stuarts voice for all of 5 minutes in the opening was well with the extra cost. It is possible to good good voice work without paying top dollar for voice talent. Or worse examples, like Mark strong was advertised as doing voice work in Rome 2. Did it make for a good game? Hell no...
    Can't argue with the point about voting with their wallets though :/

    Hitmans episodic approach is not really the same as traditional early access, when compared to say Kerbal Space Program, Subnautica or Invisible Inc.
    But the point there was really that £50 'triple-A' and good voice actors don't make for a good game in many occasions. There is plenty of quality titles that fall outside of that horrible term.


    A pretty extreme example but there was also plenty of times when Demos were available on-line and worked as a reasonable quality gate to purchase. But maybe that's the problem 'our game is **** and we know it, let's not bother with a Demo' combined with Pre-orders, the link between making a good game and having it sell well is broken.

    Yes abstinence is a good thing where games are concerned, something I have adopted more and more over the past few years. I paid full price for Rome 2 (back when new games on steam were £30) and got a terrible experience, I bought Attila way later for a third of the cost and got a much better experience. There is a lesson there i'm sure :)
    It is difficult though, as many of us want to support the good devs, so they keep making good games.

    It's a shame more reviews don't put a value for money marker on games, like is done with hardware. Not all games are worth the fixed £49.99 release price that is pushed on everyone.
    Can you really say Rainbow 6 Siege is worth the same day 1 cost as The Witcher 3?
     
  17. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    At no point did I say that the triple-A, multi-million-dollar budget, Hollywood voice talent approach made for good games. I implied it made for successful games. There's a very, very big difference there.

    The games I've played recently and would recommend? Gone Home (indie title, small budget), Life is Strange (small developer, giant publisher, not-giant budget), The Fall (indie title, crowd-funded, terrible gameplay mechanics but I loved the plot), Flower (small developer, giant publisher, not-giant-budget). I haven't bought nor played Fallout 4, GTA IV, Metal Gear Whateveritwas, or any of the other triple-A titles that have been released of late.

    Basically, we're in violent agreement.
     
  18. DeckerdBR

    DeckerdBR Minimodder

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    Agreed, I can live with that :)
     
  19. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    While I can see how releasing "Episodes" is theoretically attractive to a developer, is there any (well known) game that has really pulled this through and didn't just die after the initial release (and maybe one episode)?
     
  20. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Life is Strange? They planned five episodes and released five episodes, and are launching a physical Collectors' Edition bundling the whole lot later this month. Opinion was divided on the quality of episode five, especially a prolonged dream sequence that did admittedly feel like filler, but I loved the whole journey, terrible lip-syncing and all. In fact, despite owning the full series I've ordered the physical release so I can get the (tiny, somewhat crappy) art book and (awesome) soundtrack CD.
     

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