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“Don’t complain if a game doesn’t get a sequel if it wasn’t supported at launch”... Do you agree?


Carol

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7 minutes ago, TheGameCapsule said:

I don't understand this quote.  Let's really think about this:

"If you want a sequel, buy the game at launch!"

 

So l the consumer, see Days Gone is coming out.  Its not on sale yet and maybe l havent watched any trailers for it. Even if l did keep up with the game, reviews, and its delays, my thinking is expected to be: "l want Days Gone 2 -- l better get this game!"

 

Doesn't make sense.  


Well partially that’s because you’re not using the actual quote from the article, you using someone else’s interpretation of the quote that doesn’t make sense. Here is the quote:

 

Quote

“But how do you know you love a game until you’ve played it?” Jaffe responded.

“I’m just saying, you don’t, but don’t complain if a game doesn’t get a sequel if it wasn’t supported at launch,”


It was a response to the people complaining the game isn’t getting a sequel. 
 

Meaning:

If someone is not complaining Days Gone 2 isn’t coming, then the quote isn’t directed at them. And for the ones who are complaining, and they got it for free some other way than supporting it at launch, they didn’t help make a sequel happen.

 

None of the commenters here are complaining Days Gone 2 isn’t coming, so the quote isn’t directed at any of them. 

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I do, but I don’t. I definitely understand if we’re talking the first two weeks of release. For me, I’d prefer to get a general temperature for a new IP before jumping in on day 1. I’m not intimately familiar with the average drop off after game releases,  but I imagine the window is 1-2 weeks when determining initial success.

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1 hour ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

I always knew there was a reason that games such as Fortnite and 2K / EA's annual sport releases did so well financially; but I had never considered awesomeness, innovation, or uniqueness to be primary motivators. Such a profound thought to behold.

 

Mockery aside, unknown indie masterpiece #6,800,507 wants a word. Also, Dreams.

You trying to compare Indie game with over-popular (at the time) Battle Royal and Sport game...

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It would be much easier to think about wanting a sequel if you get a full game for full price at launch, and not some beta version riddled with bugs or connection errors.

 

So you buy Days Gone on Day 1 at full price, can you expect a sequel then? Oh wait you cannot control other potential customers, maybe the game is so terrible at launch that its a chore to get through it.

 

Having a sequel in mind when you release a new game sounds like you hold back any good ideas for a potential second game.

 

The gamerbase has shown they do not like a lot of methods to squeeze money out of their wallets:

- online gaming pass

- attempts to choke the second hand market

- locked content on a disc

- taking out game content to disguise it as DLC (Asura's Wrath or AC2 with sequences 12 and 13)

- microtransactions and pay2win.

 

Guilt-tripping your loyal customer with not getting a sequel because you did not pay full-price at launch? Get lost.

 

Its a shame cause I love Days Gone.

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I agree.

 

If you don't support the companies, and the game doesn't make enough money, why would they make the next?

 

that's the reason i buy rockstars games day 1. i even pre order them, and i usually don't pre order. Because i love rockstar, and i wanna support them.

 

vote with your wallets. like it = buy new and support.

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Nice cop out. The more years go by, the more i think that buying brand new video games on launch that still need patches after 2, 3 months is a huge waste of money. If i buy that game now, i wanna play it now.

 

Imagine going to a restaurant, pay for your meal, full price, only for it arrive incomplete.

 

There's advantages to patching, like fixing a bug here and there, but these days, it's an excuse for companies to release uncompleted games filled with bugs.

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7 minutes ago, juniordrfanatic said:

Nice cop out. The more years go by, the more i think that buying brand new video games on launch that still need patches after 2, 3 months is a huge waste of money. If i buy that game now, i wanna play it now.

 

Imagine going to a restaurant, pay for your meal, full price, only for it arrive incomplete.

 

There's advantages to patching, like fixing a bug here and there, but these days, it's an excuse for companies to release uncompleted games filled with bugs.

 

I agree partially.

 

Don't support crap. Support companies that deserve it.

 

Fifa as an example, i would NEVER pay full price for. i buy it when it goes under 40% of the price, and i buy used so EA never sees a penny from me.

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It's a lottery these days what is a hit or not and also a fact of release timing.

 

Sony isn't helping themselves with stuff like the "Play At Home" scheme they are running right now, and wall to wall sales over the past year or two. Very cheap games are available to buy all year around at the moment.

 

Also, Horizon Zero Dawn and all the DLC is completely free no strings attached at the moment along with the other 8-9 games that "Play At Home".

 

If Days Gone 2 was out tomorrow, even if it's the best game ever made.

 

How many people are not gonna pay at full price because they have a whole ton of games to be getting on with?

 

And also, waiting is better, there are bugs on launch and if you wait long enough you can get the physical "complete edition" that will inevitably come out. Developers and publishers are making this issue worse, not better.

 

Never blame your customers, it definitely isn't their fault.

 

I mean, I have Days Gone FOR FREE on PSPlus, I haven't got around to playing it yet as I have so many other games I want to play first.

I'm the sort of person who won't play your game yet, even if I have it for free.

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49 minutes ago, TomataEighty9 said:

I agree.

 

If you don't support the companies, and the game doesn't make enough money, why would they make the next?

 

that's the reason i buy rockstars games day 1. i even pre order them, and i usually don't pre order. Because i love rockstar, and i wanna support them.

 

vote with your wallets. like it = buy new and support.

 

Agreed in a sense - Rockstar have built up a 'relationship' of sorts with you over a period of time though.

Each outing, they have delivered something of superb quality (as Rockstar do!) and that satisfies your personal tastes - they have earned that trust you place in them.

I mean, one only has to look at Rockstars track record to agree with that - Hell, the worst Rockstar games are better than a lot of other studios' best games!

 

I have a few companies like this - IO, Arkane, FROM, Supergiant, maybe Doublefine and probably Klei now... and a few smaller devs, like Lucas Pope, Jason Roberts, TopHat Studios, Jasper Byrne, Johnathon Blow etc. (though most of those smaller ones are not exactly prolific, and have only 1 or 2 games available right now)

 

I will buy a game they have made almost sight-unseen, or at least 'un-tested', but that's based on a proven record, or on the knowledge and/or belief that anything they make will likely be of good quality and to my tastes - or at the very least, my interest - and I have a desire to support them because of that.

 

Frankly, if they did release something horribly mediocre or buggy and broken, it would make me re-assess that opinion next time out, but I wouldn't necessarily feel like I had been taken for a fool.

 

Pre-ordering from any old dev that hasn't built up the same confidence in me though?

That is a different story. 

 

I mean, what has Bend Studios really made to earn the kind of trust from people that John Garvin seems to feel he is entitled to, and is trying to command here?

 

Golden Abyss? -  I liked that game more than most people, I feel like, and even I thought it was just on the better side of 'okay'.

An Uncharted Card game?

A bunch of Syphon Filter games on PS2?

Bubsy???

 

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Not when the game is said by the people who did buy it to be a technical mess. Which from what I've seen on this game... it was. 

So either release it polished or stfu about people waiting for it to be fixed, which by that time is likely to have had sales on it. It's not our job to keep you in business. This isn't a charity. If it was then I'd put my money into games like Gravity Rush. Which I did buy day 1. Which I bought the remaster day 1. And 2 day one. And talked about it tons online to promote it. Days Gone looked ehhhhhh so I cancelled my preorder and I don't regret that at all, despite that preorder dropping the price a good $20.

 

Also as a person who started the game and thinks it's boring as hell, but was told by those who played into the game and beat it and enjoyed it that it actually gets better.... make the start of your game good too otherwise people will play an hour or two and say it's boring then people will be put off by that aspect as well. If you can't hook people early then you failed at game design. Even if the game gets better the early part is crucial to ensure people don't go return the game and play something else, and then go online to talk about how it was lame and boring. People shouldn't have to wade through boredom to get to when the "game gets good". Those are exactly the type of games that in my opinion you should buy on sale.

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15 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

That is a good question considering the number of people concerned with a sequel to a game they haven't even played.

Please provide evidence of this. 

Also this goes far beyond just this game. It's concerning that Sony is placing such importance on metacritic which is utter fucking garbage, and early sales in what they deem worth continuing. PlayStation used to provide a lot of experimental smaller games that might not sell well, but would add value to their hardware. Something Astro's Playroom pretends that PlayStation respects and loves, but in practice apparently they don't give a rats ass about what made PS great to begin with.

And a lot of those games were failed by their own marketing, or lack thereof. Just having a lower price wasn't going to get people to be aware of the gem that is Puppeteer. They just let it go out there and die. Only caring about their mainstream story based cinematic shooters. Even God of War moved more toward that with it's camera placement and gameplay shift. I mean sure it works, but it's also boring after awhile.

 

Which is where Days Gone partly suffered. It had nothing to make it stand out compared to the other same games that Sony is pushing out. Why would people want that game over The Last of Us Part 2? They were literally announced in the same year. lol, Sony didn't even let Days Gone have a chance. Not that it having a seemingly bland protagonist and no great "hook" beyond "look at the number of enemies~" and "my bike" which is kind of tired given that almost every damn game is open world. 

Combine that with the multiple delays of the game, the troubled launch technically, not so great reviews [some of which lamented the main character for being a white straight male; which is one of many reasons why metacritic and reviews are useless]. 

 

Sony's going to struggle if all they want to put out are the same types of games. They're going to continue to cannibalize themselves and make their own games look lame in comparison. Days Gone also had to go against games like God of War, Spider-Man PS4... why would anybody get hyped up for Days Gone when you have those other games to look at and look forward to? Games that Sony is promoted better, in part because those games had good hooks to actually draw people's interest to while Days Gone... did not. 

 

Horizon - Giant Robot Dinosaurs, Female Protagonist with Red Hair [plus the rumors for years that it existed]

God of War - Soft Reboot/Continuation of popular and successful series that was getting stale, new gameplay mechanics, different way of story telling, Norse Mythology

Spider-Man - Spider-Man and Marvel, you need nothing else. But it also had Insomniac Games behind it to give confidence that it wouldn't be just like all the licensed stuff before it.


I could go on, but you get my point. Where is Days Gone's hook? It's certainly not Bend Studios. I like them, but Sony let them fall to the wayside by not greenlighting any of their console pitches and regulating them to handhelds. And with Vita in particular, they didn't even give a single. fuck. at all. to stick with it. They just let it die and all the games with it.

 

Is it the main character? because... that sure ain't it. Is it side characters? Nope. Is it the zombies? By the time that Days Gone hit we had an over abundance of zombie games and media. So that ain't it. 

Open world? Like every other AAA game that's made?  pfft.

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18 minutes ago, Elvick_ said:

 

Which is where Days Gone partly suffered. It had nothing to make it stand out compared to the other same games that Sony is pushing out. Why would people want that game over The Last of Us Part 2? They were literally announced in the same year. lol, Sony didn't even let Days Gone have a chance. Not that it having a seemingly bland protagonist and no great "hook" beyond "look at the number of enemies~" and "my bike" which is kind of tired given that almost every damn game is open world. 

 

[snip]


I could go on, but you get my point. Where is Days Gone's hook? It's certainly not Bend Studios. I like them, but Sony let them fall to the wayside by not greenlighting any of their console pitches and regulating them to handhelds. And with Vita in particular, they didn't even give a single. fuck. at all. to stick with it. They just let it die and all the games with it.

 

Is it the main character? because... that sure ain't it. Is it side characters? Nope. Is it the zombies? By the time that Days Gone hit we had an over abundance of zombie games and media. So that ain't it. 

Open world? Like every other AAA game that's made?  pfft.

 

I have to agree with this - there was very little to make Days Gone stand out pre-release, and frankly, that indifference seems to have been largely borne out post-release.

 

I feel like Days Gone has only managed to secure any kind of place in the market at all as a kind of anti-TLoU2?

 

I stress, I might be wrong about this - I'm sure there are many people who liked both games well enough... (and I am a great believer in the notion that every game out there is someone's favourite game. Every game. Except LA Cops. ?).... but I feel like I never see anyone profess to love Days Gone and love TLoU2.

 

In fact, I feel like I never see anyone profess to love Days Gone in a vacuum at all - love for it always seems to be stated in the context of framing an argument against some other game - most often TLoU2.

 

It really feels like the biggest contingent of people championing Days Gone, are the people who disliked TLoU2, and maybe want to love anything else that came out at the same time as a way to have something to argue for, rather than purely arguing against.

That is a sentiment which might have helped Days Gone more, if it hadn't been for the fact that Ghost of Tsushima, Spiderman and God of War all came out in a roughly similar period, and all offered an easier go-to game to point to as being 'better'.

 

I fully accept that this view might be purely a result of the particular threads I have read - it's just an observation of course - I would be interested to hear from anyone who would genuinely describe themselves as 'loving' both games equally. 

 

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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Two other things I thought of...

 

ICO. ICO did not do that great when it came out. Team ICO was still allowed to make a follow up release, granted not a sequel but it's still in the same wheelhouse. Shadow of the Colossus came out and was well received and also didn't sell that tremendously well, but it did well enough that it increased interest in ICO to the point that Sony printed more copies of it to sell. This shows how you can BUILD upon your success. And over time word of mouth propelled both games much higher than they had originally reached on PS2. Apparently Sony has forgotten it's own history. Odd given they were on PS2, PS3 and Shadow was remade for PS4. 

 

The other thing is... Sony is going full on with increasing the price of games by $10. As are many other publishers. I'm not buying Ratchet and Clank for $100 with tax in Canada. Sorry, I love that series so much but I can't justify that cost. The $90 was already absurd and hard to balance. People have limited funds. The more you charge for each game the more you have to compete against other games coming out. Including the third party games. I always wanted a third person game from Housemarque, but I'm not paying that price. So they lost me on that too. Even if I was willing to pay that price, I'd have to limit what else I buy just to get one game in place of it. I've gotten an entire series on PC for cheaper than one new game. Fallout, Elder Scrolls... Far Cry I believe still came out cheaper. No thank you on paying $100 for one game. No matter what it is.

And for games that Sony are making... they're a lot like many third party games now. And it seems like that's ALL they want to make... this is going to create so many more "Days Gones" that just get swept away and don't get bought day 1 because they failed to draw in the interest. "I could buy *new open world Sony action game*, or I could buy Assassin's Creed 42343..." You can't always have a winning idea, or a popular existing franchise to fall back on like Spider-Man. And when you're doing the third person action or open world games that's most AAA games too. So you really have to have that unique hook or people are just going to fall back on the familiar 3rd party game instead. And by the time your game is even on sale the next big 3rd party game is coming out too. 

Are they just going to make tons of spinoffs of their tried and true stuff now? Are we just going to get another Uncharted spinoff every other year until they run it into the ground because they can't be bothered to risk anything? Are they already working on remaking The Last of Us Part 2 in addition to the original game's remake? Are they going to remake God of War PS4? Spin off from God of War so they can make multiple games at once from it? 

I can't imagine what they're thinking. I'd love to think they'd crash and burn spectacularly, but they won't. That would be useful to get positive change and that's yet to happen to a degree that changed Nintendo around fully to what I know they're capable of. Though at least they still experiment, while PS seems like it's going to become boring as shit as a publisher. 

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How do we know if we love it before paying full price though? For a new IP especially ??? Stfu and be happy anyone bought it at all, ungrateful ass. Mad at gamers cuz your game was a fucking mess at launch so it didn't get the support YOU wanted it to.

 

And the main part that gets me is "Because if you did, then that's supporting the developers directly". ANY sale that ISNT pre-owned is supporting the developers directly. Full price or not. The developers are getting a cut regardless from ANY and ALL sales, physical and digital; that aren't pre-owned.

 

In short, if you want people to buy your game at full price at launch, make sure your game is worth being bought at launch. In the case of Frames Gone, it was far from worth it, I wasted $130 on that damn CE. Best part of it was the steelbook. Lmao

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On 19/04/2021 at 5:40 PM, dieselmanchild said:

Dayummm this thread got nasty!

 

Lmao , those arguments of SUPER-BRAINS are very entertaining. ?Personally i think DG should get a sequel, that game was decent enough. 

New IP at least and sequel can be way better , but people are happy with useless remasters or remakes (FF7 is good but will be chopped to dlc's)

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Unless Sony ever adopts Nintendo's pricing model where it takes years for a price drop outside the periodic sale, there's little reason to buy a game at launch. I can count on one hand how many games from each generation I felt compelled to buy on day one. I have plenty of games to keep me busy until a new game will eventually drop in price. $60 and $70 is a lot to spend up front just to be one of the first to play a new game. It doesn't even take that long until a new game has its first sale prices.

 

Plus there's the whole issue of bugs like everyone has mentioned. Cyberpunk is a perfect example. On the surface, that game has all the makings of what I look for in a game. Then the reviews come out and it turns out that it wasn't quite ready for primetime. I realize that it's probably fine to play on a PS5 but the lack of quality control turned me off. I'll play it eventually but it's moved down my list of priorities.

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6 hours ago, Elvick_ said:

Also this goes far beyond just this game. It's concerning that Sony is placing such importance on metacritic which is utter fucking garbage, and early sales in what they deem worth continuing. 

 

I don't think Sony is actually worrying too much about Metacritic in this regard. It's a convenient prop for them, sure, but...

...

...it's really those early sales that Sony cares about.

 

Also (switching gears), a lot of people in this thread are saying that Sony didn't support Days Gone. Perhaps that's true, but I remember a lot of hype for this game prior to release. There was talk about how Days Gone would push the PS4 to new places, blah blah blah. I'm pretty deaf to that stuff in general, and maybe that hype train ended mysteriously just before the game was released, but I'm sure there was a lot of big talk about this game.

 

4 minutes ago, plataa89 said:

Unless Sony ever adopts Nintendo's pricing model where it takes years for a price drop outside the periodic sale, there's little reason to buy a game at launch.

 

I'm not sure that Sony has the power to do that (outside of their own published games). But even if they do, I still think there's little reason to buy the game at launch. After all, it's not like the price will increase over time, and waiting simply means you get the best and most complete version.

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On 19/04/2021 at 0:55 AM, Carol said:

 

I agree but I think there a special cases. Like for me, by the time I got a PS4 and purchased DriveClub + season pass, Sony decided to shut down Evolution the same month :/

 

I do try to support the games I think need it at launch. Valkyria Chronicles 4, Dreams, Gravity Rush 2 and Remastered (alas it didn't pay off - so I have a right to complain for this one!), Days Gone (and this one), games from indies, certain JRPGs, EA Originals (example: A Way Out), etcetera. I buy them Day One - physical copy even though I have an avalanche of a backlog. For the dollar bin sales, I let that happen to the big publishers like internal EA games, Ubisoft and R*.

 

Vote with your wallet folks. I cannot stress this enough. Vote at launch and play the hours for the metadata analytics.

Edited by Eraezr
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11 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Over-popular, yes. That is my point exactly. Unless you consider these games to be the pinnacle of game design, there are definitive flaws with the quality = success argument.

 

I would argue that Fortnight was/is innovative and quality when it was released.  It was one of the initial wave of the battle royal style along with PUBG and was really well received.  The sports games I think are carried by the popularity of sports in and of themselves, even the annual COD every year has roots in quality in Modern Warfare and Halo 2 and are still coasting on the initial popularity, so there is definitely something to the idea that quality sells.  The problem I think in the idea is that a game only needs a baseline quality to sell.  For sure, these games aren't the pinnacle of quality, but they are good enough that there other popular features can carry them to commercial success thus prompting sequel after sequel to the point where they have become extremely stale.   

 

As to the main topic, I think there is some truth to the idea that games that are a commercial success on release, tend to get sequels.  That being said, to insinuate that the reason Days Gone didn't get a sequel is because it wasn't popular on release is incredibly tone deaf and disingenuous.  This is the first release this particular developer has had on console in a long while and even then, none of their previous games were a massive success.  I can't comment on the quality of Day's Gone other than hearsay since I haven't played it, but all reports turn to it being somewhere between mediocre and good after they fixed all the bugs at launch.   People that loved it will now be incentivized to buy the next thing from Bend, and would probably be more willing to buy it earlier which would lead to what ole buddy in the article wants.  As it is, he kinda burned up some of the good will he had developed. 

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56kksr.jpg

 

I can see both sides having points. But I think the big reason people stopped buying games at launch was that they got burned from the hype, and starting the game only to get massive game-breaking glitches and disappointment.

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A lot of folk find it very difficult to purchase a game at release when it’s a new Franchise! It certainly helps to know what to expect, so games like God of War will do especially well nowadays as there is a huge fan base! But of course games like Horizon and Ghosts of Tsushima did well also, and with being a new franchise! It really comes down to what the developer did before and early reviews and in both cases the games before from Guerrilla and Sucker Punch were pretty good and the reviews for their new titles were great! I bought Days Gone at launch and I also paid extra with buying the Collectors Edition, but I will admit I almost cancelled it when the early reviews were 5s and 6s! I guess it really boils down to the fact that Days Gone really wasn’t the greatest at launch and that it was beneficial for a large majority of folk to wait to get a far better game with patches and extra content later on! ?

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Eh - if you're gonna complain about it, you can only do so to an extent if you're one of the people who hopped on the bandwagon late for the game. For example, I had an utter blast with the Gravity Rush (played both games in 2018) and the ship had long sailed on franchise since they had shutdown the online. I can't really get pissed at Sony for not re-upping them since they didn't sell as much as many of their other franchises. 

 

I'll personally say I never buy games full price and always pick up all my games on sale - with extremely rare exceptions. That's not the norm. Most people get hyped up for a new AAA release and buy it on Day 1. Days Gone wasn't quite that tier of game, so it ended up not performing to the echelon in Sony's eyes that was worthy of a sequel. I get why the director would be upset about that - but ya can't realistically expect people to buy a game on Day 1 expecting to enjoy it before even playing it.

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