I’m sure if it was up to the developers and creative minds behind the game this would have never been an issue. Sure, things like inflation have made the process of making games more expensive, but it’s not like the extra money is going to actually go back to the developers. I’m so sick of this “games are more expensive to make” bullshit while they treat their employees like garbage and make them work ungodly hours. Micro$oft makes more money in one day than most of us or any of the developers will ever see in our entire lifetimes yet they need to lecture us on why we need to give them more money.
To be clear, I hold no grudge against the actual developers of this game. The first one was pretty decent and I’m sure this next one will be relatively good as well. But remember that we are talking about the company that forced Arkane to make Redfall when they had no desire to make it, and after it failed fired everyone at Arkane Austin and closed the studio. This isn’t about making their money back to cover the cost of development, it’s about making as much profit as possible with the least amount of effort possible.
I didn’t even buy Borderlands 3 for $60 and there’s no way in hell I’d pay $80 for something similar. I spent the full price of Baldur’s Gate 3 for myself and two of my friends for a total of $180. Make the game worth it and you have my money. If the development cost of games has gone up then prove it and make better games.
And look, I’ve played early access games before and I’m used to playing games that do a server wipe every once in a while or saves being incompatible with the new version, but I’m talking every update and multiple times a year. It makes it so the only sense of progress you feel is when you buy a ship with real money so you can still have it on the next update. It’s a very exhausting game.
As someone that played star citizen and enjoyed the gameplay very much, this game has been basically ruined by greed for years now. They basically discourage playing the actual game with these practices. Sure, you can work your ass off and make a butt load of money to buy a bunch of cool guns, armor, and ships, but as soon as they do a server wipe, which they do fairly regularly, most if not all of it will get wiped clean. But if you give them real money you get to keep everything after a server wipe.
I even had a friend where his ship, bought with in game currency, glitched and he was able to keep it several updates later with no issue while mine disappeared. We both bought them with in game currencies at about the same time. Mine disappeared as soon as the update came out and he had it for almost two years! To me that sounds like it’s intentional and they could totally get away with letting you keep your stuff but they choose not to.
It’s a remaster of a game from 2006 with a fresh coat of paint and some QOL changes and that’s basically all it ever could be. 70% of the game did not age well and they honestly did the best they could. If they did a complete remake and “modernized” the game all the old-school fans would be pissed. If they kept it as true to the original as possible besides a facelift they’d make it harder for new players to want to pick it up. I feel like a good 7/10 was the best they could shoot for under most circumstances.
And if you ask anyone where Bethesda fell off, depending on which game was their first, they will all give you a different answer. For me Morrowind and Oblivion are the best in the series and that’s with over 500 hours in Skyrim. They’ve been dumbing their games down with each new iteration since the 90s as they try to “modernize” the newest game each time and reach new audiences. Like, good luck playing Morrowind or Daggerfall these days without losing your patience in a matter of hours. And Morrowind especially is barely playable without mods these days.
I still hated Starfield, though. Gave it the old college try and left so underwhelmed I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about the story.
My only thing is that I hope they fixed some of the blaring issues with the original. I still go back and play Oblivion from time to time, but I usually have to spend 4 or 5 hours just downloading and installing mods. My biggest gripe with Oblivion has always been enemy scaling. Unless you do the main quest first you’ll be fighting the strongest enemies in the game by the time you get around to it.
I’ve seen some people play it and it seems pretty cool. Although it doesn’t look amazing and seems pretty shallow, it’s only $40. The price tag alone is almost enough for me to give it a try. Any of the Sims games are hundreds of dollars at this point if you wanna buy the DLC. And that’s on a decent sale, too.
My philosophy is that Civ 5 and Civ 6 are just fine. My friend was going to buy 7 on release and I was like “yeah, but you can just go play Civ 6. It’s not like it’s a bad game just because the new one is out.” And I’m glad I convinced him otherwise because of how “okay” Civ 7 has been so far. Nothing against the game, I just already have the last three Civ games with all DLC and there is still a mountain of content that we already have to play with each other.
This article feels like it was written by someone that has never gamed on PC and they gave almost zero examples of how Steam is declining besides gaming on Mac and their 30% cut. As someone that has been a PC gamer since the early 2000’s, they underestimate the ubiquity that Steam has. If it’s not on Steam some people will refuse to buy it all together. Not even as a boycott but just because they want all their games in one place.
There will always be alternatives, and I agree that’s a good thing, but Steam basically already cornered the market. Unless someone provides a service that isn’t just different but actually better for consumers than Steam, they will stay on top. Doesn’t matter about exclusivity, free games, or how much of a cut they take. From the perspective of the consumer, Steam is the best option.
And this isn’t just me fan-boying for Steam. I have plenty of issues with them. I just happen to have a lot more issues with the alternatives. The only exception I’d make is GOG. Their launcher is kinda meh, but I enjoy the lack of DRM. Now if GOG had an app and social aspect similar to Steam, that’d be a game changer.
My GPU can do ray-tracing and that’s usually the first thing I turn off because it absolutely destroys performance for minimal effect. I think ray-tracing is cool and all, but I don’t really care when it makes most games run like shit. I thought Elden Ring was poorly optimized until I turned it off and than BAM 120fps no problem.
Honestly if it has to be enabled, as much as I love the Doom games, this’ll be a pass for me. Smooth combat doesn’t mean shit when it stutters every 2 seconds.
As much as I like putting limitations on lootboxes or banning them out right, I’ve seen what developers do when they can’t use lootboxes. $20 to $30 “micro” transactions with predatory menus and game mechanics that make you feel bad for not owning the latest hotness. They will do anything to make that microtransaction money regardless. They’ll just take advantage of a different part of your brain.
Fantastic game but lemme tell ya, the controls for that game did not age well. I’ve tried to go back and play it, even on an emulator where I can customize the controls, and it is baffling how unintuitive the controls are on modern controllers. It worked when the N64 controller was considered good. But with how controllers have evolved it’s basically unplayable no matter how it’s configured.
It will literally never happen, but a remaster would be sick.
Just in case you forgot, getting rid of video games is part of Project 2025. Republicans have had a vendetta against them since Mortal Kombat came out in the arcades back in the 90s. And in some ways they have been against them since their very inception with Pong and Tetris.