This is why I'm scared of Reddit.

Ubisofts PR on the Watch Dog controversy

Someone just tell me I'm not wrong in being frightened of this group thinking. Try and read anything on this page without getting sick.

People really believe in this shit, and it's never going to stop. It's nothing new, it's just so pathetic and sickening to see people talking like any large group of people who specialize in telling you how to think. It's like the rest of life, why am I even talking. Same as yesterday, time to drink.

I saw a comment about how this is her personal account and not a PR statement. I don't know how the downvoters let that slip by.

What's happening? I don't know if I should look at it.

People who agree will rally around each other. The internet and forums give them a place to do this. There is nothing inherently scary about it and is fairly common- dare I say even normal- behavior.

The way it can become vicious is when it becomes unacceptable (searching for peoples home phones numbers and what not) but this is not confined to Reddit.

Nothing on that page made me sick. While I don't see the problem people have with Watch_Dogs (which is a way better game than the internet wants people to believe) I do see the graphical differences people are talking about. It is indeed a strange thing that Ubisoft couldn't fix this if a mod does so easily, but then again I don't know enough about the issue beyond it's symptoms. I suspect there are reasons but I don't think it's as conspiratorial as people try to make it out to be.

It's a conversation that goes dumb in a lot of ways, but it's not a wrong conversation. I don't know if that makes sense.

@sethphotopoulos: An Ubisoft person said they stand by their previous statements (concerning not downgrading Watch_Dogs graphics for PC). People are talking about it. That's all I am getting from this linked thread. I'm not seeing anything particularly controversial about the thread in general. The calls for "ubisoft are worse than EA" are a little much but I've seen worse conversations about less legitimate complaints so this thread seems fairly harmless.

I don't know, it just looks like the rest of the internet. Nothing to get upset over.

Groupthink's everywhere, especially on the Internet. Find a community that espouses open-mindedness? Be especially wary of them.

I kind of went through the thread a bit to see what the fuss was about, what are you referring to that's making you feel sick? What group thinking?

Unless there were a bunch of death threats on there that I didn't see or that got deleted, I fail to see what's at all troubling about that page. Seems like a reasonable reaction to be upset about a product you bought that wasn't just broken, but turned out to be intentionally broken.

I don't think it's "group thinking" that everyone is in agreement, so much as it's an argument that's really hard to be on the other side of.

What's to be afraid of?

Honestly, that isn't that bad... then again, I found myself on Reddit and 4chan earlier today reading about Starbound - that's some scary shit, and I can see similar threads of that in this Watch_Dogs discussion.

While I say this thread isn't that bad, the scary thing about the mob mentality is that it only takes one post from one person who's really fucked in the head to get the entire mob rallying in a terrifying direction.

It's almost like watch dogs was the first game some of these kids purchased with their own money that was disappointing and they just don't know how to coupe so they try to find things to blame

@darkstalker: unfortunately this will be the way for any game that shows higher quality graphics then the game gets released with.

I don't think it's as big of a deal as some people do, but at the same time it's not wrong for them to complain about it- especially when it's proven it can be fixed fairly easily.

I do find it strange that people are only complaining about this now (after Aliens Colonial marines), but ehh... whatever.

Joining in on the groupthink here, I don't see anything terrible here. Perhaps you disagree with them, but there's no harm being done or threatened to be done. It's a discussion on an online forum. They disagree with this PR lady's statement and they are expressing it in an acceptable way. One they start sharing her home address for a group egging, then we've got a problem.

This is what all PC community discussion sounds like to me. Moaning about graphics/mods and calling the dev liars or incompetent. Nothing is more boring.

Watch Dogs has some issues (The stuttering while driving in the deep city on Any config is pretty sad) but the hacking is essential the ideas are cool its decently made and a very nice looking game. I am excited to be able to push it father and make it look better but the reaction seems like an Extreme small vocal minority having a fit about nothing.

Uplay Blows ass, Stuttering is unacceptable, some dynamic lights and smoke effects getting turned off doesn't seem like the end of the world.

Also NOTHING in the reddit thread looked like anything scary/out of the norm/made me sick. People on lower end systems are having the loading problems compounded. The graphics thing is strange interested to see how Ubi handles it (I bet its terrible!)

EDIT: Tried the patch it Absolutely affects performance for the worse and does not fix the stuttering in any way, those Dynamic Car Headlights do look really sick though.

I still can't really comprehend the baffling pushback on this game.

As @evilsbane mentioned, it is a well made game with plenty of interesting ideas thrown around and good gameplay. Not the best open world game ever made, but certainly worth playing. I've seen many people act like Ubisoft had murdered their families in order to make it.

Go ahead, i looked though the thread and all i saw were a bunch of people talking about their PC setup. Also there were a bunch of posts helping others trying to get the game running.

For me the graphics is the least of the games problems. I'm trying to force myself to beating it. It's so fucking average and boring so far.

You mean like scientists?

@jackist: It's a bunch of people talking about PC settings, what is wrong with that?

In the internet era you shoul be pretty well informed about what your getting befor if you really want to.

Also who bases all of their expectations of a game on an e3 trailer?

Who's old enough to remember when all you had to go by was the box art for a game? Maybe I'm old and bitter I don't know ...

I hope one day I care about something at least half as much as those people care about their video game having slightly worse graphics.

It's almost as if nobody cares that the game itself is fucking boring beyond belief to play.

@falserelic: Same, and I cant remember the last game I didn't beat.

this is just the typical reddit circlejerk. I guess that can be scary but nothing will come of it. The scary shit are the super circlejerks where they directly accuse people of being terrorists, not just on the internet but like to the police and shit.

I will be the first to say that I think that all this Watch_Dogs kerfuffle is ridiculous and over the top, but I don't see anything especially egregious about this. It, like everything else I've seen surrounding this game, is a bunch of people getting bent out of shape because they haven't learned to manage their expectations and/or don't understand the concept of a vertical slice(especially one released two years before a game is done).

At least they aren't sending death threats. Yet.

I'm assuming all the deleted posts were the scary part?

It was a /games post that made it to /all. Unfortunately, that made it resemble something more akin to /gaming.

The /games moderators are quite on the ball, and they just moderated the shit out of it to make it a somewhat respectable thread.

That happened about four or five hours ago though.

I don't know I didn't see anything either than the usual Reddit BS. That said there were a number of deleted posts the OP may have seen that I did not.... so who knows what was going down in those.

I don't see anything particularly offensive. It's just PC setups now. What'd I miss?

That's what I was thinking also, not aiming to see all the posts in there, but maybe it's worth giving reddit community a bit of credit if they were able to police down most of the comments that the OP was suggesting were so terrible. Atleast what is immediately in view seems pretty normal, gamers talking about pc version of game and comparing system specs and results so they can enjoy game in best way possible. I can't get worked up to pull out the pitchforks on this actual "controversy". But, I also don't see anything that isn't filtered in most of that post that is objectionable.

Yeah every community has turds. If they're moderating the garbage then good on em.

Seems like a bunch of people bitching about a dumb game. If that disturbs you I suggest you never visit 4chan.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

it's not like Aliens: Colonial Marines got off scot-free. Gearbox did and still does get plenty of shit for that.

I donno, it seemed perfectly fine. Besides the people claiming Ubisoft intentionally set out to make the PC version look worse (rather than the more reasonable assumption of Ubisoft just not giving a fuck about the PC version), everything in there is rational. You sure you weren't filtering by "new" instead of "best?" Or maybe you're just mad that they disagree with you? Not seeing the problem.

EDIT: this is pretty rational, although it was a ways down the page:

As someone who has worked in software development and is familiar with the games industry after covering it for years, this whole thing makes me cringe at how people think they've stumbled upon a vast conspiracy.

What's far more likely to have happened is that the PC QA department didn't have time to test the whole game with the higher res assets, so rather than release it with potentially undefined showstopper bugs they decided to cut that stuff out of the GM. This kind of stuff happens in every level of software development, from websites to games to phone apps: features get pulled from release.

What people are acting like they've uncovered is a plot by a company to willingly release a lower quality product than they could because of some ambiguous backroom deal. What would the properties of this deal be? Microsoft demands the PC game look the same as the Xbox version? Microsoft makes PC operating systems and DirectX. Sony did t? Why would they? They never have before. If they were gong to hand over bags of cash for something it'd be to make the PS4 version look better than the Xbox One version.

What the smug internet detectives need to remember is the timeless adage, never attribute to malice what could easier be attributed to incompetence. Rather than jump straight to conspiracy, why not consider the simple possibility that Ubisoft didn't dedicate as many resources to PC version as they did to console.

link:http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/28crv7/ubisofts_pr_on_the_watch_dog_controversy_game_was/ci9tstp

Also, all the major subs, and especially the gaming subs (I'm just reporting what I've noticed) are full of horrible people, so it's kinda expected. Stick to the lesser known subs that are relevant to your interests if you wanna better avoid knee-jerk downvoting and conspiracies.

Discussing PC specs? Those monsters.

Talk about sensationalism. If that Reddit thread scares you, you should actively avoid any group of like minded people on the internet or in real life.

I guess I should avoid clicking on the link?

@golguin: It's a bunch of people talking PC hardware.

Well, first off there is the part where people just assume Ubisoft gimped the PC version on purpose to make the other versions of the game look better. I know it's hard but people have to face the truth: some publishers just don't care enough about the PC to orchestrat an anti PC conspiracy.

They didn't put in the QA required to implement those features on PC because they don't give a damn about a platform they perceive to be full of pirates and bargain bin shoppers.

@the_nubster: I know.

Ever since Aliens Colonial Marines people have complained about this incessantly haha

I said that.

@cornbredx: Oh, I misunderstood. I thought that you meant that it was weird people were only complaining now, when Colonial Marines did basically the exact same thing, implying that no one complained about that release. I get it now.

@the_nubster: No problem. My apologies on the bad wording. I could have worded that better. =)

I don't have Watch_Dogs, but all of the comparison screenshots and videos look like the depth of field was cranked up to the point of unplayability and an outrageous ENB filter applied. In some ways, it looked worse than vanilla to me. Has anyone here actually tried it?

My favourite Reddit circlejerk is /r/androidcirclejerk/. #HOLOYOLO

@chiablo: the mod creator admitted the DoF was cranked to high and was (is? I don't know if it was finished) working to fix it.

edit: oh forgot to mention, you can fix this by making the mod file read only and then turn off DoF in the games settings.

As long as there are no death threats or stalking, this just looks like any old-fashioned angry Internet thread. The funny thing is that these people think that somehow, a company outside of Ubisoft handed them a bunch of money to purposefully downgrade the visuals in Watch Dogs, when the more likely scenario is that Ubisoft made that decision at their own volition. The Internet seems to love collusion conspiracies.

If that scares you, I don't think you've seen enough of the Internet. Seriously, strap in for a while.

I agree with this

wait

maybe I shouldn't?

While I don't agree that public relations should be about denying facts instead of trying to cop to them in a humble light, people had every opportunity to not buy the game given the warning signs leading up to release, the reviews, and post-launch coverage. No need to be so angry. The simple fact is that they were developing a game for a set of consoles which hadn't even been finalized. They had no hopes of optimizing the game for any platform. Just imagine if they'd launched when they initially intended to...

I still don't actually have any idea what Reddit is?