Giant Bombcast 05-28-2013

Finally. I've been waiting for you, Bombcast. Why don't you pour yourself a glass of wine while I change into something more comfortable?

@joshthebear: I can't...see...the loooooooooooooop!!!!

Compositing is not that bad in new AD season.

It's a browser quirk. What the button is actually doing is linking you to the file itself on a server. If you look at the URL, it's "blahblahblah.mp3". Most browsers nowadays have the capability to play music and video files, so they try to play the file within the browser instead of trying to download it. So in this case, what you want to do is right click on the link and select "Save link as..." or equivalent. It's possible to code download buttons to prompt your browser to try downloading the file with some sort of script, but for some cases just linking to the file is easier, such as here.

that thumbnail is disturbing

BOMBCAST!

I'm Rob and I like to race~ Racing is great~

Oh fuck. I contracted the disease.

Why are golphers so mean?

I expect to see Spielberg making Master Chief DUAL-WIELD two walkie-talkies. Cutting-edge shit.

I think the GB crew are painting with too broad of a brush when it comes to staleness of FPS. What they really meant was the staleness of modern military shooters, like COD and MOH.

There's still plenty of fun fps, Borderlands 2, Planetside 2, Day Z, Far Cry 3, Bioshock Infinite, Metro Last Light, the upcoming Destiny, etc...

I don't even bother with military shooters, too generic and boring.

Kill golfers? Correct me if I'm wrong but if Vinny kills golfers they're going to lock him up and throw away the key.

Really feelin' the intro tune this time around! Was it different?

An hour into this episode, and it's another depressing ordeal to listen to. I gave it a second chance like people suggested, but all it does is make me feel hopeless about everything.

Thank you for calling out Gamestop too, Vinny.

I'm pretty sure accusations against the guy who played Elmo were not completely false. Several other guys came forward with similar stories. Supposedly he paid off the first accuser to get the story behind him.

Anyone else having issues with the RSS feed? Since the redesign it's been a bit touchy with my readers (mostly BeyondPod). Now it has gone from being delayed by a couple hours to just not showing up. I have manually re-subscribed several times to no avail. Gotta have my Bombcast.

There's less than 1 minute of CG in Jurrasic park.

so is someone putting Vinny's racing line into a racecar toy or what?

WAS THAT NANAKO?

Holy goddamm hell, just reached the brad (who takes the cake as THE most jaded of the staff) and jeff excessively complaining about the state of the FPS segment, if it wasn't for Patrick being the goddamm voice of reason, they would have gone on forever talking about the doom and gloom about FPS games.

I'm really going to miss patrick and if it wasn't for the new generation coming up, I don't think I could listen to brad and jeff complain about FPS games anymore

I may not agree with Patrick on everything he says, but I still agree with him about the Steam trading cards stuff.

Hey Bombcrew,

I'm loving the episode and I appreciate you guys talking about the things Sony and Microsoft will not. You always offer interesting perspectives.

totally agree,

but what perplexes me is minutes after that doom and gloom on fps games, jeff says he played counter strike go and still really likes it.

well counter strike go is more or less the same game counterstrike has always been so playing that is more like playing CS 1.6 then it is playing a modern shooter, technically it is but it really isnt.

On a separate note the part where bioshock infinite is awesome has very little to do with the part where you shoot guys, though it is good at that

Me too. :(

ah yes you are right about counterstrike. my mistake.,

it still made me stop for a min after all that doom and gloom talk, and then minutes later say that.

and to each their own on bioshock infinite, i do get where people are coming from on how that wasn't their favorite aspect, but personally i thought the gameplay was satisfying.

@vinny I understand your argument against Gamestop, and I agree 100% that they are scum in terms of how exploitative they are, but what if I just want to give a copy of a game that I don't want to play anymore to a friend and they have to play a fee for the game I gave them. Granted it becomes a problem that the game you bought is actually just a license to play the game, but it is an issue none the less.

@patrickklepek I agree 100% with your argument about the consumer end of the how the industry has been handling their "issue" with pricing and the such. I also feel like that because the publishers feel so desperate to ape movies in their perceived value that THEY make the games more expensive and over hire on studios and such (which is where you hear how layoffs happen all the time after a game's release) and we DON'T need these super expensive games for fun games. There have been plenty of lower budgeted games that do well without being super expensive AAA properties. Every argument you've made on today's bombcast was fantastic and in lockstep with how I feel about why these issues are happening now.

Another thing. I wanted to note that I feel like a lot of times people don't understand why people don't like always on DRM. Or I want to say that they are arguing their point incorrectly. It isn't that our power or internet will go out, we (the consumer) SHOULD understand that it happens occasionally. The problem is trusting the publisher/console maker on their end to keep their servers up so we can actually play the game that we BOUGHT. I mean look at the whole D3 and SimCity debacle. With those games at launch, because of always on DRM you couldn't play the game that you paid for. Now Blizzard eventually fixed the issue in D3 but I think SimCity is STILL screwed up and some people are having a hard time playing the game. That is the problem with always on DRM. We can't trust the publisher/console maker with having a serviceable system. Valve gets a pass because you can still play your singleplayer games in offline mode. It may not be the best but you can at least play most of your non-online games...you know...the games you PAID for. With the next console cycle (and even with steam) it makes me concerned what happens when the servers for Xbox One goes down permanently does it mean I can never play those games ever again? Did my "license" on that disc expire? It seems so not consumer friendly in the slightest. And I understand devs and publishers got to get money, but screwing your legitimate customers is definitely not the way to do this.

I know I'm crazy. I mean it's crazy that I've been letting my friends and family borrow games for FREE since the NES days and publishers and developers haven't seen a single cent of that thanks to my immoral practice.

Only a crazy person like me would expect others to understand that. Who would let people borrow games? It's just crazy talk.

Anyone else think that girl sounded like Nanako? XD

when's the last time it's not been 3 hours. . . ?

I use Steam because of the game exclusivity on it, not because of its game sales and ease of use. If I could install and run games like Skyrim, Saints Row 3, Civ 5, etc without having to use Steam, I would have never used Steam, but Steam is like a console of its own, and some games I want to play are tied to that service.

I'm happy for those who can have a better experience because of it and for how Steam keeps the PC games industry healthy, but I would have preferred if I could run my games standalone.

No, I'm sorry. As much as I love this site, and as much as these podcasts are a major component of why people come here, I can't dedicate 3 hours to listening to a podcast. I just can't.

I like the weird dark turn this podcast took with all the future talk at the end.

I buy and sell used games, but I do it trough Amazon. I can sell for whatever price I want and choose what I'm willing to pay.

A lot of us just want to be a part of the conversation. We can get a game four months later for cheaper and new, but it means we aren't a part of the zeitgeist.

What does Vinny need with a starship?

Dude, just do what I do (and perhaps many others) and listen to it while you drive to work or gym or whatever your thing is.

Gamestop is not the only place to buy used games! So to say everybody is sticking up for Gamestop's bad business practices is just wrong. I'm sticking up for Amazon and Ebay's fantastic business practices when it comes to buying and selling used games.

"Gopher Genocide"

@screamingghost said:

"Gopher Genocide"

that ... is awesome :) ... did you make that?

If MS and SONY come up with a service like greenmangaming, I won't have much of a problem with it. But I just can't see them allowing players to buy games for less than $10 on a regular basis.

@2headedninja: Thanks and yes I drew that. Great avatar by the way the guys at Creature Box do some killer work.

Except Borderlands 2 has already gone down the same path and become stale, Bioshock Infinite's and Metro's combat isn't exactly it's strongsuit, we don't know how Destiny is going to be, I lasted about 5 seconds into Planetside 2 before I got bored, and well Far Cry 3 can only go so far going with the crazy ass tone before that gets stale.

Regarding Call of Duty: It is exactly as Jeff and Patrick suggested.

Same as Madden, same as WoW, the majority of the audience is not "video game fans" who are in the market for other games as well as their one big game: they just want that one game.

"People who buy Call of Duty," and "people who buy other games" are two separate circles, with a comparatively small amount of overlap in the middle.

When companies realize this, they will either start making smarter decisions based on trying to win only the smaller audience that actually exists, or they will panic, crash, and explode. The more they listen to their stockholders, the more likely they are to follow the latter, doomed path, out of a short-sighted pursuit of a huge CoD-destroying jackpot that does not exist.

Again, just like all those companies that were making MMOs to try and dethrone WoW.

There's no there there.

Also, regarding the "no used games, all-digital future:" less choice is always bad for the consumer.

It means higher prices, manipulative practices, and exploitative, obfuscatory systems thrive, because people have, essentially, nowhere else to go. Look at cable companies, look at cell phone companies, look at energy companies-- hell, even look at medicine.

The "all-digital future" so many are anxious for means a more restricted, more choiceless market, where producers singlehandedly control prices. Having a digital option is great-- but only so long as there are other options for it to compete with. Otherwise, it's essentially a state-run economy.

So if you as a consumer are excited about "killing off" physical media because you think it's unhip or inefficient or you don't personally use it, you are missing the bigger picture, and actively working against your own interests.

And that's dumb.

The Microsoft server center sounds a lot like Sun Systems before they were bought by Oracle.

I hate it when people complain about systems that they don't use, I use steam everyday, but I really don't care about the trading cards, if they added it to the game i play now I might try to get a set but it's not going to interfere with my experience, if someone else wants to buy all of the cards or trade or farm games to level up then that's on them.

tl:dr - If you're not forced to use it then don't complain about it.

Ahh, sweet, delicious Bombcast. And agreed, that lady does sound a lot like Nanako.

Steam is definitely more convenient then pirating, but what exactly is more convenient about downloading music from Itunes, rather then pirating? Just wondering since Patrick brought it up. I mean the reason pirating games is a hassle and shouldn't be done (aside from morally) is the annoying process of cracking them, and then maintaining updates and cracks. Music doesn't have that.

Rallying against MS' used game policies does NOT equal cheering for Gamestop. Quite the opposite: what these policies really do is destroying the user-to-user used game market, you know... for example the possibility to lend a game to a friend or trade games via message boards. Gamestop, on the other hand, would get a de facto monopoly on used games along with a few select other stores (while MS and publishers get a cut from the profits).

What really needs to be done is cutting Gamestop out of the loop. They are the hurtful element in this, not the average person who privately lends or trades games occasionally. Gamestop made a big business out of used games and they are aggressively pushing them on customers which basically put us into this mess.

edit: okay, Vinny is talking some sense now

I immediately looked at wikipedia to see who was talking to me through my teddy ruxpin all those years go and my mind is thoroughly blown.