Giant Bombcast 08-20-2013

Re: Plants vs Zombies 2 Free to Play shenanegans,

on one hand, if a few people want to drop hundreds on this game and it gives them pleasure, let em.

on the other, we are the people who decide what's acceptable. If we don't want to see the F2P business model become the go to way publishers want to make games, we've got to let it be known. Because it makes money, and it'll happen.

Dota 2 is my favorite video game.

Please stop discussing Dota 2.

And YHWH bless him for that.

Granted the way @brad explained his distaste for the world gatingin PvZ2 is the best he's articulated it, the negativity felt somewhat disproportionate. I'm just not seeing it, even if the ideas and content of the arguments are completely fair and warranted. I saw that stuff and said "well, never paying for anything here but seems cool" and the only thing that's a bummer is the weird tacit grind vs. progression angle. I still want a pay once full version on PC but yeah, I normally follow them completely on the F2P stuff but this time it was a bit off for me.

I think putting the stars from the beginning as almost every damn game on iOS does these days would have made sense, especially since it broadcasts that paying stars to proceed makes sense. I think the issue isn't the world gates as much as knowing that was deliberately put in place for pay. Again totally makes them right on this one but I don't know, I see it as a more of an obvious wait for the PC version scenario than being mad at pulling rote (but not super crazy) F2P techniques.

It reminds me of Bejeweled on iOS which I think is more annoying than PvZ2 with its "wait a bit before you can play again for free" shit. Luckily I got everything I wanted out of Bejeweled 3 on PC but yeah, the track record can be inconsistent. I think PvZ2 is some of the better examples within the mileau of mobile F2P but yeah, it's still that. Kinda wish they framed it that way, but hey, Brad's another human being separate from me. Who knew.

it doesn't matter what you or anyone who's not putting money into the system think. if the people who want to pay, pay enough for it to be profitable continue, it will continue to exist. in other words, it will always continue to exist. there's no other option.

i loved all the wrestling talk at the beginning of the podcast, i will definitely get a premium membership just for the powerbomb cast. indy wrestling is a much better value from a ppv point of view. both ring of honor and promotions like dragon gate evolve, chikara all have internet ppvs and at most are 20 bucks as well as have the option to watch them as many times as you want cause they are tied to your account. screw paying 50 bucks for a wwe ppv

also id love for jeff or alex do a video segment at pro wrestling guerrilla based out of la. its one of the best promotions going right now. the crowd is always crazy and the in ring product is solid

great show, games are coming out again!

Here we go again! Can't wait to listen to it.

Brad's gf paused mid bone to play Animal Crossing

"Spoiled" was my initial reaction, which I later recanted. Up there. ^^ That you did go out of your way to say by 360 standards is commendable and I'm in no way trying to pin a bad purchase on you. That part's on me. Still, there is a certain wont for "hyperbolizing" the deficits of consoles among the crew. As a result, it shouldn't be unexpected that unless the flawed versions of the game are QL'd, that there will be those who take some of the technical commentary about the console versions with more than a few grains of salt. *Shrug*

Either way, I appreciate you responding to the comment.

@dvorak: One of my favourite games, League of Legends, is free to play. It can be done well and done right. Blockbuster $60 titles also have a lot of shit shovelware and people have stopped buying them, hence the collapse of alot of the B-tier studios. The bubble will burst on shitty FTP, but the good ones will continue and the shitty devs will move on to someother exploitation tool.

Realm of the Mad Gods had a great free to play/micro transaction system. It was a perma-death rouge-like but with a chest that would keep loot safe. You could buy more chests and you would only need to if you really got into it the game. Worked perfectly for me; I played the hell out of it and spent about a tenner - everyone's a winner.

Guys. Can we not quibble over "verbage" which is TOTALLY FUCKING VALID and Jeff's love/hate with wrestling and Brad's Dota 2 and Vinny's TOTALLY FUCKING VALID quibbles with Pikmin 3, and recognize me for ONCE in my life and talk about what a GREAT first comment I had? Just off the cuff! I saw 3:10 in the player and IT WAS LIKE DIVINE INSPIRATION.

/s

Putting that aside, I'm really torn on this new console generation. I have a totally killer gaming PC (Sandy Bridge) Core i5 3500k, EVGA GTX 680, a 120gb SSD boot/few game drive.. and I'm so very torn. I've traditionally (since the XBox at least) been a Microsoft fan, although my PS2 was definitely very well-used, and the 360 was the king of this generation for me.

But I've always had consoles. And I guess I'm getting a PS4, which is somewhat tough to justify given my gaming PC. Is anyone else in this situation? What do you guys think?

Did I miss the talk about krokodil?

The Free To Play business model is poison, and ruins any game that it's attached to, without exception.

Think about it and know it to be true.

This is the setup needed to play dj hero.

@dvorak:

I disagree. There are no inevitable gaming trends. Just look at the drastic change in public perception of microsoft's DRM policies in the last few months. It's gone from "Oh, online DRM is the future, everyone is going to have it, get used to it" to Sony just having to powerpoint "NO DRM" on a wall and everyone going batshit crazy.

I think there's a great opportunity here in the iOS market for devs to publish games with no F2P bullshit, and really sell it up. Make their own separate "NO F2P" market. You could even sell it to parents as a game that "won't trick your kids into spending hundreds of dollars of your money with a few clicks".

I saw Disney Infinity at the Stark industries "innovention" expo... so yea.

Also there was a ton, like a ton, of Infinity toys at the Best Buy on Geary St. in SF.

Did Ryan Davis die playing Last of Us? Is that what all this aversion to play it stems from? I mean I know the game came out during a challenging time for the crew, but that is a must play game for everyone in the industry, just to have it in context.

It's right up there with Bioshock, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption, and Uncharted 2. It's actually better than a few of the games I just listed. GTAV has to be perfect to beat it for game of the year.

This has to be Brad hitting an all-time high in PC elitism. He had some line that went something like "some people have said they had fun playing Far Cry 3 on XBOX" as if it was some sketchy report from a 3rd world country. Jesus christ bro, you need to look past graphics. It's become completely absurd.

Also thank you Vinny for giving Brad a reality check without saying "What is your fucking problem' out loud'". You guys cover video games for a living, go buy the fucking systems when they come out and stop crying.

This specific podcast would be exhibit A for both PC elitism and the entitlement felt by game critics. Like Jeff said a week or two back "If not us, who?"

Was it edited out or something? I felt like I heard Jeff mention the name literally once when closing out a segment, and i did a double-take wondering if I had missed an earlier mention of it.

How can you not be excited about the launch line up for the new consoles? Watch "The Biggest Blockbusters" on Xbox Live and tell me that isn't a big list of exciting, pretty AAA games.

You know what I mean?

Jeff opens the podcast with a reference to a deep cut off the John Cena album. Uh, wow.

The first time I've listened to the Giant Bombcast in some years and it didn't disappoint. Despite the loss of Ryan, everyone is pulling through and making it as enjoyable as ever.

I will never understand what's so special about Gone Home. For $5, I may have understood why this could be a good value, but at $20 and no replay value? Huge rip-off.

@cthomer5000: If your a true videogame purist who is not broke as hell, you have been playing on a PC > console for at least the last 2 years. If you aren't that committed/financially solvent to perform that fucntion, that sucks for you. There are TENS of games, that if you played them on a decent gaming PC, and then say your PC died and you tried to play them on 360/PS3, it would simply be unacceptable.

@bigjeffrey: That might be the most perfectly looped .gif in history.

I've put over a 100 hours onto animal crossing, and so far, its been GOTY for me. I love the community, and hope for more!

Inaccurate blanket statement. I've hopped between platforms on plenty of fairly recent games with a noticable gap between PC and console performance (most notably Battlefield 3, SR3, & Sleeping Dogs). The reasons were varied, be it more friends playing on console or more convenient at the time, but it was not at all "unacceptable." Definitely a difference, but I'm not so stuck up and jaded that I can't enjoy a good game on whatever platform it's on, as long as it is not plagued with crippling issues. But please continue to tell us about what it means to be a "true videogame purist," because I'm fascinated to find out what you think that means.

What the hell is wrong with you

Brad's description of his experience is totally in line with gambling addiction. I'm not saying he has an addiction hahaha, just that it's almost verbatim, the description that addicts gave.

Simple way to describe it, anyway is that that an addict gets the feeling of victory from the *expectation of winning*, not only from winning, so they keep playing because they get the reward impulse.

A lot of games, Payday2 rewards after levels, Mass Effect's multiplayer rewards after levels, randomized purchases, are totally taking advantage of the way we're wired.

Even monkeys react that way to expectation, where simply giving them what they wanted, like some sweet juice to drink, had a poorer result than creating the *expectation of juice* by associating it with other actions, a bell, a game, a test, or some other impulse tied closely to a reward.

I like how Drew snuck in that Generation Kill reference while they were talking about the Marines commercial ;)

mostly the only color dogs see is blue

Clearing that Bombcast backlog. Felt like dropping in to say that there are other free-to-play games that have a pure non-exploitative model. Path of Exile is the particular one that comes to mind, but I believe Realm of the Mad God is pretty clean too. League of Legends comes close, but I feel like limiting access to heroes makes it hard to learn the game for non-payers.