There is alot of new Division content today that came out and it's clearly doesn't look at good as the E3 footage from 2013 and 14 and I know it's only console footage from the Alpha now but the PC version I'm sure will be downgraded because it's Ubisoft #parity. My question is why are these big sites so afraid to tell the truth I mean we can go far as back as Aliens colonial marines and of course Watch dogs too. It's getting kinda of ridiculous that there suppose to inform us and be honest you see in the comment sections and everybody is talking about the graphics and the gaming site wouldn't even address it. I'm not naive to think there not getting payed off and that's why I think you tubers are so popular because at least some of them will bring it up.But it blows my mind that these big sites still wouldn't mention something so obvious. I'm sick of these fucking graphic downgrades this generation and I wish these Companies would stop this shit fuck false advertising end rant.
Why don't major gaming sites mention graphic downgrades in there previews?
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I think they get around it by saying that whatever they show in preview events is work in progresss and not representative of the final product.
I don't think them having to downgrade the graphics since E3 counts as false advertising as the game was still being worked on then. If they used those graphics in a release trailer or promo content close to release then yeah, that is misleading.
I guess it's personal preference on where you draw the line between 'this is still in development and can change' and 'we are close enough for me to reasonably expect the final product to look like this'.
It is a bit weird if websites don't mention it at all though, even if it is a changeable part of development. I think Giant Bomb do mention it in podcasts but then they don't really run previews like other outlets.
First of all work on your grammar and formatting.
Second, things can change over time. What they may have been aiming for graphically two years ago may be different now. It's difficult to have any real information about the development decisions that go on behind the scenes. It's all speculation until someone working on it can give details about it. You want to know about things that go on during development? Start reading things like Gamasutra and attending development conferences.
Third, #FollowTheMoney
It sucks that it'll be downgraded for PC, but if its alpha footage or early preview material than I don't mind it being changed because games are hard and optimization is hard so ibviously this stuff changes over time. I agree with @paulmako, if there is discrepancy between the final product and release-window preview material then that is a problem.
I'm with @tobbrobb on this one. It's unfortunate but it doesn't matter - the early footage is target stuff, once a game expands to its full scope and scale oftentimes that means it has to be tuned down graphically. In fact, as I was saying just the other day that I didn't understand why companies suffering notable framerate issues with their game didn't just tweak the graphics down slightly to get it running more smoothly, I'm actually glad in a way to see when companies do make that decision.
Now if they were selling the game using that footage as advertising, that might be a different matter. But they aren't; preview builds, as many companies will insistently tell you, are "not representative of the final product" and you don't spend your money on them until you have a decent idea of what the finished product is like. Unless you're pre-ordering blind in advance, but that's perhaps a larger issue at that point.
#FollowTheMoney
Things change over the course of development - for better and for worse. All you can really do is base your assessment of the game on the release version.
As far as some outlets not mentioning it, I don't think it's a big deal. It's coverage of an alpha, not some sort of review that's intended to be someone's more definitive final opinion on a game. I also don't think there's any reason to jump straight to these grand conspiracy theories where Ubisoft is putting money in everyone's pockets - it's extremely unlikely anything like that is actually happening.
If your job is to report on a products development and eventually review that product you're talking about two different things.
If you're reviewing a final product only the final product matters. To bring up a demo shown months, or even years, before that final release doesn't have an impact on the actual finished game. You're job is to pass judgement on that product's finished state as you play it and nothing else.
If you want reviews to suddenly include biased from previews, demos, and trailers they once saw and impart personal expectations about every piece of a game every game's score would be lowered. E3, PAX, Gamescom, etc. are all marketing driven events designed to impress and impart positive impressions on reviewers and consumers. Maybe the problem isn't that reviewers ignore previous marketing material, maybe too many consumers believe marketing material.
It's not really a downgrade if they haven't even released the game. If they released the game and it looked amazing (or even good), then they put out out a patch that made everything look worse, then that would be a downgrade.
The press, for the most part, understand how game development works. It's silly to criticize an alpha build for not looking good, even these days when alpha and beta have almost lost all meaning. An alpha is an inherently unfinished product. Also, even if those E3 trailers were real gameplay (which is almost always impossible to tell) the quality might have worked for those areas of the game, but not others. Or the developers might have thought they could pull of those graphics two years ago, but overestimated the power of the PS4 and Xbox One.
If it was a launch trailer that looked significantly different from the actual game, then I could see why people would be upset.
Because at the end of the day it doesn't matter? All that matters is if the game turns out well. If they had to downgrade the graphics to get the framerate up across all platforms, so be it.
Except they totally do. Does no one else remember the endless discussion around the time Aliens: Colonial Marines came out about how the section in the final game from the first previews looked dramatically worse and was missing details and geometry?
I'm willing to bet my left toe that, if Aliens: Colonial Marines was a good game in any other respect, no one would really care.
Do you really need big video game sites to tell you something you can see for yourself?
Nope I just don't like the fact that there deceiving the public and more importantly that these companies keep getting away with this shit. There's absolutely no reason the Division should be downgraded on PC it should look at least as good as the E3 2014 demo since it was running on a PC. I understand the consoles wouldn't look like it because it doesn't have the horse power but why does the PC have to suffer from console limitations?
@jec03: You really should check out the difference between there, their, and they're.
They don't talk about it because that's how advertising works for everything everywhere. If you're older than 12, you've probably figured out that commercials and reality usually don't coincide. Every game shown at E3 is spruced up to look better than it actually does.
Also, numerous sites have talked about the issue before. It's a global issue, so they don't really need to mention it again for every game.
The game also wasn't running on a PC in 2014 because the game wasn't anywhere close to being done. They showed off a vertical slice of the game that had been specifically crafted to demo well. It likely wasn't feasible to get the whole game looking like that and compromises have to be made as things happen. There's no conspiracy to downgrade the game on PC so it doesn't look better than the console version.
Do you really need big video game sites to tell you something you can see for yourself?
Nope I just don't like the fact that there deceiving the public and more importantly that these companies keep getting away with this shit. There's absolutely no reason the Division should be downgraded on PC it should look at least as good as the E3 2014 demo since it was running on a PC. I understand the consoles wouldn't look like it because it doesn't have the horse power but why does the PC have to suffer from console limitations?
Because these games wouldn't exist on the PC without the console market.
These games wouldn't exist at all without the console market.
PC gamers represent 10% to 20% of their user-base, but would consume over twice that in optimization resources across the hardware skews if they allowed it.
(I am speaking as someone who hasn't owned a console for nearly five years)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-19-cd-projekt-red-tackles-the-witcher-3-graphics-downgrade-issue-head-on
Maybe the people at these sites just don't care? I know that I couldn't care less if a game's final graphics are of a lower quality than when it was first presented. It doesn't affect how the game plays or my enjoyment of it. I'm also not stubborn or incredibly naive and think that a game can never change or look worse that it did before. If you're a graphics person, then fine, but if you care so much about graphics and visit multiple game sites, then you should also be well aware of the fact that games in development are constantly changing and never look as good as their E3 demos.
@jec03: You should really stop using words like "deceiving" and defaulting to the malicious route. What you are talking about has been a thing for a very long time. What you see at E3 is more of a concept than an actual game. It's a pitch to the public saying "hey, this is what we are going for." Things change when the game is actually made. Compromises happen literally in every fasit of a games design to make the original pitch possible. It's not a matter of anyone deceiving anybody. It's recognizing what the pitch is and what the reality of the actual product will be.
Because they don't really care about that part, and rightfully so. If graphics and performance is your kind of thing, follow digital foundry and you'll get most of what you need.
Things change during development. Of course they'll go for the best looking thing they can when first showing off a game. They don't want to underwhelm. Oftentimes, it turns out their target was too high and they need to adjust. And you know what? They generally end up making a beautiful game nonetheless.
No conspiracy, no "lying", none of that. Just plain old realities of game development.
The OP is a bit over the top but I don't understand why people defend stuff like this. Sure, they canget away with downgrades but that doesn't mean they should. It's deceptive, and I think it's incredibly naive to think that devs actually believe (at anypoint) that they'll be able to ship games with the graphical fidelity of the prerelease builds that they often advertise (i mean seriously Killzone 2?). It seems like pretty much every game gets optimized and downgraded after prerelease footage is released these days, so you would think they would anticipate that well in advance. If the current market actually gave them a reason to care, perhaps they would compensate earlier in their prerelease coverage.
I'm an attorney who works as in house counsel at a company that sells financial services. I spent half of my day telling sales people: "I understand that you are trying to sell something but you can't say that because it's not true!" This really isn't any different except that my industry is heavily regulated by the SEC/CFTC/Fed/FSA etc. whereas the FCC doesn't care about misleading advertising in video games
Most critics just take the games for what they are at release and critics are not lenient on graphics. The way they say the word unplayable for console versions and stuff it's too far the other way if anything.
And as always, I just have to say figure out not to trust marketing too much. I think most people seem to generally get that but then they still get all wrapped up in it.
@jec03: Because the game is not anywhere close to being finished. A downgrade is when a game is available to play, like a demo or on another platform, then you get it the full game or buy it for a different platform, and there is a significant difference between the 2.
It is literally impossible for a new game to be downgraded. That's like saying they significantly increased the frame rate or added a ton of replay value and solved hundreds of bugs for a work in progress game.
Saints Row IV on consoles is an example of a downgraded game. The Division cannot be downgraded. They are still working on it. The only thing that is important for game critics to mention is that it looks different from the preview builds for instance. And then, only when they have a retail code to work with. That obviously doesn't go for alpha footage, since there are 101 reasons it doesn't look as good as the intended build.
Giant Bomb doesn't run previews and I don't go to other game sites so I can't say if this is a problem or not. When Jeff or Brad sees something at a pre-release event they give their honest opinion of it I feel. When Watch Dogs was shown shortly before release and it had major graphical downgrade they called them on it.
They did mention it... ages ago..
You know, when it was news. If you're late to the party, that's on you. All good of course! But you can't get here late AND talk smack out of turn. The Division was dowgraded IMMEDIATELY after it's first showing and then at pretty much every subsequent event and it was very much talked about.
You feel it needs to be brought up every time the game is mentioned maybe? :S
And in any case, downgrading is complicated. It is 100% possible that many games which are "downgraded" are not done so through malice or lack of skill. The developers in some cases believe they will hit their targer mark, but later, for many reasons cannot. Sometimes this is even for the benefit of the game at large. This is just the nature of software development. Whether you are building a game or not, it's easy for ambitious goals to meet roadblocks along the way. As an educated fan of video games, you should never assume a preview of a game is final quality. It could be better, it could be worse. Should developers do their best to be honest? Duh. Still means downgrading will happen.
Finally, who really cares about old videos? Do you think most of the people who are going to play the Division are buying it because of the very initial reveal? Nope. They're gonna see some live action TV ad. So who exactly is being swindled or hurt by downgrading? The hardcore, who follow the game closely? The mainstream, who have no clue what we're talking about anyways?
http://gearnuke.com/division-pc-version-will-allow-wealth-graphics-customization-options/#I found this maybe there is some hope it wouldn't be as downgraded as much as watch dogs.
I'm an attorney who works as in house counsel at a company that sells financial services. I spent half of my day telling sales people: "I understand that you are trying to sell something but you can't say that because it's not true!" This really isn't any different except that my industry is heavily regulated by the SEC/CFTC/Fed/FSA etc. whereas the FCC doesn't care about misleading advertising in video games
I don't think an extremely early demonstration of a game truly constitutes advertising for any sort of final product. Games and software in general change and evolve a lot over the course of development, so setting your expectations based solely on something shown years ago is a bit unfair. If they never showed anything else and then released a game that was surprisingly very different, then I might be inclined to agree, but in almost all of these cases, there is plenty of content closer to the game's actual release that shows the current state of the game.
PC Downgrade confirmed this is real PC footage by the way theirs another video of him going through the graphic settings Ubisoft are worst then EA to me these days. It's pretty damn bad graphically compared to E3 2013 and 14 #FuckUbisoft.
What changes naturally during gamedevelopement and the offset between marketing material and reality is not the same thing. 99% of marketing is shitty becouse its aimed to sell the product not to give it a fair representation.
You see those shiny "previews" of hamburgers that McDonalds have on their adds? Ofc anything could happen during cooking so the final product might differ some.
Multiple reasons, for one "graphics downgrade" mean different things to different people and can vary wildly depending on setups. Second, a preview build is just that a preview build its not representative of the final product. Third, nothing can be downgrading when a game isnt even out yet, most professional game writers realize that games change during development, and nothing is final until the retail version is released. Games take a long time to make and that includes playtesting for performance especially on pc where there are multiple configs where one line of code can ruin a game for one person and run perfect for another.
Yeah sure there are development realities, but there is also cold hard marketing. Just like few games really have "revolutionary open world freedom" or "deep tactical gameplay", marketing guys always will, to be blunt, lie about their game to sell it. Also, from personal experience, far more serious industries than video games will be as economical with the truth about the capabilities of their products.
Technical shortcomings and bugs (I put questionable graphic quality in the former camp) are supposed to be highlighted if present in the review build (being expected this one to be the release version as well).
Every project is a moving target where individual elements can get altered at any given time for a multitude of reasons up til finalization. You literally validate a console version alpha build and draw conclusions in comparison to 2.5 years old press conference coverage footage.
I couldn't care less about all these tin foil hat wearing gamers that see conspiracies everywhere all the time and seriously believe EA, Ubisoft and their sort follow a hidden agenda and are literally the worst companies on the planet.
If you dislike a game for whatever reason, don't buy it and move on with your live.
They don't cover it because they care about the games. They know things like Watch Dogs are running fancy per-frame compiled special builds that get sped up and foley-tracked to form great looking trailers. They know what matters is the game too and that their audience is gamers and not spirited youth on forums online who for example, cannot stop throwing shit on PSVR because it's going to be 90hz-120hz VR on a $400 RRP box for graphics while ignoring everything about the actual gaming you do in PSVR.
go back to neogaf
Because publishers, and specifically Ubisoft, have been doing it for decades. They've been selling better graphics than what is actually delivered for so long that it's just expected at this point, we still get caught out when Ubi show actually gameplay like in the Watch Dogs e3 presentation which makes us mad, but the marketing concept as a whole has always been something we put up with.
It's better to have realistic expectations, otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy, think of the poor developers being forced to work miracles instead, i thought Watch Dogs was still very graphically impressive.
Whats the point? When the game comes out thats what you get. There is no point in saying "oh well 3 years ago at E3 this game looked way better!" If the game came out, people played it, and THEN they downgraded the visuals to make it run better that would be a good news story. Because then they would have actually sold you one thing and then you would get another. Taking developers to task for super early trailer footage not matching up with the released products (sometimes years down the road) is not only silly but a little sensationalist.
Especially as mentioned in the GB cast a couple of times more often the E3 presentations are self running applications in a very controlled environment only (more of a proof of concept) and not even close to a game.
Beyond all that there's just the fact that a developer will optimize their engine to run on consoles where AAA games tend to sell way more copies at full price instead of 10 bucks on a steam sale a year down the line. That's discounting the problem of piracy too.
Not enough people who are willing to pay full price for games at launch actually have the rigs to run your undowngraded version of AAA games. That's just a cold reality of the games market.
Because maybe people won't notice and pre order it based on that and they can make more money and most people in the industry are too scared to say anything, using the "realities of game development" excuse, despite these sometimes being billion dollar companies that put out multiple games a year so you'd reckon they'd have a pretty good idea of the "realities of game development". It's just marketing. I don't think it's a downgrade cos I don't think they ever intended to release the game looking like it did originally, that was all just to get people pumped.
@jec03: At this point, you just have to be trolling, right?
No..
As a fan of maniacs, I love this thread. Follow the money.
Thank you I'm not a corporate shill. :)
They straight up lied and said there would be no console parity on the PC at 4:35 he says each system basically wouldn't be held back so that's BS.
Developers and PR "lie" more than just about the graphics. Almost everyone knows this and have come to terms with it. This is why you judge the release product for what it is, not compare it against pre-release impressions.
At this point, why would one get so bent out of shape about a graphics downgrade and comparing alpha footage several months or a year plus and beta footage. If the game ends up running much better and the game itself is actually good than at the end of the day, it wouldn't matter. There really is no point trying to be reasonable with people like the OP if their mind is made up already and are just finding reasons to validate what they think instead of trying to be more understanding of the situation and just want to keep being upset about it.
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