Giant Bombcast Game of the Year 2017: PLEASE STOP

Also regarding gaming pricing in general:

Jeff mentions in the discussions that a lot of users would gladly pay $70/game to keep the blind box / seasonal DLC / online pass tax out of games.

I would make the leap straight to $80 for appropriately scaled games. I don't have an issue with it.

The only games I bothered to engage with this year did not have blind boxes as a component. It was that big of a factor.

I'm glad for the WWE and Yukes rant. It was very cathartic.

I really did like Here Comes the Pain a whole lot, and they've been increasingly frustrating every year since. I haven't touched it since they removed the custom stories. It wasn't something I used a ton, making one or two stories per game that I never upload, but it's just the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I really hope for the time when it looks fun again.

I'm not telling others they can't like it, but for me personally I completely agree with everything they've said and think it deserves a spot on this list.

Here's the thing though, you might not be telling others what they can't like, but they are on top of thinking anyone that does being "idiots"....and by completely agreeing with everything they said....you are too!

@jedikv said:

Concerning when an editor becomes an apologist for a company's (in this case loot boxes) practices. It is not editorial's problem if a company needs to find ways to raise additional capital. Likewise, a company doing loot boxes "OK" (Valve and Blizzard were the examples) does not immediately justify them as a viable practice; rather, it points back to the peak of the slippery slope after we've reached a bottom filled with paid progression and "boosts". Never forget: Editors are not advocates for investors' well-being. Editorial has a responsibility to be an advocate for the reader. The team should not have had to explain a pro-user stance to an editor. The last thing users need is editorial making justifications for poor (any) business decisions: This destroys trust. I'm glad they said they understand the issue, but it will be "trust but verify" in the future when it comes to their opinions.

Edit: Spelling

For the Switch discussion, it's worth pointing out that the thing doesn't even have an internet browser you can select as an app to browse the web. Just the most barebones thing possible to maybe get through a guest wifi login page. It's the first time I want a game console to have an internet browser since the PS3/360/Wii generation, and it's the first game console since then to not have it.

Why should I have to buy and carry around a separate tablet in addition to the switch when the switch hardware clearly can handle a damn browser. I know they're doing it to stop hackers, but that's not my problem and every single other game console still has a browser. Hell, there isn't a single electronic in general that can't browse the web except for the Switch. Probably easier to browse the web on some refrigerators than it is on the switch.

Does it feel nice? Sure. Do my games lack that one final drive to keep me playing and maybe mopping up some gameplay elements? Totally.

Here's a good example: I played 115 hours of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I beat the story and said: whelp guess I'm done. If there were trophies or achievements, I guarantee I would have put 60 more hours into that game to complete my blade collection, fight all the optional bosses, etc. It's incredibly fun and satisfying to earn trophies and even look back on them after a year. Makes me fondly remember what I did.

Heck it helps me find content! I'll look at all the secret trophies and see what else I can do. Sometimes I see optional bosses I never found and go on a journey to look myself. Nothing's stopping me from doing it anyway, but without those locked spots on my trophy list I just never care to keep going.

To go along with the WWE 2K thing, has anyone seen the horrible Switch port?

Yup, WWE supposedly forced 2K into that and now they're pissed at them because they couldn't deliver on the lesser powered system the year they gave the game a graphical overhaul. Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back and 2K tells them they need more time to figure some shit out because the yearly release schedule just ain't working out at the moment.

My thoughts in favour of lootboxes/blindboxes:

Gamers, particularly professional gamers like the GB duders, very often have a bit of a skewed view on games. They are the most fantastic of luxuries (at least of ones that normal people can enjoy, not just the rich). The amount of money you have to sink in is insane, when compared to so many other things. The three 2017 games I played were Horizon, Nier, and Wolfenstein. The first I bought used for $40, the second I rented from the library, the third I could only justify buying on sale for $50 because I know someone willing to buy it off me for $30. I have bought a few other games this year, but in total have spent less than $100 (and that's in Canadian dollars) this year on games. And I can't really afford even that much.

What I like about lootboxes, and it goes for blindboxes too, is that I can usually still get something without paying anything. I can play Overwatch, and get an occasional new skin just for playing. This is not something I can otherwise afford; I can't justify wasting money on purely cosmetic stuff, but getting it still feels nice.

I don't know how many gamers are quite as broke as me. As I said up front, this is a very luxurious hobby, and the people who are into it tend not to be people who are one late paycheck away from homelessness. However, for those of us who do want to partake and can't afford to, that first free hit that they deal out to try to draw people in is a heck of a lot better than nothing.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness here, hope I made some sense. I'm exhausted and freezing; I'm not at my most logical right now.

Haven't read through all the comments, nor have I completed the podcast yet so I may be overlapping the comments of others. Just typing this out as it's happening in the conversation.

To me, "games as a service" means you don't own the game. You pay to access the service as it is available. The first example I think of in this context is Marvel Heroes. I thought I bought that game, but what I really bought was access to the service while it was available... and then the service shut down and I was left with nothing.

That is crappy. That is a thing I'd love to say "STOP!" to.

Hearing Jeff talk about games as a service makes me simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic about the next few years for games. I'm totally on board with games like Hitman and Overwatch that are still putting out great new stuff well over a year later that you can keep coming back to (except the blindboxes, Overwatch). I'm totally NOT on board with what misguided money-grubbing suits like EA think games as a service is and what is inevitably to come: ludicrous nickle and diming though naked shakedowns for more than the $60 entry price. The crucial component of the "service" concept is that the $60 "base" be totally worthwhile on its own and the paid additions be valuable if you want more than the base. I am intensely cynical that major publishers will adopt this model without purposefully devaluing the base in order to make the paid additions essential in all but name.

As an example, Paradox sometimes runs a very fine line between paid additions that add to the base (acceptable) and paid additions that improve the base (unacceptable). A big part of the expectation is that improvements be free, which they do largely deliver on.

Nier's extended "walking" sequence was totally earned, because of what happened immediately following it. Destiny more or less starting out that way, sucked, and was unearned.

Gotta make up for that investor disappointment over the ME:A portfolio failure. Shareholders need that warm, fuzzy, bank.

Loot with marketplace value. PLEASE STOP. It just leads to cratefarmers and hackers.

I used to love Rocket League. Then they introduced crates and keys. Now half the games I join have crate farmers that either jump in place or drive full speed ahead the entire game. And if there's a new batch of loot, there's no point in even trying to join a match. I would've considered Rocket League to be in my top ten games of all time, but not with the loot system as it now is.

I wanted to get into PUBG, but I don't see the point now. I could invest 30 minutes into a game just to get shot in the head by an uzi from a mile away. That doesn't sound very fun. From the streams I've watched, this isn't an uncommon experience.

I know that removing loot with real-world value wouldn't eradicate crate-farmers and hackers, but it would make a huge impact. Bans and reporting systems have proven to be near useless, often resulting in people getting banned for no reason while hackers roam free. And even if you do ban the hacker, they'll just be back with a new account, maybe a new IP address if needed.

I've been feeling the same way after some of these discussions. Not to disparage Brad's views but I feel we definitely see things differently. Love the shows though and a variety of views and perspectives is conductive to a well rounded discussion on the topics at hand, despite the inevitable heated (at times) disagreements.

P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

P.P.S. Fuck loot-boxes

Blind loot boxes are bad, but what is the alternative?

If it is $70-80 games then I am hesitant to change anything. If it is some new micro payment system that is even worse then I hate that too. The supplementary market has been around on facebook and now phones for a decade. Who knows if that will ever end.

Of course loot boxes have been shown to change the way a game is developed and that is the freaking worst. I have basically zero trust with developers (especially big ones) to design a game to not coerce you towards buying your way into things. Battlefront 2 is the most extreme example of this in the full priced game market, but who is to say that Destiny doesn't have lower drop rates of sparrows in order to make people buy more?

The real problem is greed, but hey don't worry. You are subsidizing those giant companies every day. I am sure they will return the favor at some point. I wish there was an was an easy answer for all of these nickle and dime problems we face in the world.

@soulmanim3: I don't see a problem with an "editor" (I think journalist or writer is the proper title) providing justification for lootboxes. Journalism relies on the writers opinions, and if a writer can back up their statement with proof or well-thought out points, I want to hear it. Just because their opinion doesn't match your own, doesn't make them an advocate for investors.

You can be "pro lootbox" and still have the reader's best interests in mind. If Overwatch didn't have lootboxes, they would've found a revenue stream elsewhere, probably paid DLC. I don't want to pay for maps or characters and I have no plans of ever buying lootboxes. Fortunately there are people with more than enough money in their bank accounts to buy them and therefore I get free maps and characters. Works out great for me.

I don't think that pointing out the good ones was an attempt to justify all lootboxes as a viable practice, but rather saying that it can be done right. If you want to believe that all lootboxes are bad based on Battlefront or Shadow of War, then you're doing the same thing you're accusing the editor of doing, just in the opposite direction.

I have no idea how Ben, during his defense of loot boxes in which he defends their existence as monetarily helpful for costume designers who churn out mediocre crap that no one actually would purchase except for by accident in an overpriced blind box, didn't have an epiphany right there about why loot boxes are awful for people who play games they already paid for.

I guess this is what happens when you're raised on garbage like DOTA? What the hell dude.

I also have no idea why people think $70/$80 games are the only counter to loot boxes. What about $20/$30 games instead? Not only would I be more forgiving of attempts to nickel and dime (tastefully, of course) on a $20 game, but I'd also be more willing to just impulse buy the game digitally or when it's brand new (instead of waiting for it to drop from $60 to $40, at which point I might as well wait until it drops to $30 or $20 or $15 or $10, because it inevitably will, within a matter of months, as used copies flood the market because people are motivated to recoup as much of a $60 purchase as they can). The economics of games are broken because the games are TOO expensive up front, not too underpriced.

Movies cost just as much to make, often more, but you'd call someone nuts if they tried to sell you a movie ticket or standard Blu-ray for $60. Yet when they sell Blu-rays for $15/$20, people just impulsively buy them without worry as to when/if they'll ever watch them. (Go ahead and count how many physical movies you have still in their shrink wrap. I'll wait.)