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[JoshuaFH]

I really like discussions about video game companies and culter and stuff. I'll just post so I can keep up-to-date.

[Keiseth]

The logical thing for us to do at this point is to simply not pre-order games that don't offer a demo before you make the commitment. If after it's released, you're not sure if you want it based on info available, don't get it.

If enough people did this, the idea of releasing a demo for pre-order customers only would be against the bottom line, and would be nullified pretty quickly.

Edit: Of course I'm assuming the number of people who look before they leap is comparable to the number of idiots. I think that's where I made my first mistake.

EditEdit: This is why I stick to games made like Dwarf Fortress these days.

[sluissa]

Keiseth: The biggest reason people (stupidly and needlessly) pre-order is because gamestop(and to a lesser extent other stores) employees are forced to push them. They even go to the point of stretching the truth, or even lying. Many times they'll say that if you don't pre-order you won't get a copy. Well, in the case of gamestop, this may be true because publishers have gotten to the point where they'll limit their shipments to gamestop because they dislike their used game market. Stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart will get plenty of games and with rare exception, you'll never have a problem finding new games there on release day.

Summary: Don't shop at gamestop, they perpetuate bad practices, lie to customers and exploit them when it comes time to trade games in.

[Tilla]

Keiseth: The biggest reason people (stupidly and needlessly) pre-order is because gamestop(and to a lesser extent other stores) employees are forced to push them. They even go to the point of stretching the truth, or even lying. Many times they'll say that if you don't pre-order you won't get a copy. Well, in the case of gamestop, this may be true because publishers have gotten to the point where they'll limit their shipments to gamestop because they dislike their used game market. Stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart will get plenty of games and with rare exception, you'll never have a problem finding new games there on release day.

Summary: Don't shop at gamestop, they perpetuate bad practices, lie to customers and exploit them when it comes time to trade games in.

True that. I preordered GTA 4 but there were dozens of copies left over when I got there the day of release, and nobody else in the damn store. I did not bother to pre-order anything after that, and have never been shorted a game.

[Manchild]

eh.... your guyses gamestops must suck.....the one here ALWAYS has people in it buying games... and they have quite a large stock. and the people here, while they do ask if there is anything you want to reserve, and give you good suggestions, they have yet to lie to me....


Walmart on the other hand, isnt a game specialist store, and aside from one guy who is either the brother or gay lover of a employee at gamestop and knows a shitload, walmart knows JACK SHIT.

ive been to both... i frequently go to both.... Walmart is less than 30 seconds away from gamestop. i live less than a mile from gamestop and walmart... both are a twenty minute walk.... less if you jog or hurry....

i prefer the gamestop here rather than the one that is in the mall because they are much nicer, and they are knowledgable, and the customer service is great....


i STILL havent seen a game that ive bought through pre-order get me a demo of itself beforehand....

though i am still trying to figure what pre-order gave me that demo of Uncharted 2...... only ones i could think of would be either Infamous, Prototype, or COD MW2....

[Tilla]

eh.... your guyses gamestops must suck.....the one here ALWAYS has people in it buying games... and they have quite a large stock. and the people here, while they do ask if there is anything you want to reserve, and give you good suggestions, they have yet to lie to me....


Walmart on the other hand, isnt a game specialist store, and aside from one guy who is either the brother or gay lover of a employee at gamestop and knows a shitload, walmart knows JACK SHIT.

ive been to both... i frequently go to both.... Walmart is less than 30 seconds away from gamestop. i live less than a mile from gamestop and walmart... both are a twenty minute walk.... less if you jog or hurry....

i prefer the gamestop here rather than the one that is in the mall because they are much nicer, and they are knowledgable, and the customer service is great....


i STILL havent seen a game that ive bought through pre-order get me a demo of itself beforehand....

though i am still trying to figure what pre-order gave me that demo of Uncharted 2...... only ones i could think of would be either Infamous, Prototype, or COD MW2....

Twas Infamous that had the beta (not a demo, different thing) for Uncharted 2 multiplayer.

[Morsigil]

I dont get this cynicism at all.

Why does Brain Age sell well? Why does Phonix Wright sell well? Why was there ever an adventure genre? Why is it morphing into an interactive novel genre? (Ala Indigo prophecies)

Why are some of the all time acclaim games are the one that make you think, that offer novel challenges.

Why does every game need to be at such a grandiose height?

In all media, there are bubble gum trash, and master pieces. You cant say the media is going  down hill simply because there is bubble gum that does sell. Its absurd.

Just like with movies, tv shows, animation, and novels, there will a stream of mediocre stuff, that no one remembers that keep it going, keep it healthy to allow gems to crafted.

Thats it, most video games are mediocre. Most TV is mediocre, most novels are mediocre, most movies are mediocre. That just fine.

As for this nonsense that marketing ploys are retarded, is ironically retarded in of itself. Selling games, is incredibly cut throat. With long dev. times, increase cost, they need to get sales ASAP, and what help attract sales are gimmicks, stupid thing that make it look shiny.

Gamestop has a UFO special, because despite being speciality store, they are dwarfed by other retailers in video games and console sales. Much like how McDee dwarfs KFC in chicken sales.

Its not stupid, its marketing. They are trying to lure in customers to purchase from them.

They give demo to pre-orders so they have something in there hands for their money, just a little bit earlier. Its gimmick, and a small perk.  And to my knowledge, most pre-orders can be rescinded. Giving out a demo to them before anyone else is more dangerous. It allows for viral advertisement to saturate it with negative opinions before it hits the general public, prevents demo plays, lowering chances of game purchase.

When ever a game release a demo, its a good thing. Just like its a good thin, when movies, novels, so forth give advance screenings to critics.

When they do not have a demo, is when you should be worried, and its none sense to be so upset over how the demo is package.


Something I do think is bull shit, are micro transactions. Buying that fucking scarf for your fps, is retarded. That just a hand on the tit of consumers milking it for every cent they.
Also, why are modern games more insipid then those in the past? In terms of gameplay and graphics, you cannot get any simpler then pong, or breakout.

Everyone has found memories of Punch-out, but its extremely shallow in almost every regard. Where the dermal bruising being rendered in real time? Where the ability to develop my own play style?

I also dont understand about games getting popular, and then dumber. Armed Core series, has a general urge to get more convoluted (which is fucking awesome!), Skate franchise has grown very popular, and yet its still require patience and skill to play well. Guitar Hero is stupidly popular, but they're adding game play features. Final Fantasy has no rhythmic flow with its difficulty, but still has male cos-players of female characters (as many of use would like to treat them like soap makers). Madden series rotate, and add as many game features as they nerf or remove. Jrpgs are still as complicated.

Mario has continue to be truly challenging, even though it lost some of this with its latest iteration, it still show immensely popular game, not being dumb down, as is zelda and metriod.

I know, that a similar list can be made to show popular games that became safe. That doesn't defeat my counter-point, by simply showing that there are popular games that retain similar level of complication, or grow more so defeat the generalization of gaming and popularity.

Wow, that was some rant.  Most of what you're saying has nothing to do with the thread or anything mentioned in it and that the rest completely missed the point.

Its not stupid, its marketing. They are trying to lure in customers to purchase from them.

They give demo to pre-orders so they have something in there hands for their money, just a little bit earlier. Its gimmick, and a small perk.  And to my knowledge, most pre-orders can be rescinded. Giving out a demo to them before anyone else is more dangerous. It allows for viral advertisement to saturate it with negative opinions before it hits the general public, prevents demo plays, lowering chances of game purchase.

You really don't seem to know what you're saying, nevermind anyone else.  This is basically what I was saying in my first post.  It's marketing, and it seems like stupid marketing.  They give the demo to pre-orderers only, people who have already decided to buy it, thus giving them a chance to try it out and get second thoughts.  The people whose minds they actually want to change don't get anything new, so they just keep thinking whatever they were before.  Unless, like I said, they've actually determined that people will pre-order a game just for the chance to play the demo early. 

Brain Age makes you good at arithmetic and counting and pattern recognition.  It does not in any way encourage creative or critical thinking.  I haven't played Phoenix Wright so that doesn't really mean anything to me.  There was ever an adventure genre because computer gamers used to all be nerds.  They've become interactive movies because that way they can replace puzzles with QTEs.  And really, like I said, none of that has anything to do with this thread.

This post ranks up there with the all-time most hypocritical posts I've seen in any forum. He missed the point? He addressed your whining bullshit point by point, and all you could do is start insulting him because he disagreed with you. I'm not sure how much more direct he could've been.

The guy didn't say Brain Age encouraged creative or critical thinking. I'm not sure whose ass your pulled that out of, but I'll assume yours.

How do adventure games have nothing to do with this thread? What you don't see is that he was making a larger point about your attitude. You're the whining, nihilistic, "remember the good old days" video game nerd. I'm the same way, except without the whining and the nihilism. I don't vomit my poorly thought out ideas in public forums.

Basically, he is saying that video games are becoming the subject of the same machinations as other media (tv, film), and it's just the nature of things at this point in time. To be very honest, this has always been the case: there have always been TERRIBLE VIDEO GAMES. Look at how many video games are based off movies, TV, or books. NES and before there have been awful, cheap, poorly constructed and marketed video games. Nothing has changed. If anything? Things are getting better. Gems like The Curse of Monkey Island, Fallout 2, Daggerfall, these were rare and far inbetween. Because you have nothing better to do with your life but wait for games to come out so you can mercilessly judge them and those who make them is exactly why you think there is this massive downhill trend in quality.

Re: the demos for pre-orders situation I haven't seen it myself, but do you know how expensive it is to distribute a demo? Did you ever take that into consideration? That maybe it's expensive, and they have numbers that show that demos don't necessarily promise sales no matter how much you personally enjoy having access to them.

Half the time I see you posting on here Ioric you end up flaming nonsensically and sticking your nose in the air. I wish you would shut the fuck up.

[sonerohi]

I can't find Duke so I'll sub in real quick. This is a forum on the Internet, and it's a civil discussion. Everyone, find your beanbag chair, sit down, chill out. Take some deep breaths, and formulate your ideas without taking the knee-jerk flamewar response.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

This post ranks up there with the all-time most hypocritical posts I've seen in any forum. He missed the point? He addressed your whining bullshit point by point, and all you could do is start insulting him because he disagreed with you. I'm not sure how much more direct he could've been.

The guy didn't say Brain Age encouraged creative or critical thinking. I'm not sure whose ass your pulled that out of, but I'll assume yours.

How do adventure games have nothing to do with this thread? What you don't see is that he was making a larger point about your attitude. You're the whining, nihilistic, "remember the good old days" video game nerd. I'm the same way, except without the whining and the nihilism. I don't vomit my poorly thought out ideas in public forums.

Basically, he is saying that video games are becoming the subject of the same machinations as other media (tv, film), and it's just the nature of things at this point in time. To be very honest, this has always been the case: there have always been TERRIBLE VIDEO GAMES. Look at how many video games are based off movies, TV, or books. NES and before there have been awful, cheap, poorly constructed and marketed video games. Nothing has changed. If anything? Things are getting better. Gems like The Curse of Monkey Island, Fallout 2, Daggerfall, these were rare and far inbetween. Because you have nothing better to do with your life but wait for games to come out so you can mercilessly judge them and those who make them is exactly why you think there is this massive downhill trend in quality.

Re: the demos for pre-orders situation I haven't seen it myself, but do you know how expensive it is to distribute a demo? Did you ever take that into consideration? That maybe it's expensive, and they have numbers that show that demos don't necessarily promise sales no matter how much you personally enjoy having access to them.

Half the time I see you posting on here Ioric you end up flaming nonsensically and sticking your nose in the air. I wish you would shut the fuck up.

He didn't address my "Whining bullshit" point by point.  He made up a whole bunch of unrelated points and addressed those, and not very well.  The only part that actually had to do with what I was talking about was the part I responded to, and it didn't even understand what he was responding to.  "It's not stupid.  It's marketing."  Like I said to him, it's stupid marketing.  I explained why I thought this.  Because it doesn't seem like it would lure in new customers, just give the customers they already have a chance to get second thoughts.  At the end he basically just switches around and starts arguing the other side of the issue, stating:

Giving out a demo to them before anyone else is more dangerous. It allows for viral advertisement to saturate it with negative opinions before it hits the general public, prevents demo plays, lowering chances of game purchase.

Then he goes back to arguing that games are better now than they were before, which again isn't what anyone was talking about here with things like.

Final Fantasy has no rhythmic flow with its difficulty, but still has male cos-players of female characters (as many of use would like to treat them like soap makers). Madden series rotate, and add as many game features as they nerf or remove. Jrpgs are still as complicated.

How is this an argument for why games are better now than they used to be?  Please explain the logic, because It's beyond me.

How do adventure games have nothing to do with this thread?

How does this question have anything to do with my post?  I never said adventure games have nothing to do with this thread.  I said that the fact that they ever existed was due to the fact that most gamers were nerds back when they were still popular.

The guy didn't say Brain Age encouraged creative or critical thinking. I'm not sure whose ass your pulled that out of, but I'll assume yours.

He used Brain Age as an argument against the idea that people are stupid consumers, in other words, saps, suckers.  All of these types of people are generally lacking in critical thinking skills when it relates to being a consumer.  Therefore, since Brain Age only trains you to be good at what amounts to mental manual labor, it's not a good argument against the idea that people are dumb consumers.

Re: the demos for pre-orders situation I haven't seen it myself, but do you know how expensive it is to distribute a demo? Did you ever take that into consideration? That maybe it's expensive, and they have numbers that show that demos don't necessarily promise sales no matter how much you personally enjoy having access to them.

If releasing a demo didn't help sales and was just a money sink they'd have to be idiots to do it at all.

Half the time I see you posting on here Ioric you end up flaming nonsensically and sticking your nose in the air. I wish you would shut the fuck up.

I'm going to post another quote of yours in response to that.

You're the whining, nihilistic, "remember the good old days" video game nerd. I'm the same way, except without the whining and the nihilism. I don't vomit my poorly thought out ideas in public forums.

I'm nihilistic?  Do you actually know what nihilism is or are you just trying to use it as an insult?  If anything I'm whatever the opposite of nihilistic is.

[Grendus]

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

grr.... you know those moments when you have heard a quote before, but because you cant think of where its from, you get angry?...

I doubt you'll be able to Google it. It's either misquoted (I'm guessing typed from memory, and this is also where my bet goes) or just stupid (I'm guessing not?). People in the 1500s knew perfectly well that Earth war round, Indeed by 1492 Columbus (who wasn't an earth sciences geek) not only knew the earth was round, but actually secured funding from civil authorities (and you know how conservative those always are) to sail to India based off this knowledge. The Earth was however the center of the universe in 1500s. And it was believed flat in the 500s (mostly because there were very few good scientific institution left by that time, and it would be centuries until new ones would be formed).

The point of the quote wasn't scientific accuracy, it was a comment on society, and it's pretty accurate. A group of five people in a cramped room won't stampede when the doors open. A group of 500 people with the same amount of space per person will. Small groups, where people can hold onto their autonomy, are as smart as the logical or of their intelligence (that is, redundant intelligence doesn't add, but if one person knows something it can be treated as the entire group knowing). Large groups are only as intelligent as the most incompetent person in the group: a single panicking person in a nervous crowd can start a riot. Thus a person is intelligent, but people are stupid.

[Manchild]

You're the whining, nihilistic, "remember the good old days" video game nerd. I'm the same way, except without the whining and the nihilism. I don't vomit my poorly thought out ideas in public forums.

I'm nihilistic?  Do you actually know what nihilism is or are you just trying to use it as an insult?  If anything I'm whatever the opposite of nihilistic is.

i think he is trying to you narcissistic, but because it seems that you both have you points, and both of you now seem to be flaming each other, i suggest you both go take a chill pill and lay of the bitch pills.


im to lazy to quote a second time but i think someone said something about how games are better now than before....

Fable was much better than its sequel. Mario still is one of the most famous mascots. nothing will ever beat the original metroid. Pong still kicks any sports games ass and sonic will always be the awesomeness that it was on the Sega Genesis...

Games are much like literature. there are new ones and old ones, but the oldies that you can think back to and say: "Ah, those were the days" while the newbies, you can say: "Wow. Ideas have really come far from what they used to be"

You cant compare Classic games to the new games, because thats what the old ones are... CLASSICS. they dont get a makeover(well usually). and they dont make them like they used to.... after all, technology has advanced too far for them to be like, lets go back to how mario was, or how pong was. the system doesnt work like that.



as for it being a beta.... same diff in my mind. after all, these days most demos are the beta form of the game. its after they have finished it,(or almost finished it, maybe pickin out the bugs) and want to draw an audience. From what i have seen, Sony has been pretty good about having demos for games out on the PSN at least a month before it comes out...

Dark Sector demo was released before the games release date was announced. and it was public. the bioshock demo was out before it was released on ps3. tons of the DL games on the PSN have demos available before you pay a single cent upon the actual game... hell i played the demo for Elefunk last night and hated the game so i didnt buy it. that is the points of the demo concept after all....

as for how much it costs to make a demo... it really depends upon how you budget your game, and whether or not you use completed levels or not...

WET had a demo released that you got to play three demo segments from throughout the game. when you do something like that, it becomes a hell of a lot cheaper than to create a demo that has almost no content whatsoever from the game.... it just depends on what your budget is, how far into the project they are and what is the desire of the company as well as the size of the fanbase and location of it....

[Toady One]

There needs to be more relaxation in the thread.  Morsigil has received a warning for what I think was the most abusive post in the thread, but everybody should take it easy.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

I'm not angry.  Just argumentative.

[Sappho]

[Granite26]

I think MrWiggles had a good point about the demos being something that they can put in a customers hands in order to drum up presales that can be used in viral marketing figures.

I.E.  I COULD preorder Halo 6, or I could keep my 5 bucks and just by it when it comes out (or 2-3 days later).  If getting it the day of release isn't a good enough motivator, access to the demo allows for the salesperson to say 'this is what you get now', even if it's a bullshit 3 extra days of demo play (which for young teens getting self esteem from their XBox pensu points is a 3 days of extra practice).

That pays for itself in additional presales, which the company is apparently valuing more than the additional sales it would get through the demo play.  That's true for Hoakie McHoakum's overhyped game, but it's also good for the solid megatitles that have their core audience locked from the get-go.  You probably don't need to play the new Halo game to know what it'll be like...  You know if you'll be buying it, and the demo saturation won't affect sales.  Getting a few hundred thousand bucks 2 months early in a frontloaded investment scheme can save a ton of money though.