Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

Yeah that's how I read it, wasn't sure why would you need the quotation marks otherwise. But hey at least it's clear now, and I get what you're saying don't worry. That being said, that was a pretty funny alternative. I officially identify myself as a video game whale from now on.

edited 28th Mar '18 11:41:07 AM by UltraWanker

Honestly, I can't be upset at the whales. The only thing they're guilty of is wanting to have a complete game experience and having money.

The people who deserve the blame are the predatory developers who make it so that you have to drop a thousand dollars to have a complete game experience in the first place.

Let's not start throwing shit at the whales. They're a distraction from the real source of the problem. When different subsets of marks start fighting amongst themselves over who's getting screwed harder, the con artist wins.

edited 28th Mar '18 12:18:46 PM by TobiasDrake

In defense of Asura's Wrath, the "True Ending" was originally gonna be a full on second game. The orginal games low initial sales scrapped that, and whatever Cyber Connect 2 had laying around was recreated into a 4 hour finale so that the original wouldn't have died on a cliffhanger ending.

Plus, it gives us This:

Honestly worth it, IMO.

The big problem with these people, I think, is that while they hold all the power to force those executives to change by being careful with what they buy, no one exercises that power. They think they won't make a difference, despite being proven time and time again (with recent examples such as the GTA V mods debacle or the Star Wars Battlefront II scandal) that if they simply took the sacrifice of not buying one game now, they might have a better version of that game in the future. So I can understand at least the frustration at those people.

That DLC is very weird since the content itself is fucking epic it's just the business practices surrounding it are shit.

edited 29th Mar '18 9:21:57 AM by GraymanofBelka

Jim made a coupe of videos about just that issue back when he was with the Escapist.

The TL;DR is that boycotts are well and good, but if you want to make a difference you're better off to buy what you want and complain loudly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sObmMAauwKI - Fortnite Is Violently Addictive To Children, Knobheads Claim

@TheLovecraftian: Thanks for explaining it in better terms, minus the undercurrent of frustration and the tinge of anger.

EDIT: Re: "Fortnite Is Violently Addictive To Children, Knobheads Claim":

Nine News? Those (*insert chain of very strong Australian expletives here*) again?

If those s**tbiscuits did real investigative reporting (say, on video game companies that promote ethically questionable game mechanics that lead to worse video game addiction) instead of scare-mongering with minimal basis and taking aim at what's the popular video game at the time, then perhaps they could earn even a modicum of respect.

But seeing as Nine News is (still) the kind of mass media company who would do anything to get their flaccid ratings up, they will remain a bunch of cu-[ ♪SKELETON WARRIORS!♫ ].

edited 31st Mar '18 10:38:54 PM by IncognitoNinja

For context, Jim talks about how Ubisoft reuses the open world formula so much that they use it in nearly every game they make. Sure, the games are still good, but they all feel the same; played one, you played them all.

I have a very love/hate relationship with Ubisoft

That's a weird timing for the video, considering how the latest Far Cry has attempted to shake up the formula and that they began expanding their catalogue a bit. Which, to be fair, he kinda acknowledges I guess.

edited 2nd Apr '18 1:46:41 PM by UltraWanker

I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy many Ubisoft games, but Jim is right: they are very much a one-trick pony.

It's a good trick. But it's stale.

Watch dogs 2 kind of did it as well

Assassin's Creed Origins also tried to put more emphasis on story-based missions, that all have their own plots.

Jim talks about Shadow of War is getting rid of its lootboxes.

I honestly have the nagging feeling that despite removing the loot boxes, Middle-earth: Shadow of War's progression and game balance are still screwed—perhaps even more so after being dependent for so long on those loot boxes. (Unless the devs are serious about fixing those...)

Then again, the last Lord of the Rings-related games I played was The Return of the King and The Battle for Middle-earth, so I'm honestly not the best person to ask about Shadow of War or even Shadow of Mordor. (I'd love to play BFME I, II and Rise of the Witch-King instead if they just worked on Windows 7 or 8.)

I'll do miss Jim messing with the Orc Merchant, though. ("Bleh! Blargh! Bleh! Blargh! Bleh! Blargh! Blargh!...Blargh!...Blargh!")

edited 4th Apr '18 11:00:35 AM by IncognitoNinja

This was months after release. It's obvious that they're only doing this to look good now that they've more or less squeezed out pretty much all the money they could get from the loot boxes.

The point of lootboxes is that there's no such thing as "squeezed all the money you're going to get out of it".

They're totally doing this to save face, but it's not because lootboxes aren't profitable.

It's not as profitable anymore since the game has been out for months and months already. That's one reason they're willing to do this for better PR. Jim more or less brings this up around the 3:30 mark in the video.

It's not that the lootboxes themselves aren't profitable but because it's already a good deal past launch and WB probably figured that they made most of their money from it already and that cutting off to save face now would be worth any small revenue they'd get from it going forward (they're not really saving any face but that's beside the point).

Unless I'm missing something, it also has the distinction of being a single-player game. Something like, say, Overwatch or Battlefront II snrrrrrk that's multiplayer-focused will have the goal of retaining an active playerbase for as long as possible... but something like Shadow of War doesn't have that luxury. After the first stretch out from launch, the playerbase will inevitably move on with no reason to look back and the well will start to dry up, especially with people who jump on the ship late being better-informed about the game they're buying and being less likely to fall for the microtransaction trappings.

Now that I think about it, given the idea is "the good PR from this will have the game make more money than it would of if we just left microtransactions in" I'm wondering if this update is basically the game's Complete Edition; it comes with the same logic of "now that sales are drying up we'd make more money if we made a version of this game where new players didn't have to buy anything extra." Except, y'know, instead of including DLC it's disincluding microtransactions.
...please don't make this a trend, AAA industry.

Or, they're hoping to get some media attention and drum up a few more sales from the momentary return of the spotlight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpKkvMf3j9s - PUBG Makers Start Suing Over Copyrights And Frying Pans

Squenix should get in. They've had game with frying pan users.