Cracked.com: 6 EA Games That Completely Screwed Customers
Aug 1, 2015 21:08:15 GMT
Lord Ba'al, 13thGeneral, and 1 more like this
Post by mindless on Aug 1, 2015 21:08:15 GMT
6 Early Access Games That Completely Screwed Customers
Early Access in gaming is just like the rest of the Internet: technology that started off as a great idea but is now full of dicks and scams. The theory is that players can buy a game before it's finished to support small studios and to generate priceless community feedback. In practice, it's assholes shouting, "Wow, now we don't even have to finish this bullshit!" Game development is more complicated than it's ever been, with 10 new stages after Alpha and Beta testing, and Early Access is how assholes use it all to take your money.
Peter Molyneux made fantastic games 18 years ago and spent the money reinventing overhype as a performance art. If Molyneux had made your genitals you'd be disappointed even when playing with yourself, because he'd have promised that orgasms would summon free pizza that leaves you smelling like a fresh summer rain.
Instead, you smell like anchovies.
His game Godus raised over three-quarters of a million dollars by promising a modern Populous with a shared persistent world, multiple-platform support, multiplayer co-operative modes, and a "regenesis of the god game." This was promised by a man who once had to beg for donations to fix Curiosity, a smartphone game where you spend money to tap on blocks and nothing else.
A few years of sequels and they might work their way up to Arkanoid.
Thirty months and $800,000 later, Godus' status is "almost none of that stuff and almost nobody working on it." Most of the staff have been reassigned to a completely different game or switched to the freemium mobile version. That's "freemium" as in "this game charges you money to get things, but thanks for the free half-million quid anyway."
Kickstarter: Where old developers pawn their own legacies.
How did Molyneux apologize? By blaming Kickstarter (and therefore all his funders) for giving him money in the first place while admitting that he'd been lying all along. He bemoaned:
via TechRadar
"It's everyone else's fault for believing a single word from my scamhole."
No, you asshole! The point is to say what you can actually do, and if you make enough money you actually do it. That's it! Dozens of small studios do it! They depend on Kickstarter to do it, to develop their dreams, because they're not gaming superstars who made Populous and Syndicate and Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper and they haven't sold enough games to build a Death Star out of the discs before telling players to pay microtransactions before you'll alter the bullshit you sold them any further.
Molyneux pissed in the beginner's begging bowl after stealing all the money. I'd swear the whole thing was a scheme to cripple funding for the next generation of developers because he hasn't finished a good game in over decade. He's now working on mobile game The Trial. I'm not sure how stupid you'd have to be to spend a single cent on that, but that's exactly how stupid Molyneux thinks you are.
Early Access in gaming is just like the rest of the Internet: technology that started off as a great idea but is now full of dicks and scams. The theory is that players can buy a game before it's finished to support small studios and to generate priceless community feedback. In practice, it's assholes shouting, "Wow, now we don't even have to finish this bullshit!" Game development is more complicated than it's ever been, with 10 new stages after Alpha and Beta testing, and Early Access is how assholes use it all to take your money.
Peter Molyneux made fantastic games 18 years ago and spent the money reinventing overhype as a performance art. If Molyneux had made your genitals you'd be disappointed even when playing with yourself, because he'd have promised that orgasms would summon free pizza that leaves you smelling like a fresh summer rain.
Instead, you smell like anchovies.
His game Godus raised over three-quarters of a million dollars by promising a modern Populous with a shared persistent world, multiple-platform support, multiplayer co-operative modes, and a "regenesis of the god game." This was promised by a man who once had to beg for donations to fix Curiosity, a smartphone game where you spend money to tap on blocks and nothing else.
A few years of sequels and they might work their way up to Arkanoid.
Thirty months and $800,000 later, Godus' status is "almost none of that stuff and almost nobody working on it." Most of the staff have been reassigned to a completely different game or switched to the freemium mobile version. That's "freemium" as in "this game charges you money to get things, but thanks for the free half-million quid anyway."
Kickstarter: Where old developers pawn their own legacies.
How did Molyneux apologize? By blaming Kickstarter (and therefore all his funders) for giving him money in the first place while admitting that he'd been lying all along. He bemoaned:
via TechRadar
"It's everyone else's fault for believing a single word from my scamhole."
No, you asshole! The point is to say what you can actually do, and if you make enough money you actually do it. That's it! Dozens of small studios do it! They depend on Kickstarter to do it, to develop their dreams, because they're not gaming superstars who made Populous and Syndicate and Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper and they haven't sold enough games to build a Death Star out of the discs before telling players to pay microtransactions before you'll alter the bullshit you sold them any further.
Molyneux pissed in the beginner's begging bowl after stealing all the money. I'd swear the whole thing was a scheme to cripple funding for the next generation of developers because he hasn't finished a good game in over decade. He's now working on mobile game The Trial. I'm not sure how stupid you'd have to be to spend a single cent on that, but that's exactly how stupid Molyneux thinks you are.
