TL;DW xd

MAH NIGGA!

gawds, the audio XD

I think .... uh

umm ... I ... think ............


that this guy has no case

"Also, grubby, fat, PC-gaming, cheeto-licking fingers?"

so so, does that mean that all pc gamers are grubby and fat and eat cheetos? BBC doesn't seem to be any of those things :V strange

I think GameStop just lost a bunch of patrons ;D

They still have some?

Guess the statistic is right. 1 in 50 Americans is mentally handicapped.

(That's an actual statistic, from my local special needs facility. I'm just using it as a snipe against ignorant buyers.)

i agree, this guy is an ass. i have to agree. your not talking about just gaming, your talking about people standing up for there rights as human beings and letting there voices be herd. Nice one man, didn't know you were so passionate about these kinds of things. I'm more of a pc gamer then console, but i own a ps3 for the exclusives and i cant agree enough. i felt the same way when i bought blaze blue and resistance 3. I'm not about to pay an addition 9 dollars for dlc that is already hidden and locked on the disk. if you really cared about your gamers you would release a full game. not half of one or one that's missing things that were promised. its a horribly act of business. I'm fine with a company making money, heck i don't even torrent stuff that i support or love, but its different when you come up with backhand tactics like hidden dlc, censoring negative comments, or paying off a reviewer to give you a good rating. I also agree with you about consoles. I love a good game. i could care less what console its on.

That was kind of painful to listen to.

I don't understand people that go "hurr durr gamer entitlement, what assholes, they should shut up". If you make a bad product (as has been seen in a LOT of games as of recent), then people should be warned not to buy it. If you buy it, then you have a right to complain.

Everyone's talking about Mass Effect 3 because it's the new hotness, but there are some serious implications with it being as successful as it was. The first is that the media blitz of "wow gamers why are you mad, these POOR, POOR Bioware devs and producers deserve your pity!" is basically the best litmus test for the state of the secondary video game market (sites like IGN, GamesRadar, Destructoid, ScrewAttack, etc). There is no way on earth that anyone in their right mind would blame consumers for the thing that they're consuming, but thats what these sites are doing. So since it's pretty illogical to try and say that gamers themselves are what's wrong with the industry, it leaves two (not mutually exclusive) options: either these sites are being paid-off to right what is essentially propaganda or they are making controversial statements to bump ad-revenue when someone on 4chan or Reddit links it. It's fucking atrocious.

The only person I know who liked the ending to Mass Effect 3 was Gabe from Penny Arcade. All of my friends disliked disliked the ending. The vast majority of people were disappointed with the ending. And people are willing to PAY MONEY for a better ending. As ludicrous as that idea is, it is still something. Ok, fine, you're willing to speak with your wallet like any consumer should. That's a personal decision, whatever. But now the gaming media is making fun of these people? "HURF DURF YOU GUYS ARE GONNA RUIN THIS LIKE YOU RUINED STAR WARS" Nigga, none of us is George Lucas. Nobody went "Hey, Han needs to shoot second, and Jar Jar should be in more movies". He did that on his own. But apparently consumers are to blame when the product they get isn't what they want as opposed to the company producing the product.


Fuck this shit man, I just want to have fun. I'm willing to pay people to have fun, I don't want to type shit out like this that should be obvious. And fuck Hamburger Helper.

...Really?
Are you seriously ranting on this?

Everyone else woke up a decade ago to the realization that game review sites are bought out and bribed to the Bahamas by the gamemakers.

Hey, don't you dis Hamburger Helper!

Seriously, though: There is something to be said for the notion that if the market consistently pushes for something, the industry will lean that way. The problem is that "gamers" are such a disparate group, it's all too easy to cater to the people who'd enjoy a game like the Mass Effect series in a manner more appropriate to some other fanbase entirely.

And then, of course, there's meddling execs and investors, who think that there's some magic thing that you can put in a product that will make everyone buy it no matter how atrocious it is otherwise. They can go fuck themselves.

Everyone's been saying this for a while now, but the fact that companies have been actively trying to "grab the CoD audience" is literally one of the worst things about this generation of games. "Oh, if we make this game more simplistic and 'casual' then it will appeal to even MORE gamers!" Well, people who only started playing video games because of Call of Duty have, historically, not played many other games besides Call of Duty. They have their gem of a series that they enjoy and have little desire to broaden their gaming horizons (which is fine, everyone is entitled to their own entertainment).

When you alienate your base consumers to try and grab another group of consumers, and then fail, then everyone loses. The company doesn't make its money back, the consumers don't get the product they want, and analysts look at the amount of copycat games coming out and say that it's the trend all new video games should take. Shit, look at THQ. They bet so much on Homefront that when it bombed like it did, they've had to downsize, and there are rumors that they'll either be bought up or merge with another company as a result.

Sooo... around 14 minutes in, the voice on the line makes the claim that witnesses don't constitute as sources. Who is that guy and why does he think he is capable of debating an argument?

I think the people at Valve put it best. to summarize, a fight against your customers is not one you can (or want to) win.

A business that sells something requires people who are not only willing only buy a product, but buy it from them and not a competitor. If those people begin to voice complaints, it's probably a sign that they will become unwilling to do one of these to things. Initiating a business model that causes large scale complaints deserves to be considered, at best, stupid.

From what I understand, the man we are watching (whose name I don't know, I'll call him Mr. Face ) is making the claim that the businesses he and his fellow gamers are purchasing from have begun to behave as though buyer feedback is no longer valuable, as the buyers are now behaving like addicts, and will continue to purchase from them. Mr. Face seems to feel that the best way to show that this is not the case is to come together as a game buying group and do some quick research into which companies are preforming pro-customer business practices and shop from them while boycotting companies that preform business practices that cause grief for their customers. Mr. Face's hope is that this will cause the companies to become pro-consumer in their practices, or go out of business.
This seems reasonable to me.

after fifteen minutes of watching this video, what I don't understand is The Voice on The Line. Is his argument saying rallying together buyers and having them boycott a company won't make them change their business model? Or is he making the claim that complaints about a company won't change anything as long as the companies business model continues to produce profit? He is expressing himself so poorly, I honestly have no idea what point he is trying to make, and what his counter arguments have to do with the issue at hand.

If he really was able to rise in ranks to become a manager at a Gamestop, the various complaints I have heard about Gamestop's causing ridiculous problems for it's customers suddenly make sense.

I guess I'll finish watching this, but I doubt Mr. Voice will miraculously start making sense. Could someone please tell me what he's trying to say, and why he's trying to say it?

i listen to the whole thing i think my ears are bleeding from pure stupidity

I find this conversation laughable in both directions. Both are clueless about some subjects, both are downright wrong, and they keep swapping places in the clueless git category. XD

Really, the only truth here is that it's PC vs. Console fanboyism. Neither is strictly superior. They have their purposes, and that's that. Consoles play games, the end. PCs do pretty much everything, and aren't for idiots.

The same war waged between Radio and Television when they were still big. The same thing happens now in Cable vs. Satellite. Same thing with Mac vs. PC vs. Linux. Same thing with anything with competition. It's silly.

People are going to buy, use, and support what they want, to the degree they want, based on a mixture of their perceived desire before purchase, and their satisfaction afterwards. The sales figures are the bottom line truth: If they're doing something right, they'll be successful. And if they piss off their entire userbase at once, they'll be like 2K Games' release of X-COM: The Chest-High-Wall-Shooter with nothing to do with the X-COM series.


A few things i'd like to beat these guys over the head with:
Firstly, PCs can be upgraded- you don't have to replace them when they're out of the ideal specifications, you can upgrade them. In recent years (Since around 2006) this has become increasingly popular as the standards have changed very little compared to the late 90's and turn of the century. (This is less true with Intel-based PCs, but AMD has been using Socket AM3 for a while now). Upgrades cost a fraction as much as a new PC, since the majority of the components don't obsolesce: The PSU, case, and optical drives effectively never become obsolete (Although technically DVD replaced CD, and BD is replacing DVD, this is a decade-based thing, and reverse compatability is ensured- as is forward). A new videocard that can run games comparably to an XBox360 only runs $60-120 (depending on ATi or nVidia- Compare to the ATi R500 on the Xbox and the $60 ATi HD 4830 on PC. HUGE improvement for the PC), less than the cost of the entire 360. 8GB of RAM can be had for under $50 (Compare to the 360's 0.5GB). A typical $80 AMD CPU nets you 2-4 cores at 2.2 to 2.8 GHz, compared to 3-core 3.2 GHz XBox360 CPU. For a 2006 computer, $250 will net you much better video and comparable CPU performance to the 360. So, Turo is way off on this one.
But he does have a point against BBC: You have to know what the hell you're buying in a PC, and not just throw your money blindly at whoever has the flashiest rig and highest prices. (Seriously, Alienware makes good machines, they're just triple the normal price)

Secondly, BBC is off as far as auto-updating. Some things update, but not all- Hardware updates through Windows Update lag well behind the actual driver manufacturer, and lack many of the features and capabilities, as Microsoft only wants bare-bones drivers, with no background services or helper applications. A lot of hardware (especially motherboards) do not use windows update at all, and thus won't auto-update whatsoever. Motherboards also require firmware upgrades, and it is potentially much less healthy than on the consoles, as hardware combinations that worked on a precious BIOS version may malfunction after an update.
But Turo is also wrong about being kicked out of games- almost every Xbox360 game can and will kick you right out when an update occurs, since many updates are security-related and Microsoft is ultra-anal about that. The PC has a big leg up because you can at least play the game without the latest patch, and for some (not all) you can choose older servers to avoid patching. Though really, patching is such an effortless task on both console and PC that anyone who whines about it really just needs to be Amish. Except when it comes to the OS update..
Turo is right- it is SO much easier to just buy a new console than update your OS. Installing an OS typically takes two hours at least- and if you snagged an older copy of the OS, the post-install patching can take many, many more hours (my record is 29 on a netbook). This is extremely painful, but luckily, it's a one-time thing. And installing a new OS is optional, unlike consoles. You can play most games still on Windows XP, and to my knowledge, every game runs on Vista and 7 both. So it's not like you need to be on the heels of the Windows 8 release date to hope to play that game coming out a month later.
And here's where the console still manages to drop the ball despite it's advantage: You can't play older games on new consoles, and vise versa. Sure, the Wii, PS3, and 360 had backwards compatability, but all three have dropped it. And none have anymore than technical support for double-generation leap: the Wii can't play 64 games. No, you have to buy emulated copies for it. It's called planned obsolescence, and it's a very popular business tactic. A bit scuzzy, but not unreasonable.

Also, Turo is clearly in a fucking fantasy world if he thinks having to drive to a game store is 'easy'. Now, in a big city, this isn't *AS BIG* of a task, but it's still a lot more than a download, that's for damn sure. In my case, living in a small town, I have to drive absolutely no less than an hour and a half to get to a gamestop, an hour and a half back. That's going to run me a good $35 in gas alone, not to mention risks of safety and security (technically there!) and the possibility of not having the (or any) game I want!
Then there's the 'shit disc' factor. Only 1 in 3 gamestop games i've purchased actually worked, despite their 'garunteed to work!' policy, which is utter bullshit. In one case the disc I received was even pirated, as evidenced by the obvious lack of labelling on the disc AND it's not working. So then you have to go BACK to gamestop, and get another copy- IF they have it. And if they don't, you don't get a refund, only store credit, and no way to get any little niggling $5 remainders back if you get a cheaper game. It's a clever upsale ploy, and positively disgusting.

BBC is pretty much lost on Piracy vs. Used Games. Piracy generates far less faith purchases than he seems to think- so little, in fact, that most game companies don't even bother to offer those keys anymore, even though they once did. EA, for example, along with (now defunct) Maxis, Bethesda, and so on. Why buy a key when you already have a cracked, working, playable copy for free? People are greedy, they're not gonna just up and buy it anyway if they don't have to.
And used games DO make money for the developer and publisher- on the original sale. But each re-sale after that is effectively lost. And this is a fact that game companies despise- long before piracy existed on the consoles (IE, cartridge days) they wanted very much to stifle the used game market, often going through amazing lengths to do so. Sega was the first major offender, with the Sega CD, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast. The discs stored the authentication data (an early copyright protection method) on the outermost edge of the disc instead of the inner, like PC games and music CDs. The outermost edge is the most easily damaged, and they purposely chose not to double-seal the discs, meaning that the games became unplayable from very small defects and scratches, and over time some discs even took in enough oxygen to tarnish, rendering them unuseable even without having ever been opened in some cases. This made retailers and especially used game stores very wary to carry them, even to the point of outright boycotting them. This proved to hurt sales considerably, because gamers couldn't see a selection of games on a console and pick up a few cheap ones to whet their appetite- the end result was that these became 'mystery consoles' that everyone's heard of, but have no idea what they're like. They didn't want to buy a console with no good games, and with no source for grab-bag gimmes, they were too paranoid to do so. It ate a big chunk out of the market, says former Sega CEO himself.

So, used games cost the developers and game makers a bit of money, but it also helps drum up some business. This is very contrasting to piracy, especially on the PC. With consoles, piracy can be snuffed out with firmware updates, game patches, and so on, quite effectively. Not so on PC- Once a game's been cracked and leaked, it becomes a sale-sucking plague from which there's no remedy. It does drum up a few lone buyers who get the game anyway, and it can create a near-viral fanbase for the next game, but ultimately the losses FAR outweigh the profits, millions to one. This is why the profit margins for Console games vs. PC games is so discrepent: PC games have to spend a lot more on copyright protection, DRM, and production of CDs and the like for retail venues.
Online distribution like Steam helps cut this cost considerably, but also makes piracy a good deal easier, only slightly offset by the convenience of downloads. PCs have a much rougher market.

Which is the next point: PC games outnumber console games at least a thousand to one. PC gamers have an incredible smorgasbord of options for games to purchase, and even more to play (legally) for free. Something the consoles really can't compare to: Their free content is incredibly limited, and their game selection far smaller. This has the effect of both making the PC market far more innovative in their games to compete with their sea of enemies, as well as allowing them the (not oft excersized) option of development scaling- cutting back costs and team sizes to make a cheap game, rather than throwing it all-in for the next big blockbuster game (think 'Skyrim'). When excersized, this proves incredibly profitable: Very low development cost paired with massive profits, such as Minecraft, Dungeons of Dredmor, Terraria, Portal, and others. They spend a tiny fraction to make the game compared to even mid-level console games, but rake in not only thousands times more revenue- but profit as well. Games like GTA4 can be largely successful with a great number of sales, but they may still be running a razor thin line if the development costs were simply too great. Companies really need to learn to pace themselves, specialize, and learn to gamble in increments instead of banking their entire corporation on one title series. Examples of folks who did it right: Nintendo, Sierra, Bethesda. Who did it wrong: Maxis, 2K Games, Firaxis, and Bullfrog. Diversity is a valuable asset, and for every flagship you sent out to battle, you damn sure better have an armada to back it up.


Anyway, there's more I could do, but it's 4am and my sleep meds finally kicked in.

oh, and Valve. Valve is the epitomy of 'micromoney management'.

"Hey, what if we like, get this, like... instead of just selling our games that we make.. we sell like, EVERYONE'S games and give them the profit, minus a little cut.. but see, here's the thing. We won't make the games or print them, that costs a lot. We'll just make them downloadable! And at no monthly fee! BRILLIANT!"
And brilliant it was. Valve could frankly bomb every single game they make and still bank in on Steam. At this rate, Steam could very well spell a new dark age for game distribution. (Which isn't /exactly/ a bad thing, mind you. These things can sure use some culling now and then.)

Valve barely makes money on each sale of a game they don't own. But they also spend less on each copy bought than they make. That deduces down to profit!
And an awful lot of small profits make one very big sum of money to roll around in.

holy shit this is the longest comment i've ever seen

too long didnt read lol jk

there is no such thing as a "true gamer". he makes it sound like its a job... but its nothing but a hobby! its not a lifestyle.
this was SO weird to listen to...

the biggest thing about console gaming, for many years you don't have to install new hardware, like graphics cards,
video cards etc. Compatibility is another worry. Consoles tend to work multiple games without worrying about major
updates.. At least ill recently, you never had to update them. That's really the biggest issue i see. Im only just
getting into pc gaming and im still not sure which games i can get simply due to newer and newer games
requiring more processing power. My computer is only a year old XD

JESUS CHRIST, ONE HOUR

FUCKTHAT.PNG

For some reason, I just listened to that entire thing. Humanity is doomed. I'm going to go slam my head in a door for a while.

How about NO! *Fists the screen*