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[Zeliard]

I guess he is talking about GAF again?

I feel bad for anyone in this thread who took the time to properly formulate a rebuttal to this guy.

I've been largely ignoring this thread and "story" as the inarticulate brain farts of retired game devs without anything new or useful to say isn't something I find terribly interesting.

But now it's just gotten hilarious. Man's nearing 40, bragging about hot girls and hot cars on Twitter to antagonize perceived "trolls." The immaturity of the games industry shouldn't be surprising to anyone.

 

[WrenchNinja]

An incomplete Jill and a complete Shuma Gorath were on the MvC3 disc and are pretty clearly on the UMvC3 disc.

 

[FStop7]

Seems like he's trying really hard to feel better about something, hence the grandstanding.

 

[Voice of Reason]

I feel bad for anyone in this thread who took the time to properly formulate a rebuttal to this guy.

I've been largely ignoring this thread and "story" as the inarticulate brain farts of retired game devs without anything new or useful to say isn't something I find terribly interesting.

But now it's just gotten hilarious. Man's nearing 40, bragging about hot girls and hot cars on Twitter to antagonize perceived "trolls." The immaturity of the games industry shouldn't be surprising to anyone.

Yup. No wonder some people never take this industry seriously. One step forward, two steps back.

 

[Stuart444]

He's still going on about it on twitter? And he's calling people forum trolls even when they offer plenty of counter-arguments that he has refused to acknowledge let alone try to debate with them?

That is easily as childish as any of the journalists that run to twitter and insult their audience but worse since this guy was an actual developer in the industry.

Just... wow.

 

[Truelize]

But when you paid for those cartridges, you owned everything that was included -- no extra charges required. There were no more fees to pay if you wanted to have X character or X costume. Today, these extras are on the disc -- you must keep this in mind, it's the equivalent of them having been on the cartridge -- yet they're completely locked away until you pay up and have them unlocked.

I owned everything I could access. And that's what I actually paid for. Was the content that they allowed me access to. The content they told me I was receiving in exchange for my money.
They never lied to you.
And you honestly think that that they wouldn't have charged us for upgrade packs of some sort if they have a way to get them to us? And you think that we wouldn't have bought them?
Heck ya we would have bought them. Of course we would have.

So if you think our actions as consumers have only recently influenced the way that businesses sell to us you are mistaken.

But I am amazed at how anyone can argue about entitlement. It's not even open for discussion. It's not. You buy a product. You get what you were told was in that product. That is all you are entitled to. That's it.

You buy a pair of shoes. They come with two pairs of laces. Sweet! Extra laces. Maybe they are even a different colour so you can switch them up if you want.
Time goes on. Shoes wear out. Need new shoes.
You go buy another pair of shoes. Gonna stay with the same brand. You liked those old ones just fine. New pair of shoes are just as comfortable. You like them just as much. But they don't come with a second pair of laces this time. Now company has a selection of different colored laces in many different colours available for you to purchase. You liked having the option of switching those laces up.

You know what 99% of customers do? They buy not only one pair of extra laces, they buy several pairs.
That is a smart freakin company. That's what that is.

 

[rvy]

He's still going on about it on twitter? And he's calling people forum trolls even when they offer plenty of counter-arguments that he has refused to acknowledge let alone try to debate with them?

That is easily as childish as any of the journalists that run to twitter and insult their audience but worse since this guy was an actual developer in the industry.

Just... wow.

Hide your avatar before he replies to you.

 

[Apath]

I guess he is talking about GAF again?

Disagreeing with Cliff makes you a troll. Gotcha.

I feel bad for anyone in this thread who took the time to properly formulate a rebuttal to this guy.

I've been largely ignoring this thread and "story" as the inarticulate brain farts of retired game devs without anything new or useful to say isn't something I find terribly interesting.

But now it's just gotten hilarious. Man's nearing 40, bragging about hot girls and hot cars on Twitter to antagonize perceived "trolls." The immaturity of the games industry shouldn't be surprising to anyone.

If you can't counter someone's argument, call them names and wave your money in their face.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Now imagine you buy a pair of shoes that can't be walked in for more than a total of 2 miles before they start to fall apart or become uncomfortable and you have to keep buying new insoles and laces.

 

[Truelize]

Now imagine you buy a pair of shoes that can't be walked in for more than a total of 2 miles before they start to fall apart or become uncomfortable and you have to keep buying new insoles and laces.

You think that is a valid comparison?

 

[EmCeeGramr]

You think that is a valid comparison?

For many freemium games, yeah.

 

[Truelize]

For many freemium games, yeah.

Ok. But the games I have been talking about in my conversation weren't those ones.

I would buy the shoes that you were talking about again though. and I would tell everyone I could not to buy them either.

 

[BolognaSoup]

I feel bad for anyone in this thread who took the time to properly formulate a rebuttal to this guy.

I've been largely ignoring this thread and "story" as the inarticulate brain farts of retired game devs without anything new or useful to say isn't something I find terribly interesting.

But now it's just gotten hilarious. Man's nearing 40, bragging about hot girls and hot cars on Twitter to antagonize perceived "trolls." The immaturity of the games industry shouldn't be surprising to anyone.

My thoughts exactly. Cliff is reminding me of that Ocean Marketing Christoforo guy here. Desperate, sad, out of touch, troubled, etc..

 

[JackDT]

This week Bleszinski weighed into the debate around the perceived misuse of micro-transactions by companies like Electronic Arts. He argued that we shouldn't be surprised game publishers are trying to make money first and foremost, and that the main difference between corporations like EA and Valve is that Valve is "way better at their image control".

The cost of making games is higher than ever, he noted, and shareholders need to be satisfied, while many of the things gamers intensely dislike about the application of micro-transactions aren't aimed at us anyway. They're for - if I'm reading between the lines of his comment on Madden and GTA consumers correctly - dipshits.

Bleszinski's conclusion is a familiar one: Don't like it? Don't buy it.

That's fair enough, but I think he makes a few mistakes in the run-up, and I don't think it's the whole answer either.

For a start, companies can't use shareholders as an excuse for doing things that upset their customers. Getting shareholders to understand decisions that restrain short-term performance, perhaps to protect a company's public image or provide long-term benefits, is what all those directors, board members and publicity men exist to do. It's part of the job. You live with it or you figure out a way to go private so you can do what you want in peace - like Valve does, for better or worse.

Whether public or private, companies like EA and Valve still get to choose how they behave, and the problem in EA's case is that games like Real Racing 3 either demonstrate contempt for the values of EA's traditional audience or a complete ignorance of them. Which is why, when you hitch them to foolish public comments by EA's CFO about how we all love micro-transactions, everyone gets pissed off.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...he-whole-answer-to-abusive-micro-transactions

This is what EA is doing with Real Racing 3:

There's an in-game economy comprised of credits and the harder-to-come-by gold, which would be fair enough if the economy wasn't so horrendously lopsided in EA's favour. Every part of Real Racing's make-up away from the track is a transaction where you're on the rough end of the deal.

Come the end of the race you're handed with a repair bill that must be seen to if you want your car back at optimal performance. So you drive as clean a race as possible, right? Fat chance - Real Racing 3 boasts grids full of mindless Maldonados who think nothing of running you into walls or parking inexplicably on apexes. In any other game a 20-car field would be something to celebrate - here it feels like another way to skim your wallet, each driver acting like they're on a commission for those costly repairs.

You're not even safe if you've driven a clean race, as each and every car is susceptible to everyday wear and tear that must be seen to in a service station. And it's here that the game's time-limitation mechanic is most rigorously enforced. If you need an oil change, or are after a new set of boots for your car, expect to be kept waiting for 30 minutes - unless, of course, you want to part with some in-game gold or a little of your own cash.

And you're not even safe if you've paid for your car and ploughed money into the game. Car packs are available for £13.99, allowing you access to a handful of cars and a selection of associated races, but they're still subject to the grim mechanics found elsewhere. I've spent a handful of hours grinding in Real Racing 3 and poured £20 of cash into its bleak economy, and all I'm left with is four cars in a repair shop and just enough spare change for a Ford Focus and a couple of minor upgrades.

Let's finish with a little maths. You notice the car you've just bought in a £13.99 pack is suspiciously slow in races, so you want to acquire the first of three engine upgrades that costs 44,000 credits. If you get 3500 credits for winning a race after getting tail-ended just once by another car, get handed a 2855 credit repair bill for the damage and then have to pay another 500 credits to get the oil changed - a job that takes 20 minutes to do, unless you want to hand over a little more cash - what's the final number?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-28-real-racing-3-review

 

[PsychoSoldier]

That CliffyB tweet says it all really. Well formulated responses get ignored just because they don't agree with him.

Kinda sad.

 

[Jake Tower]

 

[aganu]

Weak sauce. EviLore would be hella pissed if Cliff posted that on here.

 

[Mononoke]

Well, I'm really disappointed Cliffy didn't respond to Htown's reply. It was well thought out and he took some time to write it.

If Cliffy is just going to ignore it or write it off as trolling then I've lost all respect for him.

 

[PsychoSoldier]

Well, I'm really disappointed Cliffy didn't respond to Htown's reply. It was well thought out and he took some time to write it.

If Cliffy is just going to ignore it or write it off as trolling than I've lost all respect for him.

Considering his response is essentially "I'm rich and have a hot wife so I'm not going to listen" I think you can assume that's the case.

 

[Daedardus]

It's actually sad that there rings some truth in it. Although I disagree with him in the way a company should work. Capitalism isn't the devil and neither are profits, but 'maximising profits' is such a shitty business practice. The entertainment industry should be focused on, well, entertaining people. Making a profit is still important but huge profits would only be entertaining to the shareholders and board of directors.

If they want to charge us $10~20 extra because the budgets for big games are getting too big, well, that's fine. But don't go making games that cost an additional $150 to enjoy it to it's fullest, or make games that are borderline gambling and only exists to suck money out of the weakers parts of society's pockets, which I believe are the most likely to spend absurd amounts of money a game.

 

[Jack_AG]

"The Real Housewives of (dot dot dot)" has more going for it than this guy, yeesh! Dude is well out of his league and he knows it. Such weak responses - not even tackling them head on. So so sad.

 

[Feature]

I care more about his wife than him and his disgustingly shit games.

 

[vikingvessel]

Weak sauce. EviLore would be hella pissed if Cliff posted that on here.

But he didn't post it here. What is the correlation? Why consider how conduct outside of this board would impact the owner unless you are just looking to be a troublemaker? This forum is not exempt from trolling. Sounds about as appropriate as bringing his girlfriend into it, who is known to be his wife from reading what is being responded to. He mentioned her outside of this forum and it was again brought in for a group pile on. And it worked, as it usually does.

Every time someone mentions his car, just come out and say you are jealous and bring that agenda right to the forefront. There is no other reason to mention it. He did a job and was compensated for it. That you may have somehow contributed to that in no way means that he should forfeit his right to disagree with you and sometimes even stoop to the level of those who have made this personal.

 

[Eusis]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...he-whole-answer-to-abusive-micro-transactions

This is what EA is doing with Real Racing 3:



http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-28-real-racing-3-review

Yeah, this is what I meant being so bad I'd rather the industry die than for that to become the standard. If everyone ends up doing crap like that then fuck free to play, there's other forms of entertainment that don't nickle and dime you all the way, and arcade games were more straightforward "pay a quarter or so to play this game" rather than the deceptive "it's free but oh look you need to do repairs that's gotta take time. . . unless you hand us money."

And there ARE better ways to approach this microtransaction stuff, I brought up Fire Emblem before, and that's because it's designed to be perfectly playable without sinking extra money in, but if you'd like easy gold and EXP you can buy the maps for them, and in that case you STILL have to work for those boons, even if it's much less work. Plus a lot of text was added that showed they had fun with it rather than just being a soulless cash grab.

It's actually sad that there rings some truth in it. Although I disagree with him in the way a company should work. Capitalism isn't the devil and neither are profits, but 'maximising profits' is such a shitty business practice. The entertainment industry should be focused on, well, entertaining people. Making a profit is still important but huge profits would only be entertaining to the shareholders and board of directors.

Well, I think it's partially a corporate/shareholder culture problem there. Cash is a good incentive to making you want to invest in a company and get it to grow, but it's becoming the only reason to bother doing so, and failing to generate the profit they want can let them sue you or throw you out. I don't doubt it's a complicated problem, but it does seem to me that it should be encouraged more to invest because you want to see that company and what it stands for to thrive, not just so you can make big bucks and pressure them for not doing so.

 

[aganu]

But he didn't post it here. What is the correlation? Why consider how conduct outside of this board would impact the owner unless you are just looking to be a troublemaker? This forum is not exempt from trolling. Sounds about as appropriate as bringing his girlfriend into it, who is known to be his wife from reading what is being responded to. He mentioned her outside of this forum and it was again brought in for a group pile on. And it worked, as it usually does.

Every time someone mentions his car, just come out and say you are jealous and bring that agenda right to the forefront. There is no other reason to mention it. He did a job and was compensated for it. That you may have somehow contributed to that in no way means that he should forfeit his right to disagree with you and sometimes even stoop to the level of those who have made this personal.

To be frank, not sure if I'm fully getting your point because English isn't my mother tongue, I agree that bringing his wife into this by some here is uncalled for. I'm simply trying to say that Cliff posted his views on another site then he showed up here with a few posts to further affirm those views, and when several people put good effort to counter his views thoroughly, all he did was calling them out as trolls on Twitter in addition to a ridicule meme image. Had he posted those replies on here he would have been insta-banned.

 

[~Kinggi~]

There's something called class and this guy clearly doesnt have it. I can only really see what he is doing right now as a negative to himself and not really a positive. That or he just breaks even. But most people just choose to keep their mouths shut.

 

[Femmeworth]

It's getting harder to feel sympathy when people attack him personally.

 

[Ryaaan14]

A really great write up imo. I've got a lot of respect for the guy.

 

[Voice of Reason]

Can someone write a blog post about Cliffy's juvenile responses?

 

[freddy]

Looks like someone is missing the PR folk at EPIC more than they think they are.

 

[funkystudent]

Can someone write a blog post about Cliffy's juvenile responses?

someone really should be making cliffybsmidlifecrisis.tumblr.com so we can easily follow his lil internet rampage.

 

[Apath]

I care more about his wife than him and his disgustingly shit games.

Say what you want about the man, but his games are far from "disgustingly shit".

 

[Voice of Reason]

someone really should be making cliffybsmidlifecrisis.tumblr.com so we can easily follow his lil internet rampage.

That actually sounds like a good idea.

 

[antitrop]

I don't think anyone was actually trolling Cliff in this thread... The Saint's Row one, sure, but not this one.

He may have a persecution complex.

 

[Aguirre]

The brain droppings of a formerly employed videogame ninja. Beware of language, bad puns, and Grues. Ladies and Gentlemen, Cliff Bleszinski tumbles.

huh?

 

[LukeTim]

Personally, my objection to micro-transactions and similar business practices is more about my dislike of capitalism and humanist outlook than thinking that EA are trying to swindle and squeeze money out of me.

To say that "oh, that's just the world we live in, deal with it" is no excuse.

 

[Voice of Reason]

huh?

"tweets"

 

[Philia]

So uh... CliffyB is now officially EA's mouthpiece now? I read his points but I didn't like where it was going though.

 

[Femmeworth]

He also made a post on his blog about piracy. I'm afraid to look.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

So uh... CliffyB is now officially EA's mouthpiece now? I read his points but I didn't like where it was going though.

So that's why Dead Space 3 turned out how it did

 

[Necromanti]

I had no idea he had retired.

 

[Animator]

This is what EA is doing with Real Racing 3:

Holy shit this is the most retarded thing I read. Sad thing is people are probably spending money on that scam and EA will deem it a success.

 

[RicardoNeftali]

So I've stayed out of this but I have read some of his tumblr and twitter to figure out what the deal is.

I think he believes that we all just want "free" product and he sees DLC as extra to be bought if you want, thus vote with the wallet. But in reality the real outcry with DLC tends to be Day 1, on disc, essential to the game experience DLC.

At the end of the day I don't truly care if they make pointless horse armor and try to make money off that. Or if like Dragon Age, you make a follow up add on like Awakening that lengthens the game and is really a true "add on". I.E not something that should have been in the original game but something that was obviously created to benefit those who already enjoyed a complete experience.

Wanting the WHOLE game in one piece is not arguing for handouts or freebies, I'm entitled to that for purchasing the game. If you want to make extra skins or weapons etc that I don't need to have a complete experience then by all means go ahead. But the idea that Javik in ME3 wasn't quite honestly an ESSENTIAL part of that game is a difficult argument to make. I think the outrage against that kind of exclusion for extra money IS a legitamite gripe. If I bought an ebook and their were narrative sections missing I could "unlock" for extra money I'd have the same problem for example.

Also brag about your money all you'd like its a free country but when you pretend people out of work are ONLY out of work because they have degrees in art history or philosophy you make it really easy to dislike you. A lot of good people are struggling. And for the record I know you think the whole "I make money" thing is this cool story, but I'd have preferred "I make a difference" at the end of the day one matters far more than the other.

Also I love Remo.

 

[Kiriku]

His girlfriend is not even hot. Even after all the caked up makeup.

Holy crap, I just noticed his girlfriend's face looks almost exactly like my sister's. And she has a Swedish last name as well. what's going on here

 

[C.Monkey]

Do any of you fuckers still actually play games, or do you just hang out here all day long and play digital fantasy football with the industry?

lol GAF got destroyed.

 

[antitrop]

I had no idea he had retired.

From Epic. Not from the industry.

 

[Philia]

lol GAF got destroyed.

Naw. End of the day though, internet won now that he had to TWEET about us. Trolls and the like for not agreeing with his compelling argument apparently.

 

[Necromanti]

From Epic. Not from the industry.

Well, temporarily, I mean. More like a break, I guess.

 

[Kill Your Masters]

Personally, my objection to micro-transactions and similar business practices is more about my dislike of capitalism and humanist outlook than thinking that EA are trying to swindle and squeeze money out of me.

To say that "oh, that's just the world we live in, deal with it" is no excuse.

It's definitely not but since the industry does love to act like it and makes you feel like it's all the consumers fault, I'll just take your last sentence and save it for later use when more THQ's happen.

 

[Spieler Eins]

I take it, he approves EA? /didn'treadarticle

I care about his games as little as about the ones from EA, so I guess that fits.