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what, assuming you care about these sorta things, would it take for you to not buy a good game from a company?

I'm not telling anyone to do or not do anything. just curious on where people stand on this matter.

but... with how some of the "AAA" company's outputs directions are, I personally just can't support them. Bethesda, EA, Activision/Blizzard, Epic, and I'm sure there are more on the list for a lot of others. there's a lot of reasons for not supporting these companies but when it comes down to it, a good game is a good game. so where do you draw the line?

me myself, I pretty much blacklisted EA ever since the whole Dead Space bs. I never like EA all that much to start with but once they screwed up Dead Space and shut down the studio, that's it for me. I was actually really tempted to get Anthem before it came out, but in the end, I'm glad I hold out and dodged a bullet. Activision/Blizzard is on my shit list right now also for the whole Diablo mess. I already uninstalled pretty much everything from their launcher.

I'm sure a small batch of players not supporting these companies won't effect what they do but I have plenty of games outside of these "AAA" titles and I am perfectly fine not paying more money to these companies to support what they're trying to direct where the over all gaming industry would be heading.
 
Overly SJW agenda riddled games (which is a lot in this day and age unfortunately), and EPIC game store games.
Thats pretty much it for me. Oh and Gearbox games (Pitchford, ALIENS debacle, etc).

yeah, I don't have any plan on installing Epic launcher myself either. I don't play Fortnite and the only exclusive they have that interest me is The Outer World. and even that interest is waning fast.
 

HeresJohnny

Member
Overly SJW agenda riddled games (which is a lot in this day and age unfortunately), and EPIC game store games.
Thats pretty much it for me. Oh and Gearbox games (Pitchford, ALIENS debacle, etc).
Yep, the number one way for a company to lose my business is for them to alter the dynamic of the relationship by pushing their politics down my throat. Shut up and entertain me, I don't care what your opinions are, that's not what I pay you for.
 

Vawn

Banned
A lot. I'm not the type of person to look for any reason to judge others and be outraged for others not living up to my personal standards.

And I definitely do not want to boycott the work done by hundreds of people because a single person triggered me.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I don't care about EA, Activision or Ubisoft but if they make the game I care about like how EA made Dead Space (they stupidly killed) and Activision published Sekiro, you can bet your ass I'm gonna buy the games. I don't give a shit about the company and only care about games and as long as they bring the games I want I will gladly buy them.
 

ViolentP

Member
It would have to be a game developed by an entire group with a shit agenda. Not due to some business decision I disagree with or because the CEO turned out to be a racist or something. But like if the Westboro Baptist Church released the next Silent Hill, I'd likely skip it.
 

Belmonte

Member
I don't blacklist any company. I judge by individual games.

If a company, which is famous for launching games stuffed with micro transactions, pay to win mechanics, bugs and broken gameplay, make a good game without any of these things, I buy it. If not, I continue to ignore it.
 
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marquimvfs

Member
Interesting question. I think that, if a game is good enough, i will gladly buy it, even if it is from EA (the last game i've buyed from those shitheads was Mass Effect 2) or any other shitty company. With that said, I will question the quality of all games from any shitty company that I distaste, until it proves to worth the expense, and it's never easy. Meanwhile, I mostly buy anything from good companies (like Nintendo, From Software, CD Project, etc.) without a doubt.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
A lot of this is really finalizing with me this year. I gave a bunch of "last shots" and some turned out well and others turned into a "never again" situation. I've straight-up dropped EA. I even had an inkling to see about Battlefront II now after all the fallout and them still updating it and it was on sale for like $4.50 but when it came down to it? I don't even want to spend the time on finding out about it. I don't want to launch Origin. I don't want to download it. I don't want to wade though its progression system bullshit. I don't want to give them money.

They worked themselves to that point over years, but finally got me there. Blizzard drove me away, and I invested many hours and a lot of time into their games. They used to make them great. Now they actively make them not-great, even taking older games that were great and sucking the greatness out of them. Activision? Destiny shit did not go well with me. I got COD4 and it has been pretty great, but the practices of the company IRL have disgusted me. I don't want to give them money anymore, even when they partner for something great like Sekiro.

I got MK11 and it's like the whole game is designed to pull you away from what makes fighting games good. WB burned me 3 times before and while this isn't a burn, it is being held back from itself by their greed. I don't want to have an argument with my fighting game over what the genre is about. There are many fighting games that give what is good and celebrate it from the start and keep it coming. I'll be playing those in the future. Same deal with DOA6. DOA used to have titties and great gameplay, but now it just has titties. KT also took a massive dump on the design of their warrior games.

Really, there is no reason to put up with this shit. There are so many great games out there it is insane. There is no way I'll have time to play them all. There is no reason to think that just because a game is a technical spectacle that it is a good game. If it has this shitty design, it is a bad game and I don't want to waste my time on it. Capcom released some great games lately. RE2 and DMC5 are 100% into what they are. They have something they intend to be in whole and allow themselves to be and invite you to fully embrace them. Good games are like good movies in that regard. They were never meant to be like 4 dozen halfassed la carte components that are altogether more than you want yet never make a decent meal together.

So now I'm on a one-strike system. If any company demonstrates such a cynical disregard of the player with this sort of terrible design, I will give their games a full year of evaluation before even considering a purchase. If bad design is revealed in the game or there is some fallout among the playerbase or they simply don't properly support the game, I never touch it. No "fixing it" because it never really gets fixed. I just never buy it. Don't like that? Make great games. Some companies do this very well all the time. I don't have to worry about them. Be like them.
 

Xenon

Member
Bungie - Being the first to ever have exclusive levels for Destiny on PS3 removed any chance of me buying it. Fucking over the fan base that built them was classless.

Epic - Making Silicon Knights destroy all source code for their games and have them removed from store shelves was completely unnecessary considering the financial settlement bankrupted SK. Erasing the work of a large number of developers and artists due to poor judgement of their management was the dickest move in gaming. Fuck Epic. I have hated them for years. Its nice to see others catch up.:messenger_beaming:


I will not give either company a dime.
 
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scalman

Member
Dont care for talks a good game is a good game and most times people complain for publisher and they not making game just developers do and those not same things in most cases. A game is a game in the end of the day.
 

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Awful business practices will keep me from spending money on games that I know I'd enjoy. If a game uses free-to-play monetization, then I expect it to be free.
Epic's tactics to strong-arm PC gamers into using their platform also guarantees I'll never buy anything sold on their store. A new storefront and client's fine, but paying to restrict my access to games I want is not.
Not saying I won't play the games. Just that I won't spend money on them.

I don't care what sorta behind-the-scenes drama goes on though. Annoying politics, Phil Fish, Randy Pitchford, whatever, it won't affect my decision to buy a game that looks nice. Whether they hate all white people or are a literal nazi doesn't matter. Only scummy or annoying business practices will.
 
well, I kinda expected reactions to be mixed like this. and there definitely is a valid point to the mentality of "a game is just a game". but I would say that with some companies, their previous action would make you think twice and wait for reviews before plunging into a new game. case in point, for me at least, would be Anthem. sci-fi theme loot shooter is something that's right down my alley. and Anthem's over all design and what we saw in the trailer really interested me. but, being that it's from EA and it's a "live service" game, I decided to wait for review before going in. sure enough, EA screwed it up big time. and now with the oblivious talk of how they're moving towards "soft launches" and what not, there just doesn't seem like any reason at all for me to support them, or any other companies that's trying to nickel and dime you wit their unfinished games.
 
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I always makes me feel awful when they design the enemies with my uni-brow. I’d then proceed to constantly email and tweet at the devs and force them to change it.

If they then still don’t listen I then would boycott their game.
 

Ellery

Member
I am very good at drawing the line based on intuition. It is hard to explain but it seems to work out pretty well for me. Granted I don't buy many games and I basically never pre-order so I don't accidentally pre-order games like Anthem if I see a juicy trailer.
Also I somewhat trust reviews, but only looking at reviews as a whole. I don't look at specific reviews, but rather at the general consensus / metacritic or opencritic score to have a rough guideline.

And as far as microtransactions go I have a pretty hard stance on them. Multiplayer games have the hardest time getting my money.
I don't even like cosmetic microtransactions in full priced games. I am kind of a buy a game for full price and have it all kinda guy.

Free 2 play games -> Okay to have microtransactions for cosmetic things or stuff that doesn't influence the gameplay directly in any way. Best game to highlight here is DotA2. Last time I played everything was free and only cosmetic stuff could be bought.

Pay2win mtx are never okay. I don't even bother with those games.

My perfect kind of game is just Full Price AAA $60(€) Single Player with no store at all like God of War.

Additional DLC/Xpac is okay as long as you can tell it isn't some scummy EA work that cuts content out of the game only to sell to you later. Good examples for perfectly done DLC would be Witcher 3 and the Souls games or older Blizzard games like D2 Lord of Destruction or W3 TFT. Sadly they are Activision now and it changed.

I don't have any studios on my boycott list, because a good game is a good game and that is what I care about, but EA and Ubisoft have a really hard time convincing me that their game is worth my money. Especially towards short lived multiplayer shooter games I am highly sceptical.

As far as politics go and pushing an agenda it is really hard to tell. Of course I would prefer if those things stayed out of the game, but as long as it isn't something super obvious and DIRECTLY IN YOUR FACE I guess I can get over it.
It has to make sense within the universe of the game. I would not tolerate Mario waving a pride flag and skewer an orange Bowser wearing a red MAGA hat with it.
 

Shifty

Member
I mean, EA is a pretty easy one to blacklist what with their relentless chewing up and spitting out of quality studios.

I haven't bought one of their games since the PS2 generation and don't feel like I've missed much.
 
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Barnabot

Member
Easily any EA game. And usually avoid any online only game and anything that requires EGL to play. That launcher has too many shady things running in background of your computer.
 
Imagine following a moral code when purchasing a video game.

If Kojima committed mass murder on innocent civilians and was miraculously acquitted in court, I'll still buy his games Day One.

/looks at avatar

I'm shocked at your answer! SHOCKED I tell ya! /s

with micro transactions and pay to win being some of the more commonly accepted reason I can think of on hating a game, is there anything in those categories that's actually good?

I recently returned to PlanetSide 2, which I left a long time ago. I think it started as a FTP game? I honestly can't remember. in any case, since I read that they did a huge overhaul into supporting DirectX 11 which allows the game to run much smoother and thus a lot of old players returned to it, I figured I would reinstall it and see how are things in there now. while I like the core concept of the game, I still find a lot of problems I originally had with it. being a FTP game, grinding is to be expected. however, the amount of things one need to unlock to be actually competitive overall is still a little too much for my taste, especially if you run into veterans who have pretty decked out gears already. but since the game is FTP and now run by Daybreak, a much smaller company with a lot less resources than it's previous owner SCE, I can sorta cut them some slack and stick around a little. I might even throw in a few bucks to get a better gun instead of grind it, but we'll see I guess. I was very much against FTP games in the old days, but Warframe had kinda change my view on it a little and I'm willing to give SOME FTP games a try, thou I still won't be expecting much from them and probably would drop them in a snap.
 

sublimit

Banned
I always judge each game and company action separately not as a whole.

I think that as consumers we need to vote with our money not only by not buying something but also by supporting the things that are done right (games or bussiness decisions). That way we do our bit to show the "right" direction a company should go.

That said there are companies like EA,Activision,Ubisoft that i very rarely buy games from (almost never) yet if they ever create something that interests me and doesn't try to fuck me as a consumer (like the Spyro Remakes for example) then i'd have no problem supporting them.
 
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kraspkibble

Permabanned.
Mostly I don't care what the studio/publisher do. If the game interests me I'll likely pick it up.

BUT....

1. If it panders to SJWs then get that shit to fuck I ain't buying it. If a game is designed to cater to them or is changed because of precious little snowflakes getting upset then fuck that.
2. If it's an Epic Game exclusive then it's a hard pass.
 
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Microtransactions (not cosmetics)

Console exclusivity for any reason other than the platform holder personally funding the game.

Epic Game Store exclusivity.
 

Psykodad

Banned
Forced politically correctness/inclusiveness, shady business-practices, shutting down Paragon's development.

That sums it up, I think.
 
for those saying Epic Store exclusives, how do you think about Boarderland 3 style time exclusives then? I'm not happy about it but I think I'll probably get it when it comes out on Steam.
 

Harold Lloyd

Neo Member
Always go on a game by game basis. If it's the sort of game I'd like I'll buy it - don't really care about the publisher or studio.

However as I get older I seem to be interested in fewer games anyway so it's not something I have to give a lot of thought to.
 

Shelbutt

Member
Honestly, do what MS did at the reveal of the Xbone. I refuse to get it. Yeah they backpeddled and apologized and 'fixed' things, but it REALLY pissed me off they way they would respond to people. Like a veteran had asked them about playing offline and they smugly responded "oh we already have an offline xbox, it's called the 360" And shit like that. How long ago was that? And I'm still pissy about it lol. Depending on how the next gen is revealed/treated I"ll see about getting the next one but nah brah. I was gonna get the diablo game they announced what, last year? when they said "Oh do you guys not have phones?" Yeah no deal for me buddy. I can't stand people acting high and mighty. And no company is safe to me except for bethesda, for now. We'll see how they do with releasing info and the game itself with TES6. I make good money now, and plan on throwing it at them for that collectors edition, one for me AND the bf.

TLDR I can't stand uppity people lol
 

mcjmetroid

Member
Microtransactions. I'm lucky that they're mostly in games I'm not otherwise interested in.

I want to buy the full game and have all the content without needing to spend any money. Is that too much to ask?
 

Bryank75

Banned
As said many times before: progressive politics and sjw marketing are huge turn-offs for me.

However, I was surprised that more people were not pissed off about the Ghost Recan Breakpoint reveal, where the female player lifts up a guy that looks like he is well over twice her weight and carries him to safety. Maybe we are becoming desensitized to it gradually...

I find loot boxes in free to play games like Apex tolerable but I cannot stand them in a full price game, that is really scummy.

But most games I buy are from Sony WWS, Nintendo, Capcom, Platinum and maybe the odd Ubisoft title thrown in with a few indies.

I make exceptions for From, when Acti published Sekiro and EA, when Respawn makes anything cause they are usually really high quality.
 

mcjmetroid

Member
As said many times before: progressive politics and sjw marketing are huge turn-offs for me.
This depends for me. I think a lot of people are very quick to jump these days if a game has a female lead in it or a black lead etc and call it "pandering" to SJW. I don't agree with this side of things.

What I don't like is what Mortal Kombat 11 tried to pull i.e trying to tone things down for the benefit of an oversensitive society.
Basically I don't like censorship of any kind.
 

Shelbutt

Member
This depends for me. I think a lot of people are very quick to jump these days if a game has a female lead in it or a black lead etc and call it "pandering" to SJW. I don't agree with this side of things.

What I don't like is what Mortal Kombat 11 tried to pull i.e trying to tone things down for the benefit of an oversensitive society.
Basically I don't like censorship of any kind.
Fem Shep is best Shep
 

Bryank75

Banned
This depends for me. I think a lot of people are very quick to jump these days if a game has a female lead in it or a black lead etc and call it "pandering" to SJW. I don't agree with this side of things.

What I don't like is what Mortal Kombat 11 tried to pull i.e trying to tone things down for the benefit of an oversensitive society.
Basically I don't like censorship of any kind.

Yeah, well there is definitely a balance that can be struck... I really love Aloy in Horizon and Ellie in TLOU, as well as many others.
 

Shelbutt

Member
Yeah, well there is definitely a balance that can be struck... I really love Aloy in Horizon and Ellie in TLOU, as well as many others.
Aloy is a good example of how to do the 'female lead' right. Ellie is good too. Hell I'm a grown ass woman and I felt empowered by her badassery lol. (also Ashly Burch voices her and how can anyone not love her)
 

Mithos

Member
Denuvo. Haven't bought a single game that have it even though I'd like to play more then 10 games that are infected with it.
 
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CyberChulo

Member
I will not buy games that contain SJW bullshit. If I had done more research before I bought MK 11 I would not have bought it on release day and would've watched the story on youtube.

Edit - because of the state of things now, I won't preorder games until I know what's truly in them. Oh and of course Microtransactions will deter me away dependent on what they are trying to sell.
 
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Literally nothing.

I don’t buy into the mock outrage culture, nor go out of my way to be offended by things that simply don’t matter.

A good game is a good game....end of story.
 
It's a game by game basis for me, but a big red flag for me is a full priced game coming out the gate with DLC and Microtransactions galore.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Seems a bit silly to me to pick and choose. Every company has done shitty things, if you really sat down and started looking at, just the people that make my computer (or phone) parts are responsible for far more exploitation of humans and natural resources. I could really care less about marketing blunders or whatever.

People who hold grudges against companies seem weird to me.
 

Aurelian

my friends call me "Cunty"
Literally nothing.

I don’t buy into the mock outrage culture, nor go out of my way to be offended by things that simply don’t matter.

A good game is a good game....end of story.

I imagine there's probably a threshold where you'd balk, but it'd have to be pretty egregious.

But you're right, the people who shit their pants at the presence of "SJW" material in a game (which I don't think is normally an issue as it is) aren't any better than people who are overly sensitive to the slightest whiff of racism or sexism. MK11 is still a solid fighting game, for example -- you're not suffering under the yoke of oppression because Skarlet is wearing more clothes.
 

dottme

Member
Not a game directly. But I waited quite some time before buying the Xbox One X due to Microsoft shitty behavior at launch.
However, they were trying to fix it over time and I finally bought one. But without this stupid launch, I might have bought it much earlier.
 
Well, i have not bought games from ea, Activision, Blizzard, etc. In forever (I bought far cry 3 and 4 so I will not mention Ubisoft).

I just don't care for their output, It's kind of sad as many of their games take part in worlds that look pretty neat, and they demonstrate very well... Many must disagree, but as far as AAA goes pretty much only Sony is left to me, then I play old-school games (mostly 16/32bit), I did get Doom 2016 on PC, so I guess there's that.
 

brap

Banned
Censorship. Hey Soyny!

cornette-1497559900-800.jpg
 

LOLCats

Banned
Censorship. Big deal for me. Social justice agendas also bothersome, but censorship really pisses me off.
 
Games who's localization were butchered such as Xenoblade Chronicles X or are so overt with their politics that it makes me cringe.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
Ubisoft, Activision, and EA are on my No Buy List right now. What would it take for that to change? A good game.
 

spawn

Member
Online-only games are blacklisted for me. I have not played Fallout 76, pubg, Destiny 2, or Anthem for these exact reasons
 
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