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[vaibhavpisal]

Its tied to how gamepass is priced at where its at.

I don’t buy it unless really compelled to.

 

[Larxia]

If I had to take a lesser evil, I'll take Denuvo. But they could've just dropping both. Again this is beyond any specific platforms.

Eh I don't know, as it is right now, I think denuvo is worse than waiting a few more days for standard price.
However, if we think long term, it's a problem that we allow this early access thing to exist, because it will only get worse with time. It used to be 3 days, now some games do 5 days, at some point it might be a month, and the premium price of the early access will just become the new standard, and what used to be the standard price will just... be a sale, a month or so later.

 

[Davevil]

so ?

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Oh hell yeah the pirates are still doing that whole ANSI release notes thing.

 

[winjer]

This "Advanced Access" thing is just another scheme to price gouge gamers.

 

[Esppiral]

People who pirate don't buy games, they're not losing any sales, believe me. There maybe some rare exceptions, but this is generally the case. Also on rare occasions that some of these guys do pay, it sure ain't gonna be full price for a mid game like Avowed.

That is not true.

 

[tamago84]

I dont even want to pirate this, game looks retarded

 

[MMaRsu]

Yup the early access bullshit hurts consumers.

There Arent any cases of a movie you can see a week early if you pay 10€ more, or a cd, or a book

Fuck early access and fuck the gamers who go with it

 

[Mownoc]

It is an awful practice. It's a way to add fake value to drive up the purchase price above $70 because that's not enough already.

It's fake value because they don't need to do a thing to get people to spend more except punish the people who only pay $70.

"Our game will be ready on the 10th November!"

"Now hang on, let's say it will release on the 15th of November instead and get people to pay extra for early access!"

It's just a step towards raising the price of games even further by treating $70 purchasers like 2nd class citizens. There's no reason everyone shouldn't be able to play at the same time except for corporate greed.

 

[bigdad2007]

Companies do this to cash in on streamer culture. There are like 6 million active streamers on twitch. If only a fraction of these people buy early access for $10-$20 you are talking about people paying millions for free promotion. Companies would be dumb not to do it. They used to have to give away codes to people (I know they still do for the big streamers) but that marketing I’m sure is subsidized by the millions of morons thinking they are the next big thing.

 

[Skifi28]

I'm never gonna pay for this shit. I can wait 3-4 days, it's not that difficult.

 

[Hudo]

It's peak comedy that publishers still trying to sell people advanced or early access bullshit when almost all games require at least a month of patching after their official release to be in a playable state.

 

[Sentenza]

I don't particularly mind waiting few days for a game I'm anticipating (spoiler: Avowed isn't it), but I'd be incline to bet the practice is detrimental on the long run.

Case in point: the game in this case was cracked, offering a TEXTBOOK example of what Gabe Newell meant with "Piracy is often a service problem". Even a lot of people who were planning to buy may end up tempted to "get a peek" by knowing that some are already playing and the game is a few clicks (and at most a half-hour of download) away.
And if at that point they aren't particularly amused with their first impression, they may even reconsider their purchase after ("I got to try it for free and I didn't like it that much... Why should I pay for it?").

Beside, as a publisher the choice of fragmenting your entry point to the game can potentially rob you of the chance to reach higher numbers of concurrent players, which these days is basically an advertisement in itself on a service like Steam ("If everyone is suddenly playing this new thing I didn't know about, there must be something good about it").

 

[panda-zebra]

This is a win for MS. Fairlight succumbed to FOMO and had to pay to get this game early and crack it instead of waiting for the rented peasant edition. More revenue for the balance sheet.

 

[DragonNCM]

So...you have money to land on high end GPU & you don't have money to spend on early access ?

 

[Three]

I predicted this would become standard practice for MS 3 years ago:

There is a quote somewhere that says it will. A long time ago they said it might not be that way forever.

I personally think they will just cheat the system like they did for FH. Ask you to pay £20-30 or something for "early access" meaning they aren't really doing day one releases but just calling the gamepass release 'day one'. People will buy it too.

When people were going gaga for advanced access for Forza and saying it's no big deal it was obvious this practice would become the next horse armour and start showing up on all MS games.

 

[Three]

So...you have money to land on high end GPU & you don't have money to spend on early access ?

Just because I bought an expensive 5090 doesn't mean I'm willing to throw money at frivolous stuff like somebody holding a game hostage for 5 days and calling day 5 of release "day 1".

 

[DragonNCM]

Just because I bought an expensive 5090 doesn't mean I'm willing to throw money at frivolous stuff like somebody holding a game hostage for 5 days and calling day 5 of release "day 1".

Then wait few days ?
Or world is ending ?
Developer want to make money from people who are inpatient. If I was developer of a good game I would launch early access game one month earlier & charge 50$ for it.
That's how people are dumb in this world.

 

[Three]

Then wait few days ?
Or world is ending ?
Developer want to make money from people who are inpatient. If I was developer of a good game I would launch early access game one month earlier & charge 50$ for it.
That's how people are dumb in this world.

The world isn't ending. I don't buy early access nor buy games like this in general. but this is a little different from your earlier post:

So...you have money to land on high end GPU & you don't have money to spend on early access ?

Just saying, I have $30 but it doesn't mean I'm willing to spend it on stupid stuff like paying to play 5 days early.

 

[Astray]

All I know is Ass of Can Whooping is surely behind this somehow.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I couldn't care what pirates are doing. Scum not supporting the industry in any way. Leave them to it.

 

[DragonNCM]

The world isn't ending. I don't buy early access nor buy games like this in general. but this is a little different from your earlier post:



Just saying, I have $30 but it doesn't mean I'm willing to spend it on stupid stuff like paying to play 5 days early.

Exactly that is my point.

 

[ToadMan]

Pirates didn't pay for it, but then again, it's also "free to play"(tm) on Gamepass (which apparently is itself free given all the hamster wheel ways to get a sub without paying).

Xbox laughing all the way to the engagement bank. The money bank, not so much.

 

[Laptop1991]

It's another corporate money grab as usual, but as pointed out in the thread, if gamers didn't pay the extra for early access, then they wouldn't do it, i don't mind waiting now and won't pay the extra, so it doesn't bother me, the game will probably not work properly for a few months or longer afterwards anyway lol.

 

[MMaRsu]

Then wait few days ?
Or world is ending ?
Developer want to make money from people who are inpatient. If I was developer of a good game I would launch early access game one month earlier & charge 50$ for it.
That's how people are dumb in this world.

Lol victim blaming consumers while publishers are the worst

 

[Edder1]

That is not true.

That is 100% true. I have been around pirates all my life and have spent my youth indulging in piracy. Percentage of pirates who buy games is very small, and when they do it's usually in deep sale for a game they have affection for. We have ton of examples of games selling tens of millions of copies even though those same games are available through piracy. On other hand tons of game that included Denuvo have sold poorly. There's zero evidence to prove that piracy impacts sales in any meaningful way.

 

[MMaRsu]

That is 100% true. I have been around pirates all my life and have spent my youth indulging in piracy. Percentage of pirates who buy games is very small, and when they do it's usually in deep sale for a game they have affection for. We have ton of examples of games selling tens of millions of copies even though those same games are available through piracy. On other hand tons of game that included Denuvo have sold poorly. There's zero evidence to prove that piracy impacts sales in any meaningful way.

What a bunch of nonsense based on anecdotal evidence

 

[intheinbetween]

If the game is available on PC what’s wrong with cracking it with or without paying for early access? Haven’t early access Steam titles been cracked?

I call this BS

 

[Ozriel]

Feels like this shit is stealth advertising that the game has been pirated.

Pretty much every game that doesn’t have Denuvo is cracked upon release. And every pirate knows it.

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

That is 100% true. I have been around pirates all my life and have spent my youth indulging in piracy. Percentage of pirates who buy games is very small, and when they do it's usually in deep sale for a game they have affection for. We have ton of examples of games selling tens of millions of copies even though those same games are available through piracy. On other hand tons of game that included Denuvo have sold poorly. There's zero evidence to prove that piracy impacts sales in any meaningful way.

As a kid and teenager I used to pirate games all the time.

As a man with a job, I no longer pirate games from developers I wish to support.

 

[Ozriel]

That is 100% true. I have been around pirates all my life and have spent my youth indulging in piracy. Percentage of pirates who buy games is very small, and when they do it's usually in deep sale for a game they have affection for. We have ton of examples of games selling tens of millions of copies even though those same games are available through piracy. On other hand tons of game that included Denuvo have sold poorly. There's zero evidence to prove that piracy impacts sales in any meaningful way.

A lot of the pirates I know buy the games if they can’t get a cracked version.

It’s not just broke people.

And yes, people still buy games. But those tens of million of sales would be even more if the pirated copies weren’t available

 

[skneogaf]

I don't know anyone that plays pirated pc games anymore, I actually had forgotten they were still a thing.

 

[zeroluck]

Piracy is great perk of PC, you will end up not wasting money on bad games, just don't forget to buy the good ones.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

It could also be illegal. Microsoft promises that its own games will be available on Game Pass Ultimate on Day 1, but they objectively are not. To get what was advertised, you have to pay them the equivalent of an extra month’s subscription. Maybe they think they can weasel their way out with a 'Well, technically...' argument, but with the right country, state, and judge, some false advertising charges could definitely be a possibility.

Came to say this.

 

[poppabk]

Who gives a shit. It's a good way to finance games that has basically zero impact on me. Grab that extra money from the whales if you can.
If you really have FOMO over 4 days then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

That is 100% true. I have been around pirates all my life and have spent my youth indulging in piracy. Percentage of pirates who buy games is very small, and when they do it's usually in deep sale for a game they have affection for. We have ton of examples of games selling tens of millions of copies even though those same games are available through piracy.

Pirates dont buy games because they've been trained to wait to get free games through piracy. Same way as xbox gamers have been trained to no longer buy games because they get free games through gamepass. If games all of a sudden games were no longer able to be pirated what do you think is going to happen? All those PC pirates gonna just run tech demos on their RTX cards?

On other hand tons of game that included Denuvo have sold poorly. There's zero evidence to prove that piracy impacts sales in any meaningful way.

Diablo 3 is to this day is one of the best selling, fastest selling PC games of all time and thats because it was never pirated.

 

[poppabk]

I don't know anyone that plays pirated pc games anymore, I actually had forgotten they were still a thing.

Yeah I kinda thought about trying out that leaked build of Space Marine 2, but it took my 5 minutes to decide it really wasn't worth my time to figure out even how to download it.

 

[ahtlas7]

I only preorder for discounts. I don’t need early access, just release the game for everyone.

 

[Fbh]

Eh, I actually kind of like it.
I don't suffer from chronic FOMO. So having one of the main perks of the more expensive edition being early access instead of actual in game content is a plus. Makes it way easier to buy the regular edition and don't feel like I'm getting an inferior experience.
I'd much rather have this than going back to the days where the premium edition included exclusive quests or entire party members (still salty about ME3).

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

This is a pure malpractice. Also Avowed wasn't even DRM-protected.

 

[mayham2199]

I'm never gonna pay for this shit. I can wait 3-4 days, it's not that difficult.

My worry is 3-4 days is the start. How long until early access is a month in advance?

 

[ReyBrujo]

FWIW, I tend to pirate games when they leak super early. I pirated TotK, Mario Wonder, Echoes of Wisdom, Metroid Prime Remastered…

But to your point, I also bought all of those games on day one. So I apparently do both. Can’t remember the last time I pirated a game that I didn’t actually buy. Maybe something in the early 2010s? But I often feel like the exception, not the rule.

Doesn't make much sense though, because you cannot share the save file so either you start from scratch with the original (in which case, why play it a week earlier?) or just continue with the pirated copy (in which case, you don't even need to buy the game). That sounds more like you don't want to get spoiled or about wanting to be the first one to give impressions or have it finished by the time others start playing it.

Personally I don't pirate games because a) I'm a software developer and it's kind of an ethic thing; and b) because I physically don't have the time to play any more games. My backlog will probably last me a decade, why pirate a game and place a game at the front of the queue when I'm still holding on several jewels? Or worse, why download it (and contribute with seeding at the same time) when I don't plan on playing that game at all?

Obviously I used to download and play pirate games, I even cracked a few shareware ones myself in the nineties but it was back when I didn't have money (yeah, excuse) and I had free time with me. Now that I got the money (relatively speaking) and don't have free time it doesn't make sense for me to pirate games.

 

[Kilau]

Paying for early access rarely makes sense. I’ve only done it for Forza Horizon when the premium upgrade to game pass granted access and included future expansions.

Plus it helped me clear out some online stuff before the servers collapsed. Early access to a single player game… lol.

 

[Dacvak]

Doesn't make much sense though, because you cannot share the save file so either you start from scratch with the original (in which case, why play it a week earlier?) or just continue with the pirated copy (in which case, you don't even need to buy the game). That sounds more like you don't want to get spoiled or about wanting to be the first one to give impressions or have it finished by the time others start playing it.

Personally I don't pirate games because a) I'm a software developer and it's kind of an ethic thing; and b) because I physically don't have the time to play any more games. My backlog will probably last me a decade, why pirate a game and place a game at the front of the queue when I'm still holding on several jewels? Or worse, why download it (and contribute with seeding at the same time) when I don't plan on playing that game at all?

Obviously I used to download and play pirate games, I even cracked a few shareware ones myself in the nineties but it was back when I didn't have money (yeah, excuse) and I had free time with me. Now that I got the money (relatively speaking) and don't have free time it doesn't make sense for me to pirate games.

I just play through the games twice.

 

[demigod]

This is a win for MS. Fairlight succumbed to FOMO and had to pay to get this game early and crack it instead of waiting for the rented peasant edition. More revenue for the balance sheet.

Please tell me you’re not serious.

 

[ChoosableOne]

Microsoft has no trouble finding disgusting practices. When they realized they couldn't make money from gamepass, they started coming up with all sorts of nonsense. If a game is ready, release it three days earlier; don't beg for money just to let people play it early. I hope this serves as a good lesson for them.

 

[Edder1]

A lot of the pirates I know buy the games if they can’t get a cracked version.

It’s not just broke people.

And yes, people still buy games. But those tens of million of sales would be even more if the pirated copies weren’t available

You're talking about extreme minority here, overwhelming majority pf pirates don't buy games and certainly not at full price. Game sales data is proof that piracy has no meaningful impact on sales. There's literally no difference in sales when tracking games that have anti piracy software like Denuvo and those that don't.

 

[Edder1]

Pirates dont buy games because they've been trained to wait to get free games through piracy. Same way as xbox gamers have been trained to no longer buy games because they get free games through gamepass. If games all of a sudden games were no longer able to be pirated what do you think is going to happen? All those PC pirates gonna just run tech demos on their RTX cards?

You're talking about hypotheticals here. Software will always be pirated. Only way to stop this is to go streaming exclusive, whch is not happening in any time soon.

 

[Pedro Motta]

I couldn't care what pirates are doing. Scum not supporting the industry in any way. Leave them to it.

Like the ones that wait until the game is on Gamepass?

 

[Ozriel]

You're talking about hypotheticals here. Software will always be pirated. Only way to stop this is to go streaming exclusive, whch is not happening in any time soon.

Or the DRM approach, though that may come with some performance losses