I was looking forward to the release of GTA-VI. But the recent release news for it has made me a lot less enthusiastic about it. Mainly because it will be a digital release only, no disc(s). I have the Xbox Series X and the PS4, along with the previous Xbox and PS consoles. My main concern is that it can let Rockstar own the copy of the game I'm "renting\leasing" or whatever is the term for not actually owing a digital copy. I'll see how I feel about it when the game gets closer to the release date.
No physical version sucks, but they're big enough to do it without it costing them sales, the lack of a second hand market might even result in them selling more copies.
I saw this coming, and quit gaming ages ago. You're all gonna get there, trust me. Someday, the cost and the bullshit will just be too much. It'll be the ad-riddled mess the villains in "Ready Player One" want.
STILL no gameplay footage, probably not a good sign. If the NPCs are AI driven it'll require cloud access anyway - online dependant and you could basically lose your game at anytime - an instant put off.
Like @Diacanu, I've pretty much stopped modern AAA gaming because everything is so predatory. They're selling a piece of a game for $80 and locking the rest behind the $100 price tag for the complete game. I'm not kidding, there will be missions and car customization options (things that are a given in every GTA game) that you will only get if you bought the deluxe edition. I might buy the game 5 years down the road if it goes on sale for $20, otherwise I'll do without and just keep playing GTA V with all of the mods I have installed. My most recent AAA game I own is Starfield, and while I enjoyed it for a while, it quickly became stale and boring, and all the really fun stuff is locked behind mods you have to purchase with real money. So no thank you to AAA gaming. I'll stick with the smaller games that manage to catch my interest. Hell, I paid $20 for Star Trucker, a game made by two developers and I've played that game more than I have Starfield because they keep working on it and adding new features. They communicate with their fans and listen when we ask them for new features or to fix a bug. To me that's where the future of gaming is, because the AAA studios have dropped the fucking ball and have given in to the worst predatory practices in the industry like macrotransactions and union busting. We don't need to encourage that behavior.
Activities aren't missions... The locked Ultimate Edition shops are just exclusive shops, not the standard shops that are in Vice City. There’s still going to be your basic clothing stores, barbers, car chops, etc. Those stores are most likely going to be more “story-friendly”, while the Ultimate Edition shops give the players a broader selection of customization. As you can tell from the screenshots, some of Jason and Lucia’s looks looked a bit on the wild side. Base game stores will focus more on how Jason and Lucia actually look. So many extra cosmetics they had to create special shops for them...
And charge an extra $20 to access them in game, including two side quests. Whether you're okay with it or not, it's still predatory and a scummy practice. https://www.gtaboom.com/everything-behind-the-gta-6-ultimate-edition-paywall-ebb8
I bought RDR2 when it came out, the standard edition. I didn't feel any need to pay extra for skins or the gold guns. As far as I can tell it didn't change how the game played. The only time I've ever picked up the extra skins or mods in games have been when they were free or I needed to do some extra quest or action in the game, and even then they were rather stupid. The only person who is going to see the special clothes or cosmetic extras is going to be me.
You're already getting one of the biggest and most comprehensive games to ever exist and it will probably be very, very good If people want to pay $20 for a hair salon, 2 quests and a few vehicles, then whatever. If you don't, then that's fine too Nothing predatory about it
It's not scummy, not even predatory. Some people are willing to pay the extra amount. And if they want to then they can. It's not something I'm going to do. It's a business model, it works for the publisher of games. Is it scummy and predatory to charge extra for cheese on a sandwich at a restaurant? When I bought RDR2 I didn't see any need for cosmetic extras, so I didn't get them. I think there was a gun that had more firepower with the extra bundle, it's fine, but for me I didn't want that either, I liked the challenge of starting at bare minimum.
I completely disagree, and we're going to see more fallout from the gaming community as these predatory practices continue. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3673805.3673836
All you're doing here is saying that while you are getting a great product you're super upset that there's people out there that are willing to pay a little more for a bit more content that isn't really meaningful or impactful To call it predatory is laughable
If someone is willing to pay to have a special outfit in a game, and not having it doesn't change the outcome or how the game is played, that's the players choice. Not really any different than someone paying $300 for a shirt or shoes that have a certain name on them. I do have a few T-shirts that have custom artwork for and had them printed, most of them have me in the image. That's worth it to. Except the player is the only one that will see the the outfit in the game. I have several games that have DLC that gives special or custom skins, I don't buy them. I do play MSFS, I have bought a few aircraft for it. That is worth the cost to me, buying a livery for the aircraft is not worth it. Bitching about something that is optional and doesn't affect the outcome of the game, and that others are fine paying for is patently idiotic. Should it be predatory and scummy to pay extra for a graphics kit/upholstery package on a car from the factory?
The difference between the $80 and the $100 version of GTA VI, as a mentioned, includes missions and access to shops *in the game* that you can't use unless you pay the extra $20. Now, you might like paying extra for features that would have been included at no extra charge in GTA V, but not everyone is willing to so easily part with their money, nor should they. Seriously, DLCs have been a thing for a long time, and that's fine, but we're not dealing with selling DLCs anymore, nor are we dealing with microtransactions anymore. We're dealing with actual functional parts of the game being restricted, being held back in order to extort more money from players, and these are large transactions. Not $2 or $3 for a skin, but $20+ to gain access to what is already in the game but is being artificially restricted because corporate wants more money. YOU ALREADY PAID FOR IT, IT'S ALREADY MADE, but they're making you pay for it again. Be smarter than that. Don't let them fuck you in the ass only for them to also charge you extra for the high colonic. Have some self-respect.
The shops are for cosmetic items in the game, the extra missions aren't anything new. Plenty of games have extra missions or new unlockable content that costs extra. This is just a different way of giving access to the cosmetic items. I've said that I don't buy the extras that are cosmetic add ons. I have other games that I have purchased the add on content for new areas or missions as they come out. I'm not getting fucked in the ass if I don't purchase them. In your twisted world of everything is out to get you, you automatically decide that it's out to fuck you in the ass. If you don't want it, don't spread your cheeks. I'm certainly not. And if I do purchase an add on, it's because the cost is worth it to me. It's easier to place it in the game and charge for it than to have it as a download later.
It's your choice, but the predatory practices are real, and the harm it's doing to the games industry is real. There's people who pay $10 for a bottled water because they believe it actually comes from a mountain spring and not a municipal water supply, and they have the right to do it, but that doesn't mean it's a good or sustainable practice.
And that is their choice. No one is forcing them to do it. They see value in it. You do the same thing if you buy a certain shirt, a piece of jewelry, use a streaming service. There are free versions of some streaming services. Just because you have the app installed and can access some content, is it predatory and scummy if you can't access and watch the movie that was just released? It's on the server, already there. I want to get the 737 Max in MSFS, but the cost is not worth it to me. If it goes to a price that I'm comfortable with and I find worth it, I will.
It becomes a problem when that particular business model becomes the standard business model, which it now is in the gaming industry. It's why we're also seeing $1,000 consoles for the next generation, Sony saying they're phasing out physical media while they also removed hundreds of movies from people's purchased libraries with no refunds. The gaming industry, hell, most media in general, is moving to a "you'll own nothing" market strategy, and it is going to crash and burn. Not only that, it might even bring about the second Great Video Game Crash. Gamers will put up with a lot, but there comes a point where the market will not hold, as there is no capital moving upward. This is why so many media conglomerates are merging, as there isn't enough revenue among the general public to keep stock prices rising. All of this is going to come crashing down. It doesn't have to be this way, people don't have to fall for it. They can if they want to be the $10 water bottle purchaser in a consumer group of $1 water bottle purchasers, but making that $10 water bottle purchaser the representative target for all of the market is just really stupid. You're talking individually. I'm talking systemically. The practices Rockstar/Take-Two are engaging in is part of a much larger issue, but they're going to be the frontrunner for whether this is somehow a miraculous leap forward for the AAA gaming industry, or whether we're going to see another crash that wipes out half the playing field and sets back gaming for a decade.
Not necessarily. I recently watched a trailer for a pretty cool looking game coming out. They said, right there in the commercial, if you purchase an item, it may be removed from the game and you will lose it. That's predatory.
hahaha, one could only hope it came from a municipal water supply. at least, that has some regulation. bottled water? those guys could well be pumping that shit directly from Lake Michigan for all anyone knows.
That's why I like the Game Pass the Xbox. It's less than the price of a new game. There are also several new games that are available on it, as in just released. So instead of getting one new game every few months, I get a new one pretty much every month. They do rotate out of availability, which to me is fine. As by the time they do, I've already gotten bored of the game of finished it. There's also several games that have been available for a few years now. I'd also rather pay the monthly cost, get a couple new games that I like and run across a few that I don't care for. For the ones I don't like, at least I didn't pay for a game that I'll play for an hour then not play again. When I do buy a game, about half the time I get bored of it before finishing it. On Game Pass I've finished more games on it that if I bought them. With most new games between $50-80, I still come ahead. There's also beta games with Game Pass. It is upfront about it, that you could lose access or even progress. Even then, I lose interest before they are removed. I bought RDR2 when it was released, still haven't finished it. One feature that was removed was getting the free game(s) that you could keep each month. I was able to pick up several of the Assassin Creed games, Fallout games and a few others that way.
Enshittification to me are things like going fully digital, no more hard copies That's at least a serious problem with serious ramifications. Not this minor silly thing we're talking about
I'm pretty sure i played games in the past where the special edition had an extra special shop that would not show up in the regular edition that i was playing...
