Thursday 22 October 2009

Boredomlands and Dragging-on Age

(Okay, slightly unfair title as I haven't played either yet, but I thought it was too good to pass up)

Here's what this post is really about though. A few weeks ago Gearbox/2K announced that the PC version of Borderlands was going to be put back a week for "optimisation purposes".

This was a lie. Not only are stores getting the PC version at the same time as the console version, but it's clearly complete. People who managed to get hold of a legal copy in the confusion simply can't play it, as Securom forces them not to until the game's official PC release date - which was obviously put back for no good reason whatsoever. Why not go the whole hog and just shut people out from playing your game forever? They can't return their copy, so you'll get the money no matter what. Plus the criticism will be slightly less.

In a similar vein, i.e. delaying PC versions of games and then lying about why, Eurogamer previewed Dragon Age: Origins this week. Note paragraph 4 on the first page:

"...publisher EA started distributing a complete PC review version to press months before its release."

Um... excuse me? The game was finished for its original release date, then? The one you put back claiming Bioware needed more time to finish and polish the game? Bullshit. You (being EA) were terrified of the prospect of a PC game being released months before the console version. You were worried that console would feel left out and just ignore the game when it was finally released, or you were worried about that everyone would pirate it on PC and not buy it on consoles.

To 2K, EA, Bioware and Gearbox: fuck both of you. If Dragon Age had been released when it was supposed to have been I would've got the Special Edition and all the DLC. Now I'll stick with the standard version. And I'm not even going to bother with Borderlands at all now. Thanks guys, you just saved me a lot of money.

- Chris Capel

2 comments:

  1. Ooh, can I join in?

    2K, EA, Bioware, Gearbox, Lucasarts, Valve, Activision, Sony, Ubisoft, Microsoft: FUCK YOU!

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  2. There's one reason and one reason only they pull shit like this: money. PC games are between 10 and 15 quid cheaper than Console games in general, that's £10-15 less profit for every game bought on PC. Therefore, Publishers don't want people to buy their games on PC, so they put the PC release back a week or month so that all the impatient nubtards go and fork out an extra 15 squids so they can acquire the game a week earlier.

    Fuckers.

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