PicoBlog

Yeah, I get where you’re coming from and I’m very skeptical of how entitled game consumers can be, too. We don’t get the games without the devs, after all, and I try to be mindful of that.

But to argue my/justin’s/the consumer’s side here, there’s kind of nothing more broken than just not being able to play the thing. I’m between 9 or 10 hours on Steam and I’ve played 4 or 5 missions, honestly less than 2 hours game time. And that’s a direct result of not only the unexpected popularity of the game, but the online-only requirement even to get to any kind of menu. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I want to back out I need to bring up task manager, there isn’t even a cancel or exit.

All of that to say that while yes, the game isn’t broken *once you’re in it,* and again I’ve had a blast when I have played, if I’m at 20-25% of playtime actually being playtime, that’s… I dunno, it’s not “not broken” to me.

As for the storefronts issue, I’m not blaming the devs for that, but I am pointing out that Plante’s saying people can refund it if they want doesn’t apply to a lot of people, so for them there isn’t that option to soften the blow. I’d also remind you the same goes for the PlayStation store, probably the single most popular storefront for this title, which also happens to be operated by the game’s publisher, so it’s not like a fringe issue or the fault of the consumer for what retailer they choose - it’s the only console retailer for them.

And yeah, I guess I am kinda in favour of them delisting it or whatever you would call a sales pause. I’ve tried to play it midday and not gotten in, so in my own anecdotal experience I don’t think it’s only a problem on Friday and Saturday nights and otherwise anyone buying it can play it. I did see there was an increase to the server cap today and a new patch, and I am very happy to see that and not in a bitter, I’m-still-mad-at-them kind of way,

I just keep coming back to the problem being by design because of the way the online-only requirement is implemented here, and that is not something anyone else is at fault for. Like there is literally nothing you can do with this game if they’re full. Games like Overwatch and Apex have the offline training modes which function as private sandboxes that at least let you experience the gameplay. The fact that I had to wait in queue for the tutorial is mind boggling to me.

I know the above is a wall of text and I sound more antagonistic as I go, but I want to be clear - I am very happy for any smaller dev that makes a good game and it blows up and agree that if you get in, it’s a great game.

But being defensive of the challenges they’re facing or effusive of the gameplay experience ignores how objectively wrong it is that there are a lot of people out there who bought a game and just can’t play it, with no recourse available to them. And I don’t think it’s okay that that can happen to people, much less so that it’s something people are actively defending.

We’ve had a lot of discussion on the podcast in the last year about trends in the industry that are tangential to this, with No Man’s Sky or Cyberpunk releasing early and playing catch-up, which I’m not saying I think HD2 did at all, or even Baldur’s Gate 3 releasing fairly buggy and with an underwhelming epilogue and then really fleshing things out months down the line. Yea, with digital releases and the growing complexities of games, they are becoming much less expected to launch flawlessly and we are growing more accepting of rough launches with redemption arcs - this isn’t exactly that, it’s a great game that’s online-only with only so much online capacity - but it reminds me of Justin talking in the CP2077 episode last fall about what the landscape will be like for publishing games that can be endlessly patched and supported, and will we get used to forgiving incomplete/flawed game launches, and *while I cannot stress enough how I don’t think Arrowhead is a bad actor here*, I can feel myself getting more skeptical of what we as consumers get used to being offered.

I definitely feel like I picked up steam on this issue as I typed, so forgive the length, but basically I do just think no it’s not okay people can buy a game and not get to play it, and even if the people who made it seem like good folks, there can be levels of “not okay” where HD2 not being The Day Before still doesn’t give it a free pass from critiquing the issues it’s having.

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