To what extent does the publisher of a game affect your decision to buy? Has this changed over time for you?
In my case, I never cared before. I didn't start to care about it until SWTOR, but wasn't really influenced by it till after ArcheAge launched. Now, there are definite publishers I will not support.
I'm glad there are a lot of games to choose from without their titles.
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I pray for the day that we get past this microtransaction culture. Free to Play because the games are below a good standard. People will pay and play a game long term if its GOOD, simple.
You can all blame the publisher and devs but lots of people spending £$£$$ on them, if they stopped then microtransactions would stop.
StarTrek online isn't too bad but it needs massive re-works to be more realistic before I could recommend this game to people highly I've tried so many times over the years and remove it every time due to ti glitches and bugs on certain races as well unfixed.
A big problem today is a lot of people don't seem to understand that devs and publishers are different things. You can have a really good dev team but have a crappy publisher which in turn ends up ruining what could have been something great. Can't count how many times I have seen things added or removed because the publisher was on a time table that was unrealistic.
EA, and Trion will probably end up being ignored. The only thing I buy from EA is TitanFall/Mirrors Edge, though Mirrors Edge is probably already dead being a single player game and TitanFall 3 will probably play like some loot box fest now that they fully own it.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
If I find out a game is from them, I won't even try it. Aion, never even read anything about it once I knew it was from them. Wouldn't even try a lineage game again.
From reading the forums, I'll be wary about EA games, but I do play Madden on console, it's just that I don't get involved in any of the pay scam things. Trion, I'll be wary about it after reading on these forums. Now that I know they make Archeage, they are on my map.
I am playing conan exiles made by funcom, i like the game, but it has its problems, we'll see what Funcom does with it, or else I'd add it.
I also tend to not want to try Blizzard games. The reason is they are addicting as fuck and also I feel that Blizzard sells out a bit. I blew my college grades on diablo 2 basically, and now I won't touch a diablo series, but I will play Path of Exile. But since Overwatch was made by blizzard, I didn't even want to try it because I knew it would be well polished, addicting, and I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole. Plus, I'm not too much of an FPS guy anyway.
However, if blizzard makes a survival game, I'd probably buy it ASAP though, cuz I know it would be well polished, addicting, and good but of course the whole sellout factor.
On the other hand:
Bethesda/Zenimax games = are usually always good
CCP = Even though they've floundered on everything but EVE, i'd try something new that they publish
Bluehole = seems successful, so i'll have a positive inclination
Blizzard = It's a love/hate relationship
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
A good enough game could potentially make me ignore that and buy it anyways, it is just a long time since that happened.
Titanfall 2 is pretty good in my books. ME Andromeda is fun for a while. Better yet .. i can pay a $30 (Origin Access) for a whole year of all these games.
There is no way i am going to pay $60 for EA games, but $30 for a tons of them .. sure. I don't even need to finish all of them (i did finish titanfall 2 though .. good fun campaign) to get my money worth.
Never pre-order, never fund a kickstarter, never join a game before it is launched. Always read the reviews not previews. What are your friends saying about the game? What does Metacritic and Steam say? Check every damn thing as the time spent ensures you don't waste time playing a game for a couple of days and then deciding you are going to bin it. Even worse, putting money into the game before in launches and then finding it is below the standards you expected.
Or ... buy it on steam .. play for 20 min. Refund if you do not like it.
When it comes to asian mmorpg a western publisher are somewhat limited on what they can do and it all depends on the license. Smaller developer gets a publisher because they lack the distribution network to sell the game and in those cases developer have full creative control over their product.
On the other hand, when a publisher funds the development of a game they get far more control over the final product. Finally, when the developer is fully owned by the publisher it all depends how much independence they give the development studio.
I don't choose to play games based on their publisher but for some reason I don't buy EA and activision products anymore and mostly play games coming from asian companies and indie developers.
Nari has actually added a good point. I will go and have a rest now as I feel a bit emotional.
With the caveat that you can't always tell how good a game is in 20 mins, but still a good idea.
He actually had 2 good points in a row, so I'm now thinking I've moved into a parallel universe, and am about to run into my "evil twin."
(Wonder if there's any Nazi's around, I was watching Amazon Prime last night)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
They would have to come up with something friggin' AMAZING in order to convince me to throw money their way ever again.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Everyone else of course, their continued insistence on buying and playing games I don't like clearly is the issue.
At this point I'm probably open to buying a good (*) MMORPG from Diablo himself should the opportunity present.
(*) "good" subjectively being a game "I" like of course.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Over time, I played good games and bad games, keeping note of who did what. Patterns emerge, which then affects behaviour.
So, EA consistently publish mediocre games. I haven't played a good game from EA since Skate 3 in 2010, but even that was disappointing, I am just (still) in love with the core gameplay. So, a long history of mediocre games is my primary reason for avoiding EA. A secondary reason is their horrible monetisation strategy, which has made me even less likely to buy their games.
But, I still look into their interesting games. Despite their long history of mediocre games, if they were able to create an actual good game without shit monetisation, I'd buy it. I have no hopes that will ever happen, but I am open to that possibility.
Thats pretty much how it goes. If a game is published by a company with a bad history, I am more wary. If I was on the fence, a bad publisher will turn that into a no. So, Warner Brothers are getting up there now, I don't like what they've done with the LotR IP. Ubisoft have a sketchy history, I tend to like their games but their stability is awful. Activision just don't make games for me, so I haven't bought one in ages.