Widescreen Gaming Forum

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/27/actually-we-are-getting-bioshock-2-dlc/

(although will never be up to KB+M standards)

Fixed that for you. ;)

That and games on the PC have a major disadvantage for publishers: it's easier to mod a game on the PC. If the devs release some tools, that makes it easy, and the fan community then proceeds to go mad and make so many free mods that people could keep playing for the next ten years without needing to do more than download mods for one game. And even if the devs don't release mod tools, if a game gets popular enough, the community makes their own... in some cases falling back to the very software that the devs used to create the game if it's commercial (eg: Final Fantasy VII PC has a heck of a lot of mods to improve one thing or another... and it's taken a heck of a lot of effort to get there...)

Hence product longevity is public enemy #1 and being assaulted with extreme prejudice by the suits. Time and content limited, DIVX-style, disposable $60 games are wet dream #2--right after subscription model gaming.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/27/actually-we-are-getting-bioshock-2-dlc/

Good for those that have/play/like/want more of Bioshock 2. Still, my inner cynic read that and thought of the proverbial abusive spouse promising to never hit again. 2K: "We're so sorry, loyal PC fans. We promise not to screw around with Bioshock Infinite. Please buy it on day 1."

I think slogging through election material has put me in a mood.

_________________
VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

I think slogging through election material has put me in a mood.

It would put anyone in a mood. Modern politics isn't about talking about what you will do, it's about shouting about how bad the other guy is.

Looks like it's supported once again!

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/115465/bioshock-2-pc-dlc-plans-revived

We are a company of gamers making awesome experiences for gamers - and given the conversations we've had over the past two weeks, we've decided to go back and finish the PC patch and Protector Trials. Currently, we are patching the final bugs in these two pieces of content and then will submit everything to certification. The cert process can take anywhere up to four weeks, but as we hit major milestones (passing cert or otherwise included) I'll tell you guys. We are projecting that the patch and the Protector Trials will be ready to cert in December and I'm happy to announce that they will be available free to the community.

When we stopped development on Minerva's Den, it was not in a workable state and needed significantly more dev time to complete. As of now, we are not certain how much longer it would take to complete the project to our standards, but we have reallocated resources to work on completing the project so PC gamers can have this experience in Rapture along with 360 and PS3 owners.

_________________
Widescreen Fixer - https://www.widescreenfixer.org/

Widescreen Fixer Twitter - https://twitter.com/widescreenfixer
Personal Twitter - https://twitter.com/davidrudie

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6286305.html

According to a post from 2K Games' senior manager of interactive marketing Elizabeth Tobey on the official BioShock 2 forums, the Protector Trials downloadable content is heading to certification at the end of the month, with a release date announcement to follow.

As for the Minerva's Den content, according to the post, that add-on "still has some work to be done on it" and will move to certification in March.

With each console generation, I wonder why publishers get more hostile toward the PC

More than a couple have explicitly blamed PC piracy for hurting their overall profits. And frankly, it's the only explanation I've heard that makes sense.

Yes this makes a lot of sense actually. In fact, whenever someone pirates a game you make, you should entirely stop support for those who did purchase the product because the actions of a company toward its customers should come from its non-customers, the people giving it no money right? Either way, they have the choice to make backwards decisions like this; although, no one company will ever know how many people pirated their games, only how many purchased it. From this, it can be derived that the sales were lackluster. That or 2K Games plans on ripping of its customers now and more in the future and is using BioShock 2 as a testbed for such actions.

The real problem here is that if there's a problem with the game, they will not support it anymore yet the company will still allow customers to purchase it probably with the impression it will still be supported as the game's only a few years old. While they'd probably never advertise "this is a legacy product which no longer is applicable to receive 2K Games technical support", there's a false pretense here which the company is going to probably realize probably comes from poor decisions on its part. And if it doesn't really affect the sales of their games, they'll keep doing it. It's much cheaper to sell games with no support on their end than to support the game and deal with disgruntled customers. In fact, the only incentive for a company to offer decent support is because people will purchase their games now and in the future.

[quote]

With each console generation, I wonder why publishers get more hostile toward the PC

More than a couple have explicitly blamed PC piracy for hurting their overall profits. And frankly, it's the only explanation I've heard that makes sense.

Yes this makes a lot of sense actually. In fact, whenever someone pirates a game you make, you should entirely stop support for those who did purchase the product because the actions of a company toward its customers should come from its non-customers, the people giving it no money right? Either way, they have the choice to make backwards decisions like this; although, no one company will ever know how many people pirated their games, only how many purchased it. From this, it can be derived that the sales were lackluster. That or 2K Games plans on ripping of its customers now and more in the future and is using BioShock 2 as a testbed for such actions.

The real problem here is that if there's a problem with the game, they will not support it anymore yet the company will still allow customers to purchase it probably with the impression it will still be supported as the game's only a few years old. While they'd probably never advertise "this is a legacy product which no longer is applicable to receive 2K Games technical support", there's a false pretense here which the company is going to probably realize probably comes from poor decisions on its part. And if it doesn't really affect the sales of their games, they'll keep doing it. It's much cheaper to sell games with no support on their end than to support the game and deal with disgruntled customers. In fact, the only incentive for a company to offer decent support is because people will purchase their games now and in the future.


I forget where I read the following stat...
But supposedly in the end ( even though the "initial" pc sales were dismal ) PC sales of Bioshock nearly equal console sales.
If true, someone really needs to shout as much from every corner of the universe. Cuz personally I do not know any console type who put down COD long enuff to buy Bioshock.

_________________
Epic 3X27″ Acer HN274H

my monitors wrote: A bezel is nothing more than my eyeglass frames