Controversy Corner: No man's game, Plus a price hike

Running through this one...

Okay so what may or may not become a new segment bit, here is controversy corner... a bit where I try to stuff my ramblings on of recent controversies into smaller bits. I want to get over the whole part about wasting my time with so many unnecessary blabbering, as there's too many awesome games out there to better spend time discussing or playing than to worry over what the internet is up in a fit over. However I still feel its healthy to keep a side of discussion open, so... lets try instead of giving you six paragraphs and two tagent bits in between, how about I limit this to 3 bits and try to gloss over the issue? Sounds good? Good, lets try this with some hot topics as of late, sadly both of which involve smack-talking some questionable moves from within the industry...

PlayStation Plus is going to plus in price

As of November 2014, it was proclaimed the climate of the PS4 has made the PS+ membership count skyrocket in a number that has been described as "quadruple". That's not a simple word with this stuff, especially when we had millions to work with BEFORE that number. How did this happen with the PS4? Two major things: 1) The PS4 sold to ridiculous levels, possibly being of the same high stakes as quadruple. So duh, there's going to be more members. 2) Online is now artificially walled off to a PS+ privilege, rather than by simply having a PSN count and an online game. Those are two major reasons to see the count go up, especially given how one of the biggest selling yearly franchises on consoles is an online-centric game (there's an entire fraction of consumers who just play COD and maybe one or two other games with buddies online). Yeah those people didn't come because suddenly they wanted an old port of meatboy, they're here to play the damn games they already paid for. Meanwhile its not like the console userbase has a way to say no to this and still get online, because Nintendo barely does online worthy stuff and isn't a serious 3rd party space, and Xbox was already doing this. The world of PC is there if you can afford it, but that isn't helping you bypass the hacker crap of Dark Souls, nor is it letting you have your fun with friends on Uncharted 4 or Halo 5. Sony really played their cards smartly, but meanly, and trapped people up into this.

So why am I discussing this when the header bit was talking price? Because its got everything to do with my commentary on it, and why I think its bullshit... but also inevitable under current conditions. Its another case of competition turning on us sourly, where instead of competing with better values, we're seeing them simply use each other to measure where they can box us in for higher profits. That doesn't make it morally okay though, nor am I going to sit by and pretend we'll be blindly happier this way, or that because its just $10 its magically not bad enough to cry about. As much as I can laugh at Mega64's satire of the outcry, it ain't exactly making anything better. At the end of the day, this is technology going two steps forward, and one backwards. Its where we should be thriving in an age of online entertainment and excitement, but meanwhile companies love looking to use it to shake people for more money. Yet people are trying to defend this somehow, calling the fuss off as a vocal minority (apparently its just like 10 guys complaining about paying higher unjustified bills), suggesting its the cost of all the value here (uh... like a Gone Home port and Tricky Towers?), and other such stuff. Sorry but, none of that logic even begins to make a bit of sense.

Uh... millions signed up for months of stuff like this!? No.

The bottom line is we shouldn't even have to pay for online gaming as a separate entity to begin with. We pay our internet bills, we pay for the games, and so we should be getting the games and our online. No server bullshit either, because devs are still running those server costs and cutting corners, not Sony's end. Sony runs the stuff that you can get even free, and despite the huge amount of people subbing, the service has gotten even worse.  Again, the number did not quadruple because over 7 million people prefer Zombie U, Rocket League, and indie ports over stuff like Uncharted, bioshock, batman, and gravity rush. They can't even be bothered to release freakin' Knack of all things, years after its bombed and under their own name so there's no big strings to pull. Its not even that hard to get to these games in this day either, microsoft had AC4 on their gold games list. That's why there's extra salt on the wound. Instead of improving, PS+ has gotten worse and in the face of so many complaints, we're told "Oh hey, its time to pay more". That's not to say they don't try and that the games are bad. You can still love this stuff. Dust is incredible, and IMO the best thing to come out of PS+ on PS4. Then there's Rocket league, Grow Home, and such. Still the fact that the best thing is a one-man indie game released back 4 years ago is telling of where their effort has gone. They don't have the incentive anymore to bring in numbers through value, nor are they even making up that excuse for the price hike. We're simply told in a sneaky update post on the blog, that its what the market conditions determine. I actually partially admire that for being such an honest way to confess exactly what they're doing, but it doesn't make it any better. They've got online console gamers boxed into a corner, and they're raising the rate up with nothing promising to show for it, because they just can do that. They can do it again to, because the market is cornered into it. Welp I'll probably jump out of the service... besides, I kind of want to actually own Dust anyway, something I can't ironically do with the "great values of PS+"

Seriously guys, go play Dust. Its fantastic

No Man's Game (because everyone's refunding it)

Hehe, check out this. Its made such a scene that valve has to put up a little warning on it...

Or maybe this link if you can't see it from the above. Its got a disclaimer on it pointing to how there's no special exception on the refund policy relating to No Man's Sky. That implies there's so many people trying to send it back regardless of the 2 hour bit, that they needed to warn people they aren't special snowflakes just because they bought a deceitful game. However that game has been absorbing the spotlight as if it was undergoing some kinda special photosynthesis of bad attention. Now that people are sick of the hype culture, and bullshit lies spread out by this game's creator, they've flocked in mass to return the overpriced survival space game, and its not just steam. If anything, steam is the little guy in this mess. Sony's had to bend their lack of refund policies, and keep having to clear up and redo info they put out there about refunding costumers. Really this just all boils down to: people are pissed after catching onto what NMS is really all about, and just like I said before, its exactly what I told you it would be... and completely not what the game's director told you it would be. Someone out there has given me a number of about 90% of a player drop-rate and the game is still new. For something that promises 20-50 hours in one of the biggest gaming spaces ever, that's sad.... and yet its sweet, sweet justice.

Look I like the game enough to keep my copy, and I also can't exactly cry to sony about my download since I bought it at bestbuy, but eh whatever. That being said, I'll defend and even commend the people's will to refund this product for being a lying over-hyped buggy goof of a release. Harsh, but deserved from the best we can tell, because we've been misled by a combination of factors, but the biggest offense is that among those factors are the people who benefit most from being a snake-oil salesmen. Its not a matter of "if" Sean lied, its that he did, and they still try to hide it even when caught. Yet here comes a cry of people hating the backlash, defending the devs and their own purchase, feeling threatened somehow by the consumer's ability to fight off cheats. Look I'm all for "buyer beware" and consumers having some responsibility, but part of that involves taking a foul product back for a refund. Listen very carefully here: If you go and buy a product, and it turns out the product you were told you were buying, was not what you got, its not your fault. Its not the consumers fault that someone put the wrong thing in the box, or someone totally screwed up the product they were supposed to be selling. It is only the consumer's fault if they knew that ahead of time and grabbed it anyway. Refunds basically exist for both that reason, and for total defects, so yeah its justified they get their refund for a game that was not what it was said to be. That's not up for debate either. You can debate how much of it was a lie, because our best source wasn't even initially correct and we don't entirely know things that were fairly lost in the dev cycle; Still we do know that there were in fact bold lies and hidden deceptions up to even so much as post-launch where they pretend the lack of online interaction was a fault on their servers.

On the other hand, I will agree to draw the line at refunding people who have been happily enjoying their game for 30-50 hours on end. Once you cross a certain limit like that, you've got your money's worth, and have played the product. However to everyone else in an uproar about it, first off: mind your own damn business and go play this game you think is too great for a refund. If the retailers think the refunds are bullshit, they can contest that themselves without your peanut gallery services. Secondly, what good are you doing by crying about them? What are you doing productively for you, them, the game, the media, or the art form? What do you hope to accomplish by degrading them, calling people dumb for not being a fortune teller about the lies, by suggesting they're somehow responsible for the quality of their purchase they did not have any way of creating, and/or just saying they complain too much? There's something sad levels of hypocrisy and irony in degrading someone as being a dumb irresponsible consumer while trying to silence the people who are out warning other consumers of the game's faults and their own bad experience with it. After-all, if you do wish to help the companies here rather than the people, consider this a better alternative to the higher likelihood of lawsuits breaking out after all the false claims and marketing on this game. It can and should still happen, but maybe its held off longer because some of the angrier consumers are getting their money back.

Our fussing isn't going totally unanswered, and that's a good thing!

That's all for now. Here's to hoping the next article is more positive again