MW5 Pre-Order is Upon Us.

[Euphonium]

And if STEAM decides to not a game in the future, how is that any different?

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, as STEAM is not the Silver-clad, Gold Gilded Champion of Online Gaming people are making them out to be.

Agreed. Many of the reasons I dislike the EGS also apply to Steam.
The store I like is GoG because having the games DRM-free means that I actually own them and can reinstall & play them on a standalone PC no matter what what happens in the future.* When I get the opportunity I'm willing to re-buy games I own on Steam through GoG as long as it's not too expensive.

*hardware compatibility allowing

[HobbesHurlbut]

Thursday Update AMA (7/25)
https://youtu.be/u9bQds9QPqU

Friday AMA Follow Up (7/26)
https://youtu.be/tuLhG9CLgok

[PyreLight]

I have been seeing a lot of hate and harassment and death threats against PGI and especially Russ Bullock the last two days, despite the fact that 1) they can just add the exe to your Steam client, 2) people still get to have their Steam a year later, 3) they can just get refunds and keep their MWO content. PGI chose the best way to make a better game and give it a marketing push and delay it, but the Mechwarrior community chose to be horrible, terribly immature, and toxic. It's distressful to see  :'(

[Wrangler]

its not to be unsurprising it happened.  Were months away from what have been the launch of the browser, with hype building.  IN meantime, there alot bad mojo building with Epic Games, to the point it's turning toxic.   Then you tell people who invented money and hope of great game they have to use a exclusive (openingly) disliked game provider to get it after promising to be released different way?   Its not surprising at all. 

It sucks for everyone.  I don't know the thorny details, but Russ choose this path feeling it only way keep his company alive and be able put a product out he feels will save his company and their jobs.  Yet, i THINK he may have tainted the product in process.  Bitter pill of year later, it stale, players may have moved on to other things.  It's not going be next hot product. 

I wonder if he any other choice. Inclusion of the Unreal engine is the main problem, like MWO's current engine.  It's linked to the hip of the folks to made it.   Mandating it must be used with some association with it's maker.   

What i think is sad, is that gaming industry has gotten too point where they outsource their important stuff to other people.  Like the game friggin engine, thing makes your work and shiny to outside outfit.   Now their unable to do what they want with product, PGI got the rug utterly pulled under their feet as the game is about to launch.

[HobbesHurlbut]

despite the fact that 1) they can just add the exe to your Steam client,

So patches and updates can be downloaded via steam client?

[PyreLight]

its not to be unsurprising it happened.  Were months away from what have been the launch of the browser, with hype building.  IN meantime, there alot bad mojo building with Epic Games, to the point it's turning toxic.   Then you tell people who invented money and hope of great game they have to use a exclusive (openingly) disliked game provider to get it after promising to be released different way?   Its not surprising at all. 

It sucks for everyone.  I don't know the thorny details, but Russ choose this path feeling it only way keep his company alive and be able put a product out he feels will save his company and their jobs.  Yet, i THINK he may have tainted the product in process.  Bitter pill of year later, it stale, players may have moved on to other things.  It's not going be next hot product. 

I wonder if he any other choice. Inclusion of the Unreal engine is the main problem, like MWO's current engine.  It's linked to the hip of the folks to made it.   Mandating it must be used with some association with it's maker.   

What i think is sad, is that gaming industry has gotten too point where they outsource their important stuff to other people.  Like the game friggin engine, thing makes your work and shiny to outside outfit.   Now their unable to do what they want with product, PGI got the rug utterly pulled under their feet as the game is about to launch.

I think it's absolutely surprising to see death threats and harassment over a video game, but maybe that's just me being old and out of touch with today's gamers.

It is sad to me that gamers have become (are?) so toxic and hostile if things don't go exactly the way they want that they go on a harassment campaign. It doesn't help that Youtubers want to get clicks so they produce these insane AM Radio Rage Rants and distort a situation for thousands of viewers that they then go to Twitter and Reddit and Facebook and insult and harass the people working on the actual game. It is unbearable and I think other people on the sidelines should not just ignore it or let it be.

So patches and updates can be downloaded via steam client?

A patch gets released for MW5? Launch Epic Game Store, let it patch the game, close Epic Game Store, go back to Steam. Or wait a year until it releases on Steam if it's that difficult.

But I guess that's too much for some people, so instead they go online and bully the game devs.

[HobbesHurlbut]

But I guess that's too much for some people

After I did posted the TWO AMA here that were recorded for Thursday and Friday last week, without commentary I might add thanks the people who recorded them and uploaded them to youtube, you can understand why people don't trust PGI anymore. Russ is...let us say rather clumsy at speaking to people/being an ackward public speaker.

[PyreLight]

After I did posted the TWO AMA here that were recorded for Thursday and Friday last week, without commentary I might add thanks the people who recorded them and uploaded them to youtube, you can understand why people don't trust PGI anymore. Russ is...let us say rather clumsy at speaking to people/being an ackward public speaker.

heh, you're right, but the level of hate I've seen online doesn't seem proportionate to his lack of clarity. Besides, the games industry is known to be a silo with all their non-disclosure agreements and it's rare to ever hear anything until the final announcement of something, so I understand why he couldn't and didn't say anything.

Given the way people react to PGI and treat them online on social media the last two days, I don't blame them for not wanting to communicate with (parts of) their fanbase.

[Caedis Animus]

heh, you're right, but the level of hate I've seen online doesn't seem proportionate to his lack of clarity. Besides, the games industry is known to be a silo with all their non-disclosure agreements and it's rare to ever hear anything until the final announcement of something, so I understand why he couldn't and didn't say anything.

Given the way people react to PGI and treat them online on social media the last two days, I don't blame them for not wanting to communicate with (parts of) their fanbase.

Yeah, I got pretty soured with MW as a community after I saw someone wanting everyone at PGI to shoot themselves and for the office to go up like Kyoto Studios.

Absolutely disgusting.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Yeah, I got pretty soured with MW as a community after I saw someone wanting everyone at PGI to shoot themselves and for the office to go up like Kyoto Studios.

Absolutely disgusting.

One person commented he would had punched Russ in the face had he went to the con Russ was at... whose family attended the con with as well.

[wundergoat]

They are not, certainly have their own problems. And competition would a good thing. While they may not get to be a very big competitor, I think GoG is a very valid one.

The problem with EGS is that they have several very substational issues to make people wary of using their store (a lack of features compared to Steam, non-existent customer support, and rather alarmingly shoddy security) and instead of spending money on fixing these issues, they would rather spend money on exclusivity deals. That's a direction I would rather not see the market go.

The thing is, I don't think EGS can compete with Steam if they didn't go the exclusivity route.  Steam has massive first-mover advantage where people are heavily invested in their platform and they've already got all the important functionality.  Speaking personally, even if EGS's platform fixed everything that annoyed me about the Steam experience, I still would not use them.  The cost of switching platforms isn't worth the gains.  Competing on prices isn't realistic for a variety of reasons, at least on this point.  That leaves exclusivity as the means to build the platform's user base.

EGS is determined to compete with Steam and to do that they're straight buying user base.  Their policies and pricing are much better for developers, but those don't mean anything if no one is using the platform.  However, by using their Fortnite windfall to secure exclusivity deals for anticipated titles, they are buying user base.  Platform services are secondary.  Those can be built out later once user base is secured.  It isn't exactly consumer friendly, but I can't fault the logic of this strategy.

In PGI's case, I think it was probably a no-brainer.  A break-even of 750,000 vs 1M units isn't even close - they'd have to sell a third more units plus they would be making a lot less per unit after that point.  That plus the additional funding and marketing/exposure from EGS obviously made PGI conclude that the alienation and loss of some customers was worth the additional $ per customer and potential for additional customers.

[pheonixstorm]

As turned off as many of the fan base are, I don't see them getting 1m units from EGS alone. The launcher is too consumer unfriendly. Not having a shopping cart is a serious flaw. Same with all the crap floating around about lack of account security and rumors of malware. True or not it will hurt sales for all those who made the switch.

[Nightlord01]

The thing is, I don't think EGS can compete with Steam if they didn't go the exclusivity route.  Steam has massive first-mover advantage where people are heavily invested in their platform and they've already got all the important functionality.  Speaking personally, even if EGS's platform fixed everything that annoyed me about the Steam experience, I still would not use them.  The cost of switching platforms isn't worth the gains.  Competing on prices isn't realistic for a variety of reasons, at least on this point.  That leaves exclusivity as the means to build the platform's user base.

I'll let Samsung know that their Galaxy program is doomed to fail, since Apple has first mover status, and they shouldn't bother releasing a Galaxy S2, shall I? On a more serious note, for every first mover advantage there is an equal disadvantage, it's not as big a show stopper as you'd think since just about every nation involved has laws in place to prevent that. Everything from motor vehicles to mobile phones to PC games shows that a determined company who's willing to spend the time and effort to break into the market will be successful.

Epic could indeed compete, very effectively, by investing that money they spent gaining exclusive access to games on actually making their system have all the functionality of Steam, or even following their own roadmap of functionality improvement. Clearly they have money to burn, why not use it improving their product? I fear that this isn't actually a tactic to gain market share though, I fear that this is a tactic to encourage the market to become driven by exclusivity agreements, rather than consumer decisions.

EG seem to be trying to get the market openly accepting of exclusivity deals and lack of choice, my big question is: If they are successful, and grab a market share to rival Steam, do you think they will stop? The answer is quite obviously: No. Why would the cease using an effective tactic?

This is exactly the tactic used by TV stations and content streamers here in Australia, with the charge being lead by Foxtel, and everyone else jumping on the bandwagon. This has lead to more expensive entertainment and ever growing numbers of content providers each wanting a slice of the pie. It annoys me with TV, and it annoys me with EG, luckily neither provide entertainment I can't do without, so do without I shall.

[PyreLight]

One person commented he would had punched Russ in the face had he went to the con Russ was at... whose family attended the con with as well.

Imagine being such a huge baby that you would use violence because of some videogame.

I wish the MWO community leaders and streamers would speak up.

[Caedis Animus]

Imagine being such a huge baby that you would use violence because of some videogame.

I wish the MWO community leaders and streamers would speak up.

Considering how much most of them played up rage on youtube, I'm not entirely sure they'd be against a violent course of action. But I don't watch them, so I could very well be wrong.

Well, I hope I'm wrong.

[Wrangler]

if things keep going the way they are, anything MechWarrior (computer related) is going be toast (dead) to the player base.  Revenue to pay for the servers comes from in-game purchases, arguably from sale of MW5 itself.

I still play MWO casually, since it's a free game. I enjoy the comrade of the game. People who like playing with mechs, who like Battletech in general though perhaps not playing the paper/pencil original. 

I would not like see this fragile bridge between two branches of the Battletech die because bad / worse decisions made by those who keep game going.  For good or for ill.  HBS Battletech which hasn't shown signs of the issues cultural wise, isn't as connected as well as MWO is to it's players.

If PGI goes pop within next year (given what's going on right now, it possible.  Less revenue to pump into the final cleanup of the game and keeping the core business MWO alive) i don't think another company will come by piece to gether the game as well PGI did.  It will likely be reboot, possibly completely different artist direction that may not treat the original source material with same good care PGI has despite it's bad decisions it's leadership has made.

[PyreLight]

if things keep going the way they are, anything MechWarrior (computer related) is going be toast (dead) to the player base.  Revenue to pay for the servers comes from in-game purchases, arguably from sale of MW5 itself.

I still play MWO casually, since it's a free game. I enjoy the comrade of the game. People who like playing with mechs, who like Battletech in general though perhaps not playing the paper/pencil original. 

I would not like see this fragile bridge between two branches of the Battletech die because bad / worse decisions made by those who keep game going.  For good or for ill.  HBS Battletech which hasn't shown signs of the issues cultural wise, isn't as connected as well as MWO is to it's players.

If PGI goes pop within next year (given what's going on right now, it possible.  Less revenue to pump into the final cleanup of the game and keeping the core business MWO alive) i don't think another company will come by piece to gether the game as well PGI did.  It will likely be reboot, possibly completely different artist direction that may not treat the original source material with same good care PGI has despite it's bad decisions it's leadership has made.

I think you overestimate the amount of bitter people in the current fanbase relative to the larger general audience. They may be loud, entitled, toxic, and whiny, but they are not going to be important for the success of MW5.

The bitter ones aren't going to be the one determining whether or not PGI survives, it'll be the broader gaming audience and if they'll like Mechwarrior 5. So it all rests on whether or not the game will be good, have good reviews, a good marketing campaign, and store visibility.

If the game fails financially, it will be the end of Mechwarrior forever. It failing will only confirm or reinforce the belief that it's not an IP worth investing in and therefore publishers and developers won't touch it. You're right about that.

[Wrangler]

Epic Game Store is principle reason why i think it's endangered more than before.  There alot of issues with it in first place, then tie in MW5 into that exclusively?   People may be incline (including me) to buy the game later on, but it heavily depends people getting over the issues of EGS, not necessary PGI.   PGI decision (was it really a decision? Unreal engine was owned by Epic, thus from what i know dictating terms to users/developers) drop Steam months before its scheduled launch in September adds to the bitter pill.   I believe gamers will talk, they will make it known perhaps PGI should not be trusted, same way EGS isn't terribly trusted.

Epic new, i don't know much about them than, other than store lacking in alot of things and reassurances that their cloud based game is replacable / repairable if something goes wrong.

[Notsonoble]

I ran across this today, and while I haven't seen threats of violence. I have seen lots of people turning in refunds, and generally being nasty.

And I don't blame them, if it was just the epic game store exclusivity I would, but its the way the thing was handled. Lying to your customer base is not a good move, and Russ's ama proves that he did, and intended to continue to do so until he was caught. Not to mention the issue with those who are sending emails for follow up questions now being processed as refund requests instead of having said questions answered.

I was kinda looking forward to MW5, but now I'm not going to touch it with a 10ft pole. Why because I no longer expect it to survive the year between its delayed release and when it might be available on a platform I use. Its far to expensive of an investment to risk a support failure that quickly. HBS-BT is still buggy and cranky, and it's had a year + of support and patching. This has also made me reconsider the expansions (I was looking at them for xmas this year) because pouring more money into it when PGLs failure could bring HBS down shortly thereafter doesn't really leave me feeling warm and fuzzy.

I doubt I'm the only one who is backing away simply because they no longer trust that the game will be stable long enough to enjoy either. This will turn a lot of on the fence purchases away too.

[DarkSpade]

I don't blame Epic for shelling out the cash for all these exclusives.  They do need to do something to get their foot in the door, but they really should have planned further out on this instead of going after big titles that already announced they'd be on Steam.   In the end though, most of the blame does go on the devs/publishers who said they'd be releasing on Steam and then backed out later.

In either case, Epic really does need to start holding on to some of that cash and invest in their store.

[PyreLight]

I don't blame Epic for shelling out the cash for all these exclusives.  They do need to do something to get their foot in the door, but they really should have planned further out on this instead of going after big titles that already announced they'd be on Steam.   In the end though, most of the blame does go on the devs/publishers who said they'd be releasing on Steam and then backed out later.

In either case, Epic really does need to start holding on to some of that cash and invest in their store.

Things are subject to change in game development. Not everything is set in stone.

Lots of stuff that the HBS Battletech game said they would do, but didn't end up doing, and that was even a Kickstarter. Yet I don't see anyone calling HBS liars or deceivers or dirty devs the way that the Mechwarrior community has thrown a fit the last couple of days.

[YingJanshi]

I don't blame Epic for shelling out the cash for all these exclusives.  They do need to do something to get their foot in the door, but they really should have planned further out on this instead of going after big titles that already announced they'd be on Steam.   In the end though, most of the blame does go on the devs/publishers who said they'd be releasing on Steam and then backed out later.

In either case, Epic really does need to start holding on to some of that cash and invest in their store.

They really do. But I somehow doubt that it will happen. Buying exclusivity is simply too easy compared to fixing problems with their launcher. (And to be fair, Valve kind of fell into the same situation when they were the only kid on the block.)

[Nightlord01]

They really do. But I somehow doubt that it will happen. Buying exclusivity is simply too easy compared to fixing problems with their launcher. (And to be fair, Valve kind of fell into the same situation when they were the only kid on the block.)

No, they really don't.

It's not like EG has been involved in bidding wars, they simply commenced buying up games. There were enough users annoyed at Steam and Valve that EG would have had a starting market without resorting to these tactics, provided they had worked on developing and updating their platform.

[Thorvidar]

(A repost of something I posted at another location explaining my reason for not supporting PGI or EPIC)

I want nothing to do with a Company that lies to its customers. I refuse to support Epic and its habit of doing this. What I see is a community that supports anything Battletech any company puts out. That can be a great thing. Giving a new company a chance or a new battletech product a chance. This can turn toxic though. Its like watching an abuse victim return to the abuser. 'We have to support this game, we might not get another chance.'  'You must not like Battletech if you dont support this.' 'You must not want MW or battletech to grow if you don't support PGI.'  This is what your saying , support it, its battletech. It may be Battletech, but that doesn't mean I support what PGI is doing to it.

I have seen the rise and fall of battletech. Wizkids screwed up Battletech they fell, CGL picked it up and is doing a better job. I am willing to give this game a hardpass, even as a battletech Fan who plays the Tabletop, because I am tired of PGI not falling through with its promises. That is the key here, PGI not keeping its promise, I want to see another company give MW a try because Russ and his company obviously don't know how to keep their promises.

I just think 'we', as battletech/MechWarrior/Mechcommander fans, deserve better then what PGI has done and has shown a willingness to do

[NeonKnight]

Gotta say...so much venom against the company that foot 90% plus of the legal costs to defeat a certain lawsuit and bring closure to a decades long conflict that has finally allowed certain models to be featured in an upcoming Kickstarter...but then...:

[Thorvidar]

Gotta say...so much venom against the company that foot 90% plus of the legal costs to defeat a certain lawsuit and bring closure to a decades long conflict that has finally allowed certain models to be featured in an upcoming Kickstarter...but then...:

Neon I have said on other posts that I am thankful for that. However for the consistent lying to the community (see the promised fixes to balance, to community warfare, to where I can pick up your shiny new game) the good will that your garnered is completely gone. Its not even dust in the wind to me, its just gone.

Look I was looking forward to supporting PGI with MW5. I was done with MWO, but I figured I could play MW5 with my boi's on co-op and thus Balance would not be an issue as it is in MWO. Then they lied Neon, they new for months and said nothing. There is an AMA in april of this year where russ says no plans to go exclusive on epic at that time. Then we learn they had been in talks since the Beginning of apirl and he signed it a few days before the end of the pre-order. He did not change the website to reflect that nor did he mention it. In fact he sat on it for another 3 months ( he wanted to wait till have gamescon... but someone made a mistake(?)) before being forced to respond and says yes its exclusive.

After the deal was signed and the Pre-order finished, he should have notified the community of the change and allowed them then and there to get their money back. Instead he waited till now and gives everyone till the 1st of September to get a refund. Shady... thats all I have to say.

So yes any good will they had generated with me with fighting the 'not named' company is just spent. There is nothing left in that account to draw upon.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Neon I have said on other posts that I am thankful for that. However for the consistent lying to the community (see the promised fixes to balance, to community warfare, to where I can pick up your shiny new game) the good will that your garnered is completely gone. Its not even dust in the wind to me, its just gone.

Look I was looking forward to supporting PGI with MW5. I was done with MWO, but I figured I could play MW5 with my boi's on co-op and thus Balance would not be an issue as it is in MWO. Then they lied Neon, they new for months and said nothing. There is an AMA in april of this year where russ says no plans to go exclusive on epic at that time. Then we learn they had been in talks since the Beginning of apirl and he signed it a few days before the end of the pre-order. He did not change the website to reflect that nor did he mention it. In fact he sat on it for another 3 months ( he wanted to wait till have gamescon... but someone made a mistake(?)) before being forced to respond and says yes its exclusive.

After the deal was signed and the Pre-order finished, he should have notified the community of the change and allowed them then and there to get their money back. Instead he waited till now and gives everyone till the 1st of September to get a refund. Shady... thats all I have to say.

So yes any good will they had generated with me with fighting the 'not named' company is just spent. There is nothing left in that account to draw upon.

To clarify, he had to announce last week because of the FAQ faisco. The announcement was planned for this month August at the con or such.

[IAMCLANWOLF]

Gotta say...so much venom against the company that foot 90% plus of the legal costs to defeat a certain lawsuit and bring closure to a decades long conflict that has finally allowed certain models to be featured in an upcoming Kickstarter...but then...:

This is not a legitimate argument. The legitimacy of any given decision is not assessed against the decisions made by the same organization in the past.

[Wrangler]

To clarify, he had to announce last week because of the FAQ faisco. The announcement was planned for this month August at the con or such.

Good thing it wasn't, there could been a riot or at least mass shouting match between Russ and crowd. 

[NeonKnight]

This is not a legitimate argument. The legitimacy of any given decision is not assessed against the decisions made by the same organization in the past.

But, folks are arguing based on decisions of the past:

PGI decided to announce they were going to release on STEAM

PGI, for whatever business reason, decided they cannot/will not release on STEAM and instead moved to EPIC

PGI has allowed people to back out of any preorder, as has also allowed them to keep any rewards they have already been given.

I'm just saying, I don;t see anyone of having any right to be PO'd to the extent that they are.

Let me try another tact. There is a Movie Franchise, I really, really, really liked, called TERMINATOR. Now many years ago, shortly after the release of T2, there was a Third Canon Installment in, but this 3rd canon installment was not and never will be released to the Theatres, and the only place to see it is Universal Studios California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T2-3D:_Battle_Across_Time

Now, again, as a FAN of the Terminator franchise, it was not until about 8 years ago, I was at Universal Studios CA, and was able to finally experience this 3rd part, sequel to T2, but now it has closed down, and no-one can now experience it.

Do I have a right to be upset? Maybe, I don't know.

I mean I get, folks wanted it with STEAM, PGI stated they were going to release on STEAM, but there was never a hard Promise. And things changed, and you don't have to keep a preorder. You can get your money back. But if you never even preordered....I have no idea what more can be done to placate someone. They are not out anything. Financially they are in the same situation today as they were in yesterday.

Now If PGI said nothing of the change until December, and further refused anyone the ability to back out...well, I'd be right there next to you, complaining of flagrant deciept and false business practices, but that was never the case.