games have got terrible lately, no?

[Kickback]

So today, Steam are having sales on, and since I don't have any of the DLC for Arkham City, I figured i'd pay £4.99 for Arkham City GOTY instead, because hey it would of cost more than that before the sales.

So yeah, I install it, and having Arkham City already installed I figure I can just redeem my DLC codes and play, right? wrong, I have to download and install Arkham City again for some reason, well okay, i'll just delete the old version later..

So now I have two installations, totalling at about 40ishGB, pretty big but I can delete one later, I guess, no big deal.

Copy over the save games from one folder (why do I have to do this?) and I sign into GFWL (again, why do i have to do this?) and my save is there.

One problem, apparently i'm running Arkham City Non-GOTY even though in my steam list i'm selecting GOTY, well, I have my saves so I remove the local content for the non-GOTY version.

Go to run the GOTY one and wait.. it's asking me to download it again? Even though it already did eariler.. and if I check in Windows, I can clearly see the Arkham City GOTY folder is there.

So I draw the line here, after recently watching GTAIV look terrible and run like an absolute slideshow on a mid-to-high range computer, Fight Night Champion lasting barely 2 hours in story mode and charging me for an 'online pass' to access basic features that really should be free to someone who pays £5.99 a month just to go online, and now this DRM-Heck, I think i'm throwing in the towel as far as it comes to gaming, anyone else totally frustrated with how everything either rapes your wallet to the point of being broke, PC games that underperform and aren't optimized, and games in general being of totally lacklustre quality with B-Movie level storytelling, boring constant photo-realistic shooter messes, and a focus in online that usually tends to be bland, repetitive and not much fun after a few hours, is it time to just put away the consoles and well.. get a new hobby?

I know there is indie developers and that trying to break away from the total monotony of gaming, but it doesn't change the fact that everything is either charging you for nothing, or being so crammed full of DRM you can barely access it yourself. I'm just tired of spending money on things that don't work.

 

[Prog]

Agreed.
When will gaming crash and have another renaissance? Hopefully the CoD bubble will burst soon... Infinity Ward is making one this year, so it can't be far off.
Christmas Eve, I tried Arkham City Armored Edition on my Wii U. Supposedly a pretty decent-powered console. Well, either Unreal Engine sucks harder than a NASA vacuum or the cutscenes were running at like 10 FPS. You're telling me that after a year of having a game pretty much completed, you can't optimize code?
A thing about Indie devs though is that there often using free or cheap consumer-grade tools. Take Minecraft for example. What in the holy mother of *Can'tSayThisOnTV* was Notch thinking when he made a game in Java??? A decent programming team could make Minecraft for the PS1, but MMMNOPE. You need a few gigs of ram and a quad-core processor. The nice thing about commercial game machines is that they're half the price of a PC that can run an NES emulator. However, due to substantial licensing fees, indie devs are pretty much stuck to PC. This thing plays Slender as a PowerPoint, and I don't have any way of making enough money for a decent gaming pc.
[/incoherent_rant]

 

[ShockSlayer]

The best way to enjoy gaming is to not keep up with anything, to not be a "gamer" and play what you know you like with people you like. Works wonders for me, I don't have to give two flaxs when Ass Erect Tres has a flaxty ending or Bull Durham 2 is not as cow as the original, and the Carl's Duty Siris is makes fuppus standtard bad'm.

It's a just another form of entertainment that became popular, it's probably going to be like this for the next forever, or get even worse. Eventually "Gaming" will just be an app on your iDroid. It's be easiest to just get a live feed of E! into your ear, that way you don't have to press any buttons to get celebi grassnip, so you can have both chubble hands on the gun so you don't miss while blowing your godDang bran flacks out.

Also, totally got both Arkham games for Christmas from peeps because I told them I wanted legit copies, so I'm excited to see what it's like to own a real game. From your description it sounds bad.

SS

 

[vskid3]

http://xkcd.com/606/

This is my preferred approach. Usually means bugs are worked out and you can get them for $5 during a Steam sale. I've always been a cheap/poor gamer. Most expensive game I've ever bought was Forza 4 for $60 soon after it came out. Next was Portal 2 for $30, less than a month after it came out. Everything else, IIRC, has been under $20, usually under $10.

Nothing really holds my attention any more. I've never really been a super hardcore gamer or anything, but now I'm even less so.

 

[grossaffe]

I haven't had much opportunity for gaming the past semester, but otherwise I'm still having a positive experience. Sticking with Nintendo consoles, I haven't had to deal with subscription fees or cash-grab DLC. I don't get a lot of the typical western AAA titles, but a lot of those same titles are guilty of the disappointments you describe. Instead, I have to dig a bit deeper, but I've found there are a lot of great and varied experiences out there.

Don't know where things will proceed from here now that Nintendo's got a new HD console out with a bigger online presence, but I hope they keep doing their thing instead of joining in on the subscriptions, greedy DLC, 5 hour campaigns, and uninspired yearly iterations.

 

[Twilight Wolf]

I haven't played a "new" game since I bought Counter-Strike: GO. "New" because it is just another CS game, though I like it the best out of the ones I've played.

Nothing lately has really made me feel like I must go get it -- the last game to do that for me was Uncharted 3. Dishonored looked awesome, but aside from watching trailers I never got interested enough to want to save money and get it.

I think it's just that my interests have shifted. I mostly buy music now. I feel like it gives me a better entertainment value for my money than video games do, because it's not only much cheaper to collect, which is fantastic since I don't make much money, and I can often buy 4-8 CDs for the price of a new PS3 game, but it has much higher replay value (I can listen to a good album over and over and not get tired of it), I don't need to commit to an album to enjoy it, I feel a deeper emotional connection to music, and I can take my music with me anywhere I go. I still love video games, but all I've used my PS3 for lately is Rock Band, and the one game I mostly fall back on playing on my PC is Team Fortress 2, and occasionally CS:GO if TF2 isn't good on a given day.

 

[Mako321]

Prove me wrong, the only big title game worth a Dang in the past year or two was DX:HR.

 

[D.J]

I throughly enjoyed Dishonored and Far Cry 3. They were excellent games. I got Dark Souls from amazon for 12 dollars and I really like the challenge and gameplay.

 

[HardOtto]

I like Steam because of its sales and the premiere behind it but all the DRM flax pisses me off. I have had to reinstall my whole game library before which took the piss. Recently though the only game that I really got into was Skyrim and the whole XBOX early DLC thing passed me off as well. I think that game developers need to look into creating games for pc not for consoles then porting them. Rant over.

 

[J.D]

It took me five minutes to register for Games for Windows Live to play Dark Souls.

I'm pissed.

 

[Kickback]

Also, totally got both Arkham games for Christmas from peeps because I told them I wanted legit copies, so I'm excited to see what it's like to own a real game. From your description it sounds bad.

The two games are awesome, Steamworks isn't too bad for DLC because it doesn't get in the way, GFWL is the absolute drizzling flaxs and I really don't understand why we need 2 forms of DRM for one game.

Also, AC can only be registered on 5 installations of Windows, not a big issue for most but still bullflax.

 

[Prog]

Also, AC can only be registered on 5 installations of Windows, not a big issue for most but still bullflax.

That is a load of bullflax. I did not pay for a license of a game, I paid for a copy of the game. If I buy a book, are you going to stop 5 people from reading it?

 

[Zero]

Yeah, would just like to note that Valve isn't at fault here, but GFWL is.

Not all game companies are evil, there are still a few awesome ones left, although they tend to be the minority nowadays.

Also, the Arkham series are fantastic games, even if they do have GFWL.

 

[vskid3]

If I buy a book, are you going to stop 5 people from reading it?

They would if they could.

I hate dual DRM/anything but Steam. Steam works 99.9% of the time, lets me play offline, has sweet sales daily and mega sales several times a year, and overall just doesn't suck. I wish they would have in bold at the top of every game description whether or not it requires another service like GFWL or Origin. Then I wouldn't buy those games and hopefully everyone else would boycott them. I understand that other companies want to get their piece of the digital distribution pie, but don't force me to use your dog turd when I buy a game elsewhere.

 

[Kickback]

I don't mind the idea of GFWL too much, it gives me achievements and I can 'combine' my PC playing friends with 360.. awesome right?

It's just that it's a real big load of flax, slow, irritating and loves CD keys too much.

 

[Ashen]

This is why I pirate just about everything. *Can'tSayThisOnTV* DRM.

I will however actually buy a game if it is worth it to me after the fact. I have a whole pile of unopened games that just sit here, but I do want to support the devs that deserve it.

 

[Kickback]

One of my only excuses for not pirating is that I can't be bothered to wait for downloads.

Yes, hypocritical because I mentioned Steam, but I seriously just cannot be bothered to locate a torrent for a game instead of paying £3.75 or whatever off Steam for it, plus I know i'll get my full 1.5MB/s speed off Steam.

Also I seem to put off pirated movies/games, i've watched nearly all my Blu-Ray collection, got tons of DL'ed movies i've never touched.. same for games, i've played/completed almost all of my 360 library.

 

[Zero]

One of my only excuses for not pirating is that I can't be bothered to wait for downloads.

Yes, hypocritical because I mentioned Steam, but I seriously just cannot be bothered to locate a torrent for a game instead of paying £3.75 or whatever off Steam for it, plus I know i'll get my full 1.5MB/s speed off Steam.

Also I seem to put off pirated movies/games, i've watched nearly all my Blu-Ray collection, got tons of DL'ed movies i've never touched.. same for games, i've played/completed almost all of my 360 library.

Private trackers.

Thought you had a blackcats account?

 

[Kickback]

I think I got my black-cats account removed during that purge, considering in about a year I torrented maybe.. two games? It barely even felt worth it.

To be fair, I don't even play that many modern games anyway, console or PC.

 

[grossaffe]

I'm surprised my Black Cats account is still active, since I'd been gone for, like, a year.