LOL a “B.E.T.A.” less than 60 days before ship is actually a “D.E.M.O.” Very little opportunity to make any meaningful changes to the game in that window. In fact, pretty much zero since it’s shipping on a retail disc and by then they’ll have had to finish it up.
It’s an online game. Also it’s currently 2018.
Anyway, I expect they’ll primarily be stress testing their servers.
I would play it for free. I won’t pay for it unless something really special is going on after release.
Probably not a huge shock, but Bethesda confirmed this is not going to be on Steam - Bethesda.net’s software only. This is sort of annoying, imo, but I was probably never going to play it anyway.
Confirmation here:
Interesting, is this the first Bethesda game to release solely on their service?
Thank god, now I won’t be tempted by it every time I log in or visit the Steam storefront. Out of sight out of mind.
I look forward to your inevitable spam post in a few hours!
(1) Bethesda does not want to pay Steam 30%.That is somewhat understandable but EA, UPlay and other major publishers have all tried their own clients with very limited success. It is also an inconvenience since the games are scattered among different clients, each with their own security vulnerabilities and issues. All I know is that my play time of non-Steam games has dropped dramatically because having different clients is quite annoying.
(2) Bethesda is going to use this product to finally get rid of the mod scene and force everyone into their paid mod tosh. They have been hell-bent on trying to monetize other people’s work and they will use the online-only, Bethesda-launched limitations of the product to try to end the free mod scene once and for all. They have not realized that often times it is the mod scene that saves or greatly enhances their products. Instead of embracing that, they want their pound of flesh to make their games usable.
My limited interest in buying this game just went to almost nil.
This is my fear as well, that in Bethesda’s desire to extract free money from people supporting their games for free with patches and content, they will kill the mod scene and thus kill the thing that makes their games more than merely above average.
Well that is disappointing. I clicked through to the site, and it loads dog slow (over my ridiculously fast fiber connection here at work) and looks like something a fledgling web designer would have put together in 2010. Not a good omen.
The last thing I need is yet another service where I’m collecting games…it’s already too difficult to keep track of what I have and where. If that service is also targeted at controlling and monetizing the mod scene for all it’s hosted games…NO THANK YOU.
Of course this means probably skipping the next Elder Scrolls single-player RPG, as I can’t imagine they won’t try to boost their service by making it an exclusive.
Seems like the easy solution to avoid paying 30% to Steam is to incentivize players to go to their own store by giving them a substantial discount (offset by that 30% savings, although the store has its own administrative costs), while still offering on Steam to avoid disappointing players willing to pay a premium to have their games consolidated.
I just never end up buying EA games these days as a result of Origin, while I buy Uplay games in part because they are also available on Steam.
Yeah, this is the part that kills me a little, but I guess if they put out another single player RPG I will be playing on their service.
I also just realized I already have played on this service for the card game they put out (which is pretty fun, and I assume has only improved in the years since I last touched it) as well as when I played ESO (which is also pretty fun, I have to admit, but I just don’t really care to pay any money for MMOs at this point, even ones I have a bit of fun with). So… I guess this service alone isn’t killing my interest in the game… it’s still pretty much the game itself, but this isn’t helping, certainly.
Same here. Part of it is out of sight, out of mind. And while I understand it’s not that onerous to juggle a few different game clients, games are my recreation time and if I don’t have to deal with bullshit I won’t. There’s convenience in having all my games in one place, and I’m loathe to give it up.
I do not think there is really any doubt that they intend to do this. Bethesda has made it quite clear that they intend to monetize mods for quite a while now and this will act as their precedent to monetize the next Elder Scrolls game. Sad.
totally agree…also, when I pay a sub fee, i feel ‘compelled’ to play it to get my money’s worth even though I don’t want to…I don’t care for that feeling, whatsoever
I still want to see how this game turns out…should be fascinating
Same, and for the same reasons.
Maybe it’s just me being old and jaded, but this could really be their first big tank. There are a lot of factors conspiring to make this fail, at least from my perspective. I’m really fascinated to see how this does, I’m actually a pretty big fan of most of their games, and I have zero interest in this.
It’s great /popcorn though.
I haven’t checked my Steam agreement lately but I believe part of it involves price parity with other platforms.
Definitely a side topic, but once you have the base ESO game, you don’t need to pay a monthly subscription fee. The sub adds a number of conveniences (and makes it possible to do crafting without your head exploding) but all the game’s functionality is there and you can do a ton of stuff without putting down a cent more.