It wasn’t just V. They did it with 4, the Episodes for 4, and I think really pretty much every game they’ve released for PC for years now. I no longer have a console that I could double dip with even if they weren’t pulling that shit consistently, so far as I am concerned it either comes to PC or I don’t play it. -shrug-
Yes, that will be interesting to see. The reason GTA Online is such a consistent money maker is the focus on owning stuff, namely cars. Cars cost a lot of money, and the audience likes to blow them up willy-nilly to screw around with the physics. The physics shenanigans is arguably the most important part of the equation - so much so that Rockstar recognized it and poured more resources into emphasizing it with the last stunt DLC.
With the RDR setting, there is much less opportunity for wackiness. Sure, you can have horses collapsing off cliffs, or flipping out on scenery, but there’s not much of a reason to have motocross racetracks or truck stacking explosions.
yep
I despise this cynical money grabbing strategy, but as long as there are people buying their games multiple times, it will stay profitable for them.
Did you just quote and agree with yourself?
Shine on, man!
As long as it eventually arrives on PC, I think it’s a good way of going about it. You get your initial release, Rockstar gets good sales, the console customers get a good game. Then a few months later, they advertise again for the PC release, usually adding a nice feature or two, PC sales are good, console sales get a second boost from the advertising, PC customers get a good game. And then a few years later, the price of the PC version is usually much lower, and there’s a few mods out, so some console players can double dip and buy the PC version too, and get to experience the game again in a fresh way using mods. It’s a win win for everyone, unless you’re a really impatient PC player I guess. But in the era of massive triple-A backlogs, does the impatient PC player still exist?
Absolutely. I’m all for simultaneous launches on all platforms, but in GTAV’s case, Rockstar didn’t just hold the PC launch for greedy reasons, although I’m sure there was some of that in the strategy. The PC version of GTAV was terrific. Rock-solid optimization, bonus features, and it’s still a technical benchmark for all other open-world games on PC.
Just spotlighting my own prediction. Granted, it’s not much of a prediction when this has been Rockstar’s MO for 15 years. Still, I did have a faint hope they could stop this shit.
What a nice way to excuse shitty anticustomer behaviour! :)
Putting out a shitty PC port is anticustomer behavior. I fail to see how a delayed port is anti-customer.
You can put out quality version on all platforms and you can do it simultaneously. Many companies, much smaller ones, manage to do so, so one would expect Rockstar, the company that just sold 60 million copies of their latest game, to manage also.
In my view it is anti-customer because it preys on people who are so impatient that they are willing to buy the same game multiple times. You only have to browse neogaf occasionally to see many of them in action ;)
I wouldn’t object to a really solid PC port coming out later than the console release. I agree that it should be be possible to deliver a quality product for both simultaneously, but I have enough games to play not to worry about waiting. What’s shitty is pretending you have no plans to release one at all, then turning around and eventually announcing it once the initial console sales wave has fallen off.
[quote=“Paul_cze, post:109, topic:78449, full:true”]
You can put out quality version on all platforms and you can do it simultaneously. Many companies, much smaller ones, manage to do so, so one would expect Rockstar, the company that just sold 60 million copies of their latest game, to manage also.
In my view it is anti-customer because it preys on people who are so impatient that they are willing to buy the same game multiple times. You only have to browse neogaf occasionally to see many of them in action ;)
[/quote]Ridiculous logic dude. Do “many companies” make games as large in scope or success as GTAV? Show your work before you armchair develop this thing.
Now this is interesting, it’s going to be a true sequel to RDR? I wouldn’t have thought so since John Marston’s life was already butting up against the end of the 19th century, and cowboys were already fading away. Where do they take the cowboy from there, do like that Bruce Willis movie where he becomes an actor as the age of film is dawning? Then we’d have our RDR/GTA V mashup at least.
The image from Rockstar looks like it has Marston in the middle of the group, implying it may be a prequel.
You’ve got better eyes than I do then. But that makes sense, seeing Marston back in his bad old days running with Dutch’s gang.
Actually might make the most sense to not play as John, now that I think about it. Maybe a young and impressionable gunslinger who falls in with this rough gang, interacts with them all but sees it from the outside.
Not ridiculous at all. Witcher 3 is larger and more ambitious in scope than RDR and somehow CDP managed. Rockstar is hardly the only company making open world games.
And again, my issue is specifically with how Rockstar always pretends PC does not even exist, right until the moment they announce the PC version. Simply to extract money from the impatient. I would never expect to see people defend this practice.
@Paul_cze You are off-base with this. The more platforms you simul-ship, the more expensive it is to develop. More programmers, more QA, more time. When they don’t announce PC to start, it is a statement that they cannot afford to put it in the initial wave, whether due to money, time or both. It is not a cash grab trying to get people to double-dip. An insignificant number of people double-dip, especially at full price.
It’s also possible that, like GTA V, they just want to make sure the PC version is solid and done well. I’ll hold off for PC version this time, I was a little burned out on GTA V (despite loving it initially) when the new version dropped for PC. I should really install that again and give it another play through.
We are talking about Rockstar here, the company that made several billion dollars with their last game.
And the date they announced is still 15 months away. I very much doubt they could not afford to make 3 platforms instead of two, particularly in a generation that is using x86 across the board.
[quote=“Scott_Lufkin, post:117, topic:78449, full:true”]
It’s also possible that, like GTA V, they just want to make sure the PC version is solid and done well.[/quote]
This might have at least some tiny credence, IF they announced that PC version is in development and intended, but will come later.
But guess what? They will pretend the PC platform does not exist right until the moment of PC release announcement, which will come only after the console release. Simply to keep people in the dark about its possibility.
And I will happily admit to be wrong if they prove me wrong. But 15 past years tells me they won’t.
If they can’t afford to do simultaneous release, they can still afford to announce the existence of the later shipping version(s). But they don’t, and it’s hard to interpret that in a positive light.
I don’t see anything malicious here in the lack of a PC announcement. I am really pretty sure that if they could have all versions out everywhere they absolutely would. Wouldn’t it make sense to have access to more potential customers? I don’t think the missing PC version is any kind of snub or marketing ploy. I think that there is a lot more than processor architecture going on here when you develop for PC. There are a lot more variables you’ve got to account for rather than just the CPU. It’s much easier to look at the more static hardware environment of the consoles and Rockstar is just starting with what makes sense as far as what their customer base will have access to.
Tom Mc