Blizzard’s unlock system in Overwatch has its first victim: me. Why? Let me tell you a story. Read more
Tag: Overwatch
The Fifth Rule of Game Buyer’s Club: ALWAYS talk about Game Buyer’s Club.
This is long and ranty. But I feel that it is important.
You guys absolutely got the industry you wanted.
We got here through slow degrees. Like the proverbial frog in the pot - although, it didn't actually seem that way to begin with. So, very quickly, let's talk about the divide between modern games and how they monetize and older games and how those raked in the money.
In the bad old days, a game was a once-off experience - for the most part. You bought the game, it had absolutely all the content on the disk and off you went. This wasn't absolutely universal, of course - even back then we had what were known as "Scenario Disks" and added content through content builders - Things like the Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures construction kit.
But if you bought a game you would be assured of ALL the content. At least until a scenario disk/expansion pack rolled around. There was no messing around with day one DLC [a misnomer, but we'll get there] or very many "added content exclusives." The game you took home was - generally - the same game your European friends took home on the day of release.
Then, Bethesda cracked open the door through Horse Armor and everything changed.
But it's important to realize an important thing about this whole fiasco: we can't go back. We can't stuff the genie back into the bottle. But we can maybe make executives think twice about fleecing us.
Farewell, Blizzard
Warning! This is long and ranty and link heavy! [Links will open in new tabs]
I remember Silicon and Synapse. You might not, but I do. They weren't big enough to work on their own projects, so they did ports of other games to various other consoles. None of these ports were particularly big, but they established the company as detail-oriented and good at what they did. And a key element from those days has stayed with Blizzard: they know how to refine.
Which is at least some of what I want to talk about. But the other thing I want to talk about is how distant Silicon and Synapse are from the Blizzard we have today and why - after almost twenty five years of playing Blizzard's games, I am going to slowly start winding down Blizzard projects I'm still pursuing. Read more
Overwatch Closed Beta Starts Again- Februray 9th
Well the title says it all, the Overwatch closed beta is coming back on the 9th. Balance changes have been made to characters and AI bots, there are a couple of new maps and even a new game mode.
I have to say that as guy who's not really a fan of games like this any more, this one looks fun. And if you also think it it looks fun you can click this link that will take you to a Battle.net post containing more information and a sign up link at the bottom.
[feature image and info sourced from Blizzard]