MW5 Preorder

Started by Onai "Oni" Tekimata, 09.01.2019 08:03

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Hatake "Storyteller" Matsumura

MechWarrior 5 Mercs auf 10. Dezember 2019 verschoben und erst mal kein Steam-Release - dafür Epic Games store. :-[
https://mw5mercs.com/news/2019/07/9-development-update?fbclid=IwAR2MHGWWCOMzC3x10f7uJMqnT26JhQ2WodUvWMYNGZCWW9CCelYrCg6bXKw

Onai "Oni" Tekimata

Ok, ok. A lot of flaming on social media. A lot of bad words, tears and all of that.
Anyway, Onai will stay in the preorder. Personaly I don't care about on what platform it will be released. I deeply hope that they take the few weeks delay to make it a good start. I really hope so.
I would be more frustrated if the hole project would be canceled at the last minute due to insufficient funding cause too many backers bailed out. This has taken far to long to fall apart shortly before release.
I presume that - as some have already guessed - actually financing this project was the reason to go to Epic. As we have learned from PGI that Mech Packs are not selling that good anymore. But of course that is only a guess by me and we will probably will never know the true reason.

Chu-sa Onai Tekimata, Web: 36th Dieron Regulars, Facebook: 36th Dieron Regulars DCMS
"wisdom is your best weapon"

Hatake "Storyteller" Matsumura

#17
I've read an interesting Reddit post to this topic and from a business standpoint, I think this move ist most likely a live saver - for PGI as a company.

But doing it this way so close to the release date, which was postponed already once by 9 months, is everything but a clever move.
They should have sugar coated this with some digital bonusses for the switch to the Epic Games store, like special skins or whatsoever.
And of course the AMA should have been first, not second.

Good marketing and community management isn't a sideline, in times of the internet and bidirecational communication 24/7 it is major task.

PGI still doesn't get it.

Hachirou "Phidias86" Girisha

I think a very big plus is that PGI is playing the cards openly and decided to go "all in", rightout offering full refunds to everybody who does not want to be part of the epic store. Choices like those have been handeled much less transparent by other publishers and developers and I am rather inclined not to punish them for it.  (y)

But - and that is a very big and very personal BUT - I hate this fully digitalized marketstore-download-shit, that Valve has started. I despise them for introducing steam with Half Life 2. You couldn't play it without steam. And - as we all know - steam set the standard for almost every publisher afterwards, to perform less and less and reduce services, just focusing on direct cashpayouts via licensing. The number of games available for in-store-purchase has dropped drastically since then. You can get almost no game anymore in a fashion that suits collectors or people, who want to spend most of their time offline, not being connected to large serverhouses an their algorithms for marketing, consumer-research and god knows what. Even the bigger part of the games which you still can buy in stores, just hands you a licence-key for a digital plattform with which you can download the game, effectively invalidating the whole concept of "getting a hard copy".

This cannot be undone, for the box of Pandora has been opened: EA did the same via Mass Effect 3, Fifa and the Sims which are tied to the Origin-store. Blizzard did it via Star Craft 2 and Diablo 3. Ubisoft used the Assassins Creed-Saga and some other games I did not play. And now we have the fifth notable contestant: Epic. I could now go on ranting about, how they all make me give up my rights to anything, just because I want to play computer games. But this is not a suitable forum for that. Here we talk about the Battletech-franchise and its games, I know. It is just very upsetting to see, that what I like about Battletech - the very distopian perspective on future (yeah, it is that for me, not the giant fucking robots O:)) - actually makes me become part of a very distopian future with less and less rights for a single user, who just wants a little bit of fun via gaming.

Xune


Hatake "Storyteller" Matsumura

Phidias:
As I see it, PGI forced themself to be open. By accident they changed something on 16th July on the FAQ.
Russ didn't seemed to know about this that it happened so soon.

When asked what the changes meant, his answer were ... not completely honest.

To me this was another PR desaster again, which could not have been avoided, but at least they could have softened it.

Hachirou "Phidias86" Girisha

They already have about 500 people in the forum stating their refund. Quite a lot, regarding the general inactivity in the MWO-forums. If this is not a PR-disaster, I don't know what will ever be.

But they updated their FAQs:
Epic-exclusiveness is only for a year. Afterwards they suggest releases on other plattforms, but don't tell anything about pre-order-compatibility with other plattforms.

Carl Nilfgaard

I am keeping my preorder too. Epic exclusivity is not that big an issue for me. When PGI has the same contract as the makers of Pheonix Point... they would still write black numbers even if everyone would go for a refund. And yes this could be a life-saving thing for PGI so could be the right decision in the long run... the marketing however is horrible :D