PSA - Ghost Recon Future Soldier

[weemadando]

RT @bennettring PC Gamers - DO NOT BUY GHOST RECON. Totally bugged, locked at 24fps, keyboard mouse not working. Worst PC port I've seen in years.


Ouch.

[Losonti Tokash]

That tweet probably could have just ended at "SOLDIER" and even gotten rid of "PC."

[Stark]

Reposting tweets a new low.

Amusingly all those problems were clearly evident in the really broken beta. Oh well. Games worth playing still sitting at zero.

Actually Ando babe repost us some tweets on Lollipop Chainsaw and Game of Thrones for lols.

[weemadando]

Actually, I'd heard mixed reviews about the console version, so had harboured some small hope for the PC release. I'm more surprised that it is this broken. A level of lazy pretty jank and poorness is expected. But that much? It's by no means a record, but it's impressive.

[General Zod]

It's an Ubisoft game on the PC. Of course it's going to be broken.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Splinter Cell wasn't bad on the computer, at least the earlier ones. Can't say much on thier newer games though, since I haven't played them on PC.

[Edward Yee]

Actually, I'd heard mixed reviews about the console version, so had harboured some small hope for the PC release. I'm more surprised that it is this broken. A level of lazy pretty jank and poorness is expected. But that much? It's by no means a record, but it's impressive.

The offline "story" mode for PS3 ran fine with no obvious bugs for me, but considering what the Ghost Recon Online producer said back in late November when there wasn't going to be a PC port at all:

When we started Ghost Recon Online we were thinking about Ghost Recon: Future Solider; having something ported in the classical way without any deep development, because we know that 95% of our consumers will pirate the game. So we said okay, we have to change our mind.

I would not be surprised if they changed their mind about porting the game at all but kept the "don't bother in putting effort" mentality.

[Admiral Drason]

I just love how Ubisoft seethes with such hatred towards its consumers. Really 95% of all consumers pirate your POS PC port? Call me naive but 95% sounds a tad high.

[Edward Yee]

He was referring to PC gaming, not the then-nonexistent Future Soldier port, in justifying GRO:

We are giving away most of the content for free because there’s no barrier to entry. To the users that are traditionally playing the game by getting it through Pirate Bay, we said, ‘Okay, go ahead guys. This is what you’re asking for. We’ve listened to you – we’re giving you this experience. It’s easy to download, there’s no DRM that will pollute your experience.’

For something possibly even more you have to see this fortunately old Cliff Bleszinski Q&A during the lead-up to Gears of War 2:

Q:Do you see the Xbox 360 as the main platform as opposed to the PC? During the whole Unreal time it was very much PC focused.
A: The PC right now is a fair amount different to what it was back in the day, with all the badly integrated video chips. Here's the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.
Q: So piracy was a main point for you...
A: Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons. Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy.
Q: But when the dust has settled, is there any possibility of Gears 2 on PC?
A: No.

But it does make me think "company makes shoddy PC port, it doesn't sell well, company chooses to blame piracy instead of their port being this bad -- so 'the market decides' doesn't work because the company honchos simply find self-justifying excuses."

[weemadando]

Let's face it. The five finger discount is the inevitable evolution of the invisible hand of the free market. Right?

[Stark]

Are they seriously saying piracy isn't a serious problem for one platform and not for certain other platforms?

And frankly, the games with the worst pirate ratio will be the very high profile or good (as people want to play them) and the very low profile or bad (as nobody wants to actually pay for them). This is arguably why it hits indy guys the hardest.

Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt the wave of denial about PC piracy. :v

[weemadando]

Piracy is a big problem everywhere and is so terribly mismanaged in trends of prevention by publishers and enforcement.

I love going to my local computers market (often held in govt buildings) and marvelling at the fact that half the stalls are just massive tables of PC, 360, PS3, Wii games & PC software. And the rest are awful off brand knock offs of peripherals.

How is it that we get dudes who download a game from TPB ferrying sued/arrested, but these events are still going?

[Stark]

They don't have to prevent it; they can just ignore it and go somewhere else. I don't find ratios of 10:1 pirate vs paid users difficult to believe at all, and whether those pirates would ever have bought it is irrelevant to how much it devalues the platform.

If Ubisoft has decided that since their DRM attempts are so unsuccessful, they just won't invest any serious money in PC games, I don't really blame them.

[weemadando]

The argument is so weird with regards to Ubisoft. They've released some terrible games (including lots of bad Ports, but also some PC only titles) but this massive drop in quality seems to be about simultaneous with the move to the new DRM.

So both sides get to blame the other for their misfortunes, while most people go "fucking what is wrong with you all?"

God, it's such an immature, but vocal fanbase around games.

[Stark]

Many publishers have spent the last few years making pretty bad decisions. That just makes them want to cut risk; and a platform riddled with piracy is probably seen as more risky than those that aren't.