A little late to this one (was planning to roll it into an “Oh Ubisoft” segment at one point) but I figured I’d stick my oar in.
GameStop’s recent pre-order ad for Assassin’s Creed Origins has caused a stir, if nothing else for how honest it is regarding the garbage of pre-order culture.
The main reasons I stopped paying for preorders is, 2 reasons. You’re buying a game you can’t play now. If you can, the issue is, it’s not the final game, and then you can’t refund because they did some shit where refund is not possible. And the other problem, where you don’t know if the game is shit or not, because it has not been played, or not been played enough to know if it will be a piece of shit or not.
Bu-bu-bu-…You don’t HAVE TO PRE-ORDER. It’s only *OPTIONAL.* You don’t need the FULL GAME that you’ll have to pay *$60 BUCKS FOR.*
…I have no words for this shit. Gamestop just flat out said in YOUR FACE,. “Fuck you, players have NO power. GIMME MONEY.” Taking advantage of anyone’s anticipation of this games and hold it’s content to ransom. Why in this situation would anyone defend this and NOT see it as a problem with everyone else?
This is fun and sad all at the same time.
I’ve been dealing with region locks of VOD movies, internet videos and video games for years, with the usual apologetic “Sorry, the content is not available in your region.” message plastered on like I’m going to take it in the ass and move on.
How this brazen practice of locking out content was only just pointed out just shows how clueless people are about it.
does this bonus mission happen to be blatantly cut out of the main game like the ones in assassins creed 2?
Uh-oh… work is going to be hard today.
The gaming industry needs a crash.
“No, no, no! The $60 fee only allows you to run the excecutable and load up the main menu! In order to access any additional content, you’ll need to give me 50c per line of script!”
TBH I find that ad hilarious. I’m not going to be buying it so I don’t have a horse in the race, but it’s just friggen hilarious advertising. It almost seemed like a fake satire ad.
And thats why some people respond with a “sorry this game
is unlocked by piracy”.
This is a new level of showing contempt for their audience.
They did have a way to charge money for cheat codes, Game Genie. They even produced and sold new editions of code books and mini code books to sell before the internet. But it was a third party making the cash 😉
Damn, this video has a huge amount of Assassin’s Creed pretty in it.
To be honest this is only really a plus for Gamestop. It’s the same thing companies have been doing for years, but at least their the first ones to be frank and call it what it is.
People still buy assassins creed games?
I think this is a legitimate reason to Pirate the DLC.
I think it’s the best ad ever. Easy to say if you aren’t expecting yourself to be among the products consumers. When you look at Ubisofts business practices.
Forcing users into the Uplay service which is still largely nonessential to streamlining the gaming or social experience after all this time. Using pre-release footage of a game segment that is too visually or functionally advanced to process on console hardware. The voiced multiplayer choreography in marketing footage is a crime in itself with cringieness being the least of the problems.
Beside all that, Gamestop has done the total opposite instead of hiding behind the lie, ignore, forget approach. Or at least this is the bold decision that I would like to believe. Rather than it being a miscommunication from the designer. I feel like this could push game advertising forward rather than pushing back. Their is no obligation for a gamer to buy any single product. Through self will they can return their feedback in the form of no interest.
The offer is god awful but I would take the marketing style any day. It’s pure transparency. It helps the customer. This example tells us that the content was specifically held back for mew release sales. It’s obviously not good for the customer, but again no customer is obligated. If it still sells when all of this information is in the customers face then who are we to judge the ethics behind a companies apparent lack of respect.
actually that’s not Occam’s razor not that it actually has an effect here but Occam’s razor is basically that the hypothesis with the least assumptions is the most likely to be correct one.
Nah nah that’s Bullock’s mate absolutely killed me ?
I got the exact ad before watching your video. Irony.