[HiPolyBash]

TerminX, on 31 December 2016 - 10:00 PM, said:

Sadly, I think I've been dealing with the behind the scenes business bullshit aspect of game development for long enough that Gearbox's pricing model makes sense to me. If you think you can move copies at $60 per unit, then that's what you charge, because the people who would have bought it for $20 will still buy it for $20 when it's eventually available for that price. Can they move copies at $60 per unit? Who knows. Lowering the price after release is always an option, but raising it never is. Maybe it's a cheap strategy to get people to talk about the game--any thread on any forum that talks about the price of the game is a discussion about the game that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

Yes, except this strategy is full of negative aspects which is why a better company would have priced it reasonably. If you launch a remastered version of the game at a ridiculous price point then the period of time with the most awareness of your upcoming title is haunted with negativity due to the price point - negativity which is pushed even further when people become aware of Gearbox Softwares involvement in the title. Launching a title this way is a pretty stupid thing to do and guarantees it'll be DOA. A better publisher would see that you'd be more likely to produce more bulk overall profit if it were priced at a lower point initially and offered some incentive to the existing owners such as a discount which is entirely possible to do but Pitchford in the way he so often does is acting like a stubborn ass instead of actually thinking about the consumer similar to the lead up to the launch of World Tour which was also a complete overpriced failure. If you launch a title overpriced that instantly associates negativity with the game, if you drop the price abruptly shortly after launch then everyone who purchased it day 1 will think you're an asshole, but if you went with the more intelligent option - launching at a lower price point and providing coupons to existing Bulletstorm owners or even to owners of other People Can Fly/Gearbox games and then dropping the price even further during sales or in future you can't lose. One option pisses off everyone and culls interest in your new fancy title completely, the other pisses off no one, attracts more interest due to a lower price point and incentives from coupons/discounts, and would only gain more popularity during sales as it'd be priced even lower. You'd make more profit from the volume of sales vs. having a higher priced title that drives people off.

If you follow consumer trends especially in the PC marketplace it's extremely easy to figure out the right moves but similar to whoever is handling the marketing and PR for Interceptor/3D Realms (Bombshell launched as a full priced titles - lul) who have the same issues as Gearbox clearly some people are completely unaware of the facts. At the very least Interceptor and 3D Realms acknowledge their errors and learn from them in future, though they have yet to hire anyone who is actually capable of marketing a title...if this is the same guy who priced Bombshell someone slap him with a trout, but in the case of Gearbox they're so completely ignorant of everyone and everything it's a wonder they're not on the verge of sinking given every communication from Pitchford himself is basically a big giant middle finger with some bullshit explanation that everyone except himself can see if bullshit or makes zero sense.

[HulkNukem]

Micky C, on 01 January 2017 - 04:47 PM, said:

Finished the second level. So far it's turning out to be a way better DNF than DNF. That's not to say it's a better Duke game, but certainly a better DNF game.

I've been saying this for a while; glad someone else that actually played it agrees

[Hendricks266]

HiPolyBash, on 01 January 2017 - 05:32 PM, said:

A better publisher would see that you'd be more likely to produce more bulk overall profit if it were priced at a lower point initially and offered some incentive to the existing owners such as a discount which is entirely possible to do but Pitchford in the way he so often does is acting like a stubborn ass instead of actually thinking about the consumer similar to the lead up to the launch of World Tour which was also a complete overpriced failure. If you launch a title overpriced that instantly associates negativity with the game, if you drop the price abruptly shortly after launch then everyone who purchased it day 1 will think you're an asshole, but if you went with the more intelligent option - launching at a lower price point and providing coupons to existing Bulletstorm owners or even to owners of other People Can Fly/Gearbox games and then dropping the price even further during sales or in future you can't lose. One option pisses off everyone and culls interest in your new fancy title completely, the other pisses off no one, attracts more interest due to a lower price point and incentives from coupons/discounts, and would only gain more popularity during sales as it'd be priced even lower. You'd make more profit from the volume of sales vs. having a higher priced title that drives people off.

You are speaking entirely from conjecture. Evidence or GTFO.

[HiPolyBash]

It requires no explanation. Consumers are more inclined to purchase a lower priced product especially if the product in question is a half-assed remaster.

[Danukem]

Micky C, on 01 January 2017 - 04:47 PM, said:

If Gearbox made a new Duke game, and kept the points I listed above, made the levels a lot more non-linear and with variety between levels, changed the plot points in the above paragraph, and add in a variety of locations in which the levels take place, then it'd be a pretty damn good Duke game IMO.

Just enjoy the game and forget about Duke. I hate to say it, but from a marketing standpoint, it's probably better to not have Duke Nukem in the title of a game at all. I could see him being a playable character if they made a Bulletstorm 2 or something similar, along with some other Gearbox properties (maybe Wilhelm from the Borderlands series for example). That's a tried and true move from the fighting game genre, where you try to increase sales by appealing to several different fanbases. It could work in an fps as well.

[Jimmy]

Just another example of regulation and red tape and bullshit making things more expensive than they should be. I can't wait until the gaming industry crashes again. It's like ten years past due.

[Micky C]

Trooper Dan, on 01 January 2017 - 07:10 PM, said:

Just enjoy the game and forget about Duke.

Yeah that's what I'm doing when I'm playing the game itself.

Trooper Dan, on 01 January 2017 - 07:10 PM, said:

I hate to say it, but from a marketing standpoint, it's probably better to not have Duke Nukem in the title of a game at all. I could see him being a playable character if they made a Bulletstorm 2 or something similar, along with some other Gearbox properties (maybe Wilhelm from the Borderlands series for example). That's a tried and true move from the fighting game genre, where you try to increase sales by appealing to several different fanbases. It could work in an fps as well.

Are you referring to the Full Clip edition here? The Duke Nukem's Bulletstorm Tour is just the DLC component. Or are you suggesting that the next full Duke game not have "Duke Nukem" in the title? Or are you just talking about any FPS game that includes Duke as an option for a playable character?

[Sledgehammer]

HiPolyBash, on 01 January 2017 - 06:14 PM, said:

It requires no explanation. Consumers are more inclined to purchase a lower priced product especially if the product in question is a half-assed remaster.

To be perfectly honest, you can't say that about absolutely every product on any marked because there are people who are always willing waste even more money for one or another product, not matter how overpriced it is, the best example is hardware market, look at Razer, for example. However, I can't say that Gearbox has enough mindless fanboys who would buy anything from them for a very ridiculous price and for little efforts put into it. I expect this re-release to bomb just like WT did, especially because people can get it for cheaper right now, on the winter sale. But it could give back their investment, depends how much they going to spend on it, coop might be the hardest part they're doing for this re-release.

[HulkNukem]

The best example is the Skyrim remaster; halfassed port sold for 60 still sold like hot cakes.
On the opposite spectrum you have Duke 3D World Tour; people feel 20 bucks is too much and it sure seems the game hasn't sold dick.

[MusicallyInspired]

Everyone who owned the original Skyrim and all DLC got Remastered for free. No one got World Tour for free because they owned Megaton.

[Danukem]

Micky C, on 01 January 2017 - 07:56 PM, said:

Are you referring to the Full Clip edition here? The Duke Nukem's Bulletstorm Tour is just the DLC component. Or are you suggesting that the next full Duke game not have "Duke Nukem" in the title? Or are you just talking about any FPS game that includes Duke as an option for a playable character?

I'm saying that Duke isn't very marketable by himself these days. There's a stigma of being old, out-of-date and associated with a disappointing game (DNF). The property still has some value, but imo the best way to use him is as one character of many. So I actually think that having Duke as a DLC in Bulletstorm is a pretty good concept -- but with the price point and apparent lack of new high quality content, it doesn't look like it will be well executed.

In my opinion, a good move for Gearbox would be to develop a new game called something like "Gearbox Heroes", where it has playable characters from various different fps franchises that Gearbox owns, including Duke -- maybe each character has their own mission, and then on some missions you can choose any character you want. And then for multiplayer they can emphasize the different traits a la Overwatch.

[HulkNukem]

MusicallyInspired, on 02 January 2017 - 11:32 AM, said:

Everyone who owned the original Skyrim and all DLC got Remastered for free. No one got World Tour for free because they owned Megaton.

I'm talking about the consoles mostly; the remaster of Skyrim wasn't even 60 brand new on PC.
However the day they announced the remaster they did get rid of the old versions of Skyrim and had their GOTY version up on Steam at a higher price; a bit shady, but thats another story.

Trooper Dan, on 02 January 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

In my opinion, a good move for Gearbox would be to develop a new game called something like "Gearbox Heroes", where it has playable characters from various different fps franchises that Gearbox owns, including Duke -- maybe each character has their own mission, and then on some missions you can choose any character you want. And then for multiplayer they can emphasize the different traits a la Overwatch.

They did; it's called Battleborn and it has been a commercial failure for them.
I'm surprised they actually didn't throw Duke and other characters into that game; probably could've helped that game just a little.

[Micky C]

HulkNukem, on 02 January 2017 - 11:30 AM, said:

The best example is the Skyrim remaster; halfassed port sold for 60 still sold like hot cakes.
On the opposite spectrum you have Duke 3D World Tour; people feel 20 bucks is too much and it sure seems the game hasn't sold dick.

Wasn't Skyrim infinitely more popular than Bulletstorm? My memory's a bit fuzzy and I wasn't paying close attention at the time, but I was under the impression Bulletstorm was considered a commercial failure.

That's probably part of the reason for the re-release; Gearbox probably thinks they're bringing an underappreciated game back into the spotlight to a wider audience (another factor being GFWL). Unfortunately, as TD said, the execution is fairly poor despite the good idea.

[Jimmy]

You could slap Skyrim's name on anything and sell a million copies.

[Danukem]

HulkNukem, on 02 January 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

They did; it's called Battleborn and it has been a commercial failure for them.
I'm surprised they actually didn't throw Duke and other characters into that game; probably could've helped that game just a little.

Battleborn sucked for reasons that had nothing to do with the format of the game. Also, it had no recognizable characters in it. I was very surprised when I played Battleborn and found out how badly it sucked. I actually enjoy the Borderlands series quite a bit and expected it to be of similar quality. I'm glad they didn't throw Duke and other characters into that shitpile because it would have tarnished the names of some good properties.

[Micky C]

I'm halfway through the third act and the cracks in gameplay are starting to show. They mostly just throw one enemy type at you at a time, and right now the enemies seem to be resistant to the leash AND the kick. IMO this is a bad move as they're the best aspects of the combat. I can understand that they want you to focus on using some of the more exotic weaponry which I'm starting to build up, but there's almost no ammo for them and I'm the type of player who likes to save up points for future upgrades rather than spending them on ammo now. The levels are also starting to feel pretty samey. If the levels were more open, with more ammo scattered about, that'd solve both problems nicely. The 3 weapon limit is also rearing its ugly head.

[Player Lin]

[offtopic]

HulkNukem, on 02 January 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

I'm talking about the consoles mostly; the remaster of Skyrim wasn't even 60 brand new on PC.
However the day they announced the remaster they did get rid of the old versions of Skyrim and had their GOTY version up on Steam at a higher price; a bit shady, but thats another story.

At least this time, console players can have mods, even though won't have SKSE, SkyUI, Sexlab or other 3rd party shit like on PC.

Higher price on Legendary Edition may a bit shady, but I think that was still good deal because owners of LE will got a free copy of Special Edition when its release(and LE stopped on sale on Steam on the same day when SE released). But I agree for console user it may be silly for paying 60USD to buy SE, and PS3/360 owner don't have free copy at all, but I don't think it would be possible for some reasons...

[/offtopic]

I still think the idea of Duke in Bullerstorm just weird. And that's not just like WT, which only 20USD on a game just was not related Duke, even it just a DLC skin with some little extra lines for Duke.

[Sledgehammer]

Trooper Dan, on 02 January 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

In my opinion, a good move for Gearbox would be to develop a new game called something like "Gearbox Heroes", where it has playable characters from various different fps franchises that Gearbox owns, including Duke -- maybe each character has their own mission, and then on some missions you can choose any character you want. And then for multiplayer they can emphasize the different traits a la Overwatch.

Actually it would be interesting to play Smash like FPS game, but instead of Gearbox franchises they have to use third parties too (seriously, how many recognizable characters they have aside very few?). Although Gearbox would need to sign a lot of contracts to get characters they don't own into their crossover game it would be worth it, Duke vs Doomguy alone would be greatest a advertisement for the crossover game.

[MusicallyInspired]

I've brought up exactly this before. I think a game with all the heroes (both old and new) of well known shooters mashed up together would be great. Maybe even a MOBA.

[Sledgehammer]

Yeah, I remembered it when I wrote that post. Though fuck MOBA, make it TF2-like which is pretty much well done arena shooter. It would be indeed great and most importantly very profitable, people love crossovers because they're very rare plus mostly only Japanese companies do them and Smash is very successful despite being exclusive to Nintendo consoles which is quite niche.

[spessu_sb]

Sledgehammer, on 05 January 2017 - 06:30 AM, said:

TF2-like which is pretty much well done arena shooter.

As a fan of the arena shooter genre, I'm just gonna have to come in and say, no it isn't.

An arena fps relies heavily on map based itempickups, everyone starting on fair ground with no weapon of choice as starting gun and mastering of all the signficantly differently functioning weapons. (Lightning-gun being instahit beam-based thing, Rocketlauncher being projectile based travel over-time explosive wpn while Plasmagun is travel over-time projectile based rapidfire weapon and Railgun being the instahit hitscan sniper rifle with low rate of fire but high damage count.) Seeing as TF2 doesn't have really any gun differation (rl, sniper and flamer being like the only truly different ones) and as it doesn't have a such thing even as healthpickups or in general any actual In-Map-Based_Pickups because it has medics instead etc classes.

TF2 is the beginning of this Hero Shooter genre and shouldn't really be confused with the classic arena shooter genre which Quake and Unreal Tournament rep.

sry for the off topic, now carry on..

[PikaCommando]

Isn't TF2 a class-based team shooter? Or are we reclassifying them into hero shooters now?

[spessu_sb]

PikaCommando, on 07 January 2017 - 09:33 AM, said:

Isn't TF2 a class-based team shooter? Or are we reclassifying them into hero shooters now?

I suppose it fits that category tag aswell but it is kinda closest to the hero shooter genre too imho.

[CryptKiller]

I know it's not exactly kind of thing we all want, buuut...



I'm still heartbroken the further development ceased on this Really wanted to play as Prisoner 849.

[Raccoon84]

I'm personally..."okay" with this, but i feel like Duke shouldn't be frozen for roughly 6 years and then unfrozen just for a crossover deal.

[CryptKiller]

It's not even like a proper crossover, it feels more like a mod, like the one which puts Duke in Serious Sam 3. Praise be for the lack of GfWL and working multiplayer, but the whole package doesn't really scream "full price" to me. But I guess it's directed towards console crowd, not PC users who mostly already bought Bulletstorm on a Steam sale and long forgot it, and shamefully, because it's a really neat, fun and funny game (besides atrocious m+k controls). If anything, Epic deserves a kick in the gonads for virtually abandoning the game and employing the devs to make another Gears of War game.

[Sledgehammer]

Considering the voice of Duke there might be like in WT or Forever too, mod is pretty good word if you want to describe this. A fan could possibly make Duke voices there as equal if not even better and the same can be said about Duke model. I know why I love this industry and American entertainment industry especially, I always thought that people there are actual professionals who are miles away better than me or any modder, but the more I learn about them the less I think of myself as worthless code monkey and the more I appreciate fan works.

Spoiler

spessu_sb, on 07 January 2017 - 07:05 AM, said:

As a fan of the arena shooter genre, I'm just gonna have to come in and say, no it isn't.

An arena fps relies heavily on map based itempickups, everyone starting on fair ground with no weapon of choice as starting gun and mastering of all the signficantly differently functioning weapons. (Lightning-gun being instahit beam-based thing, Rocketlauncher being projectile based travel over-time explosive wpn while Plasmagun is travel over-time projectile based rapidfire weapon and Railgun being the instahit hitscan sniper rifle with low rate of fire but high damage count.) Seeing as TF2 doesn't have really any gun differation (rl, sniper and flamer being like the only truly different ones) and as it doesn't have a such thing even as healthpickups or in general any actual In-Map-Based_Pickups because it has medics instead etc classes.

TF2 is the beginning of this Hero Shooter genre and shouldn't really be confused with the classic arena shooter genre which Quake and Unreal Tournament rep.

sry for the off topic, now carry on..

I didn't mean actual pure arena shooter genre for obvious reasons, but it's still as closest as you can get nowadays, as the most relevant at least. But I yeah, I worded that badly and I forgot about class-based or even arena-based terms when I wrote that post.

[Player Lin]

CryptKiller, on 07 January 2017 - 01:24 PM, said:

I'm still heartbroken the further development ceased on this Really wanted to play as Prisoner 849.

I'm not sure it's dead, since the dead one is the original version by TerminusEst13, not this updated one by Kinsie, at least it seems not dead yet, just too slow on updates and addons for old one needed to fix for working on new one...

[Captain Kupo]

Player Lin, on 08 January 2017 - 02:08 AM, said:

I'm not sure it's dead, since the dead one is the original version by TerminusEst13, not this updated one by Kinsie, at least it seems not dead yet, just too slow on updates and addons for old one needed to fix for working on new one...

Kinsie was mostly working to fix and update what was there iirc, stuff like using new gzdoom tools to polish stuff up

I dont think hes got plans to add Gina, but i could be wrong, itd be a big task to program all her weapon behaviors though

[Player Lin]

Captain Kupo, on 09 January 2017 - 06:05 AM, said:

Kinsie was mostly working to fix and update what was there iirc, stuff like using new gzdoom tools to polish stuff up

I dont think hes got plans to add Gina, but i could be wrong, itd be a big task to program all her weapon behaviors though

I'm not sure if Kinsie ever want to add more other characters as the mod needed some serious works on some of its gameplay system as not working well with recently GZDooM versions or develops new other features, and concerns about character role overlapping(that's why Strifeguy and Caleb was rejected and other addons like Samsara Extra Heroes was existed), but I don't know...maybe one day someone will try to do that for you...maybe.


Or you can try to ask this mod's author about supports for your favorite character...but hell, I don't even know is that one standalone or needed new/old Samsara mod at all...