He explains that the initial networking problems cause Stardock to halt marketing for the product, and that once the issues are fixed marketing will kick in full swing.
Smartest marketing maneuver I've seen in a very, very long time. Kudos to Stardock for being so intelligent about this.
I wonder why they never implemented a "key check" on their servers a la Blizzard or Valve. That would definitely cut down on the number of illegitimate copies playing. perhaps allow 1 key to play up to a certain number at a time or even just do 1:1. Pirates can create their own servers and it wouldn't impact paying customers.
These folks are busting their ass and i'm very proud of them.
@kingmanic:I think they simply wanted to be as open to folks as they could, but they ended up getting bent over for it.
@KillerBee:Not that stupid. It makes more sense then offering $25 on someone else's game. At the very least they are helping to make it more likely that someone who owns the game may pick up a copy for a friend who they want to play also. Honestly that seems pretty smart.
@KillerBee: A) It is only inexcusable if the company has done an online only game before, which they have not. Not to mention the influx of pirates and broken street dates. Its not entirely their fault.
B) Its a good marketing decision. I will let one of my close friends know that the game is fun an I can get him a copy for 1/2 off. If he likes it too then he can pass that on to someone else. Word of mouth is the best form of selling.
@Massiah: Gas Powered Games has never made on online game before? Seriously? Every game they have ever made had online.
@MisterMollusk: Seriously? That is all you've got. I am getting so sick of people on Kotaku screaming "TROLL" at the first sign of an opinion different from their own. Grow up. Your comment is the troll comment. Useless, pointless nonsense.
Nobody remember the stuttering bug when Half-Life 2 came out? It plagued thousands of users for months, including me, unable to play the game. At the time Valve denied this was an issue with the game and claimed they would not attempt to fix it. Later however it was fixed, but at that time I had little interest to play the game anymore.
@Pult|Ost - Dark Days Are Coming: Untrue, I have a Q9500 4Gigs or RAM and a GeForce GTX280 and the game is unplayable, haven't tried this patch yet, but it WAS (probably still is) unplayable.... even on medium.
@TheOnlySDF: It does play nicely on my Wolfdale E8500 and gtx 280 plus 4 gig of ram.The only problem was this stuttering that sometimes appeared and other times didn`t.
The game would have been much better if they hadn`t made it gfwl and having rockstar social club as mandatory installs.The social club i could live with but gfwl is an unwanted pain in the arse! It will not work properly with my firewall unless i allow it unlimited access to my network neighborhood and that just isn`t gonna happen.So could i take this opportunity to tell microsoft to stick it where the sun doesn`t shine and leave us pc gamers alone.How i would dearly love to punch the guy on the nose who put this upon us.They are driving pc gamers crazy with their attempts to make pc gaming theirs.It`s not theirs and i suggest they stick with their xbox platform.I dont want fckin achievments, i dont need to be told i walked down the road achievment unlocked...you scratched your balls achievment unlocked...you climbed in a car achievment unlocked. AAARRRGGHHHHH..Just F*CK OFF microsoft!!
@UFO: I used to think the same thing, but I kind of like it now. In some GFW games I have have failed to back up saves when I format my hdd, but GFL saves my achievments so I know what I have and haven't done (Gears, Viva Pinata). I also like the way it notifies me of updates, and patches.
The other thing is I have a gaming PC and a PS3, but no 360. GFW kind of makes me feel like I get all the benefits of Xbox Live for free, and most of the games do go to PC eventually.
"you scratched your balls achievment unlocked...you climbed in a car achievment unlocked"
There is no difference in that respect to Steam Achievements or Trophys. By the way, very cool picture.
@homernoy: Yeah we`re all different but it annoys me.I have all my games on a separate partition to my operating system so that when i restore my os i dont have to reinstall everything (as i did this weekend).All of my games work straight away with the exception of any live games.It just makes life difficult for me.I also feel like trophies and achievments are a lazy way to make you feel like your doing something special when you aren`t.I dont need to be patted on the back as i walk out of the vault door in fallout 3.I play a game for the fun a game gives me, not to be told how great i am for doing mediocre things.
I`m no fan of steam either btw.A fan of valves games yeah,but not steam which is why the last game of theirs i bought was half life 2,way back on its release day.My ps3 also has the latest update but trophies means nothing to me, i couldn`t tell you anything about what i have or if i have any at all.It`s all just so meh.
@UFO: "i bought was half life 2,way back on its release day"
I was right there with you. It's kind of weird now how everyone just automatically lines up behind Steam. Man, when it came out, it seemed there were 3 people in the world that liked it.
I had a 9700 pro back then, and it cost about the same as my gtx 285 today, but it ran Far Cry and HL2 so well. Doom 3 gave it a run for it's money. It's funny how people complain about system requirements, but even then all the games released on PC had setting that were beyond the then current hardware. Now with a high end system, you can play virtually anything maxed @ 1920 x 1200.
A shame about the PC version of GTA IV. It could have been the 'definitive' version of GTA IV. But instead its just the game shoved onto PC with bugger all improvements made. Which means the massive wait for its PC release consisited of Rockstar rolling around in money before realising in november "shit!? We were supposed to release this on PC or something right?!"
I have GTA IV for PS3 right... but I was still looking forward to the one for PC because of bigger MP... and because a lot of my friends only had PC's... then it released... and was beyond failure =[ I don't know why they couldn't have just taken their time... and gave a proper GTA IV for PC...
@xarchsagex: It was a mess. Notice I said "was". After driver updates from Nvidia, and three patches from Rockstar it's a very good game (my opinion). Now you can have your 360 controller for Windows connected and just pick it up when you get into a vehicle, before you could only play with gamepad or KB and mouse. There are more video setting now, so people with older hardware can turn down or off resourse hogging features. Performance/FPS has taken huge leaps as well, but the lack of Anti-Aliasing really is a fuck up on Rockstars part.
@spamspaz: An extension of TRT-X's point is that if you are using Lips casually (which I now do since harvesting the achievements) then score doesn't matter and singing guitar solos reverts back to the hilarious fun it's always been, a la air guitar and air drumming. Back to your bridge culvert with thee!
05/04/09
Smartest marketing maneuver I've seen in a very, very long time. Kudos to Stardock for being so intelligent about this.
05/04/09
05/04/09
05/04/09
@kingmanic:I think they simply wanted to be as open to folks as they could, but they ended up getting bent over for it.
@KillerBee:Not that stupid. It makes more sense then offering $25 on someone else's game. At the very least they are helping to make it more likely that someone who owns the game may pick up a copy for a friend who they want to play also. Honestly that seems pretty smart.
05/04/09
05/04/09
I don't want to be "that guy" but..
"...everyone who bought the game is getting a coupon for another copy half-off"
First thing you read.
05/04/09
05/04/09
you could buy it 1/2 price and exchange it somewhere else for full price?
05/04/09
And that is exactly what i am gonna do
05/04/09
05/04/09
You give me your coupon?
05/04/09
05/04/09
B. Giving a half-off coupon for another copy of the same game is simply stupid. They should just give you a $25 Stardock coupon.
C. The game isn't fun.
05/04/09
05/04/09
B) Its a good marketing decision. I will let one of my close friends know that the game is fun an I can get him a copy for 1/2 off. If he likes it too then he can pass that on to someone else. Word of mouth is the best form of selling.
C) That's cool, your opinion.
05/04/09
@MisterMollusk: Seriously? That is all you've got. I am getting so sick of people on Kotaku screaming "TROLL" at the first sign of an opinion different from their own. Grow up. Your comment is the troll comment. Useless, pointless nonsense.
04/26/09
Because everyone loves watching the update progress bar fly to what looks like 99%, and then stay stuck there for the next 25 minutes.
04/26/09
04/25/09
04/26/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/26/09
The game would have been much better if they hadn`t made it gfwl and having rockstar social club as mandatory installs.The social club i could live with but gfwl is an unwanted pain in the arse! It will not work properly with my firewall unless i allow it unlimited access to my network neighborhood and that just isn`t gonna happen.So could i take this opportunity to tell microsoft to stick it where the sun doesn`t shine and leave us pc gamers alone.How i would dearly love to punch the guy on the nose who put this upon us.They are driving pc gamers crazy with their attempts to make pc gaming theirs.It`s not theirs and i suggest they stick with their xbox platform.I dont want fckin achievments, i dont need to be told i walked down the road achievment unlocked...you scratched your balls achievment unlocked...you climbed in a car achievment unlocked. AAARRRGGHHHHH..Just F*CK OFF microsoft!!
aaand....relax
04/26/09
The other thing is I have a gaming PC and a PS3, but no 360. GFW kind of makes me feel like I get all the benefits of Xbox Live for free, and most of the games do go to PC eventually.
"you scratched your balls achievment unlocked...you climbed in a car achievment unlocked"
There is no difference in that respect to Steam Achievements or Trophys. By the way, very cool picture.
04/26/09
I`m no fan of steam either btw.A fan of valves games yeah,but not steam which is why the last game of theirs i bought was half life 2,way back on its release day.My ps3 also has the latest update but trophies means nothing to me, i couldn`t tell you anything about what i have or if i have any at all.It`s all just so meh.
04/26/09
"i bought was half life 2,way back on its release day"
I was right there with you. It's kind of weird now how everyone just automatically lines up behind Steam. Man, when it came out, it seemed there were 3 people in the world that liked it.
I had a 9700 pro back then, and it cost about the same as my gtx 285 today, but it ran Far Cry and HL2 so well. Doom 3 gave it a run for it's money. It's funny how people complain about system requirements, but even then all the games released on PC had setting that were beyond the then current hardware. Now with a high end system, you can play virtually anything maxed @ 1920 x 1200.
04/25/09
04/25/09
I have GTA IV for PS3 right... but I was still looking forward to the one for PC because of bigger MP... and because a lot of my friends only had PC's... then it released... and was beyond failure =[ I don't know why they couldn't have just taken their time... and gave a proper GTA IV for PC...
Their rich already though... they don't care lol
04/26/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
But you can do this:
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
04/25/09
Hey mister, do you think animals masturbate? That must mean they don't have souls!
Or something like that...
02/26/09
Truly, the gaming future has arrived...
02/26/09
Release date?
02/26/09
02/26/09
02/26/09