Biomutant

[DisturbedSwan]

Whether it comes to Game Pass or not I want this small team to be rewarded for their efforts over all this time so I’m in Day 1.
 

This isn’t a big AAA game with thousands of people working on it, they’ve earnt my cash and I hope the game does well enough for them. 

[DisturbedSwan]

For me if a game goes to Game Pass day 1 (and previously wasn't) then it has failed in its pre-orders/sales to some regard, so they've had to take Phil's cash to try to recoup their losses, that's my take on it.

 

I've always felt passionate about supporting and believing in games that I feel are worth believing in and supporting. Hell, I bought Balan Wonderworld and Metal Gear Survive Day 1 to support the devs. I intend to do the same for Biomutant, although hopefully that gets better reviews.

 

Clarification: I'm not buying games out of charity or just to support the devs, I am interested in them as well as I wouldn't be buying them if I wasn't.

 

Therefore this whole 'I'll wait for Game Pass' stuff from consumers isn't healthy for the industry I feel, especially for these smaller titles that desperately need that boost only Day 1 sales can bring. It's not a new phenomenon, we had folks saying 'I'll wait until it's on PS+/XBL Gold' the whole of last gen, but its always rubbed me the wrong way a little. 

 

If I believe in a game, like the look of it and want to support it then I'll take the leap of faith if I've got the funds to do so. That's my take on it. I know money is a precious commodity (especially at the moment with the economic downturn and Rona) but yeah, if I can support a game day 1 I will. I'm still annoyed I couldn't support Housemarque with Returnal ?

[one-armed dwarf]

I would argue the other way and say that if Nag wants to wait until it is on Gamepass it's pretty likely he wouldn't be buying the game anyway. But the devs would see better business from getting more ambivalent people to try their stuff out on GP.

 

I would never just buy a game just because I wanted to support a dev. I have to be interested in it. If I'm extremely interested in it then maybe I'll even double dip (which I do often enough), but will never buy something out of charity.

 

I mean if we want we can really twist this and also say that buying games at release but trading them in/selling is just as 'wrong' as waiting for gamepass (it is not 'wrong' at all, but you get the point)

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, one-armed dwarf said:

I would never just buy a game just because I wanted to support a dev. I have to be interested in it. If I'm extremely interested in it then maybe I'll even double dip (which I do often enough), but will never buy something out of charity.

 

I think I should've been clearer in my last post. I'm not buying these games just to support the devs, I am interested in this (as I was Balan and MGSU) and have been for years, if I wasn't I wouldn't be taking the plunge. 

[bellow]

2 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

 

I mean if we want we can really twist this and also say that buying games at release but trading them in/selling is just as 'wrong' as waiting for gamepass (it is not 'wrong' at all, but you get the point)

 

You know, that's a pretty good point. If you're clever you can get a new game for less than a price of a month's gamepass, and screw the Devs out of a sale all at the same time.

 

 I've done that a few times, sadly.?

[Sly Reflex]

Selling the game to fund the next game is kicking the dev in the balls as it's putting a copy out there they they will get no cash from this copy, maybe multiple times over depending on how many people sell that game back. A friend of mine worked at GAME when Rocky was out and on one copy of a game inside the sleeve he would mark it personally each time it got traded back in. It was traded in a lot. They lost 20 or more sales on that one disc. Now multiply this over each game traded in. Granted Rocky was a very short game, but still, you're removing sales where the money goes to the dev. 

 

Plus buying a game further down the line still nets them income, which can be used to tide over development of whatever they're working on now. Doesn't matter if it's via gamepass, Gold, PSN+ or EGS give aways. They get money for it.

[Snaggletooth]

At the same time, many New IP's have failed to gain sequels and Les new IP's coming to fruition because if they dont get good launch window sales they are deemed a write off. So think supporting new titles and smaller Studios is important.

 

However that should never be sole reasson to buy a game, so many Launch Broken, or Just arent that great, and with new games hitting the £70 launch price then These should be issues of the past, particually releasing a broken game ala Days Gone, okay it got patched, but rightly lots ofpeople ignored it at start due to that.

 

Devs want £70 then FIx your Shit. Then you will get more people Day 1 Buying.

 

Lets just hope these delay mean Bio Mutant will launch complete, and with a lower price point fingers crossed it will do well if its not shit.

Get those reviews up early I say.

[Maryokutai]

Didn't some Gamepass numbers come out at some point? I vaguely remember that happening. Basically if the game is on Gamepass Day One then the developer/publisher got a truckload of money for it. Definitely more than they expected to make from selling the Xbox version (obviously, I suppose) and definitely way more than just recouping development costs of the Xbox port (if not the entire project, in some indie cases). I'm still a Gamepass sceptic as far as first-party games are concerned but I don't see that big of an issue for third-party titles. Most of the time they're probably better off financially if their game is on Gamepass than if it isn't.

 

As for supporting games, I tend to simply choose the underdog first in some cases. My May game will be Biomutant, not Village, for example. But yeah, like most people I don't buy a game that doesn't pique my interest just because it's from a certain developer. (ACE Team might be the exception to the rule here, because ever since I first laid eyes on Zeno Clash back in the day I realised that the industry would be worse off if those guy ever stopped making these super weird games.)

[DisturbedSwan]

3 hours ago, Sly Reflex said:

Selling the game to fund the next game is kicking the dev in the balls as it's putting a copy out there they they will get no cash from this copy, maybe multiple times over depending on how many people sell that game back. A friend of mine worked at GAME when Rocky was out and on one copy of a game inside the sleeve he would mark it personally each time it got traded back in. It was traded in a lot. They lost 20 or more sales on that one disc. Now multiply this over each game traded in. Granted Rocky was a very short game, but still, you're removing sales where the money goes to the dev. 

Unfortunately trading in games is the lesser evil for me, I do accept it probably screws over the devs but it’s something I need to do to afford new games. Hopefully one day I can be at a place where I don’t need to.

 

2 hours ago, Nag said:

Again, you could flip that and say that putting a game on GP or PS Now 5 months down the line gives the developers a much needed boost that wouldn't be there once the initial sales period has passed.

From the Devs/Publishers perspective I actually think this is the best scenario, put the game on game pass etc. 8 months to a year down the line and the devs get the best of both worlds, day 1 sales and the MS/PS cash boost when sales would’ve dried up.

 

2 hours ago, Snaggletooth said:

At the same time, many New IP's have failed to gain sequels and Les new IP's coming to fruition because if they dont get good launch window sales they are deemed a write off. So think supporting new titles and smaller Studios is important.

I think that’s the key for me, like @Maryokutai I like supporting the underdog, new IPs from smaller devs are the most vulnerable for me so they’re the ones I’m likely to want to support day 1 the most (if they float my boat in the first place of course).

[Maryokutai]

Bit of gamepay form the standard PS4 and Xbox One systems: 

 

 

 

I'm pleasantly surprised, this seems way better optimised than I thought it would. 

 

One thing that bothered me a bit here is how the player takes so much seemingly unavoidable damage from enemy gunshots. I hope there's a skill in the game to parry/reflect those later on or something.

 

PC Version to compare:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Foliage looks really good in that version.

[DANGERMAN]

I'm not sure either of the console versions looked 30fps. I'm tempted by this, I still don't really get what it is, but I've seen enough that it looks pretty good

[Maryokutai]

It's targeting 30 but seems to drop here and there. I don't think I've ever played an RPG on console that ran significantly better than that.

[DisturbedSwan]

Xbox One X & PS4 Pro footage:

 

 

 

[DANGERMAN]

they look to run a lot better, less hitching regardless of the 60fps

 

maybe a topic for another thread, I'm not really sure what it's called but I really dislike screen space technique that ends up creating a fuzziness around the main character. It's clever, it's not wasting resource doing shadows, AA and shading on things you can't see, but you can't see them because the character is in the way, but the character moves and is in the centre of the screen, so you're looking right at it as it loads in. Control was terrible for it, and this looks pretty bad

 

I do like that they've shown this same section with different builds though, nice way to show that

[Maryokutai]

Oh, maybe a little bit of publicity for this. Cool to see them picking a "smaller" game:

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Yeah it's cool to see.

 

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

Reviews:

 

OpenCritic

 

Metacritic (PC version)

 

 

[Maryokutai]

Gamesradar: "Repetitive, formulaic, and downright strange"

 

Ok, so why is that third one listed among these other negative things?

 

Anyway, still going to give this a shot. I usually find these Double-A RPGs like Risen, Elex and Venetica more interesting than some of the big titles. 

[Snaggletooth]

Sort of what I expected,

 

Still going to give it a punt, dont play loads of open world sandbox games so hopefully some of the

complaints of formulaic stuff will be lost on me.