Source
r/Games•
Databreaks

Serious Question: How bad or 'ruined' does an IP or company have to become for you to not buy any further games?

I am curious since I've seen a lot of people saying that FO76 still isn't bad enough not to buy ES6, or that X or Y game made them give up on an IP they used to love a lot.

So I'm wondering, what is "the line" for an IP or company to lose your business? How dire would things have to be?

For me I guess it would have to be a big shift, and the realization that they are moving away completely from the core traits I liked about them, like FFXV or RE6 for example. But I'm wondering how it is for you guys.

e: A lot of interesting responses here, I appreciate people sharing :)

Posted Jan 3, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC · edited

1085
Dahorah•

There is no line. I judge each game on its own based on pre-release information, reviews, and live content like Streams.

129
LizardBureaucrat•

based on pre-release information

And it's not as though this is your only option, buy at release or not at all. Maybe it releases badly, maybe you're not sure if the gameplay is for you based on the previews, maybe you want to wait for patches or more content, maybe you want a cheaper price to match what you think its worth. There's a whole range, the line is blurred.

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[deleted]•

[removed]

1
matticusiv•

What a crazy concept.

1
mtarascio•

The real crux is a change of development studio or a stealth palm off to a renamed studio under the old umbrella.

1
RumAndGames•

There is no "line" unless we count like, human rights abuses (and even then lets's be honest, how many of us buy zero Nestle products?)

I have a super advanced system. I want until a game comes out, the reviews are released, and there's been some chatter on forums. If I feel like I would like the game, I buy it. If I don't, then I don't. If it seems like it needs work but will eventually be good, I wait. If it's pretty "meh" but still appealing, I buy it on sale. That is the full extent of the relationship I need to have with game devs. Ya know, like every other product I buy in my life.

31
DOAbayman•

There's no real pattern between bad and good games so basing your current purchases off their past mistakes is kind of pointless. How many people were mocking Capcom's fall from grace and now they're putting out RE7, REmake 2, DMCV, and Monster Hunter.

By all means wait for reviews but that's something you should be doing regardless of a companies reputation because they ALL fuck up at some point as they experiment with things.

27
DatabreaksOP•

Doesn't the prolific preorder numbers of AAA games prove that a large majority of people don't wait for reviews? It seems like it's a combination of how loyal you are to that brand and how nice/mean the publishing company has been in recent memory that drives many preorder decisions.

-5
meowskywalker•

Doesn't the prolific preorder numbers of AAA games prove that a large majority of people don't wait for reviews?

I feel like maybe you should be asking this question in r/gaming, or maybe just r/askreddit if you're looking for the "large majority" of people to respond. This subreddit is full of jaded enthusiasts who mostly believe that pre-ordering is a shitty thing to do. You're not gonna get responses from the people who pre-order a lot here.

15
CBTBen•

a large majority of people don't wait for reviews

Are you suggesting that most of a game's sales come from pre-orders? I've never seen any data to back that assertion up.

12
Zardran•

I can't find it now as it was a while back, but I have seen survey data that showed a surprisingly small amount of people buying games based on written reviews, slightly more buying based on Youtuber reccomendations, but even the two together wasn't exactly significant.

Far more people are buying based off pre-release marketing, impulse buying and because their friends are buying/have bought it.

Of course this isn't directly related to just pre-orders but discounting the impulse buying, the other two are definitely going to have a link to pre-orders. People either buying based on hype and wanting to play it ASAP. Or groups of friends all planning to play the game ASAP.

2
Mrblack99•

I dont have the source but I rememeber reading an article where a game was based on the pre-orders. Since it didnt get many pre-orders they scraped most of the unfinished content and released a shitty game that was barely anything .

0
Psiden•

That’s a little biased and probably what they want you to think. Think of it this way: A triple A game is announced and they get people hyped for it. People get on the preorder wagon and buy the game. The game releases, reviews come out, and the game is bad. People holding out will probably not purchase it. So in this case, it will seem like a large majority of people don’t wait for reviews and preorder, where it’s really people reacting to a poor game. If the game does well, they will advertise it up as the most preordered game and market it that way. This is even more the case when they make a sequel, noting how this series is one of the most anticipated and preordered series. And the cycle repeats. It’s a marketing tactic to tricking the customer to preordering by putting preorders in the spotlight. One big self fulfilling prophecy with a dash of FOMO.

1
Zardran•

A lot of the time they push pre-orders due to investors too.

That's why we see pre-orders available months before release when there is absolutely no reason for it. It's to be able to put figures for the game you've been making for years into quarterly financial reports as soon as possible. Metrics will show how many overall sales x amount of preorders is likely to relate to.

It's also likely done to gauge how much they can make post launch. Whether they keep people working on that game for post launch content or whether to scale down post release and either move a bunch of developers onto other projects or get rid of them.

So preorders are used as a business projection tool as well. They can get more accurate projections early on by pushing preorders rather than waiting until a month after release before realising that they need to start altering budgets.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

27
smartazjb0y•

Exactly this. I've played every single generation of Pokemon, didn't get and never planned on getting Let's Go, and that hasn't made any impact at all on me being excited for Gen 8.

I feel like these things are cyclical. Sure, maybe a couple entries in a series will move in one direction, but oftentimes they go back the other direction and now you're back and invested again

10
DatabreaksOP•

but oftentimes they go back the other direction and now you're back and invested again

... Except Masuda said Let's Go is now the foundation for new Pokemon games going forward:

Masuda has high hopes that Pokémon: Let’s Go will give the series a boost big enough to last that long. “The biggest thing I feel with Let’s Go is really hoping that it’s going to serve as sort of a base or starting point for the next 20 years of Pokémon,” he says.

-12
smartazjb0y•

You're willfully misreading the quote. He says he HOPES, and he doesn't clarify at all what aspects of LGPE he's talking about. Just read the rest of the paragraph you left out

As for what Masuda envisions that future as, it’s undeniably sunny. “I really think it’s important that Pokémon continues to be a positive force in the world — makes people happier, enriches their lives through a variety of ways,” he says. “But I don’t think it needs to be a consistent, unchanging experience necessarily. I think there’s still a lot of room to explore variety, not only through the main series of games but also through the more spinoff titles.”

I think if you read that whole paragraph and come away thinking "Pokemon is now 100% LGPE for the next 20 years" I think you didn't read the paragraph correctly

16
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
bobcat243•

Please no nintendo Add wild pokemon back Its like they dont even know their target audience

0
KeroNyu•

You mean random encounters in bushes? Thank god they removed that. I don't play pokemon, but when I tried it, the random encounters were terrible.

-1
CreepyEconomy•

Imagine if I stopped listening to a singer because they made one bad song or not watch a movie because an actor made a film I didn't like.

To be fair I've spoken to a ton of people that weren't wild about watching Spider-Verse because this is the same company that made the Emoji Movie so, I mean, past output can definitely affect your level of excitement for something and that seems fair. It just shouldn't be your only metric.

1
ARTIFICIAL_SAPIENCE•

When I stop enjoying what they're doing and do not believe they intend to go back to what I enjoyed.

This isn't some bizarre principle thing.

16
DatabreaksOP•

I was just curious since for some, a really bad new installment can taint an IP forever, but not for others. So I thought I'd ask if people had personal rules on when to put their foot down and not support an IP that's gone astray or whether maybe the love for a brand alone will carry them through even bad installments.

-1
ARTIFICIAL_SAPIENCE•

There are things you can't correct. If someone is interested in story, then a game that screws up what they were interested in can be done for people. It's not that the IP is tainted forever, it's that the story is bad and there's no fixing it.

I think this might be important to distinguish when you keep talking about "IP." There's more to games than just that.

Some people are just hyperbolic, especially online. Sometimes a franchise can genuinely have its interesting things destroyed by a single bad title, never to be fixed. And sometimes people can view bad games as the sign of a trend downward or a focus on things they're not interested in.

5
plagues138•

Bethesda is getting a lot of shit. Fo76 is getting universally slammed.

Elder scrolls 6 will sell millions.

13
marshcatz•

After all of the issues with Fallout 76 I am going to avoid Bethesda games until they are heavily discounted, by then everything should be patched to modded well enough.

1
plagues138•

Patched.... Probably not.

Mods.... Well, we know how Bethesda feels about that....

1
marshcatz•

Which is why I am waiting till the next Fallout game reaches the bargain bin. I am noticing more and more that I can wait for games to become reasonably priced rather than pay too much for a rushed product. I have only lost out twice waiting for a game to become cheaper.

1
Jaekrim•

Elder Scrolls VI isn't going to bode well if Bethesda intends on carrying that craptastic Creative engine of theirs onto it. Without making feasible changes that could make up the difference between now and then.

My hopes aren't high for Bethesda to do anything right by that time. They've insulted their consumer base multiple times, they knew well in advance how FO76 was going to be received and they aren't owing up a lot of their responsibility on it.

1
plagues138•

But... Gamers are idiots.

They'll buy TES6, praise it to all hell despite its bugs etc and say "wait for mods!!! They'll patch it!!!"

2
ruat_caelum•

  • I don't think there is a line of poor enough quality that I would not buy a game from a studio again if that future game (or poor quality game) was made to a quality to justify the price (or the price dropped to justify the quality.)

  • There is, to me, an ethical line, but I've not had a game company cross that for me yet.

  • I wait 2-3 weeks, most of the time and then decide to buy a game or not based on real game play issues / reviews

  • Have supported games I can't yet play. Like start citizen (still in development.) Through the kick starter model. This types of games I support with $60 because that is the normal price of a finished game.

  • There are studios I will support. Like CD Projek Red. Because I like How they do things. No DRM, Quality gaming, understand their customer base etc.

Yet I didn't really like the witcher 2. I'll still buy the cyberpunk 2077, because I vote with my dollars and while I have high hopes with that game, I want to support that style of game development and customer appreciation.

6
thoomfish•

I basically agree with all of this, except that I often wait much more than 2-3 weeks on single player games.

Usually the best version of a game isn't available for a year or more, so unless it's something story-based that's being talked about everywhere (like God of War 4) and I don't want to be spoiled, I'm happy to wait quite a long time.

1
cabarkapa•

Destiny 2 was the line for me. Though it's mostly ruined by a really convoluted pricing model. When forsaken was coming out, there were like 8 options of game to buy from, since you needed the previous annual pass. I hate being confused when I'm trying to hand people money.

They should've just gone with a $6.99/month sub and called it a day.

6
[deleted]•

[removed]

5
codeswinwars•

That's pretty much every IP if you wait long enough though. I can't think of many ongoing franchises that started on or before 2002 which aren't hugely different because most games and genres from 2002 aged pretty badly. Technology and game design has advanced so far it would be crazy to ignore it.

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[deleted]•

[removed]

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DatabreaksOP•

That's pretty much every IP if you wait long enough though.

Games like Soulcal or Dragon Quest totally disprove that, though. It is entirely possible to keep the core of your series intact even if modern improvements and shifts occur.

-1
Godsopp•

Yeah agreed. There is no reason a classic style Battlefield game couldn't be made with modern standards for gunplay and graphics but the more action oriented games likely have sold a lot better.

2
Godsopp•

This was an example that came to mind for me as well. They might still release some good games but they aren't really the same type of games that made me a fan all those years ago.

1
Vesuvias•

Same. My last was Battlefield: Vietnam and I loved it. With BF3 they tried to create a more CoD experience - and that changed the entire ebbs and flows of the game in its entirety. Still long for the slower paced ‘massiveness’ that Bf2 and BF: Vietnam has...

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
Vesuvias•

Red Storm 2: Vietnam’s sort of scratches that itch - but the controls just seem a bit too technical to me.

1
FurryPhilosifer•

The only company I've ever written off was Telltale. After Game of Thrones. The story was dreadful, and and the performance even worse. Insultingly poor performance. It felt like a parody of the TV series. I bought it based on the questions and interesting dilemmas raised in the first episode, but none of them were answered or explored. It was blatant lazily written bait. Simply the worst game I've ever played.

5
danceswithronin•

I don't blacklist companies no matter how bad they fuck up. I was about to wash my hands of Bioware after the ME3 ending fiasco, but then they put out Dragon Age Inquisition and I loved that game and they won me back. Then they put out Andromeda and we're on the outs again.

Same with Bethesda. They put out Skyrim, I loved it, they put out Fallout 4, I loved it (even though the fanbase in general wasn't super impressed in comparison with older titles), then put out Fallout 76, it's a total piece of shit. So now I'm on the outs with Bethesda too.

But if Bioware puts out Anthem and I check it out post-launch and it seems to be getting high praise, I'll buy it. If Bethesda puts out Starfield and it is a good game, I'll buy it.

Bioware and Bethesda games used to be day one purchases for me, and it's a shame they're not anymore. But honestly, no company deserves that kind of brand loyalty anyway. They don't give a shit about the consumer at the end of the day. So I will judge each product on its own individual merit.

But Bethesda is really gonna have to pull out the stops to kill my skepticism of their next launch. Ditto with Bioware. Because right now I don't trust their quality, based on historical precedence and their attitude towards the fanbase.

I don't preorder shit, regardless of who puts it out.

4
TayHerendez•

I really don't care about the companies just the games. For example I really dislike EA's ways, but I love the sims games and I love sims 4 & it's devs.

It depends.

4
[deleted]•

[removed]

3
lestye•

I don't have a "line". There are certain games that raise a red flag for me to not get super excited about something. But I'm always open to hear a pitch from a company.

Sometimes franchises and companies go through bad times/iterations.

3
Dummy_Detector•

Game companies are dumb trying to stretch the limit of what gamers will put up with. I'll tell you this , once a company goes rogue I'm going to assume their new game is garbage in some way and its going to take a lot of convincing a game is amazing to consider purchasing. Even then I will not support your company by purchasing the title new and will buy used.

3
nonetheunready•

I'll always keep watch on a series I liked but something changed. I start being cautious when the same people who used to work on the games are no longer there, or if the sequels start being mobile games.

3
fuckyeahforscience•

Any pay to win elements, or removing features from previous games and then replacing them with microtransactions. You are dead to me and you wont see a single cent from me. Even if you change your ways. It's like catching a friend stealing from you. It just wont be the same again.

3
KeystoneGray•

I started being wary of Ubisoft because of statements made by an Ubisoft manager, who mocked PC users for "bitching" that their favorite games weren't being ported to PC. Their quality control problems certainly didn't help, but this story I'm about to tell was the final nail in the coffin, and why I don't buy their games anymore.

It's a sad tale. Google the man's name for sources.

Patrice Desilets, creator of Assassin's Creed, poured his heart out into the series. He was behind Ezio's story and almost all of the lore, and the game series was the result of a long-standing passion project of his. You could see pure joy in this man's face when he talked about the story.

When Ubisoft went to rapidly serialize the game, Patrice had creative disagreements. It was never really made clear what happened, but if I had to guess, they were probably hijacking his writing... it was clear that Desmond's story was building up to something other than a very anticlimactic zap death.

Frustrated but not deterred, Desilets left the company to help start a new one. There, he wrote a new IP, and was to be published under THQ. But then, THQ folded. Ubisoft, ever the opportunistic den of pit vipers, saw an chance to acquire a new IP on the cheap without having to pay royalties. So they bought Desilets' company from THQ, then used the THQ contracts to claim ownership of his new IP and pull the rug out from under Patrice again.

But it didn't stop there.

Ubisoft then lied on social media, saying Desilets had quit shortly after this, wishing him well. I'm sure that's what they wanted his employees to think. What actually happened was that Ubisoft's new management approached Desilets with security, told him he was now suddenly fired, refused to allow him to collect his property, and subsequently locked him out of the building. He was left with nothing for a second time.

To buy a man's company just to fire him and take yet another soul project away from him? For money? That was disgusting to me. While he ended up later getting a settlement with them, it was clear that Ubisoft only settled to save face, since the media was blasting them for the way they were treating Patrice.

The last title I've purchased was AC3. I've played Black Flag, and I felt a little gross doing so. A friend bought me Siege, but I honestly couldn't play it for long. Add in Ubisoft's callous treatment of their employees and consistently poor quality control, and I'm honestly beyond forgiving this company.

3
FindingHeiwa•

Any game company led by marketing instead of development. The minute things are happening because marketing means-testing demands it is exactly when you should dump the studio. See blizz/activision, ea, bethesda.. they're pushing what research says works, not developing their own vision.

Reviews are no protection either, see RDR2 the 2008 video game with the nicest coat of paint and 10/10 reviews. Seems like consumers here are very susceptible to manipulation like that. Wait two months after a game releases and ask yourself if it's truly unmissable and 9 times out of 10 you'll find it can be easily forgotten.

3
TsundereRager•

Depends. Sometimes devs fuck up but later instalments are better.

Aside from EA, who keep fucking up IPs and contribute nothing else, they don’t even have the Sports thing anymore because of putting mtx in Fifa so they can basically fuck off completely and something of value will be gained (lot’s of studios that can go to others).

All the rest it really depends on the game, you get bad instalments and good ones.

2