@@jamesthomas9619 I knew it from the start that would it be bad, wanna know how? Because I was on the same fucking hype for Spore back in the 2000s... and if you look at all those big dissapointments they were all the same shit as spore. Hell, No man sky was worse than Spore, that was a fucking feat on itself
thats an idea, say its a game, but they, say, they make you play x amount of hours and you get the dlc for free, or you can pay and get it in 1 sec, imagine that. so, they'll earn extra money, cause some will buy and some will not. i dunno. its easy to say, ohh shoudve been in the game to start with, and we've maybe all said it at some point im sure, but maybe games litteraly cost so much to make they have to do it to keep companies aflot? maybe, maybe not, feels annoying to us, but we're not the guys making the games. still feels like a cheap move though ofc.
I watch your channel because you make me feel normal I swear we agree on 99% of the same stuff. And I don't just watch you because I agree with you. It's just refreshing to see someone be honest
This is why games from the ps2, xbox, gamecube and Dreamcast ruled: No real DLC. There were experiments with DLC but nothing that would alter a already finished and finalized product. Like if gaming development improved, why do we need DLC? If Resident Evil 1 from 1996 had DLC, it would be miserable. If Silent Hill 1 had DLC, it would be miserable. Like what happened to that? Like platinum editions and greatest hits? Like again, I ask, if game development is so much improved, why do we need DLC? Awesome video dude too. Keep these rolling out.
Resident Evil on PS1, lots of extra content to unlock on the disc for mastering the games. Resident Evil in current year, but all the extras as cut content for dlc. Looking at you RE7 and RE2 Remake in particular.
@@abovethelaw4417 outdated according to what? Gaming has stopped progressing in any real fashion (gameplay) as soon as the seventh gen started. It's just been "do the same thing but make it look prettier" or in more often cases "do the same thing with less content but make it way prettier".
Game development improving wouldn't change the addition of DLC. DLC is meant to add to a already complete game and be something the developers never thought of when making the game originally.
Just imagine making a game that is fulfilling to the player, a game they like to play for years to come, a game they paid for once and the play for thousands of hours without microtransactions. Don't you see how this is bad for getting the most money out of consumers?
Synthetic Man is a LEGEND!!! One of the best YT’ers on this platform! Syn I bought a gaming laptop so I can record my gameplay and start making videos. You are a huge inspiration to me. The love u have from games only comes from a lifetime of gaming but I hope you blow up soon bc you deserve it 1000%.
I fucking hate battle passes. So many games do it now you have to make it a second job just to complete them. FOMO is what makes it terrible. Other DLC is bad too, I just miss the old days
I'm guilty of spending 100s of hours in Fallout 76 in 2020 and this year just to complete their seasons. I do enjoy the game even if I've completed everything, but I can't afford to keep spending so much time just for something like seasons. Plus, that break time allowed me to finally finish the Raiders side of the Wastelanders update, allowing me to finally get every single trophy (I have a PS5) in the game. That questline itself was a snap. Now for an even longer break.
Unlocking stuff in Smash Bros Melee, Kirby Air Ride and Timesplitters 2 were so much fun and rewarding. I really do miss the GameCube and PS2 era of games
My friends all hate the game, even my brother even though we grew up playing it together lol. So when I eventually review it, it'll be tough to convince them to play it. Still fun solo though, I agree.
Smash Bros having DLC characters is really where I think I'm going to draw the line. My 6 year old nephew asked, "Uncle, how come you haven't bought all the characters yet?" I'm 34 and he's just a little too young to understand that paying for video games you've already paid for was not how it used to be.
There's just so much crap we gotta deal with now, it almost completely ruins the fun of even being a gamer. Older games are generally better than many newer ones. Not always, but a lot of older games did interesting stuff that likely won't be replicated today due to pc culture, laziness, and greed. As for DLC, I miss the days of customer friendly Expansion Packs. They gave you more of the game you liked at a reasonable price. Blood Dragon is my favorite of the entire franchise. Didn't care for Far Cry 4. Didn't even play 5, Primal, or New Dawn. The dlc for Far Cry 5 was terrible compared to Blood Dragon. Wolfenstein, before New Colossus & Youngblood killed the franchise again, had a great expansion for New Order called the Old Blood. Standalone like Blood Dragon and it was $20 too.
@Synthetic Man, Old Blood is a good soft reboot of Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2001. New Order 2014 is better, but Old Blood gives ya a nice little expansion to that gameplay. Sucks that the only Wolfenstein available on Nintendo Switch are the bad ones. You can buy both New Order and Old Blood pretty cheap now.
welp if everything is on psn xbox store and all that dream will just be a pipe dream. aceing out physical releases kill the chance for even a 19.99 or 10 dollar sale
@@jamesthomas9619 Most AAA games are ass yet you'll still have Ubisoft Fanboys that defend the game of doing the same thing over and over while charging 60$
You know what on another video i did comment that i am disappointed with the mario 3d colection that they made and some group of fanatics started caling me entitled for what having some standards? Gamers these days i swear are a bunch of drones
I'm old enough to remember being PISSED about the halo 2 map pack. You are 100% accurate in tracing the origin of this bullshit back to good ol' Halo 2.
That kirby's air ride section made me so sad I loved it SOOOOO MUCH I would play it with my neighbors for hours... I wish games had some soul to them again
Nitpick, Horse armor actually doubled the HP of the ingame horses, it was not cosmetic. However horse HP really did not matter as there was fast travelling.
PERFECT COMMENTARY, excellent reflection on this subject. 👌 "Cancer that is mobile gaming." A mid-twenties RUclipsr with such vision and wisdom. Hats off to you. Super glad I subbed when I did.
Addon, DLC, microtransactions,... What it comes down to is this: You can create something with the intent of creating something good, like a good game, a game you would like to play yourself, you can have that philosophy. Or you can create something with the intent of maximising your profit and or other (ideological) goals. Microtransactions are inherently designed to make the publisher more money, that's why they got introduced into games. Some might be implemented in a manner which is very bad for the game as a whole, very detrimental, some might be less intrusive but they are not in the game to make it a better experience, that's not the intent behind them. Whatever one might think of Steve Jobs, there is a documentary with him in it where he talks about how Apple had been taken over by the marketing department and the products they were making got worse and worse. He talks about how this can and does happen in many companies. You start out with a company that is run by engineers, they don't care about the profit, they want to create a good machine or software or whatever, that's how they think - How to engineer something to have certain qualities, maybe high endurance or performance or low production cost,... or a combination of such factors. Then, when the company is running well and growing, the marketing department and the bean-counters become more influential, they start to run the company and that's when product quality suffers. They know how to sell you s**t you probably don't need or don't even want, they don't think about how to make a great product, other considerations take over. We need to lower costs, production costs, employee costs, maybe we can outsource work to places with lower wages, we need the product out in time before Christmas, whatever. The company goes down eventually after enjoying high profit margins for some years or even decades. Let me assure you, those big publishers and their big developer studios are not going to turn the ship around in any meaningful way. They will ride it out until it all breaks down
Yes, definitely agree. Which is why a lot of people were pushing for government regulation of loot boxes. If gamers can't be trusted to not buy them, then we need laws to protect the consumer from themselves. The downside of this is that it can easily be a slippery slope that ends with the government heavily regulating what content can be put into games. No more violence, nudity, etc. It's sad what happens to corporations over time, but as always, our only option is to vote with our wallets and hope somebody funds more devs like From Software and CD Projekt Red.
@@SyntheticMan You don't have to restrict yourself to "voting with your wallet" as the common phrase goes, in other words, to basically do nothing else than what everybody does every day anyway. You can also make a video about it and bring things to the attention of people like you are doing here. Moders, small developers, video creators, jailbreak-ors,... they are all doing their part to keep the commercialised life dystopia at bay. Once you put a price tag on every social and cultural interaction, those who rule the money rule every aspect of social-life as well.
It's two main groups. Casuals who don't really care about gaming, and don't know any better, content with playing COD, Madden, FIFA, Fortnite, Apex, etc. and not ever exploring outside of their comfort zone. Then there's the fanboys. Redditors who kiss the ground that their chosen publisher walks on and eats up anything they put out. They are so desperate to cling to something that brings them any happiness that they will attack anyone who criticizes their beloved franchises and spend all of their money on DLC, MTX, Lootboxes. Sony fanboys annoy me the most right now because I used to be one in the PS3 era, but their quality has dropped overall in the last 7 years so I bailed to PC. But, of course, the fanboys deny this and buy every mediocre exclusive.
@@SyntheticMan I don't know, I'm happy with this generation's Sony exclusives (in the sense that there were enough interesting for me, I certainly don't support garbage like TLOU or Sony's policy on erotic games). I honestly never played a game with microtransactions not by choice but simply because it happened I was never interested in any of those kind of games. I think cosmetics are fine because they add nothing substantial to the game but then there's also the problem of preying on the weak, which I'm not too keen on. I don't have the solution.
@@golDroger88 I still enjoyed most of the exclusives but only 2 were must-play games in my eyes (still haven't played Persona 5 though). I just hate anti-criticism people, they encourage mediocrity. As for cosmetic stuff, I think the system works in free-to-play games but if I'm paying $60 I better get my money's worth. Games-as-a-service has creeped into full price games but luckily gamers have fought off the worst of it. Which reminds me, I never talked about Anthem in this video, which was another pretty big blow against EA. So, if consumers learn to draw the line at GaaS, maybe there's a chance for the future of AAA games
Ever since games have gone for having online to acces your games and abandoned expansion packs in favor of DLC I always felt developers were treating me like a sucker. Which is why I only buy games that have stopped their DLC output or have no DLC planned for it.
Stumbled into your channel recently and am loving a lot of your videos. The Gilbert godfrey reaction to fallout 3's writing made me literally lol. Hahahhaa top notch.
Dude, your rants are pretty awesome. I know you're talking about taking a break but you should purposefully play some shit games to dump on them. Loved your Cyberpunk rant. It was so right. Let's get you over 10k.
I'm okay with big dlcs. Like those for fallout. If it expands the already finished game with new story content - that's good. Or if it's a completely new story/view on original story.
Synthetic Man's vids are great background noise. Whenever I play AC (The good ones). I agree with most of your points in your videos. I know you weren't in this for fame, I know started a RUclips channel to recommend older games. But goddamn you need more subs. Thank you for making this channel and giving me a new appreciation of older games!
Heyo Synth Man, really enjoyed this vid. What I believe was the last straw for on disk dlc with CAPCOM was when someone hacked into that garbage tier Streetfighter X Tekken disc and found all the dlc locked in a paywall. Keep it up my dude!!!
Custom robo battle revolution(gamecube). My top 5 game and its just an arena battler where u use customizable robots with templates and gear to settle problems and catch criminals as a bounty hunter and after that you get a fun post game of turnament mode with a hidden final boss for 100%ing that mode and a crapton of "illegal parts" and upgraded parts. Douzens of cool as maps and many cool tracks to listen to did I mention it has a multiplayer mode so up to 4 people can blast eachother to hell on all the maps you unlocked using all the crazy gear you have by the end of said campaign and tourneymode. Best part no dlc and features to enjoy for over a decade a last.edit thank just thank you for mentioning it
In my opinion DLC in itself is not bad I mean some actually improves and expands on the game in some way but too much companies are taking advantage of it
1. Kirby Air Ride was the bomb. 2. Functional unlockables were a problem even before they were DLC, because they disrupt balance. They require time and expertise to unlock, which means the player with the most expertise has an additional in-game advantage. Multiplayer games should be about sportsmanship, not progression. The gameplay itself is supposed to be the reward, because if it's not, what's the point of unlocking a gun you can only use in a game you're not actually enjoying? Progression and balance are inherently at odds. Part of the reason COD gets regular releases is that the games are basically designed to become unapproachable to newcomers after a year or two. Every new release is basically a reset, putting veterans on more even footing with newbies. That's bad design, unless your goal is to sell the same game every year. 3. Despite this, game devs include progression/rpg mechanics in multiplayer shooters because they're easy to monetize, but also because they keep players engaged longer than the gameplay alone would. This is a subtler method of exploiting people's addictive tendencies. In a multiplayer game, the players themselves are part of the content, so getting people hooked keeps the game alive and eventually hooks more players. Even the non-whales help to hook whales just by being there, and even games without DLC benefit. Keeping a franchise popular makes the sequel easy to sell (what's the difference between a copy-paste, annual-release sequel and an expansion anyway?), keeping a game alive extends the sales tail, it looks good to investors, makes it easier to onboard new talent, increases interest in the studio's other offerings, etc. Point is, hooking people is never bad for business, just bad for customers. 4. Cosmetic DLC and unlockables are part of this relentless drive for obsessive engagement, and so are still not great for players. I'm old enough to remember that we used to dream about having games we could enjoy indefinitely, without it becoming stale. But there's a difference between "could" and "need to". Timed content, community events, unlockable items, they're designed to monetize a player's very presence. To be clear, I'm not talking about all unlockables under all circumstances, I'm specifically referring to the endless stream of new content that means players can never really be done with a game until the devs say so. 5. The focus on engagement to the exclusion of everything else also affects game design. You maximize the number of potential whales by maximizing the number of people walking in the door. Bright colors, GPU-melting graphics, a hodge-podge of trends and buzzwords from gaming and pop culture thrown together in a blender without a single thought towards whether those elements make sense being in the same game. You keep people around through Skinnerian mechanics that heighten anticipation without ever providing a satisfying payoff. Because satisfied customers go do something else after a while. You keep the game on your own servers, so you can kill it when you're done monetizing it. After all, if players can play your old game, they won't have to buy your new one. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that even "ethical" monetization and progression mechanics should be viewed with a large dose of skepticism, because they tend to be accompanied by other, less ethical mechanics. And the only reason we view them as ethical is that we just got through a decade of even worse exploitation. And even when it's not meant to be exploitative, it's either directly bad for the player, or entices the kind of player that no one else likes playing with.
The only thing that I'm hyped for is Elden Ring. From Software have proven themselves many times before and unless something goes horribly wrong with R.R. Martin's writing, Elden Ring looks like to be the game of the decade when it releases. (I mean, they did it twice already with both Dark Souls and Bloodborne in a single decade) As for the casuals, joke's on them. They are slow to adapt and take notice of what is happening and when they do realize it will be too late and we'll be in the corner of the room laughing at them. I'm gonna stick with indies and AA games over the bland and uninteresting AAA garbage that companies throw at the zombies to consume.
I definitely want to see some gameplay and a release date for Elden Ring before I get hyped, but I have no doubt that it will be a great game at the very least.
@@SyntheticMan You're right, I'm getting ahead of myself, but that just shows the amount of trust and respect I have for FromSoft and their creations. I too want to see gameplay before making my final verdict on whether I'll buy it day 1 or wait a bit for reviews though.
@@abovethelaw4417 Bloodborne is completely different in terms of flow and mechanics. Dark Souls 1-3 also all have different mechanics. What did you expect? They are sequels, dumbass. A sequel is supposed to be like that.
The "purely cosmetic" packs WAS the slippery scope, it led to microtransactions, then season passes, which led to battle passes. ALL of it was gamers fault. WE let them sell us pixels that did nothing for the game!!!! WE CAUSED THIS BY LETTIGN THEM SELL US HORSE ARMOR FOR 2 DOLLARS!!!!!! WE CONTINUED TO LET THEM PROBE US WITH CUT CONTENT AND CHARACTER SKINS IN FIRST PERSON GAMES!!!
I don't like DLCs but I can tolerate them as long as they cover cosmetics or extra fan-oriented stuff not strictly necessary to the gameplay or story. What pisses me off is when MECHANICS or parts of the PLOT are locked behind DLCs.
Back in the day, dlc or “Expansions” started with MMO. But worthwhile content on par with a new game. Then games like NV, paying for an extra story in the game, which eventually come at bundle. That’s when it was done right But then you had games like Origins, which EA rushed development and a lot of cut content was sold as expansions later…
A little late but something positive that comes to mind is Resident evil 2. Obviously with the remake you can buy a lot of shit with real money. But it was a game that when you beat it, you were rewarded with literally more playthroughs with some different shit, alternate paths for the characters, and new lore. All the while unlocking shit based on performance. Finish the game fast enough? Infinite ammo launcher. Wanna Speedrun the b playthroughs like a dedicated monster? More infinite guns. Alt costumes, cool Easter eggs for the explorer. Shit was just great
Sadly this did not age well as fortnite has taken away free vbucks from the battlepass so you will never get another one without paying. But its fortnite so if your still playing that souless cashgrab then I think we got bigger proplems
Undead nightmare is still phenomenal to this day. GTA 4 DLC was great too, The Lost and the damned, The ballad of gay Tony, I still have them for Xbox 360 and I know Rockstar will never do single player DLC ever again
I’ve got no problem with DLC that expands on the base game. adding extra content new weapons armor etc however I too remember a time when DLCs weren’t a thing. Everything that was in the game was included when you purchased the game. When people beat a game they enjoyed they messed around with cheat codes. however I do believe the issue of DLC can be addressed if and this is a big if people who buy DLC only buy DLC that actually had effort put into it. In such a scenario Developers would see that on disc DLC and Loot boxes etc aren’t selling and would either quit selling DLC unlikely or only produce DLC that adds substantial content to the base game. However that’s the only quote good thing that DLC can do. is pay to get an expanded experience like Fallout New Vegas DLC. or do what GTA Online did make the DLC free in the form of updates that happen twice a year but the catch is micro transactions will be in the game. Those are the only quote good ways you could implement DLC. in my opinion however I would prefer DLC not exist because once people started accepting paid expansions we got lazy you can’t even call it DLC things like better odds at loot boxes that are single use only unless of course you give your sugar daddy developer another 99 cents. This practice was so despicable that while I also despise the EU they did one good thing and banned the sale of Loot boxes. However as I’ve said multiple times the problem is if consumers said we’re not buying on disc DLC better endings in the form of DLC and Loot boxes then such DLC wouldn’t exist. Because it goes back to a basic principle what’s the point of having plenty of supply if theirs no demand.
Something that is sad is that both Sony and Microsoft are discontinuing their 7th gen consoles Online store step by step. Which means that content belonging to the 7th gen game will be lost. So sooner or later you can never ever get the ending to Azure wrath to your 360 or ps3.
How you predicted cyberpunk, too good. Good they fixed it, but it could have been a big flop. And yeah I bought in fall guys too 1 time. And now? Wastes it on skins.
It was a decent comparison....the idea is good but in the hands of greedy corporate billionaires terrible. Like guns guns as a tool fine but it is also dangerous in the wrong hands.
About DLC that was pretty much a standalone game and well regarded, I remember Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai. I know you've said strategy games are not your thing but to me that was pretty schway, Fall of the Samurai expansion I remember was half the price of Shogun 2 and it had way more content and could even be played without Shogun 2.
Guys, I heard he's dropping a podcast on our asses. The guest he has kinda talks too much and doesn't give Synethic man enough space to talk.
Yeah, his name is Fishguy or Manfish or something...name is slipping my mind at the moment.
@@SyntheticMan he was pretty forgettable tbh
Oh wow... Another podcast. It’s not like there’s lots of those around.
@@mistersippi2945 that’s fine
The cyberpunk part aged well :D
Lol yeah...I definitely mentioned it in too many videos because I've been getting this type of comment a lot...
Screw cyberpunk when we have custom robo! C'mon guys!
To be fair I think most people were fooled by that game and had no reason to believe they were lying to us
@@jamesthomas9619 I knew it from the start that would it be bad, wanna know how? Because I was on the same fucking hype for Spore back in the 2000s... and if you look at all those big dissapointments they were all the same shit as spore.
Hell, No man sky was worse than Spore, that was a fucking feat on itself
@@LucasCunhaRocha they fixed no-mans sky tho
I miss the good old days when “additional content” was something you got from completing the game…
thats an idea, say its a game, but they, say, they make you play x amount of hours and you get the dlc for free, or you can pay and get it in 1 sec, imagine that. so, they'll earn extra money, cause some will buy and some will not. i dunno. its easy to say, ohh shoudve been in the game to start with, and we've maybe all said it at some point im sure, but maybe games litteraly cost so much to make they have to do it to keep companies aflot? maybe, maybe not, feels annoying to us, but we're not the guys making the games. still feels like a cheap move though ofc.
I watch your channel because you make me feel normal I swear we agree on 99% of the same stuff. And I don't just watch you because I agree with you. It's just refreshing to see someone be honest
This is why games from the ps2, xbox, gamecube and Dreamcast ruled: No real DLC.
There were experiments with DLC but nothing that would alter a already finished and finalized product.
Like if gaming development improved, why do we need DLC? If Resident Evil 1 from 1996 had DLC, it would be miserable.
If Silent Hill 1 had DLC, it would be miserable.
Like what happened to that? Like platinum editions and greatest hits?
Like again, I ask, if game development is so much improved, why do we need DLC?
Awesome video dude too.
Keep these rolling out.
Resident Evil on PS1, lots of extra content to unlock on the disc for mastering the games.
Resident Evil in current year, but all the extras as cut content for dlc. Looking at you RE7 and RE2 Remake in particular.
@@abovethelaw4417 says you dreamcast homebrew IS STILL an active community. Many of us only recently realized what all those plugs in the gc were for
@@abovethelaw4417 theyre damn good games. Enjoy ur graphics all I gotta say.
@@abovethelaw4417 outdated according to what? Gaming has stopped progressing in any real fashion (gameplay) as soon as the seventh gen started. It's just been "do the same thing but make it look prettier" or in more often cases "do the same thing with less content but make it way prettier".
Game development improving wouldn't change the addition of DLC. DLC is meant to add to a already complete game and be something the developers never thought of when making the game originally.
I love how you predicted the legion of Cyberpunk fanboys and exactly what they would be saying
Just imagine making a game that is fulfilling to the player, a game they like to play for years to come, a game they paid for once and the play for thousands of hours without microtransactions. Don't you see how this is bad for getting the most money out of consumers?
only game like that were rpg's from like 2010 to 13 actually no 2009 to 2013
Good times , there won't be another generation of gaming like the ps2 and ps3
There is no such thing dude také down these rose tinted glasses.
?
@@Swordart2022 pretty sure there is
my guilty pleasure is finding old videos where synth was still hype for cyberpunk.
Synthetic Man is a LEGEND!!! One of the best YT’ers on this platform! Syn I bought a gaming laptop so I can record my gameplay and start making videos. You are a huge inspiration to me. The love u have from games only comes from a lifetime of gaming but I hope you blow up soon bc you deserve it 1000%.
Thx man, glad to hear that I've inspired you, and I hope you have more success than me lol. But seriously, your compliments mean a lot to me.
I fucking hate battle passes. So many games do it now you have to make it a second job just to complete them. FOMO is what makes it terrible. Other DLC is bad too, I just miss the old days
That is what happens when governments crack down on the loot boxes. Video game companies find another way to bleed us with battle passes.
I'm guilty of spending 100s of hours in Fallout 76 in 2020 and this year just to complete their seasons. I do enjoy the game even if I've completed everything, but I can't afford to keep spending so much time just for something like seasons. Plus, that break time allowed me to finally finish the Raiders side of the Wastelanders update, allowing me to finally get every single trophy (I have a PS5) in the game. That questline itself was a snap. Now for an even longer break.
Unlocking stuff in Smash Bros Melee, Kirby Air Ride and Timesplitters 2 were so much fun and rewarding. I really do miss the GameCube and PS2 era of games
Bro I appreciate the simplicity of your videos. You funny asf unintentionally keep up the great work, and screw modern gaming.
Man Kirby Air Ride was the shit back in the day. Didn't have any friends to play it with but still fun to do solo.
My friends all hate the game, even my brother even though we grew up playing it together lol. So when I eventually review it, it'll be tough to convince them to play it. Still fun solo though, I agree.
The greed of your typical AAA games company these days knows no bounds.
they'd shit in a bag and try selling it off to you.. for $70!
Oh god the ending part about Cyberpunk was some unreal foreshadowing 😂😂 the fanboy part too
Smash Bros having DLC characters is really where I think I'm going to draw the line. My 6 year old nephew asked, "Uncle, how come you haven't bought all the characters yet?" I'm 34 and he's just a little too young to understand that paying for video games you've already paid for was not how it used to be.
There's just so much crap we gotta deal with now, it almost completely ruins the fun of even being a gamer.
Older games are generally better than many newer ones. Not always, but a lot of older games did interesting stuff that likely won't be replicated today due to pc culture, laziness, and greed.
As for DLC, I miss the days of customer friendly Expansion Packs. They gave you more of the game you liked at a reasonable price.
Blood Dragon is my favorite of the entire franchise. Didn't care for Far Cry 4. Didn't even play 5, Primal, or New Dawn. The dlc for Far Cry 5 was terrible compared to Blood Dragon.
Wolfenstein, before New Colossus & Youngblood killed the franchise again, had a great expansion for New Order called the Old Blood. Standalone like Blood Dragon and it was $20 too.
I never did end up playing Old Blood, I'll have to play it if I decide to cover New Order.
@Synthetic Man, Old Blood is a good soft reboot of Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2001.
New Order 2014 is better, but Old Blood gives ya a nice little expansion to that gameplay.
Sucks that the only Wolfenstein available on Nintendo Switch are the bad ones.
You can buy both New Order and Old Blood pretty cheap now.
wdy mean by pc culture lol
We should just wait for games to be $4 on sale and then buy them. I'm sick of buying $40 games that are half baked.
welp if everything is on psn xbox store and all that dream will just be a pipe dream. aceing out physical releases kill the chance for even a 19.99 or 10 dollar sale
and with it being on their stores they got ya by the balls
Shit 40 dollars if you're lucky, lmao sometimes their 70 and still suck
@@jamesthomas9619 Most AAA games are ass yet you'll still have Ubisoft Fanboys that defend the game of doing the same thing over and over while charging 60$
Yup that's what I'm doing, I'm playing all the 360 games I missed out on now.
You know what on another video i did comment that i am disappointed with the mario 3d colection that they made and some group of fanatics started caling me entitled for what having some standards? Gamers these days i swear are a bunch of drones
Thats just people in general
I'm old enough to remember being PISSED about the halo 2 map pack. You are 100% accurate in tracing the origin of this bullshit back to good ol' Halo 2.
Yea, also remembering how it screwed up matchmaking by splitting the playerbase and kicking people out of the lobby if they didn't have the dlc.
@@Skumtomten1 it was like that in halo 3 as well wasn’t it?
That kirby's air ride section made me so sad I loved it SOOOOO MUCH I would play it with my neighbors for hours... I wish games had some soul to them again
Blame FIFA and 2K for micro transactions.
Nitpick, Horse armor actually doubled the HP of the ingame horses, it was not cosmetic.
However horse HP really did not matter as there was fast travelling.
PERFECT COMMENTARY, excellent reflection on this subject. 👌
"Cancer that is mobile gaming."
A mid-twenties RUclipsr with such vision and wisdom. Hats off to you. Super glad I subbed when I did.
Addon, DLC, microtransactions,...
What it comes down to is this: You can create something with the intent of creating something good, like a good game, a game you would like to play yourself, you can have that philosophy. Or you can create something with the intent of maximising your profit and or other (ideological) goals. Microtransactions are inherently designed to make the publisher more money, that's why they got introduced into games. Some might be implemented in a manner which is very bad for the game as a whole, very detrimental, some might be less intrusive but they are not in the game to make it a better experience, that's not the intent behind them.
Whatever one might think of Steve Jobs, there is a documentary with him in it where he talks about how Apple had been taken over by the marketing department and the products they were making got worse and worse. He talks about how this can and does happen in many companies. You start out with a company that is run by engineers, they don't care about the profit, they want to create a good machine or software or whatever, that's how they think - How to engineer something to have certain qualities, maybe high endurance or performance or low production cost,... or a combination of such factors. Then, when the company is running well and growing, the marketing department and the bean-counters become more influential, they start to run the company and that's when product quality suffers. They know how to sell you s**t you probably don't need or don't even want, they don't think about how to make a great product, other considerations take over. We need to lower costs, production costs, employee costs, maybe we can outsource work to places with lower wages, we need the product out in time before Christmas, whatever. The company goes down eventually after enjoying high profit margins for some years or even decades.
Let me assure you, those big publishers and their big developer studios are not going to turn the ship around in any meaningful way. They will ride it out until it all breaks down
Yes, definitely agree. Which is why a lot of people were pushing for government regulation of loot boxes. If gamers can't be trusted to not buy them, then we need laws to protect the consumer from themselves. The downside of this is that it can easily be a slippery slope that ends with the government heavily regulating what content can be put into games. No more violence, nudity, etc.
It's sad what happens to corporations over time, but as always, our only option is to vote with our wallets and hope somebody funds more devs like From Software and CD Projekt Red.
@@SyntheticMan You don't have to restrict yourself to "voting with your wallet" as the common phrase goes, in other words, to basically do nothing else than what everybody does every day anyway. You can also make a video about it and bring things to the attention of people like you are doing here. Moders, small developers, video creators, jailbreak-ors,... they are all doing their part to keep the commercialised life dystopia at bay. Once you put a price tag on every social and cultural interaction, those who rule the money rule every aspect of social-life as well.
@@leto1178 and we know who rules the money
Please talk about Silent Hill 2 'Or the first
I plan to cover Silent Hill 2 next month, I'll try to give it the respect that it deserves.
What I don't get is, why buy those games? Do people have no will power?
It's two main groups. Casuals who don't really care about gaming, and don't know any better, content with playing COD, Madden, FIFA, Fortnite, Apex, etc. and not ever exploring outside of their comfort zone.
Then there's the fanboys. Redditors who kiss the ground that their chosen publisher walks on and eats up anything they put out. They are so desperate to cling to something that brings them any happiness that they will attack anyone who criticizes their beloved franchises and spend all of their money on DLC, MTX, Lootboxes. Sony fanboys annoy me the most right now because I used to be one in the PS3 era, but their quality has dropped overall in the last 7 years so I bailed to PC. But, of course, the fanboys deny this and buy every mediocre exclusive.
@@SyntheticMan I don't know, I'm happy with this generation's Sony exclusives (in the sense that there were enough interesting for me, I certainly don't support garbage like TLOU or Sony's policy on erotic games).
I honestly never played a game with microtransactions not by choice but simply because it happened I was never interested in any of those kind of games. I think cosmetics are fine because they add nothing substantial to the game but then there's also the problem of preying on the weak, which I'm not too keen on. I don't have the solution.
@@golDroger88 I still enjoyed most of the exclusives but only 2 were must-play games in my eyes (still haven't played Persona 5 though). I just hate anti-criticism people, they encourage mediocrity.
As for cosmetic stuff, I think the system works in free-to-play games but if I'm paying $60 I better get my money's worth. Games-as-a-service has creeped into full price games but luckily gamers have fought off the worst of it. Which reminds me, I never talked about Anthem in this video, which was another pretty big blow against EA. So, if consumers learn to draw the line at GaaS, maybe there's a chance for the future of AAA games
Kirby air ride intro, I see your a man of culter
'If they fuck up with Cyberpunk 2077'
OH NO NO NO
Ever since games have gone for having online to acces your games and abandoned expansion packs in favor of DLC I always felt developers were treating me like a sucker.
Which is why I only buy games that have stopped their DLC output or have no DLC planned for it.
Stumbled into your channel recently and am loving a lot of your videos.
The Gilbert godfrey reaction to fallout 3's writing made me literally lol. Hahahhaa top notch.
Man, kirby airride. Kids will never know what good games are, i just realized that.
Save the roms and isos and show them. My brother is left speechless or excited any time I show him a good game older than 10 years.
Bro legit predicted Cyberpunk 2077s release on the money
Dude, your rants are pretty awesome. I know you're talking about taking a break but you should purposefully play some shit games to dump on them. Loved your Cyberpunk rant. It was so right. Let's get you over 10k.
Technically oblivion horse armor is not cosmetic only.
It increases the horses health.
Had to point it out because I'm a big patricianTV fan.
That comment about CDPR at 26:58 was quite prophetic.
My DLCs : The Old Hunter , The Ringed City , The Painted world of Ariandel , Thanks From Software !
I'm okay with big dlcs. Like those for fallout. If it expands the already finished game with new story content - that's good. Or if it's a completely new story/view on original story.
Synthetic Man's vids are great background noise. Whenever I play AC (The good ones). I agree with most of your points in your videos. I know you weren't in this for fame, I know started a RUclips channel to recommend older games. But goddamn you need more subs. Thank you for making this channel and giving me a new appreciation of older games!
Man I miss playing Infamous 2! Good to hear you talking about that forgotten masterpiece!
Heyo Synth Man, really enjoyed this vid. What I believe was the last straw for on disk dlc with CAPCOM was when someone hacked into that garbage tier Streetfighter X Tekken disc and found all the dlc locked in a paywall. Keep it up my dude!!!
Custom robo battle revolution(gamecube). My top 5 game and its just an arena battler where u use customizable robots with templates and gear to settle problems and catch criminals as a bounty hunter and after that you get a fun post game of turnament mode with a hidden final boss for 100%ing that mode and a crapton of "illegal parts" and upgraded parts. Douzens of cool as maps and many cool tracks to listen to did I mention it has a multiplayer mode so up to 4 people can blast eachother to hell on all the maps you unlocked using all the crazy gear you have by the end of said campaign and tourneymode.
Best part no dlc and features to enjoy for over a decade a last.edit thank just thank you for mentioning it
I have never thought DLC was really needed or good. Games were much better before DLC was around.
In my opinion DLC in itself is not bad I mean some actually improves and expands on the game in some way but too much companies are taking advantage of it
1. Kirby Air Ride was the bomb.
2. Functional unlockables were a problem even before they were DLC, because they disrupt balance. They require time and expertise to unlock, which means the player with the most expertise has an additional in-game advantage. Multiplayer games should be about sportsmanship, not progression. The gameplay itself is supposed to be the reward, because if it's not, what's the point of unlocking a gun you can only use in a game you're not actually enjoying? Progression and balance are inherently at odds. Part of the reason COD gets regular releases is that the games are basically designed to become unapproachable to newcomers after a year or two. Every new release is basically a reset, putting veterans on more even footing with newbies. That's bad design, unless your goal is to sell the same game every year.
3. Despite this, game devs include progression/rpg mechanics in multiplayer shooters because they're easy to monetize, but also because they keep players engaged longer than the gameplay alone would. This is a subtler method of exploiting people's addictive tendencies. In a multiplayer game, the players themselves are part of the content, so getting people hooked keeps the game alive and eventually hooks more players. Even the non-whales help to hook whales just by being there, and even games without DLC benefit. Keeping a franchise popular makes the sequel easy to sell (what's the difference between a copy-paste, annual-release sequel and an expansion anyway?), keeping a game alive extends the sales tail, it looks good to investors, makes it easier to onboard new talent, increases interest in the studio's other offerings, etc. Point is, hooking people is never bad for business, just bad for customers.
4. Cosmetic DLC and unlockables are part of this relentless drive for obsessive engagement, and so are still not great for players. I'm old enough to remember that we used to dream about having games we could enjoy indefinitely, without it becoming stale. But there's a difference between "could" and "need to". Timed content, community events, unlockable items, they're designed to monetize a player's very presence. To be clear, I'm not talking about all unlockables under all circumstances, I'm specifically referring to the endless stream of new content that means players can never really be done with a game until the devs say so.
5. The focus on engagement to the exclusion of everything else also affects game design. You maximize the number of potential whales by maximizing the number of people walking in the door. Bright colors, GPU-melting graphics, a hodge-podge of trends and buzzwords from gaming and pop culture thrown together in a blender without a single thought towards whether those elements make sense being in the same game. You keep people around through Skinnerian mechanics that heighten anticipation without ever providing a satisfying payoff. Because satisfied customers go do something else after a while. You keep the game on your own servers, so you can kill it when you're done monetizing it. After all, if players can play your old game, they won't have to buy your new one.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that even "ethical" monetization and progression mechanics should be viewed with a large dose of skepticism, because they tend to be accompanied by other, less ethical mechanics. And the only reason we view them as ethical is that we just got through a decade of even worse exploitation. And even when it's not meant to be exploitative, it's either directly bad for the player, or entices the kind of player that no one else likes playing with.
The only thing that I'm hyped for is Elden Ring. From Software have proven themselves many times before and unless something goes horribly wrong with R.R. Martin's writing, Elden Ring looks like to be the game of the decade when it releases. (I mean, they did it twice already with both Dark Souls and Bloodborne in a single decade)
As for the casuals, joke's on them. They are slow to adapt and take notice of what is happening and when they do realize it will be too late and we'll be in the corner of the room laughing at them. I'm gonna stick with indies and AA games over the bland and uninteresting AAA garbage that companies throw at the zombies to consume.
I definitely want to see some gameplay and a release date for Elden Ring before I get hyped, but I have no doubt that it will be a great game at the very least.
@@SyntheticMan You're right, I'm getting ahead of myself, but that just shows the amount of trust and respect I have for FromSoft and their creations. I too want to see gameplay before making my final verdict on whether I'll buy it day 1 or wait a bit for reviews though.
@@abovethelaw4417 shit take
@@abovethelaw4417 Bloodborne is completely different in terms of flow and mechanics. Dark Souls 1-3 also all have different mechanics. What did you expect? They are sequels, dumbass. A sequel is supposed to be like that.
No Man's Sky was saved through patches
Yes it was. Have No Man's Sky Myself
Very Intelligent Young Man respect Due .
Watching this after cyberpunk 2077 comes out, I am so disappointed XD
His flaying of Cyberclunk 2077 was the first review I heard or read which echoed my feelings. Act Man ended up also calling Cyberpunk trash.
I like how hopeful you were for Cyberpunk. It's sad, really.
Gotta feel bad for the guy after Cybertrash disaster
That suicide game comment aged like a fine wine
The "purely cosmetic" packs WAS the slippery scope, it led to microtransactions, then season passes, which led to battle passes. ALL of it was gamers fault. WE let them sell us pixels that did nothing for the game!!!! WE CAUSED THIS BY LETTIGN THEM SELL US HORSE ARMOR FOR 2 DOLLARS!!!!!! WE CONTINUED TO LET THEM PROBE US WITH CUT CONTENT AND CHARACTER SKINS IN FIRST PERSON GAMES!!!
My friend and I started ripping into No Man’s Sky the very next day after it was announced. We knew
Daily reminder that if you support these business practices with your wallet you are part of the problem.
I don't like DLCs but I can tolerate them as long as they cover cosmetics or extra fan-oriented stuff not strictly necessary to the gameplay or story. What pisses me off is when MECHANICS or parts of the PLOT are locked behind DLCs.
do you stream? also I would love to see an asura's wrath video. keep up the good work man!
I have considered streaming but I don't think my internet is up to the task lol. But I will look into it in the near future.
Back in the day, dlc or “Expansions” started with MMO. But worthwhile content on par with a new game.
Then games like NV, paying for an extra story in the game, which eventually come at bundle.
That’s when it was done right
But then you had games like Origins, which EA rushed development and a lot of cut content was sold as expansions later…
Kirby air ride is criminally underrated. Great times with that one.
A little late but something positive that comes to mind is Resident evil 2. Obviously with the remake you can buy a lot of shit with real money. But it was a game that when you beat it, you were rewarded with literally more playthroughs with some different shit, alternate paths for the characters, and new lore. All the while unlocking shit based on performance. Finish the game fast enough? Infinite ammo launcher. Wanna Speedrun the b playthroughs like a dedicated monster? More infinite guns. Alt costumes, cool Easter eggs for the explorer. Shit was just great
Sadly this did not age well as fortnite has taken away free vbucks from the battlepass so you will never get another one without paying. But its fortnite so if your still playing that souless cashgrab then I think we got bigger proplems
I thought they're still is free v bucks?
Undead nightmare is still phenomenal to this day. GTA 4 DLC was great too, The Lost and the damned, The ballad of gay Tony, I still have them for Xbox 360 and I know Rockstar will never do single player DLC ever again
I’ve got no problem with DLC that expands on the base game. adding extra content new weapons armor etc however I too remember a time when DLCs weren’t a thing. Everything that was in the game was included when you purchased the game. When people beat a game they enjoyed they messed around with cheat codes. however I do believe the issue of DLC can be addressed if and this is a big if people who buy DLC only buy DLC that actually had effort put into it. In such a scenario Developers would see that on disc DLC and Loot boxes etc aren’t selling and would either quit selling DLC unlikely or only produce DLC that adds substantial content to the base game. However that’s the only quote good thing that DLC can do. is pay to get an expanded experience like Fallout New Vegas DLC. or do what GTA Online did make the DLC free in the form of updates that happen twice a year but the catch is micro transactions will be in the game. Those are the only quote good ways you could implement DLC. in my opinion however I would prefer DLC not exist because once people started accepting paid expansions we got lazy you can’t even call it DLC things like better odds at loot boxes that are single use only unless of course you give your sugar daddy developer another 99 cents. This practice was so despicable that while I also despise the EU they did one good thing and banned the sale of Loot boxes. However as I’ve said multiple times the problem is if consumers said we’re not buying on disc DLC better endings in the form of DLC and Loot boxes then such DLC wouldn’t exist. Because it goes back to a basic principle what’s the point of having plenty of supply if theirs no demand.
Holy crap, I haven't played Custom Robo in years. That was WAS awesome!!!
28:48 future me checking in
Something that is sad is that both Sony and Microsoft are discontinuing their 7th gen consoles Online store step by step.
Which means that content belonging to the 7th gen game will be lost.
So sooner or later you can never ever get the ending to Azure wrath to your 360 or ps3.
Rip
Remember when you had to pay to play online like Xbox live and ps plus or whatever it was called I can’t believe companies made that normalized.
Love the videos man... truly solid takes
How you predicted cyberpunk, too good. Good they fixed it, but it could have been a big flop. And yeah I bought in fall guys too 1 time. And now? Wastes it on skins.
28:33 Well... this didn't age well.
Umm EXCUUUUUUSE ME... I believe we called it DLC "Disc Locked Content" 😂
DownLoadable Content
Rather be a SP 'filthy' casuel then a MP 'tryhard'
27:00 here from 2021 to say Cyber punk was the best disappointment I've experienced in the pass 10 years of gaming
At 27 minutes when he starts talking about cyberpunk...
« if they fuck up even slightly with cyberpunk its gonna piss a lot of people »
Cyberpunk 2077 ended up being shit, and now the company that made it is kissing up to Blackrock.
Oh no the cyberpunk part so sad to see you hyped up about it and I’ve already watched your other video 😂
Wouldn’t the First DLC be when you could lock on Tech Sega Genesis to play as Knuckles in Sonic 1?
I don't think you could ever play knuckles in sonic 1
And that's not dlc if you're talking about the sonic & Knuckles lock on cartridge
Sure did call everything with cyberpunk
I think the souls series DLCs are the exception, in my opinion.
That's dumb. They should just work on the next game or finish the current one. 15 bucks for a new area is retarded.
It was a decent comparison....the idea is good but in the hands of greedy corporate billionaires terrible. Like guns guns as a tool fine but it is also dangerous in the wrong hands.
About DLC that was pretty much a standalone game and well regarded, I remember Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai. I know you've said strategy games are not your thing but to me that was pretty schway, Fall of the Samurai expansion I remember was half the price of Shogun 2 and it had way more content and could even be played without Shogun 2.
No ones going to say it?
Alright well, good use of the Lumbridge theme
Oddly No Man's Sky has wholly redeemed itself. Cyberpunk 2077's redemption has been yet to be seen.
Gods, I miss flash games.
Company's always pull well its free to play out of they're asses.its not however free to have fun.
5:00 Soundtrack?
Kirby Air Ride is incredible!
You basically have to buy 2 packs regardless too like "this skin is 1100 points!" But the packs are 10$ 1000 points $20 for 2100 points
I feel like we grew up together sometimes when you talk
I’ve only ever bought DLC for three games:
Crusader Kings II, Skyrim and COD WAW:
It takes a very special game to earn more of my money.
Cyberpunk is utter shit,I still hold out hope they'll eventually fix it but the current Cyberpunk is utter shit
Kirby air ride and custom robo are so good
Kirby's air ride is good times lol, they should just add it to smash bros as a alternate mode
Good video bro !!!
Yoooo KIRBY AIR RIDE AND MUSIC!!!!
Good stuff, really putting a lot of effort in this comments man
Imagine all the poor little kids in Africa that will never have the opportunity to buy any dlc.
2:33 Is that fucking Territory War? I played that with my brother and had a great time. Nice throwback!
Greed ruins everything