Topic: Damn Microsoft.

[Pugnate]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38823

IN AN OPEN conversation for the 1UP's podcast, Tim Sweeney disclosed how Microsoft is barring their efforts to offer free content for owners of Gears of War. Guys from Epic created six maps (two of which have been released to gamers) for this hit-title which earned Microsoft millions of dollars, but now Epic cannot release the remaining four maps. Reason is very simple: money.

Microsoft wants to build a business model around selling additional content for games, but blocking a game developer to offer free content is not the way to go. In fact, that is the way backwards and one of reasons why world predominantly use Windows, and not Mac OS.

As we all know, Epic Games is a company famous for its releases of free content for its games, like numerous map packs for Unreal Tournament series of games. In addition, getting a licence for its Unreal Engine 3 is possible via revenue-share, meaning that small gamedevs can get full access to leading engine for small change.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3149993

[idolminds]

Here is a post on Evil Avatar by Mark Rein that explains a bit without having to listen to the podcast.

Folks,

I think you guys are blowing this up into something bigger than it is. Please listen to the entire podcast before jumping to conclusions.

What we have here is simply a difference of opinion on how to maximize the return on Gears of War - something both Epic and Microsoft want to do. While we create products like Gears because we love games, and we have a passion for making them, at the end of the day this is a business for both companies and how we earn our living.

Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps. So what we’ve agreed to do is to put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later. They did this with the original Halo2 map pack and it was a huge success. Lots of people bought the maps and lots of people downloaded them when they became free. That’s what is going to happen and it seems like a fair compromise for both companies and a win-win for Gears players.

Why does Epic not have control over this even though we created this content on our own time and our own dime? Quite frankly Xbox Live Marketplace isn’t our store. It’s Microsoft’s store. Like any retailer they have the right to figure out what goes on the shelves of their store and what price they sell it at. They spend the money to operate the store and deliver the content. They’ve also spent billions of dollars to create and build Xbox and subsidize it’s the price so you can afford it and we can make games for it. As our publisher, they also invested tens of millions of dollars marketing Gears of War, and have done an awesome job for us, so they have a right to a good return on that investment.

As Tim Sweeney and I said in the podcast, we want the download economy to work – it is something the industry needs, something we hope to use in the future, something that will help bring more variety to end-users and ultimately could help bring prices down for end-users. If we had to put this map pack on a disc and sell it in retail it would be more expensive to end-users and maybe we wouldn't have done it because of all the extra work and cost involved.

In the mean time we are planning to bring out an awesome new Gears of War multi-player gametype called Annex that works will all of the existing multi-player maps and the new pack we're talking about here. The 1UP guys who got to play it a few weeks ago left the office raving about how it could be our best Gears gametype yet and I think a lot of people will enjoy it. Best of all, it is totally FREE and will come in the new Gears update that we expect to see released this week.

[angrykeebler]

wow..i already put down $200 towards one of them Xbox 360 Elites too. haha

[iPPi]

It's the fact that the distribution is through Xbox Live, and it costs Microsoft money to run Xbox Live and have millions of people downloading a map pack from them.

As a result, I think it is fairly justified.  It sucks that it isn't going to be free, but it's not like it is outrageously priced.  I think they're going for a dollars for the entire pack of maps or something liek that.

[Cobra951]

Or you can wait until it becomes free, according to the quote anyway.  I don't have a problem with this.  My fear is that $60 games will start coming out barebones, and all the worthwhile content will be doled out under some micro-payment scheme.  It's not just a matter of XBL being MS's store.  The problem is that it's the only store, once you buy into their platform.  That can be seriously abused.

[Quemaqua]

And given how little content Gears actually has, I say fuck this.  Epic's known for giving out free shit and that's one reason why we love them.  I could give a flying fuck about Microsoft having to pay for it.  They fucking should.  They already force people to pay to play online, and you bet your ass they're charging more than bare cost for it.

[idolminds]

Gotta love Epic for sticking to their guns as much as they could. They probably told MS "Either it eventually becomes free or we just won't make any new shit. Either way, you lose."

[MysterD]

Well, this is not good news for X360 owners -- paying for new maps and all.

I am curious what'll happen if it comes to the PC, since Epic has said eventually it will likely come here.

I fear that what is spilling onto the X360 likely might spill onto the PC in some fashion, w/ the new "Windows Live" thing Microsoft is planning for PC Gamers -- I surely hope fuckin' not.

[idolminds]

They can always wait and download the new stuff for free when its not as new.

PC gamers wont even worry about it. By the time they get around to porting it MS and Epic will be worried about Gears 2, and all the custom maps will simply be included in the retail game.

[MysterD]

Looks like I don't have to worry too much about Epic w/ PC version of their games....YET....

Epic Iffy on Windows Live [April 09, 2007, 11:01 pm ET] - Viewing Comments
Next Generation offers a report based on a new 1UP Yours Podcast where Epic's Tim Sweeney express skepticism about Microsoft's plans for a Windows Live service. Here are a couple of quotes:

    “The key problem with the service right now is that any feature that Microsoft implements and charges for, the developer can’t implement themselves,” Sweeney said. “As a PC developer, we’re used to having complete freedom and defining our feature set—what we can give gamers and what they can do in our game. That’s a big change, quite a huge change, for PC developers to now have features that we simply can’t do.

    “We’ll wholeheartedly jump onto Games for Windows [Live] if it evolved into the sort of system that’s compatible with gamers’ expectations on the PC platform,” Sweeney added.

    […]

    “Taking all of these things that everybody has come to expect for free and now yanking them back and trying to sell them isn’t going to fly with the Windows platform—not with Epic and not with the big publishers."

[Jedi]

As a x360 owner and someone who loved Gears I couldn't give a hoot about this, in fact I thought they were already doing this?!
Since I don't play online (well not yet anyways) extra content would only be a good thing if it were SP content. I could see this pissing me off if I started playing MP and wanted to play on those new maps... but even then they'd be released free after a spell.

[idolminds]

Epic rules, that just needs to be restated.

[Pugnate]

Gears of War almost never came into existence on the Xbox 360 because of MS's bullshit. They were giving Epic a lot of heat, just like they gave Bungie so they'd include the flood and artificially lengthen the game by copying and pasting corridors.

With all this crap I am reading about, I almost think Gears of War 2 is in trouble.

I remember Epic talking about Unreal Warfare for the longest time on the PC. Turns out that was the idea that turned into Gears of War.

Why don't developers just start making games for Linux? heh

edit:

Fixed the first sentence.

[Quemaqua]

Wait, what?  The first thing you said makes no sense.  And the second thing... how could Gears 2 be in trouble?  The first game made titanic amounts of money.  You could slice it open and deep fry its corpse and Epic would still work with Microsoft on a sequel.

[Pugnate]

Yea naive of me to have said that GoW2 will be in trouble.

Gears of War had a lot of development problems because of Microsoft's interference. They were able to push Bungie but not Epic.

[gpw11]

Probably because MS ownes Bungie. 

As for MS's influence on Halo, I don't know how true that is.  We do know that when they bought Bungie they pretty much did so in order to take Halo, make it a SP game, and build a franchise around it.  As such, Bungie had about a year to pump out a game.  I've never heard anything about MS pushing Bungie to put the flood in or artificially extend the length, but seriously, even if they did - without the Flood (which I disliked) there wouldn't really be a story, and without the repeating corridors the first game would probably have been an hour long. 

Sure, they may have rushed Bungie, but looking at Halo 2, maybe Bungie just doesn't know how to make different rooms.

[Quemaqua]

That's kind of the impression that I get.  But yeah, they did try to push Epic around on a lot of stuff.  Had it been up to MS, apparently, there would have been no chainsaw bayonet.  And I think we can all agree that Cliffy knew what the fuck he was doing with that bayonet.

[MysterD]

Sure, they may have rushed Bungie, but looking at Halo 2, maybe Bungie just doesn't know how to make different rooms.

Maybe Bungie just is lazy.

[Jedi]

Maybe Bungie just is lazy.

Yeah I'd go with that idea too.

[idolminds]

Bungie is allowed to be lazy. Read some of the reviews for the original Xbox Halo. 9.5+ scores everywhere and next to no one mentioned the cut and paste levels. That gave Bungie the green light to just keep doing it, since no one really complained (except PC gamers, but that was 2 years after the fact so they still didnt care).

From what I've read Halo 2 suffered the same problems, and I'm expecting more of the same in Halo 3. The only way to get Bungie to stop doing it would be for everyone to collectively complain about it if it appears in H3. Then maybe they will get their act together for the inevitable Halo 4.

[Jedi]

Yeah just because it would appear that Bungie got away with it the first time, doesn't mean their allowed to do it. That's silly 

On a side note about the reviews, I think Halo "suffered" from the too prefect effect where people just raved on and on about how great a game is and gave it a high score, its not until the "blinders of greatness" come off do people actually sit back and say "hey you know what...". I'm not saying Halo didn't deserve the high scores my point is people saw all the greatness and paid little attention to the not so great stuff because they were so hyped up about it. A prime example of this would be B&W it got nothing but OMG reviews but in reality (while it looked good, and executed some great ideas very well) the game play really sucked.

[Quemaqua]

The difference is that people still play Halo for some reason.

[Jedi]

The difference is that people still play Halo for some reason.

Haha! yeah it's not for the SP that's for sure!