On the lead up to Game Informer's Game of the Year awards of 2015, we've invited a number of the video game industry's influential figures to share their favorite games of the year.
Evolve has been in development for almost four years at Turtle Rock Studios, but it's been occupying the minds of studio co-founders Chris Ashton and Phil Robb for much longer. In this Shacknews Select, we take an in-depth look at the making the monster shooter.
"There were some publishers we had a great rapport with, 2K being one of them, and there were others we were deathly afraid they’d bid."
^^ Would love for them to elaborate on that <cough Activision cough>
Evolve's probably going to be the online multiplayer game of the year if nothing else.
Evolve will launch with twelve hunters: eight men, three women, and a robot, though it's referred to as a "he." Of the three female characters, two are medics (Val and Caira) and the other (Maggie) is a trapper. There are currently no female assault or support class characters.
Those who stir the s*** pot should be forced to lick the spoon.
Seriously it's not that big a deal. Battlefield Hardline has NO female options but that doesn't deter it's female fans. Gears of War had a pretty big female fanbase before they added females as well.
Can't we just shut up and play the games?
NO I reserve the right to be offended by everything. The people are delusional in fact they are so far off their rockers there are now demands to put women on the frontlines in REAL life.
Why are there so many men being sent to fight and die to monsters. Robots and women are given more value. They sit on the back lines with sniper rifles and don't face danger until their men and pets are killed.
Actually in the beta, I played the female medic most of the time. While the support cloaked and ran away...!@#$@$#
Kotaku, Destructoid, and Polygon... i think they're going to be gone soon. If any sort of media has to resort to sensationalism, they are already hurting for cash.
Kotak...oh wait
And here I thought the unbelievable few female characters they had was odd enough...but guess that is not good enough.
Why are there so few robots?!?
#ArtificialIntelligenceIsStil lIntelligence
Yea, why is no one complaining about the lack of robots?
#robotequality #allrobotsarebeautiful
Jesus, people who make an issue out of literally nothing need to be re-educated or sentenced to some kind of special mental health treatment facility.
screw the robots they have no souls! A man would be with the humans that were roboticists in the Animatrix they deserve to die if they don't follow our orders!
Destructoid writes:"Evolve was peddling pre-order bonuses before its publisher had even shown off what the game looked like. A year later, we have a better idea what type of experience Evolve will offer when it releases next month. However, concerns regarding its business strategy linger."
"I don't quite understand the knee-jerk negative reaction to DLC. Because I know for me, as a gamer, when I have a game I really love and I play it for a while and I want more, I want more. I'll pay for it. I don't mind."
Does anyone believes this Bs, people who buy your product expect a full game not one where you hand us the rest for a very steep price. If you want to expand the game then make a sequel, dont make people buy a monster for 15$. WTF! And PC monster edition is for a 100$. Go **** yourself. People are better off buying Bloodborne or some other game releasing at the same time.
Vote with your wallets, people!
Stop supporting greedy devs and incomplete games, and start supporting full products and devs who care about their customers and products!
I bet this guy makes 10 cents on every dollar they manage to squeeze out of us through DLC.
Guys I think its about time we all stood back for a second and just think about our beloved hobby and the shit storm we are currently experiencing in the name of online connectivity.
- Butchering games then selling us the rest as DLC
- Pay to win
- Season Passes
- Multiplayer only games with either botched or missing SP elements.
- Releasing broken almost un-playable games for the sake of meeting corp deadlines or the now dreaded yearly release.
- Over-promising and under-delivering especially on the visual department.
- Pre order "bonuses" which were or should have been part of the original game.
- ON disc DLC content which is going to became available for purchase later on (I m looking at you Destiny)
- My personal favorite>>> Locked in game assets which have to be bought to become available.
You want this beautifully rendered super fast car that happens to be in your racing games's car selection? $15 please! (yeah you bought the damn game just to be allowed to buy the rest while playing).
... could go on..but I wont.
The fact that we are part of the problem here makes things even worse.
When we buy into shit like this we are directly telling these leeches that they have our permission to keep doing it and why the the hell not, take it to the next level while their at it.
Personally I will never give into this shit, NEVER. I will never buy=support these "games" and their money-hatting developers/publishers.
I just hope more of you stand up again and help change things for the better, just like we did back in May 21st 2013.
End rant, over and out.
Couldn't agree more. I think its especially important to let them know that its not that we are against additional content, its that the way this is being handled in this case is unacceptable.
Full Price = Full Game, develop additional content after you have released the title.
I remember before the game was first teased they talked about releasing 20 or so monsters for the game. It was during one of their interview when they mentioned Monster Hunter as their main inspiration. Not sure how much that has vision changed.
This.
Their biggest problem is not that they are dirty. Their problem is being not dirty enough. Other devs are doing the same stuff, but since they blatantly lie about their games, they break sales records. Take Destiny as an example. You gotta be 100% committed by your lie. They shouldn't have revealed the price of monsters DLC, since fair business is not an option.
I guess this:
http://www.thejimquisition....
really stung and the Robb couldn't stand the heat.
Its laughable reading this sort of nonsense:
"There are way too many ideas we cannot fit into the box,"
You announced the first DLC before anyone had ever seen the game. A $15 character.
DLC and Downloadable games have become way too expensive this gen. All that means to me is no problem, too expensive then me no buy. I'll wait for the sales or the remastered GOTYs next gen lol.
That borderlands remaster is a great example. I played Borderlands 2, bought 1 DLC episode, traded in game, never played the pre sequel cause I moved next gen and now in March I can get the 2 games with all DLC, level cap adjustments and crisper graphics for the same price as I would have paid for the pre sequel right now.
I think us gamers should be more in control of what money we spend on DLC. Publishers know gamers have this addictive trait that a gambler would have. It's why I have wasted countless euros buying stupid DLC that offered me no enjoyment but I had the money to spend so I spent it.
What would happen if no one bought this DLC? They would reduce the price in a sale months later.
Well you are giving us the "wrong" impression so far
People are only calling what they are seeing, I mean hell even the collectors edition for this game is ALL DLC....come on.
yep, proceed with caution, I believe is the best course of action here. Am I hyped, oh yeah. But lets not fool ourselves into believing there is no possibility this will be a disaster.
Someone really needs to change their definition of "underhanded" then, don't they.
Learn what it actually means then look in a mirror.
Know what? A "petition" - and by that I mean declaration - which says "Then Do Not Do Underhanded Dirty S***" needs to be sent to this guy signed by the gaming community in general.
There's nothing wrong with building a game that can be expanded through DLC.
The idea of new Hunters and monsters in future IS a good one.
The problem is how the Dev has gone about promoting this, and also the price point they have slapped on it.
When Nintendo can pump out Mario Kart DLC that gives phenomenal amounts of content for a low price - other devs just look bad in comparison.
You don't think there's anything wrong with building a game that's unfinished by design and has elements that should be in the finished product be sold at a premium in pieces?
Of course I have an issue with that. And nothing about my comment even hinted I agreed that's OK.
I have no idea about the motivations and intent of Evolve's devs, and 2K's influence on this - but they look bad, and maybe it'll hurt the game in the long run.
Everything about the Evolve DLC has been handled badly. Even if the Devs had genuine intent with what they've done, that have made a huge mess of it.
But I don't think anyone could claim a game like Mario Kart intentionally had stuff removed so it could be sold as DLC. As a customer it's the difference between feeling like we got a full game, then being given the option of getting even more, versus, feeling like we're being screwed over even if that's not the case.
"There's nothing wrong with building a game that can be expanded through DLC."
That's the hint you gave. DLC should never be used as a way to complete a game. DLC should always be optional bonuses that add to an already complete game. Kind of like a "what if this happened" scenario or "wouldn't this person look good as this" not a "we could easily have this playable character in the retail release, because everything about it is 100% complete, but we've decided to lock it behind this paywall instead. If you really love our games, you'll pre-order to get the FULL experience."
Mario Kart is a bad example for you to use. The game could literally have 2 characters and 4 tracks and be a complete game. It's a kart racing game. Sure, the fact that it has so much more is definitely awesome, but people could easily have an enjoyable experience with minimal options in a game like Mario Kart, especially if you factor in online. Plus, Mario Kart doesn't exactly lend itself to being able to have a lot of stuff you could lock behind DLC. Another track, another character among the already huge roster, Nintendo already releases a lot of content in the main game so even if that kind of DLC happened, no one would feel left out for not getting it and no one would feel it's an incomplete game if you can't play as Metal Mario in the retail release.
That's your interpretation of what I said, but whatever. I was coming more from a coding point of view, that it makes sense to put hooks in to the game to allow DLC in future - in case the game is popular.
What you appear to be arguing about is actually nothing to do with whether a game is complete or not... it is the timing and the perception of the DLC.
For example, If the Devs had said 'We have X budget and Y time to make the game so you'll be getting 4 Hunters and 2 Monsters' most people would have accepted this (as they did before the DLC was announced - no one argued the game appeared incomplete).
If the Devs then announced DLC 3 months or whatever after launch, and made it good value, I'm sure people would have been excited to get more content, not angry.
Instead they created content, held it back and then charged a lot to get it.
Mario Kart is not a bad example. If it had 2 characters and 4 tracks it would not feel complete. We have no idea whether the DLC was held back intentionally to make money, but it doesn't matter because the base game a) feels complete and good value, b) the DLC was released an acceptable amount of time after the base game and c) It adds a lot more content for not a lot of money.
Ultimately we're arguing about the same thing :) That Evolve appears to be incomplete and content was intentionally held back to make money either by 2K or by the Dev.
@dragonknight,
"Mario Kart is a bad example for you to use... another character among the already huge roster, Nintendo already releases a lot of content in the main game so even if that kind of DLC happened, no one would feel left out for not getting it and no one would feel it's an incomplete game"
That was exactly his point? Mario Kart offered you a full retail game, and added DLC that felt optional.
When you release DLC that feels like it should've been part of the retail release, that's when the issues arise.
I haven't played Mario Kart since Gamecube, but the new Mario Karts DLC plan should be how all games approach DLC.
