 | aka Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide Blog Post |
So with Vermintide 2, a Left 4 Dead-style game, recently released, I wanted to see if the first game, End Times - Vermintide, was available on the PS4. The first place I checked was the PS Store, and it showed up in the search results! I clicked it... and it was $39.99. The game came out on October 4, 2016.
I then decided to see if there's a physical copy of the game, and there is! On Amazon, it currently shows being sold for $19.90-ish. Cool. Then I read a slew of customer reviews for the game, and it no longer became cool. This game apparently has two main issues: the first being that, with it being an online co-op game, there's barely a PS4 community, and the second is the fact that you can only play the game online. The latter is absurd, because you're allowed to make your team members into bots, thus turning it into a single-player experience, but the problem with this is... that you still have to have a PS Plus account to play this way.
Now there are several, obvious reasons why the above two paragraphs annoy me so much. What if this game never had a physical release version, allowing for the ability to buy the game cheaper down the road when the game's community died down? Well, that leaves people stuck with the $39.99 version... for a game with a dead community. And with no way to play the game offline. What if someone was interested in playing Vermintide, couldn't run it on PC, and decided to get the PS4 digital version for that steep price, not aware of said issues? They just paid $39.99 for a game they can't really play. They can't refund it, either, since Sony has a policy of refusing refunds if you already downloaded the game.
I dunno. It just feels disgusting to me. You have a game available on the store which revolves around co-op and requires online functionality, even in a solo-play, are probably aware the game's community is dead... and you're still charging such a huge price for the game.
Having said all that... Vermintide is currently on sale in Steam for $11.25 (from its original $44.99) until April. I bought it. Oh, and you can solo the game just fine without having to go through additional hurdles like the PS4 version. Edit: though, I've read the game apparently runs on the devs' dedicated servers, so how long this lasts for the following years remains to be seen.
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honestgamer - March 15, 2018 (12:36 PM) Yeah, this post registers a complaint about digital game pricing, but I think the more serious complaint is the forced online play. I hate buying a game and finding out after the fact that it has an expiration date I don't determine. I've bought a few games that are online-focused, and I still haven't played them. I need to get my rear in gear, or I won't EVER play them before it's no longer possible to do so because Ubisoft or whoever decides the servers aren't worth maintaining any longer. Talk about expensive coasters! |
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dementedhut - March 16, 2018 (12:39 AM) I've outright passed on several games purely because they had some forced online component rooted into their core. If I am interested in an online-only game, I usually make sure I get the game on launch or near it. The most recent example I can think of is when I bought Friday the 13th, a purely online-only game, at its launch. Wasn't until seven months later that they included a single-player version of multiplayer with bots... and I question if that's playable offline; I haven't tested it without a connection, but if it doesn't function without one, then geez... Edit: oh, yeah, and Dead by Daylight. That's 100% online only, which sucks. As much as I dislike how wildly unbalanced the game is, I do still play it a lot. It's going to suck when that game's community dies down and my copy becomes one of the most useless discs in my library. |
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dementedhut - March 17, 2018 (11:36 PM) I finally got around to testing if Friday the 13th is playable without an internet connection. You CAN play the game with bots if there's no connection. HOWEVER. For some reason, you're only allowed to choose the two Jason characters that don't require leveling up to unlock. So, if you're in a situation where your internet is dead for a period of time/no longer have internet, you're stuck playing a very, very basic version of the game. Can't even have fun using the other Jason types. |
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