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I suppose to be honest, I'd probably have skipped it anyway. Despite being a looter (and I love me looters), the Borderlands games have never really meshed with me. The characters, world, and even the items are all pretty good but actual character progression was too bland to me, and the content inanely repetitive even for the genre (outside of its excellent humor).

I'll wait until spring 2020 in that case.

PS4 for me. I hope this Epic Store exclusive nonsense dies down sooner than later, and that they burn through their Fortnite money once their monopoly on battle royale fades away with things like Apex taking their cut of the pie.

 Overread wrote:
What about all the Assassin's Creed games and anything by Ubisoft? Or anything that is on Origin, Battlenet or only on GOG?

Heck steam itself has a LOT of exclusive titles that are bound into it that can't be installed on other systems. A lot of games that are tied into Steamworks can only run through steam.


So Epic Exclusivity isn't anything new. Plus BL3 was not announced on any other distribution platform and Gearbox haven't taken any pre-order money for it in advance. Ergo this is jsut a game deal and is fresh news. Right now its rage that its going to Epic Store, but that's basically almost mindless rage that's akin to "hate EA" or "hate GW" - ergo a lot of it is just people hating to be part of the crowd.

Plus its only a 6 month exclusivity deal so its not too crippling.



ALSO BL 1,2 and presequel are all getting free updates! Though its likely only going to be the biggest difference for 4K systems the view side by side I'm seeing floating around are showing a general overall improvement in the crispness of detail! It's likely most noticeable on BL1 as its the oldest of the three games.

I use steam. It is the only platform I use for gaming, period.

I stopped giving any gaks about any product this company makes when they misappropriated all their funds for Aliens Colonial Marines to make Borderlands 2.

They are a bad company that does shady gak. Voting with my dollars, they wont get a single cent from me.

 Overread wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Except one issue, ubisoft aswell as battlenet and Origin are specific company games launchers. (EA, actibliz and ubisoft)
The Epic store is a market place like steam.
So yes the timegated exclusivity Deals are in fact something new, except allready often a reality on consoles allready.

What about games like Company of Heroes? Or heck many of the modern Total War games - games which are tied into the steam store directly.
Currently the only difference is that you can buy those games on other online stores - or rather you can buy a code to activate them on Steam - only.

The only difference is that Epic Store doesn't/won't have codes you can buy to activate games and let you buy them on Fanaticals/Humble/Steam/etc....

That's a pretty big difference.
Rather fundamental, really. One, the devs are the ones tying the game functionality to steam, not publisher/epic/EA/Activision/ten cent or whomever. But you can still buy it elsewhere, be it humble, directly from the devs/publisher, other sites or even *gasp* physical copies (if they wasted money on producing physical copies, even if its just a box with a code in it.)

The reason its a big difference is it empowers customers to shop around and make their own decision, not lock them out and keep the money and product entirely at the pleasure of the digital storefront's owners and the publisher. [Which allegedly is what happened with the Outer Worlds, Obsidian found out after the fact, after Take Ten's little 'indie' publishing arm went behind their back to Epic. Personally I think that's Obsidian signing bad publishing contracts again, but whatever [hot tip for anyone starting a company or signing a contract; don't let your partners alter their partners or the venue without you explicitly agreeing to it].

The point is the Epic exclusives basically take the game off the marketplace, Steam 'pseudo-exclusives' don't do that. And nothing in the Steam agreement stops devs who offer a game only through Steam from offering via GoG, whomever or even their own website.

Plus, once the honeymoon is over and Epic has trampled its way into the marketplace, do you really think they're going to keep their 'good terms' for developers? Or are they going to be tossed to curb like consumers? I know which why I think it will go...

Epic might be able to undercut steam and GOG because Steam (Valve) currently only makes its money through steam; GOG meanwhile pays out less, but provides a patching and compatibility service; whilst Epic has the bonus that they are backed up by income through their Unreal Engine.

I agree that the supergood deal they are offering now might well go away; or might only be for time limited exclusive titles (That's quite a major draw in itself considering that games make the bulk of their income in those early months and that trickle sales are only realised after many years). major undercutting often only works for the short term; but if Epic does it enough on enough big titles they can push their way into the market.

You have to do something to push into a dominated market; Sony wanted a slice of the DSLR market so threw insane money at sensor development (Nikon just bought sensors from Sony whilts Canon was left a bit out of date)

So in a spectacular display, Randy Pitchford claims "there will be no Microtransactions," follows it up with "but we'll sell cosmetic stuff" and then closes it out with a Twitter rant angrily calling journalists liars for reporting what he said when "you all know I really meant there won't be loot boxes" to which I reply "that's not what you said you big baby. Say what you mean next time and stop whining."

Not everyone is well trained in how to talk to the public, especially on social media.

And then there's people who the company really should just ban outright from ever appearing on twitter and the like because they are a wildfire waiting to happen.

I used to be a big fan of his during the BL1&2 days but he lost my respect with the Aliens Colonial Marines debacle. I hope for my fellow fans that BL3 ends up being good though.

 Overread wrote:
Not everyone is well trained in how to talk to the public, especially on social media.

And then there's people who the company really should just ban outright from ever appearing on twitter and the like because they are a wildfire waiting to happen.

Yeah, some people can't seem to separate their egos from their work and its sometimes bizarre how executives like him are allowed to continue interacting with social media like this when its just adding fuel to the fire.

The problem is he's at or near the very top of the foodchain and if his online ego is like is personal one then chances are there isn't anyone in the company who can stop him. Investors might, but chances are many of them don't mind social hiccups* so long as the product delivers - ergo you've got to mess up to the point where is actually affects sales in a big way for them to notice.


*they might even be totally unware of them.

 Overread wrote:
The problem is he's at or near the very top of the foodchain and if his online ego is like is personal one then chances are there isn't anyone in the company who can stop him. Investors might, but chances are many of them don't mind social hiccups* so long as the product delivers - ergo you've got to mess up to the point where is actually affects sales in a big way for them to notice.


*they might even be totally unware of them.

True, most shareholders seem to be pretty uninterested in the daily goings-on in the companies they invest in beyond their returns, which is a shame. They and the "whales" in the gaming industry are the reason why EA and Activision exist the way they do now.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The problem is he's at or near the very top of the foodchain and if his online ego is like is personal one then chances are there isn't anyone in the company who can stop him. Investors might, but chances are many of them don't mind social hiccups* so long as the product delivers - ergo you've got to mess up to the point where is actually affects sales in a big way for them to notice.


*they might even be totally unware of them.

True, most shareholders seem to be pretty uninterested in the daily goings-on in the companies they invest in beyond their returns, which is a shame. They and the "whales" in the gaming industry are the reason why EA and Activision exist the way they do now.

Yes and No

Thing is a lot of shareholders understand the financial market, which is different to the customer market of the companies they invest into. Many won't be gamers nor fans, at the top end they aren't investing in their hobbies but into companies that will turn a good return on investment. Plus the only thing they are worried about is their return on investment, they can bolt out. So they might bring in measures that work for the short term and generate a big profit spike, but could cripple the company long term. From their point of view so long as they pull out and invest into the next fast rising company they are fine.

So there's good and bad sides to outside investors having heavy control over a company. It really comes down to the investors themselves, but there's a bigger chance of them not being fans of the product at a customer level.


Also don't forget big investors don't invest into one company, they might invest into dozens. So even if they do have good eye for the company health they are spread thin on a lot of companies. This hinders their ability to give direct input and research deeply into each company.


Heck just look at GW in the Kirby days; it was giving a healthy investment return, but its management choices and product choices were resulting in losing established customers; dropping product lines; short term products etc... They were doing well and were healthy, but nowhere near what they could have been and that was partly because they were clearly thinking about chasing that high investor return each time. Now granted that wasn't all, but it was clear that many products (esp short term things) were designed to land just before investor meetings; along with price rises and the like.

Anyone see the one hour game play demo?

I wasn't expecting:

Alt Fire modes
Destructible Terrain
Power Sliding
Wall climbing and Jumping

The graphics were quite good looking in the demo, I was very surprised by this.

I still don't know if it will be enough to get me to pick it up on the epic store, but I am much more interested now than I was a while back.

 Togusa wrote:
Anyone see the one hour game play demo?

I wasn't expecting:

Alt Fire modes
Destructible Terrain
Power Sliding
Wall climbing and Jumping

The graphics were quite good looking in the demo, I was very surprised by this.

I still don't know if it will be enough to get me to pick it up on the epic store, but I am much more interested now than I was a while back.

Don't forget the totally not microtransaction microtransaction.....

After being approached to voice Claptrap for BL3, David Eddings, having previously voiced for free, wanted payment for it this time, and because getting the voice behind the most iconic character in the entire series back for BL3 would be a top-priority, he was obviously refused: https://twitter.com/davideddings/status/1123970727395373057?s=19

 Avatar 720 wrote:
After being approached to voice Claptrap for BL3, David Eddings, having previously voiced for free, wanted payment for it this time, and because getting the voice behind the most iconic character in the entire series back for BL3 would be a top-priority, he was obviously refused: https://twitter.com/davideddings/status/1123970727395373057?s=19

Putting that extra money from epic to work lining their pockets I see, certainly not worth paying someone who's been there since the beginning. First Troy Baker and now Eddings? Makes me wonder what other areas they're cutting corners on.

 Grimskul wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
After being approached to voice Claptrap for BL3, David Eddings, having previously voiced for free, wanted payment for it this time, and because getting the voice behind the most iconic character in the entire series back for BL3 would be a top-priority, he was obviously refused: https://twitter.com/davideddings/status/1123970727395373057?s=19

Putting that extra money from epic to work lining their pockets I see, certainly not worth paying someone who's been there since the beginning. First Troy Baker and now Eddings? Makes me wonder what other areas they're cutting corners on.

Tripple A industry doesn't just want to make money, they want to make ALL the money.
Ever since they found out that through microtransactions they can make a shitton off it and through lootboxes have in essence babies-first- casion integrated in the game they are kinda forced to go down even harder in the questionable behaviour loop for buissnesses.

Shafting your workers is just the next rational step.

 Overread wrote:
Not everyone is well trained in how to talk to the public, especially on social media.

And then there's people who the company really should just ban outright from ever appearing on twitter and the like because they are a wildfire waiting to happen.

Stop apologising for Randy Pitchford. The man is a liar.

The link you gave actually described him more as delusional than a liar.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
After being approached to voice Claptrap for BL3, David Eddings, having previously voiced for free, wanted payment for it this time, and because getting the voice behind the most iconic character in the entire series back for BL3 would be a top-priority, he was obviously refused: https://twitter.com/davideddings/status/1123970727395373057?s=19

Wow... that's just plain stupid on the dev's part especially given that he voiced multiple games at no additional cost.

So far I have yet to see anything that makes me want to buy this game. That and their somewhat less than stellar dealings as of late

I think it's just gonna be more Borderlands 2, perhaps with some extra polish (which isn't bad necessarily), but I think it'll be kinda stale having played through all of BL2 recently.

Especially with a lot of the dealings going on, I'm not sure if I even want to give them my money (such as epic exclusivity, claptrap's VA not being paid when he asked to be for once)

Randy's at it again!

Isn't he just the swellest fellow?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Randy's at it again!

Being caught out by his own words again, I see, having claimed to have offered Eddings double 'union standard' rates whereas Gearbox only confirmed 'an industry standard' rate--although neither quote an actual amount.

Honestly I'd call bs on "union standard" rates cause I highly doubt Gearbox has a union. Does anyone know? Or am I misunderstanding how the term is being used?

To be fair, calling BS on anything Pitchford is saying at this point is probably sensible.

Mr. Magic is a gift that keeps on giving.

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