I’ve criticized TB a fair bit in the last month or so, but he’s still got his head on straight for consumer rights.
I hate to say it, but don’t buy Shadow of War. The entire game is a mass of what is absolutely awful in the industry right now and even paying for the base game is a tacit approval of the tactics they’re using.
So far they have:
- Have bloated pre-orders. The base game costs $60. The Silver edition costs $100. The Gold edition costs $130 dollars. The Mithril edition, which is the collector’s edition, costs $300.
- Released several Day 1 story based DLC, locking away entire subquests and orc tribes from players who do not pay.
- The game has in game microtransactions, where you buy loot chests that randomly give you orcs, weapons and runes. You pay full price for the game and you can bet they balanced drops to be extra grindy to coax you into buying microtransactions.
- War chests are randomized. You’re paying to avoid bloated grinding for a CHANCE for what you need.
- Microtransactions also include high level, specialized orcs that can be used in multiplayer, allowing you to fill your forts with massively overpowered characters immediately. While not play to win, it is extremely close.
- They partnered with Totinos Pizza Rolls much like the fabled Mountain Dewritogate for Halo. Buy food, get in game rewards. Bullshit.
- They released a DLC for a dead developer promising to send proceeds to his family, only to have in fine print that non-USA (and even some states in the USA) are exempt and if you purchase the DLC, all money goes to WB Games and not the family.
I repeat. Do not buy this game at launch. Do not. Do not reward publishers for their greed because this kind of shit will become normalized if we pay for it. Even if you don’t use the microtransactions, all you’re doing is telling WB Games that you don’t MIND them there.
If you must have this game, wait for it to go on sale. Wait for the GotY Edition. Wait for the GotY Edition to go on sale.
If you have pre-ordered ANYTHING for this game, revoke your pre-order. Don’t give them your money for effectively screwing you over. Make a statement that this stuff should not be in gaming.
1. Warner Bros has since clarified that they will not be making any profit from the charity DLC.
2. Profiting by giving to charity does not negate the good they are doing. Most of the people reblogging this probably gave $0 to charity.
3. If you want to play this orc game or whatever it is, buy it. We are not being oppressed. We are gammers.
1. Provide evidence otherwise please. Because the text at the end of the trailer in tiny font says otherwise. It says that if you’re not in applicable regions, the money does not go to the family. Where does the money go then? Because in the video itself, TB provides tweets from WB Games consolidating that fact.
2. The point is that WB is profiting off his death. Only in the applicable US states does the money go to charity. Literally everywhere else in the world, the money goes to WB.
3. Fuck off. This isn’t about oppression. It is about bad industry practices.
1. Article on Eurogamer yesterday: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-09-04-warner-bros-insists-it-wont-profit-from-the-shadow-of-war-forthog-orc-slayer-dlc
“Neither Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment nor Monolith Productions will profit from any sales of the Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC regardless of the territory in which that DLC is sold,” Warner Bros. said.
3. We are gammers. Our industry crashed and we kept on gamming. We who gam will never die!
1. Okay, but where is the money going? They blatantly admitted the money they get from non-US countries won’t be going to the family.
[source]
Not only that, but they keep spamming the same tweet over and over. They haven’t disclosed where is that money going.
[source]
3. The fact that this is coming from a company that publishes games is the closest relation it has to gaming, but this has to do about ethically questionable practices and failure of disclosure from a big company.
Giving money to charity is ethically questionable??? U wot m8? Most publishers gave $0. Gammers are only roasting these guys because they enjoy being outraged. its sick.
No, giving money to charity is not the problem. Claiming you’re giving money to charity but having a very small line that establishes that only 44 states of the US will be able to donate, while the product in question is gonna be sold worldwide is.
Why? Because even journalists even failed to see that, and because that means people who want to buy the dlc internationally just so the money will be donated to the family won’t be able to do so. (as stated in the “purchase through steam internationally won’t count towards donations to the Forgey family” tweet i cited before).
This is scummy, as there’s been examples where no matter if the game or dlc was sold internationally, all the money would go to charity. [1] [2]
With that said, I also like to make an addition: If you want to donate to the Forgey Family yourself (or at least make sure that donation money goes towards them), please make sure to donate in here:
https://www.youcaring.com/michael-forgey-479259
Or you can donate by buying some of the music his band composed: