Stadia VS Terraria

 You feel an evil presence watching you...

Yes, look, I know I bring up Stadia too much. I know this has stretched beyond the point of a joke and dipped into sheer obsession. I know you're finger is currently hovering over the button to call the FBI to report my stalker-like devotion to this topic. I know all this- but gosh darn it you just can't stop me when a story goes this batty. I have to talk about it, else I'll just bottle it up inside and go back to the bad old place I used to be in. I don't wanna go there! You understand; this isn't about Stadia or you or me, it's about- well, actually back up: it is about me. This is me. Selfish content. Sue me. Actually don't sue me, sue Stadia, might as well scoop up some of those millions before they run out of it all and get shuttered within the impending few months. (They may have limped into 2021 against my wildest estimations, but I'll eat my hat if they make it to Christmas)

So what's the news today? Well it starts with another 'Have you heard of', only this time it's a much more palatable ask because we're talking about Terraria! Do you remember Terraria? It's the 2D crafting game that an absolute layman who dedicates next to no effort actually playing the game might mistake as being a 2D Minecraft. (So as you can imagine: that's IGN's review) No, Terraria's similarities with Minecraft start and end with the ability to deform the earth and create a house, exactly the same as a hundred different crafting survival games out there. Terraria is much more about the many enemies and bosses that you have to uncover and slay in order to make your world a little safer and keep it from the encroaching corruption. It's actually quite a bit more combat focused than Minecraft, with entire systems built in that take into account tiered weapons and armours, unique items and creative boss-killing traps. In that sense, you might say that Terraria has more in common with your typical Metroidvania than Minecraft, but even that's selling is short. All in all, Terraria is unique, thus a boon for any system to have on their storefront. (Or at least it would be had the team put any effort whatsoever into the modern console UI. Right now the console port pretty much unplayable. Get the PC version.)

Thus I'm hardly surprised that it was on the docket for Stadia conversion at some point within the near future. I mean, that just fits, no? I assume it was part of the write up for "Games we need to get as soon as possible in order to be taken seriously" Alongside Minecraft, Call of Duty and the latest Rockstar release. They- they don't have Call of Duty? Wait seriously? I mean at least they have- WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY DON'T HAVE MINECRAFT! Good god, who is in charge of the Stadia project and how did they secure that a position after such a recent lobotomy? Irregardless, there's a certain type of game that most consider standard on any platform that they game from, and providing that is pretty much the bare minimum that any system needs to achieve. (Thank you for joining the standard as closely as feasibly possible this generation, Nintendo. We missed you for a bit there.)

But, what if I told you that was no longer the case. As in, Terraria suddenly has been pulled from the Stadia lineup just a few hairs before it's debut? Well, you might be wondering "What in the heck could have gone wrong?" I mean it can't be a hardware issue, that's unimaginable considering Stadia have been flaunting their 'magically invisible hardware' forever now. And no, this actually comes back to a much more human issue of bad customer service. Although, I will admit that given some of the comments/accusations that have been made regarding this case, I have a feeling there's another, more business oriented, side to this story that's not come out yet. Until then, however, I'm choosing to believe that this is all about the customer service.

You see, the co creator of Terraria, a Mr Spinks, seems to have had a rather rough go of things recently. He found himself being unceremoniously locked out of his google account recently, and the lackadaisical ethics of the Google support team had hin trapped in a dance that Mr Spinks so generously called "The runaround." Now, you'll likely be somewhat aware of how much of an issue being locked out of a Google account actually is. Google likes to fashion themselves as the front page of the Internet, (sorry Reddit) and their functionality crosses over to pretty much every single daily service one could go through. Want to post videos on Youtube to advertise your game? Google Account required. Want to communicate with your business email of 10 years? Google Account required. Want to manage a deal with Stadia to port your success-story indie game to their platform? It would seem, according to Mr Spinks, Google Account required.

We don't know the details about what went down, just that Spinks is adamant he broke absolutely no TOS rules. (Which, I suppose, we'll just have to believe unless anyone can prove otherwise.) The fallout has cost him the majority of his Google drive, too, so there might be some actual tangible work lost in whatever mix up caused this. And the consequence? Well, in a move that I'm sure some are eager to categorize as 'petty', he's actually gone ahead and cancelled the Stadia version of Terraria. Just like that, another essential game which Stadia has been missing out on, gone in a puff of smoke. I'd almost feel bad for the Stadia team- actually, you know what I do. That may be a little odd coming from me, but they had literally nothing to do with any of this Google account nonsense, so to punish them in order to punish their parent company sort of feels like missing the forest for the trees. Does Mr Spinks really think Google proper is going to bat an eye about losing this game for their service which is already on the way out? I'd imagine they don't even know what a 'Terraria' is.

Which is why I think there's another angle to this story which is yet to come out. The exact phrase which the aggrieved mister used was that it was a "Liability" to work with Google, now I don't know about you but that sounds like it carries a lot more baggage than being knocked about by a little bit of bad service. Additionally, I'd imagine there'd have to be an actual business-related issue for turning down free Google money like that. I mean, those guys are willing to throw around money like it's nothing, so if you're too proud to take advantage of that I can only assume it's because it'll cost you elsewhere. Then again, perhaps Mr Spinks just really holds umbrage with Google's monopolistic practises and was pressured into making a stand by this whole affair, it's hard to say from an outsider's viewpoint.

What this does betray, however, is something of a negative relationship between developers and Stadia, whether that be the rule or the exception over here. We've seen how the Epic Store has managed to secure itself as a viable storefront in recent years, despite being unequivocally worse put together than it's competitors, all through offering the developers a better deal. Heck, Kingdom Hearts just came out as an Epic Exclusive! (Then again, Square does appear to have some sort of personal gripe with Steam for some reason, so that might be more down to that.) As much as it pains you to hear it again, it pains me to say it again, but once more this is evidence of Stadia failing yet another milestone towards becoming the go-to platforms for games; Developer trust. And public coverage of this little disaster is only going to worsen that perception of trust going forward. Man, it really do suck to work for Google, huh. Aside from the paychecks. I'd imagine the paychecks make up for the widespread hatred just that little bit.

Controlling the Narrative

I did it! I did a pun. And you thought I didn't have it in me anymore...

Have you ever been screwed over? I'm being facetious, of course you have been. Everybody has, at some point, tasted what it feels like to have one straight trick fly under the radar and catch you unawares. It's hardly a pleasant feeling, but once it happens to you enough one reaches the point where they can begin sensing the very next grift from a mile away, either that or they become so jaded and mistrusting that they push away everyone and become something of a modern day hermit. Maybe both, I can see both. And when it comes to the entertainment industry, specifically in gaming, customers have become very well acquainted with what it feels like to have a PR team mug you in broad daylight whilst telling you that they're in the middle of cutting the finest deal imaginable with you. We've seen it all, which is why it's so baffling that the critical darling of last year, 'Control', seems to be in the middle of a blatant money grubbing scheme whilst everyone involved is acting like we're the crazy ones.

Control, if you don't remember, is a title that basically adapted the premise of the SCP Containment Breech game and turned it into a narrative adventure title. Helmed by Remedy, the team behind many a  'love it or hate it' style game like Quantum Break and the Alan Wake games, (Does 3 count as 'many'?) Control completely swept up with the critics and even was in the running for Ultimate Game of the Year. (Which, as I recall, ended up going to Sekiro.) However, these guys are cursed to make the sorts of games that never really translate over to crazy commercial success, so whilst I don't believe Control was a flop by any means, it wasn't a resounding hit either. That's a fact that fans lament as many have argued that it's easily Remedy's best title yet. Which of course paints the picture as to why the publisher would be in the market for shoring up profits with a little recycle job, now wouldn't it?

But enough beating around the bush, what exactly is the problem with Control and 505 that everyone is going on about? Well it has to do with the next gen. With the jump to a new generation of consoles there's a big conversation to be had about backwards compatibility as well as up-scaling from one generation to the next. The games which can nail this post haste are going to be essential for those first few months of the next gen's launch as a good chunk of exciting next gen titles aren't due out for a long while. This spurred Xbox's free upgrade program which allows for many next gen versions of current gen games to be automatically redeemed by their owners, and for companies like EA to wantonly spit in the face of that ideal and charge a ludicrous amount of money for an upgrade to an inferior package deal. (It's a long stupid story, I don't wanna get into it.) But perhaps the most befuddling is what's happening with Control right now.

Control has pretty much run the majority of it's life cycle right now, with the game having been released and post-launch DLC having filled the months since. There was even a 'deluxe edition' re-release of the title which bundled everything together neatly. Basically, there's not really much more life in this development cycle. Thus it makes the perfect title to port over to the next generation for people to play in it's entirety, and that's exactly what's happening; provided you're willing to buy the game again. Dubbed 'Control Ultimate Edition', the next gen upgrade will not be provided to anyone who purchased a previous version of the game, nor will they be able to buy it as an upgrade for a discounted price. Previous owners are subject to the full price alongside new comers. What's more, the price for Ultimate edition is actually 2/3rds of the full price which the deluxe edition of the game is still being charged for; thus punishing early adopters of the title and rewarding those that came to it later. Needless to say, this ruffled a few feathers.

If you want to really upset a fanbase all you have to do is mess with their money, ask them to pay too much or mess with their perceived value of something and you're practically spitting sparks into a tinder box. Whatsmore, folk don't like the idea of having loyalty and fandom punished by being asked to buy the game again for the benefit of some upscaled visuals and a frame-rate that's probably not that much better than you can already get on the Pro or One X. That's right, this new release offers absolutely no new content beyond the upgrades, which makes the 40$ asking price ridiculous for current owners. The really sad part about all of this, is that it erodes the trust between the consumers and the developers, even though it's highly likely that Remedy weren't involved with any of this nonsense beyond maybe working on the upgrades. (though they could have just as easily been outsourced) No, this is 505's web of confusion that they're spinning, and what makes things even more headscratching is the excuses that they have.

Up on the official Control website there's a little blog on the matter entitled 'Control Ultimate Edition- An explanation' which just sounds like the most ominous title in the world, doesn't it? It sounds like you've been caught cheating and decided to pen an entire power point presentation to pseudo-apologise whilst really trying to subconsciously suggest that your partner is the bad one for being upset in the first place. In this blog they confused the hell out of me, at least, by revealing that whilst Control would be backwards compatible on both new consoles, 'Control Ultimate Edition' would apparently be an entirely separate product and the only purchasable version on those console's stores. Apparently the intention was to provide an 'easy' and 'convenient' way for the entire game and all of it's content to be bought. (Okay, I'll give you 'easy' but I don't really know what's 'convenient' about this from the perspective of current fans)

And then they launch into victimising themselves. Yes, I'm being serious. These guys straight-up try to argue that they are the one's who tried to be the good-guys here and offer upgrades but they just couldn't, no matter how hard they tried! "We spent several months exploring all of our launch options for Control Ultimate Edition and no decision was taken lightly. While it is challenging bringing any game to next gen platforms, we quickly realised it was even more difficult to upgrade our current user base to next gen with full parity across platforms with our year-old game." Yes, apparently that thing which every other high profile AAA game is doing? It's really hard to do with Control because it's one whole year old. (Wow, this new tech must be space-age if resolution updates and optimisation is a noticeable headache.)

As someone who has never tried to code a game on the scale of Control, I'd have to defer to their better knowledge of the subject matter here. Let's assume everything they say is trustworthy, then here's the kicker. "Every avenue we pursued, there was some form of blocker and those blockers meant that at least one group of players ended up being left out of the upgrade for various reasons. As of today, we can’t offer an upgrade to everyone, and leaving any one group out feels unfair." So with the merit of going into as few specifics as humanely possible, the Control team are claiming that there was no one-way to upgrade all 3 versions of the game (for both consoles and for PC) which should have been obvious. For months we've been hearing how distinctly different these new generation consoles are, so it makes sense that working on games for them will be different, but somehow this hasn't stopped other games, like Cyberpunk 2077, from offering free upgrades.

You see, the problem here (and forgive me for accusing this blog of strawmanning a bit) is that the angle taken here seems to arguing that the tech isn't there, but this isn't an argument about tech, it's about policy. When Skyrim Special Edition was released it was using a very updated version of the engine which the original game ran on, making it a new SKU. But that didn't suddenly mean that Bethesda's hands were tied and they automatically had to charge owners of the old game full price to play this new one, the upgrade was free on PC. That wasn't the case for consoles, however, and I think that is what 505 is driving at, claiming that said quirk of the console marketplaces makes it difficult for them to provide an upgrades path for games with a different SKU. Kinda understandable, I guess, if warped beyond feasible comprehension. But then the other shoe drops.

505 screwed up with the launch of Ultimate Edition, they put out pre-orders but owners of the Deluxe edition of Control ended up automatically receiving the new version out of nowhere. What's more, they could launch this new version and it would open up the Deluxe version of the game. The SKU was the same, 505's excuses are starting to grow a little thin, huh? And so it seems that Control Ultimate Edition very much could have been offered to owners of the base title but actively was not in order for a quick buck. And just quick: even if that wasn't a possibility, they still could have pulled a Bethesda and made the update free on PC. This argument that "It's unfair, thus we must punish everybody equally" is so unfathomably dumb that it's hardly worth a retort. So that, if you were wondering, is what it feels like to be screwed over by a publisher. Hope you all enjoyed, as 505 are very unlikely to be the last who try something like this.