Devotion on GOG

 Another strike against the community.

Can I start this blog off with a rant? Do you mind that? Because it's happening eitherway. I just found out what GOG stands for, (GOG being the DRM free platform for games owned by CDPR) and it's so stupid that I had to check with several unrelated sources to make sure that half the Internet wasn't conspiring just to prank me. 'Good Old Games'. Seriously? 'Good Old Games'? That sounds like a struggling pub undergoing a misguided rebrand attempt in order to save the ancient pinball machine at the back which hasn't worked since Thatcher was in office. 'Good Old Games'? It sounds like something a divorcee dad would mumble at the end of a marketing brainstorming session, half delirious from insomnia and half dead drunk. It sounds like something your boss would say in order to prove he's 'part of the team too, guys'; only this time his words are so jarring that it spurs you with the confidence to turn around and let him know what everyone really thinks of him, not in a cruel way as-such, but an honest one. "You don't need to be on the level of the employees, man, we just need you to keep this place together. It ain't no big thing." Are my Metaphors grating yet? Cause I've run out of them. Just... wow, I hate that name.

So now that's out of the way, let me share a secret with you; I don't like horror games. Yeah I know, one of my most commonly discussed topics on this blog is literally Resident Evil, but I categorise that as a Zombie game and not Horror. (The two are definitely distinct in my book) And I do not dislike Horror games the same why I dislike horror movies, mind you. Horror movies, or the vast majority of them, are ill thought-out endeavours that spend little time attempting to generate actual genuine emotions and more time trying to trick you with a cheap scare that gets you to spill popcorn all over yourself. (Largely underwhelming) Horror games, on the otherhand, fall out of my grace for the absolute opposite reason; they're too good at inspiring genuine fear and creepy atmospheres. Or rather, I'm too susceptible to their scary techniques? Either way, though I might not like them, I still very much respect Horror games and can admire a good one when I see it.

Thus let me introduce you to Devotion, a game in that long list of horror titles that I'm far too scared to actually play myself but I can stomach watching it played, strangely. (I think the separation between the action and my control of it is comforting to me.) Devotion was a psychological horror game from all the way back in 2019, made by a Taiwanese studio called Red Candle Games and it was certainly spooky. Evidently exquisitely constructed, Devotion stood far apart from all the garbage-tier horror games that get chucked onto the Steam store every 5 minutes, and gained something of a name for itself consequently. It told the story of man falling into desperation and madness with tragic results, and with that somewhat grounded premise, the team managed to weave a unnerving and, at times, genuinely horrific adventure.

And the effect it had on the game streaming world was actually rather marked. Practically everyone with a webcam and an appetite for the shadows was hoping onto the Devotion train, gaining this little Taiwanese horror some attention. There was even one of those rumours, as you hear in all of the best horror movies, of someone who fainted during their stream of one particularly gross section. (As I watched it looked like the streamer merely got a little light headed, but I think the story sounds cooler, personally.) With all this whirlwind of attention you'd be forgiven for believing that great success would follow, but unfortunately I can't really track down the sales figures for the week and a bit it was up before the title was forcibly removed from Steam. Oh, didn't I mention? The game was removed.

So what happened? Was this another prong in the mystique of the game? It comes out, shocks a few into a coma, and there disappears forever, destined to become and Internet urban myth? No, unfortunately this isn't the gaming equivalent of Unus Annus, what we have here is a case of government pressure from no other than everyone's favourite faux-democracy; China. You see, somewhere in a scribble on one of the documents in the game there featured a little mildly crude description of President Xi Jinping (You know, the guy that looks exactly like Winnie the Pooh) and thus a steady stream of review bombs later and one of the highest quality horror games to ever be released on the Steam front was gone. (Preserving art or keeping a vat of money from getting upset? I know which one I'd pick.)

That was about the extent of Devotion's story, being a game made exclusively for PC. If they couldn't make it onto Steam of all places (with their embarrassing content management) then they couldn't honestly expect their game to be anywhere else. I always assumed that the team would quietly remove the offending article and be let back on, but apparently that wasn't enough for the Chinese bots- I mean, genuine Chinese players who are definitely real and really complained. Thus it wasn't until their next misfortune struck that I even thought of this studio again, which is a tragedy upon itself as these guys should be going places with their talents, not stuck in this stupid back and forth for two years. (I can only hope they're hard at work on their next game, and this is only a roadbump.)

What's the story? Well CDPR, fresh off of the disastrous Cyberpunk launch, tried to quietly walkback a promise they had made to give Devotion a home on 'Good Old Games'. Apparently the decision was made after their storefront was hit by a barrage of fake complai- I mean, real non-robotic complaint forms from breathing, not made-of-code, Chinese GOG customers. (Wow, these guys really know how to hold a grudge about a single piece of graffiti that was in a game two years ago. Almost as though this is a personal vendetta stemming from the offended party himself...) So on the verge of becoming publicly available again the team had that snatched away from them, and it seems like more evidence of CDPR's fall from grace. I mean sure, the site claims that fan feedback drove the decision, but given their track record for truth telling; I don't think anyone believes them.

Let this go to show you just how much tyrannical industry forces like an easily perturbed dictator can affect industry half a world away. If not for the Youtube videos and Streams that blew the game up, this title would have been completely buried for practically no good reason, and that's something everyone should heed as a distinct warning. Money talks, that's true in every industry, but when she sings loud enough to hurt our indie creators that's when something needs to be done, especially when steps have already been made to resolve the perceived 'wrong'. Why can't this game just be blocked for sale in China? Where is the freedom of speech? And why do we still let Chinese interests decide the shape of our Art? As always, I fear about the precedent this sets and am saddened that CPDR have once again let down their fans, it makes me start to wonder if artists will ever have a champion on their side...

Metal- Gear?

Things are happening...

So I think that it's hardly an earth shattering revelation right now for me to say that I'm an overwhelmingly huge fan of the Metal Gear franchise. I'm talking obsession level right here, I love those games more than I like myself. If there was one series of games I would simultaneously give my right arm to work on whilst not ever wanting to touch for fear of sullying the franchise, that conflict of emotion could only ever be attributed to Metal Gear. Thus you know that I was well aware of the budding rumours of an impending remaster hitting the first three games of the franchise, or is it a full remake? (Details are sketchy) But all that was neatly undercut by a huge, actual, development that came right the heck out of nowhere; Metal Gear is now on PC!

Now by 'Metal Gear' I unfortunately only refer to Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, because Snake Eater never gets the love it deserves, but that is some bona fide progress considering the amount of fan made projects attempting to do that very thing which Konami has cut down in the past ten years. (I count at least three.) For some incomprehensible reason none of these games have made their way to Steam or Epic yet, but debuting on GOG is good enough for the time being and it opens the figurative floodgates for all sorts of things that just weren't possible before for fans. For example, now there can be actual work done on HD retexture packs and even model swaps. (The latter of which would certainly be more difficult, but would be welcome considering the low-res models on the first game at least.) We could be looking at a whole renaissance of Metal Gear appreciation starting right now!

But why is this happening? Why now? Konami, as it stands, has no level of cred with the dedicated gaming community and unfortunately for them, not a lot of their brands hold mainstream appeal. Castelvania is typically best when a platformer, Bomberman hasn't been a household name for decades and Metal Gear suffers from the perception of being 'too long'. Each one of these titles that I have mentioned have suffered from either mismanagement or straight up character assassination, so if Konami is trying to drum up excitement they're going to have an uphill struggle. There would have to something big up their sleeves, some sort of upcoming game that could win over even the most curmudgeonly gamers. They'd have to be working up to a full remake of the Metal gear Solid Games. (That's right, we're circling back around to those rumors.)

As the legend goes, someone is hard at work trying to create full remakes, not just remasters, of the MGS franchise in order to capitalize on the same sort of success that Capcom is enjoying. This sort of plan doesn't come out of nowhere either, fans sounded the excitement bell all the way back during the leadup for the abominable Metal Gear Survive when we saw those HD remade MGS 3 cutscenes only to learn they were being made for a Pachinko machine. As a self-proclaimed MGS 3 aficionado who flares his nostrils everytime anyone dares suggest remaking something so close to perfection, even I had to admit that those screens looked good. (A little too much panning in some of the scenes, but I'd rather an over-active camera than a still one.) So Konami knows there's an audience out there willing to pay through the nose for MGS remakes, it makes sense that they'd be capitalising on that.

And this might just come into fruition with another rumour I've been hearing, although to be honest this other one is a lot more of a long shot. Apparently, folk have said that Hideo Kojima, the legend himself, is in talks with Konami in order to get back in their graces to work on Silent Hill(s?) again. Now if that is true, it would be insane giving the absolute 'salted-earth' manner in which their partnership concluded. (Just as a reminder; Konami went so far as to remove Kojima's director credit on the cover of every game it was on.) Plus, other rumours said that their breakup was actually on personal issues over business ones, and I think we all that those wounds tend to cut the deepest. But perhaps cooler heads are prevailing, and Kojima is back on board to help them with the Metal Gear revitalisation project. That would need to be the case, because otherwise I know these games are going to run into some issues.

For one, a full remake would mean that everything would need to be remade from the ground-up, and Konami just aren't talented enough to do that as they are now. Now I say this not as a disparagement against the many artists who do work at Konami, but merely as an observation of the mess they made of Metal Gear Survive. That's a game that was not only conceptually rotten, but which stunk in every aspect. They couldn't even mimic Kojima's eye for shot composition to the point where it was immediately obvious where they stitched his footage with their own. And as for them lacking the writing talent, that's no great insult, most of the world lacks the writing talent to get up to speed with, yet alone significantly add to, Kojima's hair-brained narrative. Even the art of reworking some plot points could collapse the entire premise without the right eyes involved, think about how crazy the source material is! You've got nano-bots, vampires, photosynthesising centenarians; this stuff ain't coming together without a bonafide genius pulling the strings on the otherend.

For two, I don't particularly think that Metal Gear is quite in need of a remake quite as much as the Resident Evil games were. I mean sure, Resident Evil 2 was a masterpiece, but one that was poorly aged in mechanics, gameplay and visuals; Metal Gear Solid 3, for example, is aged in visuals at best. Maybe a few mechanics could do with some work too. But if you remastered the game right it would easily stand up against the stealth games of today as one of the best examples of it's genre, and that's something you can't really improve upon. I wonder if you'd even get anything out of rerecording actors lines, because some lines may be a little stiff, but a lot of it carries the charm of the franchise. We're not talking 1990's Capcom level of crap-tier acting, there's little to improve upon.

At the end of the day, bear in mind that I'm heavily protective of these games so any issue I introduce is going to get naturally inflated, but also remember that I'm the key target audience, so if they can't sell it to me they're pretty much up a creek. Personally I had already long come to terms with the death of my favourite franchise, and I really don't want that corpse poked around any more than it already has been. At this point I don't even know if I'm up for continuation games, even with Kojima at the helm, that's how over this period of games I am. But if the stars align and that old MGS magic manages to break through this rusty exterior of faux-disinterest, I may be willing to at least see what these remakes have to offer. And even if it's a mess, a least we have the originals to fall back on. (Either way; it's a surprisingly good day to be a Metal Gear fan)

Get your refund here!

Refunds for everyone!

The games industry is a very heavily commercially driven venture, I think there is literally no one out there who is surprised to hear this fact. Gaming is so commercial in fact, that is currently the single most profitable entertainment medium in the world. (And no, I will never stop parroting that fact until it's no longer true.) With that in mind, it makes sense that purely commercial matters enter the discussion surrounding this artform more often then one might think that they should. In this instance I'm talking about refunds, which is something that is becoming discussed more and more frequently in the gaming world. Address the latest 'gaming media site' and you'll probably hear something along the lines about how the rise in gaming refund correlates directly with a rise in gamer entitlement; but the truth is that as gaming becomes more complicated it becomes easier for consumers to accidentally slip into a purchase which delivers nothing but buyers remorse.

With that I'm taking all the blame away from the developer and attributing it purely on the decisions of the buyer, however there are instance in the world where the marketing of a game is intentionally misleading in order to trick people into signing up for a game before they know what they're getting into. (Yes, arguably this is still the fault of the consumer, but that doesn't make shady publishers and/or developers innocent in such a scenario.) We saw this with Anthem, Watch_Dogs, Far Cry, Assassin's Creed Unity, Killzone 2, Halo 3 and a whole host of games both modern and classic that choose to wear falsehoods in order to secure early sales. (and a frightening amount of those titles are Ubisoft games.)

To give this situation a more contemporary twist, take a look at 'Warcraft 3 Reforged', a game which you'll be very familiar with if you've spent anytime on this blog. This game marketed itself as a complete remake of the classic strategy title Warcraft 3 and used a deluge of buzz words and a pretty cinematic trailer to drive the point home. They promised completely redone cutscenes, new story elements and a whole host of QOL changes that would bring back to life one of the most celebrated strategy games of all time. All this positivity was maintained practically until the day of launch, with the team only vaguely mentioning their leaning off on the new story elements through an offhand comment in a small interview. (But they didn't bother update that fact on their official website) Then the game launched to a whole slew of issues and missing promised features that I've gone into detail about before so don't need to do so again. The point is, fans needed a refund and they needed it now.

At the time Blizzard were very reticent about obliging these demands, they are a studio with a track record for being awful with refunds and they wanted to defend that to the end. They had to be forced into a corner to offer refunds by overwhelming public backlash, and when you think about it that's just insane, isn't it? If a customer is unhappy with their product after using is for one hour, then why would you not oblige them returning it? Why stubbornly hold onto the £60 they payed you and risk missing out on an entire life-time worth of new game purchases once that customer realises what a greedy arse you are? It makes literally no financial sense which is why I don't understand why so many companies take a hard-line stance for it. Nintendo are renowned for this sort of behaviour, despite their core demographic being children. (Who's preferences are more fickle than children's?) And Sony have the same sort of policies as was highlighted during the whole Anthem debacle wherein the company choose to wait until the game was provably unplayable before throwing refunds to players.

Amidst all this over bearing greed stands one company who, at this point, are probably just pursuing these headlines for the sole purpose of rubbing them in the faces of everyone else in the industry. I only found out about this when I read the headline title about how GOG was asking customers not to abuse their new 30 day refund policy. (Yeah, I was shocked too.) For those who don't know, GOG is actually a PC storefront that is owned and operated by CD Projekt Red, and they often sell games that are free of DRM. (Which is nice as such DRM can be performance killers on lower-end systems.) As GOG doesn't rely on distributing Steam Keys, they can even sell games that aren't supported by Steam like "The Elder Scrolls: Redgaurd". (So that's kind of cool too.)

As stated, this new policy by them will allow folk to buy and play a video game for up to 30 days before turning it in for refunds. Now I'm sure there must be some extra layers to this refund policy that aren't immediately clear (layers which I can't presently find) but still you have to gawk at the boldness of it all. Steam and the Epic store both maintain a 14 day refund policy but that only remains applicable if you've played less than two hours of the game in question; as far as I can tell it seems that GOG's new policy doesn't even have that stipulation. (Which is pretty crazy.) I do wonder at how many people will actually heed CDPR's plea not to abuse the system and how many others were given the idea to by the plea itself.

Immediately there has been some backlash from developers who work with GOG that had no idea of this new system being put into place. Personally, I do understand where they are coming from and feel their concerns are very warranted. There's not a game out there that cannot be completed in under 30 days and honestly I can count the number of games with which I've spent more than thirty days playing on one hand. (There are 4 and they're all Bethesda games.) In an ideal world this will not be an issue, but I fear for what may happen to smaller developers once more unscrupulous elements catch wind of this. To their credit, CDPR have acknowledged the possibility of abusers and mentioned that they are observing for such situations in order to minimise potential harm to developers; but if I was one of the folk in the crosslines I would hardly be relived about the prospect of trusting my financial well-being to a third party.

This is the conundrum when it comes to dealing with situations like the instituting of a refund policy. You're either too strict to the point where folks aren't okay with supporting your actions, or too lax to the point where other folks are eager to exploit you. Somewhere in the middle there's a grey area that no one quite has a handle on yet. Personally, as much as I love CDPR I feel that their new refund policy needs a harder limit if it doesn't have one already. Perhaps a 10 hour playtime limit would suffice, because if you've played any longer than that then you've probably got the value that you payed for out of the game and shouldn't really be looking for a refund. There's a lot more factors that go into policies like this, however, and I fear I'm not qualified to address them all. (Offer me a salary, CDPR, and I may change my mind on that front.) But I leave you with a conundrum and a question; How would you handle such a choice and do you think CDPR's policy is perfectly consumer friendly or too developer unfriendly? (or both?)