Epic CEO Tim Sweeney condemns loot boxes, says game companies should 'divorce themselves from politics'

Not sure how legitimately his comments reflect his beliefs or business practices, but I'm still going to claim that free copy of Kingdom Come on the Epic Store.
 
The lack of loot boxes and MTs are being used as a marketing gimmick right now to drive sales. That isn't to say that MTs and stuff don't make a ton of money, it just heavily depends on the game and who they're marketing it at. It's clear that a lot of the "core" gaming audience is either anti-MT outright or lacks the amount of "whales" publishers want to make massive MT pushes worthwhile. At least that's how it is if your company isn't named ActivisionBlizzard or Take Two.
The only games that are acceptable to have micro-transactions are free to play games like Fortnite. If the game costs money to purchase then you shouldn't have micro-transactions. I don't think I have to mention that loot boxes shouldn't exist in any game? I feel as more micro-transactions and loot boxes are introduced into games the less sales there will be, to the point where it isn't worth it. We already see this with EA sports games where they are reporting lower sales than previous iterations of their titles. It got so bad for EA that they started to put games on Steam to try and recoup lost sales. I think it was said that EA was shocked that Star Wars Fallen Order actually did sell well, for a single player game without micro-transactions.

I'm not saying developers won't put MTs and loot boxes into their games from now on, because there's a lot of stupid greedy developers, but they'll think twice before doing it.

Sony? Console exclusives != PC game store exclusives.
Guess you didn't hear that Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming to PC.
Console exclusives sell consoles and are a necessary evil to justify their existance and that's been the case since the dawn of video games and consoles in general.
But yet technically illegal, as one can argue against it using Paramount vs US.
I'm good with it too if that's what it takes to breed the best games across any other platform like Nintendo and Sony have delivered on a consistent basis,
So are multi-platform games just terrible then? At some point if developers want to expand their profits then porting games to all platforms makes the most sense. Especially PC where nobody controls it, not even Microsoft. PC is as neutral is it comes. Also if you don't port your games to PC then eventually an emulator will get it running. In Nintendo's case Mario Odyssey was already running on PC a year after they released the game on the Switch.
plus there's the other ancillary benefits consoles offer over PC that I appreciate as well.
Red Ring of Death? Paying a monthly fee to play games online? I can't imagine what you'd appreciate on console?
 
The only games that are acceptable to have micro-transactions are free to play games like Fortnite. If the game costs money to purchase then you shouldn't have micro-transactions. I don't think I have to mention that loot boxes shouldn't exist in any game? I feel as more micro-transactions and loot boxes are introduced into games the less sales there will be, to the point where it isn't worth it. We already see this with EA sports games where they are reporting lower sales than previous iterations of their titles. It got so bad for EA that they started to put games on Steam to try and recoup lost sales. I think it was said that EA was shocked that Star Wars Fallen Order actually did sell well, for a single player game without micro-transactions.

I'm not saying developers won't put MTs and loot boxes into their games from now on, because there's a lot of stupid greedy developers, but they'll think twice before doing it.

I await your childish memes in response to me again.

Guess you didn't hear that Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming to PC.

But yet technically illegal, as one can argue against it using Paramount vs US.

So are multi-platform games just terrible then? At some point if developers want to expand their profits then porting games to all platforms makes the most sense. Especially PC where nobody controls it, not even Microsoft. PC is as neutral is it comes. Also if you don't port your games to PC then eventually an emulator will get it running. In Nintendo's case Mario Odyssey was already running on PC a year after they released the game on the Switch.

Red Ring of Death? Paying a monthly fee to play games online? I can't imagine what you'd appreciate on console?

Lol, I've already dispelled these misnomers for you previously a while back. I'm sorry you're still too poor to buy your games legitimately though.

Guess you think a rumour constitutes fact too; but sorry to say that Horizon isn't coming to PC as of right now at least and I don't see it happening either still.

I await your childish memes as a response again too.
 
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Hollywood is dead and the celebrity is dead because they became political anthems instead of movies. Now games are following suit.

Time to outlaw political correctness not with legislation but common sense rejection. Milennials had their chance and they screwed up rotally. Bring back freedom of thought and expression and watch movies and games be great again.

You are VERY off base on a lot of things.

A. Art has always been political. Art is all about expression and that expression often times ends up being politically or socially based. This has been true throughout history. It is no different in movies or video games. Do you think Charlie Chaplin playing Hitler wasn't political? Shindler's List? Dawn of the Dead, the original, was outright anti-consumerism. Night of the Living Dead became a commentary on the treatment of African Americans. The difference now is simply that it's all company driven so it rings hollow. Avatar vs Dances With Wolves. Both have the exact same message but Avatar feels very lifeless and corporate driven where as Dances still holds up and feels like a real expression of Micheal Blake's feelings and opinions. Having politics in art is not a bad thing, it's only bad when it is corporate driven, which is basically what Sweeney was talking about.

B. Free expression is not carte blanche to be a dick to people. In fact, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the very article that defines free expression, specifically states that there are limitations. Specifically in Article 19-3

The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Article 20 states:

1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.


2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

Oh and, by the way, you cannot both demand free expression while also demanding that art stop expressing opinions you disagree with. Those are mutually exclusive ideas.

Article 19-2 said:
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

Your very demands suppress free expression. You should probably read up on what free expression actually is (same with political correctness, since you are also way off base there as well) instead of mindlessly regurgitating garbage.

Social media is fucking terrible and people take things too far because, well we're human, but don't let bad information and bad actors decide your opinions for you. When you give into mindless hate you do nothing but become that which you rally against.
 
The only games that are acceptable to have micro-transactions are free to play games like Fortnite. If the game costs money to purchase then you shouldn't have micro-transactions. I don't think I have to mention that loot boxes shouldn't exist in any game? I feel as more micro-transactions and loot boxes are introduced into games the less sales there will be, to the point where it isn't worth it. We already see this with EA sports games where they are reporting lower sales than previous iterations of their titles. It got so bad for EA that they started to put games on Steam to try and recoup lost sales. I think it was said that EA was shocked that Star Wars Fallen Order actually did sell well, for a single player game without micro-transactions.

I'm not saying developers won't put MTs and loot boxes into their games from now on, because there's a lot of stupid greedy developers, but they'll think twice before doing it.


Guess you didn't hear that Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming to PC.

But yet technically illegal, as one can argue against it using Paramount vs US.

So are multi-platform games just terrible then? At some point if developers want to expand their profits then porting games to all platforms makes the most sense. Especially PC where nobody controls it, not even Microsoft. PC is as neutral is it comes. Also if you don't port your games to PC then eventually an emulator will get it running. In Nintendo's case Mario Odyssey was already running on PC a year after they released the game on the Switch.

Red Ring of Death? Paying a monthly fee to play games online? I can't imagine what you'd appreciate on console?

I can accept MTs in F2P games, within reason.

EA's sports game might not sell as many copies, but they're still making crap tons of money from the loot boxes and stuff. You should take a peek at their financial reports sometime, it's crazy how much money that garbage brings in.

Horizon is, currently, just a rumor. It seems more likely than the old rumors, but I wouldn't treat it as a fact yet.

Are you seriously using a hardware fault as a console-only negative?
 
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Sony? Console exclusives != PC game store exclusives.
you can go round and round and round on this issue. if you don't like PC exclusives then buy the console (or game pass) version.
The problem really however is that steam demands 30% of all game sales and consumers expect the devs/publishers to pay it so they can "have the game in their steam library"
30% is a ridiculous amount of money when all they are doing is hosting a webpage and file uploads.
 
Sony? Console exclusives != PC game store exclusives.

Console exclusives sell consoles and are a necessary evil to justify their existance and that's been the case since the dawn of video games and consoles in general. I'm good with it too if that's what it takes to breed the best games across any other platform like Nintendo and Sony have delivered on a consistent basis, plus there's the other ancillary benefits consoles offer over PC that I appreciate as well.
Open architecture in PC's is why we have playable games on consoles now. Left to a closed environment IBM/Apple would have had no interest in consumer Graphics Accelerator cards. There were prettymuch necessary to run Quake. Processors improved because of the easy transition between AMD and Intel (once upon a time). The open architectures created fierce competition and allowed hardware to be made, neither IBM/Apple were initially interested in. Closed systems blunt competition. My gaming experience over the past 15 years has not be anywhere near as evolutionary as the 15 years prior. Mainly because the focus has been closed system consoles.
 
you can go round and round and round on this issue. if you don't like PC exclusives then buy the console (or game pass) version.
The problem really however is that steam demands 30% of all game sales and consumers expect the devs/publishers to pay it so they can "have the game in their steam library"
30% is a ridiculous amount of money when all they are doing is hosting a webpage and file uploads.

You said "Sony", so I was only speaking to that and console exclusives, not PC game store exclusives.

I'm in agreement about game stores taking too much of a cut, but Steam doesn't seem any worse than most other store fronts too. Games have to be sold somewhere though and invariably that store is going to take a cut for giving them that sale, in both physical and virtual stores. I bet it's a similar cut on the Xbox and PSN store for multiplatform games as well.
 
Open architecture in PC's is why we have playable games on consoles now. Left to a closed environment IBM/Apple would have had no interest in consumer Graphics Accelerator cards. There were prettymuch necessary to run Quake. Processors improved because of the easy transition between AMD and Intel (once upon a time). The open architectures created fierce competition and allowed hardware to be made, neither IBM/Apple were initially interested in. Closed systems blunt competition. My gaming experience over the past 15 years has not be anywhere near as evolutionary as the 15 years prior. Mainly because the focus has been closed system consoles.

I don't see how any of that is relevant to game consoles in the context of exclusive game titles on their platforms.

Sony and Nintendo are free to own their own game studios in order to make compelling exclusive titles that set them apart from most other PC exclusives (if any for AAA titles) and other multiplatform games.

I'm a person that enjoys games regardless of platform, so naturally I own them all including a decent gaming PC. But in my experience, the best games I've played over the last several years have been on PS4 and Switch, with a few exceptions on PC as well. So in that way, I'm glad they exist so they could provide me with those stellar experiences, because they probably wouldn't have existed otherwise.
 
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I don't really care if game devs preach their politics in their games. They have that right. It's also the right of each and every consumer to vote with their wallet in regards to supporting it or not. The free market will sort itself out with such things.
 
And they are. Hollywood is dead basically. Ricky Gervais summed up nicely the extent of the souless, dead inside, propagandist puppetry that is Hollywood. Games are becoming just the same with studios closing doors due to their propaganda based politically correct games.

So yes I support freedom of creation and speech and I too see no problem with a game studio injecting all the politics they want into the game. Thats all gravy and its very American indeed! However, dont expect to thrive for long if thats your business model.

Its just like this Too many Whites at Univ of VA.

I will gladly vote with my dollars. My child will never set foot on that college as long as I am paying for it. I dont like what they stand for or the fact that are allowing this kind of bigoted antiwhite rhetoric. Thus I have a bad opinion of that college as a product and I will not spend my money there. They can do what ever they like. Same with games.

That's exactly my point, and thank you for expanding on it. :)
 
... Games are becoming just the same with studios closing doors due to their propaganda based politically correct games...

Uh, no. Studios close all the time, even after releasing successful games. Been going on since there were game dev studios.
 
EA's sports game might not sell as many copies, but they're still making crap tons of money from the loot boxes and stuff. You should take a peek at their financial reports sometime, it's crazy how much money that garbage brings in.
There are some games that currently won't remove MTs and loot boxes because the profits are too damn good, but give it 5 years of iterations and eventually the sales will be a concern.
Horizon is, currently, just a rumor. It seems more likely than the old rumors, but I wouldn't treat it as a fact yet.
I don't see a reason why Sony wouldn't. Old Playstation exclusives aren't doing Sony any good after so many years of release, and porting them to PC will deter emulation and make them more money. Sony should make a store like Steam and Origin because we know they have the games to make it work, where Epic ran wild with just Fortnite and pushed their store.
Are you seriously using a hardware fault as a console-only negative?
Apple does this with their Macs but we give consoles a pass? The RROD was so bad that some estimate that nearly 50% of Xbox 360's sold had this issue. It certainly made the hardware sales look good, but in reality some people ended up buying a 360 twice just to play their library of games. Even though the 360 sold as many units as the PS3, the game sales on the 360 were much lower than the PS3, which supports the idea that the 360 didn't do as well as we thought.

Can you repair your console if something breaks? Generally no because nearly everything is soldered and proprietary. You can't just change one part because some of the hardware is tied to each other to prevent piracy. So if something goes wrong then the entire unit goes straight into the trash. Despite being very PC like, the consoles don't share any of the hardware PC uses.
 
Telltale games for one ....

"The woes of Telltale Games have deep roots. Earlier this year, The Verge published a report detailing years of nonstop crunch culture, toxic management, and frustration from developers who believed the company’s refusal to diversify gameplay had led to creative stagnation. "

theres more out there but I dont have the energy to sit in these forums for hours. Going back to Star Citizen.

What does any of that have to do with politics?
 
Im actually going back and deleting my forum responses. I have had enough warnings in the past for discussing political topics on these forums. I do not want anymore. Thus I am deleting and staying out of this. I do not want to get banned for riding the edge of the rules.

Whatever has been quoted has been quoted I can't change that but I am not going to get hemmed up for political discussion the forums. Been there done that.
 
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Why do any of you GAF what some CEO or Internet Personality or, honestly, anyone else says about some arbitrary topic.........there are far better threads to debate, like the whole Peanut Butter and OJ or Peanut Butter and Potato Chips, which tastes worse after a fresh minty tooth-brushing......?? WELL?!?
 
Why do any of you GAF what some CEO or Internet Personality or, honestly, anyone else says about some arbitrary topic.........there are far better threads to debate, like the whole Peanut Butter and OJ or Peanut Butter and Potato Chips, which tastes worse after a fresh minty tooth-brushing......?? WELL?!?


Peanut butter and Nutella sandwich. Period, the end.

Anyway, a lot of people do care, either for or against, because they are the ones with money and the ultimate goal of any business is to separate people from their money.
 
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