Online Games Clearly Need Offline Contingencies (The Jimquisition) 

Used to be we'd get get single player games with tacked on multiplayer. Then it was multiplayer games with tacked on single player. Now we just get online stores with tacked on multiplayer.

This is even more egregious when you remember that on console, you need to pay an annual fee to play online at all

I agree with this so much. I think this is genuinely a consumer rights issue at a certain point. It should not be legal, even common practice, to sell a game in the full knowledge that one day you’re going to shut the servers down and completely butcher any ability to make it work, it’s so frustrating! Even games less than 2 or 3 years old, games with potential often, will just be thrown out the back door, and just never work, because the corpos couldn’t be bothered to maintain it or build in redundancies.

We'll see how well that StopKillingGames campaign will go

brief reminder; Arrowhead was expecting around 8k players at the game's lifetime peak. they instead got something closer to 120k+ *during launch week.* if you don't have the server backend to handle that number of people, shit's gonna suck, and they were outright telling people to wait until that was fixed before making any purchases involving the game. they straight up didn't have the staff to handle that scale of server maintenance; they hired new people to handle it, and it's been handled for months - especially with a 15min automated boot to menu for idle players having been implemented.

I want to let you know my pet Cat was enamored with Doll Sterling. She kept reaching up for it with her paws, as if she were David in Michaelangelo's chapel.

Imagine going to see a movie at the cinema on launch day and it randomly stops every other minute. "come back in 10 days, at least you got the exclusive deluxe popcorn in the shape of the hero !"

Thank you to mx. Zilla for that audio warning. Dear shitting Jesus.

I dunno, I quite liked "Triple fAAAilure" as a quip. Something about how tortured it was made it better xD

Shoutout to SuperBunnyHop's almost 10 year old vid "Online Only? Avoid Wholly!" Vid.

For a second there, I thought I clicked on the wrong channel, when I heard a loud CDawgVA in me ears.

Here's hoping that Ross Scott's campaign against "games as service" has some level of success.

Temtem, a monster catching and taming game from Spanish developer Crema, is currently catching a lot of flak because the game is about to go into the maintenance mode. The game was labeled and marketed as an MMO, but took all the wrong turns, up to and including needing to be online to even access the game. No new areas, no new monsters, constant nerfs to existing monsters and money-making (seriously, clothing options _in the starter area_ cost upwards of 20k currency), the list goes on. The devs pretty much expected the PvP to carry the game and when that didn't happen, they started panicking (and even blamed players for not appreciating what was in the game). To this day, the devs are reluctant to make the game offline and are just hoping that people pivot to their Survivor-like spinoff. Contrast Last Epoch. The devs had a _very_ rocky launch as, like with Helldivers, they didn't expect as many people as they got. _However,_ the game has an offline mode, so one can still play the game at the expense of it being completely decoupled from the online (i.e. progress doesn't transfer from one mode to the other). It's not a perfect system since progress doesn't carry over, but I can still enjoy the game if and when the mood strikes me while internet access isn't available.

There are some online games that are closed that I wish I could play vs Bots.

I really hope you talk about Ross Scott's campaign to stop games being destroyed on this show some time!!

As someone with very bad sound sensitivity: thank you so much for the warning. I watched a video late one night where someone unexpectedly screamed and my brain was still pulsing inside my skull at noon the following day.

Big companies keep trying to sell people on pure online experiences. "Everyone wants to be social, play with their friends, no one likes a singleplayer game". Except when the servers are down, and the game is more useless then a digital paper weight. This is why people still play offline games, they work whenever you want them too.

Surprise welshman out of nowhere

RIP Total Biscuit, Miss his stuff.

I tried to each out via email, but maybe it got buried. I'm actually trying to have a campaign challenging the legality of games being destroyed with no recourse for the customer in many countries, namely France, Germany, rest of EU, the UK, Canada, Brazil, and Australia. We've been using "The Crew" as kind of a flashpoint to act on, but also have direct petitions to government to try to attack the practice directly. In many countries this has never been tested legally. There's info on how to help at stopkillinggames (won't give the url since the previous comment got blocked)

Hey, here's an idea: if a game project fails to meet its deadline, simply fire the person in charge of setting those deadlines. Instead of laying off the programmers, lay off that one executive.

These online games being borked at launch is one the big reasons I've largely stuck to single player games for most of my life. As far as I can tell, this 'Release now, fix it later' mindset is whats killing off a lot of the most promising titles. Especially when the market is already over-saturated with often ill-conceived 'live services' from developers that have little-to-no experience with online multiplayer.

that sensory warning is very appreciated, what the fuck is that soundscape

man its like people forgot all the advocacy TB did. Also thank you Steph for going strong even tho the phobes unsub and throw hate at you. You a strong NB and I love ya.

As an autistic person I really apricate the noise warning and wish it was something that could become more commonplace than broken games.

Me, in 2001, playing Halo Combat Evolved: Boy, I wonder what kinda options we'll have for online gaming in the distant future!

CARDIACS! Yes! RIP Tim, who once said my band was 'weird'. He didn't see the irony. :^D

That would require companies to care about the player experience after they already got your money. Honestly if it happens, it'll be DLC, a way to wring the last $10 out of the diehard fans still playing.

They call this patch culture approach "agile development". The dev team at my previous place of work started using it, describing it as "getting out a minimum viable product--like, if the ask if a vehicle with four wheels, then a skateboard will do--and updating later as necessary." It was a pain in the ass for everyone. The end users didn't like it because nothing ever worked right anymore, every fix broke something else, and everyone had to be relearning things constantly. I didn't like it because, not being on the dev team myself, I didn't know enough about the product to properly troubleshoot it, got all the blame for everything not working, and looked bad because all I could do was write the issue down for the devs to take a look at later (I wasn't even allowed to talk to the devs directly because interruptions could hurt their groove or whatever). There was also a lot more to go wrong overnight or on holidays because it was a 24/7 operation, but of course it wasn't the devs on call if something broke, even though they were probably the only ones who could do anything about it.

more games should have the Soulsborne system for online engagement. An offline foundation with an optional online bonus built on top of it. Also Bubsy should be the final boss of the Elden Ring DLC.

Not actually being able to join games reminded me of the recent revival of Gigantic... On that subject, I highly approve of the recent trend of dead games being brought back by new dev teams, but if they're online-only games, they'll go right back to being lost media if the servers go down.

Using the Cardiacs is so fitting. Perfectly sums up triple AAAAAgh.

I feel like you picked up the banner TB dropped when he died. You stand for all the things he did. That is why you're COMMANDER Sterling.

As someone not using headphones and with an easily startled cat in my lap at time of viewing I can only say that ouch noise warning was a godsend. A real champion move right there, y'all have my many thanks.

Hey Steph and Team, and chance you might get a shoutout to Scott Ross campaign "stop killing games"? They are currently making a coordinated world wide effort to get governments to regulate the practice of shutting online games down with no end of life plan and no Tools to make your own servers, making them unplayable forever. They are using Unisofts "The Crew" as a centerpiece which gets shut down this month.

Holy crap, thank you so much for the audio warning. I listen on my headphones at work and that would have destroyed my ears. So much appreciated!

I love how in the intro, despite being off screen Steph is still talking with her hands and gesticulating furiously (in the reflection of the pinball machine thingo)

A moment of appreciation for the "Hilarious-Lee" graphic.

I'm amazed this didn't mention the part where Suicide Squad was so unfathomably broken that those people who paid for early access, when the servers finally let them play... Were promptly struck with a bug that completed the entire campaign before they had even started the campaign, thus briefly locking out literally all the content they were there to play through early.

As a Helldivers II fan, I completely agree. While the ongoing campaign and squad based gameplay is the overall appeal, some sort of solo mode/balancing would definitely help. The base game was at least good enough to keep people engaged beyond the launch window though, and to Arrowhead's credit they did eventually fix the connection issues and many other bugs. I think that's why the game is still going strong compared to a lot of other online games in the current market.

I couldn't agree more. It should be expanded to include trophies and achievements - if servers are going to be switched off then online achievements should be changed to continue to be achievable. Disintegration is a great example of this, so it can be done!

Cardiacs song to start the video, love it!

Deep Rock Galactic is another example of a game that "just works", with that trope not being played straight at all I must add. It's primarily online so you can form squads of four players, and of course has functionality for friends to invite each other (super easy to do through the Discord server as well), but if your connection goes down, maybe there's issues with the servers (which never happens), or you just want to play solo to relax, you can - Add to that, the game has a few helpful robots, and Bosco is exclusive to playing solo, he can mine minerals, fight enemies with a machine gun and rockets, light up darkened areas, guard objectives and carry heavy objects for you, so he's basically an AI you can give orders to! Best gameplay, approach to microtransactions and community I've seen in years. Highly recommend joining the game and Discord in June with the next update if you haven't already, there'll be a new season of content and all the old ones will be made available again

Going to the graveyard, digging out a corps, kicking it in the nuts, tossing it back in the grave just to bury it again. I spontaneously laughed so hard when Anthem came up out of nowhere xD

You say "I look like Sergeant Slaughter" like that would be a deterrent. I think you in Sgt. Slaughter cosplay would be pretty fire.

I actually greatly appreciated that noise warning 👍

I have to say, I quite enjoy the small banter between Steph and Z. Mann Zilla in the editing process, it gives me a chuckle every time.

even a game with a huge amount of money and ready for a massive influx of players can be messed up by this. FF14 had huge overcrowding when it dropped its last expansion that they literally had to stop selling the game while they figured out what to do. and thats a game already DESIGNED to be played by millions of people at the same time. How an indie developer thinks they can do anything like that is just insane

Why, Steph, you're looking wonderfully fibrous today

Here's me wishing you could play LAN games again. Gears of War 2 with my friends, 8 consoles all connected to each other with no need to phone a server to play. As a household with 3 consoles already (and likely increasing to a 4th in a few years), it sucks that we either have to crowd around 1 TV (if a game even HAS couch/splitscreen multiplayer) or rely on 3 different companies (minimum) to all be doing their job in order to play seamlessly.

Remember when single player games had good tacked on multiplayer content (looking at things like AC brotherhood here)... what it seems we need more now is multiplayer games with good single-player content.

Might not want to compare a game's online stability to an egg, Steph. You see, eggs can handle quite a lot of pressure from the top and bottom when it is applied evenly, which is more than you can say about most always online multiplayer games.

I think if companies that make live services have to have a specific lifetime marked out clearly in the description, that means if the game doesn't give what you paid for, you can easily obtain a full refund, it would fix a few problems. Put the pressure for quality in the hands of the game makers, not in scamming users and putting your hands up non-commitally.

Whoever is responsible for these -ly Bruce Lee image puns is a genius

Never play on patch/release day. This phrase is as old as me playing online games. Which is quite some time.

Love that during your opening I can see you move through the glass in the background, actually waving your hands a.s.o. 😀 Love how you're always so passionate about your topics, Stephanie! Keep up the good work!

To quote the late TotalBiscuit: "When you buy a game at launch, you're paying the most amount of money for the worst version of the game." At a minimum I wait about 6 months before I consider buying a game. By that point, most of the major bugs are fixed, there is an ample quantity of independent reviews available, and there may be a Steam sale I can take advantage of. If the game is shit or is loaded up with mechanics that try to get the player to pay the publisher more money after already buying the game, then I just don't bother with it. Be a smart customer. Don't reward publishers for putting out shitty products by buying their games.

I totally forgot to write previous time, but about toy Sterling: they're absolutely adorable. Speaking as crocheter, making human figures is pretty hard and even then it's nice to see someone actually going with it :D

Steph mentioning that it was the "late '00s, early '10s" aligns perfectly with the time in my life that I just stopped liking games. It's uncanny how many things I can point to around that short window of time that gutted my interest in the entire medium. I've been gradually making my way back, but only for either indie games or those we'd now consider retro.

I had to double take that I had actually clicked a Jimquisition videa and not a CdawgVA video for a moment.

Aww, unexpected Total Biscuit reference... Still miss you brother RIP. It was either TB or the wonderful JSS that said that if you absolutely MUST pre-order a game because you REALLY want the bonus, do it 1 day before release, that way the sale is not counted towards the targets and you still get your thing. (or something to that effect)

Total Biscuit; boundless wisdom, sorely missed. We do not pre-order! Great episode, Steph

It’s not even just games that have this patch culture. Large companies like IBM regularly release junk products for business, gaslight purchasers that there are no problems, stating it must be something else on the purchasers end, then patch down the line to get rid of major bugs. I feel like I’ve been beta testing for the entirety of my working life

Not going to lie, Zmanzilla has been a phenomenal addition to the channel. The editing and music blends perfectly with the sheer unhinged lunacy that makes this channel so special and it feels like a match made in some bizzaro world cloud 9 made of sarcasm and snark

Kudos to Zmanzilla for being very kind and generous about the sensory content warning. Might not be a big deal for many, but still appreciated.

Thank you Mannzilla for the audio warning! c:

1- I'm surprised you still suffer for games at launch window; assumed your unique approach to game critique would cut you some slack. 2- I's it still possible to get more episodes of commentocracy? Bloody genius that format. 3- Kudos for Mr. Zilla's warning.

A few weeks ago I gave Anno 2205 another shot. Aside from questionable balancing at higher difficulties that makes satisfying higher level population needs actually lose you money, the game also kept nagging me to sell my goods on the "world market", aka online. Except I supposedly had "no connection" to the world market. The council voting also didn't work, so whatever rewards were gated behind that were locked off, too. This, in a game where I cannot directly interact with any human player and only have minimal interaction with NPCs. Anno 2070 also suffers from this a degree - timed events where certain missions are playable, and an online meta-progression, both detract from an otherwise great game the moment Ubisoft chooses to discontinue their service or simply doesn't maintain it.

I LOVED "...not just because it's online stability is egg-like in it's fragility..." that tickled my brain :3

It feels so true. The only 2 games I have ever pre-ordered were Cyberpunk 2077 and WH40K Darktide. I will stand my ground that NOW they are great games worth buying today, but on launch they were almost unplayable. What genuinely cracks me up about CP2077 in particular is that for about a year before its final launch, i was getting emails about possible return of money for my preorder as the CDPR's company that was originally supposed to handle the delivery of pre-orders in Poland was shut down and the job was given to another company. All of this was happening as if they tried to save me from the disappointment that was CP2077's technical state on launch and every time I refused, thinking that i could rely on CDPR on delivering the game in the properly working state.

Appreciate the audio warning!

that intro always go so hard man ty for all your work all these years and keep it up stephanie!

HD2 is really such a tragic example too because it’s really quite masterfully done with a lot of smart systems and attention to detail and in-game levels of polish, but they blew past their infrastructure and seemed to have no real backing from Sony (despite advertisements suggesting otherwise), so it was very busted for far too long, and *still* has issues that haven’t been resolved. I definitely suggest giving it another chance now, it’s way more stable, and crashes are rare, and there’s an absolutely stellar game there that demonstrates what value there is to be had in a “live service” game. But I don’t begrudge a single person who was turned off by it either, even if you do recognize the sheer scale of their launch user base.

I bought Helldivers 2 a couple of days ago thinking the matchmaking problems had been fixed. They hadn't, I had immediate fail to join lobby errors and quick play's wait was infinite. I thought I was going to be running solo only and was really annoyed. But if you're on PC and experiencing the problem, make sure to go to your network adaptor properties and disable TCP/IP (IPv6). Doing that and restarting the game immediately fixed the problem for me.

It's amazing how frequently always-online games will be unprepared for the launch rush. I suspect that they do have a decent estimate of the capacity they will need, but don't spend to get it because they also expect drop off. The problem is that the drop off happens even faster as the most excited customers get frustrated and never come back.

Hello Jim Sterling. The secret is that video game companies view everything in a cost effectiveness lens. The top executives never bother with the emotional connections with game characters they encourage consumers to engage in so intensely and consistently.

Seeing Maechen from Final Fantasy X in the year of our lord 2024 took me out like a baseball bat to the dome

All of this really fractures my feelings about new video games being released because I get caught between my iron-clad resolve to not buy video games before learning if they’re gonna be broken upon release, and that ever-powerful phenomenon of FOMO

Thank you for that sound warning Co-Editor, forgive me I missed your name but I'll try to remember it in the future lol (Edit- Its Z. Mann Zilla, I'll try and remember it from now on lol). Speaking of names, I'd like to apologize in advance to Stephanie Sterling for whenever I accidentally refer to her as "Jim Stephanie Sterling". It comes from a mix of having watched her from when she was still calling herself "Jim" and from the show still being called "The Jimquisition", understandably since rebranding at this point is often more trouble then it's worth.

Another brilliant video Steph! I have to say I loved the little doll in the beginning

I miss games with local LAN play. Remember LAN parties?

I only have an issue with one thing. It's not "resource frugal" - it's being cheap and greedy. Otherwise, complete agreement.

Appreciate the audio warning (as someone on the spectrum)! Out of curiosity, I tried to keep the volume on...and wound up hitting mute within the first few seconds because my gosh; just those couple seconds were an obnoxious sensory overload. x.x

Thank you so much for the Cardiacs intro

I played Helldivers 2 on launch mostly solo and didn’t have any issues other than servers being full. That being said I don’t understand why people like me who didn’t have bad experiences don’t just believe other people. What do I gain by refusing your experience because mine was good?

The doll fucking the camera was great.

My love for you just increased with the use of Cardiacs music... Thank you🥰

Hey, Steph an team, have you recently authorized ad rolls at random times? This is the first time I've seen ads break up a vid on your channel, and there have been two ad breaks in the first 9 minutes and 16 seconds.

I was hoping to see a reference to Last Epoch in terms of having a bad online launch but still providing a near flawless (from a bug perspective) single player experience.

Oh, I thought you'd talk about AccursedFarms' Ross Scott and his action to block the shitty practice of publishing "always online" games that then get killed, like Ubisoft did with The Crew. Maybe you could boost that?

Sterling says a lot of words but, what I'm hearing is: "Enjoy more indies."

Top notch quality as usual. I can see your reflection in the right pinball machine gesturing with your hands as you speak just as you would on camera.

Always makes a Monday better when Steph uploads

Is there a reason that Sterling hasn't discussed the crazy plan that Ross Scott has? I get that it's a long shot and probably most of their fans would find out about other ways, but it feels weird to me that they haven't talked about trying to stop publishers killing games.

Last Epoch launched around the same time period. Another online focused game, but it not only launched with an offline mode, when the devs realized people were struggling to get into the game because you originally had to login *before* switching to offline they quickly added a patch and community announcement of how to launch the game in offline mode through steam. THIS is what a good reaction yo server issues looks like. They also followed up with a detailed post mortem of everything that went wrong with the launch to maintain full transparency

Good video. That's definitely the Sterling I subscribed to back in the day!

Would rather see the puppet/doll more than Jim.

3:12 Ay thanks for looking out for me, Z.

It's quite fun watching you fiddle about in the reflection of the pinball table

I'm really glad to hear somebody call out Helldivers 2. And I say that with all the love, as I've been devouring HD2, despite it's many technical problems. The thing that's been worrying me about this, is Arrowhead don't have the best track record here. They're probably best known for cult classic Magicka. Magicka is a chaotic laugh-a-minute romp, involving wizards blowing enemies (and themelves) up. Magicka is also a buggy mess. Despite being released in 2011 it is still not in a stable state in 2024, with frequent crashes. Despite this, magicka still has a premium storefront for DLC modules and microtransactions! So while I'm ever hopeful that HD2 will improve, I look at Arrowheads track record, and I do worry 😢