They’re gonna replace it with “Hitman: World of Assassination - Colorado” and throw all the new players in the deep end.
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You mean Carpathian Mountains?
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I just can’t fully get behind this attitude. It feels a bit “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” to me, or at least a bit all or nothing. I think it’s good to recognize that this was a good move by them, even if they could’ve and should’ve done more.
Not that I’m exactly thrilled with the way they’ve been doing things recently, but honestly I’m a bit impressed they did anything. It’s more than I’d expect from a company, especially considering IO’s direction these past few months.
I guess what I’m saying is, I hope they keep up with actually improving the game/purchasing experience :p
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I agree, but it doesn’t erase everything that came before it/not enough to make up for the entire fiasco.
They get a bit of credit for (finally) doing something, but its not enough to completely erase the various missteps to get to this point for me.
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“Hitman: World of Assassination - Perm-14”
Get a head start grinding for that Sniper Rifle.
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Let’s try this again:
See, I want to believe this, but the wording is suspiciously specific here.The phrase “it did not necessarily meet the needs of all new players”, leads me to believe that you do not want to apologise. In my personal opinion, the company acted with a devil-may-care attitude that screwed over new players, adding another edition to the already-complicated editions chart, all the while ignoring any evidence that it was bad for the game, in the hopes that it’d all work itself out in the end. Everyone in this thread, on Reddit, on Bluesky, and on Twitter (and yes, i’m still calling it Twitter), said this was a bad idea from day one, four and half months ago. The evidence presented to us gives the impression that the company ignored the userbase’s pleas for the sakes of monetary gain.
There’s purpose behind that set of decisions, and it was not for the benefit of new players, that we were all certain of, despite repeated assurances.
Giving the game away for free is, in my eyes, a last-ditch attempt by the company at confusing customers and enacting FOMO so they have to buy the rest of the games’ parts later on. It goes against the words written later in that very post of listening to feedback. If you were sincere with that goal, then this edition would’ve been delisted without the promotion. But, as it stands, it comes off as one final opportunity to lock players into a dead-end path of purchasing. I am glad this edition is being removed, but do not mistake that for me being happy about the situation, or accepting of past company behaviour. There is a lot of blame being downplayed here within that post.
What annoys me the most about this situation is that this rings so hollow because it took so long to listen to player feedback (and I suspect that it was less to do with us changing your mind, and more to do with the edition not selling well). It took 132 days to be precise. That’s not a length of time that speaks to me as if the company that acts in our interests. The overwhelming amount of negative feedback should’ve changed your minds within the first week, but instead, the company decided to trust the sales numbers, players be damned.
I am…unhappy CombatGlue. I’m a guy who wants to enjoy your game, but can’t anymore because I’m scared of whatever scheme will come out next to annoy everyone, to put it mildly.
Once again, thank you for removing the Sapienza Edition, and please, for all our sanity, try and not do this sort of thing again. It infuriates your veteran players, confuses new players to no end, and, as you might’ve seen from a past version of this post, makes me personally angry.
To end on a somewhat constructive note, might I suggest what the editions should be changed to in the future:
This allows for free players to still experience the game, and I wouldn’t even mind if Paris was included in the FSP, that’d be an outright good thing, as it’d be a taster of the full experience.
The Standard edition should just include all the story missions from 2016, 2, 3. New York and Haven island are actually necessary for the story, as much as I dislike the retcon to Grey’s character from the comics.
And finally, the Deluxe edition should just contain everything else; 7DS, trinity pack, deluxe pack, and maybe even the freelancer cosmetics.
The Part One edition should be removed in my view, as it serves no other purpose than to confuse, and to make the game look cheaper on Steam when you see it in the drop-down. It’s the kind of dark pattern behaviour I’d expect from FunPlay games to make use of.
I hope the company can improve instead of giving the illusion of such actions.
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It’s the time aspect that pisses me off the most. They dragged this out as much as possible, which gives off the impression that they wouldn’t have listened to feedback and were acting on avarice. As I say above, if they cared enough to listen, then they would’ve reverted the edition a week in, but did not.
Their statement above rings a little hollow when you wait so long to…uh…apologise.
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I would like to remind everyone that IO is a guest of this forum and so are you. Making demands of how they communicate isn’t constructive. It’s not the forum culture we want to promote or wish to see.
Constructive criticism is always welcome, however there is a current trend that has turned the fan communication sour among a few individuals.
Remember IO representatives are here because they want to be part of the community and be as transparent as they can regarding changes. This is just a very little part of their job.
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I’m not going to get too much on your case specifically here, @Combatglue, because I know this is your job and you have people you answer to who not only give approval or rejection to what things you can tell us, but I’m willing to bet also often tell you directly how to word things to us. I’ve been there, I work for a state government and must sometimes look people in the eye and deny them services based off of what I know for a fact to be bigoted policies, yet because I cannot risk losing my job at this point in my life, I must carry them out while despising doing it with every fiber of my being. So I get that you are required to do as you are told in order to keep your position, and I’m going to proceed on the assumption that the choice of words you used were either directly passed on to you, or were at least suggested and approved by those above you who determine what is communicated, to whom, and when.
So, having said that…
Like @Dribbleondo, I take issue with this exact wording, again with the knowledge that this is not necessarily you, while still coming through you. This is very carefully selected wording that tries to downplay what happened here and why it happened. The reason why this is obvious is because this entire offer of the Sapienza location did not meet anyone’s needs, and by its very selection could not possibly have done so. This choice of words obscures and attempts to shield the fact that IOI’s decision on this whole matter was a transparent cash-in, and is now trying to be painted as a failed attempt to do something genuine that nobody believes. Simply stating “we admit we made a mistake,” without even going into any details as to why, would have been sufficient enough for everyone involved to understand that IOI is admitting that those who warned them were right, and that it is being admitted.
I have to agree with this as well, and I can offer a little something to bolster the point: remember how quickly IOI acted to delist The Disruptor the moment his status as a sexual assaulter became official? It was practically instantaneous by the standards of the entertainment industry. Ergo, the decision to remove in this case taking so long cannot be seen as anything other than a conscious decision to not do so.
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The process against him began 20 days before the decision. The lawsuit was filed sometime in in 2019, but it is not known when the court accepted the claim so I would guess IO had these 20 days to prepare the reaction. Time needed to decide if they react at all on the case of guilty was likely cut short, unlike this Sapienza episode matter.
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Even still, less than a month from the time they knew it was coming down to action taken. The point being, it can be done quickly.
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I don’t quite follow you here. That criticism was that you pay money for the pack but still have to pay the full price for the whole game if you want everything. Alright.
But with the pack being free, that does not matter anymore? It is like adding Sapienza for a short time to the Demo variant. I also don’t think this counts as FOMO because you don’t lure players into the decision to give the company money here.
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I’ve seen a thread about this being given out for free on another forum and people are still confused about what they’re going to get by claiming it lol
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It’s more that they were turning the situation from something bad to something potentially profitable later on down the line, attracting those who saw it was free. People like free games, after all, irrespective of the size.
Not sure if that makes it clearer.
That is… good? What is the criticism here?
I mean any turn away from a bad decision can turn to something potentially profitable.
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It’s the methods, not the end result.
i think more people would buy the video game if it was easier to buy
(disclaimer: not a commerce guy)
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Yeah, agreed. I’m just trying to be optimistic about the future, I guess :p
Honestly I get the sense that the free window is more a reaction to how people got upset at them delisting the Disruptor DLC with little to no warning. This is a very different DLC and situation than that was, of course, but that’s the way it reads to me (and, again, my possibly foolish optimism)
Maybe you’re right, maybe it really was just trying to improve on past mistakes.
But I’ve known IOI’s behaviour to be more…opportunistic…than genuine in the past two years, so you can understand my cynicism here.
This turn in their behavior is practically tangible and cannot be denied, so cynicism, or at the very least, skepticism, is quite warranted.