Devs that are worthy of your day-one money.

Is there a dev that you trust enough to buy their game day-one?

Typically I don't do day-one purchases. Find it pointless, as I always wait for patches anyway. But once in a blue moon I'll go for it. Some devs, like Naughty Dog and whoever else on the Sony roster, are pretty consistent bug-wise, but since I don't really play Sony stuff much these days, or at all, really, doesn't matter to me. Off the top, there are two devs I really trust enough to buy day-one. From and Atlus. From's not spotless, but decent enough that you know shit'll be tight out the gate, or close enough to it. Atlus is close to spotless in this department. They always put out polished games at the start, the only exception that I can think of being the P3 PC port, but that was just a little misstep.

What you guys think?

Well before 2023 it used to be Arkane and Relic, among others.

I'm at a point where I would pay €70 for Half Life 3, Dishonored 3 or Ghost of Tsushima, but not much else at this point.

So right now I'm happy to purchase from smaller and indie devs: Isonzo, System Shock, Gollum, Trepang 2 are all games I bought for retail price and on release or will buy.

Pretty crazy how a developer like Arkane ended up creating Redfall.

The only day one I do anymore is GamePass. ;o

But I'd say, just for the heck of it... Turn 10, Playground Games, The Coalition, Rare and 343i. :P

I was gonna say Turn 10. Forza is definitely consistent in terms of technical achievement from the start. Few exceptions, but not too bad.

It's like somebody put a gun to their heads, told them to make a vampire game, and they made Redfall just to get back at them. Like, "See? We made a vampire game (hehehe)."

Naughty Dogs Playstation releases always a good time.

I no longer do Day 1 .. and have not for at least a decade

Not the developer, depends on the game. Any one and done games are not happening.

Oh yeah Forza definitely looks like a day one to me.

Pretty much anything from Valve is guaranteed quality.

Remember when Alyx was announced the forum as "ahhhh shitty tech demo", "ahhhhhhh scamming us"

Was wondering what alternate reality they were in.

For me Santa Monica and rockstar are day ones both release quality.

None. I do my homework on each game individually, and while I do take track record into account, no dev has a track record that is strong enough for automatic Day 1 in my book.

The Mt. Rushmore of gaming, the four horseman of video game creation, the big four developers are always a day 1 for buy.

Anything made by any of the four S-tier developers:

• Kojima Productions
• Naughty Dog
• From Software
• Rockstar North

Guaranteed 85+ MC (with a high likelyhood of 90-97 MC), GOTY nomination (with a very high likelyhood of winning GOTY and also GOTG/GOTD contenders.

For sure, Valve doesn't mess around. They just take forever to put something out, but it's always top-notch.

None. Best to wait and see how the game is at launch.

Are we playing CS 2 together day one?

@R4gn4r0k: Are we ****. Haven't played a competitive FPS in years, you'd wreck me.

Play you at Street Fighter if you want. I get 900 hours practice, you get none. It's what did with Champ, was a good time.

I'll play Street Fighter 6 open beta against you if you play CS 2 with me ;)

Careful there, dude. All those hours don't stand up to someone that knows how to spam the shin kick just right.

Wow do you all remember when MS used to make really good day one games to buy? Now a days they really make crappy day one for game pass games now :( .

Good thing we still have Nintendo and Sony making quality day one games to buy .

I'm writing all of this down. And once I beat uninspired I will be wearing his wrestling mask as my own.

Playground

The coalition

Obsidian

I've taken out quote unquote experts with the short kick alone. Once did it with this SF fanatic dude in Gamestop. Swear that guy was ready to rip the console right off the display stand.

Fromsoft and Larian Studio. Nobody else does.

Oh yeah, Larian for sure. Forgot about them.

Not a got dang one.

The ones who release comprehensive demos well before launch.

Yeah I say demos need to make a comback, it would eleviate a lot of issues these games have.

Show us:

• If your game is worth €70
• the performance
• how stable the game is
• if there are microtransactions

if you give consumers a fair vertical slice it will make people way more receptive in spending €70

I think there is no time were i could give an answer to this question. Doesn't make sense. I look at the game and decide, not at a developer. How does that even work?

Uh, if the developer has a long string of games released in top-quality shape?

Capcom and FromSoft.

No. I'd say Nintendo, but not even that is true anymore. Their mainline Marios and Zeldas are usually no brainers, but 3D World kinda sucked. Skyward Sword kinda sucked. Unsure about Pikmin 3. Paper Mario sucks..

I dunno, Valve maybe? But they don't do anything.

Well Capcom and Nintendo typically release the most games that I buy day one. Square-Enix have some franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest that I’ll buy day one. FromSoftware as well. Bandai Namco with Tekken. Plenty of other games are day one purchases as well from franchises I already enjoy.

Valve, and...

...well that's about it. Maybe Blizzard. Yeah they aren't the same studio from the D2 and Starcraft days, but their games are still fun.

Honestly I'm pretty much done pre-ordering* or buying day one at this point. Wait for reviews; not so much for the opinions of "good or bad", but more for performance analysis.

Buying AAA titles is just too risky these days. 60-70 dollars is my weekly food budget and while I have an OK amount of disposable income, I could afford to be a bit more careful with it.

*Exception of course is some inexpensive, independent titles that I know I will like and are low-risk to the cost.

What's even crazier is that Arkane was great up until that point, with many many releases over the past two decades.

So let's not put them on the shit list quite yet.

Day one is easy with Game Pass😁

Lately, it's been tough relying on just the dev's reputation. But so far Santa Monica and Guerilla have been day 1.

Problem is you don't own the game.

Sadly, yeah.

yea, these days, this is really the only viable approach.

only exception is if the game has a proper beta or demo before it comes out, or is a Early Access game on steam where feedback is readily available.

even then, waiting for launch feedback is probably the right call.

@nod_calypse: That is fine with me. The majority of games I don't replay, so ownership is of little value.

To each their own.

$70 for the most part is where I draw the line. It's fucking ridiculous in my opinion, but $60 wasn't much better. The only games worth 70 for me right out the gate are the FromSoft souls games. Armored Core 6 doesn't look that interesting to me. Hopefully this rumored Spellbound FromSoft title is a return to the impeccable form they continue to exhibit with their ARPGs.

And look at some of the $70 titles recently. Redfall, which was a disaster all around, Dead Island 2 (an average 20 hour zombie romp) and Jedi Survivor, which had performance problems at release and I'm not sure they are much better now. I would've been pissed if I had spent 70 on any of those.

Yeah they're not really selling themselves with this $70 price tag and crappy releases. They're still just the same quality video games we've always had at the end of the day. So they aren't worth this new price increase.

fromsoft (although need to see more armoured core), rockstar, valve, arkane prior to deathloop, maybe naughty dog but sony first party are £69.99 and it'd have to be very special to part with that much. having said that was out on sunday and bought two rounds of drinks that cost me over £60 and ive not even given it a second thought til now. bit contradictory

FromSoftware and Nintendo for me I guess.

Usually no day one, but I did pre-order Smash Bros Ultimate. So, Nintendo I suppose.

Fromsoft

Nintendo. I usually don't pre-order unless I have to. For example, I had to pre-order Animal Crossing: New Horizons because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to find a copy of it. It would have been sold out everywhere I went. Animal Crossing is one of Nintendo's heavy hitters.

Unfortunately upper mgmt goals and priorities are directly at odds with this idea.

• Ship the game ASAP
• Spend as few resources as possible
• Hide or delay psychologically manipulative game mechanics to get more favorable reviews up front
• Control the media narrative

If only there were some way to incentivize major corporations to not shit on consumers at every possible chance. I guess I'll just have to buy the game day one and deal with it anyway and maybe they will learn.

Generally, the triple-A industry can go **** itself.

I need to put my money where my mouth is but yeah, they shouldn't get another cent from me.

I'm investing in AA, mid tier, indie and retro games before I spend a dime on a single broken €70 game full of MTs.

Naughty Dog, Namco Bandai, FromSoftware, Capcom, Square Enix, etc.