HITMAN 3 - final chapter of the nu-Hitman trilogy - now available on Steam

[Spectacle]

The ultimate sign of brand weakness is whoring out your game in an exclusivity deal. A healthy brand's calculations would always point to a release at multiple marketplaces being more profitable than an exclusivity deal. It's no wonder they are not making any more Hitman games in the foreseeable future.

Despite this series being very well regarded by the people who play it, I don't think it's ever sold like Square (and now IOI themselves) wanted it to. The vast majority of businesses, when offered a more secure payday on a product that isn't a guaranteed success, would be fools not to take it.

Agreed. As they say, a bird in the hand is worth ten on the roof. For a game developer the main measure of a successful game is one that sells enough to fund development of the next game, and if EGS can offer a deal that pretty much guarantees that kind of money most devs will jump on it even if it limits their max potential earnings.

That's no excuse for this "access pass" nonsense though. Why can't they just give the Hitman 1+2 levels for free to anyone who has progression for them on their IO account? Are they really expecting to sell enough access passes to make up for the lost goodwill and Hitman 3 sales?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Hitman 2016 missions came free for owners of Hitman 2 who also owned Hitman 2016 on steam.

 

[Ghulgothas]

That's no excuse for this "access pass" nonsense though. Why can't they just give the Hitman 1+2 levels for free to anyone who has progression for them on their IO account? Are they really expecting to sell enough access passes to make up for the lost goodwill and Hitman 3 sales?

They clearly don't care about goodwill if their actions regarding transfer and intention to put this franchise on ice with no post-launch support after this game releases are any indication. Like I said earlier, this reads as them working to wash their hands of this project entirely and move on.

 

[karoliner]

I'm glad my city is in it.

 

[DalekFlay]

That's no excuse for this "access pass" nonsense though. Why can't they just give the Hitman 1+2 levels for free to anyone who has progression for them on their IO account? Are they really expecting to sell enough access passes to make up for the lost goodwill and Hitman 3 sales?

Yeah it's weird. Presumably my IOI account shows my progress in Hitman 2, so why not just email me a "Hitman 2 Access Pass" code? Like I said before if it ends up costing $2-4 then whatever, but it's a pretty ballsy slap in the face when in theory it should be an easy problem to deal with.

 

[Alphons]

 

[Mikeal]

I'm glad my city is in it.

Ciong Cing?

 

[snoek]

Bought hitman 2 GOLD edition for 90 neuros (yeah silly me), it was on sale (33% off) less than a month after launch, and Now I'm supposed to buy it again if I want to play the same levels with the hitman 3 features?
I bought every hitman game up until now but this shit's too much for me. And they've been pulling a lot of shit.
I'm done with their shenanigans. It's like they want their most loyal userbase to hate them.

 

[Spectacle]

I wonder why Sweeney doesn't have a blue checkmark? Did he support Gamergate or something?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Bought hitman 2 GOLD edition for 90 neuros (yeah silly me), it was on sale (33% off) less than a month after launch, and Now I'm supposed to buy it again if I want to play the same levels with the hitman 3 features?
I bought every hitman game up until now but this shit's too much for me. And they've been pulling a lot of shit.
I'm done with their shenanigans. It's like they want their most loyal userbase to hate them.

Exactly. It's been on my mind too, we are the generation of players who helped this franchise get off the ground back when games had physical distribution only, and held its memory alive throughout decades and even after IOI shit the bed with Absolution. It was innovative and niche when it started. Now it's just niche.

Tried to capture the mainstream audience three times in four years, with progressively smaller success, until they had to bunk up in Tim Sweeny's white van.

They never cared about creating a community in those years. If they don't care about players of their last game, imagine how much they care about fans of the franchise who follow their games since Hitman 1 & 2.

 

[kangaxx]

They never cared about creating a community in those years. If they don't care about players of their last game, imagine how much they care about fans of the franchise who follow their games since Hitman 1 & 2.

The whole industry has been like this for years and year though. My only surprise is that anyone is surprised. Even the "hallowed" CDPR have shown themselves up with the CP77 fiasco.

 

[GrainWetski]

Game developers are vermin and you should always treat them as such.

Know what aged poorly? My comment in this thread, #11.

https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-3-pre-launch-guide/



TL;DR: no preload on PC. Also hey dickbag, I know you own Hitman 2, you have progression to register on our site after all, but sadly you have to buy the access pack to play season 2 levels in season 3.

A small fucking reminder that Whittleton Creak and New York are getting new mastery levels. I'd love to 100% these maps again, but to do so I have to rebuy the game which I already fucking preordered Gold edition for back in November 2018.

I feel fucking stabbed in the back. I tried so hard to defend them and their online only, limited events bullshit because their games are so great and Blood Money is still in my top 5 of all time. But god damn this is just, indefensible.

Man, EGS is just so good for PC gaming. It's definitely not just Sweeney taking a massive dump on it because he hates us.

 

[spectre]

Game developers are vermin and you should always treat them as such.

I wouldn't go as far. However, this sentiment holds 100% for all the marketing and sales people.
The developers made a good effort (I rather enjoyed H1), it's how it was sold that was atrocious.

So, apparently we're now being called an overly entitled player base? The gall on those cunts. That's some unwarranted self importance for glorified entertainers.
Imagine a juggler or a stripper telling this to people throwing money at them.

They really dropped the ball with Hitman 1, I bought it, and I am still not sure if I actually own 100% of the content. Apparently I don't, cause I never got
any code to let me play it from H2 for free.
So first they come up with some fucked up scheme, selling pieces of the game, then fuck people over when they buy it like this.
And you have to buy it RIGHT FUCKING NOW, else you'll miss out on the elusive target bullshit.

I'm still on the fence about getting H2, I want to have all the content in one place, and I still can't get my head around the DLC, which one is the legit
thing to get H2 with ALL the H1 stuff? I don't want to pay three times just to get all the shit.

Perhaps the right course of action is to wait for H3 to crash and it's carcass to burn out THEN get the inevitable HITMAN legacy ultimate turbo deluxe experience
with H1+H2+H3 all in one package? I can wait for a good enough discount.

 

[DalekFlay]

If Sweeny really wants to solve the problem it should be pretty easy for him to boost IOI's check a bit to cover giving everyone the Hitman 2 "access pass" for free for like 2 weeks, same as the Hitman 1 pass. Would spur people to get the game earlier too.

Yes I know this doesn't solve the problem for "wait for a sale" types, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Don't know what this place's stance on verboten content ahead of an official release date is, but a number of German buyers got their copies early and have been real liberal in showing off the game before the 20th.
If any of you want an idea of the game that lies beneath all the bullshit, this guy's had a stream of the entire game up since yesterday.

Spoiler

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/876010638
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/877261688

 

[Alphons]

 

[Draconis]

LMAO

I wonder how many cancelled their pre-orders. What a shitshow.

 

[kangaxx]

Read: "jk lol! Pretty please stop cancelling orders guys..."

 

[Raghar]

Don't know what this place's stance on verboten content ahead of an official release date is, but a number of German buyers got their copies early and have been real liberal in showing off the game before the 20th.

This place is hive of villainity. There is no reason to be scared about posting links to gameplay before official release date. Just add warning about spoilers in case someone wants to play it blind, and bitch heavily about how bad H3 is.

 

[Alienman]

No yellow background? Disappointed.

 

[DalekFlay]

Read: "jk lol! Pretty please stop cancelling orders guys..."

Market forces at work, this is one of the upsides of capitalism. Glad they capitulated. Wonder how long it'll take though, I'm eager to see the old levels with new shiny.

 

[Pegultagol]

ioi became lol the moment they signed on the dotted line on the exclusivity contract with Epic. I can only imagine the amount of tears they're shedding over at Copenhagen that they have to concede even this much.

 

[Alphons]

HITMAN 2016: shitty episodic model
It's Square Enix, look what they did with Deus Ex: MD preorders!

HITMAN 2: ridiculous amount of different game versions, confusing spreadsheet which version has what DLCs
It's Warner Bros, they always agressively monetized games they published!

Thankfully IO is now independent and they can make HITMAN 3 the way they wanted!

HITMAN 3: STADIA deal, PSVR deal, EGS deal, PC players being screwed over HITMAN 2 levels, hiking preorder price at EGS

 

[IDtenT]

hiking preorder price at EGS (solved after community manager at HMF was notified)

Pre-order price is currently still double what I paid for it initially. So it's not like I'm going to re-order, no matter what they do.

 

[Terra]

Looking forward to playing next year when it hits Steam @ 75% off (because that's the price point I'll be getting it at). Have fun with the EGS shenanigans IO, and relish those epic + console monies. Guess I'll have to miss out on the 1675th timed elusive target (in Paris, naturally) for a while, oh no...