Devs only avoid lawsuits for this stuff because VR is niche

[Conan]

I'm just going to copy paste what I wrote from my recent review

This changing and bait and switch of games that you paid for should be against the law.

There has always been downgrading of games, for a variety of reasons, either to make it somewhat compatible with older generations of consoles, or examples where what was shown off at E3 was what they were aiming for, but they realized that the budget didn't allow for that level of ambition and so the final product that gets in your hands is not as good as what was shown off, (Watch Dogs being a famous example).

The difference? The changes were made before you bought the game.

This unique scenario that keeps happening to VR games specifically in the pursuit to be made quest compatible is unprecedented in gaming and because VR is niche, it's not coming to the attention of lawyers the way that EA Battlefront 2's gambling controversy made it's way into the public and legal eyes.

This is the equivalent of a scenario where you buy the PS3 version of Call of Duty: World at War, and you play it for years, and then, one day, the game gets changed to the PS2 version in every way, graphics, sound, etc so that there's crossplay between PS2 online and PS3 online.

That is not the game you paid for.

If it happened with something as big as Call of Duty, there would be lawsuits filed, you can be assured of that.

Yet it happens in PCVR games time and time again for the sake of the Quest.

Typically, if someone ports something to a weaker console, they leave the more powerful console version alone as it's own thing. If, in the year 2009, someone doesn't want to buy a PS3, and they want to stick to the PS2 version of World at War, then that's just fine, their game doesn't impact the PS3 owners and the PS3 owners don't impact the PS2 owners.

Here they're changing games that you paid money for, and it's happened to Zero Caliber, Pavlov (not graphically but in player count, modding, and other key ways that made that game great for a time) and many others.

Again, if it were done before money exchanged hands, or there were two seperate versions of games, there wouldn't be an issue.

This Quest-ification of PCVR games is unique to VR and is putting that philosophy experiment of "The Ship of Theseus" into practice and not offering refunds. When is Onward no longer Onward? The developers answer: Who cares, we got your money already, plus the Meta money as well.

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I hardly played the 1.7 and earlier versions of this game, though I owned it from pretty close to the beginning.

By the time I came to this game and played it on a fairly regular basis, it had been so long since I had booted the game up that I didn't notice the downgrades. I came to this game, though I had owned it forever, after Pavlov drove me away with everything they did to cater to PSVR crossplay abandoning the PCVR players.

With Onward, I really enjoyed it though I understand it was already a downgrade from 1.7.

But with 2.0, it's even more of a downgrade. Audio, visuals, everything and I'm making this review not just for this game in particular, but pointing out that doing this to games you pay for would not fly in any way if VR wasn't niche. They're abusing the fact that VR doesn't have the player base of something like Battlefront 2 (2018) that would attract the attention of lawyers, and I think that should change.

Now the counter-argument will be "the terms of service say anything can change and you agreed to it", to which I say, every game that has been hit with a successful lawsuit also had terms of services justifying itself. Terms of service aren't get out of jail free cards. If in courts, it can be proven that higher laws were violated such as false advertising or other laws that are there to protect paying customers, terms of service have a limit to their protective power.

[coco]

we buyed a porsche we tested and drove it, we leave the concession with it, a month after the seller came and exchange the porsche with a kangoo...

[terminal_]

You are right that this is an unprecedented situation. I think it's also made worse by the Early Access layer, the trend of releasing games that are perpetually in development.

If you would follow the console analogy, it's more like you bought it for the PS5 but then the game was downgraded to work on the Switch. Normally developers would do a complete port for a new console platform, which wouldn't affect people that bought it already on other platforms. No idea why VR devs choose to go this way instead of creating platform specific ports.

Onward and Ground Branch are the 2 games I absolutely regret buying in EA.

[Tenko]

This game is almost as old as your steam account. There is no bait and switch, everything is on hte front page. Next time be an adult.

And read what you agree to.

[Conan]

Originally posted by Tenko:

This game is almost as old as your steam account. There is no bait and switch, everything is on hte front page. Next time be an adult.

And read what you agree to.

So it being so old, you'd make the argument that it has established itself as a certain way, and cemented itself as having a certain quality then?

[Nationalist]

Tenko is hypocritic with anime porn pfp don't listen Tenko.

[Tenko]

Originally posted by Conan:

So it being so old, you'd make the argument that it has established itself as a certain way, and cemented itself as having a certain quality then?

Absolutely not, even when you 2.0 cry babies pissed and ♥♥♥♥ your diapers because they made the game accessible to more headsets to keep the playerbase from dying like every other title.

The game says what it is, if you are confused thats a you problem

Originally posted by Nationalist:

Tenko is hypocritic with anime porn pfp don't listen Tenko.

Me and the boys started doing this because kids like you who have no arguments would dig for excuses and insults on profiles.

[Nationalist]

Many of us have had arguments but you simply be ♥♥♥♥ yourself and don't listen to them, it may seem hypocritical in this context for my part since i talked about other onward community members but some of them have had really good arguments why this game is currently bad but since you seem to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you don't accept any counter-arguments. Enjoy your WOKE and LGBTQ+ operators, only good thing about 2.0 update is the bullet drop, and the fact you use emojis and you are still standing on this 'milsim' community with an anime pfp of some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ character that is jumping in way his bikinis come up and your background of ya profile is also complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you don't belong in this milsim community with your ♥♥♥♥. and 'insults on profiles' i just show fact about your true interests and what you are nobody listens an anime porn master talking in a 'milsim' game community
and my grammar is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ i know since my whole english knowledge is based on duolingo. Update to my text: 1.7 and 1.6 had also better immersion rate which is very important for milsim for example the sounds were alot more like real life and you may say 'graphics don't matter' Hmm actually in vr milsims to make immersion rate bigger it's actually important to have decent graphics and the smokes were also actually more real and realistic looking one example of how graphics can matter in gameplay part too, and AI was overall alot more smarter they actually tried take you down on veteran and elite on experienced they were already better too than the newer version's, they also used alot more realistic combat fighting styles for example one of team mates down they took defensive position some times also this happend when they were patrolling and one of their teammates got shot down, then often threw smokes after it.