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Turtle Rocks Wants to Remind You that People are Playing Evolve with This Infographic

It’s been almost two weeks since Evolve, the 2014 Best of E3 and so far unlikely to be 2015 Game of the Year, hit shelves and already I’ve seen a few people online mention that they’re already having long waits to get into games on PC. So when Turtle Rock and 2K came out with a “by the numbers” look back at the first week of Evolve, it serves as a bit of a reminder that the game is out now that the hype has died down.

There are few interesting tidbits of information from this infographic. While the battle between the Hunters and Monsters is pretty balanced overall, Turtle Rock’s statistics back up my beta Impressions claim about the early game vs. late game battle. The Monster loses some 89% of games settled in Stage 1 but wins 77% of games that reach Stage 3. It also notes that almost six million 4v1 games were played in the first seven days since release.

For this and more information about Evolve, we have a handy infographic.

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The Bad, The Ugly and The Worst: A Look at Evolve’s DLC and Pre-Order Plans

evolve-bannerI don’t know how many times that people have to be told not to pre-order games for it to sink in but I’m not sure that it will matter. For all the convincing pitches that game companies themselves make with games that are broken on launch or otherwise in need of a lot of work to be considered of triple-A quality, publishers are coming up with ever more convincing pitches to get you to pre-order games or upgrade to more expensive editions of the game and it all comes down to money.

It used to be that pre-order perks were limited to things like skins or weapons or other little bonuses that didn’t really make that big of an impact on the overall game. Those traditional pre-order bonuses should not be confused with the setup that Turtle Rock Studios and 2K Games have come up with their latest hoped triple-A money printer Evolve.

In order to move pre-order copies of Evolve and to sell the various deluxe editions of Evolve, Turtle Rock and 2K have come up with one of the most complicated and ridiculous DLC schemes in recent memory. People have actually come up with charts in order to keep track of what is included with which version via pre-order, purchase, season pass and a la carte. Evolve might be one of the better games this year but its DLC will make it one of the most controversial at the same time.

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Evolve Closed Beta Impressions: Evolution, But Not Revolution

evolve-beta-headerDon’t look now but I’m pretty sure the game demo is dead. In its place are “betas” that accomplish a multitude of things simultaneously. They act as a demo without needing to polish a vertical slice of the game. That’s because they can slice out a portion for QA testing by the general public without paying professional QA testers to find problems with the game. And by limiting access to betas, devs and publishers drum up demand relative to supply to goad people into pre-ordering the game to get into the beta.

Shockingly, this doesn’t bring us to Heroes of the Storm. That’s a column for another day. It does bring us to Evolve. Turtle Rock Studios left E3 with the whole world in its hands after cleaning up most of the major E3 awards. However, 2K seems hell-bent on throwing it all away with their utterly confusing and transparently greedy pre-order, season pass, deluxe edition and DLC scheme.

So when Turtle Rock gave us one last chance to get a taste of Evolve before its February release date, everyone who could jumped at the opportunity. But was this one last taste of Evolve enough to convince me to spend $60+ on the game from the Left 4 Dead developers?

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