UPDATE: Digital Foundry apologized, took down the video, we managed to open a functional conversation over the issue with them and our community, nobody is suing none. We can all chill now. Also, they will make a new video relatively soon!
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
Nicest part of a cloudy saturday morning? Waking up to a shitstorm raging upon you, based on what we can call incompetent technical analysis at best, fake news at worst.
Digital Foundry might have been a competent source of technical information in the past, but it might be currently going down to the click-baiting path. They just published an opinionated video on our game, Redout, in which they talk about Xbox One X performances, framerate and resolution, mentioning over and over that Redout shows a 1080p rendering for the Xbox One X version.
This is a pure, straight lie. The Xbox One X got an enhancement update a couple of weeks ago which brings 4k rendering with dynamic resolution scaling to everyone (owners or not of 4k TV). More specifically, we managed to scale the resolution between 90% and 50% of native 4k, which means the resolution goes from the upper limit of 3456×1944 to the lower one of 1920×1080 [confirmed also by VG Tech]. More technical details on this will follow in the next days, when everybody will be back from holiday vacations but meanwhile let us spell it out: it’s not 1080p.
As many users reported, there are still some framerate hiccups where the game can’t keep the 60fps pace and significantly drops below the 45+ threshold, which is something we are aware and very sorry of. This happens more frequently where many AI opponents are factored in, while it’s close to nonexistent on time attacks, solo races and races with few opponents. We are aware of these issues and we’ll keep working on those as long as possible.
But saying that Redout renders at 1080p is plain false. This, combined with the fact that some players seem to be highly sensitive to the XBox vs. PS4 performances tug-of-war, caused a rain of negative comments on our heads, all based on wrong information.
We are currently looking into various ways to defend our public image. Not only because we dislike being called lazy or incompetent gratuitously, but also to send a message to the players and the industry. Gamedevs (indies especially) are amongst the most hard working people, to the point that burnout and crunch culture in game development are widespread. Really, just stop calling them lazy to the first hiccup. And don’t fabricate excuses for calling them lazy. Ok? Thank you.
See you on the track, hopefully faster than ever.
Hey folks, first a happy new year to all of you! I play redout on ps4 pro and got some minor things to tell:
First: there is tearing in the ship selection when you turn the ship around with the right stick and in some courses at top speed
Second: In two player splitscreen the second player does not have the option to pop up his own second-player pause menu. therefore he cannot change to his preferred steering options, which is guaranteed not the “redout”-scheme but the classic in my opinion.
Third: The cornering is awful. I play wipeout, f-zero and other (future) racers for almost 25 years, but in redout i never managed to get even ONE perfect lap. Maybe I´m too bad and nobody told me, but the steering has to be way more accurate. I even use only the powerups for better cornering, no success either.
Please fix some or the mentioned, your game is quite good so far! Thank you
Hey, I’m here to explain the steering in game. It’s intended to be original and actually that’s how floating ships would behave – drifty, with very low grip. If you steer the craft without mS (only one vialable grip enhancement) you should want to wallbounce on some corners. That’s the fastest way. If it distrubs you, then don’t be scared to use the mS! With this passive powerup, if you rember the track you CAN drive it cleanly, EVERYWHERE. I’ve got 600+hrs on pc and I know I’m saying. If you want to get more tips or share your opinion with other players, just join redout discord server! discord.gg/redout (we don’t bite).
Good for you guys for standing up for yourself like that! Not many companies would say that. Race on brothers!
Love you guys and all the best,
Dan. ??
Good for you guys for standing up for yourself like that! Not many companies would say that. Race on brothers!
Love you guys,
All the best,
Dan.
I have to say i was really looking forward to this on the One X but on playing it it didn’t look anything like 4k to me. That combined with the erratic frame rate made this a huge disappointment. Fun game though, hope you can sort it out.
He JCK, you can read about the current situation on Resolution and framerate here: http://34bigthings.com/redout-a-technical-analysis-on-the-offline-dynamic-resolution-scaler/
Lazy get over yourself everyone no it’s can be put out better so ya stop your bullshit it was a lazy put out just because you can’t take being call out that your problem son
How is it their fault for defending themselves publicly from blatantly wrong information? You absolute bell-end! And learn your language for Christ’s sake.
I’m not defending Digital Foundry – failing to notice dynamic resolution does come off as incompetent and lazy – but saying “More specifically, we managed to scale the resolution between 90% and 50% of native 4k” is just insolent. Your game does often run in 1080, which is to say 25% ot 4K. But that doesn’t sound as good as 50 to 90, does it? You are responding to a mistake with a lie.
Also, don’t expect people to be moved by your whining about you crunching and being underappreciated. Consumers are only interested in the qality and quantity of the content you are selling, compared to the price you are selling it for. Crunching, in the case of indie devs, is either a decision that you want to get it out faster, or a neccessity to get it out faster because you’re running out of money. In either case, nobody cares. That’s free market for you.
Enjoy your future of 75+ $ games and lootboxes from AAA developers who can pass the “crunching” to the grunts then, stellar reasoning.
Please, read this first 🙂 http://34bigthings.com/redout-a-technical-analysis-on-the-offline-dynamic-resolution-scaler/
Work on fixing that FPS thing it still make the patch look bad, but at least its not as terrible as originally assumed. We all know game development is a hard job and I wish you the best of succes.
Some gamers should really watch “indie game the movie”.
Since I saw it, I could never call a dev lazy or else. When I saw your game on the xbox on x optimized list, I was so happy I bought the game right away.
I’ll admit, I saw the framerate issues, and I was hopping a better patch… BUT I know how hard this is and I encourage you ! I assume you don’t have a dev kit… so It must be really hard to optimize it… Keep it up, great game, good work, wait to see more of you on xbox one day 🙂
I will be buying your game on the X because of your courage and truth! Can’t lie didn’t know whether lazy or may not enough funds but either way, making things know is the best way to let us gamers know where you stand and I respect that and commend you! Cheers!
Having seen the VGtech and Digital Foundry articles and also played the game on both PS4 Pro and Xbox One X I really can’t find too much fault with their conclusions. Granted your games’ One X resolution is higher than 1080p a lot of the time but framerate is much more important for a game like yours. Also their conclusion in respect of the visual feature set being slightly more detailed on PS4 Pro is correct. Neither of them mention that the Xbox One X version is missing HDR which is present on the PS4 version. I understand that this game is personal for you and that you all worked very hard but if you come out swinging against a minor factual innacuracy you just end up looking a bit ‘Donald Trump’. As a fan of the game I want it to be the best it can be (just as you clearly do), so just focus on that and your ‘public image’ will look after itself.
I don’t feel that the DF video was overly critical or insulting. They pointed out some very disappointing issues (that can be objectively measured) and even defended the port by suggesting (like Titanfall 2) that it was perhaps a placeholder and a further patch would rectify the issues.
For me and most players (although I can’t speak for others), the resolution on this type of game is secondary to frame-rate.
I’d be quite happy with a locked 1080p if it ran at a locked 60fps and had the same detail level settings as the PS4 Pro. I find the XO-X upscales such titles nicely.
I’m not expecting something that matches Wipeout Omega Collection from a small indie dev so I’d never demand that level of performance/visuals.
The announcement that the resolution had been bumped up provides no consolation for me. The fact that DF missed the variable resolution shows just how little impact it has on the experience in this type of game.
It is frame-rate or bust in my view. Whilst I’ve be waiting to buy the XO-X version (I have it on PC but don’t use my PC for gaming anymore), DF’s error had no impact on my decision to defer a purchase until there is another patch. I woke up, read the news about the resolution and it changed nothing. That’s not the problem in my eyes.
It’s sad if those who viewed the video made some unkind remarks but DF have no control over that.
The DF video really gave a bad impression of the Xbox One version. Only 30 fps and a resolution below 1080p. I hope that can be fixed with a patch.
Wipeout Pure, my favorite sci-fi-racer, runs with stable 60 fps on PSP (333 Mhz mode enabled) and this console has way less power than the Xbox One.
I watch all of Digital Foundry videos and this one too. It was a perfectly fair analysis, they didn’t insult or say anything bad about your game.
Framerate issues were shown ( true )
Lower quality assets used vs PS4 PRO ( true )
All of their captures they found were 1080p ( true ) and they gave examples of lower stress points to try and get better resolutions.
So you guys are trying to spit on a tech analysis channel in a ‘Trump’ style fit. This isn’t the right approach. Fanboys from either camp are always toxic. Don’t blame DF.
“But saying that Redout renders at 1080p is plain false. This, combined with the fact that some players seem to be highly sensitive to the XBox vs. PS4 performances tug-of-war, caused a rain of negative comments on our heads, all based on wrong information.”
While I understand why you would be upset that people (like me) are turned off to your product after seeing their initial video, that statement is complete nonsense. Especially when you consider how well DF has been doing with Xbox One X videos to-date. What’s more telling of their analysis is that despite analyzing a good amount of footage nothing ever ran above 1080p. Your game just may hit that level for 5 seconds which would technically mean it runs at 4K (or close) but to trash them for pointing out what their data showed is rich. WipeOut does so much more and features better detailed environments and renders 4K at a locked 60fps. It’s not DF, it’s you.
You ARE lazy. Instead of publishing Redout for Switch yourself, you handed it off to Nicalis who is doing absolutely nothing with it.? Don’t say you aren’t lazy when you are! The Switch version was supposed to come out Spring 2017, and now it’s Winter 2018 and the game still hasn’t been released yet. It’s just pathetic.
Do you realise it is something like 20 people working around the clock for an indie game that runs on multiple platforms, right? You have some balls to call them lazy.
Legal action? Seriously? Flinging lawsuits around will do more damage to your public image than anything DF could say about the game or the development process. Even reading then above threat has already made 34BT lose some respect in my eyes. I get that you are upset, but lashing out with lawyers is not only disproportionate, but something that has NEVER ended well for devs. I love the game on PC and I really don’t want to see you go down the Digital Homicide route. Civil discussion is key to good PR.
Fix the frame rate issues first and foremost. If you can manage that, you need not worry about your image.
I will be buying your game on the Xbox one x because of your courage and truth! x2 =D
Maybe you should put that time and effort into fixing your game. Anyone with decent vision can see that it runs in 1080p and even then is choppy at best. Sure, it might use a dynamic scaler, but if it’s so poorly optimized it constantly runs at low resolutions and framerates, that means absolutely nothing. I had never heard of you and your public image wasn’t effected by poor performance. However your public image is absolutely destroyed by this incredibly immature response to a completely factual analysis. I will be sure to never support you by purchasing any of your games.
Please, read this first 🙂 http://34bigthings.com/redout-a-technical-analysis-on-the-offline-dynamic-resolution-scaler/
It was rather childish of you Mr. Di Donato to jump the gun and threaten legal action over what was obviously a mistake. The game looks incredible (I’m adding it to my wishlist as we speak, need to manage my money first before splurging; got bills to pay first) and in a genre that seems to be getting less and less publicity by the year (when was the last time you saw a great racing game? Not very often) its not a good idea to suddenly start threatening legal action over what was a technical miscalculation.
Its like hanging over the edge of an abyss; when you’re hanging on by your fingernails its not a good idea to start waving your arms around.? Not giving any merit to Digital Foundry but still it still comes off as somewhat childish and professional. People these days don’t put any confidence in games critics like Kotaku, mostly because of bad reputation so indie devs fall back to 3rd party game critics like Total Biscuit, Angry Joe, Jim Sterling etc. Saying something like that will put them on the defensive, worrying they’ll be the target of a lawsuit for being critical. PLEASE…don’t be like DIgital Homicide; this game looks beautiful and I want it!
PS. Screw it I want the Deluxe Set! =D. *splurge button pressed*
Please please PLEASE sue so that you can lose, destroy your reputation, and turn customers away from your future products. I love seeing companies who try to silence criticism in courts go down. The DF analysis was fairly accurate. You’re splitting hairs over their resolution claims that were based on their own experiences testing your poorly performing game. Aside from your most loyal fans, the public is not on your side here. Consider your actions carefully here.
No, it was not. To the extend they apologized and took down the video. Read more here: http://34bigthings.com/redout-a-technical-analysis-on-the-offline-dynamic-resolution-scaler/
I’m kind of new to the racing game scene (played FZero as a kid and spent stacks of quarters on Cruisin’ machines at the arcade, but not much else), but I’ve had incredible fun with Redout lately. While I don’t have the XBox One X version (I roll Steam) I’m glad to hear that you guys are still working hard to improve the quality of the game. Keep up the good work! 🙂
I should mention though as a heads up given the old statements from about a week ago, where it was reported that the studio was “currently looking into legal action to defend our public image”: game developers, especially indie ones, threatening legal action or mis/using legal methods to take down negative reviews, ESPECIALLY in an attempt to “send a message”, carries a lot of baggage given recent incidents and should be done with a modicum of tact and care. The most well-known of these was the Jim Sterling vs. Digital Homicide Studios lawsuit, which went viral last year. There are already a couple vidbloggers and article writers starting to raise eyebrows over the initial wording, making the knee-jerk reaction of wondering if you all are simply trying to silence them. I really urge you guys to step carefully and try to seek alternate solutions before even mentioning a lawsuit, as the negative press and potential PR fallout from even giving the appearance of trying to censor negative articles is starting to build and can end up even bigger than the negative press from one poorly done video..
Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing what you all have in store for the future!
Hi Valerio, I have a couple of questions for you:
1) Are you planning to release a new patch for the xbox One X version in order to fix issues?
2) I have both Ps4 pro and Xbox X consoles: which version of the games do you suggest to buy? I read that the xbox x version was the best, but also after the patch released on xbox x, it seems that the ps4 pro version is not worse than the xobx one x version..
3) I read that the MARS DLc has been released for ps4. Do you plan to release it for xbox x too?And are you planning to release additional DLC?
thank you!
According to the Xbox service, there is an official update for the Xbox One. The console is really something which can be supported in every Os like windows 7, 8, 10. I have used this on my window. Xbox one can be used to play in your laptop. I have been playing 10rs on my laptop. The graphics of the game is really different from others