323 réponses à ce sujet

[the_one_54321]

ModerateOsprey wrote...
I took it to mean something like:

DAO > DA:A > RtO, Shale, etc, > single weapon, etc.

Something like that. $40 for a whole other adventure? Not great, but ok, sounds like fun. But $5 for a set of armor and one area? Screw you, I'll keep my  money.

[Malanek]

I'm OK with DLC. Getting stuff out there to enhance the story, world and game is a good idea in theory. I do think the way Bioware is doing it has a couple of problems. The first and by far the most easy problem to fix is to stop handing out uber items. Convincing people to buy it by making their characters more powerful is lame and actually seriously screws with the balance of the main game. Items handed out should be unique and fun, but they should not be more powerful than main game items. In fact aim a little lower.

The second thing I don't like is that the DLC has so far all occured within the main story. Playing through the game again to see new content is a drag and it will get worse with time. There are a lot of loose ends at the end of DA that will probably never be answered in an expansion or sequel. I would love to see DLC handle some of those.

[ModerateOsprey]

Lilisia wrote...

Well, for myself, I played Warden's Keep three times now, on three charcters, and it took maybe two hours each time. So I guess six hours or so. And then I used some of the equipment from there a long time afterwards... I have no idea how long really. I'll be going there again with my new character soon. I got a lot of fun out of it, I dont feel that I was cheated at all.

And Shale I used her on my whole first game after I got her and that took me 99 hours to finish, so that was definitely worth it - and she is extremely funny with some of the comments she makes when travelling.

I too believe I have had truly excellent value from Bioware to date. I have paid out approx (EA will know to the cent ) 40 quid for all DA related stuff I have played. This has given me literally weeks of fun if I count in the game play, the conversations IRL with my friends and on these forums. Brilliant. I have done sales work for them as well! I have a number of friends who would never have thought to play but are now engrossed in ME 1/2 on my recommendation.

However, I, and others, feel uneasy when dealing with large corporate companies that ultimately answer to the bottom line. From my observations, being on these forums for about 6 weeks, unease has been heightened to some degree. It is reasonable to be concerned when you can see the potential of abuse that can be applied to a digital content delivery when the value is in the content itself, which in turn has its own subjective value to each fan/player.

There is no doubt, in my mind, that BW has a non-trivial task on its hands delivering to expectations as well as managing a new economic model and maintaining fairness.

[ModerateOsprey]

Malanek999 wrote...

I'm OK with DLC. Getting stuff out there to enhance the story, world and game is a good idea in theory. I do think the way Bioware is doing it has a couple of problems. The first and by far the most easy problem to fix is to stop handing out uber items. Convincing people to buy it by making their characters more powerful is lame and actually seriously screws with the balance of the main game. Items handed out should be unique and fun, but they should not be more powerful than main game items. In fact aim a little lower.
The second thing I don't like is that the DLC has so far all occured within the main story. Playing through the game again to see new content is a drag and it will get worse with time. There are a lot of loose ends at the end of DA that will probably never be answered in an expansion or sequel. I would love to see DLC handle some of those.

I agree pretty much with all this, especially your latter comments on the nature of the type of DLC.  A couple of new characters, maybe, with more humble stories and tighter, self-contained plots.

Modifié par ModerateOsprey, 31 mars 2010 - 08:43 .

[filetemon]

The problem of DLC is agravated by people on the forums saying "please developers include this feature in your next DLC!!!! I would pay 10 dollars for that one!!!!"



If you are dumb enough to ask developers to make your pocket bleed and be happy with it, then it's your fault DLCs are made.



And judging by the numbers, DLC are a big success for many developers.



Gunnery chief: That means, DLC's are the deadliest sons of ****es in space! Now! serviceman Burnside: What is DLC's first law?



Serviceman Burnside: Sir, a DLC is not released since next week of the game official launch, sir!



Gunnery chief: no credit for partial answers maggot!



Serviceman Burnside: Sir, unless it's included already in the original DVD but blocked till you pay for it sir!

[ModerateOsprey]

filetemon wrote...

Serviceman Burnside: Sir, unless it's included already in the original DVD but blocked till you pay for it sir!

Yeah agreed, that is pretty cynical :/

[Lilisia]

I got Dragon Age as a christmas present, I think it was one of the best christmas presents ever



Moderate, I see your point about large corporations but, if the DLC is bad and no-one buys it, isnt that big corporation going to be asking why, and then maybe improve quality next time. If DLC was totally required and not optional I agree it would be a bad thing, but the choice is still with the player to buy it or not. That's our power as customers, isn't it?

[k9medusa]

Lilisia wrote...

Well, for myself, I played Warden's Keep three times now, on three charcters, and it took maybe two hours each time. So I guess six hours or so. And then I used some of the equipment from there a long time afterwards... I have no idea how long really. I'll be going there again with my new character soon. I got a lot of fun out of it, I dont feel that I was cheated at all.

And Shale I used
her on my whole first game after I got her and that took me 99 hours to finish,
so that was definitely worth it - and she is extremely funny with some of the
comments she makes when travelling.

1) I like shale and I also used her a lot in the
1st time around.

2) Warden's Keep -- the your own chest
is worth a lot -- a huge backpack for nothing (in terms of in game money) plus
a fun story

3) I don't feel cheated at all

4) DAO:A is a good game in and of itself -- the
problem is that compare it to a awesome game (DAO) and it seems to be bad. I
think of it as laying the ground work in skills and char building for the next
expansion / DLC -- may not the same story line, but talents and skills still be
used in other parts of the game.

 

 

[AlanC9]

ModerateOsprey wrote...
However, I, and others, feel uneasy when dealing with large corporate companies that ultimately answer to the bottom line.

Huh? Games have been produced that way for decades. Even if you were getting a game developed by a small studio, that doesn't change the economic model;  the publisher, which pays the bills, was the real economic entity on the other end of that purchase.

But of course, you're not saying that this unease is actually rational.

[Lilisia]

I have paid more to see a movie than I paid to go to Warden's Keep and some movies are nowhere near as much in entertainment, in my opinion.



One thing I did think is funny is how the Wardens Keep and Shale are both started off as quests by merchants. I think that was bioware having a little joke about DLC with us there

[TJSolo]

Lilisia wrote...

I got Dragon Age as a christmas present, I think it was one of the best christmas presents ever

Moderate, I see your point about large corporations but, if the DLC is bad and no-one buys it, isnt that big corporation going to be asking why, and then maybe improve quality next time. If DLC was totally required and not optional I agree it would be a bad thing, but the choice is still with the player to buy it or not. That's our power as customers, isn't it?

The power of consumers is what you are seeing in this thread, not just moment of purchase power. Just how businesses can make plans to gain future profit so can consumers make plans to protect their interests.

[the_one_54321]

Lilisia wrote...
I have paid more to see a movie than I paid to go to Warden's Keep

Can we please not go down this road again? 
Every time people talk about DLC it always comes up how much people spend on a movie or a coffee or a sandwich or a whatever else. This is about video game content, not any of those other things, and pricing and consumer behaviors between the different services/goods are not the same and are not comparable.

You compare movies to other movies.
You compare coffee to other coffee.
You compare sandwiches to other sandwiches,
and you compare games to other games.

[OfficerAbstinence]

UnPlayer88 wrote...

I approve of all story/character-based DLC. Item and map packs are the true crock of this generation.

Actually, forums are :X

Especially 4Chan.

[Lilisia]

Can I compare entertainment to entertainment?

And seriously I have never talked about this anywhere else before, how would I know what other people have said other times? We were talking about how many hours of entertainment come from a DLC. More than a movie

[RurouniSaiya-jin]

In my experience, a lot of the people who think DLC is a rip off have little to no knowledge about how pricing works for games and DLC and instead of acquiring this knowledge, they've skipped right to accusing Bioware of trying to rob them blind. Though to be fair, this is something I've noticed the Bioware community tends to do as a whole very often on all topics of discussion.

[Yukon Jake]

ModerateOsprey wrote...

Yukon Jake wrote...

the_one_54321 wrote...
Expansion packs were a step down from sequels but were still fairly decent in a lot of cases. DLC is a further step down, and they lead to even further steps down. It's a slipery slope, and at some point you have to stop and say "no."

The premise of your argument is that an expansion and DLC are "a step down".  I'm not sure what you mean by that.  The strength of your argument is based on the validity of your premise, so could you provide some further detail as to what you mean?

Step down in quality?
Amount of play time?
Amount of time to develop?
Price?
Step down an actual ladder?

What?

I took it to mean something like:

DAO > DA:A > RtO, Shale, etc, > single weapon, etc.

The point trying to be made is still ambiguous.  One is greater than the other in what context?  I don't fully understand the point the_one_54321 was trying to make.  

Presuming he was talking about the quality of the product in terms of "polished bug free playability", the "amount of play time added to the original game", and the highly subjective "amount of fun to be had" I suppose I'd be inclined to agree that the DA:A expansion was less than DA:O.

In any case, a compnay shouldn't stop making expansions and items because they are "less than" the original product.  The "No" point the_one_54321was talking about will occur naturally.  Companies will continue to reinvent and market product expansions and in game items as long as revenue returns are greater than production costs modified slightly by the status of company's reputation with their customers.  In Bioware's case their reputation is high.  This might have also been a contributing factor to why DA:A was priced so high--they used a little bit of their high riding rep to generate some liquidity. 

In game terms:
You receive 100 gold for releasing an awesome game!
Gaming community approves +10!

You receive 25 gold from the sales of your less well received expansion!
Gaming community disapproves -5!

Sounds like a net win to me.

[ModerateOsprey]

AlanC9 wrote...

ModerateOsprey wrote...
However, I, and others, feel uneasy when dealing with large corporate companies that ultimately answer to the bottom line.

Huh? Games have been produced that way for decades. Even if you were getting a game developed by a small studio, that doesn't change the economic model;  the publisher, which pays the bills, was the real economic entity on the other end of that purchase.

But of course, you're not saying that this unease is actually rational.

Yes, quite. It isn't totally rational, but not completely irrational either. Way I see it is, I know the guy that I deal with in the corner shop, etc, but I don't really know the people that run the corporate organisations that I deal with. That goes for my TV provider, Telecoms company, even the supermarket.

[the_one_54321]

Lilisia wrote...
Can I compare entertainment to entertainment?
And seriously I have never talked about this anywhere else before, how would I know what other people have said other times? We were talking about how many hours of entertainment come from a DLC. More than a movie

You haven't talked about it, but it comes up every single time a thread about DLC is started. It's just not accurate. It's both entertainment, yes, but the people who go out to watch a movie are not thinking to themselves "hmmm, maybe I'd get a better value if I bought a game instead." It just doesn't work that way. It's like comparing apples to oranges. Both of them are food, but they just are not the same thing.

[ModerateOsprey]

Lilisia wrote...

I got Dragon Age as a christmas present, I think it was one of the best christmas presents ever

Moderate, I see your point about large corporations but, if the DLC is bad and no-one buys it, isnt that big corporation going to be asking why, and then maybe improve quality next time. If DLC was totally required and not optional I agree it would be a bad thing, but the choice is still with the player to buy it or not. That's our power as customers, isn't it?

Absolutely.

I got my ME1 as a gift as well. Loved it. So bought DA, etc 

[the_one_54321]

Yukon Jake wrote...
In game terms:
You receive 100 gold for releasing an awesome game!
Gaming community approves +10!

You receive 25 gold from the sales of your less well received expansion!
Gaming community disapproves -5!

Sounds like a net win to me.

Except that what we have here is:
You recieve 25 gold from sales of your marginally recieved DLC!
Gaming community approves +10!

And then they keep on making the not-so-great DLC. Thing is that there is no such thing as "good" DLC for the prices they are offereing right now, and this is applied all across the board for all developers. It's a way for them to jack up their profit margins for minimal investment, and gamers are just eating it up. That hurts all of we other gamers who recognize that it's just a way to jack up profit margins for minimal invesment.

[ModerateOsprey]

TJSolo wrote...

Lilisia wrote...

I got Dragon Age as a christmas present, I think it was one of the best christmas presents ever

Moderate, I see your point about large corporations but, if the DLC is bad and no-one buys it, isnt that big corporation going to be asking why, and then maybe improve quality next time. If DLC was totally required and not optional I agree it would be a bad thing, but the choice is still with the player to buy it or not. That's our power as customers, isn't it?

The power of consumers is what you are seeing in this thread, not just moment of purchase power. Just how businesses can make plans to gain future profit so can consumers make plans to protect their interests.

This as well. And compared to some of the boards I have been on. These are very civilised and very well run indeed.

[Yukon Jake]

the_one_54321 wrote...

You compare movies to other movies.
You compare coffee to other coffee.
You compare sandwiches to other sandwiches,
and you compare games to other games.

This is not entirely correct.  

Both games and movies are entertainment.  The prices of movies have gone up substantially over the last 20 years (yes I'm old) while the quality of my movie experience has gone down with all the idiots taking phone calls or talking in the theaters.  As such my wife and I have shifted the dollars we spend on entertainment from movies to MMOs and single player RPGs.  Based on this example a comparison between movie price and game price is legitimate because the cost of both are paid from my entertainment budget.

[the_one_54321]

Yukon Jake wrote...
Both games and movies are entertainment.

Apples and oranges are both foods.  They still don't compare.

You're talking about cross-media migrations. People shift from one kind of entertainment to another based on prices and offerings, but it's still far more accurate to compare media within their own spheres. Comparing games to movies may give you an idea of what's a better value between movies and games, but it does not give you an idea of what's a better investment between two game price structures. If you want to know whether a game was appropriately priced, you compare it to the content and price of other games, not movies.

[Lilisia]

Wow Moderate thats a coincidence I just this second bought mass effect 1 after asking about it in another thread I hope I'm going to like it as much as Dragon Age.