56 réponses à ce sujet

[Sheylan]

Flamin Jesus wrote...

Sheylan wrote...

I see where you are coming from, but I think you are making a false distinction. Exclusive in-game content is EXACTLY(okay, Mostly) the same thing as any other exclusive content in a CE. The only diffrince is the way you use it. The purpose that it serves, encouraging people to buy or pre-order a game, is exactly the same whether you receive it as a physical object or as an in-game item.

It does serve the same purpose, sure, but from my point of view it meddles with the essence of the product, say I'm buying a book, (Maybe a better analogy than burgers and cars, since a book, like a video game is more about the experience and idea than its physical components) if I get the hardcover edition I get a nicer book, but the content, that which I really want, is still the same, I don't have to buy the hardcover to get chapter 3. I am free to pay more for the luxury of having a nicer book, not forced to do so if I want the full experience. That's how I see this business.

Sure, it's just 3 fairly insignificant items in this case, we've had cases where people got better weapons for multiplayer FPS games and other things, compared to that it's really no big deal, but it's obvious they're testing the waters with this one (Like with some of the other marketing gags we had, some good, some less so), but wouldn't you agree that if I fear that this is just the first of many steps, it makes sense for me to voice my concerns now?

As far as that goes... the first rule of business is charge whatever the market will bear. If they decide to go too far, then we, the consumer, Will have too slap them down. Noone HAS too buy anything. Companies only exploit the consumer to the extent that we allow them too. Especialy entertainment companies.

[Srikandi715]

Sheylan wrote...

On the subject of your first paragraph however, I think we disagree on the subject of debate.
In my mind, we are argueing over wether or not it is acceptable for companies (developer, publisher, w/e) to include content in-game as an exclusive offer to people who buy a CE or pre-order a game. My read on the situation is that you guys are creating an artificial distinction between in-game and out-of-game. There is no distinction. They are simply two parts of a complete product. Thus, if one excepts that exclusive ANYTHING (a cloth map, a tin case, a spartan helmet) is acceptable to include in a CE, then in game-items and content is totally free game.

Feel free to eviscerate me now.

LOL -- I'm not gonna eviscerate you That seems like a reasonable point of view, though it's one that would never have occurred to me without having it pointed out. To me, it's like the difference between the souvenirs and the vacation... the game is the vacation, and the maps and helmets and coins and stuff are the souvenirs. But I can appreciate the other perspective, Some folks take physical manifestations of experience a lot more seriously than I do.

As for why I went off on the marketing rant, to me that is the most unfortunate thing about the whole lead-up to this game. Having just completed Journeys... the main point of that flash game was apparently NOT to promote DA:O, which I at first assumed was the point, but rather, to provide a "focus group" for further for-pay development of the Journey's game. And they were enlisting us in the focus group by paying us with in-game loot for filling out three surveys (or rather, what was mostly the same survey three times).

Now, Journeys was OK as a throw-away piece of marketing crap, but really, to even imagine that people would pay for something like that surprised me... when there is free stuff out there that is much, much better. What's worse though is that I bet some folks WOULD pay for it.

The whole thing left a really bad taste in my mouth

Modifié par Srikandi715, 24 octobre 2009 - 05:55 .

[Sheylan]

Srikandi715 wrote...

Sheylan wrote...

On the subject of your first paragraph however, I think we disagree on the subject of debate.
In my mind, we are argueing over wether or not it is acceptable for companies (developer, publisher, w/e) to include content in-game as an exclusive offer to people who buy a CE or pre-order a game. My read on the situation is that you guys are creating an artificial distinction between in-game and out-of-game. There is no distinction. They are simply two parts of a complete product. Thus, if one excepts that exclusive ANYTHING (a cloth map, a tin case, a spartan helmet) is acceptable to include in a CE, then in game-items and content is totally free game.

Feel free to eviscerate me now.

LOL -- I'm not gonna eviscerate you That seems like a reasonable point of view, though it's one that would never have occurred to me without having it pointed out. To me, it's like the difference between the souvenirs and the vacation... the game is the vacation, and the maps and helmets and coins and stuff are the souvenirs. But I can appreciate the other perspective, Some folks take physical manifestations of experiences a lot more seriously than I do.

I wont say that they are irreconcilable points of view, because I like you . But it seems to be a pure matter of opinion, and unfortunatly thats not something that can realy be "settled" in any satisfying manner besides. "Well, lets agree to disagree."

[Veyt]

Flamin Jesus wrote...


As an analogy, say you buy the premium burger menu, alright it comes with fries and a drink, that's cool, you paid for it after all, but it's not cool if they take the pickles out of the standard burger to make you buy the premium menu if you don't care for the fries and the drink, and after telling you that they only sell 20 premium burger menus a day....

You know, you could always read the meal description and then make an informed decision as to whether you want to purchase it or not. Don't complain about spending extra when it's voluntary. 

[Maria Caliban]

Sornin wrote...

If you show up on release day now, you do not get the full game. You get the majority of it, to be sure, but those little marketing goodies are gone.

Right. You get the full game, but not the little marketing goodies. You're honestly going to tell me that if you didn't know that the Lucky Stone ring existed, you'd finish playing the game and think to yourself 'That was great! But I feel as though it was missing just one more magical ring...'

If you go to a restaurant and your hamburger doesn't come with meat, then you haven't gotten the full experience. If you go to a restaurant and your hamburger doesn't come with pickles, you haven't been ripped off. Pickles are extra.

If I buy a chai and want a shot of cinnamon dulce with it, it's extra.

If I buy a car and want the heater lumbar seats, it's extra.

As long as the base product is worth the amount of money you spent for it, demanding a bunch of extras that others paid for with their time or money isn’t ‘consumer advocacy’ but ‘greed.’

[levi.porphyrogenitus]

I stopped reading maybe half way through, but I just want to bring up a few points. First, I remember way back in the day when Baldur's Gate II was released, the CE included a disc (and another for preordering). On that disc was a patch that added a merchant with extra items that you could buy (the preorder disc added a different new merchant). I'd say that was a classic example of a CE including in-game stuff that people who bought the standard version missed out on (for several years, at least, since they eventually released them for everybody generally).

Second, I have only ever seen one instance of DLC that seemed like it should have been part of the retail version of the game: Fallout 3's Broken Steel, which fixes the ending and makes it worth playing all the way through. Even then, the "vanilla" game was a complete package, no matter how bad the ending was.

Third, the items that so many people seem to be complaining about are irrelevant. DAO has a toolset, people. The only DLC that I see being difficult to make for yourself would be things like the Stone Prisoner (free for all new copies, which is a great way to handle something that was cut for time issues but that they managed to finish after the release date was pushed back) and Warden's Keep (which is apparently a rather large new side quest, possibly even including a stronghold of sorts). Even then, other users will be making quests of sufficiently high quality that you could add them (at no cost) to your game and be getting nearly the same level of extra content that DLC provides. Indeed, the only real differences seem to be that official DLC has access to official voice actors, and official DLC is made by many of the same people who worked on the original game (though the DLC teams are different, there is overlap, especially now that the game itself has apparently gone gold).

Edit: As a final thought, what about business models?  What industries other than PC gaming have the same level of free support that PC games have had in the past?  Examples from people above include food services, car sales, etc., and none of them offer anything like the amount of free support offered by the PC gaming industry as a whole.  Compare also to consoles: PC games typically are 10-15 USD less expensive than equivalent console games (or even direct ports of the same titles).  So not only are you getting more for less than other platforms, you are getting support (without having to spend money for a warranty, no less), updates, and free extra content (at least in DAO's case).  Sure, some developers are worse about patches and things than others, but the best ones generally make a good faith effort at fixing remaining problems in their games even after release.  I see DLC (pay DLC) as a way for the post-release support to be subsidized at least partially, while getting the players extra content (that took valuable man hours to create, which is itself a significant expense for the developer).  It is also a way to begin to approach the universal standard business model: base cost gets you base model, extras cost extra.  It's the only one that makes sense in a sustainable manner.

Modifié par levi.porphyrogenitus, 24 octobre 2009 - 02:40 .

[Beren082]

I thought the whole point of the DLC was to tie into the toolset, and let the modding community come up with whatever they wanted, releasing it for free or for whatever they wanted to charge. they released The Stone prisoner with the standard edition so that more people would straight up buy the game first hand, instead of getting it used or pirated, and they released Warden's Keep to make paying a little extra for the Collector's Edition reasonable. I'm assuming that any DLC released from now on is either them trying to make a few more bucks on the license, or modders releasing something for everyone to enjoy (most mods and DLC i've come across have been completely free).