54 réponses à ce sujet

[Lord Clocks]

Seriously, you guys are whining because there are things out there that you can download in addition to your game?

Dont like marketing? Get over it.

Log on your local XBox360 or PS3. See that PS3Network Store thing? See the XBox360 has a menu integrated store? An entire category? WiiShop? How much of that content was in your original game?

You got a game though didnt you? This stuff was extra.

What makes the promo bits any different?

Marketing Game > Your whining.

Rewarding Develoeprs for Cool content by buying cool DLC > Your whining.

I agree that its a really bad thing if they cripple the game in order to put stuff out as promo. But I also dont think thats what is happening here.  60 to 120 hours of in-game campaigning with all of the interesting features, graphics, etc, that goes along with that is already in there.  There is a whole team for DLC which opens up these other opportunities that you are whining about.

Stop whining.  If you dont want the content, dont get it.  Show your opinion with your actions. 

Modifié par Lord Clocks, 26 octobre 2009 - 04:33 .

[the_one_54321]

Lord Clocks wrote...



Seriously, you guys are whining because there are things out there that you can
download in addition to your game?

 

No, that’s not it at all, really.

Lord Clocks wrote...

Dont like marketing? Get over it.

 

No thank you. I think I’ll just keep on complaining about
it, since I don’t like it.

Lord Clocks wrote...

Log on your local XBox360 or PS3. See that PS3Network Store thing? See the
XBox360 has a menu integrated store? An entire category? WiiShop? How much of
that content was in your original game?

 

Not coincidentally, I hate xbox live. Also, I’ve only
ever downloaded songs for rockband from the PS3 store. Never touched anything
else.





 

Lord Clocks wrote...

You got a game though didnt you? This stuff was extra.



What makes the promo bits any different?

 

It’s been talked about above. Take the time to read it
before responding.

Lord Clocks wrote...

Marketing Game > Your whining.

 

I disagree. Seeing as it’s my money being spent that
supports this.

Lord Clocks wrote...

Rewarding Develoeprs for Cool content > Your whining.

 

I disagree. Read above.

Lord Clocks wrote...

I agree that its a really bad thing if they cripple the game in order to put
stuff out as promo. But I also dont think thats what is happening here.

 

I do think that’s what’s happening. To some extent anyway. Hence
my stated grievances. I’m going to continue to complain about this. I suggest
you “get over it.”

[Lord Clocks]

Lord Clocks wrote...

I agree that its a really bad thing if they cripple the game in order to put
stuff out as promo. But I also dont think thats what is happening here.

I do think that’s what’s happening. To some extent anyway. Hence
my stated grievances. I’m going to continue to complain about this. I suggest
you “get over it.”

This is a new business model.  Its not going away.  Bioware/EA is not the only company doing it.

Sorry.  I didnt make it.  You didnt make it.  But its here now and its part of the calculations companies make in trying to justify building the cool games we like to play.

Like DA:O. 

All the whining that you may do here has only one effect.  Someone from Bioware rolls by the thread, mentally thinks "thats the kind of attitude that we hear from people who pirate our games" and rolls on.  They arent going to look at the business case here and decide to give up a multimillion dollar revenue stream and marketing tool.

Think about the business.  Lets pretend for one moment that only 5 million people will ever buy this game.  Nice round number.  To get to that level, they wanted to get the word out.  One way to get the word out is go to XYZ Magazine and ABC Retailer and say in addition to the marketing we are already paying for with your outlet (and the shelf space premium we are paying in the case of retail stores), we will invest the 8 developer hours that it takes fo rus to make a crafted item.  You are the only way they will get that item.

And thats not something that is single-outlet exclusive.  You have 10 artists and 10 modelling people and a director and they can do one of these items in less than a day with only 1 of each plus a few meetings.  And doing that will get you ad space, feature space, or shelf space that will allow you to sell another 50,000 copies nationally that you might not have gotten otherwise.

$450,000 profit back on a retail store sold game for something you invested a few hundred dollars of time from 3 or so people over a week or two in small bursts.

Then you look at the DLC business.  5 million end user market. Set any level of profit that you want.  IF only 20% of the people who bought the game buy ONE DLC pack from what you release, will that outweigh lost sales from the whining, complaining 5% of people who were turned off by your marketing/DLC strategy?

Hint:  The real life numbers are FAR north of this.  Look up the NPD numbers for Baulders gate titles, you will see what i mean.  The scale at which DLC and premiums can bring in additional revenue and profit is staggering for true AAA titles.

Modifié par Lord Clocks, 26 octobre 2009 - 04:58 .

[the_one_54321]

Lord Clocks wrote...

Lord Clocks wrote...

I agree that its a really bad thing if they cripple the game in order to put
stuff out as promo. But I also dont think thats what is happening here.

I do think that’s what’s happening. To some extent anyway. Hence
my stated grievances. I’m going to continue to complain about this. I suggest
you “get over it.”

This is a new business model.  Its not going away.  Bioware/EA is not the only company doing it.

Sorry.  I didnt make it.  You didnt make it.  But its here now and its part of the calculations companies make in trying to justify building the cool games we like to play.

Like DA:O. 

All the whining that you may do here has only one effect.  Someone from Bioware rolls by the thread, mentally thinks "thats the kind of attitude that we hear from people who pirate our games" and rolls on.  They arent going to look at the business case here and decide to give up a multimillion dollar revenue stream and marketing tool.

Think about the business.  Lets pretend for one moment that only 5 million people will ever buy this game.  Nice round number.  To get to that level, they wanted to get the word out.  One way to get the word out is go to XYZ Magazine and ABC Retailer and say in addition to the marketing we are already paying for with your outlet (and the shelf space premium we are paying in the case of retail stores), we will invest the 8 developer hours that it takes fo rus to make a crafted item.  You are the only way they will get that item.

And thats not something that is single-outlet exclusive.  You have 10 artists and 10 modelling people and a director and they can do one of these items in less than a day with only 1 of each plus a few meetings.  And doing that will get you ad space, feature space, or shelf space that will allow you to sell another 50,000 copies nationally that you might not have gotten otherwise.

$450,000 profit back on a retail store sold game for something you invested a few hundred dollars of time from 3 or so people over a week or two in small bursts.

Then you look at the DLC business.  5 million end user market. Set any level of profit that you want.  IF only 20% of the people who bought the game buy ONE DLC pack from what you release, will that outweigh lost sales from the whining, complaining 5% of people who were turned off by your marketing/DLC strategy?

Hint:  The real life numbers are FAR north of this.  Look up the NPD numbers for Baulders gate titles, you will see what i mean.  The scale at which DLC and premiums can bring in additional revenue and profit is staggering for true AAA titles.

i dont disagree in the slightest. i just dont like it. i like how games were publeshed a decade, and a decade and a half, and two decades ago. that's what i want. that was fair.

just to note, however: i never pirate games. i value the work that devs do, and i want them to keep doing it.

but this "business model" that is centered around structuring the game so that it can make the highest revenue stream possible is really driving down my interest in gaming, and has been doing so for the last five years or so. it's a topic that has come up in bioware offtopic any number of times. there are a lot of long time gamers that just hate this massive industrialization of the game developer comunity. we want them to treat the games as though they were gamers themselves, instead of members of a business.

[Lord Clocks]

i dont disagree in the slightest. i just dont like it. i like how games were publeshed a decade, and a decade and a half, and two decades ago. that's what i want. that was fair.

Indeed, that WAS fair. Developing games has gone up almost exponentially in cost, particularly if you have to invest in the engine development (e.g. arent licensing someone else's engine tech). TO get someone like EA or any other publisher to provide more latitutde for that in the form of financial resources to do the cool stuff that a developer WANTS to do as a gamer like us, you have to enable some of the secondary revenue streams and everything else that a publisher is looking for.

The honest truth these days is that working with publishers is crazy. Just crazy. People making review and investment decisions have some game execs sitting right next to a guy who got hired into EA from a tire sales company, next to a guy who made buying decisions for JC Penny.

Seriously. Its that bad.

I think that many developers are out there, as passionate now about making "the game we would want to play" as we are about playing it. Its just that to get the money to do that, the developers have to ensure that the publisher is in a position to feel comfortable about that investment and to be compensated for putting up millions, sometimes putting up 7 figure investments 2, 3, or 4 years before a title goes to market.

To do that, I dont think DLC offerings and premiums are too high a price to pay SO LONG AS they arent crippling the underlying game to make that content available.

SoulCalibre 4 was a game that I think found a nice system.  Almost all the content I bought was in the game.  I could just pay $12 for 3 packs and have it all NOW instead of ahving to beat it 50 different ways to get the full gear.

Im hoping that the DLC mechanism here will also let me get good stuff in 6 months or whatever.  Stuff that were concepts and parts of the game world that they thought up but didnt have time/money to get in the game.  DLC doesnt *HAVE* to be a bad thing.  You and I can benefit from it as well.

Modifié par Lord Clocks, 26 octobre 2009 - 05:17 .