31 réponses à ce sujet

[emansresu]

Played Mass Effect 2 when it was released without DLC. Now I want to play through again with all possible DLCs. So I read that those DLCs go on sale from time to time but only PS3 and 360 were mentioned everytime. I couldn't find any trace if a PC sale. So did that ever happen?

[Captain_Obvious_au]

No. I contacted EA multiple times, no response. Asked Bioware, no response. Bascially the only way you can get PC DLC 'on sale' is when there's a percentage-off sale on Origin, and use that to buy Bioware Points.

[shepskisaac]

It happened only once and was of course exclusive to US...

[KristovM]

BioWare/EA,

It is silly that the combined cost of the DLC far exceeds the cost of the game itself. It is HIGH time that they price is dropped. In order to be reasonable the price needs to be 75% of the current levels. There are NUMEROUS fans of the Mass Effect series that want to play but are put off by the high prices. We have money, we want to spend it.

[emansresu]

Sounds awesome. Don't really feel like spending over 30€ (either I get everything or nothing) for enough points just to get DLCs that mostly are considered mediocre.

[AgentWhale]

Damn, if I known Origin sold Bioware points. I might have used my 50% off voucher and made my first purchase on Origin. As it is I bought nothing on EA's (inferior to steam) platform and my voucher just expired. And I will not pay for bioware's DLC at face value because the pricing is atrocious.

But i have enjoyed spending a bunch of money on non-EA games over at the Steam christmas sale.

steam >>>> greedy EA + greedy bioware

Modifié par AgentWhale, 29 décembre 2011 - 04:52 .

[blasto lives]

I'd like to add my voice to those who would like to purchase ME2 PC DLC, but not at the current high prices.

I would buy the four mission packs and maybe two of the item packs, which comes to a whopping total of $35. This gets me about 7 hours of gameplay, 1.5 new characters, and a handful of new guns and armor pieces. Not even close to worth it when a new copy of ME2 costs $20 (that's about 35 hours and 11 characters). Heck, the PS3 version costs $20 and it includes most of the DLC. I can understand charging a premium price for the DLC at the beginning, but now?

Throw us value-oriented buyers a bone, Bioware. Now is a great time - right before ME3 comes out. Bundle the DLC and sell it at a reasonable expansion pack price. I'd buy it for $20-25. Or, give us a deal on bioware points - buy 1600 and get another 800 points free. Or just give the video game stantard price drop on old software. Just give us a deal, we want to buy it.

[chris2365]

blasto lives wrote...

I'd like to add my voice to those who would like to purchase ME2 PC DLC, but not at the current high prices.

I would buy the four mission packs and maybe two of the item packs, which comes to a whopping total of $35. This gets me about 7 hours of gameplay, 1.5 new characters, and a handful of new guns and armor pieces. Not even close to worth it when a new copy of ME2 costs $20 (that's about 35 hours and 11 characters). Heck, the PS3 version costs $20 and it includes most of the DLC. I can understand charging a premium price for the DLC at the beginning, but now?

Throw us value-oriented buyers a bone, Bioware. Now is a great time - right before ME3 comes out. Bundle the DLC and sell it at a reasonable expansion pack price. I'd buy it for $20-25. Or, give us a deal on bioware points - buy 1600 and get another 800 points free. Or just give the video game stantard price drop on old software. Just give us a deal, we want to buy it.

Exactly. I was the one who actually posted the sale in a topic here on BSN, but it nobody else knew. Plus, some people don't like to deal with Origin. As for the price, I agree that charging 30-40$ for a 7 hour DLC is a rip-off when you can get the full 40 hour game for 20$

[I kauan I]

I've been waiting too for a goty edition, or a complete pack ME1+2+content like the Dragon Age one... I own the ME1 & 2 collector's editions for the Xbox 360, and bought most of the DLC on sales, funny that I wasn't been able to play them all as my second 360 crashed and I don't plan to buy a third one. As I bought a new PC recently my idea was to buy the CE of ME3 for PC, and re-buy ME1&2+DLC, but not for the current price...

[Captain_Obvious_au]

Err...the DLC should be linked to your profile, so why would you need to re-purchase it?

[Mikey_205]

They make you... basically money grabbing. Tech support guy at EA couldn't transfer paid DLC. I'd rather have played it on PC and was willing to re-buy the first two on deal but the ridiculous DLC costs combined with principle just stopped me. If there was a GOTY edition I'd have done it.

[lokie56]

ARE WE EVER GOING TO GET A SALE. this is ridiculous ps3 got a sale, xbox got a sale, but us legal pc gamers can't get a break!

[jamespettifer]

Mass effect 2 - currently $10 on steam
Lair of the Shadow Broker - currently $10 worth of points
(All prices for Australia)

Bioware - this is ridiculous. I'm not going to pay the same amount for 1 DLC as I can for the whole game

[PsiFive]

Look at it the other way round: the core game's got cheap enough that you can buy it for the same amount as the DLC. If you found a three year old Falcon for the same price as a set of new alloys you wouldn't say that the alloys were over priced - you'd be too busy taking the salesman's hand off at the elbow before he wised up and asked for a lot more money for the car. The question in my mind is whether games would still fall in price that much - like 10-15% of their release day price - without DLC prices subsidising those price falls over the long term. Bearing in mind that not all game buyers will buy DLC because sometimes they just don't like the game anyway? Would we still be willing to pay much more than we pay now for old games in return for cheaper DLC? The problem comes when you buy a game you don't like, first for the game company because you're unlikely to buy DLC for a game you don't like at any price, and secondly for you because an older game you buy and find you don't like will leave you out of pocket far more than the ten bucks you're down now. And what if you do like your, say, $30 game enough to drop $5-6 bucks on each of half a dozen DLC packs? You're going to be spending around sixty or seventy dollars, which is not all that different from now where we get a core game for the dirt cheap price of $10 and pay $8-10 for each of those half dozen DLC.

Not saying the gaming industry doesn't have ways of gouging but given the alternative model of more expensive older games I don't have an issue with the DLC pricing. And I think you have to figure on something like that happening because a game company is probably going to aim for getting the average fairly completionist gamer to pay the same amount for an x-year old title whatever happens. Our choice is whether that amount is split relatively evenly between game and DLC or weighted heavily toward the core game. I'd love it all to be cheaper but since they're not charities I'll put up with the former in preference to the latter. And if/when the gamer market forces them to change business models I'll be the one posting that 3, 4 and 5+ year old titles are so much more expensive than they used to be back in the day. :-)

[Rojansse]

The problem is that every game gets discounts from time to time. Like now on Origin because of the holidays. But
1) You need Bioware points to buy DLC, and 
2) Bioware points never go on sale.
Why no discount on everything? We are not asking for a 75% discount. A 33-50% would be more than enough. Just like the other games on Origin.
DLC for older games like Mass Effect 2 should definitely get a discount. But because they use Bioware points instead of real money that's not even possible as giving discounts on Bioware points would make the ME3/DA:II DLC cheaper too. And they don't want to change the amount of Bioware points they charge for each DLC.

[jamespettifer]

The problem with your theory PSifive, is that instead of buying the mass effect 2 dlc and then mass effect 3, I buy Arkham City (including all DLC) for $7.50, Saints Row the third (including all DLC) for $7.50, the witcher 2 for $7.50 and knights of the old republic 2 for $2.50

I'm happy to pay more for mass effect 2 dlc than I would for other games of comparable length but the current prices are not competitive when I can buy a full game of the same vintage as mass effect 2 for cheaper than one of the mass effect 2 dlcs

[PsiFive]

Yes, just bought Arkham City in the Steam sale myself. Doesn't change my "theory" - not what I'd call a theory so much as one particular business model. Look, what's the pressure on BioWare/EA as far as this issue goes? Oh, you can throw a brick and hit a dozen people who'll moan about it but actions, and more importantly spending, speaks a lot louder than words. If the majority felt it was an intolerable piece of gouging then the DLC sales for Mass Effect would have died on their arse ages ago and BioWare/EA would be forced to do things differently. That they haven't and are sticking with the pricing almost certainly means most gamers who like Mass Effect are actually prepared to pay what's asked even if they do grumble about it. We all do this all the time - how many people **** about the price of a taxi? Where I am it seems like half the city. How many of them still get one home from the pub every night out anyway instead of one person staying sober and driving? Bloody all of them.

Hear what you say about the other games but what's being done with a competing game's DLC - and not having begun the game I can't say if the DLC is comparable to a large add on such as Shadow Broker or Overlord - doesn't matter to Bioware/EA if their own customers are still prepared to pay up the same as before. They've lost a few bucks from you because you're not going to buy on their terms, but when they've still made millions from all the people that were and still are they're going to look at their business model and declare that it's doing pretty much what they want it to.

[jamespettifer]

Perhaps we just have to disagree. However, given how long the dlc has been out, I would have expected that most people who would buy at the current price would have already done so and that reducing the price would mean that additional people would purchase the dlc - and probably more of the dlc as well.

I know that I am not alone. If the dlc was half the current price, then I'd buy all of the story missions. If they never discount I might one day give in and buy Shadow. Given every dollar is effectively marginal profit, bioware could easily get more money out of me.

[Darkangelxxzz]

I gave in some time ago and bought me1 and me2 on a steamsale. At current price it would cost me around 25 euros to get all the me2 story dlc im interested in. Maybe in a year or 2, ill give in and get them at these prices, or not.

[lokie56]

@PsiFive your argument is nullified by the fact that the DLC has gone on sale for both the ps3 and xbox users, while at the same time PC users are stuck out with no discount what soever. leviathan dlc has already been on sale for the 360 several times, and all the mass efftc 2 dlc has been on sale on the 360, as well as the ps3. They are not discounting bioware points or the amount of bioware points required,and that is why as pc gamers we feel a bit jipped. Whats also annoying is that even in their trilogy pack it did not include all of the DLC for all the games.......I don't know who makes these decisions but it is getting to be annoying for loyal pc fans out there.

[PsiFive]

lokie56 wrote...

@PsiFive your argument is nullified by the fact that the DLC has gone on sale for both the ps3 and xbox users, while at the same time PC users are stuck out with no discount what soever. leviathan dlc has already been on sale for the 360 several times, and all the mass efftc 2 dlc has been on sale on the 360, as well as the ps3. They are not discounting bioware points or the amount of bioware points required,and that is why as pc gamers we feel a bit jipped. Whats also annoying is that even in their trilogy pack it did not include all of the DLC for all the games.......I don't know who makes these decisions but it is getting to be annoying for loyal pc fans out there.

Don't think it it nullifies it at all. Say I'm the world's sole manufacturer of left handed orange scented waffle sprockets and accessories for left handed orange scented waffle sprockets, and I decide that as well as making them I'll sell them in a market that I've got easy access to. Let's say further that in order to make the price of the waffle sprockets themselves permanently more attractive I decide that I will rarely, if ever, change the price of the accessories. And this works in this market because although some do complain that I never reduce the accessories and even refuse to buy the accessories I'm still selling both in large numbers, particularly the waffle sprockets themselves.

So far so straightforward, but lets say that you've got access to a market that I can't get at all, and I'd like to sell left handed orange scented waffle sprockets plus accessories ithere too. Only I can make them but I can't sell them there, so we come to arrangement to let you buy them from me wholesale and sell them in that market. Possibly I'd have a smaller margin in order to keep the regular price the same in both, but possibly also there'd be lower costs - after all the work of designing the waffle sprockets has already been done and you're still paying me a wholesale price. Either way, we agree on how much you get and how much I get from the sale of each waffle sprocket and each waffle sprocket accessory. And unless I'm the kind of **** that thinks so bloody highly of the left handed orange scented waffle sprockets that I insist on contractual terms banning you from discounting (off the top of my head I can think of at least two companies who don't allow retailers/resellers to discount and threaten loss of franchise for offenders) I don't care if you reduce the prices, because we've probably also agreed that any discounting comes off of your margin and not mine. Hell, if you or any other third party selling in another market want to give the bloody things away and can live with a loss why should I care as long as I'm still getting paid the agreed price for each unit sold?

PS3 and XBox sales are by third parties, and they have to be in order to sell the base game on those platforms in the first place. That means the decision to discount or not discount is taken by the powers that be at Sony and Microsoft respectively, and you can bet that's factored in by their counterparts at EA - I highly doubt the amount of money that EA gets from a discounted DLC pack sold on the Playstation or XBox stores changes when their stores have a sale. Us PC owners - and remember I'm one too as far as ME is concerned - have to buy at source, and that means we're buying left handed orange scented waffle sprocket accessories right from the factory shop and have to accept the reality that the manufacturer clearly feels its business model is working. Not enough of us are buying in the market where there is some discounting, or just saying screw it and buying a left handed lemon scented waffle sprocket instead, to persuade the manufacturer to do things differently. Too many are like me and don't mind paying a little more if the waffle sprockets themselves are cheaper to start with. Or probably I should say we don't mind enough to actually stop us from buying, which amounts to the same thing when companies look at it.

But I do agree that the Trilogy is lousy value for a lot of people. If you've already bought one or more games in the series you're paying for another copy of something you've already got and not getting any of the now rare DLC, so it comes down to how much value there is in the other stuff in there. In Australia EBGames are selling it now for $88, which is pretty steep for a pair of games I paid less than $25 to download and another that I think the story's mostly crap and wouldn't want to part with more than ten bucks for. There's some value for me in having the physical media but mostly it'd be the exclusive promo DLC that stopped being available before I even got into the series, and that's what's missing from the Trilogy. $88 for an Ultimate Edition that contained absolutely everything on discs? Yeah, I'd probably pay that. $88 for stuff I've already got plus a game that's way cheaper on its own and is still overpriced at that? Nup, wallet's staying shut for that one. I can only assume that EA were always aiming the Trilogy at a different group from the start, people who've maybe only got one game or PS3 users who might not have even bought 2 & 3 because of not wanting to begin the series in the middle, or for people wanting to jump platforms and start all over again.

[bfett9]

WOW origin has huge pc sale, tons of dlc is on sale, tons of new games, (games newer than mass effect) and I am still surprised to see NO deal on bioware points or the mass effect dlc (ie no discount on amount of bioware points required) I'm inclined to side with lokie on this its just sad business practice. Every other game out there eventually discounts the older dlc in order to capture the audience that refuses to pay over a certain amount, but it seems for the ME series bioware and EA are choosing to throw business logic right out the window.......sad

Modifié par bfett9, 14 février 2013 - 11:43 .

[PsiFive]

Sad, perhaps, but if EA believed it was hitting their bottom line doing it this way you can bet they'd soon change it. Let me give you another example: Adobe are appearing before Parliament here to explain why they're charging so much for some of their software that it'd be cheaper to fly return from Sydney to Los Angeles to buy it in the US. The point being missed there is that nobody actually is flying to the US to buy it - as outraged as everyone is that Australians are being made to pay more nobody is prepared to screw Adobe for its profiting by going for the alternative and getting on a plane. But you can bet that Adobe would cut prices here in a heartbeat if enough people started doing it. As things are the only conclusion is that while Adobe are squeezing Aussie customers their prices are less painful than 2x 12 hour flights, 2x immigration and security procedures and maybe 4x taxis to save money by buying in a foreign city. Similarly the fact that EA aren't doing reductions on DLC is a strong indication that not enough people are going for the alternative of saying "F*** you, EA, I'm just not buying." to make the company switch business models.

[idunhavaname]

Origin stuff goes on sale on holidays (though not as much as steam 75%+ off) but I don't think BioWare points ever goes on sale during holidays.

[Metallica93]

Is there any way to at least know when or even if Origin will have a BW points discount again? I'm guessing the answer is a resounding "No."

Sure, I bought the trilogy for $30, but spending $30 and $50 on ME2 and ME3 DLC/add-ons/-extensions, respectively, doesn't sound like a solid investment if I'm only going to play through the games once. Twice might even be a stretch.

Modifié par Metallica93, 05 mars 2013 - 09:12 .