730 réponses à ce sujet

[Lordgleen]

I realy hare all these DLC's it is pain for pleaes like myself that can never get them. Like with ME2 I have the collectors one but I could not get the content because I have no internet. Bioware please stop it.

[AlanC9]

Alex_SM wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Points 1 and 2 are true, but irrelevant for gamers who will have extracted all their utility before those events occur. They also put a cap on the number of players who can extract full utility from a single copy.

Point 3 is true for gamers who find that game mediocre, but irrelevant. If the player finds that game mediocre, he's still extracted the full utility from that copy.

And why is it different from someone who buys a car and thinks is crap? Or who wants it for 4 years, and then wants another? For him the "total utility" are 4 years. 

Because the next guy can still get the exact same utility from the used game as if he had purchased a new one.

 You are admiting that the "full utility" is something subjective. If it where objetive, then it would be independant on gamers opinion about it.

Of course it's subjective. How could it not be?

So you can't say that a person who sells it has extracted it's full utility, and that a person who sells an object, like a car, hasn't.  It depends on what are the demands on the product. 

That every single person who sells his game has extracted the full value? Nope; can't say that, and didn't mean to imply it. Some people could be really broke and desperately need the cash.

I can say that a very large majority of the people selling their games have extracted their full value. User data doesn't show a lot of people selling a game and then rebuying it on the used market. I know you know "many" of these people, but what of it?

And the original purchaser's utility  isn't all that significant anyway, except that exhausted utility is what puts so many games into the used game channel. The real problem for the game companies is that the subsequennt purchasers get full utility too.

[keldana]

I don´t read the 25 pages now.

But for me, I also say "please end this".

I want to have the FULL GAME. I want to have all weapons / armor / characters etc. available, which are made by Bioware.

And this I want without buying action figures, a vault, an art book .... also without playing demos from other games ... only for buying the game.

If needed, I buy a special edition for that, or a 1600 xbox live points "season pass" or something like that. But what I get schould be in a good relation to the price. A weapons pack with 3 rifles isn´t a thing, which should cost 320 points.

Thx Bioware for going back to whats really important .... the fans and the GAME !!!

[Gatt9]

MadLaughter wrote...

Here's the thing Stanley doesn't seem to notice and EA definitely doesn't. Building a strong relationship with customers who are fans is an indirect way to improve sales of their game. I'll give a topical recent example:

Double Fine Studios, with people like Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, just crowdsourced funding for their next game. They wanted to get $300,000 in 33 days. Guess what...they got over 500,000 dollars in less than TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. You know why? Because that company has a very positive relationship with its' customers. On the Kickstarter page, they promised to be the most transparent developers of all time on this project. And it worked.

What if EA tried to do this? It would blow up in their faces. People don't trust them, and they do not have figureheads like Schafer or Ron Gilbert that are more interested in the creative vision of their games than pure money. EA/Bioware are ridiculously secretive with their development and confusing with their DLC/Bonus Content, it creates a barrier to entry that they don't seem to realize. I respect being secretive about Story for ME3, but they adhere to such a strict marketing schedule and even then sometimes fail to follow through that it's a huge bummer.

People performed a miracle for Double Fine studios because they like them, and they trust them. Their employees are generally cheery and respectful to their fans.

Here, people like Priestly comment in threads titled "Who are your least favorite ME characters?" and Priestly responded with something like "Can I say the fans?"

You know why the user score on Metacritic gets bombed for Dragon Age 2, Bioware? It's because people perceived EA as evil, Bioware employees that were snarky instead of helpful, and the fact that they had the most ridiculous bonus/dlc scheme to date.

Be transparent, be KIND TO YOUR USERS, and the world will respond in kind.

Double Fine has now eclipsed $1,000,000 in donations in under 24 hours.

I agree with you completely on your assessment,  I am none too thrilled with Bioware's PR between DA2 and ME3,  I consistently feel insulted by this studio if I don't embrace what they feel I should want out of a game (DA2) or embrace a DLC flood so large that even gaming sites ran articles about it.

Zaeed was created purely to deter people from buying the game secondhand game as he was free with a first hand game, to try and claw back some money, not for any other purpose.

I can understand why they did this. The industry is a lot harder and there's more competition, it's become an industry where Sega nearly became bust, so I can understand why they did that with Zaeed.

Actually,  it's quite the opposite.

There are far fewer studios and publishers today than there were 10 or 15 years ago.  Sierra,  Acclaim,  Eidos,  Interplay,  3do,  Midway, and many more publishers are all gone.  Dozens of studios are gone (I could probably fill a page with just a list of defunct studios,  a good portion of which failed in the 00's for reasons I'll leave out of this thread).

Further,  game reviews are alot easier.  10 or 15 years ago,  a mediocre game got a 5,  not an 8.  Magazines reviewed games,  not advertisers.  Now,  because game sites are slaves to advertising dollars,  they're just PR pieces for the studios.  Reviews are a great deal easier,  look at the DA2 reviews for evidence.

Finally,  gamers are alot easier to please.  10-15 years ago when you bought a game,  you expected to get the whole thing in the box.  You didn't expect to have to pay more to get the rest of the game on the day of release.  8 hour long games would've gotten flamed to death by the gamers and critics. 

The market today is a heck'uva lot easier.  Release Generic Shooter #742,  profit.

[NOD-INFORMER37]

keldana wrote...

I don´t read the 25 pages now.

But for me, I also say "please end this".

I want to have the FULL GAME. I want to have all weapons / armor / characters etc. available, which are made by Bioware.

And this I want without buying action figures, a vault, an art book .... also without playing demos from other games ... only for buying the game.

If needed, I buy a special edition for that, or a 1600 xbox live points "season pass" or something like that. But what I get schould be in a good relation to the price. A weapons pack with 3 rifles isn´t a thing, which should cost 320 points.

Thx Bioware for going back to whats really important .... the fans and the GAME !!!

Agreed.

Modifié par NOD-INFORMER37, 10 février 2012 - 12:28 .

[Nu-Nu]

Gatt9 wrote...

Actually,  it's quite the opposite.

There are far fewer studios and publishers today than there were 10 or 15 years ago.  Sierra,  Acclaim,  Eidos,  Interplay,  3do,  Midway, and many more publishers are all gone.  Dozens of studios are gone (I could probably fill a page with just a list of defunct studios,  a good portion of which failed in the 00's for reasons I'll leave out of this thread).

Further,  game reviews are alot easier.  10 or 15 years ago,  a mediocre game got a 5,  not an 8.  Magazines reviewed games,  not advertisers.  Now,  because game sites are slaves to advertising dollars,  they're just PR pieces for the studios.  Reviews are a great deal easier,  look at the DA2 reviews for evidence.

Finally,  gamers are alot easier to please.  10-15 years ago when you bought a game,  you expected to get the whole thing in the box.  You didn't expect to have to pay more to get the rest of the game on the day of release.  8 hour long games would've gotten flamed to death by the gamers and critics. 

The market today is a heck'uva lot easier.  Release Generic Shooter #742,  profit.

Many game companies are bigger, either because they did well or because they merge smaller companies. For many game companies to survive they had to merge, Squaresoft and enix becoming squarenix, this company has taken the titles from both, combing force and competition against other games companies.

You're thinking about publisher being the only competition, I'm thinking of titles as competition. Interplay's fallout has been given to Bethesda, Tomb Raider from Eidos belongs to Squarenix now.  The competition created by these fallen publishers just moved to a different publisher, many titles being bought over by remaing competitiors, adding to the strength of remaining competitiors.

Competition is not easier, just because there's are fewer companies. The companies left have gotten bigger, and thus harder to compete with.

8 hours long and the games get flamed? I'm sorry but resident evil 1 and silent hill 1 was exactly that long 10-15 years ago and got raved and awesome reviews.

Modifié par Nu-Nu, 10 février 2012 - 12:27 .

[jasonxxsatanna]

People forget that pre order DLC and day 1 DLC is done to help boost sales and to encourage people to buy the game new . . . with stores like Gamestop /EB games . . . . it cut into the developers sales when you can just wait it out and get the game used . . . I for one don't mind it , no one is forcing me to buy it or you

[NOD-INFORMER37]

PDesign wrote...

Collectors Edition from Gamestop - 80$
Standard Edition from Origin - 60$
ME Action Figures Series 1 (4-Pack) - 75$
ME Action Figures Series 2 (4-Pack) - 75$
The Art of the Mass Effect Universe - 40$
PlayStation 3 Slim Limited Mass Effect 3 Vault - 90$
Xbox 360 Slim Limited Mass Effect 3 Vault - 90$
iOS Game - 8$

Total = 518$

^^^ I'm surprised some ppl arent at all troubled by this. x/

[wolfsite]

NOD-INFORMER37 wrote...

PDesign wrote...

Collectors Edition from Gamestop - 80$
Standard Edition from Origin - 60$
ME Action Figures Series 1 (4-Pack) - 75$
ME Action Figures Series 2 (4-Pack) - 75$
The Art of the Mass Effect Universe - 40$
PlayStation 3 Slim Limited Mass Effect 3 Vault - 90$
Xbox 360 Slim Limited Mass Effect 3 Vault - 90$
iOS Game - 8$

Total = 518$

^^^ I'm surprised some ppl arent at all troubled by this. x/

I'm not troubled.

I'm not being forced to purchase content that doesn't really add to the experience story wise and there are plenty of guns already in the game.

Got my CE Edition
Got the Free DLC from Pre-ordering and KOA

I'm good.

[Gatt9]

Nu-Nu wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...

Actually,  it's quite the opposite.

There are far fewer studios and publishers today than there were 10 or 15 years ago.  Sierra,  Acclaim,  Eidos,  Interplay,  3do,  Midway, and many more publishers are all gone.  Dozens of studios are gone (I could probably fill a page with just a list of defunct studios,  a good portion of which failed in the 00's for reasons I'll leave out of this thread).

Further,  game reviews are alot easier.  10 or 15 years ago,  a mediocre game got a 5,  not an 8.  Magazines reviewed games,  not advertisers.  Now,  because game sites are slaves to advertising dollars,  they're just PR pieces for the studios.  Reviews are a great deal easier,  look at the DA2 reviews for evidence.

Finally,  gamers are alot easier to please.  10-15 years ago when you bought a game,  you expected to get the whole thing in the box.  You didn't expect to have to pay more to get the rest of the game on the day of release.  8 hour long games would've gotten flamed to death by the gamers and critics. 

The market today is a heck'uva lot easier.  Release Generic Shooter #742,  profit.

Many game companies are bigger, either because they did well or because they merge smaller companies. For many game companies to survive they had to merge, Squaresoft and enix becoming squarenix, this company has taken the titles from both, combing force and competition against other games companies.

You're thinking about publisher being the only competition, I'm thinking of titles as competition. Interplay's fallout has been given to Bethesda, Tomb Raider from Eidos belongs to Squarenix now.  The competition created by these fallen publishers just moved to a different publisher, many titles being bought over by remaing competitiors, adding to the strength of remaining competitiors.

Competition is not easier, just because there's are fewer companies. The companies left have gotten bigger, and thus harder to compete with.

8 hours long and the games get flamed? I'm sorry but resident evil 1 and silent hill 1 was exactly that long 10-15 years ago and got raved and awesome reviews.

Actually,  many companies are bigger because of the draconian terms of a publisher's contract,  and the 3D revolution.  Prior to the 3D revolution,  you didn't need a huge team to make a game,  you could do it with 2-4 artists.  The 3D revolution changed graphics so much that they now use teams of 30+ artists.  Which is actually a tools problem,  but I won't get into that.  If you review gaming history,  you'll find that the vast majority of merging occurred right about the 3D revolution,  because budgets exploded.

GOD explained publisher's terms on their site years ago.  If you fund the project almost entirely yourself,  you might get 15% of the profits.  If you're a big name,  like Sid Meier or John Carmack,  GOD said you might be able to get a bit more.  If the publisher contributed anything significant,  you got a pittance of the profits.

This is why developers are dependent on publishers,  they need money to make a game,  sign with a publisher,  get a pittance,  and then have to do it over again to make the next game.  So the publisher can dictate the terms,  which means that they can dictate only the "Highest margin" type games.  This is where the "(Turn based game,  adventure games,  etc) can't sell anymore!" came from.

It's not because it was ever actually true.  It's because the publishers dictated the game design,  because they held the purse strings,  and are only interested in the very highest margin games.  At the time that was RTS and FPS,  because of Warcraft/Starcraft and Doom/Half-Life.

So developers were forced to churn out whatever the publisher demanded,  received a pittance,  and then were tossed aside.

This is how landmark studios like Looking Glass,  Sir Tech,  Microprose,  SSI,  and many many others ended up dead.  Looking Glass is a great example,  it died because Eidos was more interested in funding an RTS than they were the Thief series,  just because it was an RTS.

As far as thinking about competition goes,  with respect,  I can tell you are young.  The titles currently being produced are a tiny fraction of the hit titles that have been generated,  and again,  those are only the very highest regarded series.

Most titles lay dormant,  never actually used by a company that owns them.  Masters of Orion,  Masters of Magic,  Might and Magic (Those things are NOT Might and Magic),  Wing Commander,  Star Control,  Starflight,  Ultima,  The Bard's Tale,  Wizardry,  Simcity,  Panzer General,  etc,  etc.  I could add another 10 pages to this thread listing widely acclaimed games that sit in a vault doing nothing.

Nor is there any significant competition.  I'll point out the NPD numbers that have shown steadily dropping revenues in the gaming market for the past 2 years.  December 2011 was a 14% drop in revenues,  despite supposed AAA titles being released. 

Competition was the day Blizzard released Diablo 2 and Black Isle released Icewind Dale on the same day,  and both sold great.  Competition was 10-15 years ago when there were a couple new games each week,  instead of a couple a year. 

This isn't competition.  This is lack of options.

As far as being harder to compete with goes,  again,  not at all true.  It's not like there's limited shelf space,  and a bunch of releases every month now,  like there was 15 years ago.  15 years ago,  competition was so fierce that retailers were freaking out about oversized boxes.  Competition was when every shelf in EBWorld was filled with new games,  not Gamestop's shelves being at least half used.  Competition was when gaming was so big that there were companies that did nothing but deal in used games.

I used to buy 2-4 games a month,  today I buy 2-4 games a year,  because there's so few game developers left,  and what is left just pushes out the same couple games over and over.  15 years ago,  I didn't finish alot of games because there was something new and cool coming out every couple weeks.  Today,  I've been dragging out Saint's Row 3 for weeks because there's nothing else worth buying.

The market is not at all healthy,  nor is there any serious competition. 

I will concede the last point to you.

[VolusvsReaper]

I think I paid like 6-7 bucks for Arrival DLC and it was around 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours of enjoyment x2-3 because of other playthroughs...compared to the 8 dollars I spent to go see a horrible 1 1/2 hour long movie called Haywire so I think the price and length are perfectly fine and Bioware makes very good dlcs compared to the majority of other game titles out there.

[staindgrey]

Unfortunately this is the business model of every publisher today. Not withholding content for later DLC is essentially leaving money on the table.

Plus, some DLC is legitimately made after the game's release, and serve as a minor addition for fans who loved the game enough to still own it and purchase add-on content. This was the case with Resident Evil 5 and its Gold Edition, which came out nearly a full year after the original's release. In that case, DLC is the best thing to ever happen to gaming. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case now.

Gears of War 3, for example, has had three major DLC releases within 4 months of release, one being a 3-4 hour campaign addition with entirely new environments, characters and enemy physics. Obviously this DLC model involves cutting game content to be given later. Essentially, the publisher is betting that some will find the full product worth over $60, while at the same time, enough people will think that the initial product is worth $60, whether or not they want all the DLC. It's a way to shrewdly get more money out of the biggest fans while still getting the normal amount from casual fans.

Again, any company not doing just that is leaving money on the table. Regardless of fans on forums, all major publishers know this. Even Square Enix is finally pursuing DLC for their Final Fantasy franchise.

[wolfsite]

Jagged Alliance: Back in Action just released today, it had 3 Day 1 DLC's

Saints Row : The Third released with Day 1 DLC, and one of those was just to give you cheat codes that normally would be hidden for you to find.

[felipejiraya]

All of this would be avoided if BioWare just announce that every promotional DLC will be available to the general public weeks after release.

But unfortunately this will not happen.

[staindgrey]

felipejiraya wrote...

All of this would be avoided if BioWare just announce that every promotional DLC will be available to the general public weeks after release.

But unfortunately this will not happen.

That will not happen because they'd rather you buy preorder deluxe whatever edition.


Sometimes games release preorder content for others at a price, sometimes it stays exclusive. I can never, ever get the Enslaved: Odyssey to the West preorder content now because it remained exclusive, and the codes that came with the game originally are now expired. It kinda sucks.

[staindgrey]

aLucidMind wrote...

staindgrey wrote...

Unfortunately this is the business model of every publisher today. Not withholding content for later DLC is essentially leaving money on the table.

Plus, some DLC is legitimately made after the game's release, and serve as a minor addition for fans who loved the game enough to still own it and purchase add-on content.

None of the DLC is withheld content, all of it is legitimately made.

I'm sorry, I don't want to come off as an elitist a-hole when saying this, but...

You're naive. You don't think the companies involved get together and plan a post-release DLC schedule before the game goes gold? You don't think they choose parts of the game to hold back on and continue working on after release? You honestly think that the "RAAM's Shadow" content for Gears is even capable of being created in less than three months? What about costumes and weapons and fighting game characters? Not to mention all the voice work needed in advance. Remember the Liara voice clips for Lair of the Shadow Broker found in ME2's content way before LotSB was even announced?

Very, very rarely is DLC wholly and legitimately made starting post-release. If ever at all.

Modifié par staindgrey, 10 février 2012 - 02:20 .

[NOD-INFORMER37]

wolfsite wrote...

NOD-INFORMER37 wrote...

PDesign wrote...

Collectors Edition from Gamestop - 80$
Standard Edition from Origin - 60$
ME Action Figures Series 1 (4-Pack) - 75$
ME Action Figures Series 2 (4-Pack) - 75$
The Art of the Mass Effect Universe - 40$
PlayStation 3 Slim Limited Mass Effect 3 Vault - 90$
Xbox 360 Slim Limited Mass Effect 3 Vault - 90$
iOS Game - 8$

Total = 518$

^^^ I'm surprised some ppl arent at all troubled by this. x/

I'm not troubled.

I'm not being forced to purchase content that doesn't really add to the experience story wise and there are plenty of guns already in the game.

Got my CE Edition
Got the Free DLC from Pre-ordering and KOA

I'm good.

If you're happy with what you're getting then thats fine, but having to pay $500+ for the very full ME3 experience is just unreasonable for those who want to. 

And I know no ones forcing us to but that still doesnt make it right at all to nitpick the game to death just to tack every other thing to these pricey, non-game related products(other than the label).

Now that might not be near as bad as I think but with the utter lack of information I just dont know. I would gladly pay for all of this DLC in some package later down the road if I knew at all if it WOULD come later.(some could but just look at how messed up ME2's dlc was)

Even for buying those products, they should at least tell us what we're getting for spending our money. Is all of it just for multi or has someone thrown some SP DLC in there? Exactly how "randomized" are they? Must I buy every single thing they tack DLC to in order to get all the DLC available? They wont even tell us that, for all I know the DLC included with the $90 Xbox collectors case could be the same as one of the $20 figures. The whole thing is just screwed up.     

Modifié par NOD-INFORMER37, 10 février 2012 - 02:41 .

[NOD-INFORMER37]

@felipejiraya Exactly my point.

[pnakasone]

I look at it this way DLCs keep the money people interested in providing support (patches) for a game far longer then they would be other wise.

[Tony_Knightcrawler]

Stanley Woo wrote...
Expansion packs were a way to keep people interested in a game long after they were finished the main game's
story. Due to the size of expansion pack, they were few and far between. these day, i reckon, in the time it takes for a developer to release a full-on expansion pack, people might already have forgotten your game. DLC is, again, in my opinion, a way to counteract that "forgetfulness." With smaller but more frequent content releases, you keep people interested in your game for a lot longer, which means potential sales of sequels can be bigger and, if actual expansion packs are released, players will still be hankering for them.

DLC pricing is the way it is (seen as more expensive than similar amounts of content in a single expansion pack) to get a better return on a much larger investment than, say, 10 years ago.

Star Wars: X-Wing LucasArts 1993
Star Wars: X-Wing - Imperial Pursuit LucasArts 1993
Star Wars: X-Wing - B-Wing LucasArts 1993

Star Wars: TIE Fighter LucasArts 1994
Star Wars: TIE Fighter - Defender of the Empire LucasArts 1994 (This date wasn't on GameFAQs; I had to check my own box)
Star Wars: TIE Fighter - Collector's Edition (Including the new Enemies of the Empire, voice acting, etc.) LucasArts 1995

Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter LucasArts 04/30/97
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Balance of Power LucasArts 11/30/97

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II LucasArts 09/30/97
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II & The Mysteries of the Sith (LucasArts classics) LucasArts 01/31/98

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 Atari 10/15/02
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: Wacky Worlds Atari 05/08/03
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack Atari 08/01/03
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: Time Twister Atari 10/22/03

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness Blizzard Entertainment 11/30/95
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal Blizzard Entertainment 04/30/96

Starcraft Blizzard Entertainment 04/01/98
Starcraft: Brood War Blizzard Entertainment 11/30/98

Diablo II Blizzard Entertainment 06/29/00
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Blizzard Entertainment 06/27/01

MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat Activision 06/30/95
MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy Activision 11/30/95
MechWarrior 2: NetMech Activision 96 US (Also not at GameFAQs; I had to check my own box.)
MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries Activision 09/30/96

MechWarrior 3 Atari 05/31/99
MechWarrior 3: Pirate's Moon Expansion Pack MicroProse 12/03/99

So uh... I guess expansions did come out pretty shortly after the original game. At the most, a year after. Usually only a few months, though (the normal wait for a DLC from BioWare). These expansions added roughly 33% (Imperial Pursuit) to 100% (Brood War) of the original games' length. That is not 33%-100% of the total content, but it is still a sizeable addition.

Modifié par Tony_Knightcrawler, 10 février 2012 - 03:12 .

[Han Shot First]

Atakuma wrote...

They'll stop making them when people stop buying them.

This.

This practice isn't unique to Bioware, and has become pretty much standard fare throughout the gaming industry. Gamers, rather than developers, are ultimately to blame because they'll shell out the money for day 1 DLC without hesitation

[Ihatebadgames]

I like DLC but prefer expansions.So for me it would be more disk expansions with older DLC added.

[lucidfox]

Finally. I've been waiting for someone to voice my concerns.

Thank you, OP.