319 réponses à ce sujet

[SalsaDMA]

wolfsite wrote...

There is no problem with DLC.  The thing is people buy DLC and it has shown developers/publishers that DLC makes money.

Capcom is probably the worst for this as they sell cosutme packs, even colour palettes as DLC as well as selling content still locked on the Disc.

However you can't really fault a company because the consumer prooves that it is a good way to generate revenue.  That doesn't make a company evil, it is just a business decision to increase profits which is what a business requires to fund future projects.

Actually you can argue wether earning profits is evil.

I read a discourse somewhere on the net (although I can't remember the link for the life of me   ) that set up some arguments for when a business became evil in the way it earned its money.

I seem to recall the basic gists of it were that when the ways to earn money become disruptive to either the market it was functinoing in itself or was having a disruptive effect on other areas of life by trying to exploit consumers, it could be said to be evil.

To get clear, unrelated, examples of 'evil' profit earnings you can always think of working as a hitman or selling drugs. Both ways are 'good ways to generate revenue' yet most of us would agree that it is clearly evil to earn money this way.

While DLC peddling is hardly of the same calibers, it is interesting to note that EA clearly are showing tendencies in wanting to exploit some of the base mechanics of human psychology to squeeze more money from their customers than they would otherwise have gotten (at least their CEO is).

[SalsaDMA]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

 The money comes from EA not you just because bought ME, it comes from EA and a pool of resources across multiple outlets, investments, products and games on all formats of all kinds.

People still buy Ubisofts products, I bought a Ubisoft product only a month ago HoMM6 (PC). As a consumer you can choose to support it or not with your wallet but for each one of you who refuses to support DLC (which is what this thread is about), a million others will support it.

So EA gets their money from a different source than the consumers they are trying to sell to? That's rich...

And yes, people still buy Ubisoft products, but have you checked the decline in their PC-sales (without corresponding pickups in consoles) ?

It's a decline that lead journalists to declare that people just stopped buying ubisoft pc products flat. That's how big a decline it is.

[RyuujinZERO]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

I'm beginning to get the impression I could say how great something good is (Medicine, charity etc) and you'd find a reason to refute it. 

In this case your own refutation is illogical. Not 20 minutes ago you were arguing how it is a companies purpose to make as much money as possible. But now you're handingwaving the entire PC market as not a big deal. Smaller portion it may be the PC market is still big enough that a buisness would be foolish to ignore it.

[Dragoonlordz]

Icinix wrote...

I like DLC when they follow Expansion levels, or at least 1/3 the price for 1/3 a full blown expansion.

I don't like paying for small weapons and small armour packs, thats just annoying, but if a DLC really expands upon the game (like LotSB, Shale, Wardens Keep etc) then I have no issue, because they're about that price / size point for expansion levels.

I would rather of course have one or two full blown expansions than multiple pieces. But hey, I'll take what I can get.

I tend to buy only story content DLC for most part to. But I know many others who buy items packs.

[SalsaDMA]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

People still buy Ubisofts products, I bought a Ubisoft product only a month ago HoMM6 (PC). 

Ubisoft recently lost around 90% of PC sales. 

http://www.pcgamer.c...eath-of-reason/

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

Funny. I found an older youtube vid with CEO of EA stating that the digital market was almost half as big as the entire console market and he was anticiapting it to get bigger in the future... (and this was a few years ago)

(move to 2:10 to get the start of that statement exchange)

How does that work for your claim?

[SalsaDMA]

RyuujinZERO wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

I'm beginning to get the impression I could say how great something good is (Medicine, charity etc) and you'd find a reason to refute it. 

In this case your own refutation is illogical. Not 20 minutes ago you were arguing how it is a companies purpose to make as much money as possible. But now you're handingwaving the entire PC market as not a big deal. Smaller portion it may be the PC market is still big enough that a buisness would be foolish to ignore it.

Not to mention he is refuting arguments presented by the CEO of EA as well with that statement

[Sipau Fade]

 Gaming is changing. I think buying a game for x amount of money and having it be a complete package is a thing of the past. There is so much money to be made with gaming now that dlc, pay to play models, and perhaps the big inning of paying extra for content that could be part of the shipped game. That's just how business evolved. Nicole and dining is a business model that works its also known as upwelling or upgrading. 

If you don't like where gaming is going then it may be time to change your hobbie or stick to classics. I think the golden age or happy times of gaming are at an end. I think this is the "dangerous president" we have been warned about. 

[Dragoonlordz]

RyuujinZERO wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

I'm beginning to get the impression I could say how great something good is (Medicine, charity etc) and you'd find a reason to refute it. 

In this case your own refutation is illogical. Not 20 minutes ago you were arguing how it is a companies purpose to make as much money as possible. But now you're handingwaving the entire PC market as not a big deal. Smaller portion it may be the PC market is still big enough that a buisness would be foolish to ignore it.

All profit is good, but the ones that give the most profit count the most. There was a recent article where Ubisoft was talking about the PC market and DRM how they said while they understood why some are so offended by how bad it has got over years they said they are still trying to find the middle ground, no DRM is not good for them but niether is too much and they said they are trying different ideas. DRM is the reason not DLC as to why they lost so many PC sales (though PC sales is a tiny market in comparison to consoles) so time is on their side with regard to finding a solution.

[Sipau Fade]

On pc gaming. I think developers don't like pc development because of the extreme amount of pirating on that format. It is a better place for gaming for the player but not for the publishers and developers. Putting the power in the hands of the customer is never a good thing for the publisher. Control of what is destributed is crucial for them and they loose that control with pc gaming

[Dragoonlordz]

SalsaDMA wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

People still buy Ubisofts products, I bought a Ubisoft product only a month ago HoMM6 (PC). 

Ubisoft recently lost around 90% of PC sales. 

http://www.pcgamer.c...eath-of-reason/

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

Funny. I found an older youtube vid with CEO of EA stating that the digital market was almost half as big as the entire console market and he was anticiapting it to get bigger in the future... (and this was a few years ago)

(move to 2:10 to get the start of that statement exchange)

How does that work for your claim?

Have you seen the sales data for all recent PC titles? compared to console sales they are tiny in comparison. Even in their financial reports (EA) which they publish online you can see how small the income is compared to the console income. PR and what a company hopes to get is not the same as what a company gets.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 02 avril 2012 - 01:43 .

[Alex_SM]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

People still buy Ubisofts products, I bought a Ubisoft product only a month ago HoMM6 (PC). 

Ubisoft recently lost around 90% of PC sales. 

http://www.pcgamer.c...eath-of-reason/

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

Reality is they are not. According to Newzoo's market researchs:

+ In 2011 Americans spent 4,3 billion $ on PC games (excluding MMO). While 8 billion in all consoles*
+ In the UK people spent 0.78 billion $ on PC games. 1,6 billion $ in all consoles.
+ In Germany people spent 1,64 billin $ on PC games, whil e1,54 in all consoles.
+ France: 0,8 billion (PC) / 1.53 billion (all consoles)
+ Brazil: 0.6 billion (PC) / 0,38 billion (consoles)
+ Russia: 0.57 billion (PC) / 0.225 billion (consoles)
+ Mexico: 0.34 billion (PC) / 0.455 billion (consoles)
+ Spain: 0.48 billion (PC) / 0.54 billion (consoles)
+ Italy: 0.51 billion (PC) / 0.55 billion (consoles)
+ Netherlands: 0.121 billion (PC) / 0.232 billion (consoles)
+ Belgium: 0.113 billion (PC) / 0.158 billion (consoles)

 That means 10.25 billion $ spent on PC games, and 15.21 billions spent on ALL consoles. 

That's hardly a tiny portion. But sites like VGChartz are really awful at measuring PC sales. They still claim Half Life 2 sold around 7 millions, while the official statement is over 12 million. And that Crysis sold less than 700.000 unints, while the official statement is over 3 million. And much more. Nearly every PC data is wrong. Because they don't measure digital sales and don't measure lots of PC retailers and lots of countries. 

Also the research says that around 50% of all PC sales are digital (that's like double profit per unit), and PC games doesn't pay royalties to MS and Sony (even more profit per unit). 

So loosing 90% of PC sales is a big deal.

* "all consoles" means: XBOX+XBOX360+PS3+Wii+NDS/N3DS+PSP+Older consoles

Modifié par Alex_SM, 02 avril 2012 - 02:27 .

[Aulis Vaara]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

DLC is good for gamers, way to extend the life of the product at a cheaper price than buying an entire new game and it is always optional.

Modding has always done the same for us, and it was completely free. And all of that in a game that at the very least FELT more complete and expansive.

DLC is not even worth half what we lost. Professional rip-offs can't compare to community creations, not even close, and yet we pay infinitely more for them.

[Dragoonlordz]

Alex_SM wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Alex_SM wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

People still buy Ubisofts products, I bought a Ubisoft product only a month ago HoMM6 (PC). 

Ubisoft recently lost around 90% of PC sales. 

http://www.pcgamer.c...eath-of-reason/

PC sales are an extremely tiny portion of the gaming market (games not hardware element). I doubt they would shed any tears. Sooner or later they will find the ideal form of DRM they wish to use but in mean time they are not going to cry over PC sales as consoles do make vastly more money and this is coming from a PC gamer saying this.

Reality is they are not. According to Newzoo's market researchs:

+ In 2011 Americans spent 4,5 billion $ on PC games (excluding MMO). While 8 billion in all consoles*
+ In the UK people spent 0.78 billion $ on PC games. 1,6 billion $ in all consoles.
+ In Germany people spent 1,64 billin $ on PC games, whil e1,54 in all consoles.
+ France: 0,8 billion (PC) / 1.53 billion (all consoles)
+ Brazil: 0.6 billion (PC) / 0,38 billion (consoles)
+ Russia: 0.57 billion (PC) / 0.225 billion (consoles)
+ Mexico: 0.34 billion (PC) / 0.455 billion (consoles)
+ Spain: 0.48 billion (PC) / 0.54 billion (consoles)
+ Italy: 0.51 billion (PC) / 0.55 billion (consoles)
+ Netherlands: 0.121 billion (PC) / 0.232 billion (consoles)
+ Belgium: 0.113 billion (PC) / 0.158 billion (consoles)

 That means 10.45 billion $ spent on PC games, and 15.21 billions spent on ALL consoles. 

That's hardly a tiny portion.

Also the research says that around 50% of all PC sales are digital (that's like double profit per unit), and PC games doesn't pay royalties to MS and Sony (even more profit per unit). 

So loosing 90% of PC sales is a big deal.

* "all consoles" means: XBOX+XBOX360+PS3+Wii+NDS/N3DS+PSP+Older consoles

Newzoo is pulling those figures from it's arse. The only way it could come up with those figures is if they lumped all mobile (Android, IPhone and IPad etc) and social games (such as FB etc) in with PC games. The fact they said 50% are digital discredits them, it is a random guess and it in reality is not 50% at all digital. It is like saying "Derp, half the PC games sold are digital". That is not true and clearly a random guess without research behind it.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 02 avril 2012 - 02:02 .

[Sipau Fade]

The problem with gamers creating "better" content via modding as supposed to dlc is that it doesn't benefit the pubs/devs. Especially if the game your modding was pirated in the first place. Dlc, online passes, and pay to play models are a way of controlling content so that money is going toward the devs/pubs. It's just not good business to give something away for free when you can charge for it and people are willing to pay for it

[Dragoonlordz]

Aulis Vaara wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

DLC is good for gamers, way to extend the life of the product at a cheaper price than buying an entire new game and it is always optional.

Modding has always done the same for us, and it was completely free. And all of that in a game that at the very least FELT more complete and expansive.

DLC is not even worth half what we lost. Professional rip-offs can't compare to community creations, not even close, and yet we pay infinitely more for them.

The reason they dropped Modding is because they made no money from it so I agree. With games costing more and more to develop, the money off DLC is required these days. We no longer live in a world where you can get triple A rated titles with top of the line CGI and graphics, music and staff at the same price as did few years back,. These are no longer the days when 8bit quality was all you ever needed. Though I do miss some of those classics but those can be made by fans instead of big business which go for the higher quality products which cost more to make.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 02 avril 2012 - 02:03 .

[Alex_SM]

It's not a random guess. Digital sales are being considered around 50% of PC sales in EVERY market research about gaming. Steam, with its 40+ million accounts, helped it.

You can't just say a professional market research, aimed to business and used both by gaming press and publishers, is not true just because is not true. 

Mobile, social and web based games are on a separate stat. In the US they would add another 6,7 billion $.

The fact that AAA cross-platform games sell less in PC is not the same as saying PC sales are few. If you go to steam stats is easy to see that 50% of the played games are PC exclusive (yes, there are lots of PC exclusive tittles). Games like Counter Strike or Football Manager have more people playing them than COD: MW3, for example. And Civilization V, Total War Shogun 2, or DOTA 2 (beta) are in the Top 10.  Also tittles like the ones from Blizzard sell many many copies. 

Modifié par Alex_SM, 02 avril 2012 - 02:12 .

[RyuujinZERO]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

The reason they dropped Modding is because they made no money from it so I agree. With games costing more and more to develop

Reckless spending hardly excuses it.

WoW was developed on a tight budget, they didn't know whether or not it'd work so they kept budgets and targets tight; as it happened it was an immense success so the return on investment was insane and they quickly expanded upon it.

SW:ToR by contrast was massively front-loaded, EA gambled that it'd be a massive success like WoW and budgeted it as such spending more money on marketting than it costs to develop smaller game; despite massive initial intrest they are barely on track to make back their investment.


Budgetting concepts like DLC into the design of a game is both a gross mis-use of consumer trust, and it's also incredibly dangerous from a buisness standpoint. i find it hard to believe any company would be so reckless if only for their shareholders sake.

ALSO, on the note of modding. How do you explain the success of games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim; these games owe much of their success to modding!

Modifié par RyuujinZERO, 02 avril 2012 - 02:10 .

[Zmidponk]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Newzoo is pulling those figures from it's arse. The only way it could come up with those figures is if they lumped all mobile (Andriod, IPhone and IPad etc) and social games (such as FB etc) in with PC games. The fact they said 50% are digital discredits them, it is a random guess and it in reality is not 50% at all digital. It is like saying "Derp, half the PC games sold are digital".. That is not true and clearly a figure they randomly came up with.

Sorry, sounds to me like you're seeing data that disproves your claim, so you're trying to discredit it.  It's actually fairly well known that PC is the format that has been very quick to adopt things like digital download, and, as a result, PC sales have actually risen consistantly for the past several years, even when console games sales were falling.  This is why you have things like Steam, which only does digital downloads for PC and Mac, announcing sales doubling for the seventh straight year back in January.

[Getorex]

I have no problem with DLC. In fact I WANT DLC. Once I complete the main game, the game that the developers have spent MOST of their time on, I would like to have replay/continue-to-play value in it. DLC adds to playability. The developers don't have to start a whole new game from scratch, they can leverage off what is already there and develop substories. A good thing. ME1 suffered too few DLC (only one). ME2 had some really EXCELLENT DLC ("Lair of the Shadowbroker" is a yardstick that is tough to beat or even match).

Deus Ex: Human Revolution had a good DLC that improved the game and extended enjoyment.

The DLC allows a game to be fleshed out and expanded at a more leisurely pace once the core game has been produced. Why NOT DLC? Just don't go and develop the main game and then take a knife to the content and artificially turn it into DLC for the sake of $$$. Make DLC $$$ by honestly developing DLC apart from the main game.

More DLC is a good thing for a good game.

[RyuujinZERO]

bladeofwoe wrote...

I'm one of those people, who if I like a game. I'll buy all DLC for it.... did for Mass Effect 2 anyway =)

And you're a big stupid jellyfish.




...sorry, that was just too good an opportunity to ignore

[Dragoonlordz]

In the end you can view it two ways, firstly if you hate DLC you can consider it a necessary evil because the cost of games has risen vastly over last decade and continues to rise at an alarming rate both from development assets and staff costs for such content as CGI staff. Or you can view it as a blessing if you like DLC and think extending the length of the titles you love is worth paying for. There was an article a while back from everyones favorite developer regarding free DLC (even I like them, just like I like Bioware and Bethesda) that the reason the 3rd act in TW2 was so short was due to not enough finance to continue creating the product outside of retail income meaning game not released. DLC covers such costs on future products so that are not left in positions like that, it has only been a year since came out and since about to launch it on another format but if it had taken a few years they may be singing a different tune regarding DLC due to income drying up.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 02 avril 2012 - 02:16 .

[RyuujinZERO]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

In the end you can view it two ways, firstly if you hate DLC you can consider it a necessary evil because the cost of games has risen vastly over last decade and continues to rise at an alarming rate both from development assets and staff costs for such content as CGI staff. Or you can view it as a blessing if youl like DLC and think extending the length of the titles you love is worth paying for.

Or you can ignore my post addressing the fiscal recklnessness of this kind of logic

[Sipau Fade]

Ryuu, and youre a gaming dinosaur that either needs to evolve with the changing ways of gaming or move onto something else that doesn't ****** you off.

Also a good set up

[Dragoonlordz]

RyuujinZERO wrote...

Dragoonlordz wrote...

In the end you can view it two ways, firstly if you hate DLC you can consider it a necessary evil because the cost of games has risen vastly over last decade and continues to rise at an alarming rate both from development assets and staff costs for such content as CGI staff. Or you can view it as a blessing if youl like DLC and think extending the length of the titles you love is worth paying for.

Or you can ignore my post addressing the fiscal recklnessness of this kind of logic

It is not reckless, in fact as shown by EA's financial reports DLC is one of their biggest incomes. People like to buy DLC, there is no risk there that magically this will change as they just do and this is shown in their figures.