434 réponses à ce sujet

[Il Divo]

Addai67 wrote...

Can we just stipulate that we all understand the basics of consumer-supplier relations? That price point is a flexible thing? You seem to believe people criticizing these practices don't grasp this.

Generally because day 1 dlc is treated as occupying a completely separate sphere in comparison to any other market whether its food, film, or music, without effectively illustrating why the gaming medium is so special. The "it's critical to the experience" argument sounds nice, but it's more like a buzz phrase, similar to Bioware’s “press a button, something awesome happens”.  

The very point of offering a supplement to an experience is for it to make the base experience more enjoyable. If that weren't the case, it wouldn't really be a supplement. If I pay for a cheeseburger and fries separately, I don't complain that because the cheeseburger wasn't to my liking, the company also acted "sleazy" because I had to pay for fries on top of it. Hence my point that this stipulation is being applied without consistency to the gaming genre. What people consider to be a "complete" product only seems to be a problem here.

But even so, there is still room for discussion about whether you felt manipulated or cheated by your purchase or if you felt like you got good value. What Joy Divison was saying still applies. If you ponied up for something but weren't satisfied, you are much less likely to do so again. The more the company squeezed out for you and the bigger the rift between what you wanted and what you got, the less likely you are to let yourself be tempted again.The company still takes a customer satisfaction hit. So it's still relevant to talk about sleazy business practice, even if we all understand that we're not dealing in absolutes.

Okay, but that says to me more “stop buying from the company” than it does “ban selling day 1 dlc”. Like I said above, there are a million products offered across the world with supplements attached to them, which aren’t “complete”, beyond what we all want as the base product. As per previous posts, people loved DA:O, which also had the Warden’s Keep dlc at launch, so obviously there's room to make a great game and a crap ton of profit.

That’s why I find Joy Division’s analysis to be lacking in utility: it asserts that, in some capacity, a consumer should be more critical of a company who satisfies their demand better than a company who fails to do so for a given price, simply because there is a small amount of content unnecessary to the experience not included. Hence my point that the only relevant factor to consider is whether you as a consumer are satisfied. Riddle me this: if you bought a game for $60 and it was the best damn game you ever played, are you going to be bitter that the company in question didn't give you every mission/character/etc?

Modifié par Il Divo, 20 août 2012 - 12:20 .

[Bostur]

Il Divo wrote...
That’s why I find Joy Division’s analysis to be lacking in utility: it asserts that, in some capacity, a consumer should be more critical of a company who satisfies their demand better than a company who fails to do so for a given price, simply because there is a small amount of content unnecessary to the experience not included. Hence my point that the only relevant factor to consider is whether you as a consumer are satisfied. Riddle me this: if you bought a game for $60 and it was the best damn game you ever played, are you going to be bitter that the company in question didn't give you every mission/character/etc?

I hope you don't mind me adding a few cents, even though you responded to Addai's post

If I thought a game was the best ever made, then it was the best ever made. DLC doesn't matter in that respect. I have played plenty of great games with DLC offerings that I enjoyed. And a lot of developers have a great understanding of how to effectively create and market DLCs without making consumers angry.

The cases where I get annoyed with DLC is usually either because I think the main game is lacking, or becuase the marketing of the DLC is so noisy that it detracts from the experience of the main game. The last case is probably the biggest factor for me, because hey bad games happen, it's not necessarily because of the DLC.

I'd like to make a few examples of marketing noise that can actively make a gameplay experience worse for me.

- Advertising DLC during gameplay. DA:O was notorious for this, fortunately BioWare eased down on that approach. But I still pick up on subtle hints in other games, like the missing Shadow Broker mission in ME2.
I  haven't played ME3 but I think I would be very annoyed to get a "Buy more DLC" prompt at the end, especially if I found the ending lacking.

- Sale of power. When game items are sold as extras and they seem more powerful than the in-game items, I instinctively start to wonder if the game is balanced for play with the DLC or without the DLC. Usually it's the latter and in those cases my experience is that the DLC will usually break the game. I can mostly avoid buying the DLCs and I always do given the choice, but I can't avoid the doubt I have until I'm done playing the game.
This is even worse when DLC content is forced upon me. In DA:O I got a lot of 'free' stuff that I didn't want, and some of it was indistinguishable from the real items. In Deadspace 2 it completely broke the progression of the game.

[Elhanan]

^ No expert, but perhaps the point of the club value offered in DAO: the GoA DLC was to offer a way to 'imbalance" or "break" the game. Personally, I hate the shopping and economic hauls seen in many games and often after an initial playthrough, will use console commands to eliminate this 'feature'. In this case, the Golem Club could be sold for a nice bit of change to be used at start-up for any character. if you do not want the feature, the club may be used as an actual weapon, or kept as a memento.

As for some powerful items found in DLC (eg; Leliana'Quest), there were already some like extant items in the game, but not offered at start. These kinds of things helped me; uncertain if others liked them as much.

Modifié par Elhanan, 20 août 2012 - 03:29 .

[LinksOcarina]

KDD-0063 wrote...

However, the existence of day 1 DLC, even if they are indeed made in 'free time' or with extra budget, falls dangerously close to ripping content from the game and sell it separately, as there is no reliable ways for consumers to distinguish between the two practices. The words from developers, designers, or gaming media is simply too unreliable and in fact worthless, because the chance of a company admitting that they rip content from the game is negligible.

Justifying a day 1 DLC practice by saying "it is made after the game is finished" means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING because consumers cannot tell whether it is a lie or not, and because it is impossible for anyone to say that the DLC is ripped from the game, even if someone knows about it and wants to say it, the PR department won't allow it.

Therefore, as consumers, the concept of day 1 DLC is still 100% boycott worthy, because for consumers, it is impossible to boycott one practice in the above without boycotting the other as well. Maybe a day 1 DLC from one game could be so called content made after the main game is finished, or with extra budget, but allowing this practice to become the industrial norm will guarantee to allow the other practice as well.

For consumers it is tiresome and extremely difficult to form a very complicated set of rules about what is acceptable or not. It is also ironic that we have to research whether a statement from the company is a lie or not when we are specifically paying money for entertainment.

The words of the consumers are just as unreliable, as they can have axes to grind or opinions to enforce. No one is right in that situation. The only case where we know it happened was the Capcom games of this year, Asura's Wrath, Street Fighter X Tekken, and so forth, as they admitted they had content locked to be made for DLC at a later date.

And to be frank, eliminating this practice will just allow other practices to flourish, like downloadable, digital titles, motion controls, and other things that basically move the industry from the past. 

[Addai]

Il Divo wrote...
Generally because day 1 dlc is treated as occupying a completely separate sphere in comparison to any other market whether its food, film, or music, without effectively illustrating why the gaming medium is so special. The "it's critical to the experience" argument sounds nice, but it's more like a buzz phrase, similar to Bioware’s “press a button, something awesome happens”. 

It is relatively new and hence controversial, the more so because it is being tied in (by EA/ Bioware, not just critics) with nickel and diming of content like the $1 ammo clip.

If you think no other consumer product gets such scrutiny, think again.  From airline baggage fees to the incredibly shrinking food package, people notice when they're being squeezed.

Okay, but that says to me more “stop buying from the company” than it does “ban selling day 1 dlc”. Like I said above, there are a million products offered across the world with supplements attached to them, which aren’t “complete”, beyond what we all want as the base product. As per previous posts, people loved DA:O, which also had the Warden’s Keep dlc at launch, so obviously there's room to make a great game and a crap ton of profit.

I mentioned upthread, we got Warden's Keep and Stone Prisoner codes free with a new purchase of the game.  It was still crass to have a guy standing in your party camp whose sole purpose is to advertise DLC.  There are also some features that were obviously stripped from the game, like player storage.  Modders found code in the base game to make a player storage chest but you didn't get it in DAO without the DLC.

Origins had a lot more content than DA2 so there was less criticism, but also the bar was moved from Origins to DA2 in that you had to pre-order long before release date in order to get the DLC included with the base game for free.  When people get squeezed, they holler- this should be a no-brainer.  If I'm not mistaken, ME3's day-one DLC was only available by paying a much higher price for a Collector's Edition, further moving the bar.

That’s why I find Joy Division’s analysis to be lacking in utility: it asserts that, in some capacity, a consumer should be more critical of a company who satisfies their demand better than a company who fails to do so for a given price, simply because there is a small amount of content unnecessary to the experience not included. Hence my point that the only relevant factor to consider is whether you as a consumer are satisfied. Riddle me this: if you bought a game for $60 and it was the best damn game you ever played, are you going to be bitter that the company in question didn't give you every mission/character/etc?

If you get more value for your money from one company than you do from another, it's not valid to criticize the cheapskate?  You can enjoy what you did get and still not appreciate being gouged.  And anyway we are talking about Bioware games here- in case you didn't notice, a lot of people were not satisfied with the base games for their most recent releases.  The criticism of their business practice is sharper because of that, for sure, but I for one would still be criticizing the nickel and dime approach regardless.

Modifié par Addai67, 20 août 2012 - 07:34 .

[naughty99]

Skelter192 wrote...

naughty99 wrote...
You really felt Sebastian was essential for DA2?

Can you say the same for Jhavik? 

It certainly didn't feel like I needed any more companions. In fact, I never used most of them. Might be fun to try the Javik DLC if it is included in a big Ultimate Edition pack with lots of new content, but such a short DLC that just adds one companion is not really appealing to me unless it were priced around $1.99 or so.

I used Ashley for the first mission, then dropped her and stuck with Liara and EDI for the rest of the game, other than Tali's mission on the Quarian home world. I would have brought Jack on board, but never found her. Vega seemed annoying, in fact I think he could have been completely cut from the game and it might have been an improvement. Never tried Kaidan, I seem to recall he died at the beginning.

Get Magna Carter wrote...

naughty99 wrote...

Get Magna Carter wrote...

I do feel that both DA2 and ME3 were balanced/structured round the presence of the dlc-only characters leaving me with an "incomplete" version.

You really felt Sebastian was essential for DA2? There were two other rogue companions and the content was tiny, reportedly 1-2 hours at most. This DLC did not look interesting to me at all.

The more quests and content, the better, of course, but my playthrough of the entire game with no DLC lasted well over 100 hours and it never felt like I was missing a superfluous companion character.

I did not say "essential". 
In DA2 each supporting character (other than siblings) was designed to wield 1 of the 6 basic weapon types with Sebastian as the generic bow user.  Varric as wielder of unique weapon Bianca seems more naturally belonging as dlc (except that the story ws largely built around him).
In ME3 Liara has an ability that boosts biotic abilities of team-mates - in my playthrough she was the only biotic on the squad (Shepard was an infiltrater, Kaiden died on Virmire, and no access to dlc)
I'm pretty certain my playthrough of DA2 was a lot less than 100 hours and I don't think I missed out on any sidequests so I'm not certain how you were filling up that time.

 

I bought DA2 on Steam and my first playthrough was 117 hours, made it up to the end of Act 2 and then had to start over using the EADM version, as I was helping to beta test one of the patches, which required a new save game.. I started over and played another 100-150 hours and made it to the beginning/middle of Act 3. 

Never finished the game, but overall I enjoyed it quite a bit, and never felt like the Sebastian DLC was missing. The voice acting for the vanilla companions was excellent, particularly Eve Myles, and the companion story arcs were generally well written and interesting.  All that was missing in my opinion were better side quests, some more interesting faction choices and more varied level design. 

Played on Nightmare difficulty and the combat seemed a lot more challenging compared with the DA:O combat on Nightmare setting. I really liked the fact that enemies could stealth and drink potions, and you have cooldowns, so you couldn't simply spam your own healing potions as you can in DA:O. Also never used tactics, instead I micromanaged every squad member action by pausing, so perhaps that resulted in more playing time compared with others who used tactics. 

I was interested in the Legacy and Mark of the Assassin DLC, but so far that has never become available for those of us who bought the game on Steam.   

Modifié par naughty99, 20 août 2012 - 09:34 .

[KDD-0063]

LinksOcarina wrote...

The words of the consumers are just as unreliable, as they can have axes to grind or opinions to enforce. No one is right in that situation. The only case where we know it happened was the Capcom games of this year, Asura's Wrath, Street Fighter X Tekken, and so forth, as they admitted they had content locked to be made for DLC at a later date.

And to be frank, eliminating this practice will just allow other practices to flourish, like downloadable, digital titles, motion controls, and other things that basically move the industry from the past. 

What matters here is that first, it's impossible for consumers to know what happened behind the scene. If someone rips content out just to sell as a day 1 DLC they are highly unlikely to admit it, making their statement about "made after game ready" weigh very little.

A line has to be drawn between acceptable and not acceptable for consumers, but drawing complicated lines is complicated and frustrating, and gamers don't want to do that. We are paying to play games, for entertainment, we don't want to research into the details of each practice and come out with no conclusion in the end.

And researching whether a company really has free time to make such a DLC is such a research trip that would likely result in no conclusion.

We don't like to be exploited because we don't want to form complicated lines of acceptability. Thus simpler lines need to be drawn. It should not be required for players to research for complicated lines.

Education? pfft, more like indoctrinate the players so that we accept day 1 DLC as industrial norm and let every company get away with such a practice with a few words.
Plus it will have no positive effect anyways. It is still impossible for the consumers to know what really went on behind the scenes.

[Gatt9]

KDD-0063 wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

The words of the consumers are just as unreliable, as they can have axes to grind or opinions to enforce. No one is right in that situation. The only case where we know it happened was the Capcom games of this year, Asura's Wrath, Street Fighter X Tekken, and so forth, as they admitted they had content locked to be made for DLC at a later date.

And to be frank, eliminating this practice will just allow other practices to flourish, like downloadable, digital titles, motion controls, and other things that basically move the industry from the past. 

What matters here is that first, it's impossible for consumers to know what happened behind the scene. If someone rips content out just to sell as a day 1 DLC they are highly unlikely to admit it, making their statement about "made after game ready" weigh very little.

A line has to be drawn between acceptable and not acceptable for consumers, but drawing complicated lines is complicated and frustrating, and gamers don't want to do that. We are paying to play games, for entertainment, we don't want to research into the details of each practice and come out with no conclusion in the end.

And researching whether a company really has free time to make such a DLC is such a research trip that would likely result in no conclusion.

We don't like to be exploited because we don't want to form complicated lines of acceptability. Thus simpler lines need to be drawn. It should not be required for players to research for complicated lines.

Education? pfft, more like indoctrinate the players so that we accept day 1 DLC as industrial norm and let every company get away with such a practice with a few words.
Plus it will have no positive effect anyways. It is still impossible for the consumers to know what really went on behind the scenes.

Agreed.

As far as education goes,  it's not the consumers who need it.  Simple economics:  The perceived value of a product decreases as the cost increases to the average consumer.  Changing games from $60 purchases to >$60 purchases doesn't improve consumer loyalty.  At every price point increase,  some consumer decides that the product is no longer worth the expense and exits the market.

At some critical point,  the tipping point is hit,  and most consumers exit the market.  I'd honestly put that point at $60,  one day's labor for someone making a relatively low pay wage of $10/hour (After taxes).  As the Publishers try to push the cost of the game,  they're going to lose increasingly large numbers of customers.

The Game Industry is the one in desperate need of education.  They sit there,  come up with obviously false statements,  and then convince themselves it's true.  This isn't the first time,  or the third time,  they've made the error of convincing themselves false statements are true.  But I'm willing to bet it's the last time,  primarily because I'm willing to bet on a complete crash in 2014 due to anti-consumer publishers.

[Poulscath]

It sounds to me like they just want to sell games for $100 but don't have the nerve to admit it.

[Ninja Stan]

Poulscath wrote...

It sounds to me like they just want to sell games for $100 but don't have the nerve to admit it.

Whether publishers want to sell games for $100 is immaterial. It's all about what the market will bear, and the North American market simply won't tolerate $100 videogames, and probably won't ever do so. They will, however, tolerate $60 games and the option to purchase additional content for little money.

[In Exile]

Gatt9 wrote...
As far as education goes,  it's not the consumers who need it.  Simple economics:  The perceived value of a product decreases as the cost increases to the average consumer.  Changing games from $60 purchases to >$60 purchases doesn't improve consumer loyalty.  At every price point increase,  some consumer decides that the product is no longer worth the expense and exits the market.

Gamers, in this one regard though, are actually entitled. Games are (relatively) cheaper (at least in Canada & the US) than any other period in their history. And the production cost for some features gamers demand (e.g. graphics) are up through the roof.

Yet gamers demand, for example, that graphics be far beyond NWN1, BG or KoTOR. That alone is a dramatic cost burden. At the same time - your post here being an example - gamers insist that either the price point is just right or too high.

At some critical point,  the tipping point is hit,  and most consumers exit the market.  I'd honestly put that point at $60,  one day's labor for someone making a relatively low pay wage of $10/hour (After taxes).  As the Publishers try to push the cost of the game,  they're going to lose increasingly large numbers of customers.

Publishers (and developers) are in a bind because of the unsustainable costs. I've heard your argument about parasitic publishers sucking up profits, but don't buy it. The alternative is that developers fund themselves entirely from the sales of their previous title.

The Game Industry is the one in desperate need of education.  They sit there,  come up with obviously false statements,  and then convince themselves it's true.  This isn't the first time,  or the third time,  they've made the error of convincing themselves false statements are true.  But I'm willing to bet it's the last time,  primarily because I'm willing to bet on a complete crash in 2014 due to anti-consumer publishers.

A lot of companies will be pushed out because of their idiotic customer service & philosophy.

Modifié par In Exile, 21 août 2012 - 12:21 .

[Il Divo]

Bostur wrote...

Il Divo wrote...
That’s why I find Joy Division’s analysis to be lacking in utility: it asserts that, in some capacity, a consumer should be more critical of a company who satisfies their demand better than a company who fails to do so for a given price, simply because there is a small amount of content unnecessary to the experience not included. Hence my point that the only relevant factor to consider is whether you as a consumer are satisfied. Riddle me this: if you bought a game for $60 and it was the best damn game you ever played, are you going to be bitter that the company in question didn't give you every mission/character/etc?

I hope you don't mind me adding a few cents, even though you responded to Addai's post

If I thought a game was the best ever made, then it was the best ever made. DLC doesn't matter in that respect. I have played plenty of great games with DLC offerings that I enjoyed. And a lot of developers have a great understanding of how to effectively create and market DLCs without making consumers angry.

The cases where I get annoyed with DLC is usually either because I think the main game is lacking, or becuase the marketing of the DLC is so noisy that it detracts from the experience of the main game. The last case is probably the biggest factor for me, because hey bad games happen, it's not necessarily because of the DLC.

I'd like to make a few examples of marketing noise that can actively make a gameplay experience worse for me.

- Advertising DLC during gameplay. DA:O was notorious for this, fortunately BioWare eased down on that approach. But I still pick up on subtle hints in other games, like the missing Shadow Broker mission in ME2.
I  haven't played ME3 but I think I would be very annoyed to get a "Buy more DLC" prompt at the end, especially if I found the ending lacking.

- Sale of power. When game items are sold as extras and they seem more powerful than the in-game items, I instinctively start to wonder if the game is balanced for play with the DLC or without the DLC. Usually it's the latter and in those cases my experience is that the DLC will usually break the game. I can mostly avoid buying the DLCs and I always do given the choice, but I can't avoid the doubt I have until I'm done playing the game.
This is even worse when DLC content is forced upon me. In DA:O I got a lot of 'free' stuff that I didn't want, and some of it was indistinguishable from the real items. In Deadspace 2 it completely broke the progression of the game.

Well said. And this is something which happens to me when playing games as well. I'm one of those weirdos who tends to become immersed in the experience, so when I'm playing a game and see an in-game advertisement (ME3 endings as you say), it tends to ruin the experience, particularly when the (hoped for) reaction is that the player is in the process of absorbing the conclusion of this 5 year journey.  I definitely think there are more productive ways for developers to go about implementing dlc, though that might be a different topic altogether.

[Gatt9]

Elhanan wrote...

Gatt9 wrote...

The problem with his post is that it assumes two things...

1.  There's no bugs that need fixed,  which the industry firmly believes that it's ok to ship a game with a few dozen major bugs in it.

2.  The assumption that the work is being done in 3 weeks.  It's not being designed,  developed,  QA'd,  scored,  voices recorded,  cinematics,  etc in 3 weeks.  Look how long it took Bioware-EA to develop the extended endings.  If they couldn't do that in 3 weeks,  then how could they develop the DLC in 3 weeks?

He makes good points,  but glosses over the things that make it impossible for DLC to be developed in that short an amount of time.  He's handwaving away all of the issues.

That quote followed this one:

Tom Baird

17 Aug 2012 at 9:42 am PST

"Due to the structure of a game's development cycle, content is not necessarily held back when it's Day 1 DLC.

Release Candidate testing is not a 1 day affair, and a game can be content complete months before it hits the shelves. These months between content complete and launch day are ideally when Day 1 DLC is made, and as such it can't be put into the original product or else content completion would be pushed back, which pushes back the launch day, which then still gives you a few months to add additional content that would have been unable to have been placed into the original game.

The complaints about Day 1 DLC are commonly due to a misunderstanding of how games get made, and hopefully we can start to better educate our customers to the process so they quit complaining about the logical outcome of said process, because the alternatives to Day 1 DLC is not more main game content, but simply less content overall. "

The thing is,  he's again not telling the whole truth there.

First,  His statement is only true for a very traditional Waterfall design.  Only if testing actually occurs at the very end of development.  Many studios are Agile team,  and testing and regression are executed throughout the development cycle.  A one month or more "Formal" cycle is highly unlikely.  1 - 2 weeks is much more likely.  Especially since they're able to edit save files to start at any point in the game,  without having to go through all of the preceeding content,  in order to test some feature.

Which brings us to point 2.  Video games don't answer to regulatory bodies on code quality.  They don't need to disposition their defects,  there's no defect except a total show-stopper that prevents them from shipping.  So a "Formal" test cycle is a little deceptive,  because they're not actually required to validate the product. 

Finally,  games ship with many defects,  sometimes even completely broken.  It's hard to imagine this 1 month long effort of dozens of people formally validating a video game,  to ship it broken.  This would be believable if software shipped bugfree,  but it rarely does.  Honestly,  does anyone actually believe Skyrim went through a 1 month Formal Testing cycle and no one noticed it was borked on the PS3?  How about Fallout New Vegas?  No one on the ME3 team noticed that the Salarian fleet was bugged?  If we assume that what you're stating is true,  then it means that the Publishers are more interested in having DLC on Day 1 than they are in having a good product on Day 1,  which then leads to the question of

"If the priority is Day 1 DLC and not bugfixing,  then why waste money on a month or more of test so you can not fix what they found?"

It makes no sense to do a month or more of testing if you're not going to fix the defects and focus on Day 1 DLC,  so I find it very hard to believe the Publisher is spending all of that money to get a list of things they don't intend to do anything about.

[Elhanan]

Gatt9 wrote...

The thing is,  he's again not telling the whole truth there.

First,  His statement is only true for a very traditional Waterfall design.  Only if testing actually occurs at the very end of development.  Many studios are Agile team,  and testing and regression are executed throughout the development cycle.  A one month or more "Formal" cycle is highly unlikely.  1 - 2 weeks is much more likely.  Especially since they're able to edit save files to start at any point in the game,  without having to go through all of the preceeding content,  in order to test some feature.

Which brings us to point 2.  Video games don't answer to regulatory bodies on code quality.  They don't need to disposition their defects,  there's no defect except a total show-stopper that prevents them from shipping.  So a "Formal" test cycle is a little deceptive,  because they're not actually required to validate the product. 

Finally,  games ship with many defects,  sometimes even completely broken.  It's hard to imagine this 1 month long effort of dozens of people formally validating a video game,  to ship it broken.  This would be believable if software shipped bugfree,  but it rarely does.  Honestly,  does anyone actually believe Skyrim went through a 1 month Formal Testing cycle and no one noticed it was borked on the PS3?  How about Fallout New Vegas?  No one on the ME3 team noticed that the Salarian fleet was bugged?  If we assume that what you're stating is true,  then it means that the Publishers are more interested in having DLC on Day 1 than they are in having a good product on Day 1,  which then leads to the question of

"If the priority is Day 1 DLC and not bugfixing,  then why waste money on a month or more of test so you can not fix what they found?"

It makes no sense to do a month or more of testing if you're not going to fix the defects and focus on Day 1 DLC,  so I find it very hard to believe the Publisher is spending all of that money to get a list of things they don't intend to do anything about.

I believe he is telling the truth based on his experience, as every company will approach their products in different manners; hence the varied sorts of ansewrs seen from the many devs.

As far as specifics, will leave this one for Techies, Devs, and QA Ninjas.

[RaggieRags]

Ninja Stan wrote...
Whether publishers want to sell games for $100 is immaterial. It's all about what the market will bear, and the North American market simply won't tolerate $100 videogames, and probably won't ever do so. They will, however, tolerate $60 games and the option to purchase additional content for little money.

Little? All the DLC added together can end up costing more than the base game. Obviously makes publishers love DLC, and me hate it; usually DLC is not a very good deal. It can be cheaper to buy a whole new game than all the DLC to a game. DLC is sold to people who love the base game so much they are willing to pay premium for a little bit of extra content. That's why I'd rather pay for a "complete edition". At least I'm going to know how much I'll end up spending.

[Ninja Stan]

RaggieRags wrote...

Ninja Stan wrote...
Whether publishers want to sell games for $100 is immaterial. It's all about what the market will bear, and the North American market simply won't tolerate $100 videogames, and probably won't ever do so. They will, however, tolerate $60 games and the option to purchase additional content for little money.

Little? All the DLC added together can end up costing more than the base game. Obviously makes publishers love DLC, and me hate it; usually DLC is not a very good deal. It can be cheaper to buy a whole new game than all the DLC to a game. DLC is sold to people who love the base game so much they are willing to pay premium for a little bit of extra content. That's why I'd rather pay for a "complete edition". At least I'm going to know how much I'll end up spending.

Sure, but you're also paying the exact same price for a game whether it has 20 hours of play time or 120. You're paying the same price whether the game has zero replayability or infinite replayability. You're paying the same price whether a game took 18 months to produce or 12 years. You're paying the same price whether a game is rated highly or poorly. You're paying the same price regardless of the number of features, innovations, what tech is required to play the game, game engine, graphics/cinematics, number of models, amount of voice acting, number of playable characters, number of other platforms on which the game is released, etc.

And all of them need to sell copies in order to recoup the amount spent on development. Many gamers have a very specific definition of "complete game" in their heads, which is fine, but it usually ignores the complexity and financial wizardry that accompanies the game industry. Some folks say that asking the fans to learn more about the industry and how development works is wrong, but the number of simply misguided arguments I see from armchair economists, executives, and developers on the internet convinces me that I still need to provide some of this context for people.

I'm not saying that customers can never understand the development side of things, but if you want to persuade companies to do things your way, it'd be a good idea to find out if "your way" is even economically feasible from their perspective.

[Fast Jimmy]

Stan,

I agree that educating the masses is a good thing, but it should never be a requirement to selling a product.

The only logical step I would say that needs to happen is to charge more for a game if it truly deserves it. If it takes 4 years to develop, had a small army of programmers required to make it and has enough CGI, voice tracks and animations to pack multiple discs, then charge the consumer for it.

Saying the market would not bear it, when no one has ever done it, isn't exactly a persuasive argument. If ME3 had come out with a base price of $80, and it truly had loads of custom content that was tailored to fit previous game choices, had made an effort to bring prior companions back in a substantial way (as opposed to just having them fill spots that were replaced by another another random NPC if they were dead), if they had allowed us to muster our gathered forces in a way that reflected those decisions (say in a manner of how the ME2 suicide mission worked, where you were coordinating multiple groups to do different tasks, or ME1 where you sent the VS with the Salaria. Squad and was able to accomplish things that helped their progress) and, of course, if the endings were not as narratively broken as many fans believe that they are, then that would have been worth $80 to many, many players.

Instead, due In part to the $60 price tag (meaning it was projected to only make a certain amount of revenue), the game was sent out with pigeon holed in missions, only passing scenes with characters we developed bonds with in previous games and an ending that originally was the exact same cutscene with different colors. All of which can be attributed, either partially or wholly, to a dev cycle that did not have enough resources and/or enough time.

If the first $80 were to come out and be TRULY worth it, consumers would buy it. When Street Fighter 2 came out on SNES as one of the first console games to be $60, it was heralded as being just like having an arcade game at home and blew the doors off the fighting game console records. Similarly, if a game that was truly epic, something unseen before in the market, something that shows the extra work, effort and requirements that went into it, people would buy.

And then you'd have a couple 'pretender' games come out, charging $80 and not being worth it, which would be flops. You'd also see some low-budget games come out being priced for $20, to compete with the 'big tickets' games, despite being lower quality.

Because right now, with every game coming out being in a $45-$60 price range, is entirely unhealthy for the industry. There are as many game genres, franchises and game types out there as there are cars models being manufactured... but no two cars are priced the same. You have high end ones, which cost more and sell less but still turn large profits, and then you have less expensive models which sell more.

This is a little different with an intellectual property like a game, which costs pennies on the dollar to print and distribute and where most of the cost incurred is in the design, but it's still an industry that needs more price diversity.

I just believe Bioware needs to have the testicular fortitude to have faith in their product, their fanbase and their artistic integrity (no sarcasm intended there). Because while the DLC model makes money, it's currently putting the fans through consumer fatigue and that's not going to change no matter how long you discuss business models or corporate financing.

[Poulscath]

Ninja Stan wrote...

Poulscath wrote...
It sounds to me like they just want to sell games for $100 but don't have the nerve to admit it.

Whether publishers want to sell games for $100 is immaterial. It's all about what the market will bear, and the North American market simply won't tolerate $100 videogames, and probably won't ever do so. They will, however, tolerate $60 games and the option to purchase additional content for little money.

Well, that's exactly my point. Instead of asking $100 up front, they're asking $60+10+10+10+10... so the games effectively cost $100+ without having to admit it. The old analogy of the frog in the pot not noticing the rising water temperature comes to mind. 

[Megaton_Hope]

Preposterous. I'm under no illusion that DLC is produced purely for the customer's enjoyment; I know that we're talking about a for-profit business here. The profit motive can, and should, exist alongside the customer's enjoyment of their purchase as a priority. It should never replace it.

Rigging a product that a person has already bought and paid for to be coin-operated is a scummy form of profiteering. Microtransactions are an accepted part of "Freemium" apps precisely because the base game doesn't have to be purchased. If you don't want to spend real money on refilling your energy or equipping a character, you have the option of playing a game with The Boot on it, if you can manage to stomach the experience.

At its very best, DLC adds things to a base game that a player has experienced and enjoyed but may not be challenged by.  Offering DLC simultaneously with the main game, okay. I can accept that. As long as the development of the DLC isn't allowed to take anything away from the rest of the game. Requiring that players pump in a thousand dollars worth of digital Smurfberries just to keep their game running, though:

http://www.msnbc.msn...s-buckets-cash/

Well, that's just fraud.

[naughty99]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Because right now, with every game coming out being in a $45-$60 price range, is entirely unhealthy for the industry. There are as many game genres, franchises and game types out there as there are cars models being manufactured... but no two cars are priced the same. You have high end ones, which cost more and sell less but still turn large profits, and then you have less expensive models which sell more.

Many games do generate more total revenue selling at a lower price point (sometimes much, much more). Within the PC market at least, you can pay $50 - 60 for a new AAA title at launch, or wait and eventually buy the same game on sale as low as $5 - 10. The demand for videogames is incredibly elastic, and I imagine we will see some interesting new pricing models for console digital downloads as well, perhaps even subscription models for cloud-rendered game content, etc.

As for ME3, you personally might find it to be not worth your $60. In my case, overall I enjoyed ME3 more than ME2 and ME1 and I'm quite happy with that particular purchase, never felt like I was missing out because I didn't have an extra companion or some overpowered item pack. On the other hand, there are plenty of games released in the past year at $50-60 which I'm somewhat interested in, but plan to wait to buy when the price is around $5-10.

Modifié par naughty99, 22 août 2012 - 12:15 .

[Fast Jimmy]

I'm not talking about reduced price for delayed purchases. I'm strictly talking about the MSRP of the game, Day One. Since the biggest target of the DLC model is Day One DLC.

So, while I do appreciate your points, developers have no control of the price falling after release, only of the price when it hits the shelves.

[spirosz]

Tealjaker94 wrote...

Velocithon wrote...

Tealjaker94 wrote...

Oh no! A business wants to make money? Damn them! Damn them to hell!

If you knew the issue, you'd understand it has nothing to do with them making money, rather it's the manner they decide to make it. I suggest you educate yourself fully before making such replies.

They can make money however they want to and the consumer base will respond either negatively or positively. That's how capitalism works. I personally don't see this as a problem.

Okay, Capcom for example, content was on disc for two of their recent releases, maybe last year if I remember correctly, yet they sold that as DLC, that's fine for you? Doesn't matter how small or big the content - if it's on the disc, why would they "lock" it out to gain more money, that seems like a great way to treat your fans, no?  

[naughty99]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I'm not talking about reduced price for delayed purchases. I'm strictly talking about the MSRP of the game, Day One. Since the biggest target of the DLC model is Day One DLC.
 

I don't understand why you make a distinction regarding the release date.

There are segments of the market willing to pay $60 for any particular game, as well as $30, $20, $10 and even less. Publishers are already servicing all these segments, at least on the PC platform.

Fast Jimmy wrote...
developers have no control of the price falling after release

 

On Steam and Origin, the publishers are the ones setting these prices. A number of publishers have already reported exponential increases in total revenue as a result of PC deep discount sales, as well as expansion of the fan bases for their franchise.


Super Meat Boy co-creator Edmund McMillen:
"these promotions can increase sales to an almost staggering extent. His 2D dungeon crawler The Binding of Isaac, for example, saw sales multiply by five when it was marked down by 50 percent, and once it hit the front page as a temporary "Flash Deal" (for 75 percent off), sales multiplied by sixty.

Total sales revenue was 60 times higher at 75% off ($2.49) than the total sales revenue when the game was at full price ($9.99).

Runic Games CEO Max Schafer (developer of Torchlight):
"We find that we get several thousand percent increases in units and revenue on the days of the Steam sales, and unit sales are usually about double the normal for a few weeks after the sales are over "

Jason Holtman, VP of Business Development at Valve:
"It's not uncommon for our partners to see [a] 10-20 times revenue increase on games they run as a 'Daily Deal.' Some titles really take off and see as much [as a] 70-80 times increase in revenue," Holtman said. "

Daniel Da Rocha of Toxic Games, developer of (Q.U.B.E.):
"[When people] have the opportunity pick up a copy for next to nothing, this only grows the fan base around the game, so when we release new content or future games, we have a large community already there to market to."

Modifié par naughty99, 22 août 2012 - 03:10 .

[Fast Jimmy]

I understand the value and benefits of Steam, and other digital distribution models. I also understand how they be a benefit to consumers. I also agree that it would be great if consoles had a similar digital distribution medium.

That being said, none of that has to do with the discussion at hand. The thrust of the OP and others statements have been a genuine disdain for the DLC model Bioware has adopted (or comments from those that support it). And while you can buy DLC via Origin, an online digital distributor, it doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that Bioware is targeting story-based content for DLC, specifically Day One DLC, which is seen as being manipulative by many.

My comments on pricing were along the lines of charging what they feel the content and game are worth, rather than resulting to DLC marketing and gimmicks.

Since digital distribution vendors like Steam, Origjn and GoG have almost no bearing on if Bioware releases Day One DLC (and hence, how much they can make based on the price of the game/DLC at release), I feel like a discussion of their merits doesn't really apply. Despite the fact that I agree with the overall thrust of your statements and agree with the information you put forth.

[Elhanan]

Again, non-important, useful, or relevant DLC woiuld probably not be worth developing or selling.