236 réponses à ce sujet

[Realmzmaster]

SOLID_EVEREST wrote...

Do gamers like getting stomped by corporations or something? Ontop of day 1 dlc, games are now too cheap!?

Even if they are cheaper, look at the content compared to older games. I would take the enormous amount of content in games like Darklands versus Skyrim. The only thing I can see as skyrocketing the cost is voiceacting. Other than that, companies just don't know how to budget money. At the end of the day, it isn't the costumer's problem as to how badly a company budgets money. I mean do we have to pay $120 for KoTOR just because EA was dumb enough to release a WoW clone.

The point is that game prices have remain stagant over the years because gamers were not willing to pay more. That means the developers have to cut cost somewhere. That cost cutting came in terms of manuals, maps and any other goodies that use to be in the base game. All of that stuff now appears in the collector's edition or above if then. Do you expect to pay the same amount that you did in 1994 and get the same amount of goodies. It is not fisically sound business. The amount of money necessary to make the game has changed. Expectations have changed. 

Many gamers also expect developers to make use of technology and make better games. People who work for these developers expect to be paid and have reasonable salary increases for good work just like everyone else. Gamers today not only want the game to play well but look well also.

None of this is cheap. So something has to give. The WOW clone has zero to do with it. The prices across the whole market have remained stagant and not in keeping with the actual production costs. So to keep prices in line with expectations the developers cut elsewhere.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 23 novembre 2012 - 03:03 .

[slimgrin]

Emzamination wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

There's a three-strike permaban law?

I must have missed that.

I did too, until I had to plead my case to chris on why I shouldn't be permabanned. Apparently if you get 3 temp bans no matter how minor, you get perma'd.

Three? Pfft. Amature. 

I suppose one other thing to consider is that while games cost more I'm guessing they make a hell of a lot more now too. It's a much richer industry than it used to be.

[Allan Schumacher]

No it isn't. Stop with these false dichotomies. The process is far more intricate than you keep touting. Day 1 DLC isn't always a money grab, but is also isn't always cut content that can only be put in if worked on after the game, like Shale. DLC now is set aside from conception. Developers will plan out what will be in the game, and what will be DLC. Not always, but it is extremely naive to think that this doesn't happen.

You're talking to me like I'm not actually involved with the process. At what point do we start thinking about DLC. I'm sure there are some that think we're already making DLC plans (we aren't, but at this point it's just taking my at my word and if you're already convinced I'm lying about it I don't feel there's anything I can do to convince you otherwise).

This idea that the content would have just been included otherwise is not something that anyone can accurately claim.  At best it's "well I don't actually know what would have happened if the DLC model wouldn't have existed.

Setting aside Javik as DLC from conception as opposed to James, IS A MONETARY DECISION. I can't believe that you believe DLC is and always be this innocent practise just for the fans. It's largely a business decision, and not all DLC is made like Shale was. I have no proof that Javik is not like Shale, but i highly, highly doubt he was. Especially given the insight provided into just how this DLC came to be.

You admit you have no proof, but tell me that I'm naive.

Seriously man. You can't expect us to believe Day 1 DLC is "just for the fans". Money comes into it, and certain decision are bound to be made to maximize the interest in the DLC; decisions that can likely compromise the original intent of certain game content.

I straight up stated that money is a factor. Where did you get the idea that my post is about how Day One DLC is purely a "for the fans" notion?

Sylvius wrote....

Is it? I don't understand that position at all.

I can understand it. People want as much as they can for as little as they can. As consumers, I expect them to have this behaviour.

But do you undertand why everyone is even discussing this issue? If it didn't anoy people then it wouldn't be disussed, there's obviously a reason. Try to look at it from a players perspective not a dev's.

I do look at it from the player's perspective. When it comes to "should DLC be interesting," I am definitely looking at it from the perspective of "The player would much rather pay money for a DLC that is actually good instead of a DLC which is utter schlock." Which is why I don't buy the argument that fans are against the idea that DLC should be interesting and desirable. It's contradictory.

Now if you're point is regarding Day One DLC, I can still understand the fan's perspective. It comes across as something that was tangentially built alongside the game for the idea of milking money from fans, when it could have easily been put into the game for free.

Regardless of the ease of including it with the main release, this fundamentally becomes an economic scarcity issue, where fans are behaving like rational consumers and would like to get as much for their money as they can. Speaking out against it is one way to try to persuade developers to do so.


The unfortunate thing is there are people that don't mind Day One DLC (and there are people that certainly don't mind high quality DLC that they find interesting) too. If I am going to look at it from the perspective of fans, I'm also going to include their perspectives.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 novembre 2012 - 04:29 .

[Allan Schumacher]

The thing is, it's become super-toxic from a PR POV. So I think at this point management has to look at alternatives.

I agree.

Now... if, instead of buying Bioware's Day One DLC, I instead purchased a discount that would give me 50% off all future DLC THAT would be a different story. If Sebastian, Legacy and MotA all were 50% off, I would strongly desire to buy them... even if I wind up spending roughly the same amount anyway.

You're starting to see this with the "season passes" I think.

I suppose one other thing to consider is that while games cost more I'm
guessing they make a hell of a lot more now too. It's a much richer
industry than it used to be.

I think it's safe to say that the COD games and stuff like World of Warcraft make obscene amounts of money that dwarfs what games could make 20 years ago.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 novembre 2012 - 04:54 .

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The thing is, it's become super-toxic from a PR POV. So I think at this point management has to look at alternatives.

I agree.

Now... if, instead of buying Bioware's Day One DLC, I instead purchased a discount that would give me 50% off all future DLC THAT would be a different story. If Sebastian, Legacy and MotA all were 50% off, I would strongly desire to buy them... even if I wind up spending roughly the same amount anyway.

You're starting to see this with the "season passes" I think.

I suppose one other thing to consider is that while games cost more I'm
guessing they make a hell of a lot more now too. It's a much richer
industry than it used to be.

I think it's safe to say that the COD games and stuff like World of Warcraft make obscene amounts of money that dwarfs what games could make 20 years ago.

The season passes sound great in theory but they're not working like I thought they would. Look at how Saints Row 3 did their "season pass"...talking about shafting the consumer. Also, Borderlands 2 is another game. You're not going to get all the DLC discounted. They conviently look like they're leaving out the new character DLC coming in the season pass. That's ok if they informed me this before I bought it. They don't. If I didn't look this season pass up online, I would've ended up buying it thinking ALL Borderlands 2 DLC is discounted. Based on the description on PSN, they surely make it sound like that...

It's just another example of publishers trying to exploit consumers. Not everyone is an informed consumer like me. Even I almost bought that season pass getting the wrong impression before I decided to look everything up...

Modifié par deuce985, 23 novembre 2012 - 05:00 .

[Allan Schumacher]

The season passes sound great in theory but they're not working like I thought they would. Look at how Saints Row 3 did their "season pass"...talking about shafting the consumer. Also, Borderlands 2 is another game. You're not going to get all the DLC discounted. They conviently look like they're leaving out the new character DLC coming in the season pass. That's ok if they informed me this before I bought it. They don't. If I didn't look this season pass up online, I would've ended up buying it thinking ALL Borderlands 2 DLC is discounted. Based on the description on PSN, they surely make it sound like that...

Yeah I have heard about some season passes not being particularly great value.

What's the issue with the Saints Row pass? (I'm bouncing back and forth between work and forums at the moment and zipping along wikipedia will see me lose 100% of productivity instead of just 99%)

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The season passes sound great in theory but they're not working like I thought they would. Look at how Saints Row 3 did their "season pass"...talking about shafting the consumer. Also, Borderlands 2 is another game. You're not going to get all the DLC discounted. They conviently look like they're leaving out the new character DLC coming in the season pass. That's ok if they informed me this before I bought it. They don't. If I didn't look this season pass up online, I would've ended up buying it thinking ALL Borderlands 2 DLC is discounted. Based on the description on PSN, they surely make it sound like that...

Yeah I have heard about some season passes not being particularly great value.

What's the issue with the Saints Row pass? (I'm bouncing back and forth between work and forums at the moment and zipping along wikipedia will see me lose 100% of productivity instead of just 99%)

Firstly, I believe they promised 4 DLC packs with the $20 season pass. Then they changed it to 3. Then after all that, they rushed the packs out and each one was only about 30 minutes worth of content. The content was terrible. Lastly, they canceled the expansion too.

THQ is in financial ruin, so I'm sure that contributed to how they handled the season pass in SR:The Third. Still. A lot of these season passes try to be very deceptive on what DLC you actually get in them. Borderlands 2 is a great example.

Modifié par deuce985, 23 novembre 2012 - 05:17 .

[The Sarendoctrinator]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I do look at it from the player's perspective. When it comes to "should DLC be interesting," I am definitely looking at it from the perspective of "The player would much rather pay money for a DLC that is actually good instead of a DLC which is utter schlock." Which is why I don't buy the argument that fans are against the idea that DLC should be interesting and desirable. It's contradictory.

Now if you're point is regarding Day One DLC, I can still understand the fan's perspective. It comes across as something that was tangentially built alongside the game for the idea of milking money from fans, when it could have easily been put into the game for free.

Regardless of the ease of including it with the main release, this fundamentally becomes an economic scarcity issue, where fans are behaving like rational consumers and would like to get as much for their money as they can. Speaking out against it is one way to try to persuade developers to do so.


The unfortunate thing is there are people that don't mind Day One DLC (and there are people that certainly don't mind high quality DLC that they find interesting) too. If I am going to look at it from the perspective of fans, I'm also going to include their perspectives.

My concern is, will the perspective of fans who don't have access to DLC at all be considered? For me, it's not a matter of more interesting content that I have to pay for, it's just more interesting content that I'll never get to play.

[Allan Schumacher]

THQ is in financial ruin, so I'm sure that contributed to how they handled the season pass in SR:The Third. Still. A lot of these season passes try to be very deceptive on what DLC you actually get in them. Borderlands 2 is a great example.

Hmmm. Not that this excuses it at all, but I do agree that the Saints Row one seems to be more along the lines of "that sucks" rather than a level of malevolence.

The messaging i quickly googled (i.e. not very thorough) for the BL2 one is that the season pass is for 4 new campaigns.

On steam it describes it as: "ncludes access to four brand new individual add-on content campaigns for Borderlands 2 as they become available."

Was there a messaging issue prior to this regarding the Mechromancer? Unfortunately I'm not a DLC person so I'll plead ignorance to not fully understanding that the season passes were more limited than the all the DLC.

[Allan Schumacher]

My concern is, will the perspective of fans who don't have access to DLC at all be considered? For me, it's not a matter of more interesting content that I have to pay for, it's just more interesting content that I'll never get to play.

This is probably going to be less and less the case (I don't know for sure, but it's my impression anyways), which is a crap situation for people like you unfortunately. I see all media (not just gaming) to becoming increasingly digital in its delivery. By the same token, while I know it's not the case in places like Australasia and the likes, I suspect digital infrastructure will likely improve as well.

I'm not sure the reasons why only DAO had the ultimate edition and more recent games haven't gotten them, but my guess is that digital is becoming increasingly common so packaged goods are seeing less return.

I don't have any visibility on how successful DAO Ultimate edition was, unfortunately

[The Sarendoctrinator]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

This is probably going to be less and less the case (I don't know for sure, but it's my impression anyways), which is a crap situation for people like you unfortunately. I see all media (not just gaming) to becoming increasingly digital in its delivery. By the same token, while I know it's not the case in places like Australasia and the likes, I suspect digital infrastructure will likely improve as well.

I'm not sure the reasons why only DAO had the ultimate edition and more recent games haven't gotten them, but my guess is that digital is becoming increasingly common so packaged goods are seeing less return.

I don't have any visibility on how successful DAO Ultimate edition was, unfortunately

That's what I'm worried about.

If I remember right, it was already said or implied some time ago that DA2 wouldn't get an ultimate edition (probably around the time the expansion was cancelled), so I'm not expecting one. But I can't imagine why the Mass Effect series didn't get one. They're releasing a trilogy edition that has the DLC included... as downloads. That doesn't help at all.

I have no idea how much money companies actually make from their GOTY/ultimate editions, but so many series have them now that I would have thought they're making a profit.

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

THQ is in financial ruin, so I'm sure that contributed to how they handled the season pass in SR:The Third. Still. A lot of these season passes try to be very deceptive on what DLC you actually get in them. Borderlands 2 is a great example.

Hmmm. Not that this excuses it at all, but I do agree that the Saints Row one seems to be more along the lines of "that sucks" rather than a level of malevolence.

The messaging i quickly googled (i.e. not very thorough) for the BL2 one is that the season pass is for 4 new campaigns.

On steam it describes it as: "ncludes access to four brand new individual add-on content campaigns for Borderlands 2 as they become available."

Was there a messaging issue prior to this regarding the Mechromancer? Unfortunately I'm not a DLC person so I'll plead ignorance to not fully understanding that the season passes were more limited than the all the DLC.

Sorta. The description on PSN just says: "Buy the season pass and get all four downloadable packs for the price of three. All season pass content will be available by June 2013."

The problem with this message? I have no idea what I'm buying. it doesn't specify. Currently they have the Mechromancer DLC and two campaign DLCs. The Captain Scarlett DLC is the only item that actually specifies it uses the pass. Yet, Campaign of Carnage also uses the pass but it doesn't say that in the description. Mechromancer doesn't say anything either(although I believe it's not included anyway). I got Mechromancer through preorder bonus anyway but that's beside the point. The season pass doesn't give you any hints at to what goes in it. And already one campaign DLC doesn't even say it uses the season pass when it does. Then I read online Gearbox will make plenty more DLC but it won't be in the season pass. How is the consumer suppose to know if Mechromancer DLC is in that season pass or not unless he looked online?

Do you see where a consumer can get deceived at what is actually in the pass? Not every consumer is going to be informed like me. It should be up to Gearbox/2K/Sony to properly inform the consumer what they're buying, IMO. It's why we have laws that protect the consumer(some are overdone, IMO). They need to do a better job communicating. It's hard to say if that's intended business practices or not but I see it all the time in season passes like this. I honestly believe they're just trying to exploit ignorant consumers so they impulse buy a season pass...

Modifié par deuce985, 23 novembre 2012 - 06:02 .

[Allan Schumacher]

The problem with this message? I have no idea what I'm buying.

This is definitely true. It's a leap of faith. Does the season pass expire?

Definitely could use some improvement on the messaging. Hopefully as more season passes come online, there's a level of competition in what is offered between them.

[deuce985]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The problem with this message? I have no idea what I'm buying.

This is definitely true. It's a leap of faith. Does the season pass expire?

Definitely could use some improvement on the messaging. Hopefully as more season passes come online, there's a level of competition in what is offered between them.

That's actually something I don't know but would like to. I'm not currently playing the game anymore because all my friends have the DLC. I have too many games on backlog and still need to buy Far Cry 3. So, it's hard justifying a season pass on that game right now. I went on a rant earlier in the thread about how I hate MP DLC and it splits communities up. I think this is a perfect example of MP DLC hurting communities. I've completely stopped playing Borderlands 2 because the DLC is all my buds want to play.

Wish more devs used Bioware's example. I have no problem with SP DLC...

Modifié par deuce985, 23 novembre 2012 - 06:14 .

[Gatt9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Prices have little to do with developlment costs. I'm saying prices are too low because they're less than half of what they were in 1985 (inflation adjusted). Since a dollar is worth quite a bit less now than it was then, a $60 price tag is a lower price now than it was then.

Steam has shown us that, at low prices, there's quite a lot of price elasticity in the demand for games, but history tells us that this isn't true at higher prices.

I'd have to argue that isn't a good basis for an arguement.

In 1985,  the C64 had shipped ~17 million units,  or around 1/9th of the total number of 360's + PS3's,  and a much,  much,  smaller fraction when compared to PC's (likely something on the order of 1/100th or so).

Market size has a large effect on pricing.  For example,  for a game to sell as well in 1985 as it does today,  literally every single C64 owner had to buy a copy.

Further,  that price tag in 1985 was completely arbitrary.  Atari games were written by one guy in a couple of weeks.  C64 games were written by *maybe* 10 guys,  often 5 or 6,  and it wasn't unusual for it to be 1 or 2.  The development cycle for a game was measured in months,  not years,  and sometimes it was still just weeks.  The price of games in 1985 had no correlation to the cost of development,  and were completely driven by "Charge what the market will bear".

Modifié par Gatt9, 23 novembre 2012 - 06:16 .

[Cutlass Jack]

On the Mechromancer DLC, it was free to anyone who pre-ordered. Since you could also pre-order the Season pass at the same time, it seemed clear to me it wasn't part of the pass. On Saint's Row's pass, it was always 3 DLCs. I know this because it was one of the few I got.

Anyway, not a big fan of the blind season pass thing. So I usually just avoid them. The saving's aren't that exciting, so I find it easier to just pick them up as they come out if they interest me.

But one season pass I do like the sound of is the one for Assassin's Creed III. It will feature a multipart DLC with an entirely different storyline where George Washington becomes a Tyrant. An alternate campaign through DLC is a great idea.

[deuce985]

Cutlass Jack wrote...

On the Mechromancer DLC, it was free to anyone who pre-ordered. Since you could also pre-order the Season pass at the same time, it seemed clear to me it wasn't part of the pass. On Saint's Row's pass, it was always 3 DLCs. I know this because it was one of the few I got.

Anyway, not a big fan of the blind season pass thing. So I usually just avoid them. The saving's aren't that exciting, so I find it easier to just pick them up as they come out if they interest me.

But one season pass I do like the sound of is the one for Assassin's Creed III. It will feature a multipart DLC with an entirely different storyline where George Washington becomes a Tyrant. An alternate campaign through DLC is a great idea.

Yea, this is another reason why I didn't buy the season pass in B2. I want to see what DLC is included. I do not want to be shafted like SR3 again. That DLC was really bad...

Alan brought a good question up and that's something I'm wondering too. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere about the expiration of the season pass. I'd imagine publishers will start putting expiration dates on them so informed consumers like me will impulse buy them more...kind of like a shot in the dark.

Kinda OT but I really don't like the sound of that AC3 DLC. I was kinda hoping for DLC to learn more about the first civilization...that would be awesome.

Modifié par deuce985, 23 novembre 2012 - 06:24 .

[Gibb_Shepard]

@Schumacher: All i wanted to get across is that Day 1 DLC is not and will not always be about "restoring cut content" (Not just with Bioware, with all devs in general) for a price. Companies will take advantage of what players are looking forward to the most by putting a higher price on it from the get go. Coaxing the extra 10 dollars with something that would seem like a missing part of the game puzzle. Whether or not it is crucial cannot be proven by an outsider, but once again, it is naive to think that companies won't purposefully leave out content so as to bag that extra pocket money.

If you don't believe this happened with Javik, alright. But that doesn't mean this whole practice cannot be extremely exploitative in the wrong hands.

Modifié par Gibb_Shepard, 23 novembre 2012 - 06:26 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Further, that price tag in 1985 was completely arbitrary. Atari games were written by one guy in a couple of weeks. C64 games were written by *maybe* 10 guys, often 5 or 6, and it wasn't unusual for it to be 1 or 2. The development cycle for a game was measured in months, not years, and sometimes it was still just weeks. The price of games in 1985 had no correlation to the cost of development, and were completely driven by "Charge what the market will bear".

Prices are always determines by what the market would bear. Otherwise we'd charge more than we do and make more money that way.

When people complain about the cost of DLC for the value it provides, that's market forces at work. Coupled with not purchasing it, it's valuable feedback for adjusting how market forces are influencing the costs.

You are correct in pointing out economies of scale, though your explanation of it is a bit off. Economies of scale are precisely why the cost of games have not gone up, because the increased development costs could be recuperated with volume. This is still what the market will bear, however.

The only reason why prices are less arbitrary now is because the market has been established and there's data to feed into pricing decisions.

[CELL55]

I think I have 2 problems with the Javik DLC.

The first is that, as I heard it, a significant portion of the Javik content was already on the disk when you bough it. If this is true, then it is theft. Charging money for content on a disk I already bought? That's low.

The second is the price hike. For ME2, ALL new editions got Zaeed and his missions. For ME3, only people who bought the N7 edition get Javik and his mission.Everyone else, even the people who bought it new, have to pay an extra ten bucks. That's not cool.

[deuce985]

Javik was a pretty important character in ME3 too. Of course, that's an opinion but he revealed some significant points in the lore you wouldn't know otherwise unless you had him. Especially on Thessia...

Javik is arguably the most important character in ME3 and he's a DLC character. At least you get your money's worth with him...

[Gatt9]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Regardless of the ease of including it with the main release, this fundamentally becomes an economic scarcity issue, where fans are behaving like rational consumers and would like to get as much for their money as they can. Speaking out against it is one way to try to persuade developers to do so.


The unfortunate thing is there are people that don't mind Day One DLC (and there are people that certainly don't mind high quality DLC that they find interesting) too. If I am going to look at it from the perspective of fans, I'm also going to include their perspectives.

Please do so,  but at some point the Industry *really* needs to come to terms with a fundamental truth. 

Kids don't count.

Any in depth discussion on the topic quickly reveals that a sizeable portion of the group in favor of DLC are kids,  and as such have little if any disposable income.  The opinion that really should be considered in that instance is the Parents,  because you are at the mercy of their tolerance.  I would imagine that their toleranace for surprise price increases at the register is a great deal lower than the tolerance of their children.

So basically,  when considering those fans in favor of it,  you need to whack off a fairly significant percentage in order to account for kids who are in favor of it,  but very likely do not possess discretionary income.

It's increasingly one of the Industry's larger problems,  assuming that all consumers are equal.  As an example,  the 2011 survey by the ESA revealed that kids under 18 years old make up less than 15% of the market*.  But are far more likely to be visible on forums than the rest of the market who have less free time to spend on message boards.

You're starting to see this with the "season passes" I think.

The season passes are a massive error in judgement.  It'll only take one or two times getting burned by "Preordering" DLC before people quit buying them,  especially since the incentive for publishers to make quality DLC is eliminated with this process,  and we've already seen ample evidence that the publishers will do the smallest amount of work they think they can get away with.

*The 2012 ESA survey is completely borked,  they suddenly decided anyone who downloaded Angry Birds or some other random cell phone game is a gamer.  It's equivalent to saying that anyone who bought a ticket to Lord of the Rings is a fantasy fan,  which we all know is logically untrue.  Those people did not go out en masse to buy copies of Wheel of Time or Dragonlance.

[Allan Schumacher]

All i wanted to get across is that Day 1 DLC is not and will not always be about "restoring cut content" (Not just with Bioware, with all devs in general) for a price.

You are right that it's not always going to be cut content. The issue is more along the lines of "would it have still made it into the game if it wasn't being created for DLC?" That the content wouldn't have existed otherwise doesn't mean that it was necessarily cut. It might have just never been created outright.

There's also a very liberal definition of what is determined "cut content." If you want to be technical, for DA3 playable elves and dwarves can be considered cut content. It's content that we wanted to put into the game, but for a variety of reasons will not be making it into DA3. There is way more content left on the chopping block than makes it into the game. Preproduction is all about massive prototyping and coming up with ideas for what should be done in the game and proving out that the concepts are solid. I myself have suggested a lot of things (and I'm not in content creation), some of which is still in in some capacity, but most of which isn't in. THis is because I was suggesting big lists of things I think would be good in the game. Most stuff is cut in preproduction.

DLC does provide an additional revenue model. Resources WILL be put to creating new/original content for DLC, because there's a clearer business model at work and it's easier to justify "lets put some money into this because it'll ultimately pay for itself."

This doesn't mean that without DLC, players would have definitely gotten the content for free.

[Allan Schumacher]

Any in depth discussion on the topic quickly reveals that a sizeable portion of the group in favor of DLC are kids, and as such have little if any disposable income. The opinion that really should be considered in that instance is the Parents, because you are at the mercy of their tolerance. I would imagine that their toleranace for surprise price increases at the register is a great deal lower than the tolerance of their children.

So basically, when considering those fans in favor of it, you need to whack off a fairly significant percentage in order to account for kids who are in favor of it, but very likely do not possess discretionary income.

Where do you come up with the notion that kids are the bigger supporters of DLC? Furthermore, even if they are getting their parents to buy the DLC for them, as a company why would this no longer count?

I'm skeptical that the support is as heavily lopsided towards kids as you think it is, though.

It's increasingly one of the Industry's larger problems, assuming that all consumers are equal. As an example, the 2011 survey by the ESA revealed that kids under 18 years old make up less than 15% of the market*. But are far more likely to be visible on forums than the rest of the market who have less free time to spend on message boards.

This is why we don't consider the forums to be particularly representative of BioWare's fanbase as a whole. If you're concerned that we use only the forums and online social media to determine this type of information, hopefully I can assure you that we don't. It'd be myopic of us to do that.

As a gamer to a gamer, if you ever feel a game company is nickel and diming you and treating you unfairly, the best way to let them know is to not reward them by purchasing their products. That's probably always the strongest message you can send.

The season passes are a massive error in judgement. It'll only take one or two times getting burned by "Preordering" DLC before people quit buying them, especially since the incentive for publishers to make quality DLC is eliminated with this process, and we've already seen ample evidence that the publishers will do the smallest amount of work they think they can get away with.

This is short sighted by publishers, and competition/market forces will rectify this. Burning customers for what could be a preferred revenue stream (it's better to get $30 up front than $40 split over half a year). It's like DLC (or any product) in general. If you get away with making poor quality stuff that ultimately the fan base feels they're getting ripped off, you're going to run out of revenue streams.

If a company will come along and provide one that is of value, it should gain traction barring other influences.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Gatt9 wrote...

I'd have to argue that isn't a good basis for an arguement.

In 1985,  the C64 had shipped ~17 million units,  or around 1/9th of the total number of 360's + PS3's,  and a much,  much,  smaller fraction when compared to PC's (likely something on the order of 1/100th or so).

Market size has a large effect on pricing.  For example,  for a game to sell as well in 1985 as it does today,  literally every single C64 owner had to buy a copy.

Only if we use units sold as our basis for measuring success.

I would argue that for a game to sell as well as it does today should be measured using ROI, and those teams of 1-10 designers were a hell of a lot cheaper.

And those small teams persisted well beyond 1985.  When Firaxis made Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (released 1998), the entire company employed only 17 people, including administration.

Further,  that price tag in 1985 was completely arbitrary.  Atari games were written by one guy in a couple of weeks.  C64 games were written by *maybe* 10 guys,  often 5 or 6,  and it wasn't unusual for it to be 1 or 2.  The development cycle for a game was measured in months,  not years,  and sometimes it was still just weeks.  The price of games in 1985 had no correlation to the cost of development,  and were completely driven by "Charge what the market will bear".

All prices are determined by what the market will bear.  Moreover, that's exactly how they should be set.