638 réponses à ce sujet

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

NicolasBai wrote...

Agreed. $40 is kinda robbery..............

I disagree, this is bioware were talking about whatever they give us will be worth our money.

[BTA1]

I agree, it's ridicolously overpriced. I can definetly understand those who pirate the expansion. 40$ is what a full game costs, not 1/5 of a game.

[Abriael_CG]

BTA1 wrote...

I agree, it's ridicolously overpriced. I can definetly understand those who pirate the expansion. 40$ is what a full game costs, not 1/5 of a game.

Actually no. A full game on consoles costs 60 dollars. 40 is a quite normal price for expansions.

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 06 janvier 2010 - 01:51 .

[FlintlockJazz]

Abriael_CG wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...

Truth is though, they don't even know what value they are going to get. That's why I said earlier that it's too soon to make any definite statement on this. I can't understand why people are angry about the price already, nor why some people feel the need to defend it so eagerly. I do think people have any right to voice their opinion about this matter, even if it of course doesn't impress anyone at EA.

It's a bioware production, so at the evry least you know a good part of that value. Bioware games include much more voice acting than the average, and often by famous actors (i'm often quite surprised, positively of course, by the sheer amount of not indispensible, fluff and lore speech that they add to their games). That kind of voice acting does not come cheap. 5 New companions mean a LOT of new lines of voice acting, this without even counting all the NPCs and such.

@Magic Zarim: given the fact that it interwines with the multiple endings of the main game and it's own multiple endings, the replayability value is VERY high. Online gameplay isn't the only factor that adds replayability.

Magic Zarim was pointing out that the length of the game doesn't necessarily = how much work went into it nor the cost to make it.

Yes, the addition of five new companions even if just for the expansion area would be a hell of a lot more than we probably realise, I'm just cautious because despite most Bioware products being good I have been bitten one too many times by EA to trust those bastards at face value, and see their influence in other aspects that I dislike, and so will wait and see.

[Abriael_CG]

Bitten by EA? They aren't the dark side of the videogame market anymore. That's ActiBlizzard now. EA has actually upped their game a whole lot in the last few years, and released a LOT of quality games (probably more than most competition), they picked up risky experiments like Brutal Legends and they pretty much redeeded themselves on most fields.



I'd say the EA=Devil equation doesn't hold much water anymore.

[FlintlockJazz]

Magic Zarim wrote...

DeSade wrote...

I must say you people are pathetic.
$40 is nothing and when you consider to me that is actually $80 its a lot more but I still don't care.
Get a job, earn some money, you won't care either.
I spend about $40 a week on coffee.

If you don't want to pay for this expansion, or the DLC for that matter then don't, the rest of the forum world does not care that you think its expensive.

Oh stick it where the sun doesn't shine. If I wanted to, I could buy a hundred $40 copies this very right moment. The point people are making is what you actually get for those $40. A very important aspect with DA:O is that it is a single-player game. Story, quests and play-length are selling features. I hear the comments like "omg some games give you only 8 hours of play with an expansion!" Yes, the singleplayer campaigns are not the main feature. Those games pretty much always support multiplayer and offer (replay)values by more than just a single player campaign.

The only thing DA:O offers is a single-player story experience. Thus what do people expect? The actual playtime/cash ratio to be worthwhile their dime. $40 for 15 hours single player percs, or $50 for 80 hours single player percs? Yes that's obvious and clear now, is it?

As for the argument of developing expansions and covering their cost, FFS it took them 5 years to create the game, the full 80 hours play experience. All the tools, all the assets, all the everything needed to build content for the game. How fast did they make the upcoming expansion? No more than a year of development. I don't even think it will come close to that. The groundwork has been laid. Bioware could pump out DLC and expansions fast now the groundwork is there, for a cost the fraction of making the main game.

Those 15 suggested playhours better offer high quality content story/quest-wise, otherwise $40 is way too steep. Oh! Us PC users wanting everything for free, no? Ofcourse not. We want software for acceptable prices, that's all. "But the game took a 20 million budget to create!" Chicken/egg folks. Gaming has become extremely mainstream. That's what companies like EA thrive on. Delivering games to a humongous market share these days. Game production costs may have risen over the past years, but so has the size of marketshare. There is no need to push prices for games to obscene numbers due to market size compensating these production costs.

Hey, why have blockbuster movies such an insane budget? Because the whole world will watch the damn movie. They have made analysis on whether they can make back the money, sometimes sprinkled with a bit of luck. Tickets haven't become exponentially more expensive either.

Just wanted to say that this is pretty much how I feel about the situation.  While it does have replay value, the production costs is what is the real issue, and whether this expansion was just rushed out the door in a month or whether they put alot of work into it that justifies the price tag.  I hope it's the latter.

[FlintlockJazz]

Abriael_CG wrote...

Bitten by EA? They aren't the dark side of the videogame market anymore. That's ActiBlizzard now. EA has actually upped their game a whole lot in the last few years, and released a LOT of quality games (probably more than most competition), they picked up risky experiments like Brutal Legends and they pretty much redeeded themselves on most fields.

I'd say the EA=Devil equation doesn't hold much water anymore.

I'd say their PR machine is working well then.  Take a look at how they diced up Sims 3 and nickel and dimed those poor suckers.  They are trying to pretend to be all good and everything, but they are still trying to monopolise with their "We're okay now" image just that, an image.  They want to dominate the market, and that is bad for us, just because other companies are being bad does not make them fine. 

If they want me to believe otherwise they still have alot of work to do, and either way I'll still want to see the product first before shelling out for anything they put out.  Hell, I only risked DA:O because it had the Bioware label on it.

[FlintlockJazz]

Argh!  Double post of doom!!!

Modifié par FlintlockJazz, 06 janvier 2010 - 02:06 .

[corbinthe4th]

 First off I'd like to say that i think both parties have valid arguments, one who value or view the price as fair and the others who are completely against it. Keep in mind though the price is fair. Why? Economics says it is, pricing at 40$ is the highest amount the most people will fork out to buy it and bioware is trying to make the most it can. This also explains why the expansion isn't 50$ not enough people would buy where is they would at 40$. Fairly simple I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about. Pricing at 30$, yes adds more customers but does not necessarily increase profit.  There is a large fan base in the dragon age community pricing at 40$ meets demand. They need money to support and create a great game pay a little more at hopefully we will receive a little more out of the game.  Do we know how many more hours of game play will be added? I may have missed something but I didn't see it. Who knows what if there is 50 hours of game play; will that justify paying 40$? One more question for those of you who find the price to be unfair and think it should be lower, are you still going to purchase the expansion on the release day or week? Or will you wait for it to drop in price? For those that do purchase on release date, thinking it sucks but none the less but still cleaning your pockets to buy it then you do think its worth 40$ regardless if you think its fair or not. If you didn't think it was fair you would NOT buy it. 
I still will probably purchase the expansion fairly soon after it's released, I liked DA and look forward to continue the game.Regardless of a 40$ fee.

[Abriael_CG]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

I'd say their PR machine is working well then.  Take a look at how they diced up Sims 3 and nickel and dimed those poor suckers.  They are trying to pretend to be all good and everything, but they are still trying to monopolise with their "We're okay now" image just that, an image.  They want to dominate the market, and that is bad for us, just because other companies are being bad does not make them fine. 

If they want me to believe otherwise they still have alot of work to do, and either way I'll still want to see the product first before shelling out for anything they put out.  Hell, I only risked DA:O because it had the Bioware label on it.

EVERYONE wants to dominate the market, Flint, they're a business.
Activision and Microsoft do that in a MUCH more aggressive/damaging way actually. Just look at Microsoft's policy of trying their hardest to deprieve customers of other platforms of content (with their exclusive DLCs crap), or Activision's pricing of games like modern warfare 2, and the lawsuit with which they tried to block the release of brutal legend after dumping it in favor of the latest plastic guitar crap.

As an all-consoles+PC user i can only be happy that EA is standing up to Microsoft and denying them any their silly exclusive DLC crap.
Being a successful business as big as EA is means that as well: being able to tell the "big guys" like M$ that they can shove their bribes to disadvantage the competition (and ultimately, a lot of gamers) where the sun doesn't shine.

EA has worked very hard in upping their quality lately, taking some risks as well. The quality of their games is there for anyone to see. This is my opinion, and honestly I have enough experience as a gamer to see a bit beyond PR, thank you 

Modifié par Abriael_CG, 06 janvier 2010 - 02:30 .

[FlintlockJazz]

corbinthe4th wrote...

 First off I'd like to say that i think both parties have valid arguments, one who value or view the price as fair and the others who are completely against it. Keep in mind though the price is fair. Why? Economics says it is, pricing at 40$ is the highest amount the most people will fork out to buy it and bioware is trying to make the most it can. This also explains why the expansion isn't 50$ not enough people would buy where is they would at 40$. Fairly simple I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about. Pricing at 30$, yes adds more customers but does not necessarily increase profit.  There is a large fan base in the dragon age community pricing at 40$ meets demand. They need money to support and create a great game pay a little more at hopefully we will receive a little more out of the game.  Do we know how many more hours of game play will be added? I may have missed something but I didn't see it. Who knows what if there is 50 hours of game play; will that justify paying 40$? One more question for those of you who find the price to be unfair and think it should be lower, are you still going to purchase the expansion on the release day or week? Or will you wait for it to drop in price? For those that do purchase on release date, thinking it sucks but none the less but still cleaning your pockets to buy it then you do think its worth 40$ regardless if you think its fair or not. If you didn't think it was fair you would NOT buy it. 
I still will probably purchase the expansion fairly soon after it's released, I liked DA and look forward to continue the game.Regardless of a 40$ fee.

I will not buy it if I don't think it's a fair price, just as I have not bought Wardens' Keep because I don't think it's a fair price (and to not support of the addition of ingame merchants, but that's a different matter).  Pricing at the highest amount is one of the many things wrong with how things are set up at the moment, as it encourages taking advantage of people's lack of knowledge etc but that's my opinion. 

I just wanted to mention that paying more does not and never will encourage giving you a little more, they're businesses and instead they will push harder to make less for more money, which is why I worry sometimes that we are in an entropic downward spiral. 

Anywho, looking forward to hearing more of this expansion regardless!

[FlintlockJazz]

Abriael_CG wrote...

EVERYONE wants to dominate the market, Flint, they're a business.
Activision and Microsoft do that in a MUCH more aggressive/damaging way actually. Just look at Microsoft's policy of trying their hardest to deprieve customers of other platforms of content (with their exclusive DLCs crap), or Activision's pricing of games like modern warfare 2, and the lawsuit with which they tried to block the release of brutal legend after dumping it in favor of the latest plastic guitar crap.

EA has worked very hard in upping their quality lately, taking some risks as well. The quality of their games is there for anyone to see. 

Yes they're a business, but dominating the marketplace is still bad and is why many governments get involved when they see it happening (except when they have been paid to look the other way).  They have pursued a path of aggressive practices in the past, taking over and then destroying other companies merely to remove the competition so that they can release poor quality products in a monopolised marketplace.  I have been bitten by game purchases from them before, such as Spore.  Their customer support services are a complete joke and show a complete disregard for their paying customers.  As a result, I feel that I am entirely justified in approaching anything from them as suspicious, and will not take anything they say at face value until proven otherwise. 

The quality of their games is still debateable, they can afford to take risks considering they are effectively the number 1 games distributor in the world, though I am impressed they finally realised they have to make new things occasionally instead of re-releasing the same thing with a facelift.

I'm sure I'm being unreasonable in my stance, but companies need to learn that there are consequences for their actions, and sometimes good PR just won't always fix it.

[bjdbwea]

Abriael_CG wrote...

It's a bioware production, so at the evry least you know a good part of that value. Bioware games include much more voice acting than the average, and often by famous actors (i'm often quite surprised, positively of course, by the sheer amount of not indispensible, fluff and lore speech that they add to their games). That kind of voice acting does not come cheap. 5 New companions mean a LOT of new lines of voice acting, this without even counting all the NPCs and such.

Hmm, but... the problem for me right now is that DA had too much flaws in my opinion to justify $ 40 for 15 hours of the same. I'd pay 40 bucks for 15 hours more of content for BG 2, as well as for ME - as long as the 15 hours are as good as the rest of those games of course. But as much as I like the voice acting and the fact that there are great voiced cutscenes in the first place, there's much apart from that that needs to be improved in DA. Kind of like HotU was so much better than the NWN 1 OC. But HotU was longer than 15 hours. I doubt it's possible to tell a great story with depth and atmosphere, provide interesting companions, and challenging combat in just 15 hours. But as said before, we can only wait and see.

Modifié par bjdbwea, 06 janvier 2010 - 02:57 .

[Deception_2112]

If the expansion is anything like what Mask of the Betrayer was to Neverwinter Nights 2, we'll be in for a treat...

[corbinthe4th]

governments get involved in monopolies. Bioware is not a monopoly. Why shouldnt a company make as much money as possible? You would wouldn't you? If you didn't you would be a fool. I'm over exaggerating your point here but it seems Flintlock, you would like Bioware to be a non profit organization or all downloads and expansions should almost be free. If not the expansion at least the downloads to be free. Right? If so this gives bioware and the dragon age staff no incentive to put out add ons. Your point on profiteering, putting in less effort to put out an expansion at a high price to gain big money may be correct. On the flip side you almost never see, very rare, see an item cost virtually nothing and be wonderful. Who knows though, could be a flop, could be great. I look forward to it though.

[Rylor Tormtor]

I was going to type a long logical refutation to all the whining. Not to over generalize, but most of you come across as the same age as my students at university. You want kick-ass games all the time for free. You seem to think that are somehow entitled to whatever you demand.



That is not going to happen.



Older members have come out and informed you that this pricing is not a new, drastic increase. This is comparable to the BG expansions and the NWN expansions. If you don't like, you will probably take your chances with less than ethical means of obtaining the product.



Also, to further stigmatize the complainers, I really wish that Bioware would separate the PC and Console discussion forums, which might cut down the noise to signal ratio.

[srtowner]

I give myself a weekly entertainment budget. If the expansion is half as good as the game I'll gladly spend $40 for it. Since I do not sit at my computer for hours at a time 15 hours of game play will probably last me a couple weeks at least. Now if all I did was sit a play video games all day I might not like it so much.

[metalica11]

keep in mind people that it takes more work to add onto something than build the original when it comes to gaming. there is a lot of extra testing involved to see if it meshes, if any of the new code conflicts with the old, not to mention paying voice actors, writers for the excellent dialogue.



Now I ask some of you, how many of you have actually WORKED in the game industry outside of retail? I have worked in it, I know what goes into adding onto games, its a lot harder than most people think.



So if you haven't actually worked in the industry, you are talking out of your ass when you try to say what goes into it.



Plus keep in mind that the game is longer if you actually care about the dialogue, relationships, stories and so forth. shorter if you skip it all to get to the next mission. I am sure this expansion is well worth the price, just as the original game was.

[corbinthe4th]

I will say this it would be nice to have a few more extra hours of game play. comparing 15 to 80-100 from the original game. I understand it is an expansion not an entire new game but it would be nice to have more. I still believe 40$ is fair but I would be drooling over a 20 to 25 hours of game play expansion. Comparing to other expansions like Morrowinds expansion has 30 hours. I really like the game so of course i want it to continue with many many more hours of game play. Trying to reach a compromise, I'm still very happy with the expansion of 15 hours and its price.

[addiction21]

I asked this in the other thread but who here would like to link us to the statement made by a bioware rep that says this is expansion is about 15 hours. no where in this or the other threads has anyone been able to do that and I have yet to actualy find it said anywhere on the net.



Remember I want it from a rep's mouth not he heard a friend say that he heard this person talking to blah blah blah...

[Zweijsters]

Gabochido wrote...

While for many, the value of an expansion like this is just the "15 extra hours", keep in mind that the actual cost of creating it goes way beyond that. Many of the new features in the expansion can likely affect the rest of the game so that means making sure new things interact with old things, and you know by now that there are a lot of old things. It means a lot of testing and a lot of code re-writing and content modifications.

The way you put it makes me wonder, will every new dlc and/or expansion increase in price because every new piece of dlc that came before will add to those old things?

[PiMD360]

ronaldmonster wrote...

I'm not even gonna bother with it.
Knowing EA there will be a GOTY edition with all the DLC for the same
price I got the game for.

Very much agreed, Instead of
continuing to spend money on a bunch of stuff I will just wait.  Maybe
I will go trade in my copy now and get some credit while it still has
some value.  Maybe I will pick up ME2 while waiting for GOTY edition of
this.

[FlintlockJazz]

corbinthe4th wrote...

governments get involved in monopolies. Bioware is not a monopoly. Why shouldnt a company make as much money as possible? You would wouldn't you? If you didn't you would be a fool. I'm over exaggerating your point here but it seems Flintlock, you would like Bioware to be a non profit organization or all downloads and expansions should almost be free. If not the expansion at least the downloads to be free. Right? If so this gives bioware and the dragon age staff no incentive to put out add ons. Your point on profiteering, putting in less effort to put out an expansion at a high price to gain big money may be correct. On the flip side you almost never see, very rare, see an item cost virtually nothing and be wonderful. Who knows though, could be a flop, could be great. I look forward to it though.

I'm sorry, at what point did I say that I would want Bioware to be a non-profit organisation?  I merely stated that I wanted products sold at a price that is justifiable for it's value.  Do I want goods as cheaply as possible?  Of course, however I believe in rewarding those who put more effort and value in more, so if someone puts more work into a product they should earn a larger profit than those who don't, unfortunately it doesn't work like that in real life which is yet another flaw but that does not mean I should just give up on that principle.  We need to, as customers, be vigilant against profiteering for our own sakes if not for the good of society (the current recession was caused by profiteering by the banks).

Bioware is not a monopoly, I never said that they were, but any company monopolising a market is bad, their main goal is to make money but they should be held accountable for their actions.

[Statue]

Compare and contrast the good-value-for-money original game followed by less-value-for-money expansion model with other forms of (less subtle) loss leader pricing strategies (cheap printers with expensive ink cartridge replacements, cheap razors with expensive razorblades). Gillette and HP have done well out of the strategy, but the ploy is generally received with some inevitible cynicism by consumers. Despite what marketing teams might advise and regardless of the success of Gillette et al., many consumers do see through those strategies and would be more happy to pay what the initial item is worth and then what the additionals are worth, rather than underpaying followed by massive overpaying. The price-at-what-it's-worth model is straight and transparent, the price-at-less-than-it's-worth-and-then-recoup-with-overpriced-followup-sales model (i.e. something akin to loss leader pricing) can come across as sneaky marketing poo.

That said, because of the strong convention of sticky pricing in the game industry (where there's far less variation in the retail price of games than in other industries, and that has become a strong expectation in consumers), there's a problem they have to work around. A game that is actually worth more (say, based on development costs) than one of those sticky prices is potentially going to be an auto-loss to develop. Trying to price at what it's worth where that isn't £29.99 or £39.99 would be tricky given the sticky pricing convention. So the options for when a game's development costs make it less profitable at the conventional prices are: break the convention, set the price at what it's worth, even if it's £46.35 instead of £29.99 or £39.99; restrict game development so the product will be optimally profitable at the stickied pricing conventions; do something based on long term multistranded revenue involving DLC and/or subscriptions and/or expansions and/or episodic content that balances out the less profitable initial product with relatively more profitable followups; develop with an eye to the engine or components within the game raising money through third party licencing deals (e.g. Source). The first appears to never get chosen, whether out of fear that gamers would wtf and not buy it, or out of some other restriction. The second would be consumers artificially restricting the quality and scope of the products viable for development, which we wouldn't want. The third shares some attributes with loss leader pricing and therefore risks looking shifty and raises consumer cycnicism, but is what seems to be the currently preferred model for games with higher development costs. The fourth by definition is not the norm, cannot apply to all game development, and would be a risky prospect with nightmares in forecasting. If a game will only be profitable should its engine take off and is used in other games, that's a bit of a gamble.

So with DAO. we have something akin to loss leader pricing (true loss leader pricing entails the initial product is sold at a loss, here that doesn't appear to be the case but there is a glaringly obvious difference in value for money between the initial product and its followups that implies a similar long term recouping strategy - but I can't for the life of me remember the proper economics term for the pricing strategy that's like loss leader pricing but where the initial sale price doesn't go so low as to make an actual loss). We get to smile with glee at getting a great value for money deal on the initial outlay, and then get to feel a little milked by subsequent less-good-value-for-money deals. It might not feel fair, but some of the alternative models suck too in different ways. If there's a model that we can come up with that works better, I'm sure it would be considered. I'm working on it  But in the meantime the fairplay dude living in my brain would still rather pay x amount of money for a product that is worth x, even if it looked funny on a price tag.

Modifié par Statue, 06 janvier 2010 - 04:57 .

[mondotomhead]

I have no problem paying the $30 for a game or expansion I know I will like and play. How many times have you guys bought a game that is just awful. I have a few times myself. At least this game is guaranteed to be good.