For those of you not in the know, a Season Pass lets you buy a bunch of DLCs before they come out, but usually at a discount.
As a consumer, it's something of a gamble. You'll get DLC for less, but it's buying a pig in a poke. What if the DLC is crap? You're paying for it before you know its premise (maybe you like story-based DLC and this is just an arena), before you can read professional or community reviews.
As Season Passes become more popular, we might also see inflation of standard DLC prices. If a DLC is $15 but you can buy four DLCs for $29.99, that Season Pass looks like a serious savings. Of course, if there had been no Season Pass, the DLC might have been $10.
For publishers, a Season Pass is awesome. People are more willing to buy anything related to your game on day 1 or month 1 than they are 4 months after the game hits. And if someone has a Season Pass, they're more likely to reinstall (or never uninstall your game) so they can play that DLC they already paid for.
What's significant about the CoD Season Pass is that it's $49.99. On Steam, I can see it, and then the next slide shows you X-Com for $49.99.
One of the fundamental draws of DLCs is that they're often micro-transactions. That is, they were of a small enough price that a consumer saw them as a trivial expense. Five years ago, microtransactions were sometimes considered 'the future of gaming' but here we have a DLC package that's priced the same as an entire game.
That's significant. If you want to buy all the DLC for the Sims, it's $419.85... but each bit is $29.99 - 9.99.
A publisher is asking consumers to pay as much as an entire game costs for DLC that they'll get in an unspecified time in the future with content of unknown quality.
It's interesting to see how gamers will react to that and how much they'll demand of the publisher in terms of fulfilling the expectations that sort of price tag raises.
CoD: Black Ops Season Pass is $49.99
Débuté par
Maria Caliban
, janv. 19 2013 01:51
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#2
Posté 19 janvier 2013 - 02:53
TheRealJayDee
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I have no idea what plans they have for their DLC, but damn, $50 for a season pass seems ridiculous. There are no games or companies atm that would convince me to pay the price of a full new game for unknown content to be (hopefully) released in the future. Just no way.
Then again, there is so much going on with the gaming industry that's not to my liking that I can't say this really surprises me. And honestly, I don't care. If people want to legitimate this business model with their money... what can be done?
Then again, there is so much going on with the gaming industry that's not to my liking that I can't say this really surprises me. And honestly, I don't care. If people want to legitimate this business model with their money... what can be done?
#3
Posté 19 janvier 2013 - 03:45
legion999
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I'm cautious of them. I can see the appeal of it; save money, guaranteed DLC for a game you like and it's a way to support a developer.
But after playing the Borderlands 2 DLC... I feel ripped off. They outsourced the DLC (which, had I known about, would have changed my decision to buy), the pass went on sale during Christmas (not by much but enough that I could wait a few months) and the first DLC was just absymal.
But after playing the Borderlands 2 DLC... I feel ripped off. They outsourced the DLC (which, had I known about, would have changed my decision to buy), the pass went on sale during Christmas (not by much but enough that I could wait a few months) and the first DLC was just absymal.
