945 réponses à ce sujet

[grieferbastard]

traversc wrote...

fluffyamoeba wrote...

LDB10671 wrote...

$5 for 1 hour of game paly is far to much. that means the DAO would be worth what $250?

Either we got a good deal on the game or Bioware is ****ing us in our ass for this shamefully new content.

The first one. MW2 is 6 hours long.

Um... are you even serious?  you don't get MW2 for single player.  

 30 minutes of gameplay is not worth $5 period.  There's just no justification and they are preying on players addiction and completionism in getting all the pretty new shiny weapons and armor. 

It's just sad that so many fanboys are hurting the rest of us by enabling Bioware in this shameless money grab known as DLC.  They should be working on actual content.  And no, lots of shiny new items != content. 

Please Bioware, I beg you.  Listen to your REAL fans.  Stop this madness.  You KNOW it is wrong.  

I'll be buying RtO, because it adds to the story of DA, and any insights that will come up during it.

-OR- you can spend all of 2 minutes searching on google and reading what happens.  Yeah, a paragraph of additional storyline is so valuable. 

Are you trolling or are you serious? 

You know, as a consumer it's perfectly reasonable that you don't need to know how something works to enjoy it. From TV to internet to cell phones to computer games. You just need to vote with your dollar about how much value you get out of something. If you don't get $5 worth of enjoyment out of, say, a latte then don't buy one.

Yet it's not unreasonable to say that making that decision based on a completely oblivious perspective on relative cost of production is unreasonable. Shameless money grab? Their 'real fans'? Let me ask you this; what was the actual production cost of DA:O, from capital expenditures for hardware and materials to interest accrued on outstanding loans to meet expenses prior to product release? What's their daily expense in wages, property rentals, utilities, employee benefits? 

You have no way to answer that nor should you be able to or even need to. It is measurable to say that BioWare is not making billions of dollars they are frittering away on hookers and blow. They are making a product and asking to be paid for it. If RtO isn't worth $5 for you personally, don't buy it. I hope you make that decision based on your own valuation of the enjoyment it provides you and not some sweeping statement made in 100% ignorance of the relative production cost based on BioWares business model.

Do not, however, presume to spend my money for me or even more inappropriately make more sweeping and incorrect statements about how 'well' I spend my money. $5 for 45 minutes of entertainment - that I will repeatedly enjoy on several playthroughs and see further enjoyment out of as it adds to the pool of resources modders use to make more free content - is an insignificant expense and if that extra $5s goes to supporting the future production of content as high-quality as DA:O is I'm all for it.

Like I said before, I'd have it delivered in rolled up dollar bills, cupped in the cleavage of DA:O cosplayers if I could.

[stimpy15589]

i got the stone prisoner dlc free with the game when i brought it i dont know if you get it if you buy the pc version but you get it the xbox one unless you buy it second hand then the code might already be used lol, and also a cool suit of armour so i thought that was really cool because they didnt even need to do that because not many people would give owet out for free.



dlc are expensive on most games but if i was to buy one for dragon age it wouldnt bother as much as it would normaly for the price because i will be buying it for a game that i really enjoy and know going to be playing for along time to come

[Lovecraft22]

Modding Communities add a lot of content and they are free (and generally abused by people too inept to install a simple mod). Thanks BW for releasing the toolkit!

[Tirigon]

5hane wrote...

I'd gladly pay 15 dollars for an expansion with new ROMANCEABLE companions, and perhaps one that changes the orientations of all party members to bi?

YES!!!!!!!!! And EVERYONE romanceable, too. Even dog, Shale, Andraste and Archdemon:devil::devil::devil:

[Must have name]

Asking Bioware to sell something for free when voice actors involved isn't going to happen. Dev's time and other costs aside, voice actors are a serious cost.

I do think the current DLC's are simply not worth the money though. If I could spend say £2 and get both Warden's Keep and RtO I would, but at £3-4 each, that's just not any sort've value at all. It's hard to quantify gaming value, but I really can't stand all these people saying "Well a Coffee is $3 or whatever." That doesn't matter. That's the going rate for a coffee, not a game. The only thing you can judge it by is a game, and even then, it's not just a matter of length.

Thing is, when you have an RPG, it's got maybe a few replays just to see different character's reactions or taking different choices, but really, the main feature of the DLC so far (Shale aside) is loot. Superior loot carries no monetary value for me whatsoever, as that's do-able with the toolkit. All I want in a DLC is some sort of additional, relevant storyline and playtime. And Neither Warden's Keep nor RtO constitutes value for money here imo.

Ofcourse, if you feel it does, buy it. The problem is by purchasing it, you're telling the seller, wether you decide that to be Bioware or EA, that you're willing to pay that price, meaning it'll just be repeated in the future.

Modifié par Must have name, 15 janvier 2010 - 02:12 .

[SheffSteel]

I don't think anyone has yet made this point...

RtO is completely 100% worthless on the basis of entertainment hours per dollar.
It is not a video game.
You cannot play it.
It has no entertainment value.
0 hours / $5 = 0 hours per dollar = worthless.

Q.E.D.


Now, if you wanted to consider the price and value of Dragon Age Origins plus  RtO, that would be a different matter...

[DragonRageGT]

SheffSteel wrote...

I don't think anyone has yet made this point...

RtO is completely 100% worthless on the basis of entertainment hours per dollar.
It is not a video game.
You cannot play it.
It has no entertainment value.  (Rage's edit: as a stand alone product)
0 hours / $5 = 0 hours per dollar = worthless.

Q.E.D.


Now, if you wanted to consider the price and value of Dragon Age Origins plus  RtO, that would be a different matter...

I really don't know what you said there, Sheff, but you said it so well that I feel I must agree with you!

[SheffSteel]

I'm saying that everyone who is doing this dollars-per-hour, or hours-per-dollar, calculation (as if RtO is a separate entertainment product like a movie ticket, coffee, happy meal, etc.) is doing a meaningless calculation.

It gives thoroughly misleading results like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
RtO DLC = 0.5 hours for $5 = 0.1 hours per dollar
Therefore, RtO is ten times worse (zomg!)"

If you had a choice between buying DAO and buying RtO, that would be a useful comparison to make.
But no one is actually making that choice.
Anyone who hasn't bought DAO isn't going to get any value from RtO; conversely anyone who's seriously considering RtO has already bought DAO.

A realistic comparison looks like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
DAO game plus RtO DLC = 50.5 hours for $55 = 0.92 hours per dollar
Therefore, buying RtO after buying DAO lowers the overall value by 8%."

Modifié par SheffSteel, 15 janvier 2010 - 03:36 .

[Lovecraft22]

Tirigon wrote...

5hane wrote...

I'd gladly pay 15 dollars for an expansion with new ROMANCEABLE companions, and perhaps one that changes the orientations of all party members to bi?

YES!!!!!!!!! And EVERYONE romanceable, too. Even dog, Shale, Andraste and Archdemon:devil::devil::devil:

Getting it on with the Archdemon? I 'd like to see that :DHmm, why stop there... trees, rocks, the whole elven forest could be a lovefest.

[grieferbastard]

SheffSteel wrote...

I'm saying that everyone who is doing this dollars-per-hour, or hours-per-dollar, calculation (as if RtO is a separate entertainment product like a movie ticket, coffee, happy meal, etc.) is doing a meaningless calculation.

It gives thoroughly misleading results like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
RtO DLC = 0.5 hours for $5 = 0.1 hours per dollar
Therefore, RtO is ten times worse (zomg!)"

If you had a choice between buying DAO and buying RtO, that would be a useful comparison to make.
But no one is actually making that choice.
Anyone who hasn't bought DAO isn't going to get any value from RtO; conversely anyone who's seriously considering RtO has already bought DAO.

A realistic comparison looks like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
DAO game plus RtO DLC = 50.5 hours for $55 = 0.92 hours per dollar
Therefore, buying RtO after buying DAO lowers the overall value by 8%."

I have copied this elsewhere and will be quoting it shamelessly in the future. Nicely put. It's the argument that BioWare should have released DA:O with 1/4th the content and more bugs - then the DLC would have been more reasonable! Curse you BioWare, curse you! Why couldn't you have cranked this game out as 30 hours of buggy crap! Then I would have felt better about $40 for an expansion!

[addiction21]

SheffSteel wrote...

I'm saying that everyone who is doing this dollars-per-hour, or hours-per-dollar, calculation (as if RtO is a separate entertainment product like a movie ticket, coffee, happy meal, etc.) is doing a meaningless calculation.

It gives thoroughly misleading results like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
RtO DLC = 0.5 hours for $5 = 0.1 hours per dollar
Therefore, RtO is ten times worse (zomg!)"

If you had a choice between buying DAO and buying RtO, that would be a useful comparison to make.
But no one is actually making that choice.
Anyone who hasn't bought DAO isn't going to get any value from RtO; conversely anyone who's seriously considering RtO has already bought DAO.

A realistic comparison looks like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
DAO game plus RtO DLC = 50.5 hours for $55 = 0.92 hours per dollar
Therefore, buying RtO after buying DAO lowers the overall value by 8%."

**head explodes**

Damnit I hate it when that happens.but woow that is a brand new perspective I had not thought about. Thanks.

[Emrill]

My only concern is with the way DLC has been handled in terms of Warden's Keep and The Stone Prisoner. Both of them, the game practically all but forces you to go buy them. I am all for new content and paying for it.



Hopefully with Mass Effect 2 we won't be seeing soem guy telling us to go buy content like the guy in the camp does for Dragon Age: Origins. Unfortunately I am guessing due to Bioware's ownership by EA, that will not be the case. EA will do anything for a quick buck even at the expense of game quality.

[Must have name]

The game hardly forces you to buy any of it's DLCs. Yes, the Warden's Keep salesman is despicable, but is the game perfectly playable without any DLC at all? Ofcourse it is. I've never felt "Wow, I really need to download Warden's Keep", and i've played through campaigns without using Shale, and I certainly don't feel any conviction to buy RtO at the price it's being released at.

Modifié par Must have name, 15 janvier 2010 - 05:18 .

[huwie]

A realistic comparison looks like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
DAO game plus RtO DLC = 50.5 hours for $55 = 0.92 hours per dollar
Therefore, buying RtO after buying DAO lowers the overall value by 8%."

Similarly, expensive car parts seem worse at first sight, until you take the cost of the vehicle into account

I prefer to look at it as follows: with DA:O (or with a car) you're buying product in bulk, therefore you get a price-break

[MerinTB]

SheffSteel wrote...

I'm saying that everyone who is doing this dollars-per-hour, or hours-per-dollar, calculation (as if RtO is a separate entertainment product like a movie ticket, coffee, happy meal, etc.) is doing a meaningless calculation.

It gives thoroughly misleading results like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
RtO DLC = 0.5 hours for $5 = 0.1 hours per dollar
Therefore, RtO is ten times worse (zomg!)"

If you had a choice between buying DAO and buying RtO, that would be a useful comparison to make.
But no one is actually making that choice.
Anyone who hasn't bought DAO isn't going to get any value from RtO; conversely anyone who's seriously considering RtO has already bought DAO.

A realistic comparison looks like this:-
"DAO game = 50 hours for $50 = 1 hour per dollar
DAO game plus RtO DLC = 50.5 hours for $55 = 0.92 hours per dollar
Therefore, buying RtO after buying DAO lowers the overall value by 8%."

I agree with the gist of your point, but I think even simplified it is a bit more complex than that.

Hope that made sense...

Anytime you add something to something it doesn't drop the value of it, really.  That's an odd argument.  If you buy the starter pack for Warhammer ($75) with @ 120 minis in it (about 62 cents per mini if you try to break down the pricing that way) and then added a Gyrocopter ($30) bringing the number of minis to @ 121 ... you now "have spent 86 cents per mini, meaning you just made all those minis cost you almost twenty cents more each by adding the one", right?

That's crazy logic.
The main game didn't get more expensive because of an add-on.

---

The part I agree with is you cannot compare the price of a product that is a stand-alone product to the price of something that is NOT a stand-alone product.  The price of a tire or steering wheel cover to a car, for examples.

--

I appreciate the sentiment, SheffSteel, and I believe you are onto something -
but you are still perpetuating the "dollars per hour" crap.

[HanaF]

I still wonder why people think DLC is going to be priced based on the amount of gameplay hours alone. It takes a lot longer and a lot more money to make a game than to play it, and things don't always go swimmingly. Plus, worth is a very subjective matter - BioWare are pricing things how they feel they should be priced in relation to development costs, I imagine. Different people are going to weigh up the worth of the game and its DLCs differently.



If people are going to complain about the price of RtO, consider that BioWare possibly accounted for the potential delays - which did happen - and the losses this would cause them.



The $15 price tag on The Stone Prisoner at this point in time is suggesting to people that it's more worth buying the game new, plus accounting for losses from second-hand purchases (from which BioWare get no profit).



Personally, I don't think by any means DLC that requires extensive coding, modelling and voice acting should be free. However, I'm inclined to agree that anything someone could cook up easily in the toolset should be available free.

[shorn_]

Someone mentioned cost of the game a bit back..Sure it costs alot to make these games. Some say Halo 3 was about 30 mill to make..but think about it .. Bioware in the month after dragon age came out made over a million dollars on the DLC's alone.By the NPD sales figures up to november 2009 dragon age sold 362,100 copies..thats 18 mill guys. I would hazard to guess that in just November they made their money back on those DLC's a few times over and by this time with game sales and extra DLC cost they have most likely close to recouping the price to make the game as well. So no worries about them not having enough money to pay their stal



A few thoughts from this side of the peanut gallery.



DLC should only be new items/spells/companions which are added to the game. If as with shale they involve some role playing aspect then it should be short sweet and to the point..ie no more than 1 hour in length. They should be priced anywhere from $2-$5 but not above $5. $15 for shale is not really worth it. $7 for wardens keep considering what you get is a bit sub par again is not really worth it.



If a DLC is going for more than $5 then it should be added to some expansion pack to help up the price of that. 'Next expansion traverse the frozen north, unlock the mystery of the wardens keep, find and thaw the ice man and convince him to join your party..all for $25'



The point to the DLC is just something that is fun but utterly non essential to the game..its like buying the silly Sims 3 stuff at the sims 3 store...



Expansions for that matter unless they add close to the same amount of game play as the original game should not be above $30.



The thing is that people know what a good deal is when they see it. If its not a good deal they will either wait for the stuff to go down in price, to be included with a large 'All DLC for $30' release, or they will find other means of obtaining it.



Just my 2 sents really..in the end some people will pay $50 for an expansion that gives 15 hours of game play and the rest of us will just wait till its in the bargain bin at best buy. One thing about consumers is that they are patient. And frankly theres enough games coming out in the next two months to hold us over for a price reduction.

[SheffSteel]

I didn't say dollars per hour is a good metric... just that, if you must use it, at least get it right (insofar as doing a meaningful comparison).



Adding RtO doesn't drop the value of the original DAO, but it can drop the average value of the combined product. Even so, DAO + RtO is better value than most other games out there.

[shorn_]

MerinTB



Your right the $$ per hour is crap ..in a way of thinking. That is..if for 15 hours of game play one gets a great game..thinking about hords of the underdark here..then they dont mind paying $35 bucks for it..if on the other hand the expansion sucks then $$ per hour starts to be the focus..



Think of it this way. You spend $10 to go see a movie..if the movie is great you may feel like you got your moneys worth..if the movie is crap then maybe you wish you could have your 2 hours and $10 back..

[Bibdy]

shorn_ wrote...

MerinTB

Your right the $$ per hour is crap ..in a way of thinking. That is..if for 15 hours of game play one gets a great game..thinking about hords of the underdark here..then they dont mind paying $35 bucks for it..if on the other hand the expansion sucks then $$ per hour starts to be the focus..

Think of it this way. You spend $10 to go see a movie..if the movie is great you may feel like you got your moneys worth..if the movie is crap then maybe you wish you could have your 2 hours and $10 back..

But, you don't really know if its worth it until you try it, or you can just wait for reviews, hearsay and rumour, or even reflect on your past experiences, before you decide.

In other words, if you weren't happy with Warden's Keep, there's every likelihood you won't be happy with RtO. Tell Bioware that by not purchasing RtO.

Its a bit foolish of an entertainment provider to assume that the price is automatically fair if people purchase it. They have to wait for purchases AND reaction before they can make that claim. At which point, they'll have to do better next time, or people aren't going to purchase their next product. Because, let's be honest, marketing is the art of convincing you to spend your money, while at the same time, describing as little about the product as possible.

Modifié par Bibdy, 15 janvier 2010 - 06:34 .

[MerinTB]

shorn_ wrote...

MerinTB

Your right the $$ per hour is crap ..in a way of thinking. That is..if for 15 hours of game play one gets a great game..thinking about hords of the underdark here..then they dont mind paying $35 bucks for it..if on the other hand the expansion sucks then $$ per hour starts to be the focus..

Think of it this way. You spend $10 to go see a movie..if the movie is great you may feel like you got your moneys worth..if the movie is crap then maybe you wish you could have your 2 hours and $10 back..

That, my friend, is a quality vs. quantity argument.

Are you paying for number of hours, or for how fun the game is?

As has been said numerous times by people, you could make a game where you endlessly do some task that never ends, thus making any price you pay for the game pretty much zero (anything divided by infinite, and all that) - so a game that just kept throwing random encounters at you, or a game that you kept traveling through an endlessly randomly generated dungeon, or some such, could have an unending single play-through.  But how fun is that?

To continue your movie analogy - is a horrible 4 hour movie better than a great 80 minute movie because you are getting more time for your ticket price?

Number of hours a single-player game takes IS a selling point, but also selling points are number of unique items in the game, level the character can reach, size of the game world, number of unique NPCs you can interact with, number of different kinds of monsters you face, etc.
Is there anyone out there saying "In DAO you get 300 unique item for $50, but in RTO you get 5 unique items for $5 - that's a comparision of 16 cents per item to $1 per item, what a RIP-OFF!" or "you have 9 NPCs you can add to your party for $50 in DAO but only 1 in Stone Prisoner for $15, what a RIP-OFF!"
No?  Right - because those are silly arguments.

[Rhohan66]

To the OP I think your mistaken, as long as the original game has enough content, and this one did, then the DLC costs them time and money, they need to recoup that. I have no problem paying for extra DLC, as long as the game as sold was worth my money. Computer games have become locked into this price range of 49.99 or 59.99. Consumers balk at spending more,and that makes the amount of time a company can spend on a game limited, with the DLC that helps alleviate that and allows for a more robust and fun world to play in.



Art

[TesseractSpace]

 I should go back and revise my commentary.  I'm not against DLC as a concept.  I just dislike what is done with it.  Any expansion to a game should add something to it.  Ideally it should become a part of the game rather than something that looks tacked on for a quick buck.  I especially don't want to see it going to the point of DLC item packs, that kind of thing really looks bad. 

The Stone Prisoner does the job right, though that may be more an effect of it having been originally meant to be part of the game and then removed and re-added.  It adds more plot and interaction to the main game, and enhances the experience all around, (though I think some consequence of certain decisions in Honnleath should be felt elsewhere...)  I'm not sure about the $15 price point, in my opinion $10 would be closer to the mark, but given that it's included automatically for now, I'll leave that.

Wardens Keep on the other hand, looks tacked on from start to finish.  There's nothing in it that makes any difference to the rest of the game, no one seems to comment on anything you do once you leave the tacked on area, and it feels like nothing more than an excuse to toss out a few items and put in the storage chest that really should have already been in the game.  

Sadly, it's looking like RtO is shaping up to be another one like Warden's Keep.  If that's what the quality of DLC is going to be, I don't think I'll worry about getting any.

I can tell from the way that Bioware posts on these forums that they really care about making this game great, I just want to see that in the DLC rather than telling me about what shiny stuff I can pick up.  A little more polish on the DLC, make it integrate into the story, even if just in passing comments from a later NPC, something to make it seem like it happened in the game rather than my character just stepped out to pick up a new shiny thing.  If I'm running around with the King's armor, someone should at least comment on that at some point outside of the addon area.  If these events are supposedly happening within the main story, they should have some effect in the main story.

(as for the expansion, it looks to be along the lines of another storyline using the same engine and world setting, so I don't expect it to impact the storyline of the main game as it isn't taking place during it, unlike the currently offered DLC.)