945 réponses à ce sujet

[traversc]

What? It is an assumption. it's also baseless. The justification for your statement is.. based on what sampling technique?

No it is not. If you believe it to be baseless, then you need to state why you believe game length is not a valid measure of game content (at least to an order of magnitude). Or furthermore, development time, lines of dialogue, number of environments or any other number of measures I can come up with on the top of my head.  Why are none of these variables not representative of the relative amounts of content between DA:O and RtO?  Essentially, you would need to somehow show that all of these factors are explicitly anti-correlated.

There is not a "flailing mass of assumptions." There is one, which I had stated from the getgo. The assumption was that the gameplay quality in RtO and DA:O are similar. Similar enough to make comparisons based on sampling of objective facts. The fact is, any variable you look shows huge discrepancies in how much you are paying per amount of content between DA:O and RtO.

It may not impress on you, but disproving that assumption is a monstrously difficult task, and its certainly not enough to keep saying the concept is baseless over and over again.

You also seem to be completely missing the point I am making. I am not saying whether or not DA:O was itself profitable or not, or whether DLCs are themselves profitble or not. I am however, saying that there is a MASSIVE difference in pay scale for content of the same quality between DA:O and RtO. THAT is indisputable.

It then follows directly that you would need to believe DA:O to have an actual value of $600-700, if you also believe that RtO is worth $5. If you don't, then you need to admit that RtO is quite literally, overpriced. E.g., priced more than its actual value.

Now we can make less objective arguments as to whether the difference in payscale is justifiable or not. And people have. I have and you have, which you have made more explicit in your latest post/wall of text. But that is not what I have been arguging about for the last ~5 pages or so.

Modifié par traversc, 21 janvier 2010 - 12:26 .

[grieferbastard]

Thread title: DLC should be free. Also, you've stated specifically that you believe (well, you didn't even preface it with 'I believe'. You attempted to assert as though it was fact) that DLC were overpriced. I'm pointing out that this concept is false when you attempt to justify it by any means other than 'it's not worth it to you to buy it at that price'.

Hence the basis for discussion on value of DLC. What I've been attempting to convey to you is the fact that you're attempting to connect the value of a particular DLC directly to production effort is at heart faulty. The pay of the person typing out the code, or dialog, or creating the mesh that is wrapped around a particular objects model. Or even the pay of the people testing it, these things are a comperatively insignificant part of the costs that EA/BioWare generate every single day just in being an open business. They've got quarters where operating expenses touch around two billion dollars. The basis of cost vs value of the product itself is structured around two factors:

1. What the market will support

2. What the associated profit will be

They will sell less DLC than copies of DA:O. There is no telling what the licensing costs of distribution across multiple platforms they pay. Support of those products will continue to drain resources that would otherwise be spent on larger, possibly more profitable projects. Based on decisions of other game developers and publishers (such as Bethesda) who've produced DLC for sale one can see that DLC is quite possibly less profitable to create and support. Not more. Hence why they only went on as long as they did. I think I've done enough linking already. Go to the Fallout 3 home page and read the quotes from the developers on the DLC they created and exactly WHY they stopped making more despite consumer cries to continue.

I'd like to think I've proven myself far from ignorant or at least shown that I can BS my way through a business-based argument passingly well. This is exactly why I'm so supportive of DA:O and its promise to provide such a previously unheard-of supply of DLC. I want it to succeed. I want it to not just succeed but be wildly profitable. So much so that it impacts the gaming industry and becomes the standard.

RPGs with 120+ hours of gameplay out of the box? A year or two of steady DLC? What if all the tiny, less developed games flung onto the market (coughSection 8cough) had trouble getting funding and sent to production while epic length games designed from the getgo to be playable for YEARS became the norm and not the opposite? We'd be playing KotR 6, that's what.

Don't you get it? Vote with your dollar. Vote for the games that stand out and offer the longest lifespan. Make epics like DA:O the most profitable games on the market even with longer development times. If it takes paying more for DLC so they've got a steady post-production revenue stream to invest in supporting both the existing game and investing in a high-quality new title to come out when the engine for the existing game falls behind then so be it. Better than throwing away $20 or $30 here and there on sub-standard titles just to stay entertained until the next great epic shows up.

[ladydesire]

traversc wrote...

What? It is an assumption. it's also baseless. The justification for your statement is.. based on what sampling technique?

No it is not. If you believe it to be baseless, then you need to state why you believe game length is not a valid measure of game content (at least to an order of magnitude). Or furthermore, development time, lines of dialogue, number of environments or any other number of measures I can come up with on the top of my head.  Why are none of these variables not representative of the relative amounts of content between DA:O and RtO?  Essentially, you would need to somehow show that all of these factors are explicitly anti-correlated.

If you were comparing a DLC that was playable outside the game with the game itself, your comparison might be more acceptable; since the only playable DLCs we currently have are ones that are ones that become a part of the campaign we can play, you cannot logically separate them, as you are trying to do.

There is not a "flailing mass of assumptions." There is one, which I had stated from the getgo. The assumption was that the gameplay quality in RtO and DA:O are similar. Similar enough to make comparisons based on sampling of objective facts. The fact is, any variable you look shows huge discrepancies in how much you are paying per amount of content between DA:O and RtO.

What you call an assumption is in all truth an undeniable fact; namely that the gameplay quality of DA:O is the similar to the gameplay in any of the playable DLCs for it. How can it be anything else, since the DLC becomes a part of the game? Stop using that as the basis of your comparison, all right?

It may not impress on you, but disproving that assumption is a monstrously difficult task, and its certainly not enough to keep saying the concept is baseless over and over again.

Quit calling an established fact an assumption.

You also seem to be completely missing the point I am making. I am not saying whether or not DA:O was itself profitable or not, or whether DLCs are themselves profitble or not. I am however, saying that there is a MASSIVE difference in pay scale for content of the same quality between DA:O and RtO. THAT is indisputable.

It then follows directly that you would need to believe DA:O to have an actual value of $600-700, if you also believe that RtO is worth $5. If you don't, then you need to admit that RtO is quite literally, overpriced. E.g., priced more than its actual value.

Ok, I see that the concept of replay value is something you don't acknowledge exists; while the current price of DLC for Dragon Age seems high, it's only true if you plan to play the game campaign that Bioware provides for us one time and one time only. If you stop to consider that each DLC can be installed to expand on the game a small amount, each replay benefits from the initial cost and offsets it; you don't have to buy the DLC more than one time to be able to use it in your game for each playthrough.

Now we can make less objective arguments as to whether the difference in payscale is justifiable or not. And people have. I have and you have, which you have made more explicit in your latest post/wall of text. But that is not what I have been arguging about for the last ~5 pages or so.

True; you have been arguing about how unfair to the consumer you perceive the cost to be, whereas we have been trying to educate you as to why it's really a good deal. It's not our fault you don't want to see this.

Modifié par ladydesire, 21 janvier 2010 - 01:43 .

[Mistwaver]

I for one agree DLC should be free. Why? You spend $50-60 on the game, then you have to turn around and spend another $10 or so for each DLC item that you may find interesting? And 9 times out of 10, it's not even worth the time for this dinky content.

Full fledged expansions are one thing, but DLC is a whole different story.

[addiction21]

Mistwaver wrote...

I for one agree DLC should be free. Why? You spend $50-60 on the game, then you have to turn around and spend another $10 or so for each DLC item that you may find interesting? And 9 times out of 10, it's not even worth the time for this dinky content.

Full fledged expansions are one thing, but DLC is a whole different story.

You really do not have to do anything, and aside from Stone Prisoner which is free with ever new game there has not been one for 10$ dollars. Maybe in the future.
Also what is the difference between paying 5-10 dollars for a DLC you may find interesting and a game for 50 dollars that you may find interesting? Games are really no different. Theres plenty of times one could be very interested in a game and want it but then they play it and are let down.

[K9miles]

DLC is really divided into two categories.



1. Community driven DLC which is free (yay real robes for an arcane warrior)



2. Company produced DLC which we should all pay for if we want it.



The difference between the two is that one should become enmeshed within the game such as The Stone Prisoner vs the half completed Warden's Keep. I think it's the quality of the keep that has people believing it should be free because it is so completely isolated from the rest of the story. Other then gear it has no impact on the rest of the game, and at the end really breaks immersion. *really? build anew.. why not help me just fix this place over here?* (as close to a spoiler as I will go.) BioWare has done excellently with their games, and I expect that when I buy a BioWare game. But if it's just an isolated level then ultimately it's just a cut scene, and voice acting away from community driven DLC.

[traversc]

grieferbastard wrote...

What I've been attempting to convey to you is the fact that you're attempting to connect the value of a particular DLC directly to production effort is at heart faulty.

That is not what I've been trying to do at all.  I am connecting the value of RtO to the value of DA:O.  This is irrespective of how BW or EA manages their finances.  As further an example, if a game Bad is 10x worse than game Awesome, yet game Bad costs 10x as much to produce, its value is still 10x lower than game Awesome.  If you cannot understand this reasoning, then we are at an impasse.
 

They will sell less DLC than copies of DA:O. There is no telling what the licensing costs of distribution across multiple platforms they pay.

Again, you are making a judgement on whether or not the difference in payscale is justifiable, NOT whether or not the difference is there.  This subtext is all over everywhere throughout your post.  I strongly suggest that you re-read your post.  Particularly the above quote and here:
Vote for the games that stand out and offer the longest lifespan. Make epics like DA:O the most profitable games on the market even with longer development times. If it takes paying more for DLC so they've got a steady post-production revenue stream to invest in supporting both the existing game and investing in a high-quality new title to come out when the engine for the existing game falls behind then so be it.

By "paying more" what exactly do you mean?  Hmm?  I'll break it down.  You are saying paying more is justifiable to support game development of epics like DA:O.  You are saying paying more for DLCs is justifiable because it allows BW to develop epic length games like DA:O that take 7 years to produce.  That is a point of view I am very sympathetic towards.  HOWEVER, it does not, in any way, change the fact that the price of DLCs are likely far over their value, and that you, and many other people are saying, dishonestly, they are worth their actual price.  Rather, DLCs are, as someone so eloquently put, "tithes" that, like religion, game companies are tricking you into paying.  

Ladydesire wrote...

If you were comparing a DLC that was playable outside the game with the game itself, your comparison might be more acceptable; since the only playable DLCs we currently have are ones that are ones that become a part of the campaign we can play, you cannot logically separate them, as you are trying to do.

You've stated this several times.  To be convincing, you need to explain why you believe integration into the game causes the value of DLCs to increase relative to DA:O.  If anything, it should decrease, since DLCs don't contain the game engine or the ability to use the toolset and create your own mods; DA:O does.  As far as content, the distinction between the main campaign and DA:O is pretty clear.

Quit calling an established fact an assumption.

Considering its the basis of my argument, it wouldn't hurt my argument to call it a fact, so I'm not sure why you're so antsy about it.  But it is in fact, an assumption, because it's not something that can be readily proved.  I do think it is pretty obvious, though, so I take it as self-evident.  

Ok, I see that the concept of replay value is something you don't acknowledge exists; while the current price of DLC for Dragon Age seems high, it's only true if you plan to play the game campaign that Bioware provides for us one time and one time only.

Please try to understand of relative value.  If you play RtO several times, likely you've played DA:O several times, and the relative value does not change. 

Modifié par traversc, 21 janvier 2010 - 04:04 .

[TheMadCat]

So in your opinion traversc they should charge what you feel the product is worth compared to DA:O rather then what is needed to say, break even or come out with a little profit? The business side is null in determining what a product should be priced.

Modifié par TheMadCat, 21 janvier 2010 - 04:20 .

[SheffSteel]

No one can provide a numerically based argument that DLC should be cheaper because no one has access to such numbers as fixed and unit costs, sales figures, or profit margins - for the main game or any of the DLCs.
So quantitative analysis is out of the question. Using a qualitative analysis, as I did on an earlier page, we should expect DLC to be more expensive than the game. Not free. Not cheaper.

Modifié par SheffSteel, 21 janvier 2010 - 04:47 .

[Mordaedil]

traversc does not care about stupid little things like facts, when he's got hypothesis!

[grieferbastard]

traversc wrote...
That is not what I've been trying to do at all.  I am connecting the value of RtO to the value of DA:O.  This is irrespective of how BW or EA manages their finances.  As further an example, if a game Bad is 10x worse than game Awesome, yet game Bad costs 10x as much to produce, its value is still 10x lower than game Awesome.  If you cannot understand this reasoning, then we are at an impasse.

By "paying more" what exactly do you mean?  Hmm?  I'll break it down.  You are saying paying more is justifiable to support game development of epics like DA:O.  You are saying paying more for DLCs is justifiable because it allows BW to develop epic length games like DA:O that take 7 years to produce.  That is a point of view I am very sympathetic towards.  HOWEVER, it does not, in any way, change the fact that the price of DLCs are likely far over their value, and that you, and many other people are saying, dishonestly, they are worth their actual price.  Rather, DLCs are, as someone so eloquently put, "tithes" that, like religion, game companies are tricking you into paying. 

So, help me understand something. You are saying that DLC are over-priced. I've shown you why both the game and the DLC are priced the way they are and that it's a fair and reasonable price structure and used all the available factual data we can get. You're saying in response that the pricing structure for DA:O and DLC should be created completely divorced from the business needs as well as the actual cost vs profit model each respective product, game and DLC, exist it.  

What? Seriously. I'm having a face-palm moment here. DLCs are not far over their value in pricing. I just showed you a bunch of financial data showing that. What DLC are is far less cost-effective to produce, market, sell and maintain. On top of that there is reasonable theory DA:O was created and sold with the concept of the game itself being less profitable and the DLC hopefully being more so.

They are not tithes. There is no trickery. They are not dishonestly priced. To be 'dishonestly priced' they would have to be generating revenue way out of proportion with other products in their industry. You can see, based on the revenue they generate vs the financial summary of the company selling them that this is not the case.

Attempting to equate length of content vs the cost/production model of the same product is a baseless and incorrect assumption. Once again I will ask you; show me any sort of financial detail to back this up. I and other people on the forum have attempted to convey this to you. I've backed my arguments up with facts and details other than my own opinions. Also show me evidence anywhere and in any form from any direct source of information other than your own assumptions that DLC are in any way more profitable than game sales.

I appreciate that in your mind the length of play you're getting out of DLC is not worth their cost to you. Once again I will say that's fine. It's a personal preference and you're welcome to your own opinion. Where I take offense is you attempting to imply both that BioWare/EA is somehow 'cheating people' by charging the price they do, that the price is unfair, and that anyone who does find it reasonable is somehow misled. I hope the pricing on DLC is profitable. I expect it to be and count on it being so. It's a business and one I want to succeed. Like every other business they should be profitable. It's not out of line with the market it's in, the business is not one gorged on revenue, nor by any stretch am I an uninformed consumer. The internet service you're paying to get to these forums is making far, far, FAR more profit off you than EA/BioWare ever will.

Honestly? I do understand that you feel like it's not fair. That feeling is driven by not understanding why it's priced like it is. That's fine, as a consumer nobody needs to really understand why prices are what they are they just need to spend their money where they feel it is valued. If DLC is not profitable to produce because the price it would have to be sold at to make it a good business decision is higher than consumers will pay then it will fade away. Yet you've gone beyond that and called it dishonest or 'tricky'. That's not the truth. Just because you don't understand it or don't want to understand it doesn't make it dishonest. Your opinions are not facts.

At this point though I'm beyond just wanting to make you understand. I think it's fair that
you to appologize for calling it dishonest and for the 'tricking you
into buying it' comments. I also want you to come clean with the whole
'hours of play vs cost' metric being irrelevent to the actual profit
gained from the DLC itself and simply being a personal preference.

[Taura-Tierno]

Metallicka wrote...

Taura-Tierno wrote...

I don't think DLC should be free. I do, however, believe that it's a bit overcharged. I suppose it really depends on how much they make from the DLC (if the make a lot of money, they could lower the costs), but I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure?

Paying around 7$ for Warden's is ... well, I don't regret buying it, really, but I don't feel it's really worth the money either. It they had charged more than 7$, I would have told my friends not to buy it.

I would definitely not pay 15$ for a new character, however. That's like 20% of what I paid for the full game. A new character does not add 20% additional playtime in terms of completely new plots and quests. It's still the same game all over again, with a small twist. A new character does not make up 20% of the total gaming experience. In addition to that, there's also the risk that I won't enjoy the character (I don't like all of the already existing characters), so buying the character and finding out that I hate it would be kind of a bust. And I don't think Bioware does any refunds on DLC?

I might be willing to pay 15$ for a new character if
1) I hear a lot of great stuff about it in reviews from people who share my taste in character
and
2) If the personal quest(s) for the character is/are much more extensive that Shale's. So that we get a new character, new conversations AND a quests worth at least a few hours gameplay.

But I would be most hesitant to buy a new character for myself, if I hadn't heard any good reviews about it, since whether or not it will be worth it depends solely upon whether or not I'd like the character in question.

I understand that a new-character-DLC has got to be more expensive than just a small quest, since it'd probably include lots of costs for voice actors and such. The only way I would buy a new character for 15$ is if we were promised several (4, maybe?) hours worth of new quests and areas to explore.

I'd probably pay 10$ for a new character, however. Seems a more reasonable price for Shale, at least. In my opinion.

You're forgetting a very important point regarding Shale, If you bought the game new, he was FREE. If you didn't buy it new you had the option to pay $15 to get him. I believe most people did the math, realized that is they wanted Shale it was cheaper to spend th extra $5 for a new copy of DA:O

Yeah, I got Shale for free. But I wouldn't have paid 15$ for her, if she hadn't come with game when I bought it. I though that if they charge 15$ for Shale, then it's not an unreasonable assumption that they might charge the same for another extra character, someday. Of course, I'm only guessing wildly, so I might very well be wrong 

[MerinTB]

Are people still trying to pin down traversc's opinion, let alone make him change it?



Why?



It is pretty clear, whatever it is exactly he is trying to sell, he's not going to budge on it. That's not meant as an attack on him, unless you want to view it as me calling him stubborn. I'd prefer to say he's set in his beliefs.



Many of us can see that if a group of people put time and effort into making something, they are entitled to get paid for said work when others benefit from it.



While the title of the thread is "DLC should be free" traversc is, to my best estimation and understanding, not arguing for that exactly but instead is arguing about the value of the DLC. When he argues value he waivers back and forth between cost per hour, cost per some other measurement of content, and overall intrinsic value as something derived from comparing to like products but not exactly the same products (can compare to other games but NOT to other DLC) - but at the heart of his argument

when you get past all his responses and points (that often to many of us seem contradictory)

he doesn't like the DLC model, period, and as such he holds no value for it.



Once you realize he, himself, holds no value for the DLC model, you'll understand why trying to reason with him about the value of it is a lost cause.



traversc, feel free to correct me and gives us what you feel your overall point really is. What you see me say above is what I've gotten from everything you've said.

[traversc]

Once you realize he, himself, holds no value for the DLC model, you'll understand why trying to reason with him about the value of it is a lost cause.

traversc, feel free to correct me and gives us what you feel your overall point really is. What you see me say above is what I've gotten from everything you've said.

That's fair, to call me stubborn.  But then again, isn't everyone in this thread?
Two things.  1) I'm not waivering or "moving the goal post" like was suggested.  My opinion has been the same since the beginning.  (Take my latest post and compare it to the first couple, and I hope that is clear).  The reason that this has gone on so long, is not so much that I have been refining my argument, rather I've been asked the same questions, or have confronted the same arguments and responded over and over again.  Stubborn? Yes.  Inconsistent?  No. 

2)I do not like the" DLC model" but that is not relevant to the argument I am making.  Whether I personally hold subjective value for DLC is not relevant.  Likes and dislikes don't play a role in dispassionate discourse. 

You're saying in response that
the pricing structure for DA:O and DLC should be created completely
divorced from the business needs as well as the actual cost vs profit
model each respective product, game and DLC, exist it. 

You continue to misunderstand my argument.  My main point is NOT saying the pricing structure of DLCs SHOULD be X,Y,Z or banana.  That is what you call justification.  I am comparing relative value of RtO to DA:O. 

Secondly, no you haven't shown that they are reasonably priced.  Far from it. 

Attempting to equate length of content vs the cost/production model of the same product is a baseless and incorrect assumption.

That is not what I'm doing. 

Modifié par traversc, 21 janvier 2010 - 06:27 .

[ladydesire]

traversc wrote...

Ladydesire wrote...

If you were comparing a DLC that was playable outside the game with the game itself, your comparison might be more acceptable; since the only playable DLCs we currently have are ones that are ones that become a part of the campaign we can play, you cannot logically separate them, as you are trying to do.

You've stated this several times.  To be convincing, you need to explain why you believe integration into the game causes the value of DLCs to increase relative to DA:O.  If anything, it should decrease, since DLCs don't contain the game engine or the ability to use the toolset and create your own mods; DA:O does.  As far as content, the distinction between the main campaign and DA:O is pretty clear.

1) I am not saying that integration into the game is causing the value of the DLC to increase; you are. What I am saying is that, relative to what DA:O should have cost, due to development time and other factors that I will not post (someone else already did) the value of the DLC compared to the value of DA:O is remaining constant.

2) There is no distiction between the main campaign and any DLC in any way that matters, once the DLC is bought and installed; the only time you will notice anything out of place is if the "quest-giver" exists in your game and you do not own the DLC.

Quit calling an established fact an assumption.

Considering its the basis of my argument, it wouldn't hurt my argument to call it a fact, so I'm not sure why you're so antsy about it.  But it is in fact, an assumption, because it's not something that can be readily proved.  I do think it is pretty obvious, though, so I take it as self-evident.

Once you own the DLC, there is no dicernable difference between how the DLC-specific quest plays and how any other game quest does; this isn't just my opinion, it's a fact and it's due to how the game engine treats Bioware developed content, since Bioware doesn't make changes to gameplay based on what content section you are playing at a particular time. Given enough time, it will eventually be hard to tell the difference between content create by Bioware and the PC toolset users, since unless they alter the game significantly in a player created module, it will work the same way as one created by Bioware.

Ok, I see that the concept of replay value is something you don't acknowledge exists; while the current price of DLC for Dragon Age seems high, it's only true if you plan to play the game campaign that Bioware provides for us one time and one time only.

Please try to understand of relative value.  If you play RtO several times, likely you've played DA:O several times, and the relative value does not change. 

I agree, but it's also true that you don't need to buy the content more than once unless you own multiple copies of the game.

[PSUHammer]

How about this:



1) If you like the DLC, buy it and play it.



2) If you don't, then don't buy it and enjoy the game as is.



Why even have a discussion on it? It isn't a forced purchase to enjoy the game and they aren't ripping you off or anything.

[AutumnGhost]

DLAN_Immortality wrote...

ZZZZ

Okay, you know Bioware is being really nice by making DLCs right? Because they could do what everybody else does, which is release the game and release bug fixing patches and forget about everything else.

Why do we always want MOAR and MOAR ? >:-[ You don't really need to buy them, you know. Just play the vanilla game and have fun.

Nice? Really? You know they charge you for the DLCs right?  There's nothing nice about it.

[AutumnGhost]

Hammer6767 wrote...

How about this:

1) If you like the DLC, buy it and play it.

2) If you don't, then don't buy it and enjoy the game as is.

Why even have a discussion on it? It isn't a forced purchase to enjoy the game and they aren't ripping you off or anything.

Yeah, probably because there are people who bought it and didn't realize what a joke it is.  They bought something many expect from a bioware release.  Not some half-baked content.  Luckily I held off and read the scathing reviews about RtO

[PSUHammer]

AutumnGhost wrote...
Yeah, probably because there are people who bought it and didn't realize what a joke it is.  They bought something many expect from a bioware release.  Not some half-baked content.  Luckily I held off and read the scathing reviews about RtO

Well awwwllrighty then.

[Jairoe03]

Isn't the focus on a Single Player RPG about the story and the adventure and being part of a fantasy world? Why does the focus have to be on the items. It really shouldn't be a factor in this type of a game since you're not playing with/against anyone else. It's simply an extension to the adventure you have been experiencing already, not more mad lewts. Why don't people point out more relevant things rather than assume the oddest parts of the game (like Bioware just throwing in content to hand out useless items in a single player campaign game). *sigh*

[krisd2]

Jairoe03 wrote...

Isn't the focus on a Single Player RPG about the story and the adventure and being part of a fantasy world? Why does the focus have to be on the items. It really shouldn't be a factor in this type of a game since you're not playing with/against anyone else. It's simply an extension to the adventure you have been experiencing already, not more mad lewts. Why don't people point out more relevant things rather than assume the oddest parts of the game (like Bioware just throwing in content to hand out useless items in a single player campaign game). *sigh*

Who put the focus on items?