45 réponses à ce sujet

[Raziel88]

I've been a semi-fan of Bioware even with all the stupid problems of Bioware points.

But EA/Bioware pricing strategy really annoys me.

Look at Inquisition. The GOTY version is on sale for 29.99, while each DLC is 9.99. So I bought Inquisition on day 1; I don't really care how much I paid for it, since it was worth it. However, that being said, now I want to play the DLCs but buying each of them is 9.99*3=29.97. 2 CENTS LESS THAN BUYING THE GOTY! I mean the base game is going for 14.99 right now right?

 

Great. I would understand if base game+all dlcs are more expensive than GOTY, but this is too ugly.

They are ripping of the most avid buyers of their games who bought the base game early! 

So I would never buy all their DLC at this price, maybe just trespasser.

I guess I should never buy EA/Bioware games until all the DLCs are out and they bundle it together. Lesson learnt.  

[GithCheater]

You are defintely correct about EA, but I am not sure whether Bioware has any influence on pricing policy.  Actually, I am shocked that EA actually offers a small discount.

 

EA is just a typical corporation that prostitutes itself for short term profit rather than long term profit.  Unfortunetely EA does not realise that retaining an existing customer is easier than obtaining a new customer.

[AlanC9]

Everyone who buys early gets ripped off compared to people who bought later. Stop whining.

[Andraste_Reborn]

All (or at least almost all) video games get cheaper if you're willing to wait a while. This is why the only things I buy on release day are Dragon Age games and main series Pokemon titles.

 

It's up to you whether playing the game right away is worth paying full price, but I'm not sure why anyone would blame EA for something that the entire industry does. I mean, Steam is having a Lunar New Year sale now where half the games on my wish list were 50% off!

[lynroy]

I got over it.

[DragonKingReborn]

I can't remember, did they bundle DA2?

There is only a bundle (which I bought, having also paid full price for the base game and Trespasser) because they deemed it worthy of a game of the year edition.

It was always going to happen once the critical reaction started rolling in.

Like others have said...industry standard. Nothing to see here.

[Raziel88]

Alan and Andraste, You clearly don't understand my point. Of course games get cheaper with time, and I didn't mind paying what I paid. My gripe is the price difference, or lackthereof of the GOTY version and 3 story DLCs. I am clearly comparing CURRENT PRICES.

Please read more carefully before claiming someone is whining, or complaining about what he/she is not complaining about. Thanks.

[MaxQuartiroli]

I think that in their minds EA folks don't even consider that there are players who own the base game and and 1 year and 3 months later didn't buy at least 1 DLC. They probably think that if you bought the game early and, at present, you don't own any DLC yet, you are not probably invested in the game anymore.

Meanwhile people who are missing 1/2 DLC won't be interested in the CE, because they already have the core game and some DLC, therefore they see no reason in lowering the price of a single DLC which is obviously lower than the price of the CE.

 

TL;DR. They probably think that if you don't own any DLC yet you are probably a new player therefore they offer you the CE.

 

 

 

EDIT. Of course I wanted to say GOTY Edition and not CE (which is Collector Edition).

[Thandal N'Lyman]

<snip>

Please read more carefully before claiming someone is whining, or complaining about what he/she is not complaining about. Thanks.

 

 

But you are whinging about the (current) price that EA have set for their goods.

 

Complaining that "new" customers can get something cheaper than existing ones is a worn out track.  The business calculus for such offers, which runs like this:  "Acquire new business at lower profit with *potential* for future sales, plus additional revenue from old ones at higher profit, minus loss of *potential* additional revenue from ones who have not yet (and may never have) purchased additional materials and now leave over the issue" makes the decision easy.

 

For the consumer, the decision is even easier: ether it's worth the price to you, or it isn't.

[AlanC9]

Alan and Andraste, You clearly don't understand my point. Of course games get cheaper with time, and I didn't mind paying what I paid. My gripe is the price difference, or lackthereof of the GOTY version and 3 story DLCs. I am clearly comparing CURRENT PRICES.
Please read more carefully before claiming someone is whining, or complaining about what he/she is not complaining about. Thanks.

Oh,I read it and understood it. I just think you're completely wrong.

They get the DLCs for $10 each, and so can you. They get the game thrown in free, and so would you. You don't need to buy the game again, but that's meaningless. You're not being discriminated against. You're just not.

Incidentally, it's silly to claim that they're ripping off the "most avid" buyers. The most avid buyers aren't affected by the GOTY price because they've already bought everything in it.

[pdusen]

Everyone who buys early gets ripped off compared to people who bought later. Stop whining.

This. God, not this topic again.

[Panda]

Isn't that quite normal with video games though? You can often grab base game with lower price than even one DLC when the game is couple years old. DLCs tend to get discounted lot less than base games so I usually end up just buying GOTY or some other edition of the game instead of buying DLCs. Like I have base games of DAO, DAI and Skyrim on my PS3, but re-bought them all for PC/PS4- and  the prices I re-bought them with all DLCs were lower than what I bought for them on PS3- it's pretty crazy, but I think it's just way things work.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I've been a semi-fan of Bioware even with all the stupid problems of Bioware points.
But EA/Bioware pricing strategy really annoys me.
Look at Inquisition. The GOTY version is on sale for 29.99, while each DLC is 9.99. So I bought Inquisition on day 1; I don't really care how much I paid for it, since it was worth it. However, that being said, now I want to play the DLCs but buying each of them is 9.99*3=29.97. 2 CENTS LESS THAN BUYING THE GOTY! I mean the base game is going for 14.99 right now right?

Great. I would understand if base game+all dlcs are more expensive than GOTY, but this is too ugly.
They are ripping of the most avid buyers of their games who bought the base game early!
So I would never buy all their DLC at this price, maybe just trespasser.
I guess I should never buy EA/Bioware games until all the DLCs are out and they bundle it together. Lesson learnt.

Your economic analysis is exceedingly shallow.

You failed to take into account the monetary equivalent benefit you derived from getting the play the game before now. There must be some, or you would have waited until the game was cheaper to buy it.

Redo your math and try again.

[Raziel88]

I think that in their minds EA folks don't even consider that there are players who own the base game and and 1 year and 3 months later didn't buy at least 1 DLC. They probably think that if you bought the game early and, at present, you don't own any DLC yet, you are not probably invested in the game anymore.

Meanwhile people who are missing 1/2 DLC won't be interested in the CE, because they already have the core game and some DLC, therefore they see no reason in lowering the price of a single DLC which is obviously lower than the price of the CE.

 

TL;DR. They probably think that if you don't own any DLC yet you are probably a new player therefore they offer you the CE.

 

 

Ok, this is an economically sound answer, and I have to agree. (Bioware points are still crazy!) Unlike others, you understood my argument and answered logically. Thanks for that; its funny how the other replies were liked but not yours. 

 

 

 

I didn't buy the DLCs up to now because at release their reviews weren't so good except the last one. So I thought I waited this far, I might as well wait a bit more.

 

It does beg the question about incentives though, as it is not a one off exchange. With each iteration I'm less inclined to purchase the initial product. I'd still buy all CD Project Red stuff at release, but Bioware's DLC performance isn't always stellar.

 

 

Your economic analysis is exceedingly shallow.

You failed to take into account the monetary equivalent benefit you derived from getting the play the game before now. There must be some, or you would have waited until the game was cheaper to buy it.

Redo your math and try again.

 

lol. Your understanding of economics is exceedingly shallow, thanks.

[Raziel88]

Isn't that quite normal with video games though? You can often grab base game with lower price than even one DLC when the game is couple years old. DLCs tend to get discounted lot less than base games so I usually end up just buying GOTY or some other edition of the game instead of buying DLCs. Like I have base games of DAO, DAI and Skyrim on my PS3, but re-bought them all for PC/PS4- and  the prices I re-bought them with all DLCs were lower than what I bought for them on PS3- it's pretty crazy, but I think it's just way things work.

 

Thanks for your reply. It is normal that the base games costs like 4.99 or less without discount after a while, and since DLC is newer product, the price reduction and discount rate is usually less than the base game. So I don't disagree with you here, and I don't think it is wrong either. 

 

I thought their method of price discrimination strategy was shoddy and not well thought out, but MaxQuartiroli' answer made me realize it could make sense if they thought it were a one shot game, and depending on # of people in each category of DLC owning. If there sufficiently are more 1 DLC & 2 DLC owners than 0 DLC owners, which is most likely, then the current strategy would probably yield most profit.

[AlanC9]

lol. Your understanding of economics is exceedingly shallow, thanks.

You didn't say what's wrong with his point. Do you actually have a response?

[AlanC9]

I think that in their minds EA folks don't even consider that there are players who own the base game and and 1 year and 3 months later didn't buy at least 1 DLC.

I don't think this is precisely true as written. It's likely that they knew such players existed -- Origin makes it impossible for them to be unaware of this for PC players unless nobody's looking at the data-- but didn't consider these players to actually be in the market for DLC. At least, not at any price they'd care to sell the DLC for.

[Sylvius the Mad]

lol. Your understanding of economics is exceedingly shallow, thanks.

You said this:

The GOTY version is on sale for 29.99, while each DLC is 9.99. So I bought Inquisition on day 1; I don't really care how much I paid for it, since it was worth it. However, that being said, now I want to play the DLCs but buying each of them is 9.99*3=29.97. 2 CENTS LESS THAN BUYING THE GOTY! I mean the base game is going for 14.99 right now right?

This calculation relies on the implicit assumption that the value provided by the core game is exactly the same now as it was a year ago, and that's only true if the game provides no value over time.

[MaxQuartiroli]

I don't think this is precisely true as written. It's likely that they knew such players existed -- Origin makes it impossible for them to be unaware of this for PC players unless nobody's looking at the data-- but didn't consider these players to actually be in the market for DLC. At least, not at any price they'd care to sell the DLC for.

 

My poor choice of words, probably, but this is more or less what I was trying to say: I don't think they are not aware of the existance of these players, but just that they consider them not suitable for their market anymore. Their target at the moment are probably either new potential customers or old customers who are still missing 1, maybe 2 DLC because they could be still interested in the game. 

 

But the main question is: how much should they lower the price of their DLC in order to attract that part of the old audience that at present have never bought any of them? And what if the amount of  these "new-old" customer isn't large enough to be able to cover the difference between the total sales at full price and the total sales at discounted price?  Selling 1000 at 9$ is still  better than selling 1500 at 5$. Well, these are obviously just random number that I am throwing in, but I suppose that having the data stored on Origin,  like you said, helps them to know what is more convenient for them. (And I suppose they have also access to the data on the stores for consoles)

[AlanC9]

Yeah, it's difficult to figure out how to price a bundle. In my case the currect pricing wouldn't be revenue-maximizing. $10 is the most I'll pay for a DLC under any circumstances, and even less if I've got no particular interest in the subject. Under the currect scheme I would have just bought Trespasser, rather than the bundle. You'd have to drop the bundle to, say, $25 to get me to buy that. Or drop JoH and Descent to $7 or so, but then they're losing money from everyone who would have paid $10 each for them.

("Would have" because I ended up not buying DAI until the GotY. This is just an accident of the system requirements, though. My dual-core Athlon/6670 rig is way below min spec, and I never upgrade for just one game, so I figured that it wasn't worth trying. I gave the demo a shot and discovered that performance was acceptable, but by the time I did that the GotY had been announced. So I ended up getting a good deal by accident.)

[Raziel88]

You said this:
This calculation relies on the implicit assumption that the value provided by the core game is exactly the same now as it was a year ago, and that's only true if the game provides no value over time.

 

I didn't feel the need to respond, because I already stated it when responding to panda and alan, not mentioning that you were rude. If that were the case I would be comparing it to the price of the base game a year ago, or at release, which is I believe 49.99 or 59.99. At the least, I would have added the current 14.99, which I did not. As I stated, I'm satisfied on the amount I paid at the time, and have no gripe about people paying less--I understand the concept of time discounts or net present value. I was comparing current prices for all bundles, and was noting that there is only a price difference of 2 cents. Of course people with less willingness to pay would buy only when the price is lowered.

Maybe they don't teach price discrimination in Econ 101. I'd recommend you take a game theory or IO class. I don't think I want to go into detail, but my point had to do with the specific price discrimination strategy, and if you want to understand, please read what MaxQuartiroli wrote. His point is fair, though I can't say that it is a good long term strategy in EA's part. 

 

Again, even without time discount, I understand the reason for digital game prices decreasing with time as an indirect price discrimination strategy. People with the highest willingness to pay would have already bought the good, so with time lowering the price makes additional revenue, and as a digital good, there is close to no marginal cost involved. Just a matter of figuring out what the sufficient time to lower certain amounts would be. Again, no problem with that.

 

And yeah, I think I'm just going to go with Trespasser.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I didn't feel the need to respond, because I already stated it when responding to something else, not mentioning that you were rude. If that were the case I would be comparing it to the price of the base game a year ago, or at release, which is I believe 49.99 or 59.99. At the least, I would have added the current 14.99, which I did not. As I stated, I'm satisfied on the amount I paid at the time, and have no gripe about people paying less--I understand the concept of time discounts or net present value. I was comparing current prices for all bundles, and was noting that there is only a price difference of 2 cents. Of course people with less willingness to pay would buy only when the price is lowered.

Granted. EA clearly doesn't think there's a lot of price elasticity in the demand for DLC among that market segment.

And they might be right. As long as the GOTY is still more than the DLCs alone, game owners remain a captive audience (who become even more captive if they don't understand sunk costs, which I find most people don't).

Maybe they don't teach price discrimination in Econ 101. I'd recommend you take a game theory or IO class. I don't think I want to go into detail, but my point had to do with the specific price discrimination strategy, and if you want to understand, please read what MaxQuartiroli wrote. His point is fair, though I can't say that it is a good long term strategy in EA's part.

I studied game theory at university, but I have no formal economics training (I did work at an economic think tank for over a decade, but I managed their data rather than doing any econometrics).

I initially objected because I thought you were too eager to draw a conclusion in the presence of inconclusive evidence.

[Thandal N'Lyman]

Isn't what Max said here: 

My poor choice of words, probably, but this is more or less what I was trying to say: I don't think they are not aware of the existance of these players, but just that they consider them not suitable for their market anymore. Their target at the moment are probably either new potential customers or old customers who are still missing
maybe 2 DLC because they could be still interested in the game.

 

But the main question is: how much should they lower the price of their DLC in order to attract that part of the old audience that at present have never bought any of them? And what if the amount of  these "new-old" customer isn't large enough to be able to cover the difference between the total sales at full price and the total sales at discounted price?  Selling 1000 at 9$ is still  better than selling 1500 at 5$. Well, these are obviously just random number that I am throwing in, but I suppose that having the data stored on Origin,  like you said, helps them to know what is more convenient for them. (And I suppose they have also access to the data on the stores for consoles)

 

 

The same as what I said here:

...  The business calculus for such offers, which runs like this:  "Acquire new business at lower profit with *potential* for future sales, plus additional revenue from old ones at higher profit, minus loss of *potential* additional revenue from ones who haven't (and may never) purchase additional materials and now leave over the issue" makes the decision easy.

 

For the consumer, the decision is even easier: ether it's worth the price to you, or it isn't.

[RunningParadox]

This is normal pricing practices, if you buy a game day one you will ALWAYS end up paying more for any content down the line compared to people who buy the base game with the DLC included. It's simply how the market is.

[Big I]

Look at Inquisition. The GOTY version is on sale for 29.99, while each DLC is 9.99. So I bought Inquisition on day 1; I don't really care how much I paid for it, since it was worth it. However, that being said, now I want to play the DLCs but buying each of them is 9.99*3=29.97. 2 CENTS LESS THAN BUYING THE GOTY! I mean the base game is going for 14.99 right now right?

 

I don't know what the "trading in games" situation is like in your country, but if it's possible why not just trade in your current copy of Inquisition for store credit and then buy the GOTY edition? You get everything you want but at a slight discount.