Project 10 Dollar -- EA's Digital Strategy
Bamelin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Really interesting article here about what EA is doing to try to stay competitive: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_08/b4167064465834.htm
The article also confirms, expect to see Free Day 1 DLC to purchasers of NEW copies in all EA titles
The article also confirms, expect to see Free Day 1 DLC to purchasers of NEW copies in all EA titles
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I can buy the same used game for $30 or $40 and pay $10 for the DLC
hmmm...
More like pay 50-55 for a shitty copy at Gamestop for a loooong time.
...Though Smokestacks raises a good point. I guess in their mind, this way even if people buy used they have a better chance at getting some profit?
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I think they'd rather you pay 60 dollars directly to them (well, minus however much the stores take of that, I have no idea) than pay 10 dollars directly to them.
I mean I'm sure that's part of it too.
Especially since they can't guarantee that people want the extra content. Like if I had bought ME2 used I probably wouldn't have bothered buying Zaeed and the Normandy mission.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Net.
What?
THIS IS CONFUSING
http://www.audioentropy.com/
What about the people that don't have their xbox connected to the internet because Microsoft doesn't include wifi in the xbox?
Put the finished game on the disc.
$10ish.
But you paid $1,500 for your gaming PC
Net.
What?
CAN OF WORMS
Anyway, how is the DLC going to be handled in terms of reinstalls? As in, I buy GunShooter III brand new for $50 for the PC, download the included free DLC, and then I beat it and uninstall, or my system goes down and I have to reformat. Either way, I end up having to reinstall, and I wonder how the DLC tag will be tracked.
Am I going to have to sign up for some sort of EA account to track the DLC, alongside the nineteen other programs you have to create an account for to be a PC gamer these days?
That's tough bones, I suppose. This content isn't anything necessary to enjoy the game, it's just a nice bonus and an incentive to buy new. Mass Effect 2 is a fantastic game that has plenty of content without Zaeed.
A lot less than they get for that $50-55 used game.
In a way, I like the new way they're doing things--with Dragon Age, I GameFly'd it, but I ended up buying Shale, because well... Shale is fucking awesome.
Once I realized he came FREE with the new copy, I'd wished I would have just bought it new. Then it struck me exactly what they were trying to accomplish, and it had hit home.
I just hope they continue to give out GOOD content for free... almost like what ME2 is trying to do with the Cerberus Card or w/e; occassional free shit for having this content, instead of a one-time deal like Shale. When they start completing games, and cutting out small parts to force you to buy new, is when it starts getting excessive and sucking ass (like Shale and Zaeed).
If it continues like the Cerberus Card stuff, I'm perfectly fine with it. I don't mind buying new.
You can wait for the discs--most games now are starting to have DLC available on discs; Fallout 3 has either 2 or 3 discs out for DLC, and I'm hearing rumblings of Borderlands putting Mad Sucks-if-you-dont-have-4players and Jakobs Cove on a disc, for those who can't get online.
If you just want the stuff like Shale & Zaeed however, you're just shit out of luck. If EA continues to succeed like they are right now, you'll start seeing similiar with other gaming companies.
They are not "giving out" content, they are holding content that would otherwise be in the game hostage.
If I'm buying the disc they are no longer giving me the content free.
Yes, so they actually make some money off their game.
Say someone buys Dragon Age new, $60 bones, bam.
EA makes some money.
Person trades in to GameStop, GameStop sells for $50-55.
EA makes nothing.
That person trades in the copy, GameStop profits again.
And again, and again until the game isn't worth anything.
EA makes profit off the initial sale, no more.
At least by taking their current stance, they could make $10-15 off each USED sale, which is good from a company standpoint.
It DOES, however, suck when they start snipping games so they can push a new sale--but there's not much we can do to stop that.
Oh, and if your reasonings are all having to do with 'oh well I dont have online access, I have a gameplan for you.
Get a towel, wipe off your bleeding knuckles (I know they're bleeding cuz you're dragging them everywhere you go), and go hook your shit up online.
Jesus.
Going off of ME2, you are seriously not missing anything if you don't get the Cerberus Network stuff.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
When I buy your shit for 60 dollars I am not getting anything for free
Agreed; although having the blacked-out spot where Zaeed goes just sitting there MOCKING YOU would get kind of old; kind of like he's always supposed to have been there.
I dunno. Zaeed's got some pretty cool stuff going on, despite the fact that he was designed as DLC to begin with. In all, he's a pretty alright incentive to buy new, I think.
Actually for ME2, the game barely fit on two discs as it was which is probably why you had to actually download Zaeed instead of downloading an unlock code.
Alright then, you're getting a ten dollar discount on seventy dollars of content.
However you want to slice it, they're throwing you a bone if you buy new.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Which is their entire strategy
I prefer cohesion. If they want to make more money they can experiment with pricing or make a big push next-generation with direct-to-drive stuff.
I only get mad when I get told I should be thankful for my 10 dollars or 20 dollars more "extra" that I got for "gee whiz basically free"
No. No moron I paid for it. So did you.
Is Zaeed worth a 6th of the rest of the game?
No.
No, you're being charged a $10 fee if you don't. You really think they're doing it just to be nice?
That's changing, the entire American market is swinging over to focus on consoles, and we've already seen one $60 price point on the pc for a AAA release in Modern Warfare 2, I'm pretty sure we'll continue to see the prices creep up. And PC users are also getting pretty fucked on digital distribution as well, since we're still paying retail prices for downloads of games.
As to EA, I like the idea, it seems like a fairly elegant solution to still using DLC to skim content off of used sales (which I disagree with), while encouraging people to buy new. But long term, I could see it putting even more pressure on developers to break games into pieces and sell them off as DLC, which is not a direction I think anyone wants to see the market move towards.
So fucking hard.
Want to toss in a few items or something for people who buy the game new? Awesome. Want to try to control the secondary market by stripping out significant portions of your game and charging anyone who buys it used by the parcel? Die in a fire.
I remember a time, long ago, when a man could walk into a game store with $50, and walk out with $50 worth of content.
I imagine they are going to go the Resident Evil 5 Gold path where the disc is the base game and codes to download the extra content are in the box.
To say nothing of being tied to the publisher's website. How long will the EA DLC servers stay up, I wonder?
if you pay EA money for their game they are giving you the 100% game
Did you know that some people also have an Xbox 360 Arcade, which probably does not have enough memory for all this content. Are those people just out of luck?