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Project 10 Dollar -- EA's Digital Strategy
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The games are complete. Entirely. I played through the entirety of Mass Effect 2 without ever getting DLC. I only got DLC for my second runthrough. Not once did I think that "Hey there's a character missing, this game has content cut from it for the sole purpose of selling it again."
People say that that's the case, but I highly doubt they've even played the games in question.
For Dragon Age: I wouldn't have even known that there was the Warden's Keep DLC if there wasn't an NPC who was all "BUY MY DLC".
They're like a Ford Pinto, ugly and poorly designed.
Games have the "back against the wall" problem in that they only get to sell their creations to one market.
Movies make a whole bunch of money from theater ticket sales, then they print it on DVD and sell it again.
Music gets sold through play rights for radio and bars/clubs, then actual CD sales, then concerts.
Video games just get to go to home users who've purchase requisite hardware. (Yes, I know there are arcades, but those have all but gone the way of the dodo and rarely do you see the types of titles we get for home users at an arcade and vice-versa)
If all video games released first in a theater type environment where you got to pay to play them, without commitment to buying hardware first, months in advance of their release to home consoles, you may see home copies drop to something more akin to movie DVD's.
Imagine if all movies were "straight-to-DVD", you had to choose between DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray format, and the movie you really wanted to see just may or may not end up in the format of the player you've invested in.
PSN: Beltaine-77 | Steam: beltane77 | Battle.net BadHaggis#1433
Which is why we tolerate a brand new game being priced at $50 or $60 as opposed to a brand new movie being priced at $20 and a brand new CD being priced at $15.
This doesn't give them free reign to try and screw consumers.
You're a dead goose. DEAD.
I think maybe you're underestimating or not comprehending the amount of money studios and labels make off of their respective secondary markets (DVD sales, TV rights, concerts, etc.). If studios and record labels didn't have these markets, imagine how much it would cost to see a movie in the theater, how much it would cost to buy a CD. Most likely, you just won't see many movies and music. Everybody hates on mainstream music (as if it were fashionable), but imagine how much "worse" it would be if labels had to rely on a single channel with only one chance for profit.
Also: I wouldn't call what we're seeing now "screwing consumers." That's being rather hyperbolic and overly-dramatic in my opinion.
As for the rest of this thread: self-entitled much?
Charging for DLC if a title is purchased used is not "screwing consumers" any more than the secondary games market is "screwing content producers"
The reason gaming companies hate the used game market isn't that the initial cost of their title is going down, it's because they don't see a dime of that resale. It's also why game stores push the used market so much: because it's entirely profit for them. If you buy a game for $60, they get $10. If they buy a game from you for $10 and sell it for $30, they get $20. What EA is saying is "hey, I need to get in on this market, too"
The only way to do that is to either destroy the first sale doctrine (not happening), or produce incremental content to convince used game buyers to send money their way. The "free with a new purchase" thing is just to keep this from hurting new game sales. Because saying "give us $60.. oh, then go home and give us another $10" is kind of dickish. But keeping the total price to take home a new game and just increasing the optional price of taking home a used game is pretty much acceptable.
I mean, how else do you think publishers should get in on the used game market?
The reality is that the game market differs from some other secondhand markets. How many massive chains have you seen that specialize in the resale of musical instruments? Cars are another issue, but cars also don't experience the same turnover as games.
The problem with used games is that they can be available on the market within a week of the initial release. People don't buy cars or guitars and resell them that week to buy a new car/guitar. Those things can last a decade, or more (hell, people collect instruments for a lifetime). There's already likely a dozen used copies of ME2 at any GameStop near you, and people are quite willing to wait a week, and pay $5 less.
I'm all for this DLC model. You don't get any content that is critically important to the game, but I rather liked doing Zaheed's mission (and Shale is a cool character in DA:O) and it was worth the $0 extra bucks when I bought it new.
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Hell I play nearly everything that comes out and I can count the number of new games I've purchased in the last 4 years on one hand thanks to used games, GameFly, and just waiting for shit to go on clearance. I'm EA's worst nightmare in this regard, a "hardcore" gamer who gives almost zero money to the developers/publishers.
First these game companies pushed shortages as the reason to buy/pre-order, now they're pushing some extra DLC on top of the purchase as a reason. What will be next?
ahahahaha
But gamestop has free reign to screw over both the consumers and the companies? I really don't get this double standard, but than again, apparently the game companies don't care that much since even EA does gamestop exclusive pre-order bonuses.
In this case, there is no doubt that you are the exception, not the rule. XBLA, PSN, and Wii VC have all demonstrated that there is a market for downloadable content; the fact that publishers continue to produce and sell it is only more support for the idea that DLC is a successful venture. I suspect the real goal is to move as digital as possible to cut out GameStop wholly; there's no negative for the publisher and there'd be nothing GS could do about it.
Take another example, to see how you are not the 'norm': people still buy books, and lots of them, despite the fact that they could simply go to a library. Some people just don't feel like waiting to read the newest Harry Potter/Twilight/any other book. Enough, in fact, to still generate an industry for these things.
That's because exclusive preorder bonuses help sell new, preordered copies, which the publisher benefits from. They still need a retailer to sell boxed copies of things; limited editions/preorder bonuses help to ensure that more gamers buy it new on day 1 than used on day 14.
XBL: LiquidSnake2061
Annecdotally, I've never even heard of someone paying $57 for the used version of a $60 game. I know it HAPPENS or GameStop wouldn't be doing it, but the vast majority of used sales have to be in the lower price brackets. Maybe not the huge majority or revenues, but lost sales is what they're supposedly targeting here.
Video game companies sell IP delivery mechanisms, IP delivery mechanisms which do not generally depreciate upon consumption, unlike say a Toyota truck that has been driven 25,000 miles. It's a false comparison as video games, and movies, and books are not like manufactured goods. In reality, Gamestop while propping up the secondary market, is more like a scalper for baseball tickets. Yeah, they create liquidity in the market for tickets, but as a baseball fan, I'd rather teams charge higher prices to make scalping less profitable and make the team I support receive more of my money. Same with videogames. If Mass Effect 2 is worth $55, I want $55 to go to the publisher, not Gamestop, who are effectively just middlemen.
It is absolutely not a false comparison. At the end of the day, even if it's just a bit delivery mechanism, it's STILL a physical object, and a physical object that depreciates. Hell you could even make an argument that the IP depreciates as well.
They have no claim on the rights to secondary sales, because a second hand game is not a "new copy." It's just a very convenient scapegoat to point to (much like piracy) when explaining the difficult state of the industry. When the real problems in the industry are varied and complex.
I will note though, that I do not have a problem with developers working towards ways to drive new sales and push people away from buying used. But when they do, it is valuable to determine the likely long term results of said methods. Some of what we all feared about DLC has come true, and a lot of it has come with the age of the console, as it's a closed system with sophisticated controls for IP holders.
Also, video games completely lose value the moment you walk out of a store's door. I buy a game for 60$ and try to turn it around, I won't be making that money back myself either. Hell, I'm lucky to get twenty dollars for it if it's a currently popular game.
I mean, all power to them for coming up with this plan, but I probably won't take advantage of it. And like I said before, if they're open and honest about where the content is coming from fine, but if it ever comes out that they willingly held back content just so that they could get consumers to spend money on the game twice, then there is hell to pay.
Why doesn't the video game industry just stop selling Gamestop video games then?
Because GameStop is still one of the largest sellers of new games.
Games have a pretty narrow profit margin as it is. If all publishers dropped their prices to the 20-30 dollar range three months after release, who the hell would ever buy the game new? Game companies are already struggling with the recession without slashing their already-dwindling profits because folks think 60 bucks is too much for a game which will provide several times the entertainment of a $20 movie.
And the loss of value is due to Gamestop, not the actual perceived value of the game. You can go on Goozex and easily and quickly trade a brand-new console game for about 50 bucks worth of points. You could sell it to another person for fifty bucks. The price that Gamestop gives you is their bottom-lined price, not the actual value of the game. Folks are just used to dealing with Gamestop and don't explore alternatives.
And why shouldn't game publishers be able to profit twice off of a game? Gamestop does it all the time. Hell, that's their business model. Despite all the bitching and whining about Day One DLC, I've yet to play a game which actually had content withheld and detracted from the game. Folks forget that publishers can't do whatever they want; people have to be willing to buy the item for a tactic to be profitable.
I guess I should also feel bad because I never buy anything but complete or bundled editions of games.
Maybe publishers should learn about elasticity of the demand curve and price accordingly.
Because it'd probably hurt the publishers more than gamestop anyway. Also, if anybody at a publisher is not a moron, they'll realize that the existence of used games allows more people to buy new games. How many times do you see Gamestop ads saying "trade in these titles and get a credit towards buying this new one!"
See: Steam sales.
You can't really measure the worth of a game in time, it's a convenient metric, but ultimately an error prone one, or games like Desert Bus would be justified in charging bank.
As to why publishers shouldn't be able to profit twice off of a game, read up on the first sale doctrine. It's established US Law with lots of precedent. And it's a damn good law, as it protects consumers. You're going to have to explain to me how video games are somehow exceptional when it comes to the ability of the producer to control second hand private party sales, because the only people in this country who can get away with it right now are software companies, and that's only because no one has yet had the money to really to fight them legally on EULA's being used to circumvent the first sale doctrine.
If I could get the game new, without dealing with gutted game boxes or scratched up discs or any of that, the game being pristine fucking new but with a price cut to it, I would buy the game. As is, I deal with what comes along with buying used because as a consumer, I can wait the couple of months it takes for things to drop in price (or not, in the case of Twilight Princess or Little Big World).
So change your business model, damn. Maybe 60$ is too much for a game. Maybe that's why no one's buying it. Did they ever think of that?
And don't give me this noise about "more value than a 20$ movie". That's completely subjective there. I do the free demos off of PSN and Wii Network, but other than word of mouth, you can't trust anything else out there. Hell no am I going to spend 60$ on something that could be worth three times what I'd get for a movie.
On that note, I haven't gone to the movies in two years either. You want to talk expensive? I'm further killing the entertainment industry by borrowing movies from the library.
Unless it's a hot, popular new game or something niche that everyone wants, it doesn't seem to work that way, especially with the economy right now.
If they want to, go for it. Just be honest about it. All I'm saying is that if they're going to charge for extra content post first sale, be honest about it. Don't play coy and say that there was "no time to put this content in the game"; if it ever comes out that you deliberately lied and kept the stuff off of the disc merely to charge consumers for a full game, expect shit to hit the fan.
They're welcome to do that if they want. The last game I bought new was Pokemon Platinum last week, and that's been out for at least six months. Before that, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. I am completely out of their target market because they priced me out of it.
Namco with SCIV held back stuff on the disk. They let you buy costumes and other customizable equipment, which surprisingly was a small KB file. Hmmmm, whole models in that small of a file? I doubt it.
As of right now I support EA's version of release day free DLC for new buyers. If you had to pay extra for it then I'd have beef.
Now DLC down the line....I dunno. I kinda attribute them to the modern version of a expansion pack like PC games used to do.
I believe the Dead Rising dlc was all on the disc as well, but they offered it for free which is confusing. Bonus for having XBox Live I guess?
This is a large part of the focus too--this shit has been going on awhile now.
But with Bioware's 2 recent hot-sellers BOTH doing something similar, people are starting to notice.
I know there was a lot of hubbub about Lumines when it first came to Live, and it sounds as if they did cut original stuff from the PSP game to sub back in as DLC on Live, though they also added new stuff to the DLC the orginal game didn't have, so it's kind of a wash.
Yeah, shit like that pisses me off even though I got both DLCs and never encountered that. If they want to push DLC, that's fine; but don't make it a part of the game that something is missing and they need to buy it to fix it. Nothing breaks game immersion like a character you can't get and the game actively telling you that the entire game. The DLC isn't a necessary part of the game, but they intentionally try to make the player feel like they're missing out rather than just letting the player decide if the DLC is worth.
Downloaded content really needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Thus far, not a single company I can think of has had any consistency with their approach to it, even from one game to the next.
I personally ignore all of it and evaluate games based on exactly what I get for the sticker price. If I want a trial, I use Gamefly, where I can easily rent-to-buy, or if not that, Goozex, where I can still heavily cut my losses. Everyone is going to have their own take on it, however. Ideally anyone who feels like they're not getting a good deal should simply walk the other way, but humans are hardly creatures of logic.
The only other thing I feel can be said about all this that has not yet been stated is an age-old adage which I feel is very appropriate:
Let the buyer beware.
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A. Free DLC for new copies; something frivolous like armor or a custom skin
B. Free DLC for new copies; new areas/quests
C. Free DLC for new copies; new characters
D. Main game ends on cliffhanger, "Real Ending" of a game in DLC; which comes free if you buy it new (imagine Dead Rising's Overtime being day 1 DLC under this system)
E. Free DLC for new copies; things usable in multiplayer (like if you could only use an M16 in the next CoD game if you buy it new or pay for the DLC)
F. Multiplayer mode locked by default, free unlock code in new copies, or pay to download it.
G. License required to play game at all, license comes with all new copies or can be purchased online for used copies.
Bonus round: Where do you think the video game company execs would draw the line?
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The bolded are acceptable and I wholeheartedly endorse them
The un-bolded are not
Rainslicked, even