Commentary re DLC

[alanschu]

Figured people might enjoy this. I found the comment he links in the first paragraph pretty interesting too.

 

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/47828

 

 

I don't know if I agree with his doom and gloom, but at the same time I won't dispute that the cost of gaming has continued to go up, and the economies of scale don't seem to be keeping up.

Edited November 18, 2009 by alanschu

[Monte Carlo]

^ I don't have issues with the DLC, then again I'm not an average gamer - I only buy maybe four or five games a year (at most) and play them to death.

 

Heck, still have BG2 and Rome: Total War and Medieval TW:2 installed.

[Malcador]

I better buy the Dragon Age DLCs right now.

[alanschu]

Hahaha yeah, I don't know if that is necessarily the case

[Purkake]

They should just put a paypal donate button on their site.

[kirottu]

Frankly, release day content for a game that took me a week to finish is no problem. Totally different thing if it would have happened with Jade Empire or maybe even Mass Effect.

[Guest Slinky]

Frankly, release day content for a game that took me a week to finish is no problem.

You mean DA? If so, sure, but didn't they promise few hours of content in Watchers Keep? It took me about 45min and I'm really not the steamroller fastforwarder type of guy. I was not impressed.

[entrerix]

i tend to buy games i want, and ignore those i dont. survival of the fittest and all that.

 

some of fallout 3's dlc was good value for money, so i bought it. its the only dlc i've ever been interested in. (actually borderlands zombie dlc looks good too)

 

as soon as bioware delivers a dragon age dlc that looks like a good buy, i'll pick it up. I ALMOST bought wardens keep, but decided against it because it was too expensive for what i appeared to be getting. if a dlc costs 1/6 of the full price of a game, i expect 1/6 the content of a full game. particularly because dlc is a tad cheaper to develop as the tools are already in place.

 

now, on the other hand, if bioware came straight out and said, "we will only make a sequel to dragon age if we sell ___ amount of dlc because we'll go bankrupt without it", then I'd be more inclined to fork some cash over, because dragon age is an excellent game and i dont want to wait 7 or 8 more years before a follow up arrives...

[alanschu]

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine, and I was wondering if the "game length" is really the stand alone best metric for the value of a game. Portal is one of my favourite games of all time, and it's short. But it was also cheap. Would I have still bought it if it was $60. Hard to say.

 

 

At the same time, I have played games that were very long, that were less interesting. Games like Morrowind and Oblivion. I also found the core game of Mass Effect quite entertaining, but all the extra content filler being a sore spot of the game.

[alanschu]

Oh, and just in case people missed it, here is the comment that got the author thinking:

 

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/47797?p...comment-1313907

[Hurlshort]

Is the Expansion pack economic model pretty much dead?

[Morgoth]

Is the Expansion pack economic model pretty much dead?

Yes, since expansion packs affects PC only games. And how many of these do we get these days?

[Arkan]

Is the Expansion pack economic model pretty much dead?

 

As we know it, probably. But it's really only being replaced by DLC. You could consider Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, and Broken Steel from FO3 (which I haven't gotten yet!) to be small expansion packs. In that sense, no, they aren't. But truly expansive expansion packs that retail individually in stores? Yeah, they're probably dodo'd.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Most of my favorite games are already dead, so there's not much left to lose.

[entrerix]

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine, and I was wondering if the "game length" is really the stand alone best metric for the value of a game. Portal is one of my favourite games of all time, and it's short. But it was also cheap. Would I have still bought it if it was $60. Hard to say.

 

 

At the same time, I have played games that were very long, that were less interesting. Games like Morrowind and Oblivion. I also found the core game of Mass Effect quite entertaining, but all the extra content filler being a sore spot of the game.

 

 

i agree that game length alone is a fairly poor metric, a long awful game is just compounding its awfulness.

 

but a great fantastic experience thats only 4 hours long, and has zero replayability.... thats not going to be worth 60$ to me. it would be worth maybe 10$, akin to a movie ticket

 

some games:

portal for example: fantastic value. its a 2-3 hour game, but i played it 3 times, thats about 8 hours, and i spent 12$ on it, great game for a great price. in retrospect i would probably have paid MAYBE 20$ for it, but happily 15$

 

another short game: metal gear solid. i spent 50$ on it, it takes about 7 hours to play, i've played it about 4 times. thats about 28 hours of awesome gameplay, for 50$ fantastic game and well worth the money - i would have paid 60$ for it

 

a pretty decent one hour dlc that i play twice? thats 2 hours, so it should cost (for me to consider purchasing it) at MOST 5$.

 

i cant think of a single game that i bought, played for less than half of its dollar value in hours, and felt was a good purchase. great games are replayed - it doesnt matter if they are short.

 

long games on the other hand changes the value ratio a bit on the other end of the scale

 

oblivion for example, i played for about 100 hours. i would NOT have paid 200$ for it though, it was a fun enough game for the time, but i would have paid, at MOST 80$ for it (using my own value scale which decreases after a certain amount of hours are reached - its far from exact science)

 

the other problem with this scale is that i can't pay AFTER i've played. i have to guess about how much fun a game is going to provide me and purchase accordingly. to be honest, i would have paid a lot more than the 36$ i paid for dragon age. i would have probably paid 60 or even 70 for it. and i gladly would have if that was the only way i could play such a good game. however i know that pricing for games is bizarrely stuck at the same pricing. if bioware charged more than full price for the game they would have been burnt to a crisp by the consumermonster.

 

its a wierd world we live in when super mario galaxy costs the same amount of money as petz: ponyz

 

edit:

also the scale is weird for dlc like shale, how many hours of fun does shale add to the game? its hard to quantify for me, so i guess i just throw out the scale and go purely on gut feeling.

 

would i pay ten dollars for an item pack of kewl loot? **** no, buying items is butnut retarded in my opinion, items are to be earned in game, not purchased, merely HAVING items for purchase cheapens the whole affair.

 

would i pay ten dollars for a 5 hour quest with lots of replayability (via choice and consequence or pure fun factor) hell yes i might even pay 20 (if it has enough replaybility)

Edited November 18, 2009 by entrerix

[Magister Lajciak]

Yeah, I am well aware that gaming is moving to microtransactions, subscriptions and online models. This has been coming for a long time and the transformation is already well under way. The aim is to transform entertainment software from a product into a service that people pay for recurrently. I don't like it and will resist it as long as possible, hoping for delays in the implementation of the new model, but I do know it will come full force sooner or later and probably sooner rather than later. At a point where it no longer becomes tenable to get games I am interested in as a product (one I can store, install and play without reliance on external servers/parties), I will quit computer gaming as a hobby and move onto something else. That day is coming inexorably closer with each passing month, but before it comes, I will enjoy the last hurrah of product-based gaming, such as the core-game of Dragon Age.

[entrerix]

whatever form future gaming takes place, it will be affordable to me. I make a hell of a lot more money than most people, and most gamers, and because companies need the masses to buy their products, the pricing will always be comfortably within my purchasing power.

 

or the industry will spike up in price, shutting sales down to nothing, and it will collapse on itself and have to be rebuilt from the bottom with games that cost less money to develop but will recoup their costs with moderate sales.

[Purkake]

I'm filthy rich. You know how rich I am? So rich!

 

 

j/k

[entrerix]

I'm filthy rich. You know how rich I am? So rich!

 

 

j/k

 

 

roflmao, i think i came across as more snooty than i intended ...

[LadyCrimson]

roflmao, i think i came across as more snooty than i intended ...

That made me laugh.

We're not rich but we're still in a similar position where if I wanted to go all out for gaming, I could, so I definitely know what you mean. I don't see $50-$60 for a game being that excessive these days, especially since it's been that way a long time - as opposed to, say, my grocery store bill.

 

I find that article an interesting viewpoint, even if it's overly gloomy. Entertainment industries have their fluctuations and restructurings, just the way things go as economies * consumer interests fluctuate and alter. The movie/TV industries have similar financial issues + fickle fans...things will shake out. Who knows...a "collapse" of the current way of things, while initially disruptive, could lead to something better down the line. I might not like change very much, but sometimes things just aren't working very well (from either consumer or business PoV) and one has to change directions. Or get new hobbies.

 

Edit: I still haven't bought a console, so I still buy PC games, and likely always will as long as they're available. Consoles may be the wave of the future but they still haven't gotten to the point where I want one...they may someday, just not quite there yet...

Edited November 18, 2009 by LadyCrimson

[Gorth]

I don't see $50-$60 for a game being that excessive these days...

Neither do I. Unfortunately, they are rarely that cheap. I paid 110$ (OZ) for Dragon Age (thats about 100$ USD). For me it doesn't matter, but I remember a time when money was tight and 100$ was something that was completely incomprehensible to pay for a game.

 

I think the gaming industry is repeating the mistake of hollywood.

 

Quoting my own post from elsewhere (Winterwind):

 

I watch very little tv down here. What little I do watch is called "SBS". They send all the foreign language (including danish :roll: ) movies with subtitles.

 

Just a gut feeling nothing scientific, but I think the movie industry has gone the way of the music industry. Too large production apparatuses and too much market research, statistics and catering to lowest common denominator/largest disposable income groups going into creating "products", too little creativity and too little sex drugs and rock'n'roll. Well, the drugs are still there, they are just designer drugs now. The sex is there too, but now it is sold as "exclusives" to tabloid magazines. The rock'n'roll and the originality is dead though. I have about 5 albums that were released the last 15 years, the 195 other cd's were records released before that. I have maybe 20 out of 60+ dvd movies that were released the last 15 years, the rest were released before that. Maybe I am just an old relic, or, maybe the entertainment industry has become the dinosaur and needs extinction to make room for new business models?

 

I guess I could add the gaming industry to my above quote. Too much economic science and too little fun, too large budgets and too little originality. Not saying that we need to go back to making games by rubbing two wooden sticks together, but maybe somebody needs to be done about rampant cost that doesn't lead to anything except conformity to a formula?

 

Just saying

 

Edit: Thinking of it, maybe I am hiding my point too well. I think DLC is someting that came about, not to add to a game but to recover some of the humongous costs that goes into creating the game in the first place

[alanschu]

Well if we believe the second link I posted, things will crumble on itself eventually. Which won't be too diffferent from Atari's collapse. You'll still see video games rise from the ashes however. But it might be a new paradigm for how to do them.

[Gorgon]

If the expansion/adon is officially dead then what is Fallout Las Vegas.

 

I'm not sure I like this tendency, which has been growing for some while now, of charging money for negliable extra content. Well that's not true; I know I don't like it.

 

I don't care if it's cheap and 'extras', I just don't want the game to be a layer cake were you pay as you eat, and the platinum Amex gamers get a significantly different experience. Yes that's a strange metaphor as you don't typically eat a cake from the bottom up, but you get the idea.

[alanschu]

Isn't Fallout Las Vegas a stand alone game?

 

 

Is there something about the "layer cake" you don't like, or is it just it's method of delivery that rubs you the wrong way? Concerned about slippery slope?

[LadyCrimson]

Neither do I. Unfortunately, they are rarely that cheap. I paid 110$ (OZ) for Dragon Age (thats about 100$ USD). For me it doesn't matter, but I remember a time when money was tight and 100$ was something that was completely incomprehensible to pay for a game.

Aye, I still remember when $20 seemed like a lot of moolah.

Are other countries having these kind of price hikes, too? Or other US States? I haven't seen any (pc, reg. non-collectors edition) game on the shelf for more than 59.99 around here even when just released (I know console tend to be 5-10 more or something). Maybe every once in a great while, but it's rare. Do I live in some kind of game-price bubble area?

 

Kinda agree w/the Hollywood thing. The emphasis on graphics and realistic engines is, perhaps, akin to the emphasis in movies on budget-busting CGI and action/explosions. And then the big movie houses are so befuddled if a small, cheap indie movie rakes it in.

Edited November 18, 2009 by LadyCrimson