EA: Dungeon Keeper Failed by "Innovating Too Much"

[ReservoirAngel]

EA annoys me. Because due to them constantly pulling awful shit like this it makes me really want to just flat-out not buy stuff from them. Which would normally be fine given most of their stuff seems to be endless sports games and fuck sports games, but then they had to go and be the ones publishing the new Dragon Age game, so I'm fucked.

 

[Stabby Joe]

So it's our fault? Isn't this what a narcissist thinks?

This is basically a stone throw away from saying "sorry you were too stupid and jealous of our genius!"

This also smacks of "we will try this again in the future".

 

[ReservoirAngel]

This also smacks of "we will try this again in the future".

Oh they're totally going to try it again, after leaving just enough time that they can convince themselves that we've all forgotten about this time. Because as has been demonstrated, EA seems to be genuinely surprised that we're even sentient sometimes.

 

[CorvusFerreum]

(I mean 6m23s to 7m, in case the start and stop point don't work)

Okay, I'm pretty sure with they mean they innovated in monetization and marketing, rather than gameplay. Because those drones don't understand how to talk about anything else bt monetization and marketing. But even then it is a giant load of bullshit. Their innovative monetization is the already infamous cowklicker modell just turned up to eleven in terms of sheer spite for the consumer. And the marketing is the well known exploitation of well recognized brand names. I can not fathom how anyone at EA could think anyone would buy such a statement, but I think I give them too much credit if I presume that anyone in EA's PR department has even some vague understanding of how humans think.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

The part that most gets me about this whole thing is how the industry claims people obviously "like DLC" as opposed to endure it despite massive hatred. Ubisoft seems particularly vocal about this, but EA has had it's turn. Largely because gamers, which sadly includes me, have pretty much became trained to realize that if we buy a game we had better check for DLC to make sure we get the whole thing, and when it comes to day #1 DLC, we'll usually buy it as part of the purchase, meaning that the industry has basically found a back door way of raising prices without actually increasing the initial price tag. People don't do this because they like it, its simply because people who want to game have few other options if they want a complete product (and no, most DLC does not count as legitimate "extras" almost all of it is stuff that should be in a game by default) and/or not to be harassed while playing the game, since developers will go out of their way to show what's missing if you haven't bought the DLC (even to the point of famously having an NPC tell you to spend real money to do their quest in Dragon Age: Origins).

Hmmm... I agree with most of what people are saying here, but let me pick you up on this specific point.

Right now I'm playing through "Fallout: New Vegas"'s DLC, which costs about ten dollars in total, and has so far offered about two days' worth of play (in total, I mean - not "I've been playing it on and off for two days)? And I'm not halfway through it yet - I've finished "Dead Money" and am about a quarter-done with "Old World Blues".

Look, there's nothing wrong with DLC if it's done like this. It doesn't take away from the original game, it doesn't add to what you might term "necessary" lore, it's not stuff that's been deleted from the "finished" product to be sold separately at release. I played "Fallout: New Vegas" through three times in total before spending a cent on DLC, and had an experience that was worth every penny I'd paid for it and more. "Fallout: New Vegas" is in my opinion a great game, whether you have the DLC or not. But each piece of "New Vegas"' DLC has its own (fairly expansive) map, enemy types, situations, characters, even weapons and perks. This stuff is WORTH the money I paid for it. Hell, I'd say I got my money's worth a while back, and I'm not even half done with it yet.

My point: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS TYPE OF DLC. It's like buying a whole new game, except there's no risk to it, because I already know I love the mechanics, art style, humour and world-building of "Fallout: New Vegas". All this DLC is doing is giving me a ton more of it.

There IS, on the other hand, something very very wrong with asking players for extortionate amounts of money just to "not wait". There's something wrong with games that call themselves "free" and then charge seventy-nine dollars for a "best value" gem pack that does nothing except stop some loading times. There's something wrong with a game that has no failure state and offers no challenge, just tries to sucker you into an "experience" and then makes you pay to continue with it.

I'm saying this because some people seem to regard DLC as this great universal evil. And often, I agree, it is: it's disgusting to take content that clearly should be in the game, then charge for it separately and call it an "extra". But let's remember what we're really fighting against here, ok?

 

[freedash22]

If this is EA's definition of "Innovation" then I am REALLY REALLY WORRIED for Dragon Age Inquisition.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Ahh, I get it. You innovated by changing Dungeon Keeper from a GAME into a sophisticated form of consensual robbing. Right. I understand now.

In other news, how full of shit can one human realistically be? Find out after THESE messages!

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

The part that most gets me about this whole thing is how the industry claims people obviously "like DLC" as opposed to endure it despite massive hatred. Ubisoft seems particularly vocal about this, but EA has had it's turn. Largely because gamers, which sadly includes me, have pretty much became trained to realize that if we buy a game we had better check for DLC to make sure we get the whole thing, and when it comes to day #1 DLC, we'll usually buy it as part of the purchase, meaning that the industry has basically found a back door way of raising prices without actually increasing the initial price tag. People don't do this because they like it, its simply because people who want to game have few other options if they want a complete product (and no, most DLC does not count as legitimate "extras" almost all of it is stuff that should be in a game by default) and/or not to be harassed while playing the game, since developers will go out of their way to show what's missing if you haven't bought the DLC (even to the point of famously having an NPC tell you to spend real money to do their quest in Dragon Age: Origins).

Hmmm... I agree with most of what people are saying here, but let me pick you up on this specific point.

Right now I'm playing through "Fallout: New Vegas"'s DLC, which costs about ten dollars in total, and has so far offered about two days' worth of play (in total, I mean - not "I've been playing it on and off for two days)? And I'm not halfway through it yet - I've finished "Dead Money" and am about a quarter-done with "Old World Blues".

Look, there's nothing wrong with DLC if it's done like this. It doesn't take away from the original game, it doesn't add to what you might term "necessary" lore, it's not stuff that's been deleted from the "finished" product to be sold separately at release. I played "Fallout: New Vegas" through three times in total before spending a cent on DLC, and had an experience that was worth every penny I'd paid for it and more. "Fallout: New Vegas" is in my opinion a great game, whether you have the DLC or not. But each piece of "New Vegas"' DLC has its own (fairly expansive) map, enemy types, situations, characters, even weapons and perks. This stuff is WORTH the money I paid for it. Hell, I'd say I got my money's worth a while back, and I'm not even half done with it yet.

My point: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS TYPE OF DLC. It's like buying a whole new game, except there's no risk to it, because I already know I love the mechanics, art style, humour and world-building of "Fallout: New Vegas". All this DLC is doing is giving me a ton more of it.

There IS, on the other hand, something very very wrong with asking players for extortionate amounts of money just to "not wait". There's something wrong with games that call themselves "free" and then charge seventy-nine dollars for a "best value" gem pack that does nothing except stop some loading times. There's something wrong with a game that has no failure state and offers no challenge, just tries to sucker you into an "experience" and then makes you pay to continue with it.

I'm saying this because some people seem to regard DLC as this great universal evil. And often, I agree, it is: it's disgusting to take content that clearly should be in the game, then charge for it separately and call it an "extra". But let's remember what we're really fighting against here, ok?

You're describing two distinct entities though, enormous new map section with added content ala Dragon Age: Awakening? That's more along the lines of an Expansion Pack. I can get behind paying for that.

Individual costumes that cost $5 a pop or pretty much any free-to-play game on a phone where free means "You get a level"? Those are DLC. Basically, if you can define it as an expansion pak to the game I'd call it that rather than DLC. If it's clearly just a single level with re-used assets or a bonus character it's DLC and you have no excuse to have not included it.

 

[ZodiacBraves]

The part that most gets me about this whole thing is how the industry claims people obviously "like DLC" as opposed to endure it despite massive hatred. Ubisoft seems particularly vocal about this, but EA has had it's turn. Largely because gamers, which sadly includes me, have pretty much became trained to realize that if we buy a game we had better check for DLC to make sure we get the whole thing, and when it comes to day #1 DLC, we'll usually buy it as part of the purchase, meaning that the industry has basically found a back door way of raising prices without actually increasing the initial price tag. People don't do this because they like it, its simply because people who want to game have few other options if they want a complete product (and no, most DLC does not count as legitimate "extras" almost all of it is stuff that should be in a game by default) and/or not to be harassed while playing the game, since developers will go out of their way to show what's missing if you haven't bought the DLC (even to the point of famously having an NPC tell you to spend real money to do their quest in Dragon Age: Origins).

Hmmm... I agree with most of what people are saying here, but let me pick you up on this specific point.

Right now I'm playing through "Fallout: New Vegas"'s DLC, which costs about ten dollars in total, and has so far offered about two days' worth of play (in total, I mean - not "I've been playing it on and off for two days)? And I'm not halfway through it yet - I've finished "Dead Money" and am about a quarter-done with "Old World Blues".

Look, there's nothing wrong with DLC if it's done like this. It doesn't take away from the original game, it doesn't add to what you might term "necessary" lore, it's not stuff that's been deleted from the "finished" product to be sold separately at release. I played "Fallout: New Vegas" through three times in total before spending a cent on DLC, and had an experience that was worth every penny I'd paid for it and more. "Fallout: New Vegas" is in my opinion a great game, whether you have the DLC or not. But each piece of "New Vegas"' DLC has its own (fairly expansive) map, enemy types, situations, characters, even weapons and perks. This stuff is WORTH the money I paid for it. Hell, I'd say I got my money's worth a while back, and I'm not even half done with it yet.

My point: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS TYPE OF DLC. It's like buying a whole new game, except there's no risk to it, because I already know I love the mechanics, art style, humour and world-building of "Fallout: New Vegas". All this DLC is doing is giving me a ton more of it.

There IS, on the other hand, something very very wrong with asking players for extortionate amounts of money just to "not wait". There's something wrong with games that call themselves "free" and then charge seventy-nine dollars for a "best value" gem pack that does nothing except stop some loading times. There's something wrong with a game that has no failure state and offers no challenge, just tries to sucker you into an "experience" and then makes you pay to continue with it.

I'm saying this because some people seem to regard DLC as this great universal evil. And often, I agree, it is: it's disgusting to take content that clearly should be in the game, then charge for it separately and call it an "extra". But let's remember what we're really fighting against here, ok?

You're describing two distinct entities though, enormous new map section with added content ala Dragon Age: Awakening? That's more along the lines of an Expansion Pack. I can get behind paying for that.

Individual costumes that cost $5 a pop or pretty much any free-to-play game on a phone where free means "You get a level"? Those are DLC. Basically, if you can define it as an expansion pak to the game I'd call it that rather than DLC. If it's clearly just a single level with re-used assets or a bonus character it's DLC and you have no excuse to have not included it.

Except that's not entirely correct anymore. At one point and time, yes it was just an "expansion pack", however that term applies primarily to the days when to get additional content one had to buy a separate hard copy of something to add to the game. Also, expansion packs were rarely, if ever, used for console games back then since installing something wasn't really what consoles did.

During those times, in order for an expansion pack to be made and marketed it needed to have enough substance to justify it. Nowadays that just isn't the case. Developers can add as little or as much as they want and simply allow people to download it instead of jumping through all of the hoops they used to. On top of that, TheMadDoctorsCat said he paid about 10 dollars for all of the Fallout DLC, so I have to ask you, when was the last time you were able to buy what was called an "expansion pack" for 10 dollars that wasn't on discount, clearance, or outdated? Because for me, I remember expansion packs were generally 30 and up.

So no, what you are trying to define as an "expansion pack" is DLC. Expansion pack is an outdated term that, for the most part, no longer applies to today's games. You would be correct in saying the other stuff, like the 5 dollar costumes is DLC but that's the thing, it is all DLC, since DLC is simply, as the name states, downloadable content.

Can DLC be misused? Of course. Does that mean it is inherently bad? No. I have seen enough DLC done right to believe DLC is a good thing overall, even if some companies grossly misuse it.

You can try to distinctly classify it in your mind however you want, but to say it is not DLC is just plain wrong. A burger from McDonalds and a meal at a fancy restaurant are very different, but in the end it is still called food.

 

[Cobalt180]

What really worries me here is that while one executive did indeed apologize, no matter how empty the gesture is nor how sincere it is, there is a counteractive force that seems to insinuate that this format of a game billed as 'free-to-play' will be based off of in-game transactions meant to exploit a growing 'instant gratification' culture. With this in mind, my fear is that the prevailing element will be the latter, and that after the controversy dies down and the game is forgotten, more games like it will appear using a similar Free-To-Play/$-boosts will be more and more popular in an industry that is not anywhere near it's peak.

---main point end---

However, I think that the idea of in-app or in-game currencies with real money are not genuinely bad, it is the way in which the developer and publisher use them and market those systems to be the good or evil that is self inflicted. With that being the case, EA clearly mishandled it, yet similar system that can provide boosts and premium items and bonuses that are exactly that--bonuses--then they are a generally good system.

 

[danon]

Wow EA just shut up. You're just so offensively bad at PR. You could just fire every spokesperson for the company and exchange it for a cat. Your sales would go up immensely overnight. So when you gut and murder the next beloved franchise and a reporter asks for any comments you would just get meowing as quotes. You're destroying my hobby franchise after fucking franchise. I hate you with a grown up hate that only gets more intense for each passing day.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Except that's not entirely correct anymore. At one point and time, yes it was just an "expansion pack", however that term applies primarily to the days when to get additional content one had to buy a separate hard copy of something to add to the game. Also, expansion packs were rarely, if ever, used for console games back then since installing something wasn't really what consoles did.

During those times, in order for an expansion pack to be made and marketed it needed to have enough substance to justify it. Nowadays that just isn't the case. Developers can add as little or as much as they want and simply allow people to download it instead of jumping through all of the hoops they used to. On top of that, TheMadDoctorsCat said he paid about 10 dollars for all of the Fallout DLC, so I have to ask you, when was the last time you were able to buy what was called an "expansion pack" for 10 dollars that wasn't on discount, clearance, or outdated? Because for me, I remember expansion packs were generally 30 and up.

So no, what you are trying to define as an "expansion pack" is DLC. Expansion pack is an outdated term that, for the most part, no longer applies to today's games. You would be correct in saying the other stuff, like the 5 dollar costumes is DLC but that's the thing, it is all DLC, since DLC is simply, as the name states, downloadable content.

Can DLC be misused? Of course. Does that mean it is inherently bad? No. I have seen enough DLC done right to believe DLC is a good thing overall, even if some companies grossly misuse it.

You can try to distinctly classify it in your mind however you want, but to say it is not DLC is just plain wrong. A burger from McDonalds and a meal at a fancy restaurant are very different, but in the end it is still called food.

Disagree, not least because it's not always solely downloadable.

Buying a 'Game of the Year' addition complete with added content is closer to buying a game with an expansion pack (since it's an expanded version of the first game) than merely downloading some extra bits and bobs for money. That's not me being nostalgic, that's physically evident in things like Dark Souls: Prepare to Die or Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate, to say it's the exact same as buying the base game and downloading extra bits for money is incorrect, not least because of the price. It may require an internet connection to add it but it's not a separate transaction which is DLC.

... also, Warlords of Draenor isn't even out yet and that's an expansion pack, so it's hardly outdated just because you don't encounter it very often.

To use your food analogy, it'd be like saying the McDonalds Burger and the.. Lobster?(I dunno, what ever you want to order at the fancy restaurant, I'm not one to judge) are food and therefore equivalent in price, flavour and content.


And even if it IS DLC, it's just the less rip-off variety which was the point of what I was replying to. We need different terms for it because you do get shoddy on-disc "pay $5 for a different colour Ryu in Street Fighter" and "$10 for an enormous new area of the Mojave Wasteland" treated the same as being branded 'DLC'. If we bother to make the distinction between how much money went into a game by calling the big studios ones 'AAA' Games, we should bother to make one between actual content and paying .79 for another 15 minutes of playing.

 

[Strazdas]

Well to be fair, when you make a game as shallow as that it isn't hard to make profit. A lot of mobile games are very easily and cheaply made and make at least some profit. This is why every studio and indie around, just about, has started doing it. Now add ridiculous, draconian, restrictive paywalls and you have yourself and instant money maker. I mean come on, they could find 10 - 15 people that would fork over some cash. It isn't thaaat hard. But I worry that because "profit" is the sole motivation for companies, and they aren't required to have any real standards, these days, that we'll end up with this being the norm. Not because most gamers want it, but because they'll manipulate reviews, media, and other market forces to make it happen.

Similar to how tape cassettes were replaced by CD. It wasn't because CD was inherently better for the customer. I mean sure it had more space fit to it, but you could record and cheaply buy tape cassettes. They first raised the price of cassettes for no reason, then sales didn't drop. So next they stopped carrying as many tape recorders in stores. Then sales finally dropped, not because people didn't want them but because people were forced to not have access to them. Then CD sales went up because that was the only way to get music for the longest time. Then they said CDs "defeated" tape cassettes. That wasn't the market at work, it was big corporations at work.

If you look in the history of gaming some similar things have happened. Just slightly different. They said we want DLC to be a thing. People didn't buy into it at first (this was around the Dreamcast). Then xbox original did it and barely anyone got on board. Then when 7th generation started a big wave of it was shoved in peoples faces, being told that they were "expanding games lives" and saying that it was "the future of gaming". And then people bought a little more. But then they wanted it all, so they made it a "standard" that every game have 3 - 5 DLCs and features began to be cut from games. But they still tell you your getting more "value" than ever before, although games didn't use to be cut in almost half for DLC. And then Microtransactions got into the mix. And now we have EA saying things like "pay $5 to reload your gun" and "cloud gaming is the future". Cloud gaming being very interesting in that, Sony just came into this saying they wanted something like $5.99 per hour of gameplay for streaming a game to you, I think. And it's $39.99 per 6 months or year, per game.

Yeah it's gonna get ridiculous long before it becomes stable again. Unfortunately these are elitist, capitalist, conquerors of market. They aren't interested in being the best in their field. They're only interested and addicted to the expansion of their power. Likely only their complete and total failure, via a crash or other such event, will stop them from "easing people into worse and worse". Their predators of the market.

i was browsing android store yesterday and accidentaly noticed this game listed as 25th most profitable game. apperently there still are people paying for it and a lot of them.

Your firs paragraph illustrates quite well why unregulated capitalism simple does not work as a system for beneefit to society.

CDs WERE better than cassetters though. for one, it was far cheaper to manufacture one. it was far more sturdier, you didnt have to worry about demagnetization or your player gobbling the cassette (surprisingly common occurence). You also had much more flexible playback mechanism (no need to rewind, easy to change tracks) as well as far better quality due to space available and quality of readering the data.
Altrough what you say may have been true, i wasnt paying that close attention to castettes VS Cds, back then i was still a kid.

6 dollars per hour? Yeah there has to be a mistake, not even buying games at launch you pay that much if you play them till the end. 40 dollars per half a year i can understand them trying to pull off (though that would only work if its for all games, not one. I would like to add that another problem of cloud streaming is the awful quality of the video (because 99.9% of the world does not have the internet needed to stream uncompressed 1080p) and response lag, but then i remmeber there exist people who think thier 30 fps 720p games look "good".

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

And even if it IS DLC, it's just the less rip-off variety which was the point of what I was replying to. We need different terms for it because you do get shoddy on-disc "pay $5 for a different colour Ryu in Street Fighter" and "$10 for an enormous new area of the Mojave Wasteland" treated the same as being branded 'DLC'. If we bother to make the distinction between how much money went into a game by calling the big studios ones 'AAA' Games, we should bother to make one between actual content and paying .79 for another 15 minutes of playing.

Now that I can totally agree with. Does a company like EA even see the difference between what you term an "expansion pack" and the likes of "on-disc DLC" from the consumer's point of view though? (Hell, do they see ANYTHING from the consumer's point of view?)

It's weird how they fixate so much on long-term goals when it comes to things like franchising, yet look for the "quick buck" when it comes to other things like "Dungeon Keeper Mobile". The amount of damage this kind of thing does to their brand reputation is incalculable; but because it's difficult to quantify how much they lose financially by it, they just keep making these obnoxious decisions.

And like I said before, it's ridiculous to call them the "worst company in America" when there are banks that are literally forcing people out of their homes, unnecessarily, in order to turn a fast buck. (I hope we can all agree that that kind of thing is rather worse than taking a beloved gaming franchise and turning it into a "cow clicker".) But that said... there's a reason they got voted for that title. And they don't seem to "get it" or to acknowledge that they might be much more successful, even on a financial level, if they started acting in a way that consumers could support.

Y'know, it's gotten to the point where I wonder if they're just saying "fuck it, we're already about as unpopular as we can be, it's not as though doing more of this shit can hurt us."

 

[Demonchaser27]

Well to be fair, when you make a game as shallow as that it isn't hard to make profit. A lot of mobile games are very easily and cheaply made and make at least some profit. This is why every studio and indie around, just about, has started doing it. Now add ridiculous, draconian, restrictive paywalls and you have yourself and instant money maker. I mean come on, they could find 10 - 15 people that would fork over some cash. It isn't thaaat hard. But I worry that because "profit" is the sole motivation for companies, and they aren't required to have any real standards, these days, that we'll end up with this being the norm. Not because most gamers want it, but because they'll manipulate reviews, media, and other market forces to make it happen.

Similar to how tape cassettes were replaced by CD. It wasn't because CD was inherently better for the customer. I mean sure it had more space fit to it, but you could record and cheaply buy tape cassettes. They first raised the price of cassettes for no reason, then sales didn't drop. So next they stopped carrying as many tape recorders in stores. Then sales finally dropped, not because people didn't want them but because people were forced to not have access to them. Then CD sales went up because that was the only way to get music for the longest time. Then they said CDs "defeated" tape cassettes. That wasn't the market at work, it was big corporations at work.

If you look in the history of gaming some similar things have happened. Just slightly different. They said we want DLC to be a thing. People didn't buy into it at first (this was around the Dreamcast). Then xbox original did it and barely anyone got on board. Then when 7th generation started a big wave of it was shoved in peoples faces, being told that they were "expanding games lives" and saying that it was "the future of gaming". And then people bought a little more. But then they wanted it all, so they made it a "standard" that every game have 3 - 5 DLCs and features began to be cut from games. But they still tell you your getting more "value" than ever before, although games didn't use to be cut in almost half for DLC. And then Microtransactions got into the mix. And now we have EA saying things like "pay $5 to reload your gun" and "cloud gaming is the future". Cloud gaming being very interesting in that, Sony just came into this saying they wanted something like $5.99 per hour of gameplay for streaming a game to you, I think. And it's $39.99 per 6 months or year, per game.

Yeah it's gonna get ridiculous long before it becomes stable again. Unfortunately these are elitist, capitalist, conquerors of market. They aren't interested in being the best in their field. They're only interested and addicted to the expansion of their power. Likely only their complete and total failure, via a crash or other such event, will stop them from "easing people into worse and worse". Their predators of the market.

i was browsing android store yesterday and accidentaly noticed this game listed as 25th most profitable game. apperently there still are people paying for it and a lot of them.

Your firs paragraph illustrates quite well why unregulated capitalism simple does not work as a system for beneefit to society.

CDs WERE better than cassetters though. for one, it was far cheaper to manufacture one. it was far more sturdier, you didnt have to worry about demagnetization or your player gobbling the cassette (surprisingly common occurence). You also had much more flexible playback mechanism (no need to rewind, easy to change tracks) as well as far better quality due to space available and quality of readering the data.
Altrough what you say may have been true, i wasnt paying that close attention to castettes VS Cds, back then i was still a kid.

6 dollars per hour? Yeah there has to be a mistake, not even buying games at launch you pay that much if you play them till the end. 40 dollars per half a year i can understand them trying to pull off (though that would only work if its for all games, not one. I would like to add that another problem of cloud streaming is the awful quality of the video (because 99.9% of the world does not have the internet needed to stream uncompressed 1080p) and response lag, but then i remmeber there exist people who think thier 30 fps 720p games look "good".

CDs were better but the point was that CDs didn't offer what the public wanted at that time, the ability to record music on the fly. This was the most important point, because people didn't decide they wanted CDs *yet* because it didn't completely advance on what they had. I'm very much like this as well, if your selling me something new, I want it to do everything good that the previous "version" did before plus enhance on whatever is possible. From a technical standpoint CD was definitely superior, its just that people don't like losing the freedom to do one thing in exchange for another. Which was why cassettes went unchallenged for awhile. CDs could have been crafted to record music and especially with the rewritable MP3 CD that eventually came out it was obvious that they were intentionally leaving that feature out. I'm not able to speak from experience though, just research and speaking to others who were around in that time.

And on the Sony thing. I might be wrong but I believe the intention is to make the customer want to pay $40 every 6 months. Companies tend to price fix and gouge certain prices to make others "look like a deal". I believe that's whats happening here.

EDIT: I just pulled these sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOxfBCmbG0o
www.vg247.com/2014/06/25/ps-now-ps4-playstation-beta-gets-six-new-games-but-high-prices-remain/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/06/sonys-playstation-now-pricing-is-insane-but-it-doesnt-have-to-be/
http://kotaku.com/playstation-now-prices-are-currently-insane-1594025919

It appears way weirder than when I first heard it. So I was actually wrong. Cheaper on the very short term and about as expensive on the longer period. Still not promising though, especially with the issue you brought up and several other personal ones I have, such as inability to do what I want with the game, etc.

Most games go for:

$2.99 - 4 hours
$5.99 - 7 days
$7.99 - 30 days
$14.99 - 90 days

and for newer/"classics" titles it appears to be:

$4.99 - 4 hours
$7.99 - 7 days
$14.99 - 30 days
$29.99 - 90 days


My biggest problem is that I do compare games of today with those before, and so for me this will always be a problem. However, all its going to take to convince most people is for they're to be no quick frame of reference. This might not work right now because, for instance, I can buy Final Fantasy XIII-2 for about $15 at a store and own it forever (or until it breaks) vs. $29.99 for 90 days.

But go a couple years from now when they have exclusive games, say the new Souls game is exclusive on there. Then you'll get apologists saying well its obviously fair because you *can't* get it anywhere else and "companies have to make money, right?" The same old tired excuses, but for whatever reason people buy into it. Or if they don't, the industry might *make* it happen again.

 

[Therumancer]

The part that most gets me about this whole thing is how the industry claims people obviously "like DLC" as opposed to endure it despite massive hatred. Ubisoft seems particularly vocal about this, but EA has had it's turn. Largely because gamers, which sadly includes me, have pretty much became trained to realize that if we buy a game we had better check for DLC to make sure we get the whole thing, and when it comes to day #1 DLC, we'll usually buy it as part of the purchase, meaning that the industry has basically found a back door way of raising prices without actually increasing the initial price tag. People don't do this because they like it, its simply because people who want to game have few other options if they want a complete product (and no, most DLC does not count as legitimate "extras" almost all of it is stuff that should be in a game by default) and/or not to be harassed while playing the game, since developers will go out of their way to show what's missing if you haven't bought the DLC (even to the point of famously having an NPC tell you to spend real money to do their quest in Dragon Age: Origins).

Hmmm... I agree with most of what people are saying here, but let me pick you up on this specific point.

Right now I'm playing through "Fallout: New Vegas"'s DLC, which costs about ten dollars in total, and has so far offered about two days' worth of play (in total, I mean - not "I've been playing it on and off for two days)? And I'm not halfway through it yet - I've finished "Dead Money" and am about a quarter-done with "Old World Blues".

Look, there's nothing wrong with DLC if it's done like this. It doesn't take away from the original game, it doesn't add to what you might term "necessary" lore, it's not stuff that's been deleted from the "finished" product to be sold separately at release. I played "Fallout: New Vegas" through three times in total before spending a cent on DLC, and had an experience that was worth every penny I'd paid for it and more. "Fallout: New Vegas" is in my opinion a great game, whether you have the DLC or not. But each piece of "New Vegas"' DLC has its own (fairly expansive) map, enemy types, situations, characters, even weapons and perks. This stuff is WORTH the money I paid for it. Hell, I'd say I got my money's worth a while back, and I'm not even half done with it yet.

My point: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS TYPE OF DLC. It's like buying a whole new game, except there's no risk to it, because I already know I love the mechanics, art style, humour and world-building of "Fallout: New Vegas". All this DLC is doing is giving me a ton more of it.

There IS, on the other hand, something very very wrong with asking players for extortionate amounts of money just to "not wait". There's something wrong with games that call themselves "free" and then charge seventy-nine dollars for a "best value" gem pack that does nothing except stop some loading times. There's something wrong with a game that has no failure state and offers no challenge, just tries to sucker you into an "experience" and then makes you pay to continue with it.

I'm saying this because some people seem to regard DLC as this great universal evil. And often, I agree, it is: it's disgusting to take content that clearly should be in the game, then charge for it separately and call it an "extra". But let's remember what we're really fighting against here, ok?

Well, yes and no. I'll admit part of the problem when discussing DLC is that it all gets lumped together, full fledged expansion packs and side-campaigns, get lumped in with the horse armor, things removed from the game, and other assorted cash grabs. As a general rule if DLC is created once a game is already successful, and represents an signifigent extension of the game, then it's fine.

The "New Vegas" DLC was under it's own specter, and understand if you got all of it for $10 your getting it much cheaper than it was initially released for (New Vegas is no longer a new game) and as such aren't getting the full "experience". When it comes to New Vegas it's also important to understand that a lot of the stuff that was in that DLC was alluded to in the main game, largely because they apparently took a lot of stuff out of the game and decided to tweak it and release it later. Ulysses for example was originally created as a companion for the courier who was removed when they developed an entire storyline around him, and they later decided to trim this from the game. A lot of the speculation as the DLC was released came about largely because of all the "go nowhere" threads and stuff in various NPC dialogues and the like, ranging from a certain brotherhood scribe's lamented lesbian romance and relationship with her former mentor, etc.. in some cases these reveals being a sort of "reward" for an investment of time or some digging and had people doing a "WTF" almost since day #1. "New Vegas" got a lot of comparisons to the missing "HK Factory" and how putting some time digging into HK-47's dialogue in "KotoR 2" got the "payoff" of a link to missions that were not finished and thus cut from the game. In "New Vegas" this cut content all showed up as DLC, you pretty much got the main story of settling control of the Vegas region for the initial fee, but if you wanted any of the side stuff they set up (which can be taken as a glorified advertisement) you pretty much had to give them extra money.

The "New Vegas" DLC in of itself was fine in terms of the content you got for the price, but the way it was set up from the very beginning, side content stripped from the game and developed into extra-expansions, wasn't cool. Had they included all of that content in the game, and instead created entirely new things AFTER the game was finished that would have been a little different. As it was, it was a slightly less obnoxious version of the guy asking for money in your camp in "Dragon Age: Origins". Basically you get to the courier office, find out that another courier with a link to you rejected the job, but if you want to know anything about that you need to pay more money. You recruit a perky brotherhood scribe and find out about her former lover and mentor and the stress it put on her relationship with the rest of the order, but if you want to find out about that, more money of course. The Legion makes a huge deal about Caesar's former right hand man and what happened to him, and tons of people talk about this guy being alive, but if you want to know more about this, again MOAR MONEY!.

Of course since this is new to you, you don't seem to be getting the full effect of the entire thing.

New Vegas also had a related issue in that the weapons and armor in the "Courier's Arsenal" pack (or whatever it was called later) were pre-order bonuses from various stores. Some of the stuff in this pack was unique, while none of it was exceedingly powerful, some of the items like the canteen could have a huge impact under certain conditions like playing on hardcore mode (as starting out with the extra water storage gives you a decisive edge in that mode, especially if you don't know other ways of dealing with the issue yet). Basically you had people literally paying $20-$50 a pop for codes on ebay trying to get all the starting game content before they released the DLC pack.

So umm, let's just say New Vegas has a different kind of controversy, but it's one of the games that has contributed to the whole hatred of DLC in it's own way.

Playing a New Vegas collection where you have all the answers right there in front of you and so on, doesn't quite give the full impact of the piecemeal release. Not to mention that most of the DLC itself leads into other DLC, after all you have various prophecies and other comments made about the upcoming confrontation in the last DLC spread through the entire thing. So basically you've got DLC all of which was advertised in the main game with dead ends and go-nowhere story threads, also advertising for more DLC "want to know more about Elias and what happened in Big MT?, moar money!".

 

[Strazdas]

CDs were better but the point was that CDs didn't offer what the public wanted at that time, the ability to record music on the fly. This was the most important point, because people didn't decide they wanted CDs *yet* because it didn't completely advance on what they had. I'm very much like this as well, if your selling me something new, I want it to do everything good that the previous "version" did before plus enhance on whatever is possible. From a technical standpoint CD was definitely superior, its just that people don't like losing the freedom to do one thing in exchange for another. Which was why cassettes went unchallenged for awhile. CDs could have been crafted to record music and especially with the rewritable MP3 CD that eventually came out it was obvious that they were intentionally leaving that feature out. I'm not able to speak from experience though, just research and speaking to others who were around in that time.

And on the Sony thing. I might be wrong but I believe the intention is to make the customer want to pay $40 every 6 months. Companies tend to price fix and gouge certain prices to make others "look like a deal". I believe that's whats happening here.

EDIT: I just pulled these sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOxfBCmbG0o
www.vg247.com/2014/06/25/ps-now-ps4-playstation-beta-gets-six-new-games-but-high-prices-remain/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/06/sonys-playstation-now-pricing-is-insane-but-it-doesnt-have-to-be/
http://kotaku.com/playstation-now-prices-are-currently-insane-1594025919

It appears way weirder than when I first heard it. So I was actually wrong. Cheaper on the very short term and about as expensive on the longer period. Still not promising though, especially with the issue you brought up and several other personal ones I have, such as inability to do what I want with the game, etc.

Most games go for:

$2.99 - 4 hours
$5.99 - 7 days
$7.99 - 30 days
$14.99 - 90 days

and for newer/"classics" titles it appears to be:

$4.99 - 4 hours
$7.99 - 7 days
$14.99 - 30 days
$29.99 - 90 days


My biggest problem is that I do compare games of today with those before, and so for me this will always be a problem. However, all its going to take to convince most people is for they're to be no quick frame of reference. This might not work right now because, for instance, I can buy Final Fantasy XIII-2 for about $15 at a store and own it forever (or until it breaks) vs. $29.99 for 90 days.

But go a couple years from now when they have exclusive games, say the new Souls game is exclusive on there. Then you'll get apologists saying well its obviously fair because you *can't* get it anywhere else and "companies have to make money, right?" The same old tired excuses, but for whatever reason people buy into it. Or if they don't, the industry might *make* it happen again.

you could record music and other things to CDs. you needed a drive that can burn, but you also needed a cassette player that can write as well, its just that it turns out far less people actually wanted to write their own. i dabbled with cassette recordings myself back then, but now i realize just how pointless anything i recorded was.

The prices on there looks awful. 5.99 is not what i would pay for 7 days, its what i would pay for the game forever on steam. i can understand them continuing to overprice new games because they always did that, but this indeed looks like the tactic of "lets do it long enough till people dont remmeber how it used to be before". just like they did with DLCs.