Scow2 said:
I never said DLC is "Less for more". I said it was "More for more" - you pay more money, you get more content (Or, if you want more content, you pay more money).
I know you didn't say "Less-for-More" directly, but that's gist of what needs to happen for your assertion to have any weight here.
You say there's no such thing as a "complete game"; I have a large collection of games from Atari through PS2 that proves otherwise.
Before, the less-for-more devil came in the form of Shovelware; quick cash-grab titles made with no intention of quality save maybe for the box cover. It was ruthless exploitation so bad that it crashed the market in 83'.
Later, we learned how to spot shovelware by using some discretion and not being fucking idiots.
At some point, the developers realized they had one shot at making an impression with their game and once they started taking that seriously, the games market improved dramatically. Shovelware became little more than a novelty joke, we got great games, they got paid. Everyone was happy.
But now, developers can play god with their content access on a piece-wise basis. So now they feel the need to twist arms and charge money for purchasing opportunities instead of just being up front with us or exercising some restraint.
I have nothing against developers charging extra for extra content; but that doesn't mean I will blindly buy every offer placed before me, and it definitely doesn't mean I can't tell when someone is just fucking with me to make a buck.
Case in point: Proverbially, Peter Moore is pissing on our heads and telling us it's raining.
And for some reason, he thinks this will help his business.
As it is, games are less-for-more on the developer side: They're putting far more into the games (Art, manhours, etc) and getting less per unit sold... and the market isn't necessarily growing, either.
Informally, I agree with that assessment. But I think it highlights the bloat in the business more than anything.
IMO, AAA is very spoiled from their previous market success. So much, that they act like they dictate what the entire market does on their terms and that we must accept it (despite the fact that demand and supply act on each other), mainly because they think their customers are just that stupid.
You can see the barely-restrained contempt behind statements like Moore's and the attitudes of AAA companies.
The most brazen example being back when Microsoft revealed the Xbone. They honestly thought the world was ready for a shitty system that, objectively, has no value to the customer. (more over "statistics", "convenience" is the hot new PR lie in town!)
To finish this point: Maybe the AAA market isn't growing any more because their potential customers don't trust them as much as they used to. Just a hunch.
Especially if they're chasing a more niche or saturated market such as RPGs. Yes, DLC pricing is sold for more than the game is... but that's because the main game is sold for either an unacceptably low profit (Compared to opportunity costs of development), or outright gross loss, and DLC helps pay for that... and, DLC also costs more because it's less widely distributed than the original game - nobody buys DLC for a game they don't own.
It's very easy to turn around blame everything on the customer (as you're about to do in the next paragraph), but who actually sinks those 200 million into Starcraft 2, 300 million into Dead Space 3, and half a BILLION into developing Destiny?
And more importantly, why? Because it works?
If it does, why are we even discussing this? Why does Peter Moore feel the need to comment on anything here?
Those games clearly need the DLC inflation to pay for their bloat, and it "obviously" works so...No problems here. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
...right?
Also - there's a funny thing about customer and seller psychology when it comes to games that has left the market's prices on games pretty rigid around a $60 'base game' price point ($50 for PC), and multiples or fractions of that for deluxe editions and DLC - a company can not sell a base game for more than $60, even if it has significantly more content than Call of Duty... and if they try to sell for less than $60 ($50 on PC), or it is perceived as a second-rate, knock-off shovelware (Or, at best, the game everyone talks about buying but never actually does. Especially if it's a new IP). So, companies have to use DLC to inflate the price of the game to where it actually needs to be to be sufficiently profitable for the company.
Bolded part is textbook "Less-for-More" (for the customer).
15 years ago, the AAA publisher's catalogs were more diverse. Now, they're specialized to the nth degree.
You don't so much buy a product as you buy a half-finished product with the opportunity to buy the rest later.
I know we're the fringe minority when it comes to openly discussing these things, but over time, people can see what's happening, they adjust both their standards and behavior accordingly.
Why pay full price (or worse, preorder) for a feature-incomplete, buggier game on launch when you can wait and see if the game is worth a damn?
Why pay 10-25 bucks for DLC on Day 1 when it's smarter to pick them and the game up for 30 bucks during a Steam sale/bundle?
For that matter, why trust the publisher's official material or the "review" they bought from IGN (or damn near any other major game site they're affiliated with), when you can get an unadulterated second, third, fourth, nth opinion from a streamer or youtuber?
AAA wants to train its market to lower its standards for convenience, but is in fact training their customers to distrust them more.
It's why they have little trantrums like this when they don't get their way, and why people like me mock them.
(at least Moore is retaining more of his dignity than Microsoft after after the Xbone reveal.)
Would the Prothean character in ME 3 have caused such a shitstorm over "YOU'RE SELLING US AN INCOMPLETE GAME!" if he was left half-finished and dummied out on the disk?
Probably not, because it wouldn't be complete content just sitting on the disc mocking the customer that just bought it (the disc, not the content).
EDIT:
Sylveria said:
gigastar said:
Oh and here i was under the impression that Moore didnt want EA voted Worst Company in America for a third time?
And here he is dismissing legitimate concerns and then promptly justifying them by saying that DLC is in fact developed in tandem to the core game.
Thats a years work of biulding up good PR gone in an instant.
He found out Konami was at the top of the publisher hate-boner list.. and wanted his throne back.
Jokes on him; Konami probably isn't even going to be a video game publisher in a year or two given the change in their company's direciton.