Jimquisition: Reasons To Pass On Season Passes

Spaceman Spiff

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Sep 23, 2013
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I loved this Jimquisition and I totally agree with Jim. We as consumers should be more careful with our money. Companies will make more games and DLC because it makes them money. There's no need for us to pay in advance and allow them to ship whatever they deem acceptable. I learned my lesson from the Borderlands 2 season pass, and narrowly avoided fucking myself with an Aliens: Colonial Marines preorder.
 

Alfredo Jones

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Jul 1, 2013
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I never buy season passes. I'd rather wait for the inevitable "Game of the Year" edition. In some rare cases though a season pass will continue to be sold after all the DLC has been released, making it a decent discount pack if it contains all of the DLC you want. Borderlands 2 and Darksiders 2 are good examples of this.
 

Dragonbums

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May 9, 2013
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I mean...not that I disagree or anything, but isn't this all on us anyway?
If what most of the people are saying here is true- all of the DLC in those season passes will be available as separate DLC anyway. Therefore, the whole season pass boom is nothing but our fault because we bought into it happily.

To be honest. Half of these practices wouldn't be happening if we as the consumer didn't buy into it all the time.
 

Baneat

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Jul 18, 2008
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What about Season Passes for episodic games like Telltale's? It works pretty well there.
 

Kameburger

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Apr 7, 2012
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The worst part is these passes really aren't aimed at adults who earn their own income. The worst part is honestly that these games are aimed at kids who have easy and unfiltered access to their parents money, who don't know anything about season passes let alone DLC. Honestly if you wanted to end season passes get it on like one of those evening news watch shows like the fox problem solvers or something. I mean a lot of us may by DLC but as a working human being with a job, I haven't even bought the DLC I wanted just because I don't have time.
 

bug_of_war

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hawk533 said:
Curious what Jim would think if Payday 2 offers a DLC pass when the first piece of DLC finally drops for it. I know he celebrated the ability of that studio to make a profit on "only" 1 million copies sold.

I've already put 100 hours into the game, so if they offer a pass, I think I'll buy it. I don't think the pass is a bad idea if it's not offered until after the game comes out. That way everyone can determine if they want to keep playing or not.
It's a pity Payday 2 was a HUGE let down with the pre-order "bonus". And it's constant updating where in which half the time they are having to fix the previous update makes the game more or less redundant.

Yeah, Payday 2 was the last game I pre-ordered and it was the first one to disappoint me to the point where I wish I bought it as an Xbox 360 title so I could've traded it in and gotten some money back. I never bought a season pass because I generally don't buy DLC (In fact the only DLC I have bought was for Skyrim, but I got it all in the legendary edition).

So yeah, I couldn't agree quite more with this episode. Normally I'm all for DLC and pre-ordering, but recent events have me starting to turn the other way.
 

ron1n

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Jan 28, 2013
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Yes. So glad someone called out developers on this bs.

DLC ≠ Product Support!

The absolute worst offenders on this of late in my opinion, have undoubtedly been Creative Assembly.

Shogun 2, Co-Op campaign. Broken on release and never fixed. Of course this didn't stop them from releasing no less than 7 DLC packs, 2 expansion packs and more DLC for the expansions. Oh and of course they never did fix the Co-Op campagin so it's STILL broken in Rome 2, along with the rest of the game. Wonder how long until they start jamming some more unit packs down our throats?

Oh wait, they already did with the Greek States pack.

That comment by Steven Ter Heide pretty much proves just how full of shit the industry is. The only question remaining, is whether or not they do the required mental gymnastics to believe it, or they are knowingly screwing over their customers.
 

MrHide-Patten

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Jun 10, 2009
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Aliens Colon-anal Marines destroyed Jim. He was once a boy filled with hope and dreams until Gearbox fired a blunderbust full of shit at him... there were no diamonds

After going through Siants Row Thirds Season Pass (with sub par DLC, if I'm being honest) and Darksiders 2 bug riddled expansions that crippled the game (I can't even play the last piece of content I played for because the game keeps on crashing) I've only ever bought another for Bioshock Infinite, because I really liked the game. But after the long wait I'm sort of wary and Bioshocks honeymoon period has solidly worn off (overtaken by The Last of Us as my personal GOTY), and to have the next DLC not reallt tie up any loose ends with Bioshocks plot but to go off in some alternate reality, I am sort of miffed.

So I'm happy that all the DLC for SR4 was delayed in Australia, stops me pissing my money away.
 

Kraakdoos

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Oct 8, 2012
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So the simple answer for Irrational is to sell the Season Pass when the DLC first becomes available. When they have a reasonable idea of what's to come a la the Bioshock Infinite DLC reveal.
 

KungFuJazzHands

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Mar 31, 2013
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I'm against season passes just on principal, especially when material is purposefully left out. That said, I did get the SP for Borderlands 2 (because I love that game), and also for Saints Row the Third (included in the Complete Package release) and Darksiders 2 (got it really, really, really cheap). I'll basically buy 'em when I feel the vanilla game is lacking content.

mjc0961 said:
Also Borderlands 2 is a season pass done completely the wrong way. They either knew they were going to make more DLC in the first place and intentionally held some of it back so they could still sell even more DLC to people who already paid for what's supposed to be the "get all the DLC" ticket, or they didn't know they were going to make more DLC in the first place but decided "fuck the few loyal fans we have left after the Aliens Colonial Marines fiasco" and made them pay full price for said DLC even though they could have given it for free or sold it at a discounted price to people who already bought the season pass.
That's a good synopsis of what pissed me off so much about the Borderlands 2 Season Pass. Gearbox made it sound like there would be minimal DLC available outside of the SP, and then they turned around and admitted to secretly working on tons more content that would be available in yet another Pass. They got greedy. Guess that's just par for the course for them now.
 

leviadragon99

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Welp, I learned my lesson after the Borderlands 2 season pass didn't include all the DLC released for it, be nice if there had been an object lesson about that before I'd gotten that, but oh well, at least I enjoyed the content it did provide...
 

yatterman1

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Nov 17, 2009
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never bought the season passes my attitude was wait for it to come out and buy it as it shows up. but then back in day usually i wait for game of year version (did for fallout games and couple other i had.
 

LostCrusader

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Feb 3, 2011
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I never liked the idea of season passes, and have generally regretted getting them. Pre-ordering them really does just seem like its the studio asking for a handout so they can fling a turd at you for a few months after the game comes out. Although the one case where I think I would like season passes is if the company used them as the pre-order bonus for getting the main game. That would even excuse them not including some of the later DLC (what they seem to want to do anyway), and it would in most cases make the risk of pre-ordering the game worth it for me.
 

mada7

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May 14, 2009
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In general Ive found that I never want to buy more than 1 piece of good dlc for a game. The only exceptions for me were borderlands 1 and Valkyria Chronicles where I bought 3 pieces of dlc. By the time the second piece of dlc comes out for most games Ive lost interest and moved on and a dinky side mission with no story relevance isn't going to cut it for me.
 

Brockyman

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Aug 30, 2008
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Jimothy Sterling said:
Reasons To Pass On Season Passes

You were promised an episode on season passes, in the wake of Jimquisition complaing about downloadable content. There is a season for all things, and that season has come to pass.

Watch Video

Jim, I agree with your premise, however, I want to use your line of "Customer Choice" in this context.

I think the issue isn't just that company's offer pre-orders or season passes, but the consumer also needs to do research. Most season passes are available for the lifetime of the game, and after playing it, he/she may want to buy all the DLC at the reduced price. For example, someone who enjoy's a first person shooter with a group of friends may know that they want all the new maps as they come out, and would like to save some cash. Or someone finishes Bioshock Infinite, and decides they trust the team at Irrational to come out with great content (as history has shown), and save some hard earned money on the upcoming content.

If someone buys a season pass BEFORE playing the game, then it's a buyer beware type situation, the same as pre-ordering is. I've been burned before, and decided not to pre-order things unless I have a lot of research in it or is part of an existing franchise I already know and love.

I think my main issue is this the on-going theme as game publishers and developers as "greedy and horrible". I wholeheartedly agree that there have been miscues, bad ideas, and a lot of dirtbags out there, just like anything else on earth. I think it's more then fair to call them to the carpet, but also understand that there are really good people out there as well doing what the love, making a fine product and selling it a fair price. Capitalism isn't a bad system, it's what allows us to have hobbies and even careers in video games. You have to call out and punish the assholes and credit those who do the right thing and/or go above and beyond, and realize that every questionable decision may not be out of greed or malice, but just a good intention that went the wrong way.

I know alot of what you do is for laughs and to be edgy and I'm not asking you to change a bit of that, I just would like to hope that you do understand some of these things in the long run.
 

Reincarnatedwolfgod

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Jan 17, 2011
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I can't make any arguments on why how pre-ordering dlc is a smart idea so jim is right. although I may be hard to not follow that principal for the telltale's the walking dead season 2.
 

19

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Feb 25, 2009
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I think that if your "Thank god for me" was mostly or entirely inaudible (you know, because you'd just dropped the mic), it would have been funnier.
Great episode though, thanks Jim.