Jimquisition: Reasons To Pass On Season Passes

fluxy100

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Blue Ranger said:
fluxy100 said:
I stand by the fact that a season pass is an option, it is a show of goodwill from the purchaser to the supplier that they trust that the DLC will be good and they are paying them beforehand because of that belief. If someone doesn't want the season pass and decides that they want to wait then that is all and good, they get the upside of seeing the DLC but the downside of a higher price.

I also hate it whenever anyone complains about the Borderlands 2 DLC season pass, to me It's one of the few season passes done extremely well. They stated beforehand what people were going to get, released said DLC they promised and made a few more, of course you're not going to get the other DLC with the season pass, that's not what they promised. To ask otherwise is to ask for something extra when you already payed for a set amount of DLC and received the DLC you payed for.
Umm, wrong. People who wait DON'T have to pay a higher price because the season pass is always available, even after everything is released. Also here's a little newsflash: no, these things aren't really optional. It's psychology. They are always trying to get you to pay extra. Funny how you bring up Borderlands 2, as that game is a perfect example. In Borderlands 2, you have to pay just to raise your damn level cap! Sorry, but no, Borderlands 2 doesn't feature extremely well done DLC. It's actually a ripoff. Especially since yesterday they released a game of the year edition for only $60. Much better than paying $60 for the base game, then at least $30 for only SOME of the DLC.
You mean a game with DLC eventually released a GOTY edition so people can buy all the DLC at once? The hell you say!! The idea of a GOTY has been around for much longer than the Borderlands games, It's always been get the DLC earlier or buy the game later for a cheaper price with all the DLC included. Nothing you say makes it seem like their season pass was flawed in any way.

And I already answered in a previous post that I was mistaken when I said the season pass went away eventually.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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Strazdas said:
Sure, some want to, but then they should accept that with physical copies you got certain problems, such as having to wait in line for example.

I didnt said we need map editors in games. what we need is a comprehensible way of file storage and coding. you know, sort of like how Relic did it back when it was alive. they didnt provide any user tools. the modders themselves created tools. because files were stored in .big packages, scripts were written in LUA that modders decrypted themselves, and allowed to make a lot of mods, even by people like me who usually arent knowledgable enough, that made the game last much longer. And before you ask im talking about homeworld series. you know the thing people are ready to give money for a HD remake now. its 13 years old, and people still play it, and still create mods for it. thats a good life if anything.
modders are more resourceful than you think, there are programmers who play with game code for fun too you know.
Or I could just preorder it and not wait in line. Best of both worlds. :\

And you're talking about a solution for PC games. I'm talking about map packs in general which are mainly for consoles of course. PC's have it really easy in terms of modding.
 

babinro

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I still disagree with the concept that if DLC comes out quickly then it means it was teared from the main game.
Don't people know by now that DLC is often planned out during the development process?

It's not like companies wait until after game launch and then start thinking, "Should we consider adding content for money, patch it for free, or just stop supporting it?"

There's no reason to get angry when a company offers day one DLC, on disc DLC or season passes. The general content being offered was in planning for a while now. I've yet to play a game without DLC in which the game felt incomplete and left me confused. That's a good thing because I very rarely buy any kind of DLC.

I get where Jim is coming from in this episode and I agree that it's not wise to spend your money on pre-ordering a game plus it's seasons pass when you have no idea what the actual game is like. That aside, I don't think there's anything wrong with the existence of these things. Let gamers pre-order if they want...we live in an age where people will fund kickstarter games based on far less detail than we have at the time of a season pass. Buyer Beware is a given.
 

Slash2x

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See THIS is why I watch this show. Mr Sterling your opinion mirrors my own on this one. Post launch support? Payday 2 has post launch support they are fixing issues and adding in new content FOR FREE!!!(minus the cost of buying the game to begin with) Killzone what ever the heck that was,is getting a prepayment on ideas, NOT post game support. So in effect we are paying more for the same games or kickstarting for big businesses.
 

Atmos Duality

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Season Passes are certainly a gamble..
I did not plan on getting my season pass for Borderlands 2 nor did I buy it; it was gifted to me last Christmas.
In hindsight, it would have been a great purchase, but how could I have known the quality of the DLC in advance when it was first announced; when it didn't even exist?

For Borderlands 2, it worked out great for me in the end, but it's also something that I can see getting abused. Abused in an even worse way than shit like Day 1 DLC, "disc locked content" and all the other bullshit paywalls that have been steadily creeping into games since the world cried foul on Horse Armor back in Oblivion.
 

Battenberg

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Vault Citizen said:
This is why I'm glad I didn't buy the Last of Us Season Pass. I did think about it to support the game but after they said what the DLC would be it turned out that I only wanted to buy one DLC item that would be sold as part of the season pass.
Campaign DLC by any chance? That's the case for me. As great as TLoU's multiplayer is I bought the game for the single player story, that's what I want more of, not extra maps/ guns for multiplayer.

OT: I don't think season passes are bad/ should go, I think they're just badly implemented. The way they're currently arranged there is no way I would ever buy a season pass before every single piece of DLC it covered had been released for all the reasons Jim said HOWEVER with the correct set of cirumstances I might.

The simplest thing developers could do is give precise (and guaranteed) release dates and at least a rough description of every piece of DLC covered by the season pass and promise that the price of the season pass and all DLC items won't change for a minimum period e.g. until 6-12 months after the final piece of DLC has been released. This would do two things: give customers certainty about what it is they're buying and when they can expect to receive it (something that is generally expected with any other purchase) AND ensure that the season pass will remain good value for a reasonable period. As Jim said it's ridiculous to suggest people should give a company money for something that does not yet exist. Until the developers have at least a rough idea of the DLC they'll make and present a solid schedule for it they shouldn't be taking people's money, even Kickstarter offers this level of assurance. The second thing they could do is, in addition to making it better value than buying DL seperately, include exclusive content. Not neccessarily anything so exceptional that players without a season pass will feel excluded, just a gesture to reward customer loyalty, preferably from the moment they buy the season pass; it could even be something as simple as extra player skins. And finally, and this is the part that will take the most time and effort, the triple A devs putting these season passes out need to earn back the trust and respect of their audience by showing that they care about customer satisfaction and not just their profit margins.

Just my two cents and no doubt other people may disagree but I do think season passes could be good for both the gaming business and the customers if they were implemented better.
 

boradis

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canadamus_prime said:
I will not pre-order games and I will definitely not pre-order DLC. Season Passes and any Publisher that uses them can go fuck themselves.
Exactly. They just want money up front without working for it. Makes me wonder why Hollywood doesn't let you pre-order tickets to movies coming out months from now.

Oh, wait. That's because that would be retarded and the general public wouldn't put up with it.

Gamers on the other hand are (pardon my French) immature and stupid enough to turn even their purchasing decisions into a competition. The reason these stupid pre-order systems even exist is too many customers buy into hype and are eager to throw their money -- or their parents' money -- away.
 

Canadamus Prime

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boradis said:
canadamus_prime said:
I will not pre-order games and I will definitely not pre-order DLC. Season Passes and any Publisher that uses them can go fuck themselves.
Exactly. They just want money up front without working for it. Makes me wonder why Hollywood doesn't let you pre-order tickets to movies coming out months from now.

Oh, wait. That's because that would be retarded and the general public wouldn't put up with it.

Gamers on the other hand are (pardon my French) immature and stupid enough to turn even their purchasing decisions into a competition. The reason these stupid pre-order systems even exist is too many customers buy into hype and are eager to throw their money -- or their parents' money -- away.
I have to wonder why this whole pre-ordering thing still goes on. How many times are people going to get stung by pre-ordering something that turns out to be shit? For me it only took once. If you put your hand on a hot stove you learn pretty fast not to put your hand on the fucking stove again, but apparently when gamers get burned by pre-ordering something they thought was going to be good and it turns out to be shit the message just doesn't sink in. Also I don't know about anyone else, but I have to question the quality of a game that has pre-order bonuses up the yin-yang.
 

Strazdas

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Strazdas said:
Sure, some want to, but then they should accept that with physical copies you got certain problems, such as having to wait in line for example.

I didnt said we need map editors in games. what we need is a comprehensible way of file storage and coding. you know, sort of like how Relic did it back when it was alive. they didnt provide any user tools. the modders themselves created tools. because files were stored in .big packages, scripts were written in LUA that modders decrypted themselves, and allowed to make a lot of mods, even by people like me who usually arent knowledgable enough, that made the game last much longer. And before you ask im talking about homeworld series. you know the thing people are ready to give money for a HD remake now. its 13 years old, and people still play it, and still create mods for it. thats a good life if anything.
modders are more resourceful than you think, there are programmers who play with game code for fun too you know.
Or I could just preorder it and not wait in line. Best of both worlds. :\

And you're talking about a solution for PC games. I'm talking about map packs in general which are mainly for consoles of course. PC's have it really easy in terms of modding.
Yes, but you would then be buying a cat in a bag. a well advertised cat, but still a cat in a bag. and then you waive your right to complain it didnt met your expectations.

Well yes, modding on consoles are pretty much nonexistant, so you have to suffer extortoinate map packs due to console folk not making modding support. basically you got to suffer for buying a console.
I mean dont take offence but if modding is important to you why would you buy a console version to begin with?
boradis said:
Exactly. They just want money up front without working for it. Makes me wonder why Hollywood doesn't let you pre-order tickets to movies coming out months from now.

Oh, wait. That's because that would be retarded and the general public wouldn't put up with it.
They do. you can buy a ticket for a movie in theater sometimes as early as over a month ahead. judging from numbers of seats remaining on the site that deals with those - people actually buy them.
also, music concerts usually sell out months before, but that coudl be argued that you already know what your getting because you probably already head the authors songs if your buying a ticket.

canadamus_prime said:
I have to wonder why this whole pre-ordering thing still goes on. How many times are people going to get stung by pre-ordering something that turns out to be shit? For me it only took once. If you put your hand on a hot stove you learn pretty fast not to put your hand on the fucking stove again, but apparently when gamers get burned by pre-ordering something they thought was going to be good and it turns out to be shit the message just doesn't sink in. Also I don't know about anyone else, but I have to question the quality of a game that has pre-order bonuses up the yin-yang.
The saem reaosn people keep repeatedly get hyped and dissapointed by games. people are stupid. Personally i just use the yatzees gamer matrix when it comes to games.

It also probably helps that i NEVER buy at launch and by the time i buy it the while opinion war is settled and you can read some decent reviews. but i usually set my mind on what i want quite early on, and only change it if i read soemthing about it i know ill hate.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Dec 25, 2010
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Strazdas said:
Yes, but you would then be buying a cat in a bag. a well advertised cat, but still a cat in a bag. and then you waive your right to complain it didnt met your expectations.

Well yes, modding on consoles are pretty much nonexistant, so you have to suffer extortoinate map packs due to console folk not making modding support. basically you got to suffer for buying a console.
I mean dont take offence but if modding is important to you why would you buy a console version to begin with?
I'm not saying you should preorder every game, but for games that you just KNOW are going to be good like Skyrim or Halo 3 or GTA V, then preordering is hardly ever a cat in a bag. And if it didn't meet my expectations, well, I can always sell it.

I don't know about extortionate considering some map packs have some incredibly well-crafted and beautiful maps that would be few and far between in a modding community. Also, with custom content, you got to search for everything. Which isn't really that bad at all but sometimes the really good stuff can fly right past you without you even noticing. And ESPECIALLY if there's a lot of content out there for a game like Unreal Tournament for example.

As to why I'd buy a console version... Because a certain game may not be available for PC? Because my PC would be too crap to run it even if it were available? Because I know the console version will not have incredibly draconian DRM if there's any on the PC version? Yes though, sometimes the PC version is just better.
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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Arnoxthe1 said:
Strazdas said:
Yes, but you would then be buying a cat in a bag. a well advertised cat, but still a cat in a bag. and then you waive your right to complain it didnt met your expectations.

Well yes, modding on consoles are pretty much nonexistant, so you have to suffer extortoinate map packs due to console folk not making modding support. basically you got to suffer for buying a console.
I mean dont take offence but if modding is important to you why would you buy a console version to begin with?
I'm not saying you should preorder every game, but for games that you just KNOW are going to be good like Skyrim or Halo 3 or GTA V, then preordering is hardly ever a cat in a bag. And if it didn't meet my expectations, well, I can always sell it.

I don't know about extortionate considering some map packs have some incredibly well-crafted and beautiful maps that would be few and far between in a modding community. Also, with custom content, you got to search for everything. Which isn't really that bad at all but sometimes the really good stuff can fly right past you without you even noticing. And ESPECIALLY if there's a lot of content out there for a game like Unreal Tournament for example.

As to why I'd buy a console version... Because a certain game may not be available for PC? Because my PC would be too crap to run it even if it were available? Because I know the console version will not have incredibly draconian DRM if there's any on the PC version? Yes though, sometimes the PC version is just better.
you never KNOW game is going to be good. You expect it to be good from what you heard. People expected Aliens game to be good. see how that turned out. Also funny you mention Halo since i think Halo is one of the worst games out there. Preordering is always a cat in a bag. buying a game without knowing whats the product is a guess work. granted, guesswork with some background info but still guesswork.
I have seen better maps for free from modders than mappacks from official developers so i would disagree. and they even charge money for it. Yes, needing to find stuff is a minus, but same is woth DLC, excelt that with DLC you have less to choose from. and we now have variuos websites that sort it out pretty well.
Btw do people still actually play unreal tournament? thats one well supported game then.

In a perfect world you would not buy the console version making developer take a loss while asking them for PC version and they would either get it or go out of business. This aint no perfect world though, and you will contoinue suppot bad developer decisions by giving them money.
If you spent as much on PC gaming as you did on console gaming, bad PC problem would not exist. PC is inherently larger initial investment with cheaper use later on. ANd seeing how consoles bottleneck games for 8 years or 10 (thats what MS says), you wont need to update it often at all.
COnsoles wont have draconian DRM, like the one AdBox tried to implement?
 

Jacques Jones

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I never even bothered getting season passes. And as for DLC, if the game's good, I'll buy the DLC. If it's shit, than I won't get the DLC.
 

Vault Citizen

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Battenberg said:
Vault Citizen said:
This is why I'm glad I didn't buy the Last of Us Season Pass. I did think about it to support the game but after they said what the DLC would be it turned out that I only wanted to buy one DLC item that would be sold as part of the season pass.
Campaign DLC by any chance? That's the case for me. As great as TLoU's multiplayer is I bought the game for the single player story, that's what I want more of, not extra maps/ guns for multiplayer.

OT: I don't think season passes are bad/ should go, I think they're just badly implemented. The way they're currently arranged there is no way I would ever buy a season pass before every single piece of DLC it covered had been released for all the reasons Jim said HOWEVER with the correct set of cirumstances I might.

The simplest thing developers could do is give precise (and guaranteed) release dates and at least a rough description of every piece of DLC covered by the season pass and promise that the price of the season pass and all DLC items won't change for a minimum period e.g. until 6-12 months after the final piece of DLC has been released. This would do two things: give customers certainty about what it is they're buying and when they can expect to receive it (something that is generally expected with any other purchase) AND ensure that the season pass will remain good value for a reasonable period. As Jim said it's ridiculous to suggest people should give a company money for something that does not yet exist. Until the developers have at least a rough idea of the DLC they'll make and present a solid schedule for it they shouldn't be taking people's money, even Kickstarter offers this level of assurance. The second thing they could do is, in addition to making it better value than buying DL seperately, include exclusive content. Not neccessarily anything so exceptional that players without a season pass will feel excluded, just a gesture to reward customer loyalty, preferably from the moment they buy the season pass; it could even be something as simple as extra player skins. And finally, and this is the part that will take the most time and effort, the triple A devs putting these season passes out need to earn back the trust and respect of their audience by showing that they care about customer satisfaction and not just their profit margins.

Just my two cents and no doubt other people may disagree but I do think season passes could be good for both the gaming business and the customers if they were implemented better.

My. thoughts exactly, there isn't anything I really dislike about the multiplayer, I just didn't get draw.n into it and it isn't something I want to pay to get more of.
 

karloss01

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I agree on a whole though I do find exceptions in my own experiences. I enjoyed the DLC from Borderlands (Game of the year edition) that I purchased the season pass for the second game and I enjoyed that too. Also Pre-ordered the Super duper special edition of Dark Souls 2 as I love the series and I've got the special editions of the previous two and i wern't going to break my combo.


SolveMedia
GAME IS UP

not by a long shot.
 

kyomi7502

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Basically I agree with everything he just said. There has only been one instance that I was glad I got a "season pass" and that was in Battlefield 3 with the Premium. Definitely worth the money in my opinion, I think the 5 packs were $15 a piece plus getting priority in queues, a load of continuous bonuses like a new weapons and bonus xp all for only $50.
 

VonBrewskie

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Jim, You're great man. But you know that. I have a question for you and the room: are there ever instances where you enjoy the core content of a $60 game so much that you don't mind trust falling into a company's DLC bullshit? I think of the recent Battlefeild 3 as an example of this idea. BF3 Premium delivered some great content (and also Armored Kill which was good, but kind of meh to most players who aren't into vehicle combat), and I saved a little bit of money by purchasing Premium early. It was a trust fall of around 30 or 40 bucks, but I was having so much fun with BF3 that I felt it was worth the risk to drop some dimes for the extra content. In other words, cost wasn't a factor in my decision to buy. I just wanted more BF3 and had a fair amount of confidence that the extra content would be good based on how much fun I was having with the main game. Thoughts my people?
 

VonBrewskie

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kyomi7502 said:
Basically I agree with everything he just said. There has only been one instance that I was glad I got a "season pass" and that was in Battlefield 3 with the Premium. Definitely worth the money in my opinion, I think the 5 packs were $15 a piece plus getting priority in queues, a load of continuous bonuses like a new weapons and bonus xp all for only $50.
How the...jeez. I think I need to read the comments before I post. I forget I'm part of the Hivemind sometimes.
 

duchaked

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DataSnake said:
The trust issue is why I like Volition's approach to season passes. Namely, that you can buy the season pass at release and have all the A-grade DLC appear in your game as soon as it comes out (in a weird inversion, the B-grade weapon-and-outfit packs are what you have to buy separately) or you can wait until all the DLC is out and then buy the season pass to get all of it at a discount. Hell, the season pass for Saints Row The Third is still [http://store.steampowered.com/app/901805/] available on Steam, and the last piece of DLC dropped more than a year and a half ago!
yeah I liked how they did that. it made a lot of sense, and really worked for the consumer