Jimquisition: Watch Dogs - Five Collector's Editions For One Game? What? F*$%ing WHAT?

[Askis]

After looking at that spreadsheet, it's interesting to note a few things...
First off, only PS4 users can buy the game on disc, so PC users get no physical goodies, unless they buy a PS4 version and buy it again for PC, maybe resell the disc without the extras.

Also, there seems to be only one good way of getting most of the digital extras, which is buying the standard Digital Edition and the Season Pass, which costs us Europeans a total of 70 Euros right now (80 after release).
The only thing you miss out on is the White Hat Pack.

Buying the Digital "Deluxe" Edition for 60(70 after release) gives you a few extras including White Hat, but not the Blume Agent Pack, Deadsec Pack, the T-Bone Campaign and Conspiracy mode, so if you want those, thats another 20 for the Season Pass, even though most of the extras from the pass are in the Deluxe Edition anyway.

And then the PC version seems to require both Steam and Uplay. *sigh*


I really don't get what's going on at Ubisoft, but if they want to reduce the rate of Piracy on PC, this is not the way. At all...

 

[jackpipsam]

Pretty much I only get the collector's editions for Blizzards games now.

Not only are they cheaper than most standard edition games here in Australia, but they come with real good stuff like thick art books, soundtracks and behind-the-scenes stuff.

It seems other companies only do cheap statues and some postcards and charge like double.

 

[Piorn]

Ha, good one.
So how many times do you have to buy the game to get all the content of the game?

 

[Creedsareevil]

HAHAHAHAH.....
AHAHAHAHA.....
HUEHUEHUE.....
no.

Ubisoft, i know why i have not bought anything from you since ever.....
This is activision level of moneygrabbing.
And for a gam that looks fckn pointless to boot!

 

[Creedsareevil]

HAHAHAHAH.....
AHAHAHAHA.....
HUEHUEHUE.....
no.

Ubisoft, i know why i have not bought anything from you since ever.....
This is activision level of moneygrabbing.
And for a gam that looks fckn pointless to boot!

captcha:
get out

I already am out...

 

[GonzoGamer]

Yeah. I got the special edition GTA 5, but i have owned every gta game since the first, even the ones that were on handheld like chinatown wars. Watch dogs is new IP, we don't know if its gonna be good, if it is maybe get the special edition of the sequel.Maybe. Also one version comes with the 'iconic' hat. Can a character's costume be iconic if no-ones played it yet and also it's just a regular hat? Really, it's just a baseball cap.

I didn't get the super duper edition of GTA 5 but I did get the one step up edition with the map and yes, I have played all the other games in the series extensively. Shit the handheld ones (Chinatown Wars & VCS especially) were a couple of my favorites. And GTA 5 is a game that I'm still playing 8 months later thanks to monthly free updates to GTA Online. Aside: It's the creator (and the fact we're allowed to glitch with it) update that keeps me hooked.

This is a great turnaround from their last big release LA Noir which had this same Watch Dogs BS with different gameplay content being auctioned off to different retailers. That turned LA Noir from a must buy to must rent, then later buy GOTY; purely because it reeked of desperation. It was a fun rental but I never bought it.

Now Watch Dogs Reeks of desperation (and bullshit) and I'm just going to rent it. If it is really good, I'll wait for the GOTY edition but I have a strong feeling the rental will suffice.

Hell, if they keep updating GTAV the way they have been, I may never buy another game again....no that's just crazy talk.

 

[Strazdas]

1. why does this video does not show up on latest videos? new layout problems? all other videos show up except jimquisition.

2. Well, Mafia 2 Had 6 collectors editions at launch, all of them containing 2 extra clothes (different for different edition). so its not like it hasnt been done, it has, in 2010.

Ironically, the only people that get "The full game" are pirates who can just download the extra content while legal consumers would have to buy 5 games to have that. this is utter bullshit!

And yes, Game-of-the-Year edition is pretty much the way to buy complete games nowadays sadly.

The modern AAA checklist;

Bullshots
Deceptive marketing

to be honest, these two were around ever since the AAA industry for games. Bullshots was a HUGE thing in the past and in fact was great source of wallpapers, now its slowly being changed by BullVideos

And deceptive marketing was always deceptive, gaming industry or not.

I'm wondering, will you have enough faith in CD Red, to preorder W3 earlier than you did W2?

Ive never preordered any game ever, but if i had to preorder something CD Projekt is the company i would choose to do so. they have earned my trust more than anyone else. I would have also mentioned Paradox Interactive in the list before, but lately they kinda messed up with their latest as well.

 

[Vegosiux]

I'm having trouble finding a way to express my disdain for this episode that wouldn't just devolve into me ranting about how people are basically complaining that they have so much money they'll have to buy two $100 dollar versions of a game to get all the collectables things they want.

You seem to have missed my question after last time you said something along this line of thought, so I'll repeat it.

How "serious" must it be before we have "something to complain about"?

What's the threshold that makes a complaint "legitimate"?

But I can't.

Why "can't" you? You're already complaining about people complaining, and that's a non-problem compared to people getting their heads cut off in the third world.

 

[Demonchaser27]

And as for people, I was already losing a lot of faith anyway, but I've lost almost all of it since the almost unanimous acceptance of Pokemon Bank, not the idea of extra box space (which in all fairness could've fit in the cartridge anyway), but the bribing away (robbing) of the ability to trade old mons' from older versions unless you pay an indefinite fee. Irrespective of how cheap it is, it's the priniciple of it. The fact that they took hostage a feature innate to all previous pokemon games before it, gen trading, and put it behind a paywall and almost everyone accepted it just kind of disgusted me. So I'm not getting any new pokemon games from here on out, unless its for free like I got Y version.

I don't know where you've been since I saw a whole lot of complaints over them charging 5 dollars a year for Pokebank, but sure, let's say it was accepted by most.

Pokebank didn't simply offer more boxes and not having those boxes isn't a big deal anyway. There are currently 719 Pokemon. There are 930 boxes meaning if you have managed to catch all and you for some reason decided to have ever stage of evolution for all the Pokemon that evolves you'd still be left with 211 open spaces to use for breeding. Considering the amount of spaces, the fact that you won't actually need Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard to take up 3 different spaces you got enough boxes in the core game.

So why does Pokemon Bank even exist? Why would anyone want to close the game just to access a single Pokemon then open the game to use that Pokemon if there's a simpler way? The thing is people wouldn't. There is no reason to use Pokemon Bank if you just play one game. It's there for transferring between games. Now let's look at transferring Pokemon between games. What do I need to transfer my Victini from Pokemon White to White 2. Well, I need another console for starters. Getting one now would mean either a DSi, 3DS or 2DS, the cheapest (new) one (using Amazon.com) is the 2DS which I can get for 110 dollars. That's as much as it would cost me to get 22 years of Pokemon Bank. Clearly they must be ripping me off here!

Then there's the process of transferring Pokemon using Pokemon Bank versus the process of trading individual Pokemon. Have you ever tried trading 100 Pokemon from one DS to another? First you need to get a number of Pokemon you don't want, this used to be accomplished by catching tons of Pidgey and Ratata since they were more common than dirt and easy to catch. This would still take you some time, but regardless of how tedious it was you'd still be able to get all your Pokemon over so it was worth the effort. Then after catching all those 30 Pokemon (you were supposed to get 100+, but you got sick after one Pidgey kept refusing to get caught and you killed it using Hyperbeam) there's the trading.

One at a time. Wathing the same animation over and over. Getting told the same message over and over. Saving the game after each Pokemon has been transferred. Being kind and optimistic here we could estimate that this takes at least 1 minute each time. So after just a few hours you have been able to transfer all err most at least some of your beloved Pokemon. Granted you didn't encounter any connection errors causing the changes to be reverted and made you start the process of booting up, searching for a system and transferring Pokemon over again in the same time consuming process.

So... it did take some time, but at least it only cost you 100 bucks!

What about Pokemon Bank then? How long do you have to spend transferring those 100 Pokemon? About the same amount it would take to move those Pokemon from box 1, 2, 3 and 4 to box 5, 6, 7 and 8 actually. That's somewhere around 5 minutes or so?

So what you're saying here is that 5 minutes of tedious moving and on top of that we have to PAY for it? No way! I'll stick with the 100 dollar method and spend hours. I can't understand how anyone would accept paying such vast amount of money (5 dollars) just to avoid the hours of throwing ultra balls at level 2 Pokemon and then watching an animation that is overly time consuming 100 times.

I've been on the internet, honestly. And if you do a search about pokemon bank, I see at least 80% approval (for every 8 people, two dislike it). Unless you can show me some of these comments that show disdain for it, that I'm not seeing.

And no, actually its quite simple. What I'm saying is that, since the 3ds can read both DS and 3DS cartridges, they COULD have released the PokeTransfer app for free (as they did) which COULD have been programmed to read all previous DS games and pull (copy) they're data as all previous pokemon games could. Except intstead of copying to limited flash memory (as in the past on DS) they could copy that information (as many mons as you wanted all at one time) and put it onto your SD card, which could be held until you insert X or Y version, which would then transfer ALL of the mons to your game just as easily as this "amazing" Pokemon Bank can. There would be no long-term of short-term cost of the end-user, and no server cost for Nintendo/GameFreak.

And I never said that the old system was great by any means. But you're also assuming that I bought 2 DS's. I used a friends DS and before that you didn't even need to, because old DS models could hold both the GBA game and the DS game at the same time which kind of sidesteps most of your "costs more" argument. Seeing as to how you had to have a DS anyway to even play those DS games.

The server was never needed or asked for. I'm sorry, but just because you can't seem to think of a way this could have been done better doesn't mean it couldn't have been done better. Its still them "monetizing" a free feature. It was free in the past if you were smart about it. And it could have (at hardly any cost) been free here too. Let's not pretend like GameFreak/Nintendo need to dig out of the bottom of the barrel for money either. Pokemon is one of their most, if not most, profitable series. Its a shitty ploy to force people who want there old mons to fork up cash.

 

[Sanunes]

The only way to change the approach companies are making for Collector's Editions (and even Day 1 DLC) is for us not to buy them for as long as they have a market for those items its not going to change. With Collector's Editions especially people are on the developer's forums begging for things like statues and other physical items to be included are just driving this practice and then they sell out in a matter of hours or days.

 

[Lightknight]

Interestingly enough, this is just encouraging consumer choice paralysis. When faced with this many options I simply don't make a choice and wait. Then, if there's some deal a year from now where I can get the other content I'll buy them for a steal or not at all.

 

[Sofus]

I have stopped pre-ordering games that have more than one collectors edition. I would much rather wait for the GOTY or steam bargin bin version than to waste my time browsing through several game versions to find the one that has the most interesting content.

Oh and you just know that the stuff from all the pre orders are going to end up as "dlc" on the steam store.

 

[Ghadente]

Will be funny if this game fails miserably. If I was planning on getting Watch Dogs, I wouldn't after seeing this, instead just wait until price goes down and you know for sure its even worth getting.

 

[daxterx2005]

Dude, that chart looks insanely ridiculous...
Worst part is this game has so much hype its going to sell like crazy despite all this crap.

 

[Therumancer]

I'm kind of tired but was checking mail before bed and realized I forgot to check in in this week's Jim Sterling. I just wanted to say I agree that the whole situation is stupid but you need to understand how it happened:

When video game competition was a lot hotter, with a lot more physical retailers and such, certain companies, namely Gamestop came up with the idea of paying developers money to create exclusive content for them, that way people who wanted the extras would come to them rather than the competition. This lead to a bidding war where different groups decided that if one business was going to do it, they would all do it, and whomever could finance the best bonus would presumably get the business. This famously entered the platform arena when Microsoft paid Rockstar what was at the time disgusting amount of money to produce entire "Grand Theft Auto" episodes specifically to move the same of their console over the competition knowing this was going to be one of the most played games ever. Even as physical retailers more or less died out, with only the true titans like Gamestop still standing, the digital marketplaces simply got into the same game, and developers and producers have gotten in the habit of passing the hat to different platforms looking for donations.

In a case where everyone gets special content it all negates each other, and yes it becomes annoying to the average gamer who wants all of the content. Like with the old "Marvel" games nobody wants to have to pick an exclusive playable character from a list of guys coming from different stores when they would like to have every playable character possible. On some levels these gamers miss the entire point of how things got to places like that (and got even worse from the "Ultimate Alliance" days... where the developer screwed the retailers rather famously by making it a matter of "exclusive unlock codes" which of course wound up on the internet within 5 minutes so everyone got all the characters anyway... so in that case it had a happy ending for the fans). It would be nice to see the entire thing being dropped, but it's become an expected part of budgeting a game, and of course all the hype over "wow, what do I choose?" generates publicity, or it did, before things have increasingly turned to disgust.

It's a case where something unintended to the basic idea occurred once things snowballed far enough.

As far as Collector's Editions extras, in my mind a lot depends on what they are offering. For the most part the actual "thing" to a CE is when it has digital content so someone anticipating a game tends to get one so they can have as much of the game as possible. For the most part the CE extras tend to be a lot of junk, and I've seen a sort of trend towards "digital collector's editions" which basically seem to amount to "pay $10-$20 extra for this stuff we'll hold back otherwise". To me physical collector's editions might be better if they didn't pretty much fill the box with garbage that seems like it could have come from a dollar store or gumball machine.

Besides I'll admit I was enough of a single player "Diablo" player (though I guess this counts as "installed player base) where even if I wound up not liking "Diablo 3" to begin with I thought the Diablo head with the insertable USB drive-cranial impalement crystal with Diablo II on it was pretty cool... it sits on my computer case looking cool as I type this.

 

[C14N]

I mostly agree except on one thing: collector's edition's at launch are never a good idea. Seriously, just screw them all. They are inherently exploitive and they give no benefits. If you want to have extra stuff to sell to your biggest fans, sell the little statues or hats or whatever else on your website. Nobody should ever buy a collector's edition for a game they don't already love.

 

[Asclepion]

I wouldn't buy this game on launch unless my life literally depended on it. I said it before. I'll play it when the full version is released. There's no reason to get it as soon as it's out.

None of their systems would stand a chance against you, Adam. Smartphones are no match for the advanced hacking skill of a processor augmentation implanted into your skull.

 

[Roxor]

Every game needs a Complete Edition which is just that: Complete. You buy it once, whether pre-order, at launch, or ten years down the track, and you get ALL the content for the game, past, present, and future. If it's added after you buy it, it's added to your install in the automatic updates for your platform of choice.

 

[Yopaz]

I've been on the internet, honestly. And if you do a search about pokemon bank, I see at least 80% approval (for every 8 people, two dislike it). Unless you can show me some of these comments that show disdain for it, that I'm not seeing.

This site?

And no, actually its quite simple. What I'm saying is that, since the 3ds can read both DS and 3DS cartridges, they COULD have released the PokeTransfer app for free (as they did) which COULD have been programmed to read all previous DS games and pull (copy) they're data as all previous pokemon games could. Except intstead of copying to limited flash memory (as in the past on DS) they could copy that information (as many mons as you wanted all at one time) and put it onto your SD card, which could be held until you insert X or Y version, which would then transfer ALL of the mons to your game just as easily as this "amazing" Pokemon Bank can. There would be no long-term of short-term cost of the end-user, and no server cost for Nintendo/GameFreak.

Fair point, but that would require patching Black and White. DS games can't be patched I think, bu your suggestion here is sensible. No arguments against that.

And I never said that the old system was great by any means. But you're also assuming that I bought 2 DS's. I used a friends DS and before that you didn't even need to, because old DS models could hold both the GBA game and the DS game at the same time which kind of sidesteps most of your "costs more" argument. Seeing as to how you had to have a DS anyway to even play those DS games.

I did't assume that you did. I was simply stating that in order to do it you would need two systems. You have pointed out an exception that is valid for transfer from 2 games to 1 game. Hardly disproves my point considering there have been more than 3 Pokemon games and that the vast majority have actually required that you own two systems. You needed two systems to transfer from Red/Blue to Silver/Gold. Then after that you couldn't actually transfer Pokemon to Ruby/Sapphire. You needed two systems to transfer between Leaf Green/Fire Red and Ruby/Sapphire. To transfer from Ruby/Sapphire/Leaf Green/Fire Red to Diamond/Pearl you only needed 1 DS. To transfer from Diamond/Pearl to Black/White you needed two systems, to transfer from Black/White to Black 2/White 2 you needed 2 systems. To transfer from any of the Black and White to X or Y you only needed one system. There are two exceptions to the rule that you need 2 systems to transfer between the systems. Now you can easily transfer all your Pokemon to the bank, start a new game and start over if you want to. Also what if you don't have any friends who own a 3DS/2DS/DS? What then? Then you CAN'T transfer your Pokemon.

If you want to whine about a cash grab then why don't you actually go for one that holds water? Why do they still demand us to buy two games to get the various Pokemon? Why do they keep releasing it yearly? 5 dollars a year... is it really something you feel you need to whine about considering you no longer have to rely on a friend to lend you his DS? To need two games in order to transfer between games if you want to start a new game?

The server was never needed or asked for. I'm sorry, but just because you can't seem to think of a way this could have been done better doesn't mean it couldn't have been done better. Its still them "monetizing" a free feature. It was free in the past if you were smart about it. And it could have (at hardly any cost) been free here too. Let's not pretend like GameFreak/Nintendo need to dig out of the bottom of the barrel for money either. Pokemon is one of their most, if not most, profitable series. Its a shitty ploy to force people who want there old mons to fork up cash.

How has it ever been free? It has required use of link cables, use of several systems, use of several games. Consoles, games and accessories aren't free just because your friend bought them. They cost just as much regardless of who bought them. The best transfer system they have ever used would have to be Pokemon Stadium and the transfer Pack, but that too required you to have a Nintendo 64, a transfer Pack and Pokemon Stadium. So it has been done EASIER (and better) in the past, but it has never been done CHEAPER. Calling 5 dollar a year a cash grab just seems silly. 5 Dollars is half what you pay to get a costume in an EA game. 5 dollars is a little less than what I have to pay to get an espresso at any café.

You're right, it could have been done better, it could have been free, but you are complaining about something that is just a tiny bit more than pocket change. You are boycotting a game series based on trivial amounts of money. If we were to divide this into 12 monthly fees you know hat I could buy each month with the money that it costs for Pokemon Bank? Nothing. I could get a cup of hot water in the cafeteria, but just barely. If I can restrain myself and get one cup of hot water less a month then I can afford to subscribe to Pokemon Bank. This is the money you're making a fuzz over. Maybe it's not that people are willing to take any kind of abuse, maybe it's because people know when there's cause to make a fuzz and when it's not?

Considering people bought Dead Space 3 I wouldn't think so. Considering people WILL buy this collector's edition I don't think so. Considering how people buy games with always on DRM I don't think so. We let companies do these kinds of things to us over and over. It's clearly a problem because time and time again companies get away with it.

You're right, we need to react to something, we need to make it clear that we have limits. We don't have OVERREACT to EVERYTHING. Why go with Pokemon Bank which is easily both a cost that can be justified and a service that is better than the "free" solutions of the past when there are so many worse and even more obvious problems? Season passes for games that aren't released? Batman Arkham Origins where Wii U customers who bought the season pass didn't actually get the DLC they had paid for? Aliens: Colonial Marines and its false gameplay previews? Micro transactions in 60 dollar games? Online passes? Early access games that are nothing more than scams? Microsoft (and now Sony) charging for online play? Microsoft (until recently) charging to access services you are already paying for? Valve allowing Publishers to delete negative reviews and comments off the product site? These are all examples of practice that are much worse, adds nothing of use or the consumer and costs more than Pokemon Bank and they were all on the tip of my tongue.

Overreacting to everything makes it hard to take anything you say seriously. There are worse consumer practices to pick even without leaving the Pokemon franchise, but this relatively cheap time saving addition is where you draw the line. Maybe one day you'll learn how to differentiate your reactions and honestly I hope this will happen to you soon.

Edit: In retrospect I did find something really hilarious about this whole discussion.

There's a great analogy to be drawn here between you and supporters of alternative medicine.

Those supporting natural medicine often quote the exceptions, which are studies that show that their remedy is more effective than placebo, you mention the one exception where you didn't need two consoles to trade Pokemon. So you take the exception and consider it the rule rather than the expectations (also ignoring a part of the facts you quote).

You have a friend who's got a DS. I have a friend who claims homeopathy works for him. You take personal experiences and apply them as facts. I don't have a close friend with a 3DS, my best friend doesn't have one, my sister doesn't have one and my nephew doesn't have one. Is this statistically relevant? No, not at all. I am one person. You are one person. Neither of us can say anything about the whole world based on our personal experiences. Those who support alternative medicine still do so. So do you. When I mentioned that example of needing to buy a second 3DS I wasn't talking about you, I meant that in a general sense. If a person does not have a friend living nearby with a 3DS then he needs to get a second DS to trade Pokemon from one generation to another.

 

[redisforever]

On the positive side, when you get special editions like the Halo ones (note, I have not seen the stuff that comes with the games past 3), those can be great. No in-game bonuses, just extra content like DVD's and making of things, plus maybe a statue or a nicer, shiny box. The Halo 2 limited edition is probably my favorite one ever, because of its great making of documentary and interesting featurettes.