Poll: Did CAPCOM cross a line with RE5 DLC?
- Thread starter MecaEcco
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The worst part isn't so much that they charged for content on the disc, but that they lied about it in the first place. Bad form, guys. It's been done before, but never with so prolific a game. This is a cash grab plain and simple, and the most obvious, repugnant of cash grabs at that.
A quote by someone at Epic Games not to long ago brought up the idea of "Downloadable Final Boss Fights" to battle the game resale market. This is just as bad, I doubt the guys at Epic would actually go through with that kind of wild idea but download-able multiplayer seems to follow that same train of thought, even if to marginally different ends. (Stopping the resale market = Money, Forcing players to pay for multiplayer features = Money)
It depresses me that gaming is becoming like Cell Phones. You buy a basic game, and then pay for all your add-ons (Multiplayer and such.)
It depresses me that gaming is becoming like Cell Phones. You buy a basic game, and then pay for all your add-ons (Multiplayer and such.)
'Unlockable' DLC that you have to buy is retarded. If a game is released, and it's full to the brim with awesome stuff, and the company makes more content because the community wants it, THEN DLC is ok. It's bullshit when they ship something deliberately half-assed, only to charge for it later.
1. Resident Evil 5 Already launched with the same features that Resident Evil 4 had... and to be honest more features when consider that you could do co-op and multiplayer on Mercenaries. (This does not cover your thoughts on whether or not those features were up to your standard.) So the multiplayer here was extra, and should not be compared to something like Halo where multiplayer is a standard feature.jdnoth said:
2. As someone in the industry... DLC is consistently developed DURING the production of the full game... It happens all the time. When they release it doesn't give you any indication to when it was actually developed. And you still aren't addressing that fact that the game and DLC were done at the same time and put on the same disc doesn't change the fact that both sets of content have their own development teams, their own budgets, their own profit forecasts.... The sixty dollars price covers the full game development. The five extra dollars you pay covers the DLC development. It's two separate price tags for two separate pieces of work. Not paying for downloadable content would just be like not paying a set of developers, and that's not fair
When you buy a CD or a game you pay to be able to access the content on that disc. I know in the USA it's illegal to circumvent disc encryption, but in my country when you buy a disc all the content on it is legally considered accessible by you.Ladie Au Pair said:Well, none of that matters in the end. Maybe you believe that since you bought the disc you own everything on it and it's not right for you to pay for something you already own? That's not true. Let's apply this idea to a CD before I go any further. When you buy a CD do you own the music on the disc? No you don't. You have bought the right to listen to that music on the disc for your own personal use. You are not allowed to do whatever you want with it... like upload it to a sharing site where tons of people can download it for free or using it as back ground music for your new TV show you have in production. It's not yours. You have bought the right to listen to it. When you buy a game disc, you have bought the rights to play the game and game options that are advertised on the box. To go back to Resident Evil 5, no where on the box (or in the booklet for that matter), does it say that you are receiving the bonus multiplayer mode for purchasing the disc. You got what you paid for. Remember, you didn't even know it was there until CAPCOM told you so.MecaEcco said:You pointed out the problem at hand..."if the game FELT incomplete..." That is a very subjective assessment. You clearly feel that the game was complete, whereas others may not. One way to draw a line in the sand is to look at whether or not the content is on the disk already. You paid for that multiplayer mode and I think many gamers feel that this is double dipping. In your argument you assume your reader is interested in CAPCOM making more money and that the development processes is easier on the game makers. I personally don't care about those things. I'm a gamer not a developer...so I'm not interested in CAPCOM's bottom line...I'm interested in mine and I'm interested in getting a good game for a good value. Do not let your respect for a companies previous efforts cloud your judgment of where your loyalties need to lie. Just because you respect CAPCOM doesn't mean you shouldn't hold their feet to the fire when they nickel and dime you. On the other hand if you had made the argument that DLC on the disk keeps the content off your hard drive making more room for other content I would have found your position more appealing.Ladie Au Pair said:This actually happens all the time, more than you would think. I don't really like that Capcom was singled out here.MecaEcco said:Resident Evil 5 was a complete game without the DLC and this is why it doesn't bother me. DLC is supposed to be something extra, and that's what you paid for here. I think that if the game felt incomplete without the DLC I would be angry. DLC is frequently worked on before games are actually released/shipped, so if Capcom was able to get their DLC done and shipped on the Disc more power to them. It actually makes everything easier when getting things done on the developer side.On a side note... releasing DLC at the same time as/ very near to the launch date of a game is a very good idea. If it is launched while the game is still hot, its beneficial to both the company and the player. The company makes more money, and the player gets extra game awesomeness while they are still interested in the game.
What if you bought a CD to listen to it but there was a bonus song that was "locked" and you had to put it into a special CD player then register online and pay the band a dollar to access it? This song was developed with it's own budget so technically you didn't "pay" for it already, but I don't think many people would disagree that it's well within their rights to have access to that content.
So would you have been satisfied if they gave you the exact same thing but actually made you download it? So it's taking up space on the disc, does that mean they absolutely have to give it to us? perhaps we should also yell at all the people who dont use 100% of a discs capacity too? This is just DLC that doesn't take up space on your HDD and takes no time to download. If you keep whining, they'll learn to just leave it off the disc so you can all happily pay to waste hard drive space.
As I said in a later post:jdnoth said:
Let's apply this idea to a CD before I go any further. When you buy a CD do you own the music on the disc? No you don't. You have bought the right to listen to that music on the disc for your own personal use. You are not allowed to do whatever you want with it... like upload it to a sharing site where tons of people can download it for free or using it as back ground music for your new TV show you have in production. It's not yours. You have bought the right to listen to it. When you buy a game disc, you have bought the rights to play the game and game options that are advertised on the box. To go back to Resident Evil 5, no where on the box (or in the booklet for that matter), does it say that you are receiving the bonus multiplayer mode for purchasing the disc. You got what you paid for. Remember, you didn't even know it was there until CAPCOM told you so.
Do you work at capcom or have intimate knowledge of their development structure? If not, just because one company allots resources to a separate DLC team does not mean that all do. This feature could very well have been developed by the same team then they thought "hey, lets just lock it and charge them!"Ladie Au Pair said:
Even if it WASN'T do you really expect the large majority of the populous to care or even try to understand? To them it seems like the company is just flat out tearing at their pockets. I'm a software developer myself, and if my clients found out we were going to add some new features that didn't require a massive software revision but had to charge them for it they would come over and punch me in the face... though our software is a lot more expensive than games are so I suppose that analogy is a moot point.
Not really... but Capcom said just about what I said here.AC10 said:
http://kotaku.com/5170633/capcom-calls-bs-on-resident-evil-5-dlc-complaints
I'd just say it's stupid, not crossing a certain line. Paying at all is still annoying, but a few games have been doing similar things, most notably some PC ones. Still, the cost isn't too bad for the major content you unlock.
So yeah, I'd say stupid but not a specific line that has been crossed. If they charged us an arm and a leg plus our firstborn for it then I'd probably feel differently.
So yeah, I'd say stupid but not a specific line that has been crossed. If they charged us an arm and a leg plus our firstborn for it then I'd probably feel differently.
This is in no way worse than any other method of DLC. It's just that they make the DLC along with the game. Don't see anything wrong with that.
1. RE5 is a significantly shorter than RE4. So it isn't really the same single player features. On top of this; Resident Evil 4 was released for £40 rrp (http://www.gamershell.com/news_19159.html). Resident Evil 5 on the other hand has a release price of £45 without the DLC (http://www.game.co.uk/search.aspx?platform=11271&s=resident+evil+5&sort=itemOrderasc). And finally, they are both estimated to have had development cycles of around 4 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_4#Development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_5#Development). Ya *****, who da juggernaut?Ladie Au Pair said:
2. Untrue. Bethesda, for example, documented the development of their Fallout DLC after the game was released. Same with Little Big Planet and Metal Gear Online. Even if this isn't always the case, then Capcom are still carrying on an abhorrent marketing ploy. Which isn't much better than pioneering it. The people who made the versus "DLC" have their wages paid by Capcom. In no way do they directly profit from this. And all of the different parts of a development team are broken up into different little departments. People who make the multiplayer aspects of a game always work with a degree of independence from the single player devs. Unless the programming team is small and they have to multi-task.
If you really are in the industry you simply cannot be serious about what you have said so far.
okayLadie Au Pair said:
My biggest problem lies with my idealism. I personally feel that every game should be made as absolutely good as it can with what they have. If they had a mode ready, by principle, I feel it should have been included in the game regardless if they could justify selling it as DLC or not.
I don't really have any problem with this. Unlockable/downloadable content is content you pay for, regardless of whether it is on the disc to start with or you download a file from Xbox Live. What difference does it make? You are getting something that wasn't advertised or included with the initial game release. When you buy the DLC/UC, you get something no one else has unless they pay for it too. Seems fair to me.
Now, whether this type of behavior is innappropriate or, in other words, "likely to piss off the gamers," is a completely different question. Obviously, judging from the furor on these boards, most gamers don't like this type of behavior from a publisher. I don't have a problem with what Capcom has done, but clearly most do. So I would say it was not their smartest move. But I don't think ther is anything inherently wrong with it.
Now, whether this type of behavior is innappropriate or, in other words, "likely to piss off the gamers," is a completely different question. Obviously, judging from the furor on these boards, most gamers don't like this type of behavior from a publisher. I don't have a problem with what Capcom has done, but clearly most do. So I would say it was not their smartest move. But I don't think ther is anything inherently wrong with it.
The crosses the line, came back, took a dump on the line and the carried on going. I really hate the arguements FOR the dlc cause all they seem to be is Capcom are a company and they need to make money. Well yes but they also have to keep the fanbase happy something they haven't done in a majority.