Poll: Expansions Vs. DLC

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Don't forget Blizzard is packaging expansions and selling them as full price products now. Hey there $60 Heart of the Swarm! No thanks!

Edit: Wait nevermind. It's only $40. I swear I saw it for $60 somewhere. Oh well.

You're not crazy, it was $60. Back when they announced StarCraft 2 they said that it was going to be split into three parts, each part having the same amount of content as a full game (I recall them at one point stating that the Wings of Liberty campaign for just the Terran faction would be equally as long as all three of the original StarCraft race campaigns combined). Because each segment was supposed to be basically a full game, they planned to charge full price for each one.

I'm not exactly sure what happened to change their minds (I haven't read much into it), but if I had to hazard a guess, they probably dropped the price due to the development time. Going by their original timetable, all three parts should have been released by now. But this is Blizzard, and we all know their track record with timetables, so I have a feeling they would have dealt with a ton of fan backlash if they tried to charge full price for a game developed with three year old tech (or more, if we're talking about the third installment, which we probably won't see until the next next console generation comes out).

 

[IGetNoSlack]

I think that Gods&kings is a questionable example for a full expansion. Maps, wonders and civs already sell as "DLC" for Civ5 and the addition of religion and espionage doesn't make a new game.

Yes, but....

..Firaxis made some (admittedly really simple) tweaks to the game that change more than you'd expect. For example, the expansion of the HP from 10 to 100 completely redefines the combat, making it even more strategic. Without the new combat system, civs like Ethiopia & Carthage would be far less viable. Ditto for melee naval units. No coastal city is safe. This forces you to rethink the usefulness/power of certain civs including (but not limited to) Polynesia and England.

And espionage can be huge. The ability to tell the other civs (who now have retooled, smarter diplomatic AI) what other civs are up to can be extremely useful for playing the other civs off of each other and (possibly) getting a sneak domination victory.

Religion is also potentially big. Having the same religion as another civ greatly boosts your mutual diplomatic standing, allowing you to access military & economic assistance.

The changes in G&K make the game drastically different from the vanilla game. Strategies that may have worked for the vanilla game no longer apply.

So, in a sense you're right. G&K is not an expansion.

It could be considered a new game in it's own right.

CAPTCHA: Never been to New Orleans.