So Just How Much DLC Does Evolve Have at Launch? $100 Worth

[Kenjitsuka]

Okay... I'm stunned. Just leave it at "That's a shit-ton of dollars... :O ".

 

[martyrdrebel27]

So Just How Much DLC Does Evolve Have at Launch? $136 Worth

It'll set you back more than double the cost of the base game to get the complete Evolve experience.

At this point, Evolve's DLC policy [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139496-Evolve-Dev-Defends-DLC-Practices] is a pretty well-known point of contention in the gaming world. But just how much DLC is there available for the game, which just launched this week? At launch, Evolve currently has $136 worth of additional content for purchase - more than twice the value of the "full" retail game.

Breaking it down further, there are 44 pieces of $2-$7 Evolve add-on content listed on the game's Xbox Marketplace product page [https://store.xbox.com/en-US/Xbox-One/Dlc/Evolve/35299174-27da-43ba-a210-737fa4325267?page=1]. To be fair, these are all cosmetic enhancements for hunters, monsters and weapons, such the Kraken Wendigo Skin ($3), the Assault Ragnarok Skin Pack ($5), and the Goliath Bog Skin ($3).

On top of this, there is the $25 season pass [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139428-Evolve-Shows-off-New-Monster-Season-Pass-Deluxe-Editions] which will eventually unlock four new Hunters. There's also technically the "PC Monster Race" special edition which costs an additional $40 over the game's base $60 price tag, and includes the content from the season pass a fifth monster, two new hunters and four additional skins.

So, if you go out and buy the base game ($60), with the PC Monster Race edition ($40), or just the season pass ($25), and then go out and buy all the DLC on the store ($136), you're looking at $221-$236 for a game that has just been released. And that's not even taking into account the poor Australians, who will likely pay double that.

Turtle Rock certainly wasn't kidding when it said the game will have lots of DLC [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136058-Evolve-Will-Have-Lots-of-DLC].

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/evolve-launches-with-136-worth-of-dlc/1100-6425237/]

Permalink

This is incredibly misleading reporting. You should be absolutely ashamed. You've counted the packs and the individual items from those packs which are available alone. To get all the content you wouldn't spend nearly what you claim. Do your research next time.

Edit: After reading all these comments, the only responsible thing would be to post a retraction, not an update.

 

[Steven Bogos]

This is incredibly misleading reporting. You should be absolutely ashamed. You've counted the packs and the individual items from those packs which are available alone. To get all the content you wouldn't spend nearly what you claim. Do your research next time.

After looking through the store, it seems you are correct. The actual cost of the DLC when all of the packs are removed is $75. I have updated the article to reflect this. I apologize for not properly checking my facts, and will endeavor to make sure it does not happen again

 

[RedDeadFred]

Ya, people can argue that a lot of these are just skins. However, even Call of Duty doesn't charge for this kind of shit (or, at least they didn't in the last version I played). Skins should be something you can unlock to allow you to customize your character and show off your accomplishments. I'm okay with F2P games doing it since they obviously need to make money from something, but charging for something like character customization, a thing that's free in most other AAA games seems pretty underhanded to me.

That's just the skins... the rest is much worse IMO.

From what I've seen of the game, and from what a couple of my friends have told me, Jim Sterling's review seems to be pretty spot on.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I'm sure this will be an unpopular point of view, but something no one ever seems to consider is that the price of games has been stable at $60 for -decades- now. Think about all the other things we buy - fast food, gas, clothing, etc. - and you'll note that all of that stuff has increased in price over time with inflation. A $60 Nintendo game in 1985 would cost over $130 today (and some of them retailed above $60 back then). 'Gamer entitlement' gets thrown around pretty often with no real basis, but it's hard to think of any other factor as to why we believe we should continue paying a maximum of $60 for a AAA game when so many things around us have increased in price, including the development costs of these titles. The only way to have the $60 price point remain a viable business option would be to increase the base cost of the game (and I'm sure that would go over well...), or to add random cosmetic options that add a second revenue stream. Personally, I'd rather the latter, as that's content I'm more than welcome to ignore.

All of that said, it's also worth noting that not every game is worth $60. Some should cost more at their launch, others less. As an example, I would personally still buy the next Elder Scrolls game (single-player, not the MMO) for $100 at launch. I spend enough time with those games that I would still get more than my money's worth out of them. Dragon Age: Inquisition is another that would have been worth that price point. I've put over 100 hours into it already and that was a single playthrough. That's less than $1 per -hour- of value I've obtained out of those games. Now, something like Destiny, which I enjoy but don't spend all that much time on, I would value around $40. I'm sure plenty of people would believe that game has $100 value though. And shorter games that are single-player focused, let's say around 6 hours of content, should consider capping at a $40 price point. Unless price variability becomes an actual market force, though, every game will stay $60 regardless of amount of content.

Game prices stay stable partly because they are largely an unlimited resource (like all creative works), and there is relatively little direct cost involved with each copy.

The pricing is completely artificial, and unlike most goods bears little relation to manufacturing costs, because, well, in some sense there isn't any. (well, disks, manuals and such aren't free, but you can change to a different, cheaper distribution media without technically changing the game in any way)

The pressures that dictate the price of most regular goods simply hold no meaning for anything in which the term 'intellectual property' can be used. Prices drift towards whatever leads to the peak number of sales, because there are no real other factors to consider.

Development costs are always very tricky to consider with any product, because they are one-off costs.

It may cost 1 billion to develop a new model of car, but each car still costs thousands in materials and labour to make.
The development cost remains the same whether one car is made, or 10 million.

Logically, anything for which the development cost is pretty much the only cost, leads to each individual copy having value inversely proportional to the total number of copies in existence.
(which leads to the obvious situation that without copyright protection the value of such works is basically $0, because it's only the laws propping it up. If anyone could legally make a copy, you could buy a copy from anyone that already has one, but that would make the number of potential sources of such copies grow exponentially, and soon the value would drop off hugely)

Of course, in the real world, you can't price things that way, so they have to hope they sell enough copies at a high enough price to make back the dev costs, rather than actually pricing things proportionally as the logic behind what it's worth in reality would suggest.

Lots of things have prices related to manufacturing costs. That's partly why computers and electronics are actually cheaper now (even in absolute terms, let alone after taking into account inflation), than they were 30 years ago.

But games don't really follow any outside factors of any kind other than those that directly impact development cost.

And you can't arbitrarily raise the price of games and actually expect to make more money out of it, because the numbers just don't work out.

2 sales at $60 is better than one sale at $110... Especially if the manufacturing cost per item is minimal (which for games, it usually is.)

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Getting mugged at gunpoint would be a better investment of my money than this game. At least criminals are upfront about taking your money.

edit; Just checked Steam, approx. 5,400 reviews with 1,900 panning it (earning it a Mixed rating). It's overall score is 78/100.

I wonder how the devs will address this.

 

[Avalanche91]

But they don't want us to think of this as shady business.... they said so themselves.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I don't have a problem with DLC as such (it's a nice way of extending the play-time of a game that you've played to death for the last six months/a year/two years) but day-one DLC is a fucking joke. Any content ready and available at time of launch should be included in the full title. I can even understand releasing a title early to compete with the release schedule of a rival title and then finishing the incomplete content over the coming months as DLC, but holding back ready-to-go content just to squeeze bucks out of players on release day is ropey as hell.

 

[RicoADF]

http://www.adrants.com/images/middle_finger_drawing.jpg

I'm on the same page as Jim. This is gonna be the game that fell out of the bullshit tree and hit every branch on the way down.

You pretty much hit my views on the head, these guys can go f$%k themselves!
Maybe once the $20 GOTY with all DLC comes out I may get it, not many games are worth even $100 let alone $160 (probably more for us Aussies).

 

[Zato-1]

I don't have a problem with DLC as such (it's a nice way of extending the play-time of a game that you've played to death for the last six months/a year/two years) but day-one DLC is a fucking joke. Any content ready and available at time of launch should be included in the full title. I can even understand releasing a title early to compete with the release schedule of a rival title and then finishing the incomplete content over the coming months as DLC, but holding back ready-to-go content just to squeeze bucks out of players on release day is ropey as hell.

It's what Microsoft did with Windows 7. You want this super crippled version of Windows 7, subtitled "Home Basic"? It's the cheapest one! You want the full version of Windows 7, subtitled "Ultimate"? It's an outrageously expensive piece of software! They cut their product up into pieces, and then charge you for every feature separately, in order to extort as much money from you as possible.

People hated all the different versions (and the fact that you needed a spreadsheet to tell what each one would and wouldn't let you do) so much, that Microsoft relented and dramatically toned it down for Windows 8. I guess it'll take a game using this business model to bomb before publishers realize this may not be a good idea; I hope Evolve will be that game.

 

[babinro]

I've never understood people's problem with timely DLC.

Why is okay to wait 2 years for DLC when most of us will want the extra content at the height of our gaming interest soon after the launch window?

People do realize that DLC is planned LONG before game launch regardless, right?
It's not like they released Skyrim, waited for reviews and then started discussing if DLC would be a good idea. If this is something that is inevitably going to exist anyways then as a consumer I'd want it available ASAP. Day 1 DLC is a GOOD thing.

The real question with Evolve should be this...does the base game experience feel like a complete game?

If the answer is yes then there's absolutely nothing wrong with how much DLC was added and the cost of it all. That's always been how we've evaluated DLC for even the best of games...it shouldn't change now.

If the answer is no then people deserve to be upset and shouldn't support the practice through buying the game.

 

[Colin Bagley]

Chill.

It's just skins.

Yeah, skins used to be included on disk, back in PS1 and 2 era. Either as cheat codes or unlockables.

But Skin DLC is literally the least evil of all DLC.
It's not asking for a sub. It's not withholding characters, story missions, or Maps (Which only end up dividing groups up anyway.)
It's not even full of Microtransactions like the last 2 Bioware games.

Also, as for people getting pissed off about the inclusion of more monsters later...
FFS people. Make up your minds here.
Your upset about DLC being Day 1, because it could have been on the disk. Saying that it's better to produce more content in later weeks and sell it then. But woe-befall anybody who actually does!


Oh, and correcting a few... inaccuracies.
There are not 4 hunters at launch. There are 12.
You start with access to the first 8. Then have to unlock the last one for each class through doing well in the 5th-8th. Which isn't hard.


Edit-


Also, I remember far, FAR worse practices last gen.
Dragon Age: Origins. God I love that game...
Bioware sent a random dud into my party's very campsite. Standing conspicuously by the hedges, certainly very visibly. Upon talking to this campsite gate-crasher, we learn about a new adventure. One of Wardens of old, their failed mission, and a mysterious castle. Well count me in. Let's go!
Oh wait. I can't. I need to go give them more IRL money first...

 

[TKretts3]

Yup. All of that DLC, all of that cost, for a multi-player-only game. And no, "Multi-player but with bots" does not constitute as a proper single-player campaign.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

DLC generally does not appeal to me at all. Other than the stuff I got with the goty version of Oblivion and the Skyrim DLC (minus the buggy as fuck/unremarkable Hearthfire) I don't think I've spent much on DLC in my life.

I think I got Heavenly Sword costumes got Little Big Planet, and a few other things here and there over the years.

I liked the Bethesda stuff I got. I never had the option of the xbox Oblivion DLCs and I never bother using horses in the games so the horse armor went unnoticed/unpurchased.

Evolve, does not interest me. It has always come across like its just the tacked on multiplayer on some generic fps minus the actual single player campaign.

I've seen maybe 5 different streamers play around with it over the months, and it is incredibly boring looking. I do give it credit for being somewhat different than current competing games in the genre.

But when games like Turok: Rage Wars exist, ancient by today's standards, that offer way more content on the cartridge with way more exciting gameplay/characters/weapons/levels etc. I kind of shake my head. I always had fun playing as the raptor and taking out my friends that had all the cool weapons and vice versa. And we didn't waste 10 minutes wandering around trying to find each other before inevitably heading to the damn power thingy in the end anyway.

We spawned, we grabbed powerups, killed each other in exciting and varied ways, repeat. Sure the dome in Evolve is useful, and being able to throw rocks and breath fire etc. is cool and all as a monster but its nothing compared to tagging someone with a chest burster or a flare to the face in a ~15 year old game.

I could probably spend a great deal of time listing any number of things in just about any game from the last 25 years more interesting than Evolve but that is just my opinion.

Ultimately they want people to drop $60 on a game with only a handful of maps/characters/abilities/weapons and then pay about 120% more money on cosmetic stuff? I guess its ok, Koei/Capcom games are primarily DLC these days as opposed to games in the first place.

That is just the industry now. I always think it good to show your opinion on such matters by not buying crap you don't see a need for, but lament the fact that not buying something means absolutely nothing.

People will still buy it, in droves, regardless. So its up to the people with stronger opinions than I to raise a real stink over it, making themselves look like total asshats in the process, but being entertaining enough to get the mob behind them to shame/ridicule/boycott/and avoid the people and products that are turning our industry into AAA garbage.

Personally I give DLC practices like this a pass, because raising a stink only creates publicity and the games will fail on their own if warranted. No one is making you buy the stuff, unless you are playing one of those f2p games that literally are barely 3 steps away from being a popup on your screen asking for $ after every action.

 

[Erttheking]

Chill.

It's just skins.

Not all of it. A good chunk of it (25-40 dollars worth) is about hunters and monsters that you play as.

And even then I'm getting freaking overload from a game that's already asking for 60 bucks and then shoving so much shit in my face. It's not like LoL where the base game is free.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I don't understand why everybody hates DLC.
You can hate a game for being incomplete and charging full price for it + the dlc that would make it a full game. But if you they create more content and give you the option to buy it how is that bad?
Its like getting extensions on your house. You wouldn't ***** to the builder about how you already paid for the house and so he should do it for free.

I can't take anybody seriously when they say they will avoid a game just because it has a lot of DLC. Brings me back to all the gamer entitlement threads that popped up around here.

 

[Vivi22]

No, it wouldn't. For one example, Super Mario Bros 2 would cost $5 today. [http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/ZP3N5PNR_eZUQV43Ukwtbl-QauOYWNMC]

You missed the point he was making. Google inflation and do some reading.

Snip

With the first paragraph you may have a point. Prices have not been adjusted for inflation, but the audience has increased massively, possibly off-setting the cost of inflation

There's no possibly off setting inflation here. Back in the day a game like Final Fantasy or other hit titles on the NES and SNES were a bonified hit if they sold a couple hundred thousand copies. Now there are publishers who consider a game a flop if it "only" sells 10-50 times that much. Compared to the doubling in price that people bring up if inflation actually factored into game prices, the number of units companies are moving so vastly outpaces any losses due to inflation that the market would have to shrink substantially for it to even be a point worth considering.

If companies can't make money on the sort of sales they can achieve these days, it's because they didn't plan their development costs or forecast their sales correctly. And if you're a small company that isn't even sure what your sales could be or how to figure it out, you should be spending as little money as possible to get the job done as you can.

 

[TKretts3]

I don't understand why everybody hates DLC.
You can hate a game for being incomplete and charging full price for it + the dlc that would make it a full game. But if you they create more content and give you the option to buy it how is that bad?
Its like getting extensions on your house. You wouldn't ***** to the builder about how you already paid for the house and so he should do it for free.

I can't take anybody seriously when they say they will avoid a game just because it has a lot of DLC. Brings me back to all the gamer entitlement threads that popped up around here.

Because, going by your analogy, the base house that you purchase isn't all that big to begin with. Sure, the wall looks nice, it's all fancy and shiny, the garden is lovely, and the exterior makes it look distinguished, but all you get in the beginning is one room. You buy your house, at full price - a price you would pay for a full regular house - and all you get is a living room. No bedroom, no washroom, no kitchen - just a living room. Upon moving in the people who sold you your house 'casually' mention, "Oh yeah and we also have some more addition you could add to the house, if you want. Just giving you some options, don't want you to have to pay for what you don't want." And the 'additional options' cost double to triple what they should.

But hey, it's just optional. If you want you can just keep your $300,000 good looking living room, nobody is forcing you to buy a room to sleep in, a room to wash/use the toilet in, a room to cook/eat in - nope, it's completely your choice.

 

[Colin Bagley]

Every time I see people ***** about it costing $60. I have to do a double take.

PSN is asking for £54.99 for it to download. Which is insulting to UK customers because $60 = £39.07. (£54.99 = $84.48) But I payed £40 from Game (Store Credit from their loyalty card!)
And the Season Pass is £19.99.

So if anything, all this complaining about Pricing just seems petty, coming from you yanks.
And I'm a Brit. God only knows how pissed off Aussies are!

 

[JayRPG]

Every time I see people ***** about it costing $60. I have to do a double take.

PSN is asking for £54.99 for it to download. Which is insulting to UK customers because $60 = £39.07. (£54.99 = $84.48) But I payed £40 from Game (Store Credit from their loyalty card!)
And the Season Pass is £19.99.

So if anything, all this complaining about Pricing just seems petty, coming from you yanks.
And I'm a Brit. God only knows how pissed off Aussies are!

Pissed off Aussie here.

Not quite as bad as your PSN pricing though.

Our RRP is $99.95 AUD ($76.78 USD), which is what the PSN and EB games sell it at. The cheapest at retail is $89 AUD ($68.37 USD) at JB HiFi.

It'll cost a total of $170 AUD ($130.70 USD) to buy all the cosmetic DLC.

This isn't the worst thing coming in this year for Aussies though.

The Final Fantasy Type-0 HD collector's edition actually got an Australian release. The CE in the US is $99.99 USD ($130.06 AUD). The CE in Europe is ?99.99 ($147.73 AUD). The CE in the UK is £79.99 ($159.81 AUD).

So what do you think the price is for us? $130? $169 like most big collector's editions? Nope. $199.95. $199.95. Two hundred fucking dollars for a collector's edition that doesn't even have a statue.

$199.95 AUD is:
£100.08
?135.44
and a whopping $153.80 USD

Almost a 54% increase in price just because we live in Australia.

I got the Tales of Xillia 2 CE which came with a statue, a pocket watch, art book, steelbook, and soundtrack for $169.
The FF Type-O CE has an art book, manga, steelbook, soundtrack and 5 cards... for $199.95. Seriously. What the fuck.