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

[Steven Bogos]

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

It'll set you back an additional $100 to get all of the launch-day Evolve content.

Editor's Note: We initially incorrectly reported that it would cost players $136 to purchase all of Evolve's DLC. While it is correct that there is $136 worth of content available to purchase on the game's marketplace, this includes several larger bundles that contain multiple skins. With the bundles removed, the amount of content available on the store totals $75.

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 $100 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], totaling $75. 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 ($75), you're looking at $160-$175 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/]

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[The Preened Mr. Fust]

These people are a joke. I'm going to go ahead and toss them into the dung heap with EA and never buy their games. Any single one of those skins could have been a piece of additional content in the game that would have taken zero effort to implement. If Smash Bros can toss in extra characters that are just a reskin, these guys could have too.

This sort of thing is getting out of control.

 

[major_chaos]

I'm not going to buy Evolve because its not my kind of game, but the overblown rage mobs that form around every game launch, trailer, and announcement not made by one of the cult leaders like Valve or CDprojekt worries me more than anything any game company has ever done. So forgive me if I don't hop on the "OPTIONAL COSMETIC DLC IS RUINING GAMES BECAUSE I SAID SO, now hate what you are told to hate like a good little sheep" bandwagon.

Also you really oughta start tagging these wither either (news) or (opinion) so I know ahead of time if I'm going to get information or not.

 

[shintakie10]

As someone pointed out in the other thread, simply adding up all the dlc is incredibly disingenuous since there's bundles that include all the separate dlcs in them. Buying all the dlc in the shop would require you to be an idiot and to buy multiple things twice.

 

[MazokuRanma]

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.

 

[Metalrocks]

this makes EA look like a lamb with their premium content for the BF franchise. more reason not ot buy this game. this is just absurd.

 

[Erttheking]

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.

 

[JET1971]

Day 1 DLC means ALL of it should have been included in the standard game. Day 1 DLC is just as bad as on disk DLC, the same way to milk more money out of people. They could atleast make it look like it wasn't finished with the main game and hold the DLC back and sell 1 every 2 weeks, still bullshit but less insulting bullshit.

@MazokuRanma, the $60 price point is because pricing any higher and they start to lose too many sales making the release weekend profit less than pricing at $60. They make plenty of profit at the $60 price point without DLC through large volumes of sales. Sell 10 items for $20 or 30 items for $10 what makes more money? If the game makes a profit in the first week of sales then every sale after is nothing but profit minus packaging and distribution. make it a digital distribution and it's even more profit until they decide to stop selling it. No they do not need to increase the price, doing that only puts more money in the shareholders pockets.

 

[Grumman]

A $60 Nintendo game in 1985 would cost over $130 today (and some of them retailed above $60 back then).

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

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

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

The second paragraph doesn't really make sense when you apply it to most other things you buy. I bought a soccer ball for $30 and kicked it around for over 100 hours, but I don't think the price should be raised. Or with movie tickets, 2-3 hours for 20-30 dollars?
Maybe those examples were a bit silly. What I'm trying to say is, I could get 100 hours out of cup-and-ball if I wanted to, but f they raised the price to $60 that'd be ridiculous.

 

[the_maestro_sartori]

Not sure what scares me more, that they have the balls to release enough DLC at launch to triple the cost of the game, or the thought that people will pay it :s

 

[Panzervaughn]

These people are a joke. I'm going to go ahead and toss them into the dung heap with EA and never buy their games. Any single one of those skins could have been a piece of additional content in the game that would have taken zero effort to implement. If Smash Bros can toss in extra characters that are just a reskin, these guys could have too.

This sort of thing is getting out of control.

Its not "extra characters that are jsut a reskin" its JUST a reskin.

Its the same as valve leting you purchase Flags and hats in Portal2.

 

[dangoball]

Guess I'll join the minority here in asking "What seems to be the problem, my friends?"

Sure, just like anyone else I'm a bit grumpy about DLC hunters and monsters, but at least the maps will be free. As for the 136 USD worth of DLC - the article itself said it JUST COSMETICS. Don't want blowing money on cosmetics? Don't blow money on cosmetics! It's that simple, fellas. This is no story-centric Day 1 DLC like From Ashes or even gameplay enhancing, just needles fluff. A good source of additional revenue for the devs from people who want to support them and have some bling for it. Sure, Nintendo might give you visual fluff for free, but you don't need it, so why not capitalize on the needlessness of fluff? It's not hurting anyone or their wallets. Unless you have a compulsive need to buy EVERYTHING, but in that case you should not be on Steam. You should be at a therapy session.

Now the season pass and PCMR version are a bit questionable, but to the same extent as any other season pass or premium edition, nothing to get bend out of shape over or call them the newest span of DLC Satan.

 

[Nazulu]

Full price for a multi-player game where many people have said you see pretty much everything in a couple of games. Season pass for some extra shit and a crap ton of DLC sitting there straight after release, overpriced too. As well as their abominable pre-purchase bonuses. It's a fucking disgusting trend that I will not be apart of!

JUST COSMETICS as some people feel is a good point in this, could of been part of the original package (because remember, it's a full fucking priced multi-player game), and we really have no idea what could have been included. You can't say you do, you just have their word. Just like EA!

Then there are people saying Valve does the same thing, even though TF2 is fucking free to download and Portal 2 is also single-player. Just amazing. No wonder gaming has gone down the shitter.

Why is it that when I first bought Red Alert 2, it was not only cheaper with a single-player and multi-player mode, but after a month they started throwing up extra maps and missions as free DLC? They dedicated part of their site to new official and fan made maps. RA2 isn't the only classic game that did this too!

 

[Maxtro]

"PC Monster Race"

I really don't like the idea that they are going to have monsters as DLC. I can see them trying to charge around $10 for each new monster and odds are there will be a lot more.

 

[Belaam]

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).

Not unpopular, but simply biased. The PC I bought in 1999 had a 1GB hard drive and cost $2,000. Shall we talk pricing, memory, and computing power of a raspberry pi in comparison?

I pay $10 for a movie theater ticket whether I am seeing an action movie with a $200 million dollar budget or an indie film made on a $200,000 budget.

Hell,Skyrim has sumstantially more hours of play than Assassin's Creed, yet they are the same price.

Twelve characters, three monsters and four game variations does not seem comparable to ... Well anything else out right now.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Yep, that's one game I'm avoiding.
Unless I get it for free.

 

[pearcinator]

I think all this bullshit DLC is going to cost them rather than make them any money. Many people (like myself) are going to be turned-off from buying the game if most of its content is behind pay walls. The game doesn't really appeal to me anyway.

 

[QuadFish]

The $136 in cosmetics really isn't so bad. If a game has $1000 in cosmetic items but keeps all the important fragmenting content free for everyone then there's not really an issue aside from people being whiny, and the devs still make a lot of money from the people with lots of disposable income around. Keeping 6 new hunters and a monster, in other words massive parts of the gameplay, away from people who won't pay is where problems happen. Once they start charging for maps (thereby actually excluding people from playing with others) you boycott the game imo.