Titanfall Gets Season Pass, Origin-Exclusive Digital DX Edition

[Sanunes]

I mean look at Borderlands 2, it's 10 bucks for a character ...when the game is 20 dollars itself. THere's probably over 60 dollars of DLC in the game. I mean how do people feel who bought Borderlands 2 for $60 then wound up buying all the DLC after? Especially after all the steam sales probably allowing for under $40 dollars for everything total.

Just going to comment on Borderlands 2 since I bought it over the Winter Sale. I do agree that there is a lot of DLC attached to the game, but I waited to get it and I think with 75% off everything (including the GOTY version) I picked up everything for about $20 minus the nickle and dime character skins.

Now if you bought everything at a straight price when it was released (including cosmetic character skins) the total cost for Borderlands 2 DLC is over $120 (including $30 for character skins), but if you bought the Season Pass you can save $15 for all you get is the first character level increase and the four story DLC. Then add in the cost of buying the game itself.

I know people are upset with how they feel EA does DLC, but when I see how other companies release DLC like this I don't understand why it seems all the hate is directed to one company.

 

[GAunderrated]

I mean look at Borderlands 2, it's 10 bucks for a character ...when the game is 20 dollars itself. THere's probably over 60 dollars of DLC in the game. I mean how do people feel who bought Borderlands 2 for $60 then wound up buying all the DLC after? Especially after all the steam sales probably allowing for under $40 dollars for everything total.

I know people are upset with how they feel EA does DLC, but when I see how other companies release DLC like this I don't understand why it seems all the hate is directed to one company.

It isn't solo hate for EA. Many other publishers pull the same crap and get flamed for it as well. However, just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it immune to criticism. If companies want to pull practices like this they are free to do so but I am also free to not purchase and express my dissatisfaction with their decisions.

 

[Arawn]

I wanted to comment on the whole season pass thing, but I realized I've bought into it before. I got the season pass for Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead. But in my defense both of those games are/were under $20. I've pre-ordered games due to the bonuses, but I don't think I've ever pre-ordered and bought a season pass in the same breath. It has the whole day one DLC feel to it. You want to know if they could have added such content on the original product rather than after the release. Since there's no single player you'd expect they devoted quite abit of time to the game. So the question is this; how many maps will be released per DLC pack. I pray it's only maps and not additional Titans. Can you imagine the level of rage to know that new robots only for those paying. Not wise. The only other option is skins for pilots, weapons, and mechs. Oh wells. If you're digging the game by all means buy the maps as they come out. But seems silly to put all the money down should interest dwindle. I'm the first to admit my short attention span. I'll jump to the next big shiny and revisit the other things during the dry periods.

 

[chikusho]

Meh. You can always just wait for the new content before deciding if you want to buy it.
Sure, season passes can be confusing, and may be kind of unethical, but it's nothing that an educated consumer can't get around.
Did anyone seriously think this game wouldn't have droves of DLC?

 

[Blaze the Dragon]

Woah, the game with no artstyle or color palette that looks just like Call of HonorField 360 that claims to redefine the genre without actually doing much of anything and doesn't even have a single player mode is turning out to just be another generic shooter run by EA? I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

 

[electric method]

Ah... Borderlands 2 DLC. Now see, that is DLC done RIGHT. Each of the 4 dlc packs are massive for DLC and have 10-20 hours of play time EACH. Each one is well above average and Tiny Tina's DLC is simply outstanding. The additional levels being sold separately are bogus, but as was mentioned the first level cap increase was free for season pass holders. I had no issues with paying for additional characters as I didn't buy the Psycho and the Mechromancer was free for me as I had pre-ordered Borderlands 2. Truthfully, I wish more developers would end up supporting their games with the type of quality DLC that Gearbox did with Borderlands 2.

Titanfall's though, yeah that's just going to be map packs and new guns most likely. And, anyone that played the beta, and was paying attention, could tell that Titanfall's maps were abysmal, washed out, brown, gray, mud colored, poorly designed play spaces. If one thinks Respawn is going to be able to deliver quality maps, let alone quality DLC (given their history as Infinty Ward were they didn't publish a single piece of good DLC), I have some nice beach front property in Death Valley to sell them.

 

[Ratty]

You know what, you're totally right. I remember those good old days where I had to buy each iteration of Street Fighter 2 for my SNES at over $100 a pop because they added a little content and a couple of new characters. Though surely I'm somehow too young to remember any of that having not even been in my mother's womb yet at the time or something. That was totally a better arrangement than being able to invest a small amount over the course of a year to keep a game fresh when I know I'm likely to be playing it anyway. Or, you know, I could not buy the season pass at all and just play the included maps and content.

The difference is that Street Fighter 2 was one big game that got away with that.[footnote]Though obviously Capcom has since tried to pull that shit with just about every game they thought they could do so with. With varying degrees of success.[/footnote] You didn't really see that much with other games/publishers, and all of the different versions of SF2 were the result of tweaking after the original release. Adding in characters and changing things around to keep players coming back in the arcades. As opposed to today where parts of the game are being cut off and resold as DLC as a matter of course.

 

[Shayman]

That is a very reasonable price. The Origin exclusive is a bit of kick in the pants for people who have pre-ordered elsewhere but there's not much else to complain about.

 

[Citizen Graves]

Lovely, so we get NO single player campaign, instead all work went into making the multiplayer and that amounts to a total of 15 maps, which is 1 less than Call of Poopy offers every year, a game that also offers a SP and Co-op campaign every year.

Just looking at the amount of content offered between the 2 franchises and disregarding the quality of said content, does anyone else here smell a rip-off on EA's and Respawn's part?

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

I know people are upset with how they feel all publishers not just EA does DLC, but when I see how other companies release DLC like this I don't understand why it seems all the hate is directed to one company.

I think a lot of people don't like publishers DLC culture (I personally wait til the GOTY's), some of the open and honest comments respawn had made recently, had probably gotten people hopeful that TF wouldnt be held to the smae DLC/Season Pass schenanigans

 

[fix-the-spade]

Well I'll see if the maps are worth it same as every other game. I'm not too happy about this but it isn't unexpected.

This is part of the problem, the maps are never worth it. We've seen from Halo and CoD in particular that the paid for maps are nothing compared to what the mod community pumps out on a weekly basis (all Source Engine games stand as testament to this). Rather than produce a quality product the publishers have mostly chosen to just DRM the mod community out of existence.

Case in point for EA would be BF3, which had some small but ace mods popping up shortly after release (night time, colour filter removal, spectator mode etc) until EA started closing the accounts of anyone who dared touch them.

 

[Terwo]

Get your tits out lads! It's milking time

 

[Atmos Duality]

Ugh, and here I thought Respawn had enough sense (and influence) to not let EA's terrible business strategies infect them.

Despite their relationship with EA, they have one of the two most hyped games coming out in the near future (and probably the entire year). Of course they're going to milk it for all its worth.

Season Passes are a big hit or miss sort of thing.
You're gambling on the future by buying one, but there's a chance it will end up being worth the cash.
(Borderlands 2's reputation is well-deserved; the DLC mission packs were of VERY high quality and value)

Of course, I expect the consumer value of Season Passes to fall as demand picks up, since the publishers will do what they always do: exploit the model with "less-for-more" schemes when it gets popular, resulting in backlash from obvious milking.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the inevitable splitting of the player base caused by not-free map packs.

That's part of the scheme: Create an initial split in the installbase, and hope by networking, they will encourage other users to buy the map packs.

 

[PMAvers]

Ah... Borderlands 2 DLC. Now see, that is DLC done RIGHT. Each of the 4 dlc packs are massive for DLC and have 10-20 hours of play time EACH. Each one is well above average and Tiny Tina's DLC is simply outstanding. The additional levels being sold separately are bogus, but as was mentioned the first level cap increase was free for season pass holders. I had no issues with paying for additional characters as I didn't buy the Psycho and the Mechromancer was free for me as I had pre-ordered Borderlands 2. Truthfully, I wish more developers would end up supporting their games with the type of quality DLC that Gearbox did with Borderlands 2.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeh. "All" of them were above average? I'd dispute that. Tina's knocked it out of the park, and Torgue's was fun as well but had the most obnoxious end boss ever created. Scarlett's was pretty okay... but Hammerlock's was unfun personified. Especially those stupid Shaman.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I see no issue here at all. First, if you're at all interested in a multiplayer only online game, you're going to be interested in the map packs as well.

This must be a new train of thought for the younger generation of gamers which I feel sorry for you. It is that very attitude why EA and other publishers are so dead set on nickel and diming you to the very last penny.

You know what, you're totally right. I remember those good old days where I had to buy each iteration of Street Fighter 2 for my SNES at over $100 a pop because they added a little content and a couple of new characters. Though surely I'm somehow too young to remember any of that having not even been in my mother's womb yet at the time or something. That was totally a better arrangement than being able to invest a small amount over the course of a year to keep a game fresh when I know I'm likely to be playing it anyway. Or, you know, I could not buy the season pass at all and just play the included maps and content.

Even then its not a good value. $60 for a game that only has a few years shelf life because its multiplayer only and relies on EA servers to be up where as you paid $100 for a game 20 years ago that you can still play the full version today if you kept it. Not sure why you can't see the difference in value while rationalizing getting screwed. lol

Absolutely. And just how many online only multiplayer focused games from 20 years ago are you still playing today?

It would be nice if we all still lived in the days of the SNES, but we pretty much don't. It's not rationalizing being screwed, it's actually accepting reality. Also, blaming it all on EA isn't going to get you anywhere when almost every single game company out there is doing nearly/exactly the same thing.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I see no issue here at all. First, if you're at all interested in a multiplayer only online game, you're going to be interested in the map packs as well.

This must be a new train of thought for the younger generation of gamers which I feel sorry for you. It is that very attitude why EA and other publishers are so dead set on nickel and diming you to the very last penny.

You know what, you're totally right. I remember those good old days where I had to buy each iteration of Street Fighter 2 for my SNES at over $100 a pop because they added a little content and a couple of new characters. Though surely I'm somehow too young to remember any of that having not even been in my mother's womb yet at the time or something. That was totally a better arrangement than being able to invest a small amount over the course of a year to keep a game fresh when I know I'm likely to be playing it anyway. Or, you know, I could not buy the season pass at all and just play the included maps and content.

Hey, hey, hey....hey ....At least Capcom learned their lesson right?
I mean they only put out how many versions of Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter 3 & 4 and rereleased Resident Evil 4 how many times? .....................Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, they haven't learned shit.
.

Actually, they have learned a bit. They still make major screw ups (SFxT on disc DLC anyone?) but they have reduced pricing on their "update" releases and are offering updates to pretty much all of their current fighting games as digital downloads. So, yes, they are still making an Ultra Street Fighter 4 but at least they are letting you choose to either buy/download it as a patch for your current version of the game or buy the full version on a disc but with all cosmetic DLC included and at a lower price than you would have paid for vanilla Street Fighter 4.

 

[StriderShinryu]

You know what, you're totally right. I remember those good old days where I had to buy each iteration of Street Fighter 2 for my SNES at over $100 a pop because they added a little content and a couple of new characters. Though surely I'm somehow too young to remember any of that having not even been in my mother's womb yet at the time or something. That was totally a better arrangement than being able to invest a small amount over the course of a year to keep a game fresh when I know I'm likely to be playing it anyway. Or, you know, I could not buy the season pass at all and just play the included maps and content.

The difference is that Street Fighter 2 was one big game that got away with that.[footnote]Though obviously Capcom has since tried to pull that shit with just about every game they thought they could do so with. With varying degrees of success.[/footnote] You didn't really see that much with other games/publishers, and all of the different versions of SF2 were the result of tweaking after the original release. Adding in characters and changing things around to keep players coming back in the arcades. As opposed to today where parts of the game are being cut off and resold as DLC as a matter of course.

In some cases that's absolutely true (hey "missing chapters" from Assassins Creed!) but in others it is more a case of ongoing development of the game after launch. It would appear to me that, in the case of Titanfall, it's more likely to be the latter but I don't think anyone who doesn't work on the game can say for sure. DLC and Season passes as a whole are not a bad thing. What is bad is how some companies choose to use them.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Get ready to witness what is by all accounts a very decent game being milked for 'exclusives' by both Microsoft and EA.


You gotta feel for Respawn...