Xbox controversially raised the base price of its mainline games to $80 in an announcement a few weeks ago. Now, it seems to be backtracking. Good, I say.
But people forget about the DLC that is expected of the consumer to buy for the “full experience”. Some games don’t have a complete story if you don’t buy the DLC or you can’t access all the features without DLC, such as multiplayer games that don’t let you play with your friends if you don’t have that specific DLC pack.
So not only is it a $70 price up front, they also want you to spend, at least, an extra $30 on the new DLC season pass or buy the DLC separately at a slightly higher cost over time. Also not including the special edition packs with extras, either physical or digital, that add to that initial $70. Ubisoft is the biggest asshole in this space, going as high as $120 for a day 1 release.
I don’t doubt that game studio business models have gotten scummier, but I never liked the phrase “The full experience”.
There’s a few Bioware games I can cite where it was a terrible setup that added story-critical quests through DLC, but most often, a “special edition” or even the season passes tend to add very optional, often-ugly, costumes to games that already offer a number of costumes with the base game.
Saying it often makes people picture that they don’t get an ending to their story, or are locked out of abilities. There are live service games with that issue - the “hero model” being a frequent offender, but in the best of those games, the game’s base price is low and even the guide authors will acknowledge few people should feel the need to buy every character.
But people forget about the DLC that is expected of the consumer to buy for the “full experience”. Some games don’t have a complete story if you don’t buy the DLC or you can’t access all the features without DLC, such as multiplayer games that don’t let you play with your friends if you don’t have that specific DLC pack.
So not only is it a $70 price up front, they also want you to spend, at least, an extra $30 on the new DLC season pass or buy the DLC separately at a slightly higher cost over time. Also not including the special edition packs with extras, either physical or digital, that add to that initial $70. Ubisoft is the biggest asshole in this space, going as high as $120 for a day 1 release.
I don’t doubt that game studio business models have gotten scummier, but I never liked the phrase “The full experience”.
There’s a few Bioware games I can cite where it was a terrible setup that added story-critical quests through DLC, but most often, a “special edition” or even the season passes tend to add very optional, often-ugly, costumes to games that already offer a number of costumes with the base game.
Saying it often makes people picture that they don’t get an ending to their story, or are locked out of abilities. There are live service games with that issue - the “hero model” being a frequent offender, but in the best of those games, the game’s base price is low and even the guide authors will acknowledge few people should feel the need to buy every character.