What do you think of Bioware's decision to charge extra for a launch DLC for ME3??

[Hicks12]

I just think thats bullcrap , i understand post launch dlc and support it as i can make my choice whether to have it or not but the fact that this DLC is going to cost £10, a third or in my case HALF of the original price of the whole game... how can the whole game production value only be double what this "optional" extra is? Its madness. The character in question sounds like a crucial part of the story development, its like cutting out a side character from a film and then asking you to pay half your cinema ticket to watch their scenes...

I love bioware as they produce absolutely amazing games and i wished they would join with bethesda as they would have an epic story with a truely stunny environment, ok maybe add crytek devs in for the graphics... sidetracking lol!.

If they left it as a preorder bonus id be happy but they arent, its stupid! And the pirates will get this all for free . The gaming industry is going DLC mad!.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I just think thats bullcrap , i understand post launch dlc and support it as i can make my choice whether to have it or not but the fact that this DLC is going to cost £10, a third or in my case HALF of the original price of the whole game... how can the whole game production value only be double what this "optional" extra is? Its madness. The character in question sounds like a crucial part of the story development, its like cutting out a side character from a film and then asking you to pay half your cinema ticket to watch their scenes...

This, and I bought almost all the story related DLCs for both the first games! Its not the cost(when I really come to think of it) even but the timing of this,and the whole two tier nature of the story at LAUNCH. If poor Bioware/EA is struggling financially then charge £5 to £8 extra for the standard version of the game with the complete LAUNCH story than having all this two tier bullcrap.

Then instead of wasting three months supposedly employing people to do the DLC,they could put more resources towards the main game.

Looking at the way FemShep runs in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUguWLpebXg

It looks terrible,but NO lets waste money on dividing the main story at launch into bits instead of getting the flipping MAIN game into order. Even the facial animations in the demo were poor considering it is 2012.

I see what EA/Bioware is doing here,as they are testing the waters here. Wait a few years and you will have basic,medium and high level story experiences for games. You might have to pay more just to get what was considered even a "full game" even now. Plus you will have crappy DRM and in-game advertising and be hopeful that if you computer crashes even once you are "allowed" to re-install the game for free. Of course there will be those who make excuses for all of this, as it is in the name of progress and helping "poor" people out (charity starts in your wallet).

At this rate I might as well support the smaller companies TBH!

Like I said it will be very interesting to see if the "DLC" is just unlockable content in the full game. Moreover,a lot of the script has already been leaked.

Apart from Arrival,the rest of the DLCs were really not needed and even then Arrival DLC arrived yonks after the second game was released. The first day DLC in question is a joke. This is unlike any of the other DLCs(apart from Arrival) as it involves the Protheans. The Protheans are a HUGE part of the first two games.

I saw the following cartoon on a forum yesterday. It is rather funny.

[kalniel]

Luckily I don't have to spend time writing out the many, many reasons I'm ok with day one DLC so long as it's meaningful and well developed. While everyone else was making amusing .gif's someone on the internet had already summarised my opinion fairly well in a handy graph

Right idea, but they've forgotten to add certification and logistics (distribution). That follows testing, and is much larger for a retail product than a DLC, which gives even more reason to create DLC in the meantime.

[Hicks12]

But the problem is... regardless if its DLC at the minute, those staff that were idle managed to make this extra content, fine thats excellent use of their time BUT its finished before launch so why is it extra content? Surely if you could add an extra 10 hours to the stock game and its ready and tested... why not ? Oh yes more money thats exactly why. If they actually increased the price across the board i wouldnt be to fussed but its the principle that its LAUNCH DLC, not even day one/two its pathetic to just say oh guys we made this but you can have it only if you pay extra over the "full game"... excellent.

Hope the backlash is plentiful, if they reverse their decision like they did with BF3 ill be happy!.

[Pete301]

I haven't played Mass Effect, so I have no idea how important the Protheans are to the game. However saying the DLC "team" would be reduced if there was no launch day DLC I find is hard to believe. I would find it perfectly acceptable for BioWare to begin creating DLC from day one, with the full intention of it being DLC throughout the whole game development. However it would make me a lot happier if they would just continue creating DLC and then release it as a larger DLC pack 6-9 months down the line maybe at like £12 or something.

I hate the idea of being offered up a game and then having to pay another third of the game's worth to unlock content that is released at the same time, wouldn't mind Cat's option of having the launch day price £5-£8 more expensive and include all the content.

EDIT: Also, I fully blame EA for this, BioWare are perfectly fine IMO

[kalniel]

But the problem is... regardless if its DLC at the minute, those staff that were idle managed to make this extra content, fine thats excellent use of their time BUT its finished before launch so why is it extra content? Surely if you could add an extra 10 hours to the stock game and its ready and tested... why not ?

Look at the diagrams again and add in the logistics/certification I mentioned. You don't need anything like the time for certification/distribution for DLC that you do for a boxed product. You have to finish the stock game a long time in advance of release, while DLC you don't.

So you can either

a) not make DLC. This is the norm from the last few years before digital distribution enabled it, and you would usually reduce your workforce accordingly.
b) make DLC and give it away - this costs you more because you're not laying off the workforce, but on the other hand additional registration etc. might encourage more first hand sales and make back the difference
c) make DLC and charge something for it - this covers the additional cost of maintaining workforce.

I don't understand why people think they must have everything ever created in a game series for the original price. Expansions, add-on DLCs, even sequels are perfectly accepted.

If the game isn't worth it on its own then don't buy it - that'll send the best message, while other people can pay for DLC if they want it, on its own merits.

Oh yes more money thats exactly why. If they actually increased the price across the board i wouldnt be to fussed but its the principle that its LAUNCH DLC, not even day one/two its pathetic to just say oh guys we made this but you can have it only if you pay extra over the "full game"... excellent.

That's just odd - why would you be happy to pay £35 for a game with included DLC content, but not say £30 for base game and £5 for the DLC content separately? Surely that's better for the consumer as they can opt in to the extra content if they need or, or otherwise save money by just getting the base game.

[aidanjt]

Oh for the love of God... Shipping an unfinished product is simply stupid, unprofessional, unethical, and fraudulent behaviour, and it says everything about what EA thinks of its customers. There's no nice way to put it.

Put it this way, if you paid £8 to watch a movie in the cinema, and half way through it cuts out, and prints "Please go back up to the ticket booth and pay another £4 to finish watching the movie", would you pay the £4 or demand a refund?

[jim]

If DLC is something that adds to the game, then I'm happy with that. If content is chopped so that it can be added back in, I'm not happy with it. And I think when that happens it's fairly obvious. ME2's launch DLC was blatantly the latter.

My big gripe though is that we used to have expansion packs - i.e. an entire new game and/or gameworld that really built on the previous games. Yuri's Revenge for instance, for Red Alert 2. And to a point, even modern games with the GTA4 DLC. All of this half-baked DLC that we have now, and yes, I'm looking at you Bethesda, I can't bear.

Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Oblivion were an absolute joke for DLC. The Orrery for instance. Or the pack with Fallout 4 that gives you some extra guns at the start. Even the big DLCs like Lonesome Road were terrible. Why release 8 or 9 packs of DLC when you could've made one excellent expansion pack?

[aidanjt]

[kalniel]

Oh for the love of God... Shipping an unfinished product is simply stupid, unprofessional, unethical, and fraudulent behaviour, and it says everything about what EA thinks of its customers. There's no nice way to put it.

What's unfinished about it?

It's no more unfinished than a game that has a sequel planned isn't it?

[Hicks12]

Look at the diagrams again and add in the logistics/certification I mentioned. You don't need anything like the time for certification/distribution for DLC that you do for a boxed product. You have to finish the stock game a long time in advance of release, while DLC you don't.

So you can either

a) not make DLC. This is the norm from the last few years before digital distribution enabled it, and you would usually reduce your workforce accordingly.
b) make DLC and give it away - this costs you more because you're not laying off the workforce, but on the other hand additional registration etc. might encourage more first hand sales and make back the difference
c) make DLC and charge something for it - this covers the additional cost of maintaining workforce.

I don't understand why people think they must have everything ever created in a game series for the original price. Expansions, add-on DLCs, even sequels are perfectly accepted.

If the game isn't worth it on its own then don't buy it - that'll send the best message, while other people can pay for DLC if they want it, on its own merits.

That's just odd - why would you be happy to pay £35 for a game with included DLC content, but not say £30 for base game and £5 for the DLC content separately? Surely that's better for the consumer as they can opt in to the extra content if they need or, or otherwise save money by just getting the base game.

Sorry i didnt seem to get my point across correctly! Shouldnt reply so briefly, apologies. What i meant is that if it generally cost half the whole games development to make then why not just make the game come with it, its part of the game its released at the same time so its essentially content that was as a similar time, incoperate it as full game content and for me id be fine if they said, guys our game budget was huge so the price is X amount, instead of saying... guys we finished the game but we made another MASSIVE part of the game and it cost alot to develop so here you go buy it seperately on day one.

I dont know i just generally dislike this idea, i wanted to get the collectors edition but couldnt get hold of any so im going to have to buy it... Is the extra content worth it? Wont know till i get it, i will wait till reviews are out as this month is hectic. I jsut wish they would give the benefit to the preorders and new game orders, thats fine as the second hand market generally does screw developers but this just to me seems step to far...

[aidanjt]

What's unfinished about it?

You mean aside the omission of the Pathenon character and thus the entire Patheon plotline? Leaving out entire core game content at 0-day is flogging an unfinished product, period.

[kalniel]

You mean aside the omission of the Pathenon character and thus the entire Patheon plotline? Leaving out entire core game content at 0-day is flogging an unfinished product, period.

Who says it's anything to do with core game content? The core game is the story of the reapers. That is complete as the game arrives in the box - you can have a completely full story, as the devs intended, out of the box. There are extra stories that the devs have also told, just like they might do in an expansion or sequel, which you can experience with DLC. Their presence does not suddenly make the core story worse.

IF the extra content is vital to you then the choice is clear - either buy the DLC, or don't play the game. It's not a life or death situation and I'm sure you won't be any less of a person for not playing ME3 - if you don't feel the game is value for money then don't play it.

Personally I don't buy the ME games at full price - they're good, but not that good. The game experience is still the same if you wait though so I don't see a problem waiting.

[aidanjt]

Who says it's anything to do with core game content?

I do. And any rationally thinking person who doesn't have a vested interest in the DLCise-the-hell-out-of-everything model will. Any DLC which significantly alters how the game unfolds is by definition core content, and leaving out that core content to be bought separate from the main game on release day is selling people an incomplete game. That's *entirely* different from an expansion/sequel, which are discrete game stories in their own right. It's also entirely different from map pack, weapons, skins, and model DLC, which is what actually qualifies as 'extra content'.

And 'if you don't like it don't buy for it, you don't have to' isn't an argument against complaining about the practice in the slightest.

[jonathan_phang]

Dont agree with it what they have done, but well, glad at this point that I bought a ton of bioware points to get all the ME2 dlc. For some odd reason, 800 and 1200 points are both £6.19, so i bought several 1200 point packs, bought all the DLC and am left with 1000 spare points (thats got to be an odd misprice? Been there for ages).

As I say, its cheeky, but without knowing more about it, but maybe you get to know about the SPOILER, just in not such an interactive way. I guess it doesnt matter for me, I'll probably get it - I always see it that, they could be nice, but well, we arent entitled to anything. They sell something and we have the choice to buy or not - if I dont want it, then I don't buy it. If I do, then I do.

[Saracen]

how important ?

I mean if you cant complete it without DLC - but they dont tell you , its bit like selling food without an expiry date

m

More like a restaurant selling you a steak meal, and surcharging for the steak.

Mind you, if done right and balanced right, it might not be bad as an option. The game I mean, not the steak. Then, you can go whichever route suits you.