Diablo III: Loot 2.0

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Supposedly only six hours of story:

http://www.gamesradar.com/diablo-3-r...-souls-review/

For £30 they are having a laugh.

Meh!

[shaithis]

Glad I got my early pre-order in for 20 quid...

[kalniel]

Supposedly only six hours of story:

You don't play Diablo for the story! If anything six hours is too much story for one Act.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...g-and-features

The normal edition of the expansion was meant to be set at $30 which would have been £21 to £22 here,if VAT was included.

For £30 they are having a laugh.

I suppose they needed the 33% price hike to make up for the lack of the AH.

[Spud1]

http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/com...g-and-features

The normal edition of the expansion was meant to be set at $30 which would have been £21 to £22 here,if VAT was included.

For £30 they are having a laugh.

I suppose they needed the 33% price hike to make up for the lack of the AH.

Just buy it from one of the CD key websites - its around £20 inc vat on those, thats how I paid for it Had to force myself to stop playing and go to bed last night, very addictive again and really enjoying the new act.

[Dooms]

I'm at that annoying point where Expert is too easy and Master is slightly chorish without a 2nd player. Wasn't many others playing Act 2 last night

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Just buy it from one of the CD key websites - its around £20 inc vat on those, thats how I paid for it Had to force myself to stop playing and go to bed last night, very addictive again and really enjoying the new act.

Its still taking the piss though. Oh lets charge £20 for it - wait a second lets hype it up and and charge £30,when the full game was like £35 to £38 at launch.

Blizzard where "we sell one act expansions,for 80% to 85% of a full four act game" - good one,not.

Plus it only took them the better part of two years to sort the last one out!!

Since Blizzard was going to sell this for £21 to £22,I will stick to their original RRP.

Funnily enough that was just about the maximum I thought which was acceptable for the expansion.

But don't worry,D4 will be £50 and the 0.5 act expansion will be £45 and expect them to not only want a permanent internet connection for it,but a webcam and a vile of your blood for security purposes too!!

Plus,the base game will be full of bugs,which will be fixed and sold as features in the expansion.

If this was any other company people would be more annoyed about it. But its Blizzard,so gets a pass.

[kalniel]

It started with Heart of the Swarm IMHO, which was meant to be expansion pack priced, but turned out not to be.

However, I think you have to bear in mind what the actual fun play time you're likely to get out of these things is - they are expansions, and add noticeably more to the play experience than DLC for other games do. And looking back on the time I've spent, and continue to spend, on the games from Blizzard, they do last an awfully long time.

Pricing the expansions at full game price is harsh, but then I'd argue that we're paying too little for the full game these days.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well I am more annoyed at the fact Blizzard said $30 late last year and now its 33% more. Plus,TBH its the worst recession in a 100 years,people's pay does not go up by similar percentages,and anything over £40 is too much for any game IMHO.

Things like PCs have dropped by a massive amount in price in realterms in the last 20 years alone,the same with phones etc. But other things like housing and energy bills have gone up,so in the end it does balance out.

What you are forgetting is that in the past a £50 to £60 game could be resold for a decent amount of the price. Now you cannot resell them on PC due to DRM. More and more games are relying on requiring servers for validation,or are running on them. The moment the company CBA doing it - poof there goes your game. Now all you are getting is a limited time license.

So,IMHO anything over £35 to £40 is overpriced. Games devs are trying to have their cake and eat it.

If PC games became like £50 to £60 again,they can keep most of them,as they will still have all the rubbish bugs in them,still cannot be resold and I would expect perfection at that sort of price.

At least with consoles it is understandable - the games can be resold and the hardware is quite cheap and last for yonks.

I spend far more when games have been cheaper,then when games are more expensive. The more I spend on a game,the less I am tolerant of bugs. In the last 11 years I would consider only a tiny,tiny fraction of the 100+ AAA and Indie titles I have played would be worthy of anything close to £50 to £60 for the base game.

Plus TBH,I have other hobbies which I would rather persue,than spending £300 for 5 games a year which I cannot sell on,plus the hardware to run them on.

I would be still quite happily using a much older computer now or a laptop,if it not for my gaming habit,which has gone hand in hand with my computer hardware enthusiast habit. Unlike with cameras and hifi,computer parts depreciate very quickly,which does not make it that cheap,unless you control your upfront spending carefully.

[kalniel]

Well I am more annoyed at the fact Blizzard said $30 late last year and now its 33% more. Plus,TBH its the worst recession in a 100 years,people's pay does not go up by similar percentages,and anything over £40 is too much for any game IMHO.

But to be fair, games cost £40-50 nearly 20 years ago as well, so accounting for inflation we've never had it so cheap.

What you are forgetting is that in the past a £50 game could be resold for a decent amount of the price. Now you cannot resell them on PC due to DRM.

Well that's true for most games certainly - this probably makes the reduction in real terms about right. I'd gladly pay much more for a game if it was resellable, a price of £60-70 should be the starting point if we want proper development for our small market.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

But to be fair, games cost £40-50 nearly 20 years ago as well, so accounting for inflation we've never had it so cheap.

Well that's true for most games certainly - this probably makes the reduction in real terms about right. I'd gladly pay much more for a game if it was resellable, a price of £60-70 should be the starting point if we want proper development for our small market.

Considering it is a recession,expect the gaming market to crash.

Among the most popular games are the ones which cost a few quid on the Android and Play market,and F2P and cheap games like Minecraft.

LoL,DOTA and the like which have tens of millions of players and can be run on cheap hardware.

You need to move outside hardware enthusiast/game enthusiast mode for a second.

Remember,you have a £200+ CPU and spent over £240 on your graphics card. That does not make you a typical gamer with a typical budget.

If PC games cost much more,I would expect the current market would be far smaller than it is now.

At £60 to £70 the game would need:
1.)Utterly no bugs at launch.
2.)No DRM.
3.)No restriction on the number of resales.
4.)Perfect optimisation on a range of hardware at launch.
5.)At least 70+ hours gameplay.
6.)Have a physical booklet and packaging and even a disc of sorts.
7.)No in-game paid content and DLCs. All included at launch.
8.)Expansions priced in line with how much content the base game had.
9.)Refund of game price within a week if you do not like it(even if it means a restocking fee of a reasonable amount).

Since I have to put up with most of the 9 points not being reality with modern games,I think the lower pricing makes up for it. However,even at £60 to £70 I expect it will be just the extra money going to shareholders and no improvements to games.

If they expect me to be their beta test a bug ridden game,with restrictions for £60 to £70,they have another thing coming. I am not interested in being a weak consumer.

Plus like I said,computer hardware is far cheaper now - want to go back to £1000+ basic home computers?? Even 11 years ago a basic rubbish laptop was like £800. Personally I am glad we have decent cheap laptops and tablets now - far more people are computer literate now.

However, likewise Antibiotics were expensive in the 40s,aluminium was worth more than gold 200 years ago and so on. There is much greater usage due to the lower cost. Plus like I said housing is not cheap to buy and energy bills are more now for most people. Now instead of one income covering it 30 to 40 years ago,now two incomes are needed.

We accept that many things being cheaper than in the past is better,while bemoaning how much other things are more expensive now.

Edit!!

PS: I think the launch price of D3 was fare considering how much you get out of it. However,still the game was buggy(server issues at launch and for months after that) and the AH was a major flaw in the game,which ruined it for many. So £50+ would have not been worth it especially since the game is permanently locked to your account and is dependent on Blizzard keeping the servers up.

However,£30 for the expansion,is like 75% to 80% of the price of the base game.

It seems Blizzard are trying to make up for the loss of the AH,which was a great money spinner for them!

[kalniel]

Considering it is a recession,expect the gaming market to crash.

Why's that? Spend on gaming activities often increases in a recession.

Remember,you have a £200+ CPU and spent over £240 on your graphics card. That does not make you a typical gamer with a typical budget.

Correct - I'm not talking about typical games, I'm talking about AAA PC titles. That's a minority market, hence need for additional cost.

At £60 to £70 the game would need:
1.)Utterly no bugs at launch.
2.)No DRM.
3.)No restriction on the number of resales.
4.)Perfect optimisation on a range of hardware at launch.
5.)At least 70+ hours gameplay.
6.)Have a physical booklet and packaging and even a disc of sorts.
7.)No in-game paid content and DLCs. All included at launch.
8.)Expansions priced in line with how much content the base game had.
9.)Refund of game price within a week if you do not like it.

Yet games made in the past for the equivalent price had only a few of these things. My favourite (old Origin games) had lovely packaging etc. but were tremendously buggy, required you to upgrade your computer just to play their game, had expensive expansions and add-ons just for voice acting etc. etc.

Go look at a game like Strike Commander. It was delayed terribly, then cost me £45 when it was finally released in 1993 (so the equivalent of £65 today). The Speech Pack was sold separately. It required me to buy new hardware, and play about with boot configuration files to free enough of the right kind of memory to play the game. And it was still buggy. And they released an expansion pack for it later. And it didn't give 70+ hours of gameplay.

But I loved it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why's that? Spend on gaming activities often increases in a recession.

Not if the upfront pricing goes up. People have limited budgets,and suddenly doubling game prices,will cause the market to crash for PC. I would expect consoles to have more new converts.

Correct - I'm not talking about typical games, I'm talking about AAA PC titles. That's a minority market, hence need for additional cost.

Yet games made in the past for the equivalent price had only a few of these things. My favourite (old Origin games) had lovely packaging etc. but were tremendously buggy, required you to upgrade your computer just to play their game, had expensive expansions and add-ons just for voice acting etc. etc.

Go look at a game like Strike Commander. It was delayed terribly, then cost me £45 when it was finally released in 1993. The Speech Pack was sold separately. It required me to buy new hardware, and play about with boot configuration files to free enough of the right kind of memory to play the game. And it was still buggy. And they released an expansion pack for it later. And it didn't give 70+ hours of gameplay.

But I loved it.

Maybe,we expect more now?? Technology and times move forward,and rose tinted views of the past don't help.

Go and talk to some older people,and see how things were before 1950 regarding healthcare for example in this country. It was terrible.

Now we have fantastic healthcare in comparison,and is much more affordable than in those days. However,it does not mean we cannot criticise it or expect more. If that is the case we will be stuck in the past and there will be no progress.

I didn't like buggy games then and I don't like them now. At least know I pay less for the bugs. It still does not change my viewpoint that the D3 expansion is too expensive considering its price relative to the base game though.

So,I think we will need to agree to disagree somewhat,regarding pricing of games in the last 20 years or so. Otherwise we probably will end up going in circles!

[Dooms]

Ok we seem to of gone off a bit... Yes the expansion is expensive but its Blizzard and I didn't expect anything else. D3 itself has been sitting at £35+ since release and so has SC2. Its just the way they do things however there are plenty of sites selling it for £20 which I'm OK with - Its not so much about story or content when it comes to D3, just more about giving something else to grind and they have done that with a whole new class and a whole new mode (adventure mode)... the Act 5 is just a bonus.

For those that are playing it how are you finding the crusader? I've wanted a Paladin replacement since the game came out and I'm enjoying it however it does seem a bit lack luster damage wise so playing on Master can be slow.

[kalniel]

Maybe,we expect more now?? Technology and times move forward,and rose tinted views of the past don't help.

I think we do expect more for less, that's true. Though I wouldn't say anyone is expressing a rose-tinted view of the past - the old games were great, but modern games are great too.

But it's only reasonable to expect more for less if technology somehow enables that - electronics are cheaper than they were thanks to technology, and we now expect some fantastic graphical effects at cheap cost thanks to technology, but the numbers of people working on these AAA games is somehow noticeably larger than it was 20 years ago, not less. They all need salaries etc. which has to come from somewhere - technology hasn't made us wish for less take home pay at the end of the day So games cost more to make. You can either chase after a larger market to afford that (casual, consoles) or you can increase (or at least, not decrease!) the unit price and keep targeting PC enthusiasts.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think we do expect more for less, that's true. Though I wouldn't say anyone is expressing a rose-tinted view of the past - the old games were great, but modern games are great too.

But it's only reasonable to expect more for less if technology somehow enables that - electronics are cheaper than they were thanks to technology, and we now expect some fantastic graphical effects at cheap cost thanks to technology, but the numbers of people working on these AAA games is somehow noticeably larger than it was 20 years ago, not less. They all need salaries etc. which has to come from somewhere - technology hasn't made us wish for less take home pay at the end of the day So games cost more to make. You can either chase after a larger market to afford that (casual, consoles) or you can increase (or at least, not decrease!) the unit price and keep targeting PC enthusiasts.

Which is why things like Mantle and DX12 are important. If the PC platform is made more efficient,then it should keep more people on it,or even increase numbers. This in term will make the PC a more attractive platform to develop for. With the consoles being more or less low power PCs,that should help make multi-platform development cheaper too,and increase the customer base for games.

This is why I never understood all the negativity from the PC crowd about the new consoles or even things like Mantle.