opinion The Right Way to Lie to Gamers

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Publishers habitually pull the wool over customers' eyes in marketing their games, but they can only do it with our cooperation.

As I was writing up a story on Prototype 2's Blackwatch Collectors Edition last week, it struck me what an awful package Activision had put together "for the fans." The $80 premium bundle includes the game (along with the Radnet downloadable content all preorders will receive), a soundtrack CD, an art book, a digital comic, the first paid DLC pack (when it's released), and a 20-percent-off voucher for the Prototype Merchandise Store.

So for an extra $20 beyond the standard price of the game, the fans Activision touts so highly will receive a CD and book of the sort Atlus often gives away for free with its games, a comic book that serves as little more than a commercial for the game they've already purchased, access to a DLC pack that won't come until a month later (keeping them from feeding their copy into the used game mill), and a coupon that will let them spend even more money on Prototype-branded stuff. It's like "for the fans" has an unspoken "Because we can gouge them for more money" right after it.

Given the steaming piles of publisher propaganda I sift through on a daily basis, it took me a little time to figure out why this PR in particular irked me so much. Eventually, I found an explanation already exists in a concept commonly used when talking about games.

"Suspension of disbelief" is an important concept for many games. It's what makes them work, even if they don't always make sense. As an audience, there are things we must ignore in order to get wrapped up in some game experiences.

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Edited February 27, 2012 by John S.

[The Teej]

Actually I'm perfectly fine paying $20 extra for content.

Hell, I paid the full ?60 for my limited edition Skyward Sword bundle which came with the CD, Poster and Golden Wiimote (even though I could get the game for ?27.95 down the supermarket). Atlus give it for free because they usually do limited runs of their games and their fans typically by the game straight away because it's a niche audience. Most people who buy Prototype 2 will probably wait until its cheaper, in the bargain bin or even worse for Activision, get it second hand - bundling it in for free doesn't make much business sense from their POV. Also, why do gamers think they're entitled to extra free stuff with their game purchase in the first place? Yes, I know, PC games back in the 1990s got a lot of this stuff thrown in for free, but back in the 90s development costs were a mere fraction of what they are today even taking into account inflation.

I'm not exactly Activision's biggest fan but slating them for a practice pretty much every other publisher on the face of the earth does is just silly and hating "the man" for the sake of hating.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Well $20 is a hell of a lot money, you know.

And not everybody can pay it as comfortably as you :s

[Cheatyface]

Well $20 is a hell of a lot money, you know.

And not everybody can pay it as comfortably as you :s

Then don't buy it? It's not hard. There's nothing wrong with higher priced editions with additional bundled content. Enough people will think it's worth the money to buy it. If you don't, that's fine too. I fail to see the problem here.

[killmaster84]

Well $20 is a hell of a lot money, you know.

And not everybody can pay it as comfortably as you :s

If you can afford the setup for a console or PC you can afford $20.

[TheLegendOfMart]

This kind of bass-ackward logic irritates me, just because someone has a nice PC or a console doesn't mean they have loads of money to buy games/DLC, they could have saved up for years or the pc/console could have been a gift.

I'm totally against crap like this, coding DLC into a game then charging people for it. Its akin to giving you a film and then leaving huge sections of it out and charging you to watch them.

Or a music cd with missing tracks that you have to pay on top just to listen to them.

We are on the way to another videogame crash, games are getting less and less original, shorter, more expensive, then you have the whole DLC and Online Pass fiasco.

Eventually people will just say, nope.........and thus the third age of videogaming will be born.

[Arceles]

If you can afford the setup for a console or PC you can afford $20.

My computer cost 600 euro, with the quantity of games that I currently possess I could easily outreach that value if they were new, luckily for me they are quite old except for skyrim. That logic of buying something hence having money for other something doesn't apply anymore for computers because they have become inexpensive. (See my signature for what I bough with 600 euro 8 months ago)

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Then don't buy it? It's not hard. There's nothing wrong with higher priced editions with additional bundled content. Enough people will think it's worth the money to buy it. If you don't, that's fine too. I fail to see the problem here.

Thats a flawed way of thinking.

They are already asking a heafty price for the main game, at $60, and then $20 more for just another portion of it which should've been bundled with the original package

[Cheatyface]

Thats a flawed way of thinking.

They are already asking a heafty price for the main game, at $60, and then $20 more for just another portion of it which should've been bundled with the original package

How is it flawed? You're choice is to not buy or buy it. You got the game. Anything additional is icing and/or fluff that's not required to play and complete the core game that you already bought. Thinking you deserve the DLC for free is just as entitlement-minded as devs/pubs thinking they deserve money beyond the initial purchase of a copy of the game. Neither side deserves anything beyond what you already paid for/got paid. So, once more, how is it flawed?

[DrunkenBeard]

If it's ready at release then it should be included. This is the same thing happening with ME3, and CynicalBrit has made a great video explaining why it was so wrong.

[Cheatyface]

If it's ready at release then it should be included. This is the same thing happening with ME3, and CynicalBrit has made a great video explaining why it was so wrong.

If you feel it's wrong, don't buy it. Vote with your wallet. As for the ready at release argument, you'd rather see devs sitting around for the 6+ months a game is done but in QA/Certification rather than have them work on additional content that can available at or soon after release? That's a waste of resources/manpower and is stupid. Just because DLC is ready at release doesn't make it part of the core game. That's not to say it hasn't been done where content was ripped for DLC, but it is not the rule or majority situation. There's a lot of entitlement attitude on both sides and it's getting tiresome, predictable and, quite frankly, boring. If you don't like it, don't buy it. That's all there is to it.

[trag3dy]

And then when you don't buy it the devs blame either piracy or second hand sales when their game doesn't sell as well as they think it should have. Instead of realizing that maybe they just made a bad game. As a gamer, and specifically a pc gamer you cant win. They then use that as an excuse to create and incorporate **** like the online passes into their games or shoddy pc ports, or not even having pc versions of their games... because as we know piracy doesn't exist on consoles.

At the end of the day the gamers on all systems and varieties are the ones that are getting screwed over. Say you are fine with that all you want and eventually we'll be paying subscription fees just to access games you already bought and paid for like mmos if things keep going the way they are.

[Cheatyface]

And then when you don't buy it the devs blame either piracy or second hand sales when their game doesn't sell as well as they think it should have. Instead of realizing that maybe they just made a bad game. As a gamer, and specifically a pc gamer you cant win. They then use this as an excuse to create and incorporate **** like the online passes into their games or shoddy pc ports, or not even having pc versions of their games... because as we know piracy doesn't exist on consoles.

At the end of the day the gamers on all systems and varieties are the ones that are getting screwed over. Say you are fine with that all you want and eventually we'll be paying subscription fees just to access games you already bought and paid for like mmos if things keep going the way they are.

Doesn't matter what they say or who they blame. The consumer still has the option of buying or not buying if they don't like something.

[trag3dy]

Doesn't matter what they say or who they blame. The consumer still has the option of buying or not buying if they don't like something.

I don't care what they say or who they blame. What I care about is them making it harder and harder to just simply buy a game, install it, and play it because they feel they are being slighted in some manner.

I agree though, don't buy it if you don't like it, and I wont.

[DrunkenBeard]

If you feel it's wrong, don't buy it. Vote with your wallet. As for the ready at release argument, you'd rather see devs sitting around for the 6+ months a game is done but in QA/Certification rather than have them work on additional content that can available at or soon after release? That's a waste of resources/manpower and is stupid. Just because DLC is ready at release doesn't make it part of the core game. That's not to say it hasn't been done where content was ripped for DLC, but it is not the rule or majority situation. There's a lot of entitlement attitude on both sides and it's getting tiresome, predictable and, quite frankly, boring. If you don't like it, don't buy it. That's all there is to it.

I don't really see your point. Of course if I don't like it I won't buy it, it doesn't mean that one can't be vocal about it and express his ideas so more people are aware of this. As for your first argument, it doesn't work like that. When I said that it should be included if it's ready at release, that includes Testing and QA/Certification.

[compl3x]

I think there is also an ethical dimension here. FF-XIII-2 came out and some people criticised it lackluster ending(s). Additional DLC has been announced to offer you different endings which might tie up the story better or be more impressive and inspired. It seems unethical to intentionally make a crappy ending then offer DLC to give you better, more satisfying endings. That is the accusation, at least. Whether they did this intentionally or not is up for debate. I'm sure they'd deny it.

yeah, I know, I know, we don't have to buy it....

[Muhammad Farrukh]

If you can get a 1 hour game-play package and some lame art-book for extra $20, then you must be pretty rich. How' the money growing tree of yours doing?

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I've never had an issue with the collector's editions of games. I see them as an offer to people that like the game enough to want to get extra content. Sometimes, you can't afford it but that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the non-collector's edition. Either that, or save up an extra $20-$40 for it.

[The_Observer]

There are very very very little games that i would buy that are limited edition, or ones your get extra's with. Waste of money for me, im buying to play the game, if i want to know more ill look for information on the internet. Also i laugh when people try and resell second hand versions of limited edition of games, thinking they are going to get more money.

[Raa]

I fully agree with him, unfortunately i'm suckered into this on a monthly basis! :(

*shakes fist at publishers*