Why DLC Game Endings Would Hurt Publishers More Than Players
Posted on 13 November 2008 by Erik
There’s been a lot of reaction to Epic Game’s President Mike Capps comments on how publishers plan on combating the used game trade business–a market that’s been a godsend for mega-chain GameStop and a rather large thorn in publishers side as they can’t make any profit off of the resale.
Capps stated to GamesIndustry:
“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay $20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free.’”
This would be a catastrophically bad decision for publishers to make, starting first and foremost with the swift and vicious blowback they’d receive from fans forced to pay additional costs just because they went through a used game network.
Take into consideration, for instance, the ratio of how many people have purchased Fable 2 and how many people are actually going to reach the end of the game and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Of course when you buy a game you’re excited about, you expect to finish it; but more often than not the game is played for a good 5-10 hours and subsequently shelved.
That’s all fine and good until you’re told that you can’t finish the game, at least not without paying more money. They would be pissing people off on purpose by telling them that regardless of whether or not they intend to finish the game, they wouldn’t be able to.
All they’re doing is forcing people to make a choice, and there’s nothing society hates more than making a concious decision over an issue that shouldn’t even exist. The fact that people would have to actually consider whether or not they wanted to pay for the ending of the used game they’re interested in is absurd.
You also have to take into consideration how many people buy used games because they simply can’t afford 60 dollar games. For 360 users, what about those who don’t have Xbox Live? Alienating your audience certainly doesn’t make any sense from a popularity standpoint, but then that was never the goal wa$ it?
This all may seem like a moot point for those able to pay the extra 10-30 dollars to get the new game, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’d still have to go through some kind of extranious process to get to the end or final boss. How would you like it if you were told to enter a 25 digit code so that you could complete the game that you purchased supposedly in its entirety?
It’s certainly a frightening business trend we’ll be dealing with both now and in the future, they push and push and try to nickle and dime anyway they can, and they’ll continue to do it until they’re attacked in the only place that matters to them, their wallets. Which will certainly be the case if I know my trusty fanboy brethren and how they take extreme exception to betrayal.
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Tags | $20, DLC Endings, Epic Games, Fable 2, Mike Capps
November 13th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
While the fact that gamers would have to pay extra for an ending to a game they bought used is a little over the top. I still think something should be done about gamestop! They charge way too much. A game that cost 59.99 new cost 56.99 used! really??? 3 dollars, thats the best you can do!!!
I recently went to gamestop to buy Burnout revenge for the 360. $19.99 used is what they were asking… Best buy = 19.99 NEW. They are not only taking the used game market way out of control, they are running good mom and pop Games store out of town. My frequent Game store of 10 years was forced out of business when gamestop opened up in the SAME center!
Unfortunately many people will go to a chain because it’s a popular name, see a game used and assume it’s a deal and pay too much for it, sometimes even more than a new game… yes I’ve seen 29.99 games in the used section when the new game is 19.99.
That is what I think is hurting the developers. it’s not the fact that they are selling used games, but the fact they are taking advantage of gullible people and selling them for more money or only dollars less than the new game. If the consumer could just shell out 3 more dollars they could get that game new and help support the company’s that put 2, 3 even 4 years into a game.