JonCole

General Video Game Deals Thread

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Even the best community, like this one, occasionally pressurizes me towards purchasing decisions that I really can't make, not that I blame anyone, and I'd rather direct that frustration towards the companies that profit from such a culture than the people who simply partake in it.

 

Out of curiosity I would like to hear examples of this. I'm not entirely sure what you meant. Do you just mean like, "All the cool kids are playing this game and it makes me feel like I need to as well?"

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Out of curiosity I would like to hear examples of this. I'm not entirely sure what you meant. Do you just mean like, "All the cool kids are playing this game and it makes me feel like I need to as well?"

 

Eh, the most recent example is Her Story. I wasn't going to buy any games this summer, because I really just couldn't afford it, but then this game comes out that's a huge darling, and I know that, by the time I feel like I have enough money to drop on it, the discussion will have moved elsewhere and I'll be going through a dead thread in which I can't really participate. I'm not bitter, because it happens, but the effort of trying to sync up my gaming purchases with whatever the smart people around me want to talk about can be a little frustrating and lead me to wish, maybe aloud, that games as a whole were cheaper.

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Off-topic, but Gorm, when you do decide to purchase Her Story, I will be ready to have conversation with you about it, because I have thoughts about that game and how it relates to historical research.

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Maybe this post will just paint me as a grumpy teenager in a black t-shirt, but for me it's hard to single out games as an especially foul moneysink instead of just seeing it as yet another consumer-level indictment of capitalism itself and, more so, the culture of semi-annual product obsolescence into which we've been conditioned.

 

Like, in my case, I'm not at all a phone guy, so I get to shake my head at all those people lining up for the next slightly upgraded iPhone and think with faint self-righteousness how they're collectively destroying the world; meanwhile, every single new game that ends up hitting the marketing target with me - it convinces me that this is the one that will save the medium, that I'll play something that will genuinely make me feel something profound and break down gameplay barriers and do something totally and completely revolutionary. Then it doesn't and it's yesterday's trash; as soon as a game is a few months old and I realize the world hasn't changed on its account, its value drops tremendously for me - its newness is what makes it so inherently precious.

 

Sure, some of that is worth personally talking to a therapist about, but it's not so unique that I don't consider it to be a symptom of a pretty poisonous corporation-driven society, man.

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I'm not even sure I agree with you there.  While predatory business models bug the shit out of me (like many mobile games which depend on a small number of whales to support them), stuff like Destiny or the seemingly endless DLC chains of something like CK2 are...what they are.  Games as service are a thing now, and I'm not convinced it's bad.  Games are fucking expensive to make, and developers need to both earn profits and have steady income streams.  The way games are financed and sold has gone through as much upheaval in the last decade as any industry ever faces.  Not every solution is going to be perfect.  Even modest games can end up with budgets of a million dollars or more.  To contrast that, you can build a modest, but rather nice, golf course for $2-$3 million, with a yearly operating budget of maybe a million or so.  Big indie games have budgets like that now, AAA has budgets multiple times that. 

 

Obviously that's comparing apples and oranges, except that it is about delivering hobby as a regular service, which is what things like Destiny, CK2, EU4, etc., are doing, but trying to do it without a subscription model.  It's an a la carte buy in.  Given the costs to build and maintain a modern game, I'm not even sure that $100+ a year is unreasonable for a game that someone will dump dozens or hundreds of hours into. 

 

The difference I see between Paradox and Bungie is that, whereas Paradox develop new content that radically improves the experience and takes time and effort, Bungie created some parts of Destiny and purposely held them back to charge the consumer again, when they should have been included in the initial experience.  Added to that, the marketing budgets of some of these Triple A games are gigantic these days.  I do feel the customer is paying so that companies can make nice tv ads etc to a certain extent. Maybe that's no different to many industries but I do see a stark difference between the way a company such as CD Projekt Red conducts itself and the Bungies and EAs of this world.  Just my view. 

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I just don't understand these arguments that even charging $85 for a game and two DLCs is some kind of grave sin. It's a fucking bargain when you consider how easy it is for $85 to evaporate out in the real world.

Recently saw some comments on Polygon on how 4-6 hours for Infamous First Light priced at $15 was a rip off. Around $3/hr. is way too expensive for some I guess.

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Yeah I also have to say I don't agree with this.  Like Twig said, games don't update themselves.  Servers don't magically appear out of nowhere and definitely don't require zero maintenance.  Putting a game out to market doesn't mean the work is done.

 

Saying that dlc is purposely withheld from release is disingenuous at best.  There are cases where that's been true (such as the argument about content being on a disc but locked) but I very much doubt most developers are purposely cutting out parts of a game just to sell it to you later.  That stuff usually gets worked on after the development of the main game is finished.  Yes, they could wait longer and include it with the release but then that costs even more money because you don't have a product on the market in the meantime.  I do have a beef with things like season passes but that's a different argument.

 

I don't understand the problem with collector's editions.  If you don't like them, that's fine (personally I think they're pretty dumb) but they literally never have anything absolutely necessary to play the game.  They are completely superfluous and marketed towards enthusiasts and people with too much money.  They contain additional items that cost additional money to make, so why shouldn't they charge more for them?

 

Additionally, be careful not to conflate developers with publishers.  A lot of the time the publisher is the one who's making the call about releasing dlc and the like.  The developers (ie the actual humans who spend thousands of hours making the thing) usually want to pack as much in as they can, and more than likely they'll never see an additional penny in their paycheck regardless of how much dlc is sold.

 

You've either misunderstood me or I've not articulated myself very well.  I have no problem with paying for updates, my problem is more about the way it's done.  

 

I can't help feeling that the integrity that many developers used to have with regards their products has diminished somewhat - like you say, publisher pressure could be partly to blame for this.  But, take Mortal Kombat for example, in the past, much of the charm of a fighting game was completing it and unlocking the full roster of combatants.  But of course now we can download data so why not just leave a load of characters out of the game on purpose and sell them back to people for SIX POUNDS a fighter!  I really resent this kind of practice - to me, it shows no respect for their own product.  

 

I understand that people will say "well just don't buy it, no-one's forcing you to" but surely part of the experience of a game is owning all the content for it and enjoying it to its fullest, especially when the missing pieces are fairly keep aspects of the game.  Look at a lot of EA's games these days, the single-player aspects of their sports games are stuck in a torpor of stagnation as all the creative effort is ploughed into driving the Ultimate Team model.  I just feel that a lot of companies are milking the cash cow too hard these days. 

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The difference I see between Paradox and Bungie is that, whereas Paradox develop new content that radically improves the experience and takes time and effort, Bungie created some parts of Destiny and purposely held them back to charge the consumer again, when they should have been included in the initial experience. Added to that, the marketing budgets of some of these Triple A games are gigantic these days. I do feel the customer is paying so that companies can make nice tv ads etc to a certain extent. Maybe that's no different to many industries but I do see a stark difference between the way a company such as CD Projekt Red conducts itself and the Bungies and EAs of this world. Just my view.

I think these are valid reasons to decide that a purchase isn't a fair exchange to you, but I think it's a far more stringent argument to say the prices are outright unfair as an overall judgement. Pricing is way more complicated than that.

Also a year or so back I could relate to the sentiment of keeping up with gaming discussion. But now I've fallen so far behind it's just a fact of how I interact with a medium and I never expect to be contemporary with my playing. I end up vicariously experiencing a lot of games through other people's discussion, or getting to them years late. Some day I'll actually play Dark Souls...

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I think these are valid reasons to decide that a purchase isn't a fair exchange to you, but I think it's a far more stringent argument to say the prices are outright unfair as an overall judgement. Pricing is way more complicated than that.

Also a year or so back I could relate to the sentiment of keeping up with gaming discussion. But now I've fallen so far behind it's just a fact of how I interact with a medium and I never expect to be contemporary with my playing. I end up vicariously experiencing a lot of games through other people's discussion, or getting to them years late. Some day I'll actually play Dark Souls...

 

Yeah but I said the exact opposite of that mate - I said "Personally, I don't feel that gaming is too expensive (even pricing in the cost of a gaming PC and console). However, I feel that certain products and developers are exploitative." 

 

Also - play Dark Souls

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You've either misunderstood me or I've not articulated myself very well.  I have no problem with paying for updates, my problem is more about the way it's done.  

 

Then my next question is what way would you rather see it done?  If we agree there are continuing costs associated with releasing a game, then I'm not sure what else to do besides either increasing the price, a subscription model, or releasing additional pay content.

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Then my next question is what way would you rather see it done?  If we agree there are continuing costs associated with releasing a game, then I'm not sure what else to do besides either increasing the price, a subscription model, or releasing additional pay content.

 

I can't really speak for Turrican, but I like what Paradox does in theory with its titles: feature and content expansions via DLC to fund balance and usability updates via patch. In practice, Paradox has a great deal of trouble with putting some or all of its usability updates behind a paywall and with pricing its DLC based on community impact rather than actual content, but on paper, it's maybe the least exploitative model of DLC of which I'm aware.

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Recently saw some comments on Polygon on how 4-6 hours for Infamous First Light priced at $15 was a rip off. Around $3/hr. is way too expensive for some I guess.

 

It is! And yet, $10/hr for Gone Home is not! Because that's not how many people judge the value proposition of something. It's why I rankled at valuing going out to dinner by how long it took. 4-6 hrs at $15 is maybe a rip off, and 8-10 hrs at $20 is maybe amazing value. Both of those things can be true. The reverse of those things can be true. We wouldn't, for example, have this discussion if a game of Civ 5 took 4 hours vs 9 hours unless there were significant gameplay reasons why that occurred that were issues. If First Light is 5 hours of the same 3 rotating mission types over and over that sounds like it sucks to me. My history with that game franchise is I played like 90 minutes of the first Infamous, and the movement made me queasy, so I'm importing a different judgement of value than you or hypothetical commenter might be. I also don't know anything about whatever First Light is, so sorry for strawmanning it in this way.

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The time doesn't offer any particularly direct comparison, but the assumption is that a dinner is likely a nice event but a fleeting one. You eat every day (multiple times I hope), so even getting a nice meal isn't going to be a hugely standout event. By contrast, a good game will generally stick out as being a special experience that's not offered elsewhere. Most people play a relatively low number of games so games are generally a more unique experience.

 

Of course I'm generalising and explicitly saying this is true of good games, not ones you consider bad. Because if you think a game is bad and not worthy of it's price for that reason, that's a flaw with the individual game, not the system of games pricing. And paying for something you turn out to not enjoy happens all the time in other areas too.

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It is! And yet, $10/hr for Gone Home is not! Because that's not how many people judge the value proposition of something. It's why I rankled at valuing going out to dinner by how long it took. 4-6 hrs at $15 is maybe a rip off, and 8-10 hrs at $20 is maybe amazing value. Both of those things can be true. The reverse of those things can be true. We wouldn't, for example, have this discussion if a game of Civ 5 took 4 hours vs 9 hours unless there were significant gameplay reasons why that occurred that were issues. If First Light is 5 hours of the same 3 rotating mission types over and over that sounds like it sucks to me. My history with that game franchise is I played like 90 minutes of the first Infamous, and the movement made me queasy, so I'm importing a different judgement of value than you or hypothetical commenter might be. I also don't know anything about whatever First Light is, so sorry for strawmanning it in this way.

 

So if $3/hour is way too expensive in one case and $10/hour is a great value in another case, how should games be priced so that everyone can look at games and have the general feeling that they are fairly priced? It's hard to buy the argument that games are generally too expensive when you say that $20 is a great value for a short experience in one case but $15 is too expensive for a short experience in another case. If the notion is that the pricing of games is unfair because some games don't provide high enough value per hour spent, I don't see any way to solve this short of publishers or developers finding some way to judge the value of the experience their game is providing and price it accordingly before it hits shelves.

 

I guess I just don't think it's fair to say games are not fairly priced just because some games don't provide as much value as other games. I'm not sure if that's necessarily what you're arguing but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on a good solution where the price of a game in some way reflected the quality of the experience. And honestly, I would argue that the pricing usually shakes out that way over time anyways where the more poorly received games with shallower experiences tend to get bigger price cuts after a shorter period of time whereas Nintendo games from 5 years ago still cost $50.

 

 

I can't really speak for Turrican, but I like what Paradox does in theory with its titles: feature and content expansions via DLC to fund balance and usability updates via patch. In practice, Paradox has a great deal of trouble with putting some or all of its usability updates behind a paywall and with pricing its DLC based on community impact rather than actual content, but on paper, it's maybe the least exploitative model of DLC of which I'm aware.

 

I think this still falls under the category of "releasing additional pay content". And really, balance and usability updates are a pretty standard thing that come out in post release patches for a lot of games. Maybe not usability as much but balance patches are pretty common and are almost always free. Maybe there's some nuance that I'm missing but if Paradox releases a game, then releases a paid DLC with additional content that goes towards funding usability and balance updates, I don't see how that is much different than Ubisoft releasing a game, issuing post release patches to fix bugs and balance issues, and releasing paid DLC.

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I think this still falls under the category of "releasing additional pay content". And really, balance and usability updates are a pretty standard thing that come out in post release patches for a lot of games. Maybe not usability as much but balance patches are pretty common and are almost always free. Maybe there's some nuance that I'm missing but if Paradox releases a game, then releases a paid DLC with additional content that goes towards funding usability and balance updates, I don't see how that is much different than Ubisoft releasing a game, issuing post release patches to fix bugs and balance issues, and releasing paid DLC.

 

It might not be different to you, but it certainly feels different to me. When Assassin's Creed: Unity turned out to be such a bomb, Ubisoft cancelled its slate of planned DLC, didn't it? I'm not saying that, faced with disaster on a similar level, Paradox wouldn't maybe do the same, but it certainly seems that Paradox's reactive and development-focused DLC policy is a different kind of beast than the typical triple-A policy that has the next nine months of DLC planned from the start, nothing more and nothing less.

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I'm not really familiar with how Paradox does things since their games aren't ones that I play.  Are you saying they don't plan DLC at all and only make it when it seems like there's a demand for it, or are you saying that they do plan DLC but will perhaps change the content based on what they think people want?  Or something else entirely?

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New Humble Bundle up. Namco-Bandai games. Every tier seems to have a few winners. Pacman championships in the dollar tier is a great deal, and dark souls(!) is the $10 bonus. Anyone have thoughts on those versions of ridge racer or ace combat?

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New Humble Bundle up. Namco-Bandai games. Every tier seems to have a few winners. Pacman championships in the dollar tier is a great deal, and dark souls(!) is the $10 bonus. Anyone have thoughts on those versions of ridge racer or ace combat?

 

Its my least favorite Ace Combat game, but its also the only one on PC and there are few arcade style fight sims out there. meh/10

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I'm not really familiar with how Paradox does things since their games aren't ones that I play.  Are you saying they don't plan DLC at all and only make it when it seems like there's a demand for it, or are you saying that they do plan DLC but will perhaps change the content based on what they think people want?  Or something else entirely?

 

I think they have a regular DLC schedule, but they don't have the specific entries planned in advance, instead relying on community feedback and emergent shortfalls in their feature set. I like the idea of DLC as responsive to the game's post-release impact, rather than content previously excised and doled out regardless of other factors. I also think that timing DLC with major patches, while sometimes problematic for stability and usability, helps to reinforce that the DLC and the patches are in a symbiotic relationship that the overwhelming majority of Paradox players appreciate.

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I think they have a regular DLC schedule, but they don't have the specific entries planned in advance, instead relying on community feedback and emergent shortfalls in their feature set. I like the idea of DLC as responsive to the game's post-release impact, rather than content previously excised and doled out regardless of other factors. I also think that timing DLC with major patches, while sometimes problematic for stability and usability, helps to reinforce that the DLC and the patches are in a symbiotic relationship that the overwhelming majority of Paradox players appreciate.

 

I can get behind DLC being better as a responsive thing rather than something that is fully defined and planned out in advance. I do think it is the preferable model. But at the same time, I don't really begrudge other companies for carving out parts of their game ahead of time to sell as separate DLC. I used to be really bothered by it but if development costs (for big AAA games at least) really are continuing to rise and selling a game for more than $60 isn't an option, I don't think it's all that unfair for them to carve up some parts of it to sell separately. Generally speaking, I still feel like I get good value out of most $60 games and they still feel like complete products to me. Not always, but usually.

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Since Destiny was brought up as an example of "bad" DLC for done awkward reason, I'll just go ahead and point out that Destiny definitely isn't completely non reactive in format.

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Not wanting to drag the debate out, but I'd be interested to hear the recent games people willingly payed the full £39.99/€49.99/$59.99 launch day price for.

The last ones for me were Dark Souls 2, Mario Kart 8 and Mario 3D World.

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I don't buy many new AAA games, so going back to last year I'm pretty sure it goes:

 

Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne.

 

 

I'm a sad, sad man.

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