Dragon Age 2 - Meet the Exiled Prince

[figment]

I see this as basic economics, price discrimination. Charge what the customer is willing to pay. Early adopters are willing to pay a premium so you charge them full price. Most customers are not so you give incentives like preordering before the fact or sales after the fact. How many people pay full price for clothing? How many people buy the extended warranty from big box stores? Is it cold and heartless? Yes. Welcome to capitalism. Of course its never that simple but the basic principle still works.

I preordered the signature edition because I was going to buy the game at launch anyway and I knew I was not willing to pay full price for the DLC so I hedged and preordered to get access to the DLC as that was what I was willing to pay. Some people here are willing to wait until years end and will probably get it for half price or more from Steam. Some people here are willing to pay $7 to get the DLC and I don't really have a problem with that if that is what they want after all its their money.

I can't say that I like it and EA/Bioware is paying a future price for their current greed since I'm that much less likely to pick up other products from them because of this. I agree with the final point of the above article that this is ultimately going to hurt the industry but I have a feeling it will take a lot longer for that than we are willing to admit to ourselves.

 

[Drithius]

Yawn. When's the release date for Witcher 2, again?

 

[Giovanni1983]

Have to agree with the "complaining side" of this.
Bioware, once my favorite RPG company, is becoming a money maker and not in the logical way of "just" making a game and selling it. Day 1 DLC smells fishy to me, especially when the NPC being added is a full fledged character that you can have during your game and interact with. It's like saying directly, "Hey we cut him out of the game and selling him as DLC to make that extra $7". No shame at all.
The money to buy it may not be that much on it's own and i agree with the point that if you don't want it don't buy it. But that's not the point is it?

 

[Brother None]

I think that's a great attitude but many people feel they buy anything because its $7.00. Im guilty of this but I hate myself sometimes. Most of the time I will just buy the platinum or enhanced edition that will save me $100 of dollars.

That's the whole principle. Before you know it you have spent a hundred bucks across half a dozen games on DLC you don't even feel that excited about, just because it's so cheap. Didn't Todd Howard note a while ago that people were still buying the Horse Armor DLC? It's not like they don't know what they're getting, it's just that these micropayments make for much easier spending.

And that's why the game industry loves DLC so much. Produce less, sell for more.

But hey, I can't complain too loud as long as I can freely opt out, which I can and do.

What I don't like is being forced to make a buying decision back in January before I'd seen enough of the game, especially when my preferred vendor (Steam) didn't have the offer. What difference would it have made to include the Signature Edition with all preorders?

It is a weird thing. The Black Emporium is currently available on PSN as well as the Prince. It's 10 bucks. Who would pay ten bucks for that? No one, but it's free with the game.

I should be wary about judging from the outside looking in, but the Black Emporium + Exiled Prince together looks about equal to the "free DLC" you got as a first-time buyer of DA:O. I'm not a huge fan of EA's Project 10 bucks but they're free to withhold minor gameplay elements from second-hand buyers, it's not like they have to pay to be able to finish the game. But why push the Exiled Prince into very, very early preorder stages? Was this some kind of push from EA to get more preorders in? Like so many things BioWare has been doing recently, it's kind of mystifying.

 

[DArtagnan]

DLC is only a real problem when you consider what doesn't exist because of it.

 

[DArtagnan]

Well, it's also a problem in the sense that it is propping up inflated game budgets. It might be stimulating a bubble growth in the game industry, of sorts, but it certainly looks sustainable for now.

Oh, I think it's very sustainable.

But what I meant was that there's little incentive for the developer to develop "meaty" expansions requiring full teams to develop, and taking at least 6-12 months.

I mean, if the standard expansion is ~30$ - then why not produce three DLC packages and sell them for 10$ each. Especially since people seem so eager to spend money, when the amount is small.

If you prepare for them properly, you can do such content with minimal effort - compared to what you'd have to do with an expansion.

A typical expansion needs to integrate fully with the core game - unless it's a stand-alone expansion, in which case it has to be more or less another "full game".

That's the kind of problem I'm talking about.

Not that I think we can completely write off proper expansions, but I certainly feel we're going to see less and less of them.

That's pretty much the only issue I have with DLC - as people are quite right that it's an option you can ignore. But it's a huge issue nonetheless.

 

[DArtagnan]

Oops, too fast

 

[Maylander]

I pre-ordered in time, so there are no extra costs for me.

Anyway, we've known about this extra character for months; nothing new here other than a bit more info about the actual character.

 

[Brother None]

Oops, too fast

Sorry. Deleted it because I figured it's a bit too off-topic.

I mean, if the standard expansion is ~30$ - then why not produce three DLC packages and sell them for 10$ each. Especially since people seem so eager to spend money, when the amount is small.

If you prepare for them properly, you can do such content with minimal effort - compared to what you'd have to do with an expansion.

A good comparison and too true. It's true for expansions and for main games. Either way, DLC is way below them in production cost, and way above them in relative price. There are exceptions, like EFLC, but in general that's how the model works and why the industry loves it so much.

 

[DArtagnan]

Sorry. Deleted it because I figured it's a bit too off-topic.

Hehe, no worries

A good comparison and too true. It's true for expansions and for main games. Either way, DLC is way below them in production cost, and way above them in relative price. There are exceptions, like EFLC, but in general that's how the model works and why the industry loves it so much.

Yeah, and I can't really blame the industry for being an industry.

I'm just a little sad that the players themselves can't see the issue with being too eager to support DLC.

 

[toltec7]

dunnno 'bout you guys, but I simply won't be able to play the game without http://store.razerzone.com/store/ra...parentCategoryID.43736600/categoryId.55256600

 

[SAGO]

>.>
<.<


autstic nerd rage incoming

too late

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm waiting for some kind of EA Dragon Age store to pop up just like they have for The Sims.

Interesting thought. And yes, you could be more right than we all wish.

Plus, the DLCs have an interesting side-effect : Indirect DRM.

DRM that doesn't look like something negative (like DRM usually does), but rather as something positive, something the players GET instead what is (in their opinion) TAKEN FROM them by direct DRM …

I'd say it could be easy for EA to dismiss those "copies" of the game which are not legal - and this refuse the DLCs to illegal copies.

But that's not all : DLCs are actively purueing the "second-hand-market" : Everyone who buys a USED copy might buy ALSO for the DLC later on.

Which means in short :

1 game + if used = 2-3 DLCs

Thus, they get even more money through the DLCs several times than when this DLC (or rather, its contents) had only been sold for 1 game = 1 player …

I don't know whether I was able to put in words what I mean, but I hope so …

 

[SonOfCapiz]

it makes me want to pirate the DLC out of spite. Then not use it out of principle

 

[rich ruffo]

I hope the reviewer have the balls to judge DA2 accordingly .

 

[kalniel]

And yet, DA2 can be bought from the shops and you should be able to judge it fully on the content that you're buying out of the box. If this DLC was somehow crucial to your enjoyment of the game then I could understand the angst and proclamations of refusing to buy the game until it was included. But I can't see that. People can decide whether to buy the game or not based on the content as price as it stands - games are still a luxury and if you don't feel it's worth it as it is then you don't have to buy it.

Giving bonus content for first-hand sales is likewise a completely valid tactic IMHO - these companies need to make money to produce games, and I was very happy with Shale.

Giving bonus content for pre-order is also fine IMHO - pre-orders really help you judge your market. Ideally I'd like to see a discount for pre-orders, or some kind of fan service, but this is okay.

As for DLC itself, I'm kind of 'meh' about it - *I* don't enjoy getting DLC after I've played through a game in most cases - it rarely seems worth firing up the game just for the DLC if it's nothing sizable. Expansion packs are the sort of size that make it worthwhile, and if I can wait to create my own collection of DLC that equates to the same thing then I might consider it - I would have done for FA3 save that the GOTY edition ended up being cheaper.

 

[booboo]

Giving bonus content for first-hand sales is likewise a completely valid tactic IMHO - these companies need to make money to produce games, and I was very happy with Shale.

IIRC shale was 'too late' to go into the actual game...this new DLC is all ready and primed (weeks, months?) before D-Day. It smacks of blatant exploitation (certainly in terms of bang for buck) and the point made elsewhere is one I endorse: rather than frittering away time to line their bank accounts by making bitty/short DLC's, they could have improved the game experience for *everyone* by investing that time in the core game. The fact that they are a 'business' is evident - but they do not need to be so mercenary about it. And in the past they weren't.

 

[Captain Buzzkill]

Not to mention what I pointed out before: What happens to the quality of the main game when the development studio allocates time and resources to the production of this superfluous garbage? If you're going to work on DLC before the launch of the main game, why not add a few extra adventures that can be played after the main game, and then release them after all the buzz starts to die down?

 

[kalniel]

Not to mention what I pointed out before: What happens to the quality of the main game when the development studio allocates time and resources to the production of this superfluous garbage? If you're going to work on DLC before the launch of the main game, why not add a few extra adventures that can be played after the main game, and then release them after all the buzz starts to die down?

I assume that Bioware either have an excess of talent/time if such DLC doesn't affect the main game negatively, so it's no loss. Or such DLC is actually worked on in the delay between main game completion and the actual game release when the bottleneck is logistics/publishing rather than dev talent.

If it did affect the main game then you just make the usual bang/buck argument before buying it - it could well be Bioware games provide an excess of enjoyment anyway and would still be worth the money with content lessened.

 

[DArtagnan]

So we should actually be celebrating DLC - because the game might be worth playing anyway?

We shouldn't consider how the existence and acceptance of DLC affects the industry, and the expansion mindset?

Interesting stragegy, but not really one I believe in.