And a third and final ripoff for the week – overpriced DLC.
Having just finished Oblivion, I was ready to give the “Shivering Isles” expansion a go.* But it’s more than $40 worth of MS points – and if you add in the “Knights of the Nine” expansion, it’s more than $50. Why add in the KotN expansion to that calculation? Because you can buy a disc with the two on it new for less than $50. Buying it over Microsoft Live costs you MORE than for a disc. A disc which has physical media, documentation, packaging, distribution, and retail costs included in that price – the version you have to pay for the bandwidth to download and that comes with none of that COSTS MORE.
Bethesda made a bit of a joke about the rip-off that was its “horse armour” pack by hilariously doubling the price for April Fools’ Day this year. Ha ha, we know we’re ripping you off, they jested. Whilst continuing to do it.
Shameless.
They can get away with it because no-one can come in on Xbox Live and undercut them: it’s a monopoly service. Which is a handy reminder why the actual game shops aren’t such a bad thing.
Solution: Don’t charge consumers more for DLC than the physical media version! In fact, there’s no excuse not to charge us LESS. We know your costs are reduced, and we know we’re not getting as much for it – so bloody pass on the saving to us.
I thought you, the publishers, were desperate for us to move away from the bricks-and-mortar model. Good job reminding us why that might be a bad idea.
*Also, they’ve cynically made it so you can’t get 100% on the game without buying it. Bastards.
May 29, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Gawd.
I recently read an interview with some Bethesda dev talking about their experience with Oblivion and how it influenced their development of DLC for Fallout 3.
The dev said something along the lines that Bethesda saw Shivering Isles as an example of giving away *too much* content to people, so for Fallout they ensured that they would release smaller chunks of DLC. That is the attitude we are dealing with.
May 29, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“Too much”? No, “too expensive”. And STILL too expensive. 2400 points? That’s madness.
May 29, 2009 at 1:07 pm
The recent GTAIV expansion is 1600 points, and that’s still overpriced for what it is. 2400 for an extra island and a few quests in Oblivion? The silly thing is, if they priced it reasonably they’d find – as Valve has with Steam – that they make a lot more money with it.
May 29, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I agree that the price is steep, but I will say that Shivering Isles is a satisfyingly hefty piece of DLC -the quest line is longer than the main quest line, and there are a significant nuimber of side quests too.
I went into the Shivering Isles about level 3 and came out about level 15 (and no I didn’t just spam jumping or spells to level up)
In terms of length, Shivering Isles a fair dinkum expansion set, whereas Knights of the Nine is like another Guild quest line.
Plus, all the vegetation is different in the Isles, which makes for some nifty potions.
June 29, 2009 at 4:32 pm
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