Thursday, February 10, 2011

Gamers Getting Ripped Off

Today I logged into Reddit.com and was greeted by this post here. A single post from a forum that got me instantly ticked off. For those of you terrified of the Link Monster, (it's more afraid of you than you are of it, I swear) I'll spell it out here. It shows a link to a hacked save file from the PC version of Dead Space 2 that "not only has all that stuff (some previously bugged 'elite suits'), but all the console-only DLC items as well. About to test this myself, and will confirm once I reach the store. EDIT: Confirmed. Enjoy."

This means that everything they're asking you to pay to unlock on consoles is already on the disc you bought. If you gave them a single penny for a new suit or weapon, then you've been ripped off. You shelled out money to downloaded an unlock code for something you'd already paid for. This is completely unacceptable. It's related a bit to my post a couple weeks ago about the recent emergence of a dependency on patches to fix known problems post release instead of fixing them before shipping. Only here you're not getting a broken product (that I'm aware of; any DS2 owners feel free to chime in in the comments), you're getting charged multiple times for a finished one.

I understand the need to make money. The lousy state of the economy has raised the sale of used games, which means that fewer new copies are being sold, and that translates to less money for the game's devs and producers. That's a problem for them and I get that. But this isn't the way to fix it. I loved the first Dead Space, and am still interested in playing the sequel because from all I've heard it's a quality title. Before hearing this I would gladly have dropped the money on a new copy of this game. Not now though. They've assured I get my copy used. I have no problem paying full price for everything that's on the disc, so I'll make certain to get it for a low enough price to compensate for all those additional charges.

Now, I think DLC is a great idea. The premise is that the developers spent extra time and money creating something in addition to the normal game. For a truly excellent example of DLC done right, look no further that the game Borderlands put out by the company Gearbox. They listened to feedback from fans and decided that there was something more to be done with the game. They put in time and effort to make a quality piece of work that made me want to pay them more just to get more time with their game. And look how much more money they made because of this. Initial game cost $50 USD. DLCs were $9.99 each for the four of them. All told, Gearbox and its publishers made nearly $90 from me alone off that one game and its DLC, not to mention that coinciding with the release of the last DLC they also put out a Game of the Year edition that contained all $90 worth of game and DLC for $50. Compare that with the amounts that the Dead Space 2 guys (I can't say for certain if it was the devs or EA who was responsible for this debacle) will be getting trying to nickel and dime their customers. Borderlands kept putting out quality work and asking their customers to pay them for it. Dead Space 2 put out quality work, then asked their customers to keep paying for it. Tell me, which do you think is going to make more in the long run?

These locked away suits and guns in Dead Space 2 are also an example of so-called Day One DLC, which may or may not be a ripoff depending on how its done. Day One DLC is downloadable content that's available from the time the game hits shelves. Whether or not it's a ripoff depends on two things.
1. Is the content included on the disc the consumer bought, (as is the case here)?
2. Is the content actually additional content and not content that was held back intentionally so that consumers could be charged more for it?
If it meets either of those requirements, then the consumers are most definitely being taken advantage of by someone.

It's especially sad when good games do this. It's hard to be angry at them and yell "No one buy this!" because the game itself is good and you want others to enjoy it too. All I can say again is to vote with your wallet. Support the game, but don't support this type of business model! Give the game rave reviews (if it deserves them) and great praise. But don't spend a cent on their DLC, and maybe this this type of thinking will eventually disappear. Might be a slim hope, but it's the only one we've got.

6 comments:

  1. Its EA, to be honest I wish I could say I was surprised. Its how they do business. Only game I get anymore from EA is the single players, can't even get online with them. Not really fussed about paying for something thats Additional Content, but if it is already on the disc and you have to pay for the unlocks, that can be a bugger. But now they are saying that its not the disc we're paying for its the license to use the product and they can argue that "if you want your license to include other features that are available on current software you will have to pay more" Much like computers come with a trial version of Microsoft office already on it but if you wanna use it you gotta pay extra for it to be included in your license.

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  2. Yeah, I don't agree with that whole 'buying the license to play' argument in the least. If that's all I'm buying, then if my disc breaks why do I have to shell out another $60 for a new one?

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  3. Cause your buying a "New License" All I know is its a frigging headache for the people who want what they think they are paying for.

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  4. Yeah, that's the thing. "Permission to play" is intangible. Though it could be withdrawn for violating terms of use, it can't get broken. The Hardware they supply can, but that doesn't mean I've somehow lost the permission I paid for. If my ability to exercise that permission is lost because of their hardware failure, shouldn't they be sending me a new disc free of charge? Somehow I don't see that happening.
    You can't have it both ways, EA. Either I'm allowed to use everything on that disc (with appropriate terms of use included to protect your intellectual property; Pirates are scum), or you're perpetually responsible for my ability to exercise my license to play.

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  5. The DLC being on the disk is a moot point, really... You bought the game "as is", the fact that there is extra parts on it is a bonus so you can't really claim ownership rights over it. As an analogy, if you buy a house and find a locked box in the basement, you wouldn't cry foul at paying a locksmith to open it for you, would you?

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  6. Not really because the owners didn't intentionally leave it there, and then expect you to pay them more to have what's inside. Plus, the owner most likely isn't the locksmith you've called.

    It's more like buying a Lamborghini and finding out it only goes up to 40. If you want them to remove the limiter, well, that'd cost another couple grand.

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