Gaming is an expensive hobby at times. With new titles launching at $60, the truly committed fan who always wants the latest, greatest games on their shelf needs to have deep pockets. Even deeper if you also include the steadily-increasing flow of DLC to “enhance” new games.
THQ is interested in exploring a new approach, though: launching at a lower, more mass market-friendly price point and then selling more in the way of additional, “optional” content later.
“What we’re thinking about the business is we’re turning it on its head a little bit”, company president Brian Farrell told the BMO Capital Markets conference in New York this week. “It’s not ‘how high a price can we get’, but ‘how many users’.”
He argues that the $59.99 price point is “keeping people out”, and suggests that a more “accessible” retail price point means a larger initial install base. A larger initial install base that can then be tempted into spending additional money on DLC.
But does this mean we’ll be getting sub-par titles with content deliberately withheld for future DLC release? The next MX vs. ATV title will be launching at $39.99 and will be, in Farrell’s words, “a AAA title at that price point, but then with a series of DLC so people can extend their experience.”
In principle, this sounds like a relatively good idea. Many gamers will welcome lower prices for high-profile titles. But community acceptance of this practice will live or die on whether the lower-price package will be a “complete” experience. No-one enjoys feeling that they are missing out on important parts to a game. DLC should extend and expand, not fill holes which shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Gamers are already wary of EA’s “Project Ten Dollar” practice and equivalents from Ubisoft and THQ. So THQ is going to have to play this very carefully. The retail package for the game needs to include enough content to be “complete” in its own right. Gamers should be able to beat the game and be satisfied that they got everything they could out of it. Any DLC should, as Farrell says, “extend their experience”. This practice arguably makes more sense in genres like racing, which could in theory be extended indefinitely with new tracks, vehicles and modes. In the case of narrative-focused games such as BioWare’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, the reception to story-based DLC has been mixed. And in the case of Alan Wake, some gamers felt somewhat aggrieved that what they saw as important parts of the story (as opposed to supplementary “epilogue” episodes) were withheld until a later date.
This says nothing of those gamers who don’t have their consoles connected to the Internet, either. Will they get a subpar experience by virtue of the fact they can’t access any of this DLC?
Cheaper games would, without a doubt, be very welcome. Let’s just hope it doesn’t mean the consumer has to make involuntary sacrifices.
What do you think of this practice? Let us know.
Popularity: unranked [?]
No comments