So… the ones at the PC already bought the game, right? So why do it again? Especially since the promise of ‘no extra mandatory costs’ is there.
Now that means they can only realistically do it with console players, excluded from the initial market.
Console games have a steeper price because you need the physical box… that’s at least the excuse of the industry. Otherwise console gaming is the ‘affordable option’.
How the actual heck would you explain to your customers that your game basically has double the price to the ‘non affordable’ option (the PC gamers) when you’re supposed to be the comfortable, easy and affordable way of gaming? You remove all perceived upsides for your customers and they would need to be utter idiots to buy your product.
So doing that would also be utterly moronic.
I called EHG out years ago by now that they need to focus more effort on their MTX ship quality and their core game-mechanic quality rather then making their product ‘shiny’ for the time being. Several more people did as well which had an inkling about reasonable monetization long-term.
They didn’t do it so here we are. First absolute failure of finance management? 1.0… release in a broken state.
Ok… acceptable… calling them out for making major mistakes… make up for em, no issue! Life and learn, right? From now on they simply need to do it better, revise the strategy, adapt the priorities.
What did they do instead? ‘Here, have new shiny turd. Fixing the old broken stuff? Nahhhhh… why? Meaningful amounts of high quality MTX? We got box price!’
I mean… who was the one responsible to managing the monetization itself? The person ensuring that the ship won’t sink, doing the uncomfortable stuff early enough to steer it away from the iceberg before it’s on a crash-course? I hope whoever was responsible for the core direction and neglecting long-term survival of the company has been removed from that position and only does other stuff now… because of not… they direly need to give away that responsibility yesterday by now!
Unlike a subscription or P2W you’re not mandated to buy MTX though, they serve no direct function.
It’s specifically there to uphold the company, not more not less.
You’re also not mandated to buy a Ferrari to have a car. Luxury products are there for luxury, status… perception. You don’t buy em if you don’t have the means for em instead of expecting them to be catered towards you personally.
It’s fine if the MTX costs 1000€ per piece as long as the product itself keeps surviving because of it. It doesn’t affect your gameplay if you have or don’t have it.
I’d wager that the recent acquisition has caused a drop in sales and lost revenue. I’ve not bought a supporter pack this season however likely would have if EHG was still an independent studio.
Numbers 2 and 3 are the same as number 1, they are just staving off the failure and kicking the can down the road.
Well unfortunately, you wont get that. You are getting all of the above cept p2w so far.
For me it just means they blew it, and investing into a sinking ship is not really something im all that interested in doing.
Also for the above 3 points… they did all 3… because they have squandered the money multiple times… they sold some ownership to tencent to get an injection of cash, they sold to krafton to get an injection of cash… and now its time to uhhh start charging for content because they still need more money?
Sounds like all they have done is flushed money down the tubes, I dunno man, to me writing is on the wall. They have a good product, but they are overspending likely on staff imo, since they claim to have 100+ employees and as good as the game is, I wouldnt call it 100 employee game good but thats just me.
If you are playing PS and are pumped for this release, I’d be personally put off if it launched with an extra expansion cost. If the game had released on PC at its price point but had an extra day one expansion I’d never even entertain it.
I didn’t get into it until the start of season 2, but honestly the game doesn’t feel like it’s out of early access from a balance perspective, the classes are all over the place. The story isn’t complete, in fact there’s a bunch of loose threads. The only thing worse than a day 1 expansion is an expansion for an EA game, which this still feels like.
There’s also a problem with what do you get having bought the expansion vs people who didn’t? I assume you wouldn’t be able to group up in new zones, or share certain loot. It isn’t a good idea for a day 1 console release to be told you don’t get to play together unless you also fork up the extra cash.
In short, the expansion isn’t even out yet, and we have zero idea what’s included in it since their teaser was nothing new and it’s already been divisive among the community. Imagine how it would be if it’s paid for locked content.
The games subsidise the box, it’s not an excuse, they make a loss on the box but charge you more for the software & online.
Erm, they aren’t? If you look at the price of Borderlands 4, the standard version is £40 on pc & £54 on Xbox, the most expensive version is £81 on pc & £84 on Xbox (all prices from cd keys since its easy to get the prices). That’s at most a 35% markup for the Xbox (for BL4). Fifa 23, however, has some bonkers pricing. £19 for the pc (Origin), £24 for Steam, £17 for the xbox (series x/s & one), £27 for the UK xbox one, £45 for the Playstation.
So yeah, pc games aren’t generally half the price of a console version, though they are cheaper & the pricing is inconsistent.
While there is life there is hope. No Man’s Sky is a superlative & likely unique example of this.
It does kinda feel a bit like this, yeah.
But how much though? It’s not like it was a refinancing where they restructured their debt to be cheaper (though there could have been an element of that).
I get that feeling, too, as an outsider with no real clue of what’s going on.
While I enjoy LE for what it is quite a bit, I think the business and management side of EHG never was their strong part, with a notable lack in the QA department, especially.
It’s a shame. Game companies can be managed in a good way though, for example I’m playing a certain game which does let you pay for progress-boosting resources, however these resources are easily obtainable through normal gameplay. Development progresses at a steady pace, the devs always add new and exciting stuff, they organize weekly livestreams like EHG, and the players organize yearly meetups where you can meet the devs in person, answer trivias, take part in raffles, play bingo or buy some delicious mac and cheese.
I was hoping that EHG would be like this too, but I stopped hoping ever since the buyout.
As long as they continue to entertain me with the game, I’m willing to support it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if expansions were paid for.
Things can change over the years.
It’s just that I pay because I want more fun!
I’ve been playing since the beta and they’ve continued to make the game more fun and better.
To me, it’s worth the money.
It would have to come down to two issues with expansions, being how much and how frequently.
Honestly if season 3 had launched under an expansion model that prevented you from getting primordial uniques unless you shelled out $10, I’d refuse on principle, and those uniques are a clear example of a power swing.
When it comes to charging for an expansion it will clearly have some level of p2w behind it, like restricted gear or classes, or possibly new zones that are more engaging than the current mono grind. When I think expansion, I just assume a fairly sizable upset to the current game.
No matter what they charge, they will lose customers who won’t want to encourage such behaviour.
Tell that Nintendo for example, they provide you with a cartridge that has no data on it!
If they provide a expansion that’s paid + a base game then it’s at least double the price for the base-game of PC.
I’m not talking about base game vs. base game. The premise was that they would piss off PC players with a paid expansion and hence can only realistically do it for console… and then comparatively it would be double-price.
Yeah, but that’s not comparing like with like. Why aren’t you comparing the base game + all DLC for DLC heavy PC games to the base game cost of a console game? I can think of a few PC games that are several thousand GBP for all the DLC. That’s totally comparable.
Yep, and they should plainly spoken just fail rather then some whales fully paying for them over and over again.
I won’t compare things to predatory business models unless the task is specifically set up to do so. Why? Because they’re not even worth mentioning. You’re supposed to be disgusted by the existence itself of those things… not lean in to call them ‘viable options’.
If your business cannot sustain itself while being ethical then your business has no position to exist at all.
ANd plainly spoken? If EHG decides to go back on their promise I absolute hope it fails. Why? So others don’t copy this shit-show and instead are respectively turned away from trying the same anti-customer shit.
Ignoring the paid part of this. My concern is that this expansion is later, not for next season, and perhaps not after that. How many resources are going into this expansion to make it worth the cost? How poor will future seasons be until this is released? Because of we are getting half assed seasons, then the player base windles. Enthusiasm reduces as the games future is murky and unsustainable.
I didn’t, I just wanted to know why you were being intellectually dishonest enough to compare A+B with C & wonder why C is half. I was even comparing the same game on pc/different consoles (& marvelling at the confusion that is the Fifa pricing since that’s all over the place) like you were implying you had.
And as nice & aspirational as that is, reality disagrees. But feel free to live in that ivory tower of yours.
As Llama said, reality would like to disagree. In fact, pretty much all the businesses that thrive in the modern world have a very loose grasp on the word “ethics”.
In fact, it’s quite rare to find a company that adheres to ethics and thrives these days.
Because the whole premise was taken on relation to the disparity of customer base.
Going into the console market would allow them to apply costs to a expansion as all people paying into the product there would be new customers without fail. No kickstarter backers, no EA backers, no customers from release forward.
Hence no terms apply as they’ve not been monetary incentivized beforehand.
PC players though have a legal background of a monetary situation applying to them, which is ‘the full experience for only the shelf-price’.
That was what my statement is based on and why I excluded the expansion price for PC.
And you both are 100% right in your arguments!
Which though also doesn’t make it ‘fine’ now, does it?
If you give a business a finger they rip off your hand, that’s a given.
So… don’t give em a finger I guess.
What you’re arguing there is ‘if companies are not bound by ethics then you cannot treat them as if they have them’.
So… my question is then… why did you two excuse any even mildly inappropriate situation then? Because on that strict basis we would have no gray-area… we would only have black&white, which means no lenience… ‘you didn’t provide us with the exact promise? No excuse… do it now or refund!’ after 2020 + a single extension of the timeline (as legally obliged)… as well as ‘refund us completely now!’ after 1.0 as initial goals haven’t been upheld.
But… people didn’t do that, right? ‘Because there was leeway’. You cannot have it both ways though… either you accept that a company is inherently not bound by ethics and hence needs a strict treatment as you can’t ‘guide’ them to do the right thing without force… or you accept they have ethics and hence you can which allows leeway to allow a method of learning.
Because there is no alternative with capitalism, especially because those that can actually do something about it are the ones most profiting from it, so they have no incentive to.
Once capitalism fails and we get something else in its place, then we’ll have alternatives.
Would it be nice if companies were ethical? Sure. It would also be nice if education, housing, food and health care were always free. But we don’t live in a utopia, so we have to make do with what we have and place expectations accordingly.
With capitalism, once a company gets big enough it only cares about survival/growth. It’s a sort of evolution theory for organizations. And survival/growth isn’t usually compatible with ethics or morals. Or even law, oftenly.
for the Playstation.
