The Nickel & Dime Generation 358
Phaethon360 sends in a piece that looks at how quickly game costs can add up these days, now that DLC, microtransactions and standalone expansions are commonplace, writing, "If you were trying to the think of the most expensive games to play, Rock Band or a monthly-fee MMORPG would come to mind. But Halo 3 is right up there, too." It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
GranTurismo 5 (Score:1, Insightful)
The only game I regularly play is GranTurismo, and with version 5 they're going to introduce micropayments as well, appearently if you want to buy all cars and all tracks, it will set you back several thousand dollars. Come on! With GT4, you got all cars and all tracks in the single payment! It's just a total rip off. Makes me think twice about actually buying it when it'll come out and that with my favourite game ever. Any other game with micro payments would not enter my house hold.
If you can't afford it. then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't play the game. It is only a game.
I can see whining and bitching about prices for things that we need to function in modern society. Homes, Transportation, energy, food etc... But video games just let the market decide what will happen if it is too expensive and you don't want to pay that amount then don't buy the game. It is only a game you don't need it. If you think you do then you are a shill to marketing.
Nickel and diming is everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Be ready for nickel and diming across the board. I see strategic war games on Steam selling sprite packs for $2.50.
Browsing around yesterday, I knew that when I saw a "Buy today and get four landmarks free" advertisement for CitiesXL [citiesxl.com] (MMO SimCity) that if I were look into its pricing scheme a bit more, I'd be in for a doozy: $9 a month to play with "free" content each month, followed by add-on packs called GEMs. Right now people are in an uproar over it because the general impression is that people will need to start paying the monthly fee to have access to mass transit in their single-player cities, something many consider an essential part of a city/world-building game as opposed to an optional add-on.
In my mind, ignoring facts that I'm sure will prove otherwise, nickel and diming all started with Elder Scrolls: Oblivion's horse armor for $2.50 :)
Re:If you can't afford it. then... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. The only problem with the entertainment industry is that unlike the housing, transportation, energy industries, if a mass of people vote with their wallet then some companies will write it off as piracy increasing as opposed to people being turned off by gouging and making a monetary vote.
As it is right now, I don't buy any new blockbuster game not only due to its price, but due to the fact that if I wait two years I can get a "gold edition" or a "game of the year edition" with all the content people were nickel and dimed for at 40% of the price of the standalone game.
Why single out games? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars
TV services will add up to thousands of dollars in ONE year, not several.
If your hobby is auto tuning or off-roading that souped up sports car or SUV will gobble through even more money a year in parts and gas than the afore mentioned TV bills.
Is your hobby reading? Only a fraction of titles are available in the libraries of most municipalities, this means at least as much as WoW a month if not more.
The point is this is nothing new. Every generation has had its "nickel and dime", it's the nature of all hobbies.
Re:DLC (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>>>I've paid $14.95 a month for 56 months. That's $837.20.
>>
>>pretty much every other hobby costs a lot more per month
Yes but it's not necessary to spend all that cash on just ONE game. I bought DDR for just $20 and it still entertains me all these years later. Why spend hundreds of dollars when a single twenty will give just as much fun?
Cost per hour (Score:3, Insightful)
wonder what his /played totals? I can't look at mine. The money is nothing compared to the time wasted. Generally I think of WoW as saving my entertainment dollar. What other entertainment could you possible find for $15 a month. Heck Netflix costs more. Of course if you want to go crazy add in the net connection, the new PC every couple of years, the junkfood for raiding, and the gym membership that you got to take off the raiding pounds (but have never used)
Re:Why single out games? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why single out games? (Score:2, Insightful)
They sell you a car which works completely, but for extras like leather seats, a fancy paint job, cruise control, etc. they charge you. That's what DLC is.
Re:Why single out games? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because companies intentionally cripple games and then charge you extra to get the full game. THAT is why. When you pay for HBO, HBO doesn't leave out certain shows that you have to pay extra for or only show you 3/4 of an episode and you have to pay extra for the rest of the episode. When you buy a car, they don't sell you the car and then say "oh, well you have to pay another $5,000 if you want a FUEL tank. What? You want to be able to turn it on? Well that's another $4,500 for the ignition!" That kind of garbage is the problem with DLC.
When you pay for cable though you don't get all the channels. You have to pay for HBO, Showtime, ESPN sports packages, then there's pay-per-view, on demand fees, and lets not forget a separate category for HD feeds.
When you buy a car you don't get all the features either. You might say "oh those aren't necessary", but I hear stories from my mother about cars and HOMES without air conditioning a few decades ago.
Do I think the practice is abusive? hell yeah! It should be fought tooth and nail too!, but this article makes it seem unique, which is far from the case.
Re:Gold account (Score:4, Insightful)
Any XBox 360 game is expensive if microsoft continue to charge users to play online...
Well it's all because of those damn pirates. I mean if people would stop copying games, usually kids and others who don't have the financial means to do otherwise, or even those who wouldn't pay for it anyway, then money would magically appear in their pockets and they would be willing to spend this magical money on games. Then all the games in the world would be cheap! Because that's how unfairly treated EA and Blizzard and Microsoft are, struggling in this harsh and cruel world to barely make ends meet.
Not following? Me neither.
Disclaimer: I'm not for or against piracy, I keep my worthless morals to myself, and you keep your worthless morals to yourself. I'm just exposing bullshit.
Re:Why single out games? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because companies intentionally cripple games and then charge you extra to get the full game. THAT is why. When you pay for HBO, HBO doesn't leave out certain shows that you have to pay extra for or only show you 3/4 of an episode and you have to pay extra for the rest of the episode. When you buy a car, they don't sell you the car and then say "oh, well you have to pay another $5,000 if you want a FUEL tank. What? You want to be able to turn it on? Well that's another $4,500 for the ignition!" That kind of garbage is the problem with DLC.
No but they might offer alloy wheels, metalic paint, a sun roof, cruise control, built in GPS, a Carlos Fandango trim kit, and an upgraded stereo at extra cost. Is that so different?
Re:DLC (Score:5, Insightful)
I play soccer. I spend more playing that in a recreational league (the cheapest one in the state that I know of) than on a WoW subscription. I enjoy reading. I admit that I don't work at keeping reading costs down (I'm often buying books and then giving them away to others), but I spend more on books than a WoW subscription. Swimming? Where do you swim? Swim once a week at a pool and you pay more than WoW, own your own pool and you are way way above that. Every gardener I know pays more than a WoW subscription for their hobby. If you like popcorn, WoW is cheaper than one movie a month. Wow, as hobbies go, is cheap. You have to work hard to find hobbies that cost less. 5 years of WoW is still less than what my coworker paid for his PS3, and he pays 3-5 times WoW's subsctiption on top of that in games.
Re:Why single out games? (Score:1, Insightful)
There's a difference between "options" and "we removed features to charge more". That's what you're missing. With cable, you choose what tv stations you want and then you get those channels. With a house, even if you decide not to put in A/C, it's still a functioning house - you don't pay extra for the roof, windows, walls, etc.
So sorry, your analogy fails.
Gamestop caused this. (Score:5, Insightful)
With more and more "casual" gamers buying more and more "awful but severely marketed" titles that offer no lasting replay value, the idea of a "long-term rental" utilizing GameStop as a middle-man, means EA can sell the downloadable content to 5 or 10 different people per disc instead of just 1! Burn-out Paradise is a prime example of this. Sure you can snag the disc for $15-$20 at your local used disc dealer, but after you install and update the game, you'll discover huge sections of the world closed to you (and cars unattainable) until you fork over $20 here and there for download-able expansions!
Even better, if you buy all these trinkets and ever lose the disc/sell the game then EA still has a bunch of your money for bits you can no longer use, and the chance to sell them all over again to someone else!
Ridiculous FA (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is ridiculous
The guy has 2 * 2 accounts with his wife, buys WoW normal AND collector editions, goes to BlizzCon and then finds out it costs quite a bit of money?
There are many articles worth nothing and this is one of them.
Re:Second life: did someone say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not rocket science, it's basic arithmetic. Unfortunately, the average American failed basic arithmetic so it might as well be rocket science.
Re:All Software an MMO (Score:3, Insightful)
Subscription based payment makes a lot more sense for MMOs because you're constantly using their server whenever you're playing. At an abstract level, separate from the question as to whether or not I'm getting good value for my money, just the basic concept makes some sense to me. I'm continually using their resources, and so I give them a few bucks each month.
At my job we use AutoCAD and Autodesk basically forced us into a subscription the last time we upgraded. So now instead of paying a big chunk of change to upgrade all of our licenses every few years, we send off a smaller (yet still significant) amount of money each year. The yearly subscriptions add up to about the same amount of money as we'd spend in the old bulk upgrades, but it's just one more thing that has to be remembered and budgeted each year. Autodesk pretends that we're getting a good deal, because they throw in a few minor pieces of software that nobody really has the time to learn, and because with our subscription we get "free" upgrades to each yearly release. Never mind the fact that we still only plan on installing new versions every few years because it's a big hassle. The subscription model makes very little sense from our point of view, we just plain don't like it. Unfortunately, we're pretty much at the mercy of Autodesk, because moving to new software would be an even bigger hassle.
Re:DLC (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? Because reading literature is inherently respectable, while video games are inherently a waste of time? What are you getting out of either activity besides enjoyment?
You're sitting in a room by yourself, consuming the creative output of somebody else. I'm sure you think it makes you more interesting and better than someone doing the same while also interacting with other people, but I don't see why.
Re:Why single out games? (Score:4, Insightful)
And just like air conditioning, DLC is extra. You don't need an extra map or 2 to enjoy the game. Your purchased copy will run perfectly 100% fine and you could always go through the complete campaign which is still usually around 15 - 30 hours of gameplay. DLC adds a little more to that if you're finished with the game and don't want to wait till the sequel to have new content. This content isn't free to produce, and is an added value on top of what you've already paid. Saying that without the DLC, the game is broken in any way or missing features is being very disingenuous.
Re:Why single out games? (Score:3, Insightful)
As somebody who played through the entirety of Far Cry 2 without having the DLC, I don't see how the GP's analogy fails at any point.
Pretty much the only DLC that effectively "crippled" the main game was that of Fallout 3, the one that allowed you to live through the final mission and extended the level cap up to 30. Though it could be considered a short expansion due to the amount of content in it, so even then it's debatable if it's the concept of DLCs' fault.