"We're all the rage"
How Modern Warfare 2 fanboys are going to ruin video games
Apparently, 2.5 million people purchased that stupid map pack for MW2. That’s right, Activision has made over $37 million already for 5 new maps that should probably have been free. At the very least, the two remakes should have been because I’m pretty sure the game engine used in Modern Warfare 2 is only an incremental upgrade over the original (though apparently MW2 uses a “new” engine which is claimed to be a full generation better, according to the Wikipedia page). Besides, how hard could it really have been when you don’t have to come up with a new layout? I’d imagine that playtesting is minimal in such a case. Either way, a horrendous number of you threw away $15 on this abomination, and in doing so, you may have ruined gaming forever.
That’s a pretty serious charge, you might say. Well, it is, and I also think it’s true. By showing publishers that they can charge outrageous sums of money for extremely limited content, they’ll take a cue and start making future games that are content light on release, because they know we’ll pay for it later. This is worse than the Horse Armor debacle from Oblivion. Horse armor was A) cheaper and B) made no fundamental difference to the game itself. It didn’t actually protect your horse, so it was strictly cosmetic. Why am I okay with that? Because you don’t have to buy it to still get the full experience of the game. I didn’t, and I still played the shit out of Oblivion (two characters with over 150 hours each), albeit with a rather generic looking horse.
The map pack is a different beast. Your entire multiplayer experience will remain wholly static unless you pay an ungodly amount of money for a few extra maps. Don’t get me wrong. The game shipped with something like 16 maps, which isn’t that bad. But do you think EA/DICE will want to keep releasing new maps for free if they know they can get $3 a map from you? Do you think Valve is going to include their SDKs and allow user-created content if they know they can control the market and milk you for money? Okay, so maybe Valve will still love us (we can hope), but if this takes off, you can bet we’re all going to pay through the nose for it. Games will end up like cars. Yeah, you can get the baseline model for a reasonable price (or not), but if you really want to have fun, you gotta start buying the extras. Expect to see blurbs such as “Upgrade your iron sites to a red dot or an ACOG for only $.99!” or “Tired of flying your Nieuport fighter? Get a brand new Fokker D.VIII for only €5.45!” Oh wait, Rise of Flight already does that.
So why am I taking this out on MW2 and not RoF? Because literally millions of people play MW2. Practically no one plays real flight sims any more (with the exception of Mack, and if I had the money for flight controls I probably would too). That makes the MW2 the real driving factor in how publishers do business. Now millions of you have taught them all that we’re sheep just waiting to be taken advantage of, and I’m sure millions more will illustrate that when the pack comes out for PC and PS3.
And before any of you get up in my face about complaining about something that “doesn’t concern me” because I don’t own MW2, you can bite your tongues. When this sort of thing happens, it can change the entire gaming world, not just you jackasses that play Modern Warfare. And I’m going to be pissed when I have to pay extra for games I do play just because many of you are too young to remember the days when this kind of stuff was free, and that was par for the course.
wahh wahh wahh..15 dollars wahhh.. c’mon, gaming is a hobby. Hobbies cost money. Businesses do business to make money, not to keep whiny gamers happy. If they didn’t make money, they wouldn’t be in business.. or they would and we would just have a mediocre game. The exceptions to the rules aren’t good game makers, but rather bad business people. Either way, it’s no more expensive then ordering a pizza and a 2-liter. Think about it.
I’ll admit, it comes down to your own personal price/entertainment index. But mine isn’t skewed in that direction. Gamin is a hobby, but traditionally it hasn’t been a terribly expensive one beyond the “start up” cost of a computer or console. And I don’t have a problem with DLC per se, but I DO have a problem with publishers charging for traditionally free content. I wouldn’t care about the whole issue if it wasn’t likely to impact the way I myself enjoy the hobby. I expect games to be complete on launch, not made complete for an additional fee months later. I fear the possibility of a trend toward games that have less and less when they come out, and that the deficit will only be made up later with paid content.
I think Valve has successfully shown with Team Fortress 2′s updates that you can continue to add content without charging for it and still turn a profit, because A) it brings customers back to a product they may have cast aside, B) it makes it more attractive to new buyers who may just be a bit behind the times and C) it builds brand loyalty. That last point cannot be overstated. I people think they will always be taken care of by a company, they will be far more likely to hand over their money for the product. Activision has proven to me they don’t really care about the consumer as anything other than a temporary means of revenue. Valve has shown that they view the consumer as a long term investment, one that they can keep over the long term only through continued appreciation of them. In the end, I think Valve’s system is better, but I’m still concerned that even they may look toward this kind of pricing structure simply because everyone else is doing it.
It’s been happening for years and it will continue to happen. I don’t mind spending $20 or so on a few new maps or options. If i’m spending a few bucks on upgrades the game most likely still has me interested.
I’m not opposed to it in pricinple. It just depends on what the content adds to the game. A few new maps is not significant content in my eyes. The new DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 is probably going to be signficant, with an entire campaign, at least one new game mode, new enemies, and new weapons. If it costs $3-5 for it, I’d probably be ok with it (depending on the actual depth of these additions). But I think 5 maps is such a small addition to the overall experience, and that $15 is an asbolutely abhorrent amount for such limited content, that it sets a really terrible precedent for other publishers to rape us.