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I just wondered what you all felt about it. Is £3 for some new cars and tracks worth it? What about £3 for just two new maps? Should all downloads be free?
My thoughts...
I don't think we'll see the end of free downloads, developers know that it offers an incentive to keep playing their games and if games remain popular then they stand to make more money from more sales and possible premium content.
As a real life city, I love Paris. Being able to race around it is great. I really don't object to the £3 for the Paris booster pack. It added near enough another 10% of content to the game, for only 1/13th of the purchase price. When you think about it like that you realise that it works out pretty well. I'm sure they'll add another few free cars at some point to keep PGR2 popular, especially with RalliSport Challenge 2 out now.
Eventually I'm convinved we'll get the McLaren F1 that we all want...
Premium content gives another revenue stream for the developers and MS. Do you grudge Bizarre Creations the share of the £3 that they got? Because they would certainly have made an awful lot more money not bothering with the Xbox as PGR2 would have sold way more on the PS2.
Someone on another forum in a discussion about premium content mentioned the cost of games still being too high. I sort of agree. But at the same time I'd like to point out how they have fallen by as much as a third when you compare some of the later N64 games like Conker's Bad Fur Day which was £60 in Britain (at current exchange rates that is approx $108) and that was several years back. Conker Live And Uncut will be £40. Or less even if you shop around. SR will probably sell it at £30 or so.
Now premium content does push the total price of a game up. So PGR2 now cost £43 with the inclusion of premium content. But of course the amount of content in the game grew proportionally to the cost. Literally it does. We got approx 7.7% more content for 7.5% increase in total cost. Could they have put it in originally? Yes of course they could have. Could they have put every city in the world in originally? Of course they could, the only constraint being space on the disc.
Content downloads however are about extending the game, going beyond its original scope to offer something new. So should all content be free? No. Because if that was a condition of content being released then there simply would never be any. It costs time and money to develop new content, and if it was simply to be given away for free then the developers simply wouldn't bother with it, prefering to just move on and develop the sequel.
Instead we should be glad that we got so much for free for games like Rainbow Six 3 and Ghost Recon: Island Thunder. We got a lot of free stuff and yet you complain that you aren't getting enough free stuff? That borders on selfish. We didn't need to get it, but we did.
Premium content breathes new life into games, keeps them popular and makes money for the developers and MS who we have to bear in mind have provided a great console at cost to them so far.
For the record, I feel that the TVR shouldn't have been part of the booster pack as it does take away from the achievement of unlocking it. But seeing as I was never going to manage that, part of me is happy. Besides, lots of people just got it by using Action Replay.
Also I've been talking about content downloads. New cars or tracks or maps or guns. Not bug fixes. They should remain free. MS release updates for Windows for free because of bugs in their software. Some people argue that the bugs shouldn't be there in the first place, but that is the human factor of software development, no matter what platform it is. If a game has a bug, then the developer should fix that bug. For free.
So folks, any other thoughts?
My thoughts...
I don't think we'll see the end of free downloads, developers know that it offers an incentive to keep playing their games and if games remain popular then they stand to make more money from more sales and possible premium content.
As a real life city, I love Paris. Being able to race around it is great. I really don't object to the £3 for the Paris booster pack. It added near enough another 10% of content to the game, for only 1/13th of the purchase price. When you think about it like that you realise that it works out pretty well. I'm sure they'll add another few free cars at some point to keep PGR2 popular, especially with RalliSport Challenge 2 out now.
Eventually I'm convinved we'll get the McLaren F1 that we all want...
Premium content gives another revenue stream for the developers and MS. Do you grudge Bizarre Creations the share of the £3 that they got? Because they would certainly have made an awful lot more money not bothering with the Xbox as PGR2 would have sold way more on the PS2.
Someone on another forum in a discussion about premium content mentioned the cost of games still being too high. I sort of agree. But at the same time I'd like to point out how they have fallen by as much as a third when you compare some of the later N64 games like Conker's Bad Fur Day which was £60 in Britain (at current exchange rates that is approx $108) and that was several years back. Conker Live And Uncut will be £40. Or less even if you shop around. SR will probably sell it at £30 or so.
Now premium content does push the total price of a game up. So PGR2 now cost £43 with the inclusion of premium content. But of course the amount of content in the game grew proportionally to the cost. Literally it does. We got approx 7.7% more content for 7.5% increase in total cost. Could they have put it in originally? Yes of course they could have. Could they have put every city in the world in originally? Of course they could, the only constraint being space on the disc.
Content downloads however are about extending the game, going beyond its original scope to offer something new. So should all content be free? No. Because if that was a condition of content being released then there simply would never be any. It costs time and money to develop new content, and if it was simply to be given away for free then the developers simply wouldn't bother with it, prefering to just move on and develop the sequel.
Instead we should be glad that we got so much for free for games like Rainbow Six 3 and Ghost Recon: Island Thunder. We got a lot of free stuff and yet you complain that you aren't getting enough free stuff? That borders on selfish. We didn't need to get it, but we did.
Premium content breathes new life into games, keeps them popular and makes money for the developers and MS who we have to bear in mind have provided a great console at cost to them so far.
For the record, I feel that the TVR shouldn't have been part of the booster pack as it does take away from the achievement of unlocking it. But seeing as I was never going to manage that, part of me is happy. Besides, lots of people just got it by using Action Replay.
Also I've been talking about content downloads. New cars or tracks or maps or guns. Not bug fixes. They should remain free. MS release updates for Windows for free because of bugs in their software. Some people argue that the bugs shouldn't be there in the first place, but that is the human factor of software development, no matter what platform it is. If a game has a bug, then the developer should fix that bug. For free.
So folks, any other thoughts?
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and it's 'honour'. :P
ßora† §agdiyeV wrote:
> The Ghost wrote:
> It'd be an honor for me to be gunned down by your FAM[ILIAR]AS[S].
>
> ;)
> The Ghost wrote:
> It'd be an honor for me to be gunned down by your FAM[ILIAR]AS[S].
>
> ;)
The Ghost wrote:
> It'd be an honor for me to be gunned down by your FAMAS.
>
> ;)
> It'd be an honor for me to be gunned down by your FAMAS.
>
> ;)
It'd be an honor.
;)
;)
I'm just downloading 3 'new' levels for rainbow six 3. they're not really new, I just haven't been on for bloody ages.
I'm going to be horribly slaughtered, aren't I?
I'm going to be horribly slaughtered, aren't I?
mattributé wrote:
> The Ghost wrote:
> I did it with loads of my mates so it wasn't too bad
>
> Perv
Ha ha ha ha!
> The Ghost wrote:
> I did it with loads of my mates so it wasn't too bad
>
> Perv
Ha ha ha ha!
Trust you to spot that!
The Ghost wrote:
> I did it with loads of my mates so it wasn't too bad
Perv
> I did it with loads of my mates so it wasn't too bad
Perv
The Ghost wrote:
> get myself saked by dumping the papers in the nearest river.
I never did that.
Probably because there are no rivers nearby...
> get myself saked by dumping the papers in the nearest river.
I never did that.
Probably because there are no rivers nearby...
I used to do a paper round, I got paid between 5 and 6 pounds a week depending how many leaflets I had to put in each newspaper. (Yes, I had to put in the leaflets!)
My most recent paper round was last year in the summer, I got paid £16 a week for doing a 15 minute round at 5am everyday. (I said everyday, yes even Boxing Day!)
The only days I had off were Christmas and Easter Sunday.
I did it with loads of my mates so it wasn't too bad, I've had loads of paper rounds before but i've only done them during the summer and then get myself saked by dumping the papers in the nearest river.
Happy days.
:)
My most recent paper round was last year in the summer, I got paid £16 a week for doing a 15 minute round at 5am everyday. (I said everyday, yes even Boxing Day!)
The only days I had off were Christmas and Easter Sunday.
I did it with loads of my mates so it wasn't too bad, I've had loads of paper rounds before but i've only done them during the summer and then get myself saked by dumping the papers in the nearest river.
Happy days.
:)
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