Epic's Capps: some devs want to make game endings DLC... say what? |
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You know how we reported before that some developers are fighting video game rentals and second hand sales by offering DLC to only new copies of the game? (The list includes Gears of War 2.)Well take that idea to the extreme.
Epic Games president Michael Capps says that some developers are talking about making game endings DLC. Meaning if you didn't buy the game direct from retail, you'll have to pay extra to download the ending. Here's his own words on it, when asked how he saw DLC evolving in the next few years:
I'm not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but the secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code.
I've talked to some developers who are saying "If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free".
We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it...
This is a bad idea. WTF. Seriously. I get that devs want to make as much money as possible from game sales, but if they're seriously considering this as an option to make gamers cough up the cash, it's a sad, sad day for gaming. Not to mention there are poor saps who don't even have Internet.
Thanks to PacoDG for the tip!
Related Articles:
- Sony on Xbox 360 exclusive DLC: "nothing is ever exclusive"
- Microsoft approached Tomb Raider: Underworld for exclusive DLC
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Comments
First of all "WTF" is not news article lingo. Act more professional. Secondly, I can see exactly why they "want" to do this. It won't happen, but I know why they want to do it. It won't happen, as there are very poor people who can't afford the new games and have to (or choose to) pirate or or buy them. Renting and buying used is the exact same as pirating the game; the devs make nothing from all 3. However some games are soo crappy, or really short, that renting is the only logical option. What they should be doing is making their own Online store where you can rent the game for a week directly from the Devs by downloading it to your system (Even LIVE and PSN have the ability already). But then you have those poor people again with basic DSL who would take 6 days to download 6-12 GB. You can't please everyone. But making the boss unlockable my be good for the devs, bad for the gamers.
To not exist at all. Sounds familiar? Yeah look no further than WinXP (SP2) and Vista. This is sad....
WTF is indeed not news article lingo, but this is a news blog, we're more relaxed on the jargon here. I like your idea for an online rental where proceeds go directly to the devs, that way it's a win-win situation... well, except for rental places and guys without Internet. But it does show there are proper alternatives rather than an extreme solution like making game endings DLC.
For god sakes that ending is definitely not worth it if they charged for it. You shoot a Brumak about 5 times with the Hammer of Dawn and then it explodes and it attacks you maybe once or twice but they are so far apart from each other it is impossible to die.
"WTF. Seriously." That's exactly what I thought. You're right, it may not be "news article lingo", but that's coming straight from the guts, and it perfectly expresses the feelings of most of the people who will read this article. Second, I'm sorry to say that, but you're completely wrong when you say that "Renting and buying used" games is the same as pirating. When you buy a game, it becomes OWN PROPERTY. You're free to sell it when you don't want to use it any more. Just like a damn car. Are you gonna tell us that selling used cars should be forbidden? This just doesn't make sense, seriously. Besides, game publishers/developpers who think like that and do that kind of things (for example : Electronic Arts and their famous DRM's in Spore...) only end up shooting themselves in the foot : players with at least half a brain will be pissed off and will look down on that company from that day on. Honestly, I don't like what the video game industry is becoming. Loads of cheap to make, sold at full price remakes of old games, downloadable content designed to make players pay and pay again, and now this utter bull*****? Where are they going? What will their next idea be to milk more money from players? Oh wait, I have an idea ! Make all games "pay to play"! Every time you start playing a game, 1$ or 2$ is automatically deducted from your bank account. Game over? Don't worry, you can resume playing for 1$! And when your bank account is dry, you get a nice "INSERT COINS" message. Yay, arcade at home! -_-
Rent the game. Watch the ending on Youtube. Simple as that. If these dumb devs think this is going to rack up sales they are sorely mistaken. When will they learn that instead of forcing us to do something if they actually cared and made good games to please us, THAT would rack up sales. Probably never gonna happen because it takes a little something called 'effort.' In any case, yeah, I just posted a simple solution in under 3 seconds. Rent game, watch ending on youtube. Done.
"We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used" Correct me if I'm wrong, but the person who trades it in initially had to _buy_ it somewhere - same goes for the rental stores. If there is not rental/after use trade because of this kind of crap I could easily see them _losing_ sales and not just on the aspect of "people know about the scam" c'mon, how many of you haven't gone into a rental or used place and seen 5+ copies of some junk game no one wants anyway?
I can't believe people are taking this seriously. To begin with, while devs do not make DIRECT sales off rentals and used sales, both of those markets HELP DRIVE sales for the dev. Word of mouth alone is GOLD. Secondly, to do as this article suggests would be death to the dev and publisher. One, they are killing sales based on bad form and two, they are killing sales based on the markets I already mentioned. Capps is an idiot. He's only doing this to see "HOW" the industry explodes from the news..... and explode it will.
With every new generation, consoles & games get more and more expensive and these billion dollar companies can't get enough, it's just about €€€ ... Next time I'll buy the console where you can play pirated games on and a 2 TB HDD ...
Make me pay extra for buying second hand? I WILL pirate your game instead.
Nobody would buy a game where you pay contless times to finish it. It's like those collectors stuff where you buy the 1st pieces of something to asssemble for 1.99$, but you need like 40 of those to finish the thing, and the price is always going up (to 6$ and more per piece), at the end, you paid 300$ for this is thing you though was "cheap", for only 1.99$ for the 1st part, wow!...
Well, the whole point here is that it would be FREE for the original purchaser.
Thank you for bringing up this point. I also WILL pirate the game if I have to pay extra for an used game. Besides, this whole thing is unconstitutional.
They do make since. They can't make money off of rentals or used games. Yeah we all hate GameStop. Pre-order this, pre-order that. I feel for these companies. I believe that Gamestop should make a contract with them stating that Gamestop should give the developers a certain percentage of the used game. Now as far as the other side. Aren't the developers already making money off of the rental companies? I mean they do have to purchase the games before they rent them out, right? And the used games. Apparently they already made money off that particular game before it was traded in. Anyone agree?
Very disappointed with the end boss on Gears 2. Easily one of the worst ever Shoot a big bad guy with the hammer of dawn. Gee I've only done that say, 100 times over the course of Gears 1 and 2... Boring
Yeah I think I helped a lil. Check it out http://www.giantbomb.com/news/?page=2 Look for ch13696
Sorry this one... http://www.giantbomb.com/news/new-game-incentives-make-em-matter/488/
if devs do this i'll just chip my console. if you dont show me no love why should i show the devs any. i refuse to buy dlc full stop, as dlc allows devs to sell games in bits, this is not fair to poor people and encourages devs to sell smaller games on disk with the advantage of selling dlc in parts. i've read that the next next gen consoles may be dlc only, well if that does happen then this gen will be the last consoles i'll be buying. dlc creates classism in gaming between the have's and have nots. i absolutly refuse to buy dlc. second hand game endings as dlc will see me leaving the gaming culture behind totally. as gaming joins the rich/poor divide with dlc. the more dlc we buy the more this stands a chance of becoming a reality. theres a game out now or due that has a map pack available to all retail box versions on day 1 release. i cant help wonder why it wasn't put on the disk. profit increase anybody. plus second hand games have been sold once already so apart from losing sales on new copies the devs lose jack as it's still one person owning a copy of a game that's already been sold. f,u dlc f,u
here here m8. yes maybe second hand games should have a percentage go to the devs especially when GAME plc pay peanuts for a SH game and whack it out 2 pounds cheaper than a brand new copy. why dont devs break Game plc's extortionate back, for revenue, not us gamers. the only second hand games that are cheap in the uk are old or crap i recently saw ut3 second hand for £27.99 in gamestationn while new was £34 it's the game shops ripping everyone off, including the devs go after them cuz dlc endings will just make me feel ripped off by everyone. the devs and the retailer. then i'll just stop buying games altogether. dvd r + mod + why should i let u rip me off. when we the people can actually rip you off and on mass could close down your software houses. capeche or caput which war do the devs wanna fight. pirates are ruthless dont make me become your enemy kai xlink and modded console and who needs your online services too. dont be greedy on us gamers, or you might just lose the war against the pirates as more of us turn our backs on main street for a cosy walk up a dark but fun alley. nuff said.
Maybe next they'll want per-seat licensing. What about those evil pirate families where 2 or more kids are sharing the same game? All that lost revenue! Give me a break. I AM a game developer, and I recognize that you drive sales by making good games, not by making enemies out of your customers. When we sell a disc with one of our games on it, we give up the right to control that disc. As long as the end user isn't making copies of it, he or she is free to do with it as they please. If our games are really good, then there's nothing to worry about, because customer A won't want to wait to buy the game from customer B. Unless customer A really really can't afford it, in which case we never would have sold that person a disc anyway. This isn't rocket science. I'd love to have a 10 minute conversation with the devs that are saying this.
"this whole thing is unconstitutional" Oh really? Care to back that up?
You are both NUTS! How the hell would that work? 1. GameStop is no different then YOU. 2. Video games are a consumer product, making them no different then any other consumer product. Every time YOU sold a game to YOUR buddy down the street, YOU would have to write a check to the game publisher. Every time YOU sold a TV to YOUR buddy down the street, YOU would have to write a check to the TV vendor. This is what you call a half baked idea. Try explaining to us HOW IT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK.
A sizable percentage of all video game sales are to rental companies be it either Gamefly, Blockbuster, or Hollywood Video. I bet Gamefly bought at least ten thousand copies of Gears of War 2 and to say that they dont make any money off of rentals is bulls***. Most games really are not worth buying because the majority of games that come out are poorly done. Even most of the ones that are good are only worth beating once so why waste $60 on only 10 to 12 hours of entertainment when you can rent the game for less than $10? I usually only buy games when they have good multiplayer.
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