4,99$ For Babylon

[ThERat]

Of course not, we civfanatics play only that, isn't it? but then, for many there is still Civ 4 and in my case, Civ 3 as weird as it may sound to you.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think he probably wants the extra civ. That wasn't his point. He believes the company are chopping up their product to screw him out of more money ... he is perfectly entitled to feel that way. The belief that this is an extra thing that wouldn't be available otherwise is without basis, extremely unlikely [for a variety of reasons that can be found in this thread] and can be dismissed as run-of-the-mill self-defeating fanboism.

"without basis"

I suppose you have some nice evidence to present to the forum on how the view you've formed has much more basis?

And trying to label me a fanboy? Get a better argument. I think there's only ever been one game developer who I was a fanboy of, but that was a long time ago. As long as Firaxis are pushed around by 2K I don't think it'll ever be possible.

 

[Target MC]

I get more out of paying $5.99 for a monthly Runescape subscription as opposed to $4.99 just to get Babylon. How greedy can they get?

 

[Freesmog]

For 1 civilization?Really?How greedy are they?Unfinished game+overpriced DLC...
I've got an idea!They should release patches for money.9,99% for 10 fixes in a patch

I totally agree. The DLC that came with DragonAge, last Fall, was lame overall. I'd much rather pay another 50$ for an expansion, not including patches.

 

[Czacki]

Tell you what. Just buy the DLC for $5 and then pretend it was in the game at release and that you paid $5 extra for the original game. Not happy with that? Then guess what? You just saved $5! Yes, Firaxis did you a favour by not forcing you to buy something you didn't want.

maybe you don't care whether the game costs 100$ or 10$, but I do. not everyone is rich and not everyone appreciates buying incomplete products for a price of complete product. The price of 50$ is already extremely high. And now we're paying 10% of that for 1% of content. Wee.

Sure you can "not buy" it but if you're a civ fan aspiring to have every expansion in your collection.. you're basically screwed.

The price is a joke, because - compared to the price of original game and the amount of content - it has like 10x lower content to price ratio. 5$ for 1 civ while you pay 50$ for like 15 civs, game engine, all units, techs, testing, bugfixing, all graphics, music, sounds... doesn't add up any way. If we wanted to calculate it like that, the free civ should probably cost like a few cents, if we actually could calculate the costs of making one animated leader compared to engine development, all unit making/animating/balancing and such.

So, enjoy the devs spitting in your faces, fellow players and defend them with your life, and as a reward, you will get another overpriced tiny bit of game for download. Have fun.

Yes, Czacki, Blizzard is such an exceptional company that they are splitting Starcraft 2 into three separate games! One per faction! Yep, that is an awesomely great way to provide free content!

I was speaking about games of the past. Diablo2 used as an example of a game that gets free content in patches even nowadays. (ok, they screwed up with the last content patch and claimed they will make a bigger one later, but still... they released SOME content for FREE half year ago.)

Even a moneysucker like Blizzard CAN afford NOT to charge people for tiny, unimportant add-ons. Even if their expansion packs are expensive, they contain a ton of content, usually.

Pisspoor content to price ratio is why DLC is frowned upon. As I said, years ago, it was perfectly normal to release such content for free within patches, and people APPROVING the companies milking them off more cash for that caused the whole DLC plague.

I'd rather have a solid expansion pack for 40$ than another piece of garbage for 5$.

And stop the universal "don't like it don't buy it" response. As a civ fan I'm concerned how much will I have to pay for extra content. And with the emphasis on "pay" and "content" reduced to minimum, I'm entitled to expressing that I don't like what they are doing.

 

[ProximaCentauri]

Agreed. It was time someone says the whole DLC concept is evil.
Should we gamers accept that (sadly it's done), we will just get more expensive games with less content as a result.

 

[PieceOfMind]

maybe you don't care whether the game costs 100$ or 10$, but I do. not everyone is rich and not everyone appreciates buying incomplete products for a price of complete product. The price of 50$ is already extremely high. And now we're paying 10% of that for 1% of content. Wee.

Say that to the Aussies/Kiwis who were expected to pay $80US if they bought the game on steam, or $90 for the Deluxe Edition. I bought the game for $40, and paid $6 for the DLC. That's almost half the price of the Deluxe Edition, but I had to make the small sacrifice of waiting for the game to arrive in the mail. If anyone has been ripped off it is those who paid $90 for the game. And of course every person who paid $80 for the game has much more right to complain about price than all of you who paid 50 and are not happy with paying another $5.

Also, was $50 really the cheapest that you could get the game for? I was able to preorder it for $40, but I'm not sure if that was available to Americans.

Complaining about not being rich? Geez, just wait til the game drops in price then. I usually don't buy games for any more than around $10. A gamer has one of the cheapest hobbies there is if he/she is patient and doesn't buy games at release.

Sure you can "not buy" it but if you're a civ fan aspiring to have every expansion in your collection.. you're basically screwed.

The price is a joke, because - compared to the price of original game and the amount of content - it has like 10x lower content to price ratio. 5$ for 1 civ while you pay 50$ for like 15 civs, game engine, all units, techs, testing, bugfixing, all graphics, music, sounds... doesn't add up any way.

Then you can be thankful that no one is forcing you to buy it.

"Price is a joke" is pretty much your way of saying "I don't like the price". In reality it will be priced at a point where it generates as much revenue as possible. An implication of that is that it will likely lower in price as time goes on, so people who aren't happy with the current pricepoint can get it cheaper then.

If we wanted to calculate it like that, the free civ should probably cost like a few cents, if we actually could calculate the costs of making one animated leader compared to engine development, all unit making/animating/balancing and such.

These arguments are always just a way of masking the opinion "I don't like the price". And the response "don't buy it" is completely appropriate. Firaxis and 2K aren't charities. In my view, it's unreasonable to expect them to be.

So, enjoy the devs spitting in your faces, fellow players and defend them with your life, and as a reward, you will get another overpriced tiny bit of game for download. Have fun.

I can guarantee to you that I won't buy any DLC or whatever from Firaxis/2K if I don't believe it's worth the money. I assume you would act the same. I think we can both be happy with this approach and have fun with whatever we have.

Agreed. It was time someone says the whole DLC concept is evil.
Should we gamers accept that (sadly it's done), we will just get more expensive games with less content as a result.

Considering that production costs are getting larger for these sorts of video games, should it be surprising that the price of the games go up? If you want prices to go down, one logical way to argue for change would be to advocate reducing or removing some of the most expensive parts of the development process. Which parts do you think should be first to get the axe?

 

[Iranon]

The logical response to 'I don't like the price of some DLC' is indeed 'don't buy the DLC'.
However, he logical response to 'I don't like their way of doing business' is 'don't buy anything from them'.

Regarding a lack of alternatives: Games aren't a necessity in the first place, and the genre contains enough great and very replayable titles to keep one entertained for a very long time. Series loyalty or demanding modern production values/design principles may make many of them unapaltable but they're definitely there.

*

Regarding the costs of development: There are many ways to cut costs. Cutting down on graphical gimmicks would be the obvious start, but using simpler gameplay mechanics may also result in better games. Civ4 was already a case of biting off more than they could chew - seemingly complex mathematics that were then tortured into becoming simpler to work with and possibly to conform to irrational player expectations.
You can get more out of simpler mechanics, but similar to the visual side of things that has fallen out of favour.

But yes, as long as we demand ever-increasing production values the publishers either need to charge more or sell more... probably by sacrificing quality for mass-market appeal or resorting to dodgy revenue-enhancing tricks.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Of course. We're testers.

My point was that I was aware of the design, and that we all provided feedback on it.

Also keep in mind: The Mongols are not so OP in and of themselves, it is more that mounted units in general are OP.

So you did provide feedback, and that's basically that - decisions were not yours to make.

And the last bit is wrong - I couldn't care less about Keshiks that will struggle in harsh/river terrain to avoid pikes/other mounted, what I do care about is the Khan.

Khan unit lasts the whole game, providing unparalelled benefits for the Mongols. I mean put it on a Medic unit and you have 5HP/turn heal in friendly territory, 4HP/turn in hostile! This can't be stopped, you can just fortify your troops and let waves of AI bash on them, with 5HP/turn heal it's a sick joke not a game.

 

[Darsnan]

I usually don't buy games for any more than around $10. A gamer has one of the cheapest hobbies there is if he/she is patient and doesn't buy games at release.

Games aren't a necessity in the first place, and the genre contains enough great and very replayable titles to keep one entertained for a very long time.

I think these two comments pretty much embody my response on the subject: I have a full suite of great games that I’ve amassed over the years, and once I tire of playing ciV in its current form then I’ll just set it aside and go back to playing one or more of these great games instead, and completely ignore the option of ciV DLC.

D

 

[Czacki]

My point is: if it weren't for people who pay for overpriced DLC, Devs would be forced to go back to solid expansion packs, and we'd ALL be happy for much better content to price ratio.

The "no buy it" logic doesn't change the fact that rich people WILL buy that and we- normal gamers, usually poor or not willing to spend much money for games - will be forced NOT to buy expansion packs (DLC) because of the quality of them being worse and worse as time passes. (see Dragon Age).

And that makes me unhappy because I love my games being as "broad" and "complete" as possible. As loyal civ fan, I feel frustrated.

Less so since Civ5 sucks (IMHO) right now, so not buying DLCs for it doesn't bother me. But the concept sucks. If Civ5 was a fantastic game to me, I'd be VERY pissed that Firaxis tempts me with additions but making the prices of those additions - compared to content they add - absurd.

 

[Czacki]

And about "this is business": if car devs will start removing back seats from a car - since it's optional and not everyone has family/needs them - and will be selling them extra later - you will have nothing against that, justify them by saying they have to make a living and gladly buy the back seat for 10% of the WHOLE CAR's price?

You'd be such a wonderous, forgiving clients. I'd love you and your money so much. I'd gladly go further and strip the car out of other "non-necessities" since you are so forgiving and care for my business. Why not? you're not angry, after all. And it sells.

We, customers, CANNOT agree on that BS. Because the devs will go for MORE money, which is natural, and will reduce the quality of games even further.


sorry for double post, I clicked on "quote" instead of "edit".

 

[ProximaCentauri]

Considering that production costs are getting larger for these sorts of video games, should it be surprising that the price of the games go up? If you want prices to go down, one logical way to argue for change would be to advocate reducing or removing some of the most expensive parts of the development process. Which parts do you think should be first to get the axe?

I'm not sure that production costs of video games increased so greatly compared to older games as to need to invent the money-sucking DLC concept. I just think the big machine just found a new way to make easy cash. But I have to admit it's purely hypothetical as I have no clue about production costs and services involved.

Have to say that even if it were true, I'd still prefer higher priced expansions/games over DLCs, to avoid the side-effect of getting poor content-to-price ratio, to avoid feeding some sort of developer's lazyness (as Czacki's posts explain).

 

[Valkrionn]

Graphics cost a HUGE amount of money compared to what they did even 10 years ago. And before someone claims graphics are unnecessary... That may be true for some people, but the majority of more casual gamers (Who do indeed constitute the majority of all sales) want to see better graphics with each new generation of game.

As has already been said in this thread, costs have skyrocketed (More complex code, more fancy graphics, both increase costs) while prices have been stable for a LONG time. System games are already up to 60; But they are far more difficult to pirate. PC developers have tried to increase costs and been unable to, people refused to pay for it. There is a reason so many developers are abandoning the pc as a development platform.

 

[Czacki]

You seem not to notice that the original game has many times more graphics. not just the leaders - everything. And in content to price ratio, it's like 10x better than DLC.

 

[Valkrionn]

More subpar graphics does not mean it is equal in cost.

Thought experiment: Sketch a stick figure. Then paint a portrait.

See the difference in the amount of time invested in order to achieve that gain in detail?

While the difference is obviously not that steep, the example holds; You can probably do 5 Civ4 leaders in the time it takes to do a single civ5 leader.

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

Yeah, I'm quite fine with the DLC pricing. If I didn't want Babylon, I wouldn't pay for it, it isn't a big deal. Heck, go look at what Konami is charging for additional background music for Castlevania HD. The game has seven stages that take about 5-15m to complete, the entire game costs $15, and they are selling packs of 5 additional background music songs for $5.

Even then, I'm a little tempted, since Castlevania music is great.

Also, I'm glad someone brought up Dragon Age's DLC in this thread. I see a lot of people accusing Firaxis of developing Babylon and then 'removing it' from the game to sell separately as DLC. A lot of people accused BioWare of doing this with the DLC character 'Shale.' The DLC was very robust, had lots of dialogue and voice acting, and came out with the release of the game, so naturally many players (including me) accused them of just cutting the character out of the game. The DLC was free to players that bought the game new, but if you bought it used, you'd have to buy the Shale character.

I was pretty irritated by that, so I actually asked a DragonAge developer in a Live Chat discussion, and he gave me an answer that actually satisfied me:

When the game goes to publish, and they start printing CDs and making packaging, and preparing distribution, there's actually a pretty long gap between when they stop developing the version that will be released, and the game gets released. They had sent the game to be published and released, finalizing the 'release version'. And at that time, all the programmers were still together, the studios were still up and running. Nobody had quit the team or moved on to other projects yet. So they took some ideas they'd scrapped during development, and thrown them together as standalone, optional content. They got someone to do the dialogue free of charge, and the other voice actors that did dialogue involving Shale were all BioWare inhouse people that are kept on staff, rather than hired per-game.

Obviously, something like Shale is a lot more complex than Babylon, and was released at the same time as the game was, but it is an example of how companies work, and how they can do stuff like that, without setting out to 'rob the consumer' or without playing nefarious tricks.

People say they would prefer expansion packs, and while expansion packs were sometimes really nice, MANY games did not have expansion packs. Stuff like DLC and microtransactions are simply a more realistic model in this day and age given the development costs, and it lets developers add new content on a smaller scale. For an expansion pack, you sort of need at least some new mechanics, and stuff like new title screens, and a full release and all sorts of things. A DLC is much easier to distribute content for.

But even all these little things aside, the overall looming issue is that Development is simply more expensive than ever. In the 80s, a lot of your video games were made by 2-5 people, start to finish. Some even only had one person. Studios and staff have been getting larger ever since, and major video games are now bigger productions than some movies, and yet for a smaller audience.

 

[Czacki]

Valkrion : That doesn't change the fact that content to price ratio of ALL dlc for all games is terrible compared to original game. Expansion packs suffered the same but they offered much, MUCH better ratio than DLCs...

Licinia Eudoxia: Shale was indeed finished but cut out, deadline or other reasons, I'm not interested, since at least they had the courtesy to add it for free for some players.

But their other DLCs where very short, contained around 30mins of gameplay and added like 2-3 overpowered items for 5-7$. Compared to the original game which was 40 hours long (at least) and priced at 30-40$ depending on where you bought it, that was plain horrible.

 

[Valkrionn]

Czacki, I cannot and will not address that point. Quite a bit I would like to say, but cannot. NDAs suck.

 

[Czacki]

Umm, what's NDA?