My argument is that early buyers need to be rewarded more significantly. That's all I'd like to see. In this instance, not wanting to spend an extra $20 for the deluxe edition on release shouldn't mean that they have to spend a total of $80 (unless they wait for a DLC sale) to get what other players who bought the game 6 months later would get for $40. That's what I think the OP is upset about. As a deluxe buyer I wasn't upset at all that it was on sale later, even after the 2 additional DLC were announced. I had finished a space race victory then that I had enjoyed
I consider Firaxis to have a great model, as
@Mr. Shadows mentioned. My preference would've been for them to keep an upgrade option available for the early buyers of the standard, but that's business. I respect Firaxis, their decision regarding the deluxe edition was a bold and great one, and it shows they care about their fans.
I'm a computer scientist, so I can appreciate the effort it takes to develop a game (I'm trying to build one very slowly). But I think there's a trend to have the "completion date" get further and further away from the release date. And that does punish early buyers. I don't like criticizing the Civ 6 AI since I think the developer was probably put in a very difficult situation, but there were some elements regarding the AI that were clearly rushed and not completed, and releasing with a plan to fix it later is in a way punishing the early buyer. I know it's unintentional and due to not being in an ideal world, but I still think there are things that have to be there for a game to be complete. I'm not talking about developing a deep blue AI before release; I mean things like the AI building air units and knowing how to use a navy. Even something like helicopters being forced to embark leaves a strong impression of things being rushed and being incomplete before release. This is probably why Blizzard is such a leader now; they polish everything to the extreme so it's hard to find any problem.
I do wonder if I should load up a game of Civ 2 to see how well the AI handled air combat then. But I'd rather keep the nostalgia alive
The gaming industry needs the additional funding of DLC, and I recognize that and encourage it. I just want to see more upgrade paths/deals for early buyers so that I feel more confident in early buy-ins. It's starting to feel like too much of a gamble in some cases (regarding state of the game on release and potential sales timing windows). But maybe that's an outdated model at this point, and the future is in quick sales and making the revenue through DLC instead. I'd like to read more of your thoughts on this.
I think this is probably at the root of it for the standard edition buyers who are upset by the lack of an upgrade option. They opted out of $20 of content, suddenly the deal became twice as good and they didn't get the chance to buy in.
The thing is, that doesn't seem to be solid reasoning to me. It is absolutely a tricky line to walk between consumer advocacy and understanding of development and business, and I believe your good intentions here. My disagreement is simply with the reasoning.
Games are always going to be cheaper later down the line. All
products become cheaper later down the line. What's the cut-off point here? Should games be reduced in price less often? Because offering "early adopters" more is a bit of a tricky strategy, because of the criticisms you yourself raised of the state of the game on release.
People who buy games on release aren't going to get a "better deal" unless a product comes out with more development time behind it. However, this doesn't mean that the game is therefore being released with a
deficit of time applied to it. Bugs will crop up invariably in games. It doesn't matter how simple they are perceived to be, they happen. It doesn't matter how easy they are to arguably fix. They still happen. More time doesn't necessarily always fix this, because for every one bug you see, there are probably a bunch of others you don't. I mean this is a truism, you're a computer scientist, I'm kinda wasting our time stating this.
The baseline is, for a game to be delayed, or even to simply to plan to have a longer development cycle, costs more money. You're paying the team members for longer for the end result of a single product. Good business is about finding a good sweet spot between that and rushing out a release. Absolutely. But I think there are better ways to have that conversation than approach it via the idea that people who buy games early need more incentives. If the game itself is not an incentive, then the game (or next game) won't sell as well, which in an ideal world would make people have thoughts on how to improve the process. Sadly this isn't always the case, and this can affect the developers themselves. So yeah, it's complicated. Nobody should be forced into buying something they're not going to end up enjoying, but how do you balance that against a business which is getting (in some areas more than others) increasingly risk-averse? Where failures stand out more?
I don't have an answer. I just evaluate things on a case by case basis. "quick sales" is an answer and a problem in of itself, right? I'd agree with you there. I just don't see this need to demand more value for a game which I feel definitely offers it. But again, value is subjective. It works for me. It works for you, by what you're saying. It might not work for everyone. But I guess the answer is: it can't. Otherwise developers become beholden to more and more arguments of "value", which then often unfortunately end up getting twisted to what people are "owed". I would encourage people to keep asking for support, to keep saying "hey this is an obvious bug that should be fixed". Keep visibility on the right issues. But be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking what is "owed" (not that you are, this is just my thought process here), because that often breeds bitterness and then resentment.
As a side-note, Blizzard are one of the exceptions to the general rule. Their financial base is very strong, and this allows them flexibility where other companies simply don't have it. Starcraft 2 apparently had something like nine years of development time. As someone who started playing games mainly because of the strategy genre, but specifically because of real-time strategy, I can think of an
awful lot of titles (many of which were good and successful in their own right) which could've benefitted from
nine years of development prior to their release.