DLC business model hurting your company 2k/Firaxis

[graffen69]

Take a long hard look at the DLC pricing 2k/Firaxis and put yourself in the shoes of the customer who bought the vanilla Civ 6 version. Deluxe players gained all 6 (up from 4) free DLC´s a couple months after release which many would have opted for if they knew it from start.

The amount of reviews on steam ONLY concerning DLC prices range from “mixed” to "overwhelming negative"; to the point of actually hurting player’s opinion of the DLC´s as well as your business reputation.

Personally I bought all Civ5 DLC´s and Civ5 expansions as soon as they were released. Sorry to say there´s no way I could even consider it currently with such prices for the amount you get. Those of us who actually love Civ6 would gladly upgrade to deluxe if there was an option.

I write this post is because I care deeply about the Civ franchise and Civ6 in particular which I think suffers too heavily of one sided criticism that could be fixed quite easily.





//I feel really sorry for the developers at Firaxis.
Not only are they being forced to prerelease games when they are nowhere finished, the DLC´s pricing model alone has turned many gamers against the company.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

I get the game for $12 on Humble Bundle, with 2 DLCs (including Australia).
And 64% discount of all the rest DLCs (4 DLCs with about $8) also on Humble Bundle.
Then I got R&F for 10% discount, also on Humble.
So it is total about $30 for the entire game.
Profit.

 

[Stilgar08]

Well from my viewpoint you originally had 2 options: Go for vanilla or go for DD. Now complaining that there's no upgrade path feels wrong to me. YOU decided beforehand (not knowing of what to come) for vanilla. DD-buyers decided beforehand (not knowing of what to come) for DD. Simple. Vanilla buyers have been told, if you want DLCs you got to buy them one by one, DD buyers have been told another story. That's it, it's not rocket science...

And concerning pricing: What did you expect - DD-buyers get 0,99 cent worth of a price advantage? Where would the incentive be?
DLC is always too expensive for me to buy on a one by one basis - you just have to wait for a sale I guess

 

[Leyrann]

Are you serious?

Of course a bundle is going to be cheaper than the separate items, especially if that bundle has to be bought before the content of the separate items is announced; after all, people are buying something of which they don't even know whether they'll like it.

It's simply the trade-off: Either you get your content cheaper, or you get to consider for every piece of content whether you actually want it, in exchange for paying the full price.

 

[Kwami]

Personally I bought all Civ5 DLC´s and Civ5 expansions as soon as they were released. Sorry to say there´s no way I could even consider it currently; the singular DLC´s are just too expensive. This kind of Price Model hasn’t happened ever before (as far back as Civ3 at least) to the best of my knowledge.

I'm not sure if the exact prices have changed since Civ V. If so, then they haven't changed much. In any case, Civ V had exactly the same DLC model as Civ VI. So, I'm calling BS.

 

[Karpius]

Don't ya just hate it when a company tries to make as much money as it can off of an entertainment item that people want just for, you know, entertainment? The nerve of these people!!! Its almost as if they are operating like any other "for profit" outfit that has figured out just how much they can charge the market before they begin to lose share of the market. Goodness gracious, all they want to do is make money rather than feel our pain and make sure we are all happy little CivGeeks.

 

[WillowBrook]

I don't think the DLC model is the problem. The biggest marketing mistake with Civ VI, IMO, was selling the deluxe edition without any info on what the DLC would be. This led to purchasers of the deluxe edition saying they didn't get their money's worth. And they didn't go back and change their reviews when they added the two additional DLC.

As a purchaser of the standard edition, I was annoyed at the lack of sales on the DLC, but sales eventually showed up on third party sites (thanks to this forum for alerting me) and I recently bought most of the rest (still don't have Poland).

Having the deluxe on sale for about the same price as all the DLC does seem weird, but if that's what's selling, well, bully for them. That doesn't make the DLC model bad.

 

[ChocolateShake]

The issue in my opinion is there's no "early adopter" reward. It's actually a trend in the industry as a whole in my opinion. Buy early, you'll pay a premium for the access. Wait 6-12 months, and you'll get much better deals. I think publishers/devs should issue DLC discount coupons for people who bought the game early as a show of gratitude. Unfortunately that doesn't seem like it'll be catching on anytime soon.

The only way to counter it, in my opinion, is to either go big early and get a deluxe pack, or wait it out. If you buy early you have to expect that you're paying extra for the early access. And that goes for more ways than one given how often games need to be patched for core flaws on release.

 

[BenZL43]

If an upgrade option is available, and priced at DD-Vanilla price gab.. that won't be fair for those DD-buyer, I think. Because they had spent time waiting anxiously for whatever surprise they might have.

Again, you had choice in the beginning.

To trust the Firaxis's judgement of eventually giving us fair DLC content (they did eventually, didn't they?*)... or simply wait until you're sure it's worth the money.

*for those displeased with Viking Scenario DLC, they made up with releasing Nubia + Khmer + Indonesia.

 

[seasnake]

You have to look at DLC like you would any other entertainment option and weigh it's dollars to hours of entertainment ratio. For instance, dinner out and a movie will likely cost at least 30 dollars for 4-5 hours of entertainment, a DLC civ costs 5 dollars and I'll easily get 10 hours of worth out of it.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

The amount of reviews on steam ONLY concerning DLC prices are "overwhelming negative"; to the point of actually hurting player’s opinion of the DLC´s as well as your business reputation.

Does it though?

This is not some indie title, it is from an established developer and is one of the most established series in all of video games. I am not sure that reviews of that nature would have any significant impact on the game or company.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Does it though?

This is not some indie title, it is from an established developer and is one of the most established series in all of video games. I am not sure that reviews of that nature would have any significant impact on the game or company.

To be honest, I'd be worried about anybody who bases purchase decisions off of online reviews without actually reading the reviews to see what people like about the product and what they don't.

I'm not saying such people don't exist. I'm sure they do, and I'm sure 2k would like to have their money as much as they'd like to have mine. But it must be hard to try to position a product to make it appealing to people who could be swayed by negative reviews that say "the product was too expensive", since that review would provide zero useful information to the reader considering it lacks any data on (a) how much I have to pay for the DLC, (b) how much I may enjoy the DLC, (c) what my other entertainment options are.

 

[Xur]

I'd pay for an AI DLC.
I'd pay for less cartoony graphics DLC.
Bring on ALL the DLC you can think of - no one is forced to buy it.

 

[Leyrann]

I'd pay for an AI DLC.
I'd pay for less cartoony graphics DLC.
Bring on ALL the DLC you can think of - no one is forced to buy it.

But Firaxis is forced to put time into it, so they probably won't create it if they think they would lose money from it.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I have a completely different view from the OP. When I look at how many hours of fun I've had playing Civ and I consider how much I've spent it works out to pennies per hour of entertainment. It's almost absurd when I compare it to the price of a movie, which doesn't even cover the whole evening. A novel (unless I hit the library) is likely to cost $15 and will be finished by the end of the weekend. Television is mindless, and full of obnoxious commercials- I'd rather pay Firaxis than watch the same commercials over and over to pay for a TV program. For my money and taste I get more bang for my buck from Civ than I do out of anything else that I do for entertainment. It's a great value.

 

[Leyrann]

I have a completely different view from the OP. When I look at how many hours of fun I've had playing Civ and I consider how much I've spent it works out to pennies per hour of entertainment. It's almost absurd when I compare it to the price of a movie, which doesn't even cover the whole evening. A novel (unless I hit the library) is likely to cost $15 and will be finished by the end of the weekend. Television is mindless, and full of obnoxious commercials- I'd rather pay Firaxis than watch the same commercials over and over to pay for a TV program. For my money and taste I get more bang for my buck from Civ than I do out of anything else that I do for entertainment. It's a great value.

This. There really is no other medium where you get as much entertainment for your money as games. Civ is at .20 euros per hour for me, meaning that one dinner out for 25 euros is 125 hours of playtime. And that's my current time played.

And then there's also League of Legends which I've spent several hundred euros on and is still cheaper per hour than Civ...

 

[MaryKB]

This. There really is no other medium where you get as much entertainment for your money as games. Civ is at .20 euros per hour for me, meaning that one dinner out for 25 euros is 125 hours of playtime. And that's my current time played.

Except maybe your library, where you can get books for free!

I guess I really do not understand at all. The game does not feel very expensive? But I do suppose that can be totally relative to your income. I feel to me it's just a personal decision if you feel the addons are worth your money then you buy them, otherwise you don't?

 

[shaglio]

I'd pay for an AI DLC.
I'd pay for less cartoony graphics DLC.
Bring on ALL the DLC you can think of - no one is forced to buy it.

You know, if you head on over to the Creation & Customization forum, I'm sure you could find "better AI" mods and "less cartoony graphics" mods for free. Just off the top of my head, AI+ is a perfect example of the former.

 

[brasswire]

It's almost absurd when I compare it to the price of a movie, which doesn't even cover the whole evening. A novel (unless I hit the library) is likely to cost $15 and will be finished by the end of the weekend. Television is mindless, and full of obnoxious commercials- I'd rather pay Firaxis than watch the same commercials over and over to pay for a TV program. For my money and taste I get more bang for my buck from Civ than I do out of anything else that I do for entertainment. It's a great value.

That's a good argument for video games in general, but not necessarily a good argument specifically for Civ VI DLC content IMO. For the price of a few DLCs I could get a whole other video game. If you are a Civ fanatic (ie people on this forum) or a completionist, then maybe you get just as much value from having access to Ethopia, Persia and Poland as you would from a whole other game that you could spend hundreds of hours playing. But I suspect this is not the case for the general gaming audience.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

That's a good argument for video games in general, but not necessarily a good argument specifically for Civ VI DLC content IMO. For the price of a few DLCs I could get a whole other video game. If you are a Civ fanatic (ie people on this forum) or a completionist, then maybe you get just as much value from having access to Ethopia, Persia and Poland as you would from a whole other game that you could spend hundreds of hours playing. But I suspect this is not the case for the general gaming audience.

Well that argument isn't much better and can lead to a spiraling argument that why buy any AAA game if you could get as much or more time from a group of indie games, or why even pay for any game ever since you could get equal or more gametime from a F2P game.

However, comparing a DLC to an entire game is really unfair. One adds to an existing item and one is something totally different. You are comparing apples to ice cream on top of an apple pie. Sure maybe the ice cream has less overall nutrition than the apple and maybe a scoop of ice cream placed ontop of apple pie is more than if you got one by itself, but if that scoop may be what enhances both the pie and the ice cream.