Comments on: Additional Product Content

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:02:14 +0000

That’s the marketing machine in the finest hours of work. For months (more than a year now), Microsoft and the media have been pushing their system as the “better” deal when compared to the PS3. Sure, you can get into the 360 world for less up-front money, but you have to pay for online subscriptions and also additional hardware most of the time. The PS3 comes with everything built in, including a top of the line blu-ray player. Not to mention, online is free.

As for IW, their game has now topped the 10 million copy sold mark. The latest news from them is they are going to be selling t-shirts as another revenue stream. I think they have great ideas and an even better marketing machine behind both of these companies. But sometimes, pulling all the nickels and dimes from your customers’ pockets isn’t the only goal. There are future games and people remember how they were treated in the past by the manufacturers.

By: block

block — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:59:27 +0000

Totally agree with you Robert. When I saw they were charging 800 points ($10) for these maps I just laughed, a couple dollars is probably where it should be priced. When you have 7 million downloads isn’t $14 million enough to cover the costs of probably 2-5 days worth of work. I love the game, but 4 maps for $10 is not worth it, especially when they’ll probably be free in a few months. Plus this kind of thing was free 7 years ago on the PC with games like Quake 3 (Urban Terror mod anyone, that was like a whole other game for free). The Xbox360 in general is really bad about this. Here’s the system, but no games, one controller, a small hard-drive, and no built-in wireless card. You get all the extras and then the Live subscription, before you know it you’ve spent $800 instead of the original $400 to get everything you need to make it somewhat worth it. Then they start charging for every little piece of content such as this. I’m still happy with the system but throw us bone Microsoft and IW.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:01:29 +0000

Red, yeah, I get to writing something and it just seems to grow from a few paragraphs, to a small essay, to a mini story fit for reader’s digest. While I too liked the new maps and the efforts on detail they put into them, I was not satisfied with the total package. I would rather have paid an extra $10 for a finished product as in gameplay.

The product is “Game of the Year,” but it could have been “Game of the past 5 years” if they would have spent a little additional preparation time on it. It’s as if they “rushed” the game out almost finished to beat the Christmas rush. 6+ Million sold copies later and millions of $10 DLC purchases later, I guess they have made the right business decision. Even though it may have cost them respectability in the gaming community. Money cures a lot of issues, but only once usually.

By: Redlegs23

Redlegs23 — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:59:45 +0000

Your rants tend to be very lenghty. I quit reading half way through and just skimmed. I, every now and again don’t have a problem with the $10 for maps, but when added and even compared to the original $60, it does seem like IW is bleeding us a bit dry. While the maps are pretty sweet, and while I haven’t played the game since the Sunday of Double XP, I don’t feel I am getting the full $10 value out of the 4 maps, which I had definitely received from the original game after months of play. Perhaps, this was IW’s way of keeping a few people from leaving for GTAIV or whatever other game is out. It worked, I bought the maps, played for three days, then haven’t looked back. Although, this reply is making me want to play. Thanks.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:23:46 +0000

Just wanted to throw out an example of company conspiracy to charge customers for future content for an incomplete product. In the past, I dealt with companies selling various pieces of equipment. This equipment would come with a sheet of “supported” elements and capabilities. However, upon purchase/trial of product, these elements and capabilities would be in a crippled state, almost beta like. Of course you could get a nice “discount” on the initial product, but the only way to realize the true potential of these products was to purchase a service contract which would include software upgrades, product enhancements, etc. They KNEW they didn’t have a complete product, but they included features that did not work as a sales point, and yet they KNEW you would have to purchase a service contract to actually use something they said their product was capable of.

Of course, the “discount” you received at the beginning isn’t really a discount. It’s on the same level as paying sticker for a car, or negotiating to the real price of the car. The discount is expected and not really a discount at all. You end up paying the real price. It’s a whole other story, but it’s like this. You have something worth $20, but you want to make the consumer feel good so you market it as $40 but throw out a 50% off sticker on it. You have immediately made the customer feel like they are receiving a great deal when in fact, you are making what you planned on anyway. On top of that, now you can plan on additional revenue down the road. That’s the nature of these companies, preying upon people because of the built in “needs” associated with products.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:47:59 +0000

Good points and I would agree for the most part. However, the maps that were initially included in the game were maps taken from the single player experience, no new development there. As for the additional 4 maps, 1 was a previously released map with a new graphic skin on it. Another was a very small improvement on an already included scene from within the game. A third was a scene from within the game also. Of the 4 new maps, only 1 was a new development. I would agree that it is a small sum to pay for additional content, but that’s what they prey upon. Small sums of money for seemingly new content (which this was blatantly not).

IW KNEW people would shell out the cash for “new” content just like other companies KNOW people will spend money to extend a product that should have been complete in the first place. It does come down to a personal choice on the matter and what value you associate with extending a product’s life, but what I want to show is that companies are banking on people’s “need” to shell out smallish sums of money for things that don’t require much product investment to create. Actually, most of the additional content is made before product release and charged for after the fact.

By: Jeanie

Jeanie — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:55:27 +0000

I’m going to have to disagree a bit here regarding the new map charges. First, if they have to pay additional revenue to the programmers to make these maps, then they should be able to offset their costs by charging the customers that want these additional maps. Secondly, if I love a game, like so many obviously love this one, I would gladly dole out a small sum of money for additional fun. For instance, the Zelda game that I love…if there was an option to put additional play on the game and I had to purchase it, I would be dishing out the cash and saying thank you with a big smile on my face. If this company was requiring you to purchase these new maps in order to ALSO play your original purchased game, then I would think it was wrong. Anything else.. just don’t purchase them if you don’t want to spend the extra money and play with what the game came with, which sounds like a substantial amount of maps that everyone loves. You can’t expect a full load of new maps for an additional purchase.. if that were the case, they would call it Call of Duty 5 or 6 and get a new $60 charge.