Subset Games Forum

$0. Make meaningfully large "expansions" not "DLC".

Basically, what user "Hyomoto" said at the beginning of the thread.

I would not buy little things apart but I agree with the poster above i would buy a bundle for $10-15.

A new ship: 0$
A new race: 1$ if it also includes new sectors with new events and new playable and enemy ships
A new soundtrack: 0$ i like the soundtrack but not that i would spend money for it
A new campaign: 1-5$ depends how big it is, different enough from normal campaign
A suite of mod tools: 0$ imo with so much kickstarter money they should make (and give) them for free.

EDIT: i agree with most people that want big expansions instead of DLC. Some free content patches would be nice too of course . Some people hate it a little to much too, if it is small DLC then you can just not buy it. And if it is a lot of content then just pretend it is an expansion called DLC instead of expansion.

Hyomoto wrote:I think this is a horrible question. Please examine the following statement. The developers asked for ten thousand dollars to complete their game, and were graced with two-hundred thousand dollars. Now ask yourself, how much do you make in a year? They are also making a salary off the sales for their game. I consider myself well enough off, but I don't earn a six figure salary. Your real poll should ask;

What should they spend the remaining one-hundred and ninety thousand dollars on? I'd expect a nickle and dime scheme from a large publisher looking to impress a board of investors, but not here.

Minecraft updates, all free. EVE Online expansions, all free. Your idea is morally bankrupt and sickens me. I'd be willing to spend money on a entire expansion or a sequel; you know, like we used to do before brain-dead console enthusiasts got so used to anti-consumer DLC practices that they just assumed it was natural they should look at their TV's like arcade machines. Go sit in a corner and think about what you've said for a while.

You're argument is not entirely valid. The developers started the Kickstarter to finish the game, yes. However, they also gave out a free copy of the game to everyone who funded it (essentially a pre-order system) and 2 copies to a great deal of their investors. Therefore, they are not going to see "additional profit" from game sales to those users. Furthermore, they have to have money to live off of during the time-span between games and they are most certainly not getting the full $9-$10 sale price from every sale since the distributor will take a significant cut. So yes they did make a good deal more money from the kickstarter than they had hoped for, however, that does not mean that the owe anyone anything more that providing a finished product and providing bug fixes. Yes it would be nice of them to implement additional features. It would certainly give them a lot of credibility with the gaming community, but they are not obligated to do so.

Moving back to the original question, I probably would not pay for additional content on this one. I don't have a lot of spare money floating around and have to justify the $10 expense for the actual game. However, I felt that creativity should be rewarded and that it seemed like a worthy cause. The fact that I got a pretty sweet game out of the deal was a nice bonus.

For the question of what I think would be fair?
Ships: $.50-$1 for 2-3 high quality, balanced ships built into the game (not requiring a mod to replace an exising ship)
Ships: $0 for recolors/re-skins of existing ships with different starting systems/weapons/crew since that can be easily modded
New Weapons: $.25-.5 for a pack of 10-20
soundtrack: $2-5 (not really interested but some people may be)
new races: $1 per race if that included events, story, a ship (A and B variant), weapons, and made since within the fiction

Would I like all this for free? Heck yes I would. However, I've been on the wrong end of a down-turned economy long enough to know that times are hard everywhere (unless you already had more money than a sane person could spend in a life time) and that everyone is trying to make money the best ways they know how.

Sisaroth wrote:A new ship: 0$
A new race: 1$ if it also includes new sectors with new events and new playable and enemy ships
A new soundtrack: 0$ i like the soundtrack but not that i would spend money for it
A new campaign: 1-5$ depends how big it is, different enough from normal campaign
A suite of mod tools: 0$ imo with so much kickstarter money they should make (and give) them for free.

EDIT: i agree with most people that want big expansions instead of DLC. Some free content patches would be nice too of course . Some people hate it a little to much too, if it is small DLC then you can just not buy it. And if it is a lot of content then just pretend it is an expansion called DLC instead of expansion.

That's a great attitude. Although I like getting small updates of additional content without having to wait a year or two for one big lump I agree that whatever the case, its the consumer's choice whether or not the content is worth the money. personally, I don't mind buying cosmetic items in multiplayer games if I believe the prices are reasonable and that the items actually add something to the experience. However, I truly despise the practice of holding back content that I feel should have been included in the original purchase so I choose not to buy it. The only thing that gets me worked up is when a publisher releases DLC for lets say, for example, $5 a pop and 3-4 sets of DLC (total of $15-20 in this example) and THEN releases THE GAME: SUPER EDITION for the standard $50-60 with all the DLC included. At that point they have pissed me off. I paid for the game ($60) then the DLC ($20) for a total of $80 and then someone else then gets it all for the original price.
Point of the story is that DLC doesn't really bother me until the publisher gives it away for free after I paid extra for it.

crankdawg wrote:
Point of the story is that DLC doesn't really bother me until the publisher gives it away for free after I paid extra for it.

Well, to be honest the game goes down in value in that time. You might be able to find a copy of the game for much cheaper than what the original sale price was, so the 'super edition' isn't always giving away free DLC; it's making up for time in the act..

crankdawg wrote:

Sisaroth wrote:A new ship: 0$
A new race: 1$ if it also includes new sectors with new events and new playable and enemy ships
A new soundtrack: 0$ i like the soundtrack but not that i would spend money for it
A new campaign: 1-5$ depends how big it is, different enough from normal campaign
A suite of mod tools: 0$ imo with so much kickstarter money they should make (and give) them for free.

EDIT: i agree with most people that want big expansions instead of DLC. Some free content patches would be nice too of course . Some people hate it a little to much too, if it is small DLC then you can just not buy it. And if it is a lot of content then just pretend it is an expansion called DLC instead of expansion.

That's a great attitude. Although I like getting small updates of additional content without having to wait a year or two for one big lump I agree that whatever the case, its the consumer's choice whether or not the content is worth the money. personally, I don't mind buying cosmetic items in multiplayer games if I believe the prices are reasonable and that the items actually add something to the experience. However, I truly despise the practice of holding back content that I feel should have been included in the original purchase so I choose not to buy it. The only thing that gets me worked up is when a publisher releases DLC for lets say, for example, $5 a pop and 3-4 sets of DLC (total of $15-20 in this example) and THEN releases THE GAME: SUPER EDITION for the standard $50-60 with all the DLC included. At that point they have pissed me off. I paid for the game ($60) then the DLC ($20) for a total of $80 and then someone else then gets it all for the original price.
Point of the story is that DLC doesn't really bother me until the publisher gives it away for free after I paid extra for it.

I Must ask, what timeframe is that considered to be bothering to you?

Lets say a publisher releases game for 60$ in november of 2012, and over the course of a year, they have realeased 3 sets of DLC costing 10 Dollars each, and in November of 2013, They release a "The game: Super edition".

I can understand being upset about the above, however:

Lets say publisher realeases game for 60$ in November of 2012 and they develop 4 DLC packs over the course of 2 years (2014). They then release a "The Game: Super edition" 6 Years later (2022), with all of the DLC and the game for 60$, since very few people are playing the game now, this is an attempt to sell a viable version for later purchases.

For instance some old games from the 90s have done this, in order to make it a justifiable price for people much further after release.

I Must ask, what timeframe is that considered to be bothering to you?

Lets say a publisher releases game for 60$ in november of 2012, and over the course of a year, they have realeased 3 sets of DLC costing 10 Dollars each, and in November of 2013, They release a "The game: Super edition".

I can understand being upset about the above, however:

Lets say publisher realeases game for 60$ in November of 2012 and they develop 4 DLC packs over the course of 2 years (2014). They then release a "The Game: Super edition" 6 Years later (2022), with all of the DLC and the game for 60$, since very few people are playing the game now, this is an attempt to sell a viable version for later purchases.

For instance some old games from the 90s have done this, in order to make it a justifiable price for people much further after release.

I probably should have been more clear.
In my example lets say the original game sku is going for $45 at the time that the new "Super" sku comes out for $60.
If the total cost of DLC + the current cost of the original sku is greater than the "Super" version it upsets me. At that point I've paid more for something then it is apparently worth.

Before you counter with "That is just to offset the time the game has been on the market" I will say that I have waited to purchase a game for a good 6 months after it came out. I thought to myself, "This looks like a good game, the price has gone down, and there is a lot of additional content for it. I'll pick it up and the total cost won't be too much more than a new game." Then a couple months later I find that I could have saved $10-15 if I have waited a few more weeks. Not happy about that.

i would not pay for any of those things individually. a ship with a new race. or theme packs of some kind. that ill pay upwards of the cost of the game for. depending on the quality.

If its a whole different campaign then maybe 5 bucks, if its just an addon after sector 8 or something then like 50 cents.