I'd pay for addon modules if they affected an area of the game I cared enough about in such a way that it would improve my enjoyment of the game as a whole. Provided it wasn't just a "bug-fix" or something that had been obviously left underdeveloped with the intention of earning money on "improving" it later. Not that I have any reason to believe Stardock would do that, previous track record considering .

I think part of the outcry against addon packs costing a set amount of money stems from people having an opinion of how much a product should cost, regardless of the amount of enjoyment the product contains for the customer in question or how much it actually costed the producer to develop. This is especially prevalent in the entertainment business, where people judge the validity of a game, movie or music CD retail price based on what the majority of these products sell for. For games, it seems people generally feel that no game should cost more $50-$60. Whether the game contains 10 hours or 100 hours of playtime is of little consequence, nor does it matter whether it cost $5.000 or $5.000.000 to develop. People WILL react to a game that costs more than its peers, regardless of the number of hours of content it provides. Heck, just look at the people who are principally against MMOs purely based on the notion that "I don't want to pay to play a game I've bought", all other aspects of MMOs aside.

Addon packs are like that. People (most often "whiners") will pay no heed to the amount of man hours that goes into an addon pack with planning, programming, testing and other work required before it is ready to be released, as well as the obvious need for any company to actually, you know, earn money so that the people working there can eat and live in something slightly more comfortable and rain proof than a cardboard box. Nor will they pay any heed to the fact that this addon has a development cost that is separate from the original game development, and thus isn't covered by the original purchase (provided, like I said earlier, that it's done the "right" way). It goes against their "a game shouldn't cost more than $xx and anything done to the game after retail should be free".

Anyway, this is just becoming a personal rant of mine Whiners will (un)happily ignore what they get for their money (if they choose to pay for it, which they don't have to, but...), all they see is "SOMEONE IS GOING AGAINST MY PRECONCEPTIONS OF THE WORLD, CURSE THEM!!".

Personally, I've always thought it odd that next to no one would buy a game for $150 up front that had been proven to contain 1000 hours of pure fun, but happily shell out $50 for a game with 10 hours of fun, even though the latter has a "hours of fun per dollar" ratio that is abysmal compared to the more expensive game. Just because "a game shouldn't cost more than $50".

People need to learn to gauge what they get for their money. Besides, unless you're stupid about it, a company can't trick you more than once.

"Whether the game contains 10 hours or 100 hours of playtime is of little consequence, nor does it matter whether it cost $5.000 or $5.000.000 to develop. People WILL react to a game that costs more than its peers, regardless of the number of hours of content it provides."

A clarification of what I wrote above (as I can't edit): This is assuming that both products are a "complete" experience, basically that both the 10 hour and 100 hour game feel complete and whole at what they tried to achieve, and that their are equally fun per hour while they last.

AG3: brilliant post.  Thanks

There's more to it than that.

First, units of content are not "hours". I've spent far more time with GC2 than with, say, Super Mario Galaxy, but Galaxy is the superior game. A 4 hour movie is not better than a 2 hour movie because it's 2 hours longer.

Second, no matter what the game is, some people will not like it. Would you be willing to pay $150 for a game you might not enjoy?

Third, even if you enjoy the game, you may not enjoy it all the time. A game of GC2 is far more interesting to me in the beginning than the end.

Just because you have one explanation for a behavior doesn't mean that it's the only valid one.

Maybe not, but if you've spent far more hours with GC2 than with Galaxy, it undoubtedly has more hours of enjoyable content than Galaxy per dollar you paid, unless you for some odd reason play GC2 despite not really liking it most of the time. Replay value actually has a significant bearing on what most people consider a good game and good value for their money. Let's say you have 2 games. Both last 10 hours each, cost the same, are equally fun on the first playthrough but one is also fun to replay a second time while the other is not. Does not the game that is fun to replay offer twice the value of the one that is not?

Why exactly is Galaxy superior to GC2 if you play it less? What makes a game superior? The graphics? Admittedly though, it's a hazy comparison to begin with due to the genre difference and wildly different systems they are released on, as well as the situations you are likely to play them in.



If a game costs 3 times as much as other games, I'd go to great lengths to find out why exactly it did, and see what other players and review sites felt about it. If the consensus was "this game has almost limitless fun and replayability", then heck yes, I'd take my chances.



I did say in a post just below the first one that my example assumed that each hour of content was equally fun in both games. Also, I never said my example was the only valid one.

I've browsed enough internet forums in my years online to see how people react to various things in the world, and the "this game costs more than other games of its kind, so I will not pay for it" is a frighteningly common opinion. It is strange that people can be extremely price/value conscious when they buy some things, but not offer digital entertainment the same consideration. For the majority (well, the VOCAL majority), a game is a game and the production cost and hours of enjoyable content is more or less irrelevant when it comes to its retail cost.

The bottom line is that this behavior easily carries over to small addon packs, or "micro-transactions".

I'm not this is the only reason people have objections towards small addon packs and micro-transactions, but it is possibly the most common one.

AG3, I am not seeing your point as it relates to modular content. In your example the game costs 150$ as opposed to 50$, and people shun it without regard to the enjoyment it brings. Yet this game has a clear pricing scheme (150$ up front) for a complete product. That is perfectly fine, if not a great example of what I would want. This is not to say that releasing a 100$ game and then releasing a 50$ expansion later would be unacceptable, I have nothing against expansion as evidenced by, well, purchase of Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor, for example.

You say that the increased cost is worthwhile for equally increased quality, and I agree. You say that this theory applies to modular content pricing, which offers similarly higher costs and similarly higher quality. I disagree because, while modular content may lead to increased or more deceptive costs (something that your example almost exactly opposing), I do not see how it would lead to higher quality of content. Instead, the focus on shipping out new code as quickly as possible and avoiding the more extensive testing applied to an expansion or any other finished product would seem to be counter-productive to greater quality.

I would say that the assumption offered by the question is ultimately specious. I don't know how you can have a game that has 0 replay value yet is equally fun as one playthrough of another.



1: Personal preference. I like TBS's (and RTSs), but in my heart, I'm always an action gamer. I ultimately prefer a game that is about intimately controlling a thing.

2: Impeccable polish. GC2 is a pretty well put together game, but there's no contest in terms of the sheer magnitude of the polish on SMG compared to GC2. GC2's imperfect and bug-laden UI alone is enough to torpedo it in polish for SMG.

3: Unimpeachable design. GC2 had a lot of thought put into it. SMG clearly had more. It just doesn't compare. Brad Wardell is good, but Shigeru Miyamoto is a master of game design. And it shows.

Now, these are two very different kind of games, so I judge them on different criteria. GC2 is a rules-heavy game, while SMG is a content-heavy game. As a rules-heavy game, it's design is based on gamist principles. How well does the game promote playing it. And so forth. GC2 likes to hide important information about what the effects of a choice will be (among other things), so it is weaker on that.

As a content-heavy game, SMG is more about intimacy of interface, character, world, etc. But gameplay is still important, yet in a different way. It's about how you learn skills, when you learn them, how the game tests them and builds on them. And so forth. And SMG is about as perfect in its pacing as it gets, providing the player with new situations and circumstances that test skills and such.

GC2 is a nice game to play; it alleviates boredom and the AI provides some interesting threats (until the end-game shows up). But the rules itself are simply worn out by this point. They aren't as robust over time as Chess, Go, or StarCraft. And when it comes down to it, all GC2 has are its rules.



Yes, but what's wrong with it? Movies on DVD generally cost no more than $25. Having an upper limit on the price of any form of content is reasonable. Certainly, you should at least look at something more expensive to see if it is worthwhile. But selling a product at 200% more than the average is pretty strong sticker-shock.

BTW, while people may say they won't spend $150 on a game, I didn't see Rock Band hurt too much by that. People are a lot more willing to do things when actually presented with the option than they say. Much like all those for-pay programs on-line. They wouldn't be there if they weren't making some money, despite the monkey's throwing feces.

By my estimation, GalCiv 2 is not worth $150, no matter how "infinitely replayable" it may be. Granted, once the bugs get worked out of TA, I'll probably plunk down $30 for it, bringing my total expenditure up to $100. So the totality of the game as it stands I would say is worth $100, but not the initial release.

I wonder what, "jerkocracy" means... anyways, not to start a big debat but doesn't wanting things for free harken back to the old days of communism? And on the subject of free things, anyone remember the old "Bonzi Buddy" program and a few other programs like it? I remember shareware programs though. Loved some of the shareware games. Think I got a few shareware disks somewhere. But they probably don't work anymore.

It's the mp3 generation, generation z.

They grow up on free music. Why not everything free?

Congrats hippie gen. You taught your kids to be assholes.

darkknight, aren't you a a member of generation z? btw, my kids aren't assholes.

Being 29 kinda makes me gen y and almost gen x.

And let your kids do what they want and they'll be assholes. I see kids openly telling their parents to fuck off now.

Maybe people don't like to pay for stuff because they are too young to have a credit card and pay for it.

So why bitch and moan? Why not, I dunno, be thankful for what ya got?

Oh right, kids can do that now, and stupid parents give them what they want.

When you teach kids that they can do what they want, why are you surprised when they become murderers, rapists, theives, etc?

How the hell did you get to slamming kids? I was a member of the Kiwanian's, we donated scholarships to students who excelled in academic and civic endeavors. It was my extreme pleasure to meet these kids; our future leaders. I can tell you our future is in good hands! One bad apple don't spoil the bunch; moron!