Gamestop may pay devs for exclusive pre-order bonuses

[PixelXenoKing]

Just saying gamestop said they deny these rumors.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gamesto...0-6421033/

[RepentantSky]

I disagree. The idea that you can basically buy the dlc you want with an already complete game (because let's be honest, most dlc isn't worth it) without having to pay more for it, is a good idea. You can choose which bonus content you want, and if you don't want any of it at all, there will always be regular versions of a game. Having more options isn't a bad thing so long as the main game doesn't suffer for it. I don't see how adding content can do that.

But that's not really the point. It's a false positive that's used within marketing to make it seem like a good deal to the consumer. It's actually the complete opposite of being options. It's being told "how much less do you want to be screwed"?

Buy the game from Amazon and receive the Luigi skin for Mario. Buy the game from Gamestop and receiving the Metal Mario skin. Buy the game from the Publishers store to receive Real Looking Mario skin.

In order to actually experience the game to it's fullest; whether you plan on playing in/with that content or not, you'd have to buy the game 3 times over. The worst part is that all of the content is on the disc readily available to use(I know people with modded consoles that let's you unlock content for free).

I also have to ask, what do you gain by sticking up for companies who are purposefully sanctioning off content and cutting you out from the rest, even when you know it's readily available to play on the disc?
Do you also not find it strange how Sony/Microsoft are two that agreed to have season passes to lessen the worth of games as they said "used games(retailers) were hurting the industry" yet willing to constantly make pre-order deals with them?

You really think the gaming community is stupid enough to let something like that Mario crap scenario you made up pass? Don't insult people, the gaming community is just not that dumb. If they were, EA would be everyone's favorite company, instead of the exact opposite, literally years in a row.

Also, about the pre-orders, give me a break. So many people pre-order that if they didn't do that, they wouldn't make enough money off of a game. Whether the industry realizes a large portion of it's consumer base can't afford to buy a game at full price or not, there is no denying that pre-orders increase sales and they are all about how many figures they can throw out there as soon as possible. Don't forget you are talking about gamestop, not a game dev, not even really the industry much itself, but a company who sells games that wants to give extra incentive to people to pre-order from them. This may have absolutely nothing to do with the industry at all, just the distributors of their products.

Just saying gamestop said they deny these rumors.

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gamesto...0-6421033/

I can't remember if the article I posted said this or not (I've literally read over 7 different ones talking about this) but regardless of that statement, one article I saw also said that they don't believe they are affecting the creative process by doing this, or at least that's what it sounded like. Again, I can't remember for the life of me which article I read that said that, but if that one was true, then this article doesn't actually confirm this to be nothing more than rumor. Only time will tell I suppose.

Highly Agree with this video. Watch out the guy uses strong language while ranting about this, Just a heads up.

Anger and bias on that level really makes me doubt the ability that person has to have a valuable opinion. Not that he isn't entitled to it regardless of how he presents himself, but really, with an attitude like that, I just can't accept anything he says. You have to state an opinion with a level head otherwise you come off as a whiner, and I don't see that as valid.

[Psychospacecow]

I disagree. The idea that you can basically buy the dlc you want with an already complete game (because let's be honest, most dlc isn't worth it) without having to pay more for it, is a good idea. You can choose which bonus content you want, and if you don't want any of it at all, there will always be regular versions of a game. Having more options isn't a bad thing so long as the main game doesn't suffer for it. I don't see how adding content can do that.

But that's not really the point. It's a false positive that's used within marketing to make it seem like a good deal to the consumer. It's actually the complete opposite of being options. It's being told "how much less do you want to be screwed"?

Buy the game from Amazon and receive the Luigi skin for Mario. Buy the game from Gamestop and receiving the Metal Mario skin. Buy the game from the Publishers store to receive Real Looking Mario skin.

In order to actually experience the game to it's fullest; whether you plan on playing in/with that content or not, you'd have to buy the game 3 times over. The worst part is that all of the content is on the disc readily available to use(I know people with modded consoles that let's you unlock content for free).

I also have to ask, what do you gain by sticking up for companies who are purposefully sanctioning off content and cutting you out from the rest, even when you know it's readily available to play on the disc?
Do you also not find it strange how Sony/Microsoft are two that agreed to have season passes to lessen the worth of games as they said "used games(retailers) were hurting the industry" yet willing to constantly make pre-order deals with them?

You really think the gaming community is stupid enough to let something like that Mario crap scenario you made up pass?

http://watchdogs.wikia.com/wiki/Outfits
http://reddead.wikia.com/wiki/Category:R...LC_Outfits
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Classic_Pack
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Caravan_Pack
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mercenary_Pack
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Tribal_Pack
http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brin...8CI7LGTE08
http://www.ign.com/wikis/borderlands-2/DLC

[CLXcool]

Its just extra content. No big deal personally. I wonder if this means we're getting close to seeing gaming companies suing gamestop for their pre-own racket.

(900th post).

[RepentantSky]

I disagree. The idea that you can basically buy the dlc you want with an already complete game (because let's be honest, most dlc isn't worth it) without having to pay more for it, is a good idea. You can choose which bonus content you want, and if you don't want any of it at all, there will always be regular versions of a game. Having more options isn't a bad thing so long as the main game doesn't suffer for it. I don't see how adding content can do that.

But that's not really the point. It's a false positive that's used within marketing to make it seem like a good deal to the consumer. It's actually the complete opposite of being options. It's being told "how much less do you want to be screwed"?

Buy the game from Amazon and receive the Luigi skin for Mario. Buy the game from Gamestop and receiving the Metal Mario skin. Buy the game from the Publishers store to receive Real Looking Mario skin.

In order to actually experience the game to it's fullest; whether you plan on playing in/with that content or not, you'd have to buy the game 3 times over. The worst part is that all of the content is on the disc readily available to use(I know people with modded consoles that let's you unlock content for free).

I also have to ask, what do you gain by sticking up for companies who are purposefully sanctioning off content and cutting you out from the rest, even when you know it's readily available to play on the disc?
Do you also not find it strange how Sony/Microsoft are two that agreed to have season passes to lessen the worth of games as they said "used games(retailers) were hurting the industry" yet willing to constantly make pre-order deals with them?

You really think the gaming community is stupid enough to let something like that Mario crap scenario you made up pass?

http://watchdogs.wikia.com/wiki/Outfits
http://reddead.wikia.com/wiki/Category:R...LC_Outfits
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Classic_Pack
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Caravan_Pack
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Mercenary_Pack
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Tribal_Pack
http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brin...8CI7LGTE08
http://www.ign.com/wikis/borderlands-2/DLC

Don't see a connection. You find me a group large enough that said "I'm buying this for the costumes and nothing else" and maybe you'll have something. All I see here is a couple of pictures and a couple of words.

[Psychospacecow]

Eh Sky, you said that people wouldn't be stupid enough over costume packs.

Watchdogs has the same scenario.
Red Dead has the same scenario.
Fallout has the same scenario and I can pull up the console commands to spawn the items if you want.
Brink did it as well.
Borderlands 2 had their preorder guns pack of weapons that get obsoleted mere minutes into gameplay.
So, yeah. "I'm buying this from this store in particular for the costumes and nothing else. I could take my business elsewhere, but for these costumes, I go here".

If I really wanted to, I could give you a long list of games that have done this, but I don't much care for archiving things that bore me so you only get the ones off the top of my head.

[RepentantSky]

A lot of those things fall under season passes though, which people buy for things other than costumes, most notably the mentality of "I'm gonna want most of the dlc, and that just comes with it, so whatever." It's like how wii fit was considered a high selling game because it was bundled with the wii. Costumes only exist because money can be made off of them by bundling them with season passes. On their own, they don't make as many sales. It also doesn't help that a ton of let's players but those things for comical purposes for their fans. Besides all that, you are doing the same thing True Boss did and making speculation based on something that might happen. You want to prove to me that people will buy a game based on what costumes are in it, show me that without showing me things that are part of season passes, and do so without people who buy these things for the sake of entertaining others. The idea of buying costumes is a cheap and small matter occasionally used for a small change here or there. It doesn't mean devs will try and trick you into buying something that small.

[BumblebeeCody*]

You really think the gaming community is stupid enough to let something like that Mario crap scenario you made up pass? Don't insult people, the gaming community is just not that dumb. If they were, EA would be everyone's favorite company, instead of the exact opposite, literally years in a row.

Gonna have to use Psychos example but yes people will. Of course people will...and people have. The list that Psycho listed is only a small amount of the overall problem.
To put this into perspective, I was one of those who was burnt hard by SFxT due to the DLC fest.

(Copied from another forum I was on and slightly edited):
The game has:
1) 38 characters. 17 of which were locked. (Bringing the roster to a grand total of 55).
To unlock the characters you HAD to pay an additional £20 to unlock the entire pack (Both Tekken and SF side)
5 of these charatcers: Cole, Turo, Kuro, Megaman and Pacman are PS3 exclusive and WILL NEVER be on the Xbox/PC (despite being playable on modded consoles).

2)Each character comes with their default costumes and 2 additional costumes. Default costumes are for everyone but the 2 alternate costumes are locked. This brings you to another £20(ish). As each character has 2, this means there is a total of 100 locked costumes.

3)The game also has somewhere around 300 single gems for you to equip. 245 single gems (attack, defense, speed, stamina etc) with 60 assist gems. However 150 of these gems are disc locked and you MUST pay to use them. Meaning you only have 150 available to you. Another £20

4) The game only gives you 4 colours. Everyone has one colour, an alternate and black/white. Boring I know
But the total amount of colours that are DLC is an pathetic 2600(ish). I'm off by a few but that's each character and their individual colour slots. The colour packs themselves around another £20 which means so far you've spent an additional £60 on content you already own.
But there's still more

5) They locked combos. The game allows you to to perform auto-combos. I hate them but noobs use them. Each character has around 5 so we're talking 250 locked auto-combos which I think is around £10. If think if the conversion works out right, those in America pay an additional $180 for content that was in your initial purchase for the $60.

Now if I bring this all back, all of that content was already fully complete and playable in your initial $60 purchase BUT Capcom won't let you have because they say this monetisation scheme as their way to deal with the game. My friend pirated the game on Xbox and has access to all the additional content. It's ready to go.

Also, about the pre-orders, give me a break. So many people pre-order that if they didn't do that, they wouldn't make enough money off of a game.

Then we start talking about why companies spend so much money on games in the first place. No-one says that game shave to have a silly amount of money pumped into them do they? That's a huge problem that I think is missed, since people don't realise that it's not the consumers fault that games are expensive. When Ubisoft wants to, they can be smart and make a game like Child of Light which will sell well due to the right level of marketing and budgeting. But then you get the other side of Ubisoft that produces games like Watch_Dogs with that insane DLC graph just to show you what you don't have access to combined with an over-inflated budget for a game that is completely new and a marketing campaign that was absurdly over produced.

Whether the industry realizes a large portion of it's consumer base can't afford to buy a game at full price or not, there is no denying that pre-orders increase sales and they are all about how many figures they can throw out there as soon as possible. Don't forget you are talking about gamestop, not a game dev, not even really the industry much itself, but a company who sells games that wants to give extra incentive to people to pre-order from them. This may have absolutely nothing to do with the industry at all, just the distributors of their products.

Need a source for "pre-orders increase sales" but I'll give you benefit of the doubt. Say pre-orders do increase sales. Why is that? It's because people/consumers/the fans/the audience (myself included) are worried that if we don't pre-order the game, then our money or worth less.
1) £40 buying on launch gets you the basic game
2) £40 under a pre-order gets you the basic game and the additional content.
As you can see option 1 has less value despite spending the same money as option 2.
Again, if pre-orders are an increase to sales, it's not for the benfit of us, it's because we value what our money is worth. That's not a good thing.

I could also talk about why GameStop/GAME are within the industry but it should be obvious by now how much of a presence they have.
In a nutshell:
First: We buy games from retailers > retailers get money from the sale > publishers get money back.
But: If retailers aren't around > retailers don't have consumers > (therefore) publishers get no money.
So then: To keep retailers happy > publishers tell developers to cut parts of the game > retailers repackage this as pre-order bonuses > we give in because we want value for our money.
Pre-orders show publisher stock holders that a large number of people want their game which also benefits the retailers as they are able to sell more copies.

Also ignore OmegaAlphaSin. Dudes a tabloid douche. Funnily enough, while I was typing this response Jim Sterling just put up this video on the matter that might give you a more articulate insight in this subject.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/v...er-Culture

Even Nintendo are now getting on on this. C'mon, Zelda skins that we all want held ransom behind pre-order bonuses.


At the end of the day, if you honestly believe in pre-order then fine. Much respect to you for sticking your guns and by no means is this an attack. The only thing I ask is, what do you benefit as the consumer from all of this? As someone on my level in the chain of consumerism your money should go to the best product available. Not that you deserve to have content cut from you because you didn't give in first.

Edit: Just a response to your latest reply. This isn't about developers. It's about publishers.
I also forgot to mention. I thought this was quite funny

This DLC was announced in may of 2014...for a game that is being released in November. I heard about the DLC BEFORE the game was even announced. DLC before the game has well even been finished.

[RepentantSky]

I still don't see how any of this promises we'd get lazy exclusives like that if everyone who sold games had in game exclusives they paid for so we could choose what we wanted as extra content. It's still just speculation because we don't know what will be attempted until something has been. No matter how many times costumes have been a part of dlc (and honestly I can think of other examples you didn't use) it doesn't change that we don't know that's going to be the pre-order bonus until it actually happens. Maybe it's me, because I don't feel as betrayed and burned by the industry as most of the gaming community does, but I haven't lost all trust in them like most have. That could be simply because I buy games from dev's with less shadier practices, or because I simply avoid things I know look bad or interesting to me, but I'm not so negative as to assume the worst of something we don't know is a bad idea until it's proven that it is.

As for the question of how does this benefit me, I think the example I first used explains it pretty well. If a game really did have dlc with run and gun missions vs stealth missions, it would be nice to choose which place I'd rather pre-order from. Having more options, or having options exclusively, would make more interesting to me. I know people's concern is "I want everything a game has to offer" but the way people talk about it just comes off as bitching to me. Adding exclusive dlc doesn't mean you are part of a game, because someone else isn't going ot get a part of the game you don't. It's a trade-off and I really don't see a problem with it.

I'm gonna go ahead and call it out right now, because I'm tired of seeing it all the time, but the gaming community bitches so much. I can't believe how much I see adults complaining like children while holding their noses up with pride over their complaints. The gaming industry needs to change, most of the community will agree with that, but every time change happens to come our way, people cry about it like a bay who needs a bottle. Do we really suck that much as a community that we need to be bottle fed? This change might be a good thing, and it might start leading to the changes people actually claim they want. This last paragraph isn't directed at any one person by the way. I just get sick and tired of hearing all the damn whining and that seems to be such a huge thing people do and hide behind "my opinion" in order to justify it. The gaming industry is not as bad as people think it is. Yes, there are plenty of moments where things happen that shouldn't. but getting mad about like a child isn't helping. The community needs to take a break, dry it's baby tears off and start thinking with level heads instead of with anger and distrust. Gaming really isn't that bad, and the industry really isn't out to get you, even if they want your money, you can choose to give it to them, so really, blaming everything but yourself because you keep falling for the same things and so the same things keep happening isn't really helping anyone.

Sorry, that last paragraph was basically a rant I needed to get off my chest. The gaming community is in need of change just as much as the industry they claim to hate.

[BumblebeeCody*]

I still don't see how any of this promises we'd get lazy exclusives like that if everyone who sold games had in game exclusives they paid for so we could choose what we wanted as extra content. It's still just speculation because we don't know what will be attempted until something has been. No matter how many times costumes have been a part of dlc (and honestly I can think of other examples you didn't use) it doesn't change that we don't know that's going to be the pre-order bonus until it actually happens.

Indeed you're right. I agree in that this is speculation but it's based on observation, evidence and logical theory. Basically while it is true that " No matter how many times costumes have been a part of dlc (and honestly I can think of other examples you didn't use) it doesn't change that we don't know that's going to be the pre-order bonus until it actually happens". We do know that before online gaming, we would gain access to costumes and missions for beating the game, beating it on hard (fulfilling tasks etc). If you beat Resident Evil 4, you get access to RE 2 Leon. Beat it again and you get Mafia Leon. But now it's, beat the game and get nothing but instead give us money and you'll get the costumes. It's based on observation(how unlocks used to be), evidence (just one of the many examples) and logical theory(it's Capcom. As I pointed out with SFxT, they will happily lock everything away for 3x the price despite it all being on the disc and ready).

Maybe it's me, because I don't feel as betrayed and burned by the industry as most of the gaming community does, but I haven't lost all trust in them like most have. That could be simply because I buy games from dev's with less shadier practices, or because I simply avoid things I know look bad or interesting to me, but I'm not so negative as to assume the worst of something we don't know is a bad idea until it's proven that it is.

Fair enough but many of us have been burned. If you look at the first 4 or so years of Xbox/PS3, Season Passes, Online Passes, DAY-1 DLC, on disc DLC, microtranscations were completely unheard. Roughly 2010 all of this crept up on us and we've let it slide. Even EA scrapped online passes but so many other companies jumped on board to stop pre-owned sales and look now, no more online passes. It was a test.
As for the evidence, if you ever get into console/game modding you can look into the files of games and see what is hidden away. I can honestly tell you that all pre-order content is locked on the disc. An easy way to know without even needing to mod your console is whenever you redeem a costume, skin, gun, pack etc, they should all be the size of 108KB. That's how you know it'son the disc but it's a small unlock key.

As for the question of how does this benefit me, I think the example I first used explains it pretty well. If a game really did have dlc with run and gun missions vs stealth missions, it would be nice to choose which place I'd rather pre-order from. Having more options, or having options exclusively, would make more interesting to me. I know people's concern is "I want everything a game has to offer" but the way people talk about it just comes off as bitching to me. Adding exclusive dlc doesn't mean you are part of a game, because someone else isn't going ot get a part of the game you don't. It's a trade-off and I really don't see a problem with it.

Again, it's a very good marketing trick used. You're being given 'false options'. What seems like choice is actually a limitation on how much your money is worth. Before online gaming everyone would pay £40 for the same game. Having parts of your game sold to different companies means having to buy the game multiple times over just to get that retailers special content. Again, all of which are on the disc. It's not actually giving you options or choice but rather the illusion of choice. Kinda like me saying, "I'm going make you pay full price for a pizza with cheese, ham and pepperoni. But I'm only going to let you choose one topping despite paying for all 3 choices".

I'm gonna go ahead and call it out right now...

Far enough. It's not so much as whining but more of a fighting for your basic consumer rights. When someone screws you over, you shouldn't take it lying down. For some reason though, only gaming seems to have this problem. Music, film, print media etc never deploy these types of tactics (buy a whole album, lock away 2 songs) or buy a Mario game to find Mario is DLC.

Maybe in time you'll see what people are really talking about but I can tell you one thing, corporations are not your friend.