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custom_magnumOkay. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Pretty decent and fun game overall, if really WAY to short to justify it's original $60 asking price that I paid for it back when it first came out. Even though I'm starting to get the itch to replay it again, actually doing that still wouldn't give me the value of some other games, as it'd only be around 22 hours at max. Even the additional Downloadable Content (DLC) level released around half a year ago or so only adds so much to the game.
But with the announcement of the Ultimate Sith Edition of the game, Lucas Arts is now taking all the fans who bought the game on the PS3 or Xbox360, and castrating them with a blood red lightsaber. And the only reason I can see for them doing it is to be dicks, really. That or with the creation of it as the Ultimate Sith Edition the company has completely embraced the Sith ideology of “being a completely jackass to everyone else on the planet”.
For those who don't know, the new edition of the Force Unleashed, the Ultimate Sith Edition will include the main game, the first DLC expansion level, both DLC costume packs, the second just released DLC Expansion level of the Sith ending of the game in part of an AU “What If?” springing from said ending, and a new EXCLUSIVE level continuing from that second DLC level of the game. That you can't get as DLC. This exclusive level is supposed to be a selling point of the Ultimate Sith Edition. There's been at least one person actually agreeing with them not allowing the last level to be DLC as a way to convince newcomers to the game to buy a new disc of it instead of buying a cheap used copy for $20.00, despite how much it pisses of the people who actually bought the game when it first came out (subnet6's comments on this kotaku thread).
But that doesn't even fly. In fact, the list price on Amazon.com for the game BEFORE they reduce it slightly is $39.99. While at the very least LucasArt's isn't trying to get people, especially people who bought the game already to pay a full $60... in actuality it turns out that there's little rational reason for them to NOT release the Hoth level as DLC.
Let's go through the list of all the DLC that's available for The Force Unleashed.
1.)Apprentice Mission Pack (additional level) - $9.99
2.)Character Pack 1 (additional costumes) - $4.99
3.)Character Pack 2 (additional costumes) - $4.99
4.)Tatooine Mission Pack (additional level) - $9.99
So, adding all those nice numbers together and we get $29.96.
$10 less than the Ultimate Sith Edition's full price. And since the only thing exclusive to it it will have is the single Hoth Level, then going by the pricing point of the previous two mission packs and adding another $9.99 to the pricing and we get... $39.95.
So basically, by LucasArts making the Hoth Level exclusive to the Ultimate Sith Edition... they're castrating the fanbase for a measly four pennies per copy, if they actually go out and buy the Ultimate Sith Edition just because it's Star Wars.
I'm not saying that LucasArts SHOULDN'T make a re-release for $39.99 that includes all the DLC. That's perfectly fine. I'm not even annoyed that the people who buy the game later get it for less money. That's the nature of the business, after all. But by deliberately witholding the level, they're being a bunch of greedy dicks to the fanbase.
For four messily pennies. In fact, even if the Ultimate Sith Edition was out and new players STILL bought used copies of the game, unless they completely hated it, those gamers would probably want more and would end up buying the DLC, thereby giving LucasArts the full price they were asking for the Ultimate Sith Edition ANYWAY.
Any plans I'd have to become a game developer I think I'm going to throw away right now. If this is the kind of crap I'd be expected to take part in I'd want nothing of it.
As far as I understood, DLC was supposed to STOP the bullshit of making a better version of the game a year or two down the road and trying to charge gamers who already bought the game more money for it. Yet The Ultimate Sith edition is not the only case of this happening. Just take a look at Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV, the new version of the game that's going to be released soon for $39.99. All the new version of Street Fighter IV is going to have is more characters, some more moves for characters, and bug fixes (Destructoid). While that might seem like a lot of content, it wouldn't be like all that extra stuff couldn't be made available as patches via download for that game. While Capcom is notorious for doing this exact thing, that was always in the ages before DLC became possible on consoles.
Seriously, enough is enough with this crap.
But with the announcement of the Ultimate Sith Edition of the game, Lucas Arts is now taking all the fans who bought the game on the PS3 or Xbox360, and castrating them with a blood red lightsaber. And the only reason I can see for them doing it is to be dicks, really. That or with the creation of it as the Ultimate Sith Edition the company has completely embraced the Sith ideology of “being a completely jackass to everyone else on the planet”.
For those who don't know, the new edition of the Force Unleashed, the Ultimate Sith Edition will include the main game, the first DLC expansion level, both DLC costume packs, the second just released DLC Expansion level of the Sith ending of the game in part of an AU “What If?” springing from said ending, and a new EXCLUSIVE level continuing from that second DLC level of the game. That you can't get as DLC. This exclusive level is supposed to be a selling point of the Ultimate Sith Edition. There's been at least one person actually agreeing with them not allowing the last level to be DLC as a way to convince newcomers to the game to buy a new disc of it instead of buying a cheap used copy for $20.00, despite how much it pisses of the people who actually bought the game when it first came out (subnet6's comments on this kotaku thread).
But that doesn't even fly. In fact, the list price on Amazon.com for the game BEFORE they reduce it slightly is $39.99. While at the very least LucasArt's isn't trying to get people, especially people who bought the game already to pay a full $60... in actuality it turns out that there's little rational reason for them to NOT release the Hoth level as DLC.
Let's go through the list of all the DLC that's available for The Force Unleashed.
1.)Apprentice Mission Pack (additional level) - $9.99
2.)Character Pack 1 (additional costumes) - $4.99
3.)Character Pack 2 (additional costumes) - $4.99
4.)Tatooine Mission Pack (additional level) - $9.99
So, adding all those nice numbers together and we get $29.96.
$10 less than the Ultimate Sith Edition's full price. And since the only thing exclusive to it it will have is the single Hoth Level, then going by the pricing point of the previous two mission packs and adding another $9.99 to the pricing and we get... $39.95.
So basically, by LucasArts making the Hoth Level exclusive to the Ultimate Sith Edition... they're castrating the fanbase for a measly four pennies per copy, if they actually go out and buy the Ultimate Sith Edition just because it's Star Wars.
I'm not saying that LucasArts SHOULDN'T make a re-release for $39.99 that includes all the DLC. That's perfectly fine. I'm not even annoyed that the people who buy the game later get it for less money. That's the nature of the business, after all. But by deliberately witholding the level, they're being a bunch of greedy dicks to the fanbase.
For four messily pennies. In fact, even if the Ultimate Sith Edition was out and new players STILL bought used copies of the game, unless they completely hated it, those gamers would probably want more and would end up buying the DLC, thereby giving LucasArts the full price they were asking for the Ultimate Sith Edition ANYWAY.
Any plans I'd have to become a game developer I think I'm going to throw away right now. If this is the kind of crap I'd be expected to take part in I'd want nothing of it.
As far as I understood, DLC was supposed to STOP the bullshit of making a better version of the game a year or two down the road and trying to charge gamers who already bought the game more money for it. Yet The Ultimate Sith edition is not the only case of this happening. Just take a look at Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV, the new version of the game that's going to be released soon for $39.99. All the new version of Street Fighter IV is going to have is more characters, some more moves for characters, and bug fixes (Destructoid). While that might seem like a lot of content, it wouldn't be like all that extra stuff couldn't be made available as patches via download for that game. While Capcom is notorious for doing this exact thing, that was always in the ages before DLC became possible on consoles.
Seriously, enough is enough with this crap.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 03:39 am (UTC)gets the gist of it, but ... stares.
yeeeah, just gonna snugglehugcling to you now, 'kay? ♥]
no subject
Date: 2009-10-22 03:41 am (UTC)Eh, I'm alright. Although I got a little bit more bitch then I was when I first found this out weeks ago when I actually did the math just now. ^^