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And then, to blame your impatience on Sony and follow that up by allowing it to affect your enjoyment of the game... Immaturity is probably the best word to describe this. Ignorance would work, too.
Well, there's also always the chance this was written to garner hits."
...well, actually, it wasn't. That was a poor attempt at making a very accurate analogy seem silly. In the process, you made your own ability to rationalize seem pretty weak.
As Dammy said, it's about people spending their money to buy things they want. You buy a product that appeals to you, whether it's games or cars or a vaccuum. The Big Three DID screw up, and they paid for it. Hyundai and Kia DID take advantage of this, but it wasn't just that they were cheap; they also improved their product. They made their product more appealing.
Common sense isn't common, by the way. It actually varies by region/upbringing and such. "
DRM, though, is something that has driven more people to piracy, as it generally winds up being more of a hindrance to the people that WANT to pay than to those that have no intention of doing so."
But, apparently, this generation in gaming has brought forth a consumer base who is willing to defend the producer's right to make what they want, effectively giving up their own right to a product they shouldn't have to complain about. I can't quite understand where this came from, but it's evident in a lot of different aspects of the gaming industry this generation. From DLC to yearly iterations of games that have changed little, to even paying to play online. The "digital revolution" is poised to take virtually all rights from us as consumers, yet people are cheering and praising it without even understanding this.
Gaming is headed down a dangerous direction, one that will result in another crash. And I don't think it'll be able to recover this time, sadly. "
I'm a writer. I'd like to say I'm a damn good one, but it's more like that I'm just pretty good. If someone read one of my stories and was dissatisfied with the ending, I'd most certainly want to know why. Whether it's a creation of my mind and therefore my artistic expression is irrelevant: especially if I got paid for it, I wrote the story in question for the sake of the readers. If they were satisfied with everything but the end, then it was likely a failure on my part. If I've promised that this story, the end to my highly-acclaimed tetralogy(I try to avoid trilogies, since everyone has them these days), will tie up all the loose ends and answer all the remaining questions left in my series, and my ending instead raises as many or more questions than it put to rest, I should not be surprised that my fans are upset. And because I led these people on- because I convinced them to spend money and time on my story and then showed all my promises to be false- they deserve an explanation.
Not PR crap, but the truth.
If, for some odd reason, I got the idea in my head to completely break from form only for the story's ending, and so ruined something that many fans had, up until that point, loved, I would write a new ending. For something like a novel, it'd be tougher to do than for a video game, but I'd try to make amends with my offended fans by delivering this end at as low a cost as possible. Especially if I wanted them to look forward to my next series of works. As a writer, I've got even more artistic freedom inherent in my work than a gaming company. But as a manufacturer of a good, I must also satisfy my customer to hopefully ensure their continued patronage.
I really don't see what's so hard to understand about that."
Potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay for $20=value.
An extra 5 hours for $10= not so much value."
Which brings me to the core of my point on the lack of a used game market: what do we own? If we buy these games and have no ability to resell them, it can be argued that we don't even own them. As opposed to PC games(licenses that are usually something like lifetime warranties, in that you get to play as long as you hold the software; or as long as the servers are up for online games, which tends to be a VERY long time on PC), in which the majority contain an EULA which outlines that the purchase is of a license and not the software itself, most console games are the property of the person who paid for them.
I, for one, would not be happy with the proposed hypothetical for the above stated reasons. The longevity of online games is at the mercry of the game makers: whenever they like, they can shut down servers and effectively diminish the value of a recently made purchase. Online passes are a joke, a giant cash grab in an attempt to generate revenue from sales they have no right to be a part of. And there's absolutely zero promise that game prices won't simply rise in the wake of an erased used game market: what would keep them from charging whatever they wanted?"
You can say that you made the decision that it was worth it, but there is more that goes into a decision of value than just how much it costs. As the author mentioned, there's the possibility of regaining SOME money from selling ME2, but there is NO renumeration possible in the slightest for the DLC. It would be like buying an old car, and then parts for the car, and yet only being able to resell the car and not the parts you bought.
This fad of "gamers are too entitled" also needs to stop. An educated consumer group, as you put it, does not simply accept whatever practices happen in a given industry. An educated consumer group knows the scored and is respected by the industry manufacturers to the point where consumer complaints result in a change in industy standards.
That's something we definitely don't have today. Instead, we have too many people saying things like, "Get over it. It costs money, so you shouldn't complain about having to pay for it," as if that's the entirety of the issue. That's honestly only one aspect. As mentioned in the article, other industries are at least attempting to give the consumer the impression that they get more bang for their buck. But in gaming, we are increasingly being charged full retail for less content, and then being charged further for content removed and sold at a later date. And, as in this case, additional content does not depreciate accordingly with its source material.
Therefore, I can buy Valkyria Chronicles for 20 bucks or even less, but I'll be spending more like $30 (if not more; it's been a while since I last checked on all the DLC) if I want the full game. Granted, I wouldn't be averse to paying full price for the core title, as it's a game I absolutely love. But none of the DLC adds the same amount of content as the game itself, which sells for a fraction of the total of the DLC.
It is, strictly speaking, difficult to justify paying $15 for two hours of additional content when you paid $25 for 30+. That initial investment is easy to see as money well spent, but the DLC cost in comparison is rather steep. And unlike the money you forked over for the ME2 game, there is no way to recoup the losses of the DLC.
Am I repeating myself yet? I hope so, because maybe it'll get through that way.
We ARE entitled, within reasonable parameters. And we are entitled moreso than in any other entertainment industry, because only gaming has this level of interactivity. Only in gaming does success hinge so heavily on the satisfaction of the consumer... or it would, if so many people weren't so keen to just lay down and say "Whatever" to everything the industry gives us."
No one who's even watched a cell phone commercial would come to that conclusion. Those things you got as bonuses were "with activation." Let's take what you wrote and put it back to how it was:
"Over $55 Bonus Value. 8GB Memory Card, Plus A Free Month Of AT&T Data And Downloadable Game With Activation."
How could you possibly have misunderstood that you get the free stuff with your free month's activation? It plainly states that you get the free month with the activation, so it obviously refers to something else. And that something else shouldn't be unfamiliar to anyone with a cell phone."
