Buy Your Gears of War 2 Maps Again!

At first I was open to downloadable content. I defended games against claims of nickle and diming customers, with the price of the content and the time of release after the game shipped. Now however, I’m not so sure.

Epic have announced their new Gears of War 2 DLC packages, “All Fronts” which will be in retail form, and “Dark Corners” on Xbox Live. All Fronts consists of a new campaign entitled “Road to Ruin” as well as seven new multiplayer maps. That is indeed a lot of content, but that’s actually not all of it. If you buy it at retail, the package also includes the previous Combustible and Snowblind map packs, as well as premium theme, an introductory video, a poster, and a strategy guide. The kicker? Dark Corners on Live only contains the new campaign and maps, for the same price.

This is infuriating for me as I have downloaded both of the map packs. The package is essentially a reward for people who didn’t download them, and a slap to the face for “loyal” customers who bought them at release. I agree, the retail package is a steal if you haven’t bought any of the map packs.

It’s a bit silly too when you consider the package won’t be out until the end of July. People that were on the fence or any potential (smart) customer won’t go near it now. Even if the package with only the new content was fully worth the $20, it still doesn’t matter as I could have still saved money and the other deal is the SAME PRICE.

There wouldn’t be this issue at all if it costed say, 800 points. But no, that’s being too generous, so instead let’s punish the people supporting us.

From the Epic forums, Rod Fergusson  replies to remarks about the new content:

So let’s say that I do decide to buy this, I’ll grab it at retail and surely I could give away the codes. Nope.

My understanding right now is that it’s a single download so that you don’t have to enter 4 different codes to get all the content. There is no issue with downloading All Fronts on top of existing DLC..

So now I can’t give away the map packs I already have. Sweet fucking deal.

Now let’s talk about All Fronts. Yes at $19.99 it has some value over the 3600 points you would have to pay online to buy the same content and there’s nothing stopping you from getting the content that way. In order to get people off the couch and into the stores you need to provide a value add and it’s not just a poster.

Uh? In order to get people into stores you need more value? What do you think I am, some mammoth 300 pound gamer who can’t walk? I’m a collector, and anything in a retail package or box I’d rather buy than a digital download.

Ok first, let’s talk about the price of Dark Corners. In the past, like other games, we’ve charged 800 points for 3-4 multiplayer maps. This time we are doubling that to 7 maps and including a new single player chapter (a deleted scene if you will) for the price of 1600 points. As a one to one comparison that seems fair.

The price of Dark Corners is appropriate for $20, I agree with that. But when there’s a substantially BETTER deal for the EXACT SAME PRICE it’s mind boggling.

And remember that even though this was announced today, it’s not being offered till the end of July. That means you’ll have had 4 months of playing Snowblind before All Fronts even shows up in stores.

Ah, the price argument. If they were priced differently, then sure that would work. But I’m paying $20 for the SAME CONTENT. Essentially they’re giving away the two map packs for free if you buy All Fronts. I’m okay with that. This is only valid if you’re talking about the price of the map pack being reduced or free over time. It’s the fact that they’re both the same price.  That does not make any sense.

This blows my mind that they would price them equally. If  it were 1200 points it would be a bit more reasonable, but the people that haven’t bought a thing are still getting a tremendous deal.  It doesn’t make sense, considering how much they pushed the new Snowblind map packs. It’s really insulting that the people I saw cursing at the mappacks when the first came out and refusing to buy them are the ones being rewarded.

Via: Destructoid, Giant Bomb