You’re Doing it Wrong: Give us Your Money and We’ll Give you Everything you Think you Want
If I’m buying a videogame I’ll make damn sure I’m getting a good bargain. Believe it or not, I’m a student who finds himself constantly out of pocket; I may live in a frugal lifestyle, but not a self-controlled one. I use a rental service for games and films, I never buy games on release unless I can genuinely afford to buy them (rather than convincing myself I can afford them, but in reality I am sacrificing a few meals in a week) and, after stupidly buying a couple of special editions in the naive hope I’d be getting my money’s worth and being proved wrong, I don’t buy special editions. Which is why the special edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops infuriates me greatly.
Activision decided with Call of Duty: World at War that they would bump up the retail price of the game and any future titles by five British pounds, due to the almost infallible popularity of the Call of Duty franchise. The birth of Modern Warfare was a double-edged sword for first-person shooter lovers and bloodthirsty teenagers alike: in loving the game you had committed yourself to investing continually in annual releases and downloadable content. Activision knew bloody well this was the case with hundreds of thousands of people and completely took advantage of it.
A Game of the Year edition for Modern Warfare was released but that didn’t irk me greatly as the cost of the game was more reasonable and was instantly reduced in price by shops. I had already bought myself a copy of the original game way back in 2007 (on eBay for under £25) but was content with seeing a ‘special’ edition, so to speak, be reduced in price and thus affordable to us common folk. Then World at War was released.
I had a sizeable voucher for the videogame retailer GAME and had waited to spend it on something worthwhile. Thanks to the Modern Warfare effect, I was going to buy World at War even if I didn’t really want it that much. I used my voucher but paid retail and felt so silly for doing so. I bought two Playstation 3 games that were heavily discounted and both under £5 just because I had actually paid retail.
To this day, despite clocking in excess of 100 hours on World at War, I don’t think I got my money’s worth. The game was quintessentially Modern Warfare with the modern and warfare bits covered with Tippex to hide the plagiarism; I frequently returned to Modern Warfare and left World at War to collect dust. If Modern Warfare 2 had been released instead of World at War I probably would have done the same thing because I despised Modern Warfare 2 as much as I did World at War.
Don’t get me wrong, both of the games are good. They just have an incurable case of sequelitis, a disease which renders them inferior to their prequel and thus less enjoyable to play. As mentioned before I have bought two special editions in my gaming life: one was Gears of War 2 which I bought because it had dropped £8 in price and seemed worth buying at the time. The other was Modern Warfare 2.
Hi, my name is Harry, and I bought the Hardened Edition of Modern Warfare 2. I paid £10 less than what it retailed at but still left Blockbuster’s with a pocket £50 lighter. I could have bought Modern Warfare 2 during the huge supermarket price-drop but there were no copies in stock and I wanted to have the game on day one, once again I had fallen victim to the Modern Warfare effect. I was very excited to own a copy of the Hardened Edition though… for about an hour. I took it home, opened it up and had a look at what the extra money had bought me. Then I sighed and facepalmed at my idiocy.
The thin plastic sleeve was broken on one side rendering it useless as a slide-on sleeve, the art-book was thin and pointless, the Call of Duty Classic PSN game was worthy of my time for about ten minutes and the steelbook case had a couple of small dents in it. I felt so stupid. I was hoping so much that the actual game would at least make the waste of money easier to cope with. I did play a lot of Modern Warfare 2, both single and multiplayer, but I ended up playing less of the game than World at War.
I had opened myself up and allowed to be susceptible to hype. The Hardened Edition was shiny and special and even though I had avoided the faux charm of the night-vision goggled Prestige Edition I fell victim to the special feeling. It’s not going to happen again.
The Prestige Edition of the next Call of Duty game, Black Ops, will retail in America for $150 and includes a bare-bones RC Car that has a camera and microphone on board. If you bought the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition and didn’t feel instantly stupid for doing so you’ll probably buy this too and run around your garden at night with your night-vision goggles on driving your RC Car around videoing frightened hedgehogs… or just play with them normally…
There will probably be a Hardened Edition of Black Ops that comes with something like downloadable content, artwork and a shiny case, but I will not be buying it. I’m not even going to be buying Black Ops or any other Call of Duty game from now on. I’ve been burned by Activision’s marketing strategies and price-hiking and I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m going to rent Black Ops, play the single and multiplayer, then return it and forget all about it.
Fifa ’11 will be my go-to game this year.
So… wait, hang on. Let me just try and get the TL;DR version. You are infuriated by the existence of the special edition because you previously bought the hardened edition when you didn’t really want it?
I don’t mean to sound like a smartass (any more than usual), but you didn’t make much of a point here.
Personally, I’m okay with the existence of special editions for games that deserve them, and I appreciate that these actually have something special about them. I’d never buy one, because I don’t want any more bullshit in my home, but it seems odd to me to complain about it on those grounds specifically. Still, I guess it’s not your fault that one of the best multiplayer franchises of the medium is under the brolly of the most evil, writhing cockmonster of our time.
@UglyDuck: After my experiences with special editions I’ve come to the conclusion that most special editions are produced not to benefit and enhance the player’s experience of the game, but to gain more money out of a franchise by including easy to make bonus features that can entice people into spending more money.
Ones like the Dead Space 2 SE seem to be trying to genuinely improve the experience; the DS2 one adds a HD-version of Dead Space: Extraction so you’re pretty much getting two games in one. But ones like the Halo 3 SE and this Black Ops PE & HE come with add-ons that are effectively trinkets.
A few special editions provide your money’s worth, but for someone as frugal as me, any chance of me buying a special edition has gone thanks to the MW2 and Gears of War 2 episodes…
I’d rather pay < £5 below the retail price for the standard edition than pay upwards of £40 for the game and shelf-stealing and ultimately useless accessories.
I thought it was common knowledge that special editions were scams.
P.S. Steelbooks blow.
Yeah, most special editions aren’t worth it. One will come along every once in a while that isn’t crap, but its not often. I guess it depends how into the franchise the buyer is.
I do find it interesting that Activsion is slowly building up a collection of pre-order bonuses that would be used by a sexual predator.
Night vision? Check.
Remote camera and mic? Check.
Maybe Modern Warfare 3 will come with roofies and a tazer.
Hello Harry, I would like to shout obscenities and racial slurs at you while playing Fifa 11 on PSN… will you be my friend?
It’s a shame you brits don’t get as many discounts as we Americans (God’s chosen people) get. I recently bought Dark Void for $10 and Ghostbusters for $15 and Bayonetta for $20. I just can’t pass up a deal.
Also it’s weird how I feel about annualized sequels, I had no problem paying for Fifa 09 and Fifa 10. But I rented and never bought WaW and MW2. It’s because those Call of Duty games will cost an extra $30 and will be forgotten the next year. While Fifa’s player base wont be divided by silly DLC.
I bought Red Dead Redemption for $60 and got a $20 gift card. I know you all hate me for my uber saving skillz.
@darkwhitehair: I would love to have obscenities shouted at me on Fifa 11. My PSN name is HBandell.
I found a copy of Fifa 11 available to pre-order for £32.95. I consider that a bargain for a game that will provide an entire year of entertainment. I didn’t buy Fifa 10 but have played a lot of it around friends’ houses and still own a copy of Fifa 09 I have played tons of that only cost me £2.50.
Fallout 3: Limited Edition – £49.99
Fallout New Vegas: Limited Edition – £69.99
Fable 2: Limited Collector’s Edition – £49.99
Fable 3: Limited Collector’s Edition – £59.99
COD: Modern Warfare Collector’s Edition – £59.99
COD: Modern Warfare 2 Limited Hardened Edition – £69.99
This, quite frankly, is just fanbase abuse.
@Vordus:
I don’t disagree, but sadly the fans are still playing the role of enabler in significant numbers. Publishers would tone this down if people weren’t buying this crap.
@darkwhitehair
From what I’ve seen, Brits have to pay more for the initial game, but we get reductions much, much quicker. While Americans are celebrating over being able to pay $40 for a game that came out 6 months ago, we’re already diving through bargain bins for it.
The one that always stood out to me was Stranglehold. That game was reduced to £5 over here very fast, and it stayed at $40 in America for a while. It also took them about a year afterwards to get it down to $8 on their bargain bin lists.
@UglyDuck: I just bought Dark Void for $10 dude, clearly I have proven that American Capitalism is superior than your British Communism.
@darkwhitehair: Dark Void can be bought for £6.99/£5.00/£3.95 here depending on format, so deliciously low prices on games that bombed at retail is pretty much par for the course.