We’ve come to the end of our look at used games, which means it’s time to look forward. As we’ve noted, GameStop takes the lion’s share of used game sales as they sit on their mountain of money raking in more and more profits. Last month, however, Amazon announced that it will begin to buy back used games. On the day of the announcement GameStop’s stock dropped 13% showing stockholders feared new entrants into the used games market (though the stock has since recovered).

The question remains, will other players in the used game market affect GameStop? Or is there another threat – digital distribution – to GameStop’s dominance over the market? In the final part of our discussion on used games, espion4ge and I discuss what we predict will be the end of used game sales, and maybe GameStop. Without further adieu, we present to you Part 3!

Part 3: Will the new players in the used game market (Amazon, Toys R Us, etc.) be successful and/or affect the used games industry? Can the used game industry even survive with full digital distribution seemingly imminent?

It’s interesting to see new players like Amazon and Toys ‘R Us trying to get into the used game market. They have a good reason for trying: the profits can be immense. If you are deal in used merchandise, your business simply revolves around customers stocking your shelves, and other customers buying them. But I honestly don’t expect these new stores to succeed. Look at Blockbuster and Circuit City, two retail stores that tried to enter the used game market but ultimately failed. With these big stores that don’t specialize in gaming trying to incorporate the used game industry into their store, it just won’t work. What can they offer that GameStop does not already?

From my experience, stores that participate in the used game industry just aren’t knowledgeable enough to keep up with the latest trends and price drops. With Circuit City selling Call of Duty 2 used for $55, is that really going to help contribute to their bottom line if no one buys it? So the barriers to entry for these stores that want to tackle the used game market are:

a) not being able to stay on top of the gaming industry

b) having promotions that rival or are even better than GameStop’s promotions, and finally

c) being as easy to access as the hundreds of GameStop stores around the country.

GameStop is the World of Warcraft for used games. I just don’t think any other stores can compete with the insurmountable lead and setup they have.

My name is GameStop and I am a Level ?? Lich King. Do you dare take me on?

Yea, I tend to think the other companies aren’t going to be able to compete with GameStop in the used game market either. It was kinda shocking that GameStop’s stock dropped 13% after Amazon announced their used game thing. Amazon is a powerful online retailer, but do stockholders really think that people would rather box up their games instead of getting cash in hand immediately? Maybe more savvy consumers would but they are the minority. And like you said, these other retailers aren’t focused only on games, so the amount of energy and money they are going to need to keep up is not going to be worth the minimal profits.

What I think will ultimately kill GameStop is the move towards digital distribution. Already, some analysts are predicting that there won’t even be a next generation console; everything will be streamed or downloaded instead. The announcement of OnLive at GDC is only fueling that kind of speculation. What are your thoughts on how soon games will be fully digital?

I personally think a couple console generations down the line all gaming will be digital. That should pretty much kill off the used game industry altogether, which would be good for developers. I think that the reason why developers don’t make enough money today is because the publishers take a large chunk of it due to what it takes to publish the title. But digital distribution will change all of that. Look at Steam, or even Xbox Arcade. In a couple console generations, game publishers and the used gaming industry will probably be dead just because we will no longer have the need for physical media. That’s what’s happening now with the music industry, and I feel that the film industry is not far behind. Growing up we had used CD shops, but those have pretty much gone extinct and used DVD shops are currently on the chopping block since more and more movies these days are going digital. Blockbuster is toast – I don’t expect to see them around much longer. And with technology constantly improving, our hard drives getting bigger, and bandwidth getting faster, digital distribution of games will take over just like it did with the music industry. I don’t think the used gaming industry will survive at that point. Imagine consoles further down the line – they may not even have disc drives at all!

You can already download Left 4 Dead from Steam, will everything be downloadable in the future?

Maybe the used games business will become something akin to the record business, a niche industry composed of small independent shops. That would be kind of fun, actually. Of course, if companies stop making consoles, then there will be nothing to play these used games on, but maybe there will always be a market for the old school games.

I agree with you though, unless GameStop keeps completely up to date with changes affecting the gaming industry, it can’t survive. I’m not even sure it would survive even if it does keep up to date. Right now GameStop is riding an amazing wave, I read somewhere that they are planning on opening up another bunch of stores. Amazon, Toys R’ Us, and Best Buy combined are not going to have much of an effect, it’s digital distribution that will be GameStop’s Waterloo. I guess we’ll find out in a few years or so.

That about wraps it up for for this discussion. What do people think about digital distribution in general? Are espion4ge and I wrong, will there always be some kind of physical media? Or is everyone ready to download their games? Let us know!

In Part 1 of our discussion on used games, espion4ge and I discussed our own personal buying habits when it comes to used games. Of course, when you think used games, you have to think of GameStop. Although there are new retailers trying to get in on used games (and there’s always eBay and Craigslist), the fact of the matter is, it’s GameStop’s world and everyone else is just living in it.

In the second part of our discussion, espion4ge and I discussed GameStop’s policies, how we felt about them, and whether we thought there might be ways to improve GameStop. Is GameStop really as bad as everyone thinks? Is it really great for consumers? Check out Part 2 to hear our thoughts, then let us know yours.

Part 2: How do you feel about GameStop and its used games policies? Do you think there are healthier ways to handle the used games market?

In part 1, espion4ge you said you “hate to admit” the number of used games you buy. I actually kind of feel ashamed when I buy used games too. But I think that is a product of my feelings towards GameStop. I don’t begrudge their business model, but the fact of the matter is, the majority of their profits come from used game sales and they have built their entire business model around it. GameStop kind of gives me a “sleazy alley salesman” feeling, I go there and get some great deals but don’t necessarily feel very good about it. The thing that bothers me most is that the salespeople are trained to always say “Would you like a used copy for $5 less?”, and I’ve heard rumors that employees are measured by how many used games they sell. If they don’t ask me about the used copy, they inevitably ask me to preorder something. It’s like I can’t just go in there and have a pleasant conversation about games. And don’t even get me started on what it’s like when I call my local GameStop. I have some ideas about how to make GameStop a more pleasant experience, but I’d rather hear your opinions on the question first.

Can GameStop become a little friendlier?

Yes, I believe that if not currently, then back in the day, employees got commissions based on how many games they got people to pre-order, how many Game Informer subscriptions they sold, and possibly how many times they got customers to buy used games instead of new games. What sucks is if you pre-order with one employee but go in a week later and want to cancel that pre-order with a different employee, the second employee’s numbers gets decreased so they’re not the happiest to cancel the pre-order. At least that’s what I thought was going on just based on what I read online and what I’ve experienced.

But honestly, I’m actually quite satisfied with GameStop. People complain about their sleazy sales tactics of trying to get you to buy used instead of new, but as a knowledgeable consumer it doesn’t bother me at all.  Everyone agrees that GameStop’s main profit margins come from used game sales. In turn, that conveniently places the store all around the country, so you have access to buying both new and old games easily. I’ll gladly deal with employees asking me to pre-order a game if it means I only need to take 5 minutes to get to the nearest GameStop.

Think about a world without GameStop. It would mean we would have to either rely on online ordering (Amazon still has trouble getting us games on release day) or brick and mortar stores such as Best Buy. Best Buy is such a huge store that not only are there less of them around, but the lack of specialization in gaming hurts them. They don’t get their games as early as Gamestop does, and if you want an older game, forget about it. Large retail stores have a model of “after the first couple months of sales for a game, we need to get rid of it so we can stock the next big title.” Gamestops don’t have that issue simply because the used game industry allows us to catch up on games we missed. I’d rather buy a used copy of Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox at Gamestop than – oh yeah, there’s no other real option aside from eBay.

Where can you find Ninja Gaiden for Xbox?

Having said that, I think that GameStop only presents a good value when you take advantage of their trade-in deals or used game promotions. When you take advantage of their B2G1 free deal and have an Edge card for 10% off all used products, that comes out to $33 per $60 retail game. And if you take advantage of trading in games that are relatively new with promotions like the 40%-50% bonus, you can potentially even be making a profit. For example, when I went to take advantage of their B2G1 used sale most recently, I picked up Halo Wars and Star Ocean. But I didn’t have a 3rd game, so I just picked up Street Fighter 4, even though I already owned it. I went ahead and traded it in the next day with the current 40% promotion, and got $45 credit for the game. So as you can see, if you’re a smart consumer, GameStop really can be a great benefit. Just don’t be one of those consumers that agrees to pay $55 for a used game and trades in any game without taking advantage of a promotion. Plus, I’ve sold games on eBay before and after the fees and all that, it comes out to be about the same as what I’d get at GameStop during a trade-in promotion. The good thing about GameStop is they’ll never complain about what I just traded in. With eBay you may have some kid going “You said this was mint but there’s a slight scratch here”, etc. So to simply just go in and dump games I don’t play anymore instead of packing, shipping, and worrying about complaints means I almost always trade in my old games to GameStop.

I believe that with the frequent trade-in deals as well as discounts on their used games, GameStop definitely has a lot of value for me as a gamer and intelligent consumer. In fact, if GameStop didn’t run any promotions with regards to used games, I wouldn’t be buying or trading in my games to their stores at all. I also think their policies are pretty good with regards to used gaming. They have a 7 day guarantee, and if for any reason you don’t like the game, you can just return it. I don’t see how they could make that any better without being taken advantage of.

As for other ways of handling the used gaming market, I can’t think of any off hand. With all of the fees and such associated with online listings and payments, I personally don’t enjoy going that route so there’s really not much more of a way to go about it besides Gamestop’s brick and mortar “trade-in centers.” I personally think it’s awesome that they have an in-store locator for every product of theirs – both new and used. Very convenient.

In terms of healthier ways, I assume you imply a way for developers to make money off these used game sales. I’ve got no bright ideas on that topic, as pawn shops and the like have been around for ages and the original creators of the product never saw profits from used sales.

I actually don’t think developers should get a cut of used game sales, so that’s not really what I consider a healthier way to handle the used games market. I guess what I was trying to get at with the question was the fact that GameStop is great for informed and savvy consumers like yourself, but when it comes to people like parents or kids, they manage to pull off some traps to get their money. I’m not sure if this GameStop employee training video is for real, but the fact that I even question that it might be really bothers me. For those too lazy to click the link, it basically trains employees to take advantage of various types of people to come into the store to maximize profit (hilarity ensues). I wish they handled the used games market in a more friendly way, not only to consumers like yourself but with all consumers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqkPm0owi4]
Is this training video for real? Unfortunately, I think so.

I understand GameStop is a business, and everything they do is for the bottom line. But I feel they could create more consumer (and employee) friendly stores and still turn a profit. Think about your typical comic book store. A large part of a comic book store’s economy is based on trading used comics. Of course it’s different, because comics increase in value, but the feeling you get from comic geeks in a comic book store is that it’s a safe haven where they can trade their stuff. GameStop, as a franchise, can’t be like that, but it could take little steps to make things more friendly. Maybe it makes me a dork, but it’d be fun to just walk into my local GameStop and just discuss games with the employees and whoever else is around. It could be a place for gamers to hang out, and by increasing traffic to the store you could potentially increase business. But yea, that’s not going to happen, and maybe I am the only one interested in stuff like that. Though if used book stores have book clubs, I don’t know why used game stores can’t have game clubs!

Basically, it all boils down to the fact that I respect GameStop’s business model, but the way they execute it skeeves me out. It’s too bad, really, but in this economy, I guess what’s most important is staying afloat. Target keeps its video game section afloat by selling 500 Hannah Montana DS games, so I sincerely am glad GameStop is around for me to pick up stuff like Retro Game Challenge.

In the final section of our discussion tomorrow, we consider how digital distribution is going to affect this whole used game thing. Will used games become a thing of the past? Our answers to that question…tomorrow.

When I was about 10 years old, I wandered into a little store called Funco Land. I distinctly remember it being next to a Bradlees and asking my mother to take me in because I saw all these TVs inside through the windows. They had something I had never seen before, a “used games” section, with prices that were lower than new games! I had been an introduced to a whole new side of retail in the gaming industry.

Of course, Funco Land turned into GameStop, and GameStop eventually merged with EB Games, and now we seemingly have a GameStop or EB on every street corner selling used games. Is the used game market good for the industry as a whole, or is it the seedy underbelly of the video games industry? espion4ge and I decided to tackle this huge topic for a discussion that got so big we needed to split it up into three parts. We also know that people have a lot of opinions when it comes to GameStop and used games in general, so we’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

In Part 1, espion4ge and I talk about our own used game habits and whether we think used games are beneficial or harmful to consumers.

Part 1: What is your personal policy on buying/selling used games? How do you think the used game industry benefits and/or harms consumers?

In the interests of full disclosure, I think it’s good if we start by talking about our own buying habits. Personally, I’ve been cutting down the number of used games I buy these days. Generally, I sell games at GameStop when I am getting something out of it. The last two times I sold games at GameStop were when I got a 20% bonus towards my Halo Wars pre-order and when I got a 40% bonus for trading in 6 games (I combined with a friend). I usually use that credit to buy new games. I don’t think it’s worth saving 5 dollars to get the used copy, plus I enjoy the tactile sensation of tearing the plastic off a new video game. The only time I buy a used game these days is if I can’t find a copy of the new game or sometimes if it’s really cheap (like $10) I’ll just pick a used game up. But as we discussed in our previous discussion on game price points, I generally just wait for sales to pick games up.

One of the reasons I don’t buy used games anymore is because I am worried that used games will hurt the developer and ultimately end up hurting me. Take Mirror’s Edge for example. Right now I can pick it up for $35 used at GameStop. Instead, I am waiting until I can find a new copy for $30 or $35 dollars, so that the developer is the one pocketing my cash, not GameStop. “Wait,” someone might say, “by waiting for the price to drop the developer ends up making less money anyway.” That’s true, but the developer still makes more money than 0, which is what they would get from a used game sale. Also, if I buy a new game, that will eventually come out in NPDs and then I can be one of the million or so people whom the developer counts as buying their game. In the case of Mirror’s Edge, I want the publisher, EA, to know I appreciate the fact that they took a risk with a new IP in Mirror’s Edge (Deadspace, too, but that game is probably too scary for a chicken like me), so I want the new copy I buy to show up in their bottom line. If too many people buy Mirror’s Edge used, EA might decide not to make a sequel, and then they will never get a chance to improve on all the things they still need to work on from the original. Even worse, they will just pour their money back into their money makers, the sports franchises, and I will have less choice as a gamer. That is something I am trying to avoid as a consumer, and the only way I can show my support for developers is by opening up my wallet for new games.

Obviously, the used game market benefits us by offering us cheaper games. Also, there are other options out there besides GameStop that I probably would consider using if I wasn’t so lazy. Personally, I just see more harm to the industry as a whole if I buy used games, so I try not to. espion4ge, since you’re always on top of the B2G1 used deals, hit me with your opinions on this question!

Should I have taken the leap into Mirror’s Edge earlier?

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m cornered and have to confess: even though I’m a hardcore gamer, I probably buy as many used games as retail games. It’s not something I’m completely proud of, but to me, saving my own money takes more precedent than contributing to the development studio. Of course that sounds selfish, but I’m not talking about a $5 difference between used and new. If I was given the option of buying a used game for only a few dollars cheaper than a new copy, I’d scoff at that and always go for the new game. But when the used game is practically half the price of a new game, my “deal hunting” instinct overrides that. I often amass games, then only trade them into GameStop when they run a promotion (like their current trade in 6+ and get 40% bonus trade-in credit.) I almost always use this credit at their store only when they run a B2G1 used free. As a result of the paucity of good titles left for me to buy and the number of times a year GameStop runs the promotion, I carry hundreds of dollars in credit at the store.

While I realize that buying used doesn’t help developers at all, the world is used to the second-hand industry. Take cars for example – do Toyota and Honda deserve a cut of the profits if a used Toyota or Honda is sold? Sometimes people need a car and can’t afford to buy it new so they instead buy one used. So as long as games are physical (as opposed to digital), the used industry will exist and it is how it is.

One other thing to note is how buying new helps a developer. It’s not so cut and dry that buying a new copy of a game at any time will help a developer. With someone I know working in the videogame industry, publishers that put out the games that developers work on only care about the first month or two of sales. That’s because statistically, that’s the lion’s share of sales. If you buy a game right at launch, that will help the developer. But if you wait several months afterwards following price drops and all that (Mirror’s Edge) for example, I don’t know if the developer will really see much. Often times when price drops come around it’s because the games aren’t selling. But keep in mind, publishers care most about how many copies of the game have been sold to the stores, not to the end customers like us.

As far as the publisher/developer is concerned, each copy shipped to a store is counted as the sale. So if people buy all the copies from a store at release and a store needs to order more copies, the sales count goes up. But if those copies don’t sell, they will sit on the retailer’s shelf until they decide to put it on sale or price drops come around. The stores are then just trying to clear out inventory, because they’re stuck with the games. If you’re buying Mirror’s Edge now at $40 instead of months ago for $60, it doesn’t matter much anymore. Plus, EA already decided to go into cost savings mode and switch back to focus on sports titles, just because the game did not sell well enough in its first couple of months. I would argue that buying Mirror’s Edge today at its reduced price is perhaps not much better than buying it used. So does the used market hurt the gaming industry? I think it has the potential to, just like the used market of any industry, but I don’t think it’s taking much from the first month or two of a game’s sales and that’s what would really affect the developer.

That’s a great point about the first two months of sales, I totally forgot about that. My apologies, Mirror’s Edge, I have failed you! I guess that continues the comparisons that have been made recently between the video game and movie industries. Blockbusters in both industries need to recoup most of their costs in that initial blitz of sales/viewings. Unfortunately, the difference is movies can keep making money through DVD sales long after that initial blitz if it didn’t go well. I don’t think developers should get a cut of used games sales either, so I guess I’ll need to try harder to support good IPs up front.

You brought up your hundreds of dollars of credit at GameStop, which leads us nicely into the next section. Since GameStop is such a strong force in the used game market, in Part 2 we’ll evaluate GameStop and discuss whether there is a way used games could be done “better.” Tune in tomorrow to hear our thoughts.

Until then, tell us in the comments what your personal habits are when it comes to buying or selling used games!

Recently, news hit the gaming industry that Valve’s Left 4 Dead half price sale ($24.99) on the PC was met with remarkable success. Gabe Newell, one of the co-founders at Valve, remarked that it was an experiment that surprised them: when Left 4 Dead went on sale for half price, it actually made more money for Valve than the initial launch window of the game when it sold for its full price. This is pretty unprecedented, because when you think about it, who ended up buying it for $24.99? Didn’t we all already buy it back in November? I’ve never taken an economics class, but I’ve heard people state that according to economics theory, if a game is selling ridiculously higher with a reduced price then perhaps the original price is too high.

Today’s discussion topic between cmfl3x and me revolve around the pricing of games and what we feel they are worth.

I’d like to start this discussion off with a question: How do you decide what games are worth buying at full retail price? When I finally got my 360, it was a bit of a shock to me to find out that new games cost 60 dollars instead of 50. In fact every time new games prices have been raised I’ve been shocked, though I probably shouldn’t be.

Personally, I buy games at full retail price for two reasons: 1) I am so excited about a game that I can’t wait or 2) I think I will get enough value out of it to justify paying full price. I don’t calculate value precisely or anything, but I kind of just estimate how many hours I will play the game. Usually if I can get 20 hours out of a game I don’t mind paying full price if it’s a game I’m really interested in. Of course, the trick is figuring out whether I will actually play the game that much (especially since I’m not the completionist you are).

The weird thing is, I didn’t want to buy Left 4 Dead until it was 40 dollars. In fact, I still don’t recommend that people buy it unless it’s 40 or less. In reality, I think I’ve put in 100 hours or so into L4D, so even at full retail price I would have more than gotten my money’s worth. Yet for some reason because there is no single player game I don’t feel comfortable buying it for 60. I’m sure I won’t put that many hours into Halo Wars, but I already have that game on preorder. I think I’m willing to pay retail for it because I’m excited about it and I am loyal to the franchise (even though this game isn’t Bungie). I’m pretty sure everyone has strange buying rules like this. What are yours?

I’ll share with you (and the readers of this blog) a little secret: I rarely, if ever, buy a game at full retail price these days. Street Fighter IV was an exception, because I felt that I needed to have a copy of it to take to the party I went to over the weekend, and I couldn’t wait for it to go on sale. But it wasn’t actually until maybe the last year or so that I stopped buying games on launch day for $60. After seeing several games sitting in my backlog pile unopened that I paid $60 for (Eternal Sonata and Ace Combat 6 come to mind), I realized that it was just silly for me to continue buying games at launch when I had a backlog queue already.

I decided to switch over to an “only buy games when they’re on sale” mentality, and have now adhered to realistically only buying games when they’re in the $20-$40 range, rather than the $60 sticker price. Even following that mentality, I’ve had a tough time preventing my backlog from continuing to bloom because believe it or not, it’s not difficult to find games for that price.

While I have the disposable income to pay $60 per game if I want to, I’m now in a situation where I feel it is more practical that I don’t, considering how many games I have yet to touch. Games are a depreciating asset, so if you don’t need to buy one right away, your best bet is to wait for the sales, price drops, etc. Each game will start at $60, go on sale for $40-$50, then drop in price to $40, then more sales at the $20-$30 range, before dropping to $30 and finally $20. Depending on how popular the game is, it can take weeks or months. Maybe I’ll attribute it to the wisdom that comes with age, but if you’re patient enough, you’ll save more in the long run.

Of course, the big argument against waiting for games to become $20 titles is that nowadays, gaming is a very social thing. If your buddies are playing a multiplayer game but you’re waiting until it drops in price before joining them, you may miss the boat completely since they may have already moved onto something else when you’ve just bought the game. Or even if the game in question is just a single player game, it’s nice to be able to talk to friends about it and what both of you are experiencing in the game – sort of like a book club. Even today, look at this: we’re writing for a blog based on games. I’m sure the readers would prefer to read about our thoughts on Street Fighter IV and Halo Wars rather than Perfect Dark Zero, a game that was released years ago. Older games are perhaps just less relevant – so while you save money waiting for them to drop in price, you also lose out on the social element of the gaming industry flock. There are exceptions to this, however: people will continue to play Call of Duty 4 even after its sequel comes out. It’s because the game is just that good and for that reason its price has dropped very, very slowly. With game as high quality as that, you have to sometimes just bite the bullet and pay the price.

So as you can see, I have sort of a balanced view of waiting until the game is dirt cheap and getting a game right away to stay caught up with the “society of gaming”.

Here’s the order I use to determine whether to buy a game at retail price or not:

1. Will it drop in price or go on sale a lot soon?
If I feel that game is not a mass market AAA game, I’ll most likely skip out on it because I know that one week can mean the difference between $60 and $40. Ubisoft games are especially notorious for dropping to $40 very quickly after the release date, so I almost never buy a Ubisoft game at release nowadays.

2. Interesting and appealing multiplayer
With games being as social as they are, I look for some sort of multiplayer hook to keep the game still going long after I’ve completed the single player. However, I would still rather have no multiplayer at all than to have a game with throwaway multiplayer. I’ll gladly pay full price at launch for a game if my friends and I agree that this is the next multiplayer game we want to devote many hours to. After all, you can’t really put a price on having fun with friends!

3. Single player length
If the game doesn’t have multiplayer or has bad multiplayer, does the single player length make up for it? I don’t want to pay $60 for a game that I’ll be done with in 5 hours.

4. Polish
Does the game impress me? Do I feel like I’ll really enjoy the game or will I feel like it was some sort of rushed project that was simply thrown out the door to steal my money?

5. Do I like the publisher/developer?
Sometimes, when evaluating the first four parts, I still have a tough time deciding if I want to buy the game. That’s when I turn to the publisher/developer of the game. If it’s one that I like, it may be all that I need to push me into buying the game. I tell myself, if people like me aren’t buying this game at launch, the publisher or developer may not have enough funding to create another game that I will love. So sometimes I will just pay full price on a game when I want to support the companies behind it.

Here are some specific examples to adhere to my “decisioning criteria”: Gears of War 2, Street Fighter IV, the future release of Resident Evil 5, and Left 4 Dead.

I held off on buying Gears of War 2 at launch because I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first game and felt that multiplayer in Gears of War 1 (and 2) were not enjoyable. $60 was not enough for me to just play through the single player campaign, so I waited to get it on the cheap.

I wasn’t planning on buying Street Fighter IV at launch, but ended up buying it at $60 because I was going to a party to play it with friends. Had I not gone to the party, I probably wouldn’t have bought it last week since I figured I could wait for it to go on sale. But yeah, being able to play with friends for me is often the easiest way I will pay retail price on a game, since I tend not to skimp on cash when it comes to friends.

I thought Resident Evil 4 was the best game of last generation. But after playing the Resident Evil 5 demo, I’m not too excited about it. I even read somewhere that it’s only an 8 hour game. Is it really worth the $60 then when it has no multiplayer? Of course, I do like Capcom though, but don’t want to support them for releasing lower quality products. So Resident Evil 5 is tough for me. I still don’t know if I will buy it at launch or not, so I’ll just wait and see.

Now here’s an interesting thing – I bought Left 4 Dead on the 360 when it was on sale last year, and I still ended up buying the PC version of the game for $25 earlier this month. I had already sold my 360 version of the game (having gotten all the Achievements on it) but why would I buy the game again? Part of me suspects that it’s the branding that the game has earned – I really enjoyed it on the 360, and with it being on sale for so cheap, it was an impulse buy to pick it up again. Have I even really played it since buying it? Nope. But just the sale price alone got me to think it was worth paying for. Why?! That is the psychological question I am trying to figure out even now.

I think we always buy games that we have strong ties to. Like, I think I’ve purchased Full Throttle and Monkey Island 2 3 times each, which if you think about it is kind of ridiculous. If I ever lost my Starcraft CD and saw it on sale I’d probably buy that again too. To follow up on your games as books analogy (I’m sure people love that!), there are certain books that I have multiple copies of for various reasons. Sometimes there are newer, nicer editions, sometimes I just want to continue supporting that author, and sometimes I lend out a copy and then want to get one for myself to read. It’s all a bit ridiculous but it happens. For games, I think it’s the same thing, like I own Final Fantasy IV in multiple iterations, I’ll eventually pick up Chrono Trigger again, and on Virtual Console on Wii I’ve rebought like a million games (Punch Out!). So for Left 4 Dead, I think your nostalgia just kicked in a little early maybe.

To respond to your not buying on launch day, I wish I had that kind of discipline. I’m just such a sucker, I see trailers, I start reading reviews as soon as they come out and then get so amped for certain games that I can’t stop myself from buying them on launch day. Case in point, Street Fighter IV I promised myself I’d stay away from, but I only managed to wait one day after launch to buy it (though I don’t regret it).

I’m actually afraid game prices are going to go up though. XBLA games seem to be 10 dollars on average now, whereas a year ago it felt like there were a lot more 5 dollar games. Publishers are squeezing dollars out with like 80 dollar collector’s editions, and like we said in our previous DLC for something, our hobby is becoming more and more expensive. So I think it’s wise to come up with gameplans in terms of purchasing games.

I try not to keep a backlog because I know I’ll never get to it, so that’s one way I keep from spending too much money. Another thing I’ve started doing is trading single player games with friends, even though it costs like 3 bucks to ship we save a lot of money that way. That’s potentially 57 bucks in our pocket.

Don’t feel guilty about succumbing to buying on launch day. Publishers like EA base estimates for their sales based on that first week or month of sales alone, as that’s where the lion’s share of sales are for a game. The industry thrives because the marketing and all that has most of us buying games on launch day. I’m more of an outlier in that sense where I’ve stopped buying games at launch, but the norm is definitely buying as soon as it comes out.

With today’s economy in sort of a state of turmoil and all, I think publishers will be hard pressed to actually raise the price of games. It’s been established already from the getgo that 360/PS3 titles will go for $60 and Wii titles will go for $50. For any of that to be changed (i.e. 360/PS3 jump to $70 and Wii jump to $60) there would be a lot of pissed off people. It’s just not realistic to bump the price on retail games up like that. With XBLA, it’s another story though. I’m not happy that Braid and Castle Crashers were actually charged more than the typical price of $10 (at least I thought that was typical). But I don’t really buy XBLA titles anyway, so I’m not going to comment too much on that.

I do feel like we see more and more limited Collector’s Editions for games these days – more bloated, more expensive, and on titles that I would argue should not “garner” Collector’s Editions. Take for example Saints Row 2 or Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. Do both of those games honestly warrant Collector’s Editions? Do they have a large enough fanbase? Of course, it doesn’t matter these days because the little trinkets or “making of DVDs” cost the publishers almost nothing to make so earn a decent chunk of change off of these more expensive versions.

Even for games that I could see being justified as having collector’s editions, like Fallout 3 and Street Fighter 4 – it’s no longer a $70 collector’s edition, but an $80 one. The Resident Evil 5 collector’s edition is a freaking $90. What the heck? More and more expensive special editions. At least the regular edition still exists. I rarely every buy special editions these days, as I’m really just interested in playing the game, but to each his own. It’s completely out of wack that the figurine you’re putting your desk is costing you half the price of the game itself. But, hey you can’t really put a price tag on collecting items can you? I just hope they don’t push special editions to $100…

I think going with your backlog-less approach and paying full retail for every game still works. Sometimes I wonder if that’s possibly even a cheaper option than what I do, which is buy any game that I find a good price on that I’m mildly interested in. Then I get stuck with all sorts of mediocre titles that I didn’t pull full retail on, but aren’t necessarily the most enjoyable games to play either. I guess the best game buying experience to be had is to buy a AAA game as soon as possible for the cheapest price possible. Frequently all three don’t line up – you may not be able to get a AAA game on launch day on sale, but maybe you can find a B- title at launch on sale. Or you may be able to get a AAA title a couple weeks later at a discount, but you gave up some time in order to get it at a discount.

Here’s an interesting psychological test I started applying to my own game buying habits when things got out of line and I was buying many more games than I could actually play. Simply ask yourself, if every single game out now and all games coming out were all free, what would you play first? The games that you would want to play first most likely have higher value, so it could simply be more justifiable for you to pay that extra cost to play them sooner.

If Resident Evil 5 and Final Fantasy XIII both came out and were free, which one would I want to play first? Probably Final Fantasy XIII – hence it has more value to me so I can sort of mentally value Resident Evil 5 as being less than a $60 title. You could kind of do this with all games, scaling their price from $1-$60 based on what you want to play most as being a $60 title, versus what you want to play least as being $1 – or even free.

Luckily for us, spring will be a relatively slow season so we can catch up on some of the games in our backlog. I do wish companies would experiment more with their pricepoints like Valve did with Left 4 Dead – I really do believe they could make money if they had games at the right prices. The problem with the gaming industry is that it costs so much to develop now it’s tough for companies to take that risk.

In this economy, I think we’ll get deals earlier, so hopefully I can learn to practice some patience and wait a couple weeks after the AAA titles hit to save some money. Though I’m still waiting to find a deal on Mirror’s Edge, I think I waited too long for that one…

Mirror’s Edge was pretty enjoyable. EA drops the prices on their games very often – so if you wait a bit longer Mirror’s Edge will go down to $40, then $30 like Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 did.

You know, I wonder if we even successfully talked about whether or not games were really worth their $60 price tag. Seems like I sort of went off on a tangent there talking about why I don’t buy games at launch for full price and my decisioning criteria. But perhaps that is valid information to think about when trying to value an upcoming game. Value is in the eye of the buyer – because while I mentioned above that I would rather play Final Fantasy XIII than Resident Evil 5 if both were placed in front of me, someone else might not feel the same way. Thus Resident Evil 5 would be worth more to them.

I guess the next time you’re going out there to buy a game, maybe think about what we talked about here today. “Is this a game I have to have now? Or can I wait a month and get it for half the price?” If you take cmfl3x’s approach of buying the big name games on day 1 and play through every game one at a time, it’s certainly viable since you are paying that “early adopter” cost but the resale value will be higher. Or you could go with my approach, and make a list of all the games you’re interested in buying, but setting specific price points before you are willing to buy them. I don’t always get to play the newest games right away, but I certainly have many older ones to choose from. Of course, their resale values suck but then I have less pressure to try to finish a game so I can sell it. I would say both cmfl3x and I are pretty happy with our game buying habits. (Although, my backlog of 30+ games is crying out right now.) See you next time!

I’ve managed to score a 50k+ Gamerscore in my years with the 360. And while that pales in comparison to the guys with 6 digit Gamerscores, it still sometimes manages to illicit some responses from players in online matches (both good and bad). But what is the point of the Gamerpoint score anyway? In this discussion topic, cmfl3x and I will discuss our thoughts on the implementation of Microsoft’s Achievement system and this new site we joined called TrueAchievements.com.

I honestly never believed in a point system for the Achievements. I actually like the PS3 Trophy system better because it makes note of the feats you achieved in a game without assigning some arbitrary value to it. The value was up to the viewer to decide: “Oh wow this guy beat the final boss of the game on the hardest difficulty? Cool. What else has he done?” Instead, the score simplifies everything into pretty much how many Achievements you’ve gotten rather than which ones you went for. While I’ve never played a game simply for its Achievements, there are obviously some people that do – ask anyone that has Avatar on their game list, for example.

Recently, this site hit the gaming blogosphere: TrueAchievements.com. What it does is check your Achievement profile, and actually give a weighted calculation based on what your score actually should be rather than the arbitrary values assigned by the developers. The true score for a particular Achievement is instead based completely around how many players have actually played the game and if they were able to get it or not. A game like Avatar, for example, where everyone that plays it gets the 1000, would still have a True Achievement score of 1000, but a more difficult game, like Devil May Cry 4, will have an actual True Achievement score of over 4000 since only a small fraction of the people that played the game manage to get all of the Achievements, making them “worth more”.

Personally, I love what the guys at True Achievements are doing. Some games only associate a 10 point value to huge fetch quests, and in the current system it feels kind of unfulfilling to put 10 hours into 10 points. At True Achievements, they will assign a more “accurate” value to the number of Gamerpoints you “should” get. Their algorithm isn’t perfect, but I think they set up the system pretty well all things considered. I highly recommend that everyone check it out (which they have, they temporarily closed registration earlier because they were getting slammed).

Overall, I think Microsoft’s regulation of the system has been a good thing: keeping Gamerscores to 1000 points and 50 achievements makes sure everything is more “standardized”. I do like having a Gamerscore over just trophies, just because it gives you a concrete thing to point at. Of course the problem now is, some people who have had the system since launch have like 200,000 Gamerpoints and people who are buying the console now have no chance to catch up. It could be cool if Microsoft had some sort of Gamerpoint average, like # of Gamerpoints divided by games played or something.

People have floated the idea of using points to accessorize Avatars or something. Or if Sony had points associated with Trophies they could have people “buy” things for Home or something. I think it’s something that could work if done the right way.

Achievements, Trophies, and all that seems to be a win/win all around and a good step forward to the gaming industry. For those that don’t care about them, it won’t necessarily change anything but for those of us that do care, it’s revolutionary. With the Achievement/Trophy system, it seems like gaming now has become more social, because we can see how other players play games and what they’ve accomplished. I remember subscribing to Nintendo Power when I was a kid and people would mail in screenshots of their high scores in video games (Cliffy B., the lead designer of Gears of War, even sent in his high score in Super Mario Bros.). Now all of that stuff isn’t really necessary since we not only have Achievements, but online Leaderboards. So for those that want to compete, it’s a great thing.

I’m a big fan of the ability to unlock new Avatar clothes or Home outfits based on certain gaming accomplishments. It seems to be the general next step in making gaming even more social. Now we don’t just have names, but we have physical characters to represent ourselves in the gaming universe. As long as you don’t have to pay for them, I’m definitely interested. Even now, I love my current Gamerpic – only unlockable if you can beat Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja mode. Imagine how cool it would be, for example, if you could unlock a Gears outfit for your avatar if you solo’ed it on Insane or something:

Unlockable clothing for Avatars adds sort of an MMORPG-style heriarchy to console games – which would work very well, in my opinion. People that play games or are good at them should be able to earn things that demonstrate their prowess in gaming. Wasn’t there like a Halo 3 recon armor that only certain players got and others wanted to buy for thousands of dollars or something?

Anyway, going back to one of the things you mention, cmfl3x, about how you don’t like that people who got an early start on the 360 would be in the 200,000 by now. It’s not too big of a deal to me and what I alluded to when I mentioned that I was more a fan of the PS3′s score-less Trophy system. The point system makes all of gaming seem like a race – with everyone subconsciously worrying about their overall score rather than the actual accomplishments themselves. I’ve never been a fan of that, but rather, support more of a more customized but less competitive approach. Taking away Achievement points for all games is obviously a very crazy idea, but let me explain it differently – perhaps with Avatar clothing, as an example.

Say Microsoft implements a system such that each Achievement you unlock was really tied to an unlockable clothing article you could earn, rather than a point score. So if you were to get all of the Gears of War 2 achievements, you could unlock all of the Gears of War armor and weapons your Avatar could wear. Say Ninja Gaiden 2 is the same way. But see the constraint is such that you only have one head. You can only wear one helmet. So that means, you can really only choose to wear the Gears of War 2 helmet or the Ninja Gaiden 2 ninja mask. Thus, people can play the games they really want to play, and for those that play more, they simply have more Avatar accessories to choose from. Instead of seeing 200,000 Achievement points on one guy to your 5,000 Achievement points, in an Achievement system that was only tied to Avatar clothing the 200,000 point guy would simply have a bigger closet and more clothes to select from. But he obviously can’t wear everything so it evens out (similar to the gun unlocks in Call of Duty 4 – more options, but not necessarily better). Say your 5,000 points only come from J-RPGs since that’s all you play. What’s wrong with that then? Why would you want Gears of War 2 clothing anyway? This makes it so there’s less competition, but still promotes individuality in my opinion.

What’s also neat is that with clothing, you’re pretty much promoting your best Achievements that you earned – something the current Achievement system does not have. And it’s not like you’re just plastering them all over your profile – the clothing hint is much more subtle. Some guy could be walking around with a gold ninja mask (maybe from beating Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja), a scientist labcoat (maybe from beating all of the Gold Medal challenges on Portal), and wearing Halo armor pants (maybe from beating Halo 3 on Legendary). It could be a totally clashing outfit, but I think the idea would be pretty cool. I guess in a way, my wish for Achievements to be tied to Avatar clothing could still be added as a feature on top of the current Achievement point system and what not. But yeah I love the idea of Achievements tied to your gamer profile, but I’m honestly not a fan of Achievement points – especially with them not being weighed accurately.

The thing with Avatars is, we hardly use them. It’s not like we are walking around in Sony’s Playstation Home. I wonder if Sony will make a trophy room for people’s individual spaces? What I like about the Avatar idea is, even though we don’t use them, we see all of our friends’ Avatars. So if I’m in the dash and I’m navigating my friends list I can see you wearing your Master Ninja Helmet and maybe my Avatar would be rocking the Katana from Halo 3. But how would we advertise our Achievements to non-friends? I know people enjoy comparing the Achievements with random strangers every once in awhile. So it would be great if Microsoft (or Sony) made a process that was a bit more streamlined.

Going back to the True Achievements website, I like how you can check out someone”s “Best Achievements.” They basically take your top 5 Achievements (according to their scoring system) and paste them on your profile. I can’t imagine it’d be too difficult for Microsoft to do something similar, just take the number of online users of a certain game and factor in the percentage of users who have gained a certain achievement to calculate a “difficulty score”. I mean, Microsoft has all the information from Live, so they could just use that and then for everybody’s profile include “Top 5 Achievements”. Then if I’m browsing my friends’ profiles I can see who’s gotten what, and we could compare that way without having to worry about points.

Unfortunately I don’t see Microsoft changing their system right now. But hopefully they will tweak it, especially taking advantage of the Avatars. Right now I don’t even feel like customizing my Avatar too much, but if I could dress him up in something that reps my gaming prowess, I think I’d have a lot of fun with it. Because even if Avatars aren’t used too much, at least I will get to see and appreciate my Avatar brandishing a gold Lancer!

I wish the friend dashboard was a lot faster to load. It takes like a whole minute before the characters are fully downloaded and I barely go to it anymore since it’s faster to just go to the Friendlist with the guide button to see what my friends are up to. But I do like seeing what everyone looks like and who they’re playing with. If only it loaded faster.

I honestly think the Avatars and clothing options could still work quite well given the current limitations. We don’t need Home to enjoy it – I think Home is more a bunch of bloat anyway because people ultimately want to play games instead of walking around and wasting time. Simply seeing how your character is dressed on the Dashboard or on websites may be adequate enough. Besides xbox.com, there’s even some sites I visit these days where if you enter your Gamertag, your Avatar is automatically populated in your profile – which really goes to show you that the idea of Avatars can still be fun without necessarily having a Home-style playground to walk around in.

The “Best Achievements” thing on the True Achievements website is a great idea. I agree with you though, that Microsoft will most likely not change anything since the current Achievement system works and no one is really complaining. One issue I have with the “Best Achievements” section of the True Achievements website though is that it’s still basing the Achievement calculation off of originally assigned point values.

For example, my top two “Best Achievements”, according to TrueAchievements.com, are Master Ninja for Ninja Gaiden 2 and beating Inferno Mode for Earth Defense Force 2017. Ninja Gaiden 2′s Master Ninja Achievement was originally assigned 100 points. Inferno Mode for EDF2017 was assigned 250 points. But the difficulty ratio for each Achievement differs dramatically – Master Ninja has a ratio of 8.94 (as of this writing), making its True Achievement value 894, while Inferno Mode has a ratio of 2.49, making its True Achievement value 746. Notice how both of the True Achievement values are pretty similar but one is a lot more difficult than the other. The Inferno Mode’s True Achievement value is close simply because it had a much larger base value.

It would have been better if the site didn’t use the base values, and instead calculated the True Achievement value for all Achievements based on how often it was earned from those that played it, and how many people played the game altogether (similar to what you suggested earlier). I don’t know the exact formulas that the website uses, but basically something that doesn’t rely on the “sometimes arbitrary” Achievement value assigned by the developers. Some developers give a 1 point score to the hardest Achievement value in their games, and even with a 100 difficulty multiplier, it’ll never show up on the “Best Achievements” table on the site. Of course, all of these calculations pique my interest due to my engineering background, so maybe it’s lost on the typical gamer that just wants to have fun or isn’t as hardcore.

It could be neat though to customize your own Gamercard to show icons of your top 5 Achievements instead of the last 5 games you played. But I guess giving too much customization to users may make Gamercards and profiles more confusing. Still, I would have loved the ability to at least hide games you don’t want to show on your Achievement list. In the most recent Dashboard update Microsoft finally allowed us to at least delete games that we had no Gamerpoints on, but we still can’t get rid of games that have some score. I’m probably in the minority about this, but there are honestly some games I would love to remove from my Gamertag. Games like Tomb Raider: Legend & Armored Core 4 – ones that I only got an Achievement or two on are now stuck on my Gamertag. I doubt I’ll play them again, so I’d rather have them off my profile altogether. But ultimately, I guess it’s not really a big deal and I’m in the minority on this.

So to summarize my thoughts on this discussion, I think this True Achievements website is going in the right direction to make Achievement scores more balanced. I would love for Microsoft to get rid of the original values of each Achievement altogether, and instead have them calculated based on a formula similar to how the True Achievements website is doing it – but of course, to not use the base values in their calculations. And giving us unlockable Avatar clothing options associated with particular Achievements would definitely make me a happy camper.

Sounds like you’ve summed it up pretty well. There are definitely games I’d want to delete too, like Doritos: Dash of Destruction! Haha. Hopefully True Achievements will end up creating a “Top 5 TrueAchievement Ratio” List. That would help take care of the base score issue. As for the dashboard loading faster, I guess that’s best left to another discussion!

cmfl3x asked me a little while back if I was looking forward to the Fallout 3 downloadable content. He seemed pretty excited about it and I felt bad telling him but no, I didn’t share in his excitement. In fact, while there are games I may fully enjoy, like Ninja Gaiden II or Fallout 3, I’ll never buy their DLC. To this day, I have not paid for downloadable content for any traditional game, and I don’t plan on ever doing so. Why? Because I don’t believe in what it stands for. Obviously if downloadable content is free, such as Burnout Paradise’s motorcycles and whatnot, or BioShock’s extra plasmids, then sure – it is always welcome. It’s when it starts getting charged for that it gets on my nerves.

I actually wrote up an entire article just knocking on it, but then felt it may come off as too much of a rant so I held off. I figure that if I could turn it into a discussion topic with cmfl3x, it’d be a little more civil.

Let’s look at what type of monster paid downloadable content has become and why I choose to avoid it.

The biggest argument for publishers/developers to charge us for downloadable content is that we get more content for our favorite games. We can explore new things and play the games even longer. Woohoo! But honestly, do I want to pay for a couple more multiplayer levels in a game and maybe a new small planet or island I can explore instead of putting all of that money towards a new game with a more complete experience? And with game publishers and developers fully embracing downloadable content, it looks like more bad than good has come out of it for us consumers. Here’s why I think so.

1. Paid DLC is rarely even a part of the main game
Games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fable II are heavy single player games that have all gotten or are getting paid DLC that allows you to travel to a small island somewhere to explore a new area. That’s all great but compared to how huge the in-game worlds of these games already are to begin with, these little diversions for $10 comes up a little short compared to what we’re already used to. In Fallout 3′s $60 retail package I can explore over a hundred unique areas and now I’m being charged another $10 to explore just a single new one? And now that we’ve maxed out our characters in games like Fallout 3 and Fable II, what’s the point of even playing these new diversions? Did people really think the Mass Effect DLC was worth its price? It’s like you buy a $10 movie ticket, and then buy another $2 ticket to go watch 10 minutes of footage of the characters in the movie you like doing something completely separate from the movie where it’s not part of the plot, has no relevance, nor does it contribute anything to the movie itself.

2. Paid DLC segments the userbase for online games
Games like Halo 3, Gears of War, and Call of Duty 4 have had map packs released that cost about $10 or so for a few new maps. But did we really sit down to think how this works out? When everyone buys a game, everyone has that map. But then when DLC comes out and only a fraction of the people buy the map, those are the only people you will end up playing with if you bought the map packs. Now you have a segment of the online audience playing the core maps, and another segment playing the core maps and the DLC maps. That’s all great but it screws over friends who can/want to buy the new maps versus the ones that don’t. Everyone has to pay or no one does in order for everyone to play together. Why not just make it all free like it is on the PC?

3. Paid DLC is just a fix for developers not finishing their game
Paid DLC is an easy way out for developer strapped on time as a consequence of poor management of the project. With the advent of title updates, we already have to deal with developers skipping thorough testing because they know they can always patch our games later down the road. But now with paid DLC, they even just cut out entire levels in their games if they’re running short on time. After all, that not only gives them a nice extension on their poorly organized release, but also gives them some extra money while they’re at it. (See Tomb Raider: Underworld.)

4. Paid DLC is an easy way for developers to make an extra buck
Horse armor anyone? If you remember Oblivion’s first DLC, there was an uproar over Bethesda Softworks trying to charge a couple dollars to simply put an armor texture on your horse. That was it. While the industry has since learned from that fiasco, that hasn’t stopped their decision to release new character costumes that you can buy for a couple dollars (see Ninja Gaiden II, Dead Space). This is honestly no different than the horse armor but I guess because it is the character you are controlling, players are less prone to complain. I still think it’s a rip-off all around since it really takes an insignificant amount of time to simply add a new art texture into the game.

5. Paid DLC is an easy way for developers to hold features ransom
The best example of this is Soul Calibur IV. This game came out with Yoda exclusive to the Xbox 360 version and Darth Vader exclusive to the PS3 version. Fans were asking if there was any way to unlock the other character on their system and Namco continued to deny it. Well, just when the game dropped from popularity, Namco released a $5 DLC to allow you to unlock the other Star Wars character on your console. Great. This character could have already been included, but was intentionally withheld simply to force users to buy it later. And what about times when you see paid DLC that’s the size of less than a meg? It means the content was sitting right there on your disc already but the developers decided to lock it so you’d have to pay for it. Games like the Dance Dance Revolution Universe series and Virtua Fighter 5 are guilty of this. If that’s not the biggest slap in the face, I don’t know what is.

In summary, for the most part I think paid DLC is a terrible “evolution” in gaming. It’s a monetizing of gaming not unlike the airline industry where we now have to pay for food, pillows, blankets, check our bags, or to even pick our own seats. The problem though, is that we’ve grown to accept it. When companies that are used to giving free content to their userbase on the PC (like Epic and Valve) want to do it on the 360, Microsoft will rarely let them. It now becomes Microsoft’s decision to price stuff accordingly because if they let companies that want to give out maps for free but other companies are charging, it makes everything seem out of wack. But unlike the airline industry where we have to fly, we don’t have to buy DLC. So I will continue my lone crusade and boycott buying any and all DLC content.

Correct me if I’m wrong, cmfl3x!

Well, espion4ge, unfortunately I can’t disagree with you completely, but I do think DLC does have its strong points. I probably will get Operation: Anchorage, eventually, but I’m trying to decide whether to wait for Broken Steel, the third DLC for Fallout 3 coming in March, first. Broken Steel will raise the level cap so I can at least get experience from Operation: Anchorage.

Honestly, your reasons for hating DLC are pretty valid, so I’m not going to try to refute them here. In fact, it really annoys me too when companies use DLC to make up for not finishing development on time. I pass on those kinds of DLC. Also, the nickel and dime DLC, like the new character in Castle Crashers, or new outfits for my avatar are the kinds of things I stay away from. I’d probably say, though, that monetized DLC is here to stay (which you know), and in some ways, it’s a necessary evil.

The fact of the matter is, we live in terrible economic times, which everyone knows. Developers and publishers are losing money just like everyone else, and they need ways to sustain themselves cheaply, and DLC is an answer to that. Gaming companies have been laying people off in droves. Without extra income from DLC, who knows whether some of these developers will even still be around in a year or so? That might sound over dramatic, but I don’t think it’s that far away from reality.

Meanwhile, I think there are some legitimate ways that companies can pull off DLC and not rip off consumers. I think a good example is GTAIV’s upcoming The Lost and the Damned. Liberty City is an amazingly well put together location, and the idea of basically creating another “game” to be played in it makes sense to me. Liberty City is a game world that deserves to have another story told in it. Sure, it’s not part of the main story, but it’s basically like buying an Arcade game that takes advantage of a pre-rendered game world.

Another factor at play is, consumers want more from their games and want to go deeper into the experience. The main game in Fallout 3 dropped hints about another city called The Pitt that was overrun by ghouls. As I was playing the game, I found myself interested in seeing how the nuclear war had affected some other cities. Well, then two months later Bethesda announces that the 2nd DLC for Fallout 3 will be The Pitt! Clever in-game marketing? Obviously. But the fact is, it’s the developer’s job to make me want to buy the DLC. In this case, I think they’ve done a good job.

Ultimately, I think it’s important to realize that video games are a business. Very few companies think like Valve, who is incredible about putting out new, free content for their users. And like you said, Microsoft forces Valve to charge for content that Valve releases on the PC for free. But you could argue that even Valve has been charging for DLC with Episodes 1 and 2 of Half Life 2 (although the Orange Box made up for all of that).

I respect your decision not to buy DLC, because when it comes down to it, companies will only put out DLC if people will buy it. Unfortunately, just like things like Wii Play, people buy DLC for all sorts of reasons that aren’t really in hardcore gamers’ control. I’m sure there are people who love buying new outfits for their characters or their horses. Which means that like it or not, DLC is here to stay. As for me, I’ll let the developers convince me that their DLC is worth it, and if I think it is, then I’ll probably buy it.

A question for you, do you buy DLC for Rock Band?

Rock Band is a different case, and while I mentioned that I did have some Rock Band DLC in my original writeup, I decided to remove it when sharing my thoughts with you because I figured you would bring that point forward as at least one legitimate defense for paid DLC.

I have bought several Rock Band DLC tracks – probably about 15 or so songs. They are actually the only DLC I’ve ever bought for the 360, and I think that for the most part paid DLC in Rock Band is fine. This is because Rock Band is more about the music than the actual game. People want to sing and play instruments to songs they like, and with such a varied taste in music from one consumer to another, this is really the only possible solution.

For me, I tend to like pop rock bands from the 90s and up, so stuff like Weezer, Green Day (where is Green Day content anyway?!), Fallout Boy, All-American Rejects, etc. are my bread and butter for music games.

It would certainly be nice if all of the Rock Band DLC was free, but I understand that there’s a cost to licensing the use of the song, work needs to be done in making it playable by 4 people, etc. It’s not the same as an additional minor diversion to the main game. it’s very much a part of the main game since some people may just play the same 10 songs they bought for the life of their Rock Band game and that’s all they wanted to do. I tend to skip all the heavy metal songs in Rock Band so paid DLC is my only real option to enjoy the game how I best want to.

But what concerns me about Rock Band (and Guitar Hero) is that with how much money they’re making in DLC, the developers would intentionally withhold highly requested songs from sequels simply so they could charge for them separately later. Take for example, the 20 promised free DLC tracks with Rock Band 2 purchase. People were all excited about the songs and then we find out that no one has even heard of these songs or even the groups themselves. There could have been more well-known bands on that list of 20 songs, but they were probably held back to be charged for later. I’m just concerned that Rock Band 3, for example, may not have as good of a playlist as it should simply because the developers are intentionally withholding songs to sell later. It’s a minor issue though, since I probably get more out of a $2 song in Rock Band than a $10 island in Fable II.

Seriously, where IS Green Day!?

2 dollars for 4 instruments worth of gameplay really is a pretty good deal. What would be the absolute worst, I think, is if not only they hold back the good songs, but they start charging a premium for them. Say 3 dollars instead of 2. Especially with the way things have been going on iTunes lately, that could be a possibility, and wouldn’t be a good one.

I think ultimately you are probably right that DLC is another example of companies trying to rip us off. I wish I could have the same moral standards as you, but when it comes to being a consumer I am mostly a sucker: If they hype it and it sounds good I’ll probably buy it. I try to exact my revenge by buying games on sale. Small consolation, I know.

Since money is tighter these days, I will pick and choose what I purchase, especially for download, carefully. I’ve decided definitively to hold off on Operation: Anchorage right now. Though I would love to bust some communist heads, that level cap is a real bummer. I’m also more interested in what The Pitt and Broken Steel have to offer anyway, especially since Broken Steel supposedly extends the storyline a bit (plus fighting alongside the Brotherhood is cool).

Until then, I probably won’t even consider buying any DLC. Unless Valve comes out with some new maps for Left 4 Dead. Man, wouldn’t new maps for Left 4 Dead at least TEMPT you? What if they were like, 5 bucks? Just kidding…you should stick to your morals…maybe. [Editor's note: This discussion of Left 4 Dead DLC was before Wednesday's news that it would be free on the PC and 360.]

Left 4 Dead is a tough choice – especially if I see that PC gamers get all the stuff for free and we have to pay $10. I’ll probably pass, as once again, my morals are telling me that if I submit and pay the $10, it puts me down a slippery slope for buying DLC. Maybe I’ll just save that $10 and put it towards the PC version of the game.

I do want to go back to one point you mentioned earlier though, and that is how the current economic climate is bad so companies need to release paid DLC to help make some money to stay afloat. But if you think about it, the income from the paid DLC is only a tiny fraction of retail sales. Is it really worth it to charge for this stuff considering the good will and fanbase the companies could garner by just making the DLC free? I’m fiercely loyal to Blizzard, and am now starting to be pretty loyal to Valve too. These are companies that certainly don’t release paid DLC and thrive in today’s economy. Anything they release, I’ll buy. Don’t other companies want that level of appeal? Having such a strong fanbase that you can actually hold conventions with $100 tickets and still sell out?

In a way, this current economic climate may benefit us hardcore gamers. Being hardcore generally means we are well-versed in gaming and are serious about it. Isn’t it better if game companies die off as a result of releasing mundane games in a struggling economy since we won’t buy them? It’s during this time that the companies would have to “bring it” and release games that aren’t shovelware. If the game is good, it should sell itself right?

I remember how BioShock was almost canceled because no publisher was willing to pick up the game. They all thought it would not sell but it instead went on to become game of the year last year and sold millions. I guess this discussion is almost moving towards a discussion on whether DLC should even be charged for. And I honestly don’t think it should be. Maybe it seems harsh, but I want companies that release bad games to fail – not to extend their life by nickle and diming us. In a way, it has similarities to the banks these days asking for a bailout of taxpayers’ money for mistakes they made. It just so happens that our bailout for mediocre games these days is paid DLC. I’m not bailing out anyone!!

Yeah, I guess it all comes down to the different philosophies of different companies. Blizzard and Valve have both proven they can make boatloads of money by putting the consumer first. EA has proven it can make boatloads of money by continuously putting out sequels to mediocre games. And as you pointed out in your Mirror’s Edge review, when they tried something different they got burned financially. That’s why these companies like bailouts. Brilliant analogy, btw.

But maybe you’re right, the lower tier companies trying to nickel and dime us with DLC and cheap sequels might end up losing out and shutting down. Like, who is seriously going to buy the Prince of Persia DLC? (Actually, I don’t want to know the answer. Plus Ubisoft isn’t small, although no one is safe). As for me, I won’t mind buying DLC if it’s for a game I really love. But the funny thing about this little debate is I can’t think of a single piece of DLC that I have bought outside of Rock Band! I got all the Halo maps for free thru various machinations I think.

But yea, I can still fight for DLC at some level in principle because I will eventually purchase something for Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead and not lose too much sleep over it.

Yeah – looks like we all just have to coexist in a happy medium of some companies not charging while others do. I think that my thoughts on the matter are obviously more skewed towards being a hardcore gamer, and remember how things were “back in the day”. Maybe this generation is a bit different now, especially with the amount of casual gamers playing these days. For all we know, it could be the casual gamers that are buying most of this paid DLC. I remember how appalled I was a while back that EA was selling DLC that would just unlock features of a game in case you found it too hard. What the heck? But they are still doing it even today, with Skate 2′s paid DLC. So apparently people buy it! Maybe not you and me, but I guess it’s the same idea as people in MMORPG’s paying real money for in-game gold. The hardcore gamer would never stoop to such levels, but maybe the casual gamers are what are lining the pockets of these mediocre game developers on the 360…

I’ve created a new section for Leveling Down called Discussion. In this section we will be posting gaming related discussion that either cmfl3x or I may have from time to time with members of the gaming community or even just between ourselves. In some ways, this isn’t really different from one of us posting an article and the other one commenting on it but we’ve structured it in such a way that we expect the other to sort of reply – at least to have somewhat of a conversation. These posts may be nothing more than idle chit-chat, but I guess this is what aging hardcore gamers chit-chat about. Feel free to jump into the discussion with your comments as well.

This first discussion topic was suggested to me by cmfl3x, as he asked me how I felt about how morality was currently handled in video games.

cmfl3x: One thing I’ve been thinking about is how different games handle “morality” issues – the strengths and weaknesses, where we hope games can go, etc. Like, what differentiates the morality choices in different games like Fable, Fallout, Mass Effect, or even Bioshock? How does the way the game handle choice enhance the experience or cheapen it? I dunno, something like that. Haha, do you have any idea what I am saying?

espion4ge: It’s funny to think about games with morality, because for me, it’s a no-brainer to always go the good route. I think that’s inherently my nature since maybe I read too many comic books as a kid and believe in good always prevailing, justice, and all that. I actually have trouble playing games like GTA just because I don’t really get much enjoyment running over pedestrians and such.

But when it comes to the games you mentioned, I feel that they are really at in their infancy or aren’t handled completely well yet. What I don’t like is how in games like BioShock and Fable 2, you pretty much are more rewarded if you go the “good path”. it’s almost like there’s no reason to go the bad path and the game conditions you so with all of the positive feedback you get back. Why kill a Little Sister when you can save her and get basically the same reward? It would have made more sense if you decided to save the Little Sister and not gotten anything out of it – then it really comes down to you deciding morally that you want to do it purely out of conscience than because the reward is greater. Fable 2 is practically the same way – if you do bad things people will react differently towards you, you’ll grow horns, have flies flying around you, etc. I’m sure there is a certain type of gamer that likes that, but why do you have to be ugly and generally disliked just because you’re playing an evil path? You can still be cool.

Mass Effect and Fallout 3 do a little bit more of a decent job on handling morality, in that the games have a more neutral stance on the matter instead of “wanting you” to play good. But honestly, perhaps Mass Effect was too symmetrical because you were often given the option to either threaten or persuade someone, and they basically led to the same result. The Karma system wasn’t too bad in Fallout 3 – I liked that you could pick up followers depending on what type of moral standing you had but it was all still just number crunching anyway if you wanted to change morality. Want to be good when you’ve been bad the whole game? Just give bottled water to the beggar until you’re good. Want to be bad when you’ve been good the whole game? Just kill citizens over and over.

I don’t think we’re quite there yet in terms of gaming, but hopefully gameplay elements become more interesting because of it. The problem is, it’s difficult to set it up well in a game. I don’t like how some games have achievements for playing the game good and then evil, only to discover that they’re practically the same.

cmfl3x: In a gameplay sense, I agree that it’s annoying that you are rewarded for being good, because in that kind of system all choices are not created equal. At the same time, I don’t think I particularly want to see games rewarding people too much for being bad. Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t think that’s a message we should be imparting on our youth, especially in a more realistic setting. That’s probably why games like Fable make you fat and ugly when you’re bad, to turn you off from that. What you propose though, getting no reward for being good, could work.

Fallout 3 is definitely one of my favorite moral choice type games, even though like you said you can “change your karma” more or less whenever you want. What Fallout 3 does is it puts you in a world full of characters who already are morally predisposed one way or another and allows you to choose the role you play in that world, as you alluded to in your review.

The Capitol Wasteland is a messed up place, and its residents are all over the place morally. Some are trying to rebuild a functioning society, others are just trying to get everything they can for themselves. Your choices in each quest affects the communities that have been formed, for good or for ill or sometimes both. You have a real sense that your actions matter, even if its only on a small scale. A few times I found myself just staring at my screen trying to decide what to do, because like reality, sometimes it is not clear what is “right” or “wrong” in Fallout. Sure you can reload a save, but that takes away from some of the immersion factor.

I would love to see a game that builds on these types of choices by not only affecting NPCs but the game world itself. Imagine a city as well developed as Liberty City where you aren’t constrained to playing as a gangster. GTAIV’s moral choices boiled down to shoot or don’t shoot someone or choose who out of two people you want to shoot. The choices are okay in and of themselves, but imagine if the world changed depending on your choices. In Fable, your look changes depending on your choices. How cool would it be if the game world looks, sounds, and feels different depending on your choices?

Obviously, it’d be tough to pull a game like this off, especially if some of the changes to the game world are more unexpected (e.g., kill a gangster, but instead of the city getting better, another gangster who is much worse takes their place). But I think it would give a real feeling of importance to the gamer about their choices.

It would have been cool if Bioshock 2, a prequel, was designed like that. Rapture is going to a dark place as we all know, but as a character in Rapture, am I going to work to slow down the process or speed it up? I’d buy a game like that in a heartbeat.

espion4ge: Actually you are right about Fallout 3 – maybe it’s the best game out now that explores moral choice. When I think back to it, while I do think the Karma system was a little silly, even if you were to strip that moral indicator completely out of the game you could have still played it as a very evil character since there were plenty of things you could do. And in a certain context of the game, Fallout 3′s setting really allows you to do that since sometimes you have to do what is considered “evil” simply to just survive.

Thinking back – yeah Fallout 3 had a lot of things you could do if you so inclined – killing anyone you wanted, stealing practically anything, enslaving people, lying to them, etc. I guess since I rarely went down the evil path, I never really saw the other side of that game nor was I curious to try it out. And if you were to really think about it, what gives you the right in the game to even take another man’s life? Just because he enslaves other humans, is that really your call?

I do agree with you though that maybe games do have sort of a moral responsibility to teach kids to be good. While you and me are adults already and can play Grand Theft Auto games without influencing our real lives, kids may not know better. In fact, with each of us probably having our own kids eventually in the future, I would probably prefer that they got any sort of conditioning from media outlets to be a good person. Seeing how big the game industry has me thinking that there should be some responsibility to bringing up kids to be good people too, if possible. It worked with comics didn’t it? Kids like Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc. and thus are more excited to do the right thing.

Perhaps exploring the concept of moral choice in video games might not be a good idea if children of the future may become influenced in a bad way. Or maybe they could learn from seeing the consequences of their actions in videogames? Ugh – analyzing the role of morality in videogames is tougher than I thought. You could probably write a college research paper on this subject and it still probably wouldn’t be completely unrefutable.