I love Elder Scrolls and have been playing them all since I was a baby. I bought the quakecon pack only to play through every game you have made. But the downloadable content has made both me and my wife sad (though admittedly you have many still in your grasp). Hell, I even own 3 different copies of Morrowind, Fallout 3, and Oblivion because of my switch to computer gaming over console.

I bought Skyrim for about $60. My question is how can you justify an additional few hours of questing, mounted combat, and more barely playable vampire content for half the cost of the original game? The map has not doubled (or even 1/4 increased) in size. There was no real re-skinning and you had all the programming done for the most part. There isn't a flurry of new weaponry. And I can only presume that your next goal is to make Elder Scrolls online free to play so that per month people are spending more than the typical subscription based format.

What happened to gaming for gaming's sake. I won't buy the DLC, and I do know others who wont either because of the "Blizzard Effect;" increasingly making games harder to obtain financially.

Will there be a price reduction or are you going to lose touch with your client base just as many other producers have?

Yeah, i haven't seen or heard anything in Dawnguard being worth 20€ either. And since i'm assuming Skyrim gets atleast another two same priced DLCs and maybe few more Hearthfire like small additions too, i'm waiting for the eventual GOTY Edition. Gets me all of them for less, including the ones, like Hearthfire, that i'd never pay for separately.

Hmm...Something I should have considered. However, I'm sure the Gold edition will be cheaper than buying all DLCs later separately. However, It takes them longer and longer to release a Gold so hopefully its sooner than later.

I would wait for a steam sale.

I'm just afraid they have some obligation with Steam that keeps them from discounting it for a period. I don't know though.

i guess there's always a chance but DLC for every other game i bought go down significantly on sales even DLC that only been out for a short period of time so i guess christmas sale will be relatively safe to buy for a cheaper price.

I'd suspect Beth won't put it on sale until they can figure out can they release Dawnguard for PS3.

I have to agree on some part. I too am disappointed in Bethesda, it pains me to say that because I love a majority of their games (All the BGS ones and some of the BS ones). Dawnguard is definitely not worth 20, maybe 10 and I'm being nice with 10. Add the other issues that Dawnguard does, Vamps killing NPC's, forced playing of Dawnguard to save said NPC's, a main quest item being required to finish the DLC, no choices at all, etc and you will see that Beth failed in many areas with Dawnguard.


If that even happens at this point.

This.
As outraged as the PS3 fans are, there's quite a lot of them still shouting "shutup and take my money."

But yeah I'm in the same boat. I am NOT paying €20 for....well, any DLC really. Dawnguard also looks particularly bad in providing new content. As I've said before, it looks as though they took a TON of stuff from Gamejam, copy-pasted it to Dawnguard, add some crossbows and a quest chain and violá. I'm sorry, but that doesn't seem like a whole lot of content considering half of that content existed pre-Skyrim release. And even if the DLC did have as much content as it should (for me, the New Vegas DLCs did this (Point Lookout also deserves mention)), no, I'm not paying twice what I used to pay. I'm not supporting an increased price tag just because you think you can get away with it.

If we're to be really critical here....

New Vegas had one year development time (around that) and was $50 (60?) bucks. Every 3 months, a DLC was released for $10. So basically, they took 1/4th of the time of the base game and costed 1/5th of the price. This is fair. If Bethesda asked for $12.50 for the DLCs instead of 10? Sure, that's fair too.

And no I'm not saying development time should have a DIRECT correlation to price, was simply an example of the amount of effort I expect to see put into it. The price doesn't have to correlate with the base game price, the quality DOES. For example Oblivion took 4 years to develop, Shivering Isles took one. Oblivion was $50, Shivering Isles was $30. Still worth it, still fair. Why? Because Shivering Isles was good. It was a high-quality release that was dramatically different from the base game, added all sorts of new stuff and was simply fun and made with love. You know what else did this? The New Vegas DLCs. Dramatically different? Check. Added bunch of new stuff? Not as much as Shivering Isles, but for their reduced pricetag yes, so check. Fun and made with love? Oh yes.

Unfortunately, Shivering Isles was an expansion; now we're talking DLC, and a lot of companies seem to consider DLC to be "more of the same." If it truly IS gonna be more of the same? Not a dime over $10. I'm also not paying $5 for a damned house mod (that I can get for free on Skyrim Nexus...).
Dawnguard doesn't seem dramatically different, it's more of the same but with vampires tossed in. Dawnguard doesn't add tons of new stuff, it adds vampires, crossbows, and a bunch of enemies that got painted black. Dawnguard doesn't seem to be made with love, no, it seems to be made because a developer was a little too obsessed with that Underworld TV show and wanted to make his own fanfic.

I think we shouldn't sell ourselves short...

Regardless of whether there is a big fan base prepared to spend any amount of money for dlc with any amount of content, whether that be a niche component, or broad based addition to the game, it's unethical for Beth (or any company) to base their pricing model on how much money they can milk out of the player base by overpricing things. That sort of behaviour disregards the concept of 'value for money', and turns fans into cattle for the milking.

I don't consider it credible to bring in comparisons about length of time between main game release and dlc release, then assuming that the dlc required a lot of effort due to that time length, because none of us know how much actual effort or resourcing Beth put into any specific dlc...that's just guessing with no legitimate parameters to base the guess on. The only surefire means to judge value is to work out what it actually adds to the maingame, in terms of the maingame...and in this sense Dawnguard is pure niche content, with only a couple of very minor other additions, and Hearthfire is even worse (it actually duplicates a pc mod released several (?) months before Hearthfire).

In my view, as soon as a dlc is announced, rather than clamouring to ask what's in it, we should be asking "How much?"...until we start doing that, game companies are going to go on their own merry way pricing wise, with absolutely NO controls over how they price, because normal consumer law doesn't apply to electronic content, and there is no gamers lobby group to speak up for us in relation to pricing models. We need to stand up for ourselves, and until we do we are purely at the whim of the game companies (or video game entertainment media robber-barons, if I haven't made the point clear).

Zing!

Microsoft paid them to release the first 2 DLC as timed XBOX exclusives. I don't imagine there will be a price cut until they repackage it as a Game of the Year or other bundle probably next year.

Having purchased and played Dawnguard, I did like it. Since you can play through twice both as pro-Dawnguard or pro-vampire side, it does take quite a bit of time to do it ALL.

Comparing it to the main game, and saying it's not a 1/3 of the main game, is a skewed perspective. Consider just how much you are getting in the main game for $60? Compare that other games. This DLC takes almost as long as Awakening did for Dragon Age Origins and it was a full expansion.

Right, instead i compare it to their previous DLC, the Fallout 3 ones that in my opinion had reasonable content to their price. And i don't see anything in Dawnguard that makes it worth twice as much as them.

Good points

The gameplay time is kind of ridiculous as it was extended by constantly going from the west side of the map to the east, and back.

Make those points right next to each other and they won't give you nearly 20 hours lol

Compared to the shivering isles, no way should DG share the same price tag even if the Shivering Isles was Bethesda's masterpiece. They are just over charging for a pretty lazy product after Skyrim being so popular. This is what most of the big hated companies do nowadays, Shame Bethesda have fallen into the same group.

I was wrong. Currently 14€ on Steam.

Wrongface :C

And no Bethesda, I said $10-12. (but meh don't think I'll be buying it at all at this point)
This actually makes me wonder if they'll announce something about the PS3 version soon now....

When I saw the Steam sale I was ready to consider it but after seeing the half-hearted comments and the buglist in the Unofficial DG patch, I'm not sure I would even DL it if it were a free mod on Nexus.

14€ is way to high for Dawnguard. If it was 5€ or less I'd consider buying it.

I'll be quite upfront, I enjoy Dawnguard, and it does have good content...the issue, in my mind, is that it's niche content. Perhaps it couldn't be any other way, as it's more or less slotted into the main skyrim world, as opposed to the FNV type content where you went to dlc place x and stayed there until the dlc quests were finished, then got to bring your booty back. I doubt though that it adds to the game in the same way that the FO3 dlc's did (with two exceptions). Broken Steel, for all it's bugs, was a masterpiece extension to the maingame, and showed what could be done if you put your mind to it...Point Lookout and The Pitt weren't just chapters in the story of the lone wanderer, they were substories in their own right, additions to the main storyline.

This is where DG slips. It's somewhat of a 'more of the same', unless you happen to want to be a vampire or want some perks for your werewolf. When I went into the two major locations introduced into the story, I was simply 'doing my job', and not exploring for the sake of exploring, unlike what I do in the maingame.

Worth the dlc price? I'm not so sure. That said though, I feel for the PS3 folk who don't have that choice at the moment...I would be interested to see how PS3 sales for DG actually go if/when it does hit their consoles.

That's what annoyed me about dawnguard. The fact that conveniently all the new areas all across the map from each other. Um beth I don't consider walking all the way at the end of the map 20 hours of content. That's just a cop-out.

I see DG as a gimmick with lots of "cool" things instead of quality, meaty content many were looking for in Skyrim's DLC/ expansions. I have read that its more of the same and in my eyes that really isn't a great thing.

I hope Bethesda can fix DG and bring it to the PS3, but the only reason they are in this situation is the amount of effort they put to make sure the PS3 version was top notch in performance before they released the game. If DG ever comes to PS3 they better have a HUGE discount or maybe even have it be free, because many PS3 players have been waiting for a product that isn't even worth this much wait.

You mean we might get to see some more flame threads from the PS3 users like the PS3 Dawnguard release threads # 1 - 24.

Whatever on your post OP, not worth arguing the value, but you're well timed. Steam's 30-50% off on TES for the next few days (ends 10/4).

It might sound small and petty, but it also bothers me that in the past, they used to drop say a 10$ DLC to a $5 price after a decent amount of time, so a 50% drop in price.
Now even the price drop has been decreased. Now instead of a 50% drop in price, it's a ~27% drop in price.

Someone go slap their marketing and sales department, they trying to raise prices on us. >:C



Yknow before I would consider that wishful thinking on behalf of PS3 players, but honestly? Now we're kinda getting to the point where this is absurd, and if they DON'T give it to the PS3 users for free, they risk basically losing a large portion of that market. It's reaching the point where actually giving it to the PS3 users for free might actually be more "profitable" in the sense that charging $20 for it (or $14, whatever) would only provide short-term profits but hurt their PS3 profits in the long run.

That is, if they care. I mean at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they've already decided FO4 and TES VI won't be released on the PS3 (or whatever Sony console is out at that time).