http://www.vg247.com/2012/08/09/cd-projekt-red-dlc-is-a-service-that-shouldnt-be-priced/

CD Projekt RED’s Konrad Tomaszkiewicz explained why gamers shouldn’t be paying for post-release digital content, given their bite sized nature, “We’ve always believed in free DLCs. The thing is that we consider DLCs as a normal post sale service, which shouldn’t be priced. Back when retail games were dominant, we had expansion packs. These were really large chunks of content, which were worth their price.”“Iftoday’s DLCs offered the same amount of content,” Tomaszkiewicz continued, “they would be worth paying for, but in most cases players think they are overcharged for what they receive. That’s why we offer expansions to our game for free. This is also a way of saying “thank you” to the people who decided to buy our game instead of copying it from an unauthorised source.”

I agree, especially with the constant patching needed to fully enjoy Skyrim but be prepaid to be flamed by pro TES gamers. Dawnguard does not look worth $20 from what I've seen.

Reminds me of how Stardock thinks. Their patches often have new features, and their expnasions are brand new content, and they aren't beyond admitting when they screwed up, like was the case with Elemental. And it doesn't end in an apology, early buyers of Elemental get the expansion for it for free

And when someone comes whining, their CEO grants him a refund and tells him to get lost

Meanwhile, Bethesda still thinks that not saying anything to PS3 users is a good idea

I'm not going to flame you, but I would just like to point that your thread title is at odds with the highlighted section of the quote that you've given. You may need to think that through a little if you want your argument to be more cogent.

Lol, wasn't Skyrim voted GOTY for PS3 as well?

OP, doesn't this belong more on the Dawnguard forums?


It would've had my vote, at any rate. Proud PS3 user over here!

Ditto on the latter!

Morrowind had two well fleshed expansions and sold to a much smaller audience than following TES games.

There's no reasonto think two expansions wouldn't sell equally well if not even more. But gamers nowadays have smaller expectations and from a developer point of view a DLC has a much better ROI than a fully fledged expansion.

No they haven't.
If anything their expectations and concomitant sense of entitlement have increased exponentially.

Lol, I see you must have recently browsed Bioware forums as well!

Actually I was referring to the Skyrim forums in this instance, but it's pretty much symptomatic across the board it seems...

so very, very true!

That seems to contradict the recent trend of gamers willing to lap up overpriced crap and ask for seconds. The truth is, entitlement has increased, but expectations have decreased enormously.

I'm not going to argue with anybdy. But I will just say that Dawnguard seems worth the money to me. And as far as I'm concerned regular patches (which we long-time Bethesda customers have never had before) and free content (which we haven't had since Morrowind) are Bethesd'as way of saying "Thank you" to the people who bought their games, it seems to me.

.

That's a really good point. I'll add to that the Creation Kit - its been given to users since Morrowind, but it's still a pretty big thing for the developers to give.

This is a very good point, add to that the fact that - on PC at least - they positively encourage you to bugger about with the game - (and it's not their fault that you can't on consoles - before anyone starts anything) - and they are pretty generous.
I don't think it's unreasonable that you should have to pay for DLC, but obviously the content should match the price - this, however, is a very subjective thing particularly when it crosses currency boundaries.
In the UK it's what, ￡13 for Dawnguard? I don't think that's unreasonable personally.
Also it's worth remembering that just because you (willingly) bought and paid for a game does not mean that you are entitled to free DLCs. Fair play to companies that do give out free DLCs and from a goodwill point of view it's not a bad thing, but the fact that some companies do should not be used as a stick with which to beat companies that don't.
Bugs and release date controversy aside, you actually get quite a lot of bang for your buck with TES games overall, so I don't think anyone's got anything to complain about from that point of view.

Sense of entitlement? Damned straight - I'm entitled to get my money's worth.

Which isn't what I meant.

I don't understand the hate for Dawnguard. Content wise, I think it was great. It added some great characters, quest, item and areas to an already great game. I think it was well worth th money.

And the people on the forum complaining about Dawnguard, that haven't even played it need to keep there opinions to there selves until they actually play it and know what their talking about. After you've played it, then come back and complain about it...

Okay... I'll end my rant there.

So true, Rockstar fans are whining, Capcom fans are whining, Naughty Dog fans are whining, etc etc. It's the same everywhere.

The more frequent patching has proven to be less beneficial, thanks to Beth's sloppy QA. It doesn't help that said patches are forced on users, and one has to jump through hoops to avoid them being applied.

This is one thing I dislike, yes - although (on PC) one can just keep Steam offline.
I'd suggest though that that isn't Beth's problem, it's a Steam thing and presumably is the case for any Steam-related product.

I'm not jumping through any hoops. I simply play offline. I'm still using patch 1.5.

since Beth married their game to Steam, it IS their problem, and they should be exercising more care when pushing patches through.