So it's now clear that Bethesda will be selling the PC version of Dishonored at 60 USD. It's not a decision that personally affects me, as I'm able to afford it (and I will be preordering). But I'm worried that this will hurt the game in terms of sales.

Here's what Dishonored has going against it:

-New, unfamiliar IP, with unusual presentation and gameplay that may turn off many players.
-Made by an obscure developer (though many PC gamers love them for Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah).
-No playable demo (at least there hasn't been any announcement of one).
-Being released during a very busy season.
-And now, $60 on a platform that usually has a launch price of $50.

I just don't understand how this is a smart business decision. There's Black Ops 2, Borderlands 2, Medal of Honor, and Assassin's Creed 3 (though will probably be delayed)- just to name a few titles coming out on PC within a month of Dishonored- to compete with. AC3 is currently listed as $50, while CoD, MoH, and Borderlands 2 are listed as $60. While seeing any PC game at a higher price is questionable, you can't argue that these titles have a fanbase on PC. Dishonored is a brand new title.

The biggest concern is that there doesn't seem to be any plans for a demo. I'm sure PC gamers would be more interested, if they could be sure that the game is a good port, runs well, and plays well.

Another concern is that, all of those fancy preorder deals you have for retailers- apparently none of them are coming to Steam (plus, no Steam achievements or Cloud support, apparently. Maybe the store page hasn't been updated yet). You do get Arx Fatalis for free, and a discount on the current QuakeCon pack. That's nice and all, but will there be any in-game benefits? Both Arx and the QuakeCon pack are relatively cheap already. I'm sure if people wanted them, they could already afford them.

So what's really the selling point for PC gamers? I just don't understand the logic behind this decision, and I fear the game (and the developer, as a result) will suffer for it.

Kingdoms Of Amalur, Bulletstorm, and RAGE all reported disappointing sales. All new IPs, all $60, only one had a pre-launch demo.

So do Bethesda really think that a lot of PC gamers will buy this at launch? By the way, I don't actually expect some marketing guy to answer this, I'm just expressing myself, and get some feedback from the community (and yes, I literally made an account to talk about this).

"plus, no Steam achievements or Cloud support"

I don't see how this is a bad thing.


That aside, I too am wondering about the general $60 price tag being imposed upon PC gamers.

Well, if you pre-purchase you do get Arx Fatalis free and the discount for that absolutely incredible Quakecon Pack, which I think are good bonuses for a pre-order.

Not really a big deal for me, but many people swear by Steam, and Achievements in general.

>Getting an actually good PC port

>No need of a demo when the game is available to the public at big game events (that and the fact they have almost died out)

>This "Bethesda publishes only bad games" will only hold true if they are pushing them to release the game and have previews and what not (which I fear might be the case).

Everyone should make up their mind if they want the game or not and if 60 dollars is worth it.

The extra PC settings are great, but I want confirmation that this will run well on my PC. BEst way to do this? Demo.


I disagree, because 1) see above, and 2) not everyone has the chance to go to E3 and such to play it. There's a difference between hearing about how well a game plays, and actually experiencing it yourself. Again, being a new IP, there should be more effort to convince gamers that this game is worth their time.


I never used the "Bethesda publishes only bad games" argument, so I don't know why you brought it up.


Exactly. But it would work in the title's favor if Bethesda encouraged them some more. The game is 60 USD. And so is Call of Duty and Borderlands. AC3 is 50 USD. All will dozens of hours gameplay. Players will be looking at these games, and will compare them to Dishonored. If a player only has the time and/or money for one, maybe two, titles this fall, what is there to convince them that Dishonored has more value than its competitors?

http://www.bethblog.com/2012/07/13/a-look-at-dishonoreds-many-ui-options/

They claim there's enthusiasm for all platforms (and I'm not calling their veracity into question), but PC is Arkane's first love. Look at it this way. Bioshock got delayed, which was a huge boon. They couldn't make it in time for July/August or chose to spend more time making it right. Unless they delayed Dishonored until April of next year, there was not going to be a good time to release.

I've actually seen demos hurting the presentation of games. KoA was buggy as get-all, and they said it was an older build that they put out for the purpose of having a demo. They weren't happy with it. Resident Evil demo has had people up in arms. Dragon's Dogma turned me off, but apparently the demo isn't representative of the final product.

PC gets the bonus of the prospect of mods and graphical tweaks. I know there's other points to be made but ultimately there's a lot going for PC users. Speaking as a rabid gotta catch'em all pre-order bonus person, even I'll admit their inclusion is negligible.

The stiff competition concerns me too, but Dishonored is a unique amalgam that is destined for cult status at a minimum. Anything more requires blind faith. Pains me to say that we will have to wait and see.

A demo is almost always nothing representative of the final product so that doesn't count as well I am sorry.

The sad part is you are comparing with games that will be milked infinitely...and you will still buy it.

It's not about competition..it's a new IP,you are right,but the more important thing here is to get some market share and a fanbase first.One cannot talk about sales/competition if you do not have a fanbase and following to begin with.Your thinking and expectations are unreasonable;how do you expect Dishonored to compete with a game that has 9 sequels by now(assassin's creed) and an established fanbase?.Using Black Ops 2 there really makes your argument go even worse.

Optimization?I am sure Black Ops and Assassin's Creed has some of the best optimizations in PC right?And people still buy it regardless how horrible it is.Dishonored has shown what it has and none of the games you mentioned has any of it to begin with.

Selling point?A game that is a successor to Thief,and one of the very few games in this generation that is FPS stealth.I am sure DX:HR has beaten it(Not!).What unusual gameplay?Even a nine year old could understand what's going on.The game is made for a specific audience in mind,not for everyone.And that audience is big,trust me.

Doesn't mater if they add in-game bonuses when you are fighting for $10 here and giving milked franchises the lead.

Seems to me you expect new IPs to have $30/$40 prices while established and milked franchises deserve $60.No,the biggest problem with games is not the developers,but the consumers.They will buy a game that has 30 sequels by now(Call of Duty).How can new IPs work if the consumer mentality is the problem?

MAIN STORY HERE-buy it if you like it.They don't need to changes prices just to get some people who will [censored] and moan at anything.

You don't see Steam not backing up your save games to the cloud so you can recover them in the event of a crash as a bad thing? I don't see how there could be any possible justification for that. I would have lost 35 hours of Arkham City progress four days ago if it weren't for the game being cloud-enabled.

You bet. I think it looks great, which is why I'm getting it. Not sure why this is the "sad part". Care to explain.


Business is about competition, don't delude yourself.



How does that make my argument worse, when it's the very point of my argument. Dishonored doesn't have a fanbase, and is being released at the same time as games that do. That's my point. How is it not a good point?


You said it yourself: they have a fanbase that will buy the games regardless. Now it's my time to say it: "Using Black Ops 2 there really makes your argument go even worse." As mentioned by other posters, there have been effort to assure PC gamers that they'll get a good PC game. But assurance is not a guarantee. People in this industry tend to speak BS quite often. People Can Fly promised that Bulletstorm would be awesome on PC, and it certainly wasn't. Words can only go so far.

In regards to my optimization comments, I wasn't even talking about those games. I was specifically talking about Dishonored, which could greatly benefit from a demo/benchmark in this respect.


Thief is a great franchise, but this doesn't really look a lot like it. It appears to have more RPG elements to it, and more in the way of magical abilities. Sure, you could probably play the whole game like Thief, but there's clearly more to the game than that.

My "unusual gameplay" comment referred to the possessing of people and animals, the "blink" mechanic, the ability to summon rats, and other mechanics that you don't regularly see in a game like this. If you don't consider that unusual gameplay in the realm of mainstream gaming, then you're just not paying attention.


How does it not matter? And how am I fighting "for" (I think you mean "over")? Like I said, I'm not mad. I'm concerned. Doesn't surprise me that you didn't catch that. I bet you barely read my post, only using it to fuel the argument you're having in your head.

And I'm not giving milked franchises the lead. Again, that must be something you're only hearing in your head.


Never said that (again, that little argument in your head...). I think all full games on PC should be $50. But since that's not the case, there's something to discuss here. That's all I'm doing.


Finally, some thing we can agree on. Consumer mentality is the problem. The question is: when it comes to new IP's, are publishers taking the right approach when trying to match the price?

You don't seem to provide any real insight to the discussion.

As mentioned before, it's not a big deal to me, but it may be for others. And Arkham City uses Games For Windows Live, which is well-known for ruining game saves. It could have been that, that killed your saves, not Steam.

A demo would not benefit Dishonored because it either has to be the first level of the game or a later one with everything unlocked. They've already given us a lot more information than they should have and people still demanding a demo. And I don't see why one would want a demo apart from these factors:

wanting to play the game early-just be patient and wait for it to release

judging the game before launch-not justified and really stupid reason. A small unfinished portion of a game means nothing. You can feel how smooth and tight the controls are but who's to say they won't be fixed? And if they do get fixed and this mentality of "oh I played the demo and it svcked because of A,B or C..." that would give a false prejudice.

Also a demo is never even remotely representative of the final product, unless it is released a few weeks before the game and is used for marketing purposes. (because they tend to be pretty accurate then)

If you really want to play the game and see "what it's about" (spoiler warning: you won't because you'll just get the most basic idea of how its core mechanics function in the long run) you can do that at the big game events. Try it out form an opinion (that is not conclusive) and that's it. Demos haven't been relevant for a long time and really everyone should just do their research and adjust their expectations.

Do you play games on PC? If you do/did, you'd know how important a demo would be. It would be a strong indication of the game's performance on your computer. Unlike a console, it's rare that you'll get two identical builds. What runs beautifully for me, could run like crap to the next gamer. I've run into problems with many games, both multiplatform and PC exclusive. It'd be nice to have that knowledge that you can run the game well, and if you can't, the video options are good enough that you can tweak the game so that it does.

And yes, I would like to play a small portion of the game beforehand. What's wrong with that? If it's buggy, they'll say so and take feedback. And I'm sure if there was a poll, most gamers would love to have a demo.

"Also a demo is never even remotely representative of the final product, unless it is released a few weeks before the game and is used for marketing purposes. (because they tend to be pretty accurate then)"

Are we talking about the same thing? I'm talking about honest-to-god demos, not betas. Not sure if we're on the same page here. Demos are quite literally marketing tools.

To say that demos are not relevant is complete nonsense, and I'll bet that most of the gaming community would disagree with you. It may on a rare occasion give a false prejudice, but in the case of a game that many people may be unsure about, it could be enough to convince them that it's worth a purchase.

Because most of the gaming community does not even begin to understand how a good demo is made. I did leave out how it will run on PC but that is pretty much it. And you seem to misunderstand. People have already started with stupid assumptions like "there is no challenge in this game, AI is brain dead" saying that to a demo playthrough with everything unlocked and buggy and happy to know fixed AI.

There haven't been a lot of good demos that were representative of the final product and those that were they were just cop outs to a mediocre title.

And if you finally come back to reality you might just realize that with all these previews and demos they have already (a one part segment from 3 different missions) a demo available for everyone to download will most likely not be happening.

And if people can't be convinced by the information that is given to them then I feel sorry for them.

P.S. A friendly advice, cut down on the blind replies before you fully grasp the topic at hand. You've misunderstood a couple of my remarks and some of andy316 as well. We are actually agreeing with you for the most part but people just like you before have argued on these points and it all comes down to this:
1. You are right.
2. It can't be helped.
3. Try to think more realistically approaching the subject.

Otherwise you're just wasting your breath and your time.

It's most likely at $60 to help make up for the mass pirating that is inevitable to occur.

Are you certain there will be no Steam achievements, or are you just going by the Steam store page?

I haven't seen any official comment about achievements, and most games have them for all three platforms. They probably simply haven't been released yet, as we are still a few months out from launch.

You know it's interesting that it's a full-price game in the US, when here in Australia, where games are usually considerably more expensive, the PC version of Dishonored is actually going pretty cheap, at $68-$79 (compared to $79-$89 for most new release PC games), a $10-$20 discount compared to the console versions.

The UK is relevantly cheaper as well. I guess only the US takes the hit on this one. And yeah the game will have achievements it was confirmed a while back on the AMA. Don't know if they will be on Steam but there is no reason to think that they won't be either.

Sorry, I have to say one thing.
I'm from Canary Island and today I went to reserv my game, and the price (for pc) isn't 60€ or 50€. The man said me it cost 36€. It's an error? I don't think so.
Maybe the differece between euro and pounds? I don't think so, because in Internet I read the same price.
Thanks for read.