I had an interesting discussion on Twitter earlier with Peter Skerritt of Armchair Analysis and Craig Bamford of Leveling Criticism. Peter argued that gamers had made their bed with regard to questionable business practices surrounding downloadable content, preorder bonuses and all of the other annoyances which this particular generation of consoles has developed — that since so many people have bought into these schemes over the last few years that it's now too late to go back, that any sort of "action" is not worth taking, and that anyone feeling the need to speak out about it should understand that doing so will have negligible effect.
Craig, meanwhile, countered that "'shut up and consume' is just greasy", noting that Mass Effect 3's controversial day-one DLC "prompted a huge backlash which the company had to expend serious PR resources to fix."
I'm not going to get back into this specific argument here, but I did want to address some more general points which Peter, Craig and I discussed. Namely, the question of whether or not it's worth complaining about something.
It's easy to complain about things on the Internet. Start a blog or a Twitter account. Rail against anything you find personally objectionable. Talk up the people who agree with you and either ignore the people who disagree or get into very loud and public slanging matches with them. "Internet Rage" is its own meme now, though ultimately the concept of "the Internet being angry at something" has arguably done more harm than good to the concept of actual, genuine protest.
The trouble is that there's an element of bandwagon-jumping. With any kind of disagreement, most people are going to come down on one side of the fence or the other. In the case of Internet arguments, those who are skilled in rhetoric will have very little difficulty in recruiting people for their side, as all it takes, in some cases, is a particularly persuasive YouTube video or an article featuring carefully massaged statistics to get people onside. People are lazy. If you lay an argument out on a plate for them, relatively few of them will have the inclination to go and research things for themselves. 'Twas ever thus, and we even see this in the professional specialist press to a certain degree.
It loses its effect after a while, though. Words are just words, after all, and as any protestor worth their salt will undoubtedly tell you, actions speak far louder than words.
Or do they? I haven't bought Mass Effect 3 but do I think EA give a shit about that fact? No, because a healthy number of people have bought Mass Effect 3, and those are the only people that EA care about. Those are the people that say to EA "what you're doing is acceptable, please do it more." It's not just something that happens in video games. It happens with all sorts of shady business practices. The more people just accept something as "that's the way it is" (houuuuuaaahhh!), the more likely companies are to want to keep pushing the boundaries a little bit further each time, like a toddler trying to figure out exactly how naughty is too naughty, only with millions of dollars instead of plastic things made by Fisher-Price.
Does that invalidate the criticisms that those people who object to it have? Does the fact that, say, EA has no need to take those people's criticisms into account mean that they should stop speaking out against those things which they find unacceptable or distasteful?
Absolutely not. For if those people stop complaining, then we have no dialogue. We have no discussion, no debate. We simply blindly accept, consume, bend over, take it. You may be happy to blindly accept, consume, bend over, take it. You may believe that there are more important things to worry about in the world than whether or not a software company squeezes an extra $10-$20 out of its most loyal fans. You may believe the lines spun by public relations in an attempt to limit the damage done to a brand's reputation. But that doesn't mean that the people who don't feel the same as you should be silenced. State your case. Come out from your corner fighting. You might change their mind — though given my experience of debates like this, you probably won't — or you might at least give them an alternative perspective to consider, even if they ultimately end up feeling the same way.
In short, I believe that yes, it is worth complaining. In the video games case, Peter argued that complacency is what has led consumers to the point they are at now, where buying a $60 game is no longer the end point of the relationship between the customer's wallet and the publisher's pockets — it's the beginning. If that's the case, though, while it may be too late to salvage matters with regards to things like DLC, preorder bonuses, shady sales practices and all manner of other considerations, surely that's a sign that consumers upset by all this should be more vocal in order to preempt publishers attempting to take advantage of them any further in the future?
Those expressing upset and annoyance at what they see as unfair shifts in business practices are now often accused of being "entitled". But that's simply lazy rhetoric. There's a big difference between being "entitled" (typically used in this context to mean "expecting something for free") and having very valid concerns about getting value for money or being treated fairly as a consumer. In the Mass Effect 3 case, no-one's expecting something for free. They want to pay for the game, to support the developer, but they don't want to be treated like idiots and/or bottomless cash pits in the process. Personally speaking, I don't think it's unreasonable or "entitled" to expect a complete product when you hand over your money for it. But, well, we've been over that already and I know far too well how futile it is for both sides to try and convince the other of their viewpoint.
The point: complaining or protesting may not have a direct or immediate effect. But it ensures that we continue to discuss, debate and consider things a little more carefully than we would otherwise if there was a complete consensus of opinion. It keeps things interesting, it prevents people from becoming too complacent and it allows people to retain their individuality rather than being treated as an amorphous mass of identical, anonymous "consumers".
Sounds better than the alternative to me. But then you probably disagree. In which case you're wrong, you entitled twat.
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I'd really love to see some kind of judiciary board bought to life that would scrutinise all DLC before release to deem whether it's justifiable to charge for. I'm guilty of some of the things you mention with reference to the pre-order bonus and what not, but I think I'm coming from a different angle then the masses. MW3 I bought the Elite version not for the years worth of founder member status and free DLC, but because it had Soap's (Main Character) diary in it which filled in a lot of gaps in the story. Likewise with things like Assassins and Dues Ex. But I digress, some kind of think tank that would have to sign off on all DLC as to whether or not it should be chargeable. What say you?
See, with regard to limited edition stuff, things like Soap's diary and all the crap you got in the Halo: Reach box is awesome. I'm all for cool extras that — here's the point — don't affect your game. I feel short changed if I'm expected to pay extra to get the whole story, however, as I am with Mass Effect 3. And I'm ignoring people who say it's "optional" content. No. It's not. It's there, ergo it's important, therefore it should be in the game as standard.
Bulk up my Collector's edition with soundtracks, art cards, impractical statues, whatever. But don't fuck with my game, particularly if it's a story-based title.
Part of the trouble with the DLC thing is the restrictions MS and Sony have on their own platforms. I know Microsoft, for example, don't like free DLC, so that precludes additional content being "patched" in after launch in many cases (though there are exceptions). Of course, the counter to this is that the game should be delayed a bit and the content should be in there in the first place 🙂
Now that sounds like a good idea to me. Across the board. All Games. I've stated in my blog many times that we shouldn't have to pay more for the missing bit of the game plus a bunch of unnecessary stuff. Though I think the Strategy Guide is much more useful than the Hints usually are – and most players only resort to them when the game isn't functioning right, ie won't do what it is meant to do because the cursor location is skewed etc. But the fact that getting the full game that the Collector's Edition gives you is a real big temptation – and some of them give a large extra gameplay, while others give a token bit which makes you get real mad. But you don't know which game publisher will provide which amount of gameplay extra so you take a chance, pay your money and cross your fingers!
So Judiciary Board scrutinise away – please!!
I think its wrong to say that EA only cares about the people buying the game, that is exactly the type of business practice that eventually kills your business. The people buying the game are, more or less, the people they should care least about, they already have their money. The people who are the holdouts are the ones that bioware is really targeting with marketing ect..
The entire idea of feeling powerless because you are an individual holdout is an image that benefits them, because it makes it more likely you will cave and buy the shiny thing. I would say that even if people just blog and share their convictions with like minded people, they are that much more likely to actually stick to them and, if enough people do that, have an effect.
There have been many bad business practices throughout history, and certainly many still exist, I do think it is unlikely that DLC will go away, but I think its quite possible that people will force a much higher standard of product be delivered as DLC. I don't have any objection to paying extra money to have additional content placed into a game I already enjoy, but it has to be solid content worth that money.
Yes, I think you could be right. I know I certainly feel a lot more inclined to stick to my guns and not go anywhere near ME3 having been so vocal about not wanting to support it. I've even cancelled my SWTOR subscription and uninstalled Origin so as to avoid any possibility of giving EA my money.
Regarding DLC, I have no problem with the concept per se, but I do find that a lot of it is rushed and not worth the money. Were DLC to be more like expansion packs of yore, I'd be happy. We've had this a couple of times with Shivering Isles and Dragon Age: Awakening, but not enough. We get too much piecemeal stuff that often slots into a game you've already finished. I never played any of the ME2 DLC because it all released after I beat the game. Had it been bundled together as a package of stories which occurred between ME2 and ME3, though — like, say, Throne of Bhaal did for Baldur's Gate 2 — then I'd have bought it and played it without question. That way, if I enjoyed ME2 I could spend some extra and continue to enjoy the game without feeling like the base product was somehow "incomplete".
One of the most important parts of advocacy and protest is to show people that they aren't alone. It's very easy to make people think that they should just shut up and get in line. It's really important to show people that they don't need to.
If the people who complain (and presumably don't buy the game) represent a larger profit than the money made from the DLC then something might change.
True indeed.
I think the important thing is that people are talking about this. What makes me a bit sad is the fact that "you're being entitled" is being used as a catch-all to shout down people who are speaking up. It's become a fashionable phrase, and a lot of people using it don't really know what it means. As I say, there's a difference between being entitled and being a savvy consumer.
I think that EA will regret this, and the next time, they won't pull something like this.
Exactly because of the outcry.
That was roughly what I was getting at with Peter. Peter's right about the near-term. There's no way that they're going to change their current ME3 DLC strategy based on the outcry. How could they? Giving "From Ashes" to everybody would be really, really unfair to those who ponied up the dough for a collector's edition or for the DLC pack itself.
What the backlash will do is make them rethink this with future games. They might still have DLC, but the "From Ashes" experiment of day-one paid DLC might not be repeated. It's a bit like Bethesda and the controversy over Oblivion's horse armor; they didn't suddenly make the horse armor free, but it probably had a lot to do with the lack of silly DLC nonsense in Skyrim. Even if the entire industry isn't going to react, individual publishers clearly do.
(Credit where credit is due: Peter did acknowledge that in our discussion yesterday.)
So, yeah, feel free to rage. Sure, it may seem a bit silly, and you have to do it for the right reasons. But, yeah, in the long run I think you're right. I do think it works.
I hope you're right — that there will be long-term effects — because the way things are going is pushing me away from gaming. Mainstream gaming, anyway — I can still get my yayas on the indie and retro scenes, and that's exactly what I'm doing at the moment. 🙂
Who isn't? That's why I was telling Peter that his single-minded focus on console gaming doesn't really work in 2012. Sure, it's understandable that he'd be leery of computer gaming considering its history, but the mobile and PC spaces are really where it's at right now.
I kinda brought that up with my post on the subject. I'd mentioned Skyrim as a game that was doing it right, but it's also a game that is REALLY best played on PC. The mod scene there is really exciting: it's a game that seems custom-made for it, and Valve's going the extra mile to support it with the Workshop.
And that's just triple-A. You're absolutely right about how good the indie/retro scenes are, and those are far-and-away at their best on PC and mobile right now. (SCUMMVM on iOS and Android? Hell yeah.)
Consoles are the LAST place to look for innovation in gaming right now. Sorta sad, since I've been into console gaming for ages, and feel a bit left out that I didn't really do much console gaming this generation. But it is what it is.
I'd like to think you're right, but EA's track record in the last couple of years doesn't exactly inspire confidence. They seem to be constantly pushing the boundaries of what consumers believe to be "acceptable" — I haven't even got into what they're doing with the in-game store in SSX (largely because I haven't played it myself) but I understand from people who have tried it that it's pushing things a little in a direction we probably shouldn't be encouraging.