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!!

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 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. 🙂

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.

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.

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.

Exactly because of the outcry.

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 🙂