Hi everyone.
E3 has come and gone. Not without leaving an unhealthy amount of news on its way to next year.
Today wanted to talk about something that I noticed reading twitter the other day:
The perceived value of digital content, DLC and expansion packs.
All of this comes from a discussion about the pricing of all the Smash DLC.
While most of the people I've talked seem to think it's overpriced. I have my doubts. Mostly because the arguments they are using is that of the price of the base game and the number of playable characters it included. If we view it this way, the game shipped with around forty characters and its price was around 60 dollars. This left the perceived value of a character at around 1,5 dollars.
But I think this is a twisted and superficial way to think about this topic. And fucking naive if you ask me.
Thinking of it this way, in my opinion, means that you don't have any clue of what means to create a new character for a fighting game. It means you don't care about how many people and time they had to dedicate to create this new add on for your game.
I think it means you don't know anything about game development, basically. But, I also think that this is what the consumers perceive and absorb as their own point of view if they participate in this discussion. Because it's easy to understand and it's easy to defend from their perspective. It's perfect to avoid seeking other perspectives and investigate other reasons why this ended up like this.
I think it's the easy route towards moaning and complaining just for the sake of doing it. I think it's what people need to avoid learning something new.
The way I see it is that this discussion is a great one. The value of digital goods.
But I also think that the questions that are being asked around are not the interesting ones.
In Buddhism they cap express an answer in three different ways. The "yes", the "no" and the "mu"that means that the question is inherently flawed, or that you need to "un-ask" the question.
In this case I really think the mu is the better answer.
The one that correctly changes the focus of the discussion and pushes everyone towards learning something new and enriching this topic. And it's a shame that almost nobody seems to be interested in that answer,
That's it for this week everyone! I also wanted to talk about the Shenmue 3, Final Fantasy VII Remake and The Last Guardian, but maybe next time. For now I must prepare everything for Gamelab. Wish me luck!
See ya!
J.
E3 has come and gone. Not without leaving an unhealthy amount of news on its way to next year.
Today wanted to talk about something that I noticed reading twitter the other day:
The perceived value of digital content, DLC and expansion packs.
All of this comes from a discussion about the pricing of all the Smash DLC.
While most of the people I've talked seem to think it's overpriced. I have my doubts. Mostly because the arguments they are using is that of the price of the base game and the number of playable characters it included. If we view it this way, the game shipped with around forty characters and its price was around 60 dollars. This left the perceived value of a character at around 1,5 dollars.
But I think this is a twisted and superficial way to think about this topic. And fucking naive if you ask me.
Thinking of it this way, in my opinion, means that you don't have any clue of what means to create a new character for a fighting game. It means you don't care about how many people and time they had to dedicate to create this new add on for your game.
I think it means you don't know anything about game development, basically. But, I also think that this is what the consumers perceive and absorb as their own point of view if they participate in this discussion. Because it's easy to understand and it's easy to defend from their perspective. It's perfect to avoid seeking other perspectives and investigate other reasons why this ended up like this.
I think it's the easy route towards moaning and complaining just for the sake of doing it. I think it's what people need to avoid learning something new.
The way I see it is that this discussion is a great one. The value of digital goods.
But I also think that the questions that are being asked around are not the interesting ones.
In Buddhism they cap express an answer in three different ways. The "yes", the "no" and the "mu"that means that the question is inherently flawed, or that you need to "un-ask" the question.
In this case I really think the mu is the better answer.
The one that correctly changes the focus of the discussion and pushes everyone towards learning something new and enriching this topic. And it's a shame that almost nobody seems to be interested in that answer,
That's it for this week everyone! I also wanted to talk about the Shenmue 3, Final Fantasy VII Remake and The Last Guardian, but maybe next time. For now I must prepare everything for Gamelab. Wish me luck!
See ya!
J.