Epic, Microsoft Disagree On Gears Content

This past week, Epic's VP Mark Rein spoke with the gentlemen at 1up on the '1up Yours' Podcast. It was ... most informative. It seems that the much-delayed downloadable content for Gears of War is being held up by Microsoft, who wants to charge for the content for the game. "In the effort of promoting a profitable marketplace, however, Microsoft's compromised with the studio by deciding to follow the successful model that Halo 2 pioneered a few years ago: the new Gears of War maps will be available for a to-be-determined fee, and made free a few months from now." The site also has hands-on details for 'Annex', the new (free) multiplayer gameplay type.

Comments

Marketplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, Microsoft shows it is out-of-touch with its users.

Why in the world would they think that this idiocy is a good idea? All it does is show the gamer that they are not, despite the $60 price tag, getting the full game. They are getting a fraction of the game, and then being forced to pay more for the "priviledge" of getting the rest of the content.

I, for one, refuse to pay for my games twice.

It shows how well they know it

[EmbeddedJanitor]

You'd think by now that any sane people would have walked a long time ago. They'd be pissed of with being screwed and would buy from alternate vendors or take up some other activity. But no, they bitch a bit, then pay up to keep playing and line themselves up for another round of MS cornholing.

Clearly MS does understand the market and how far you can push it.

Online Content is a Dual Edge Sword

[Rev Jim (AKA Metal F]

Man this is getting expensive! First you have the consoles shooting up in prices. Then every periphreal is much more expensive from the controllers to the wifi adaptor. Games are now $60 new. And on top of that you have the whole xbox live thing that is raking in cash re-releasing games that you can download to play on emulators free minus the slick ranking and online features. Am I the only one that thinks the majority of their content is overpriced? Maybe I'm just cheap, but it seems like Microsft is trying to nickle and dime gamers out the wazoo. Additional content is great, but the prices are a bit much IMO. I have the same problem with PC expansions and DS titles, so maybe Microsoft is just like everybody else. But it seems online gaaming has become a way to extract more money from gamers after the initial sale and it's working very well...I just Microsoft and co don't continue to get greedier without the gamers saying enough already.

Re:DLC

[Applekid]

On that note, does anyone remember the old Quake Shareware CD that was in retail stores for like $10 back in the day? It had shareware versions of id Software games that had shareware editions available PLUS unlockable full versions of games. You would 1-800-ID-GAMES with your special number (and pay) and they'd give you an unlock code you type in and you magically had full versions of whatever titles you purchased decrypted off the disk.

Until maybe a day or two after when crackers decoded the system and published a keygen that let you instantly have every full version game of practically every id Software game from Wolfenstein on for the measely $10 the disc costed.

Considering all the motivation in the DDR community to rip arcade art, stepcharts, songs, dancer models, scan for secrets, it's surprising they didn't crack those unlock codes and spawn a whole series of XBox Live hacks for other games with "for-fee unlockable" content.