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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.
The first one is free.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
You make a couple million on map fees, and lose a lot of players.
Maybe that's a good trade for them at this point. I dunno.
NEW GEARS OF WAR MAPS TO FOLLOW HALO 2 MODEL
Playing right away will cost you, but eventually they'll be free.
By Patrick Klepek, 04/09/2007
Epic Games wants their additional Gears of Wars maps to be free, just like the content they've provided for all their games on the PC side -- but Microsoft isn't down with that. 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.
After speaking with our guys on 1UP Yours on Friday's podcast, Epic VP Mark Rein took to the Evil Avatar message boards to quiet the horde:
"Quite frankly Xbox Live Marketplace isn't our store. It's Microsoft's store. Like any retailer they have the right to figure out what goes on the shelves of their store and what price they sell it at. They spend the money to operate the store and deliver the content. They've also spent billions of dollars to create and build Xbox and subsidize it's the price so you can afford it and we can make games for it. As our publisher, they also invested tens of millions of dollars marketing Gears of War, and have done an awesome job for us, so they have a right to a good return on that investment."
Rein rationalizes that if they were to pursue releasing these maps at retail, it would actually cost significantly more than what's being attached on Xbox Live and "and maybe we wouldn't have done it because of all the extra work and cost involved."
What will be free, however, is the new Gears of War gametype 'Annex,' which Garnett outlined for you guys this morning with his own hands-on impressions.
Here's the stickler: how will Xbox 360 fans react when Unreal Tournament 3 launches on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC simultaneously, and they're potentially the only ones paying for new content? Hmm.
The problem I have is that most downloadable content seems to be either of the 'here's the stuff that we didn't get to finish before the publisher shipped' or 'Ok, there's 15 maps ready; lock 5 of them off, and we'll put out a 'downloadable content' patch that reenables them in a few months.'
I was flipping through the downloads for Dance Dance Revolution Universe, to see if they had any songs availble here in Canada; DDR Ultramix for the Xbox didn't allow Canadians to buy additional songs. Sure enough, there are, and the downloads are 108 KB. That means they're unlock codes, not new content. That's not right.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
This thread contains more insight into the situation from the Epic Games CEO:
Click here
Full text from his post below:
Folks,
I think you guys are blowing this up into something bigger than it is. Please listen to the entire podcast before jumping to conclusions.
What we have here is simply a difference of opinion on how to maximize the return on Gears of War - something both Epic and Microsoft want to do. While we create products like Gears because we love games, and we have a passion for making them, at the end of the day this is a business for both companies and how we earn our living.
Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps. So what we've agreed to do is to put these maps on sale at a reasonable price then make them free a few months later. They did this with the original Halo2 map pack and it was a huge success. Lots of people bought the maps and lots of people downloaded them when they became free. That's what is going to happen and it seems like a fair compromise for both companies and a win-win for Gears players.
Why does Epic not have control over this even though we created this content on our own time and our own dime? Quite frankly Xbox Live Marketplace isn't our store. It's Microsoft's store. Like any retailer they have the right to figure out what goes on the shelves of their store and what price they sell it at. They spend the money to operate the store and deliver the content. They've also spent billions of dollars to create and build Xbox and subsidize it's the price so you can afford it and we can make games for it. As our publisher, they also invested tens of millions of dollars marketing Gears of War, and have done an awesome job for us, so they have a right to a good return on that investment.
As Tim Sweeney and I said in the podcast, we want the download economy to work - it is something the industry needs, something we hope to use in the future, something that will help bring more variety to end-users and ultimately could help bring prices down for end-users. If we had to put this map pack on a disc and sell it in retail it would be more expensive to end-users and maybe we wouldn't have done it because of all the extra work and cost involved.
In the mean time we are planning to bring out an awesome new Gears of War multi-player gametype called Annex that works will all of the existing multi-player maps and the new pack we're talking about here. The 1UP guys who got to play it a few weeks ago left the office raving about how it could be our best Gears gametype yet and I think a lot of people will enjoy it. Best of all, it is totally FREE and will come in the new Gears update that we expect to see released this week.
The hookers up my way don't seem to agree.
Clearly MS does understand the market and how far you can push it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
Gaming for over 25 years
Not sure where you live, but it's $50 for 13 months of X-box Live Gold if you buy the 'Redeamable card' at Retail in the US. Even better, Circuit City puts it on sale for $40 fairly often (I've seen it a few times in the last 6 months, maybe 1 week every 6 it's on sale it's usually on sale the week of a big game release).
That, and I'd like to point out that all the benefits you touted for GOLD are available in the FREE Silver Membership. Right now the main difference is online multiplayer, voice chat. I'm pointing this out, simply because many people simply forget that there is a free version of Live, and it is really good.
Has anyone ever been sued for copying a press release? You know those things they release with the sole intent of being copied by newspapers and anyone else who gives a fuck?
M$ wants to stop the free modes on the windows side as well how long be they force you pay for live gold just to be able to pay more for a mod / map on a pc game?
All of that is free on PSN. Why the fuck should anyone have to pay a 60 dollar a year to Microsoft? That ends up adding two to three hundred dollars to the price of the console.
Why buy games for that matter? That just increased the price of the console! Why buy extra controllers? Why pay for your electricity bill? All that just adds to the cost of the console!
They do it because it adds value to the system. So the PS3 doesn't charge for it right now...so what? The fact is that the PS3 isn't selling right now so they have to give that for free. If it was selling well, they would charge for it as well as they are providing a service. If the PS3 finally gets enough users...that is when they will add their premium package.
I am console-neutral..don't think this comes from any love of the xbox. I just don't see why other people are freaking out so much about it. 60 dollars a year is nothing to most people. If you can't afford it, don't get the service.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
The problem I have with most downloadable content is that they (the developer/publisher) probably did not polish the game in the first place. If they did that content would have been in the game. Personally I don't think there is such as thing as a "minimum expectation" of what $60 should buy you. Anything but 110% effort into the game is too little. Taking things out of a game to sell later is just bullshit too, whether or not you remove it from the disc.
In this case I'm a little more forgiving since we are talking about multiplayer maps. Any online game which is going to remain popular for a significant length of time can never have enough maps. It also isn't too hard to concieve that they started making these maps well after the game shipped.
The whole idea of "It's Microsoft's store, so it's their choice blah blah" is ridiculous even though it is true. Microsoft doesn't want to run a marketplace for gamers. They want to be able to fix prices, control who gets to sell what, and to take as much of the pie while doing so (selling both the content and the shelfspace). It doesn't bother them if those goals aren't in the best interest of gamers.