Retailers; Another evil in gaming?

[Evilmaniac]

So if any of you have been keeping up with Metro: Last light then you probably know that the ranger modes are available as a pre-order bonus or $5 DLC pack. But it seems that Deep Silver, the publisher, was forced by retailers to make a pre-order bonus or retailers wouldn't sell it.

Source: http://www.shacknews.com/article/791...for-metro-last

[Florena]

It's a brutal cycle. Game producers are trying to squash used/rental game sales because they don't get money from it. And so retailers have to do what they can to not only keep people buying from them, but also to compete with things like Steam when it comes to PC games, bigger stores like Wal-Mart, and rental stores.

[Deleted]

They just want to be able to slap that "exclusive" sticker on the games to lure people into believing that the store is being generous to them if they preorder. It's a smart move and doesn't really hurt us consumers.

[Sj]

Honestly I think retailers as we know them are eventually going to end up in the same place as brick-and-mortar video rental stores. With console-makers wanting to crack down on used game sales (which make up a huge portion of retailer profits) and PC gaming going more and more digital, game retailers are likely to feel the crunch in the future.

[Edge-]

To a certain extent, yes. But the way Deep Silver handled the pre-order exclusives for Metro is trash.

Retailers now need exclusives because of collaboration between their marketing teams and the marketing teams of publishers, so it's not as if one is at fault with the other being scott free. Even then, plenty of games make it through various retailers (Best Buy, GAME, Gamestop, EB Games etc.) without pre-order exclusives, so it's not as if it's an absolute mandate for all games released in retail get them for each retailer.

[Deleted]

They just want to be able to slap that "exclusive" sticker on the games to lure people into believing that the store is being generous to them if they preorder. It's a smart move and doesn't really hurt us consumers.

When they restrict entire game difficulties, in this case being the hardest one, to pre orders, I would yes, it does hurt consumers.

[Deleted]

When they restrict entire game difficulties, in this case being the hardest one, to pre orders, I would yes, it does hurt consumers.

The highest difficulty that only 1% of the players will be able to play. The difficulty in question is for the most hardcore of hardcore players and those aren't many. It will be like this; Hard-> insane-> ridiculous-> That difficulty.

So it's too bad for the hardcore players this will affect but again, they aren't many.

[ddsad2212]

They just want to be able to slap that "exclusive" sticker on the games to lure people into believing that the store is being generous to them if they preorder. It's a smart move and doesn't really hurt us consumers.

It doesn't hurt us? By taking out the mode the game is best known for? By taking out the mode the devs themselves said "play the game the way it was meant to be played" That doesn't hurt us? . No it does hurt us, even if not many of us have the skill level to finish it on that mode denying us the option unless we pay extra or pre-order is ridiculous and both the Devs , the publisher and retailers should be punished for this as they are all to blame. I was going to buy this day one but now I am waiting till it is 50% off and I wish alot of others would do that as well and show this stuff is not okay.

[Deleted]

No it doesn't hurt us. It's a principle and I can agree to that but that's all it is.

[Sealed]

The OP is very vague about this, I expected the pre-order bonus to be some kind of goodie... But a game mode ? Actual game content ? The hell ?
Who are the retailers in question and why is it that the publisher hasn't just short-circuited them ?

No it doesn't hurt us.

Yes it does. "Want access to the whole game content ? Pre-order or pay $5 more, sucka." Does that strike you as customer-centered practice ?

[Berethos08]

So if any of you have been keeping up with Metro: Last light then you probably know that the ranger modes are available as a pre-order bonus or $5 DLC pack. But it seems that Deep Silver, the publisher, was forced by retailers to make a pre-order bonus or retailers wouldn't sell it.

Source: http://www.shacknews.com/article/791...for-metro-last

Claiming that retail forced them to charge $5 for Ranger Mode unless you got it as a pre-order (thus the pre-order exclusive) is pure bullshit. Strong arming them into offering some kind of pre-order exclusive bonus I can believe, but the decision to make the Ranger Mode part of that content (the Steam pre-order also includes a modified Russian machine gun, 100 of the really good ammunition, and a copy of a digital comic) AND not set it up as a timed exclusive is totally on the developer, not on retail.

They made the call on what to include (unique weapons or items and a digital comic are more than enough to satisfy the pre-order content bonus, as you can see from the plethora of games that offer only such items and don't lock out difficulty modes), and now that people are criticizing them for it, they want to shift the entire blame to retail companies.

[Deleted]

So apparently, Rome: Total War is going to have something similar with 3 Greek factions with their own units etc. is a pre-order bonus. When did crap like this become acceptable? Then Publishers wonder why people pirate their games.
Hell, even EA hasn't sunken down to levels like this yet, have they? Usualy they just have some weapons/gear that break character/gear progression and such.

Also an interesting sentence from the same interview, but wasn't included in the link that the OP posted.

"We also rejected requests to make this a timed exclusive.”

If this isn't a typo or if the guy mispoke, I don't even....

source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/05/10/if...s-we-ask-koch/

[Deleted]

The difference is that the Greek factions were added after they finished making the game.

These quotes explain it better and why more and more companies do this:

While yes, that is reasonable, it does make people who don't pre order the games less inclined to buy them on day 1 or shortly after they launch, if they have to pay extra on top of the already pretty pricey 50-60 dollar/euro game.

Not to mention what they include in these pre order DLC's, weapons and such in games like Dead Space don't realy affect your game much, especialy not when you can just ignore them. While entire playable factions, 3 in the case of Rome 2, or especialy in case of ME3 with the From Ashes DLC, which was just an incredibly stupid idea.

"Oh hey, you know that long dead race, that the first game pretty much centered around? Yea, we revived one of them, and included it as a pre order bonus!"

Which was incredibly dumb, not sure if I should be mad at them for including something that pivotal to the story as day one DLC or because they minimized its effect on the overall story making it pretty much inconsequential if you have him or not.