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Sunday, July 4, 2010

A Word on Exclusives and Extras

Like many bloggers, I read other people's stuff and comment on it. I often discover that I have filled several paragraphs that maybe I should have just put on my own blog and referred back to the OP.

So both  GeeCee and AyAitch (heehee, I don't have initials) have discussed the fact that Cryptic is now selling a bunch of formerly exclusive items in the C-Store. I posted much of the following on AyAitch's post on Combat Archeology:

I think it was a mistake on Cryptic’s part to produce so many variant “special editions” in the first place. Having a regular edition and a deluxe collectors edition is one thing, but a dozen different editions depending on where you purchase the product is way overkill. I didn’t want to spend tons of money to get the same game with different cosmetic touches. Now through the C-store, I can buy some of those extras that I may want. Cryptic gets money they probably need and I didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on variants of the same game.

I really don’t have any sympathy for the crybabies, whining about how their stuff is not so exclusive anymore. What, so they bought stuff from a certain vendor? Did it cost more? I bought my copy through the U.S Army's PX. No exclusives there. These people should look at it from the perspective of now they can get the things they missed out on because they purchased their version from a particular vendor.

Nintendo famously declared that the price of the Wii would not drop like the PS3 and XBox360 had, because that would be an insult to the early adopters. Guess what? A year or so later, they reduced the price of the console. Games and consoles always drop in price after being on the market for a while, and the manufacturer realizes they aren’t going to move any more product without dropping the price. It’s simple economics.

On a side note, I am beginning to think I should purchase a lifetime subscription. For an initial outlay of $299, I pay for not quite 2 years (20 months) and then the rest of the life of the game for free. Hmm, I like the game at least as much as WoW, and more than others I have tried to get into recently. Maybe I should wait until Rowan is an Admiral, She's Captain 4 now.

3 comments:

  1. In essence, this situation is exactly like when Atari/Cryptic put their game on sale like a month into launch...people think they earned a right or privilege because they paid more at release...what they don't realize is that that's not what they paid for. Instead, their money bought them earlier access to the game, and early adopters always pay more.

    Granted, Cryptic has a bad habit of jumping the gun, and in this case released their "exclusives" too soon in my eyes (even the consoles waited years to drop their prices, using your example) but in the end, the company doesn't owe you anything. The people who paid the higher prices took the risk...which was why the main idea of my post was "pay for the game, not for the exclusives".

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  2. Everyone says things much better than me! :(

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