
The consumer versus
Guitar Hero II downloadable content
pricing war rages on with Activision taking the defensive on their pricing strategy. According to Dusty Welch, the head of Red Octane publishing, the downloadable track packs have been a "
tremendous success" and that "
demand seems to be insatiable" as they're reporting that 300,000 song packs have been purchased since April. Mr. Welch goes on to say that they have been listening to
Guitar Hero II customers, but will still be "
offering even better music at current price points" due to the success of the previous song packs.
So guys, who's to blame? We know we didn't purchase those overpriced track packs, but know there are a bunch who did. This is just another case of the financial bottom line being more important than the vocal majority, so quit buying the songs already! .... now back to the corner to cry myself to sleep again.
[Via Joystiq]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
7-13-2007 @ 3:37PM
zourskittles said...
I see one reason why the could be having a great success, the fact that their GH1 tracks. Seeing as how a large amount of GH2 owners may be GH1 fans, they like those songs. Also anyone new to GH may just like the fact their from the same series. Think if Red Octane came out with new songs, sure it'd be nice but no one would know what to expect and maybe not always like that choice. I'm not a fan of the price but I don't see it as a problem for alot of people(obviously proven with those stats).
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7-13-2007 @ 3:38PM
Blue_Falcon said...
I'm interested in seeing how Rock Band's songs are going to be priced.
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7-13-2007 @ 3:51PM
Bravo6 said...
Consumers justified their pricing. Rock Band's stuff will probably be even more expensive than these, as they'll be programmed for 4 instead of 1. Suckas!
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7-13-2007 @ 3:54PM
Scott said...
If we assume that there are only 600,000 players (as per the leaderboard; we'll not go into those w/o Live for the moment), and 4 DLC packs available to each, we have a possible total of 2.4 million downloads. To have only 300,000 (or 12.5%) says to me that the consumer on the whole isn't buying any of this (pun intended).
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7-13-2007 @ 3:58PM
burgerbat said...
Seriously. Enough bitching already. Microsoft isn't a flea market, X3F, and your bitching and moaning and boycotting of the songs will do nothing to change their price. It's a good deal. It makes fiscal sense to the companies involved and the majority of people actually bought them. I'm really tired of hearing this site, (and it's really only this one) bitch and moan because everynow and again Major throws you guys a bone, and therefore, you think you can change a huge corporation with just a little homegrown petition effort...GET REAL and STOP COMPLAINING...that shit only hardly works in politics, and occasionly, bringing back TV shows.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:08PM
Joshua said...
Hi I'm burgerbat and X3F is the only site that complains about this pricing.
That's because I don't read Kotaku, Joystiq, xbox.com forums, or Guitar Hero forums, 1up, Penny Arcade, etc.
I also don't check out digg.com either.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:11PM
MDB said...
I've purchased all of the song packs, and I don't feel bad about it at all. Sure, the pricing scheme doesn't quite match up to what you get when you're buying a whole game, but in my oft-flamed opinion, the convenience of being able to just download the tracks and the option to be choosy is worth it. $2 a song ain't so bad. It's double what you pay for a song on iTunes, and to me, it's worth many times more. The only gripe I have is that they haven't released quite as many packs as they had us believe they would.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:16PM
Matt Dolian said...
I don't have a problem with the pricing. iTunes tracks are 99 cents apiece, so that makes $3. Toss in some development and distribution costs of $2 and I think that is a fair deal
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7-13-2007 @ 4:21PM
leo2178 said...
Activision is either really dumb or they feel gamers are.
They sold almost 300,000 units of the game(retail) the first month it came out, and a good amount since then. From reading the boards about this issue I've noticed that most of the sheep who supported this price purchased all of the packs. Most likely of the 300,000 downloads, only 150,000 actual different customers if not less.
Now at a lower price I'm willing to bet that sales would soar.
But as E3 showed us the game industry has gone the way of the music and movie industries, all about the money and screw the consumer.
It took them over three months to make some sort of comment about this and this is the best they could do. At least try and pull an MS and blame someone else.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:22PM
hawk said...
Ya know....how many people have bought ring tones for their cell phones. I would venture to guess that most people have bought some. Athough I could be wrong. Ring tones cost like 3-4 dollars and all you get is a crappy sounding 30 second snippet of a song.
At least with these you're getting a great sounding full INTERACTIVE song. I bought the other packs and will probably buy this one.
If Rock Band has cheaper songs it will only be because it's MTV and they'll probably get better liscensing deals.
As always if you think it's too much then just don't buy it.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:23PM
puffin said...
hmmm
800,000 units sold of GH2 on Xbox360
800,000 X 4 (the total number of pack available) = 3.2 million
300,000/3,200,000 = .09375 or 9.375%
At 9.4% of total downloads for the game being bought by the consumer is considered a success?
Note: not sure how many copies of GH2 have sold... though I thought I saw 750K somewhere a while ago but couldnt seem to find them when I looked today. so my numbers may be way wrong.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:30PM
mirage said...
I might be willing to pay this price for new, master recordings that I get to choose rather than packing in 3 totally different genre of songs. But charging this price for a cover that has already been included in an older game is completely outrageous. Oh, I was never planning on downloading the GH1 tracks to begin with unless they were given to me for free.
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7-13-2007 @ 4:31PM
Ryan Taylor said...
@5 you are stupid...if you don't like using your first amendment or that other people do why dont you go read about Jack Thompson on Fox news.
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7-13-2007 @ 5:04PM
burgerbat said...
The thing is, Joshua, is that all the sites you named rip off one another. Half the time they don't bother to write a new entry or change the clever picture that accompanies every article. So does it suprise me their all bitching? No. Is there an original thought on X3F ever? No. Is it the same group of whiners bitching on every site? Probably. Now that that is cleared up, I think the ring tone argument is the best I've heard. You are getting an interactive, built-from-the-ground up-for-your-enjoyment track pack of classic songs. So yeah, maybe you don't think it's worth it. But for me, someone who actually enjoys the songs on every track pack, it's pretty good deal. And considering not everyone who bought GH2 has Live or internet or even knows how to navigate the 360 to the marketplace. A friend of mine just bought GH2 and a 360, and she has no idea on how to get the sucker online. But she'd buy the songs if she knew, I'm sure. So that millions bought the game but only 300,000 bought the tracks is either really good, or kinda good, but most certainly not bad.
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7-13-2007 @ 5:05PM
burgerbat said...
Plus, Jack Thompson is my father.
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7-13-2007 @ 5:13PM
Scott said...
You're getting a full interactive COVER of a real song. People who ran out and bought GHII like the game and the idea behind the game. If they offer the packs at a more reasonable rate (reasonable in the eyes of a large portion of vocal consumers X3F, Digg, etc), that
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7-13-2007 @ 5:23PM
Scott said...
Ok, full post didn't go through . . .
You're getting a full interactive COVER of a real song. People who ran out and bought GHII like the game and the idea behind the game. If they offer the packs at a more reasonable rate (reasonable in the eyes of a large portion of vocal consumers X3F, Digg, etc), that
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7-13-2007 @ 5:24PM
Scott said...
wtf, i don't know what i did to anger it, but i don't want to type it again.
Just assume I made some really great points and everyone should agree with me.
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7-13-2007 @ 5:44PM
Tony said...
When I think of an iTunes song being $1 and these being basically $2... it doesn't seem that terrible for me. It's not like cover songs on iTunes are sold at a lower price either. Making these things 5.1 and adding the bass lines that weren't present in the PS2 version isn't just something that you do by flicking a switch.
That said, I really wish I could pick songs individually or something. The way the packs are sorted is terrible.
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7-13-2007 @ 5:55PM
Jared said...
There is still no defense for the argument that they'd NEVER be able to do this on a retail disc for people that have no Live access...
"Hey, don't have Live access? Buy all the downloadable content for GH2 on this disc for $100+!!!"
There would be riots at the retail stores!
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