
So, everything is peaches and fresh daisies over at the Activision camp as it pertains to the success of GH II's downloadable content, but we ask what happened to the community's complaints about the price? Back when the new tracks became available everyone was up in arms at the cost, refused to support the expensive content and even went as far as to create online petitions. But now it's looking like it was the vocal minority who were expressing their distaste or those who were complaining just gave in and purchased new tracks. We aren't sure if we should applaud the success of GH II's DLC or be somewhat sad that the "success" of it may just have solidified the high price point for the future. We guess we'll just have to see how it all works out when Rock Band puts its first round of content on the Marketplace.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
9-11-2007 @ 1:38PM
DjDATZ said...
Content price gouging FTW!!!
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9-11-2007 @ 1:38PM
Tony said...
People who complain online in general seem to be a vocal minority, for better or worse. Say, for example, I go to NeoGAF and read threads where it seems countless people are going nuts over something... it's barely reflected in the actions of the general consumer.
That said, I wish the packs were cheaper and it would have been interesting to see how many more would have been sold if they were. There could be room to argue that they'd make more money that way, but there's no real source of comparison to be sure of it.
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9-11-2007 @ 1:40PM
xenocidic said...
"Charge what the market will bear"
Economics 101
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9-11-2007 @ 1:44PM
Neon Jebus said...
There's a sucker born every minute.
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9-11-2007 @ 1:59PM
Nitin said...
they really should be sued for false advertising. they claimed they were going to have the most dlc content on xbox live. they released 3 song packs (all over priced, yet i bought them all :sadface:)
the promise of a lot of DLC was one of the biggest reasons I bought this game because i get bored of games very quickly. I haven't pulled this game out since the my chemical romance pack.
i hope rock band actually delivers dlc on a regular basis
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9-11-2007 @ 2:04PM
ericdrum said...
I have 5 friends who all have the game. Between us all, only 3 packs were purchased. If the price was 99 cents per song, we would each buy every pack. So yeah, they may have had success, but there's no way to measure how many still haven't purchased at the current prices. Now it's too late as GH3 and RB are on the horizon.
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9-11-2007 @ 2:07PM
HueHue said...
I got drunk, had friends over, and downloaded to expand the playability. I blame Coors Light.
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9-11-2007 @ 2:25PM
Scott said...
What they should do is put them on sale for a week/weekend. Charge half the price like XBLA just did (I bought Small Arms at 400 and would never ever have bought it at 800). Its been awhile that the game and the DLC has been out, best way to see how many people they are missing out on would to just offer the packs at what we are saying they are worth. At the very least, it would be an interesting piece of info for all of the pricing arguments.
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9-11-2007 @ 2:26PM
Leif Richardson said...
I don't understand why so many people have bought these outrageously priced tracks. I still refuse to ever buy them.
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9-11-2007 @ 2:28PM
Mark said...
So, people complained on forums and then bought them anyway. Way to vote with your dollar.
Also, Activision is happy that they made money, but they don't know how much they could have sold if they lowered the price. The maximum revenue probably isn't a price point where people complain on forums.
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9-11-2007 @ 2:38PM
x silence x said...
Dumbasses! Now were gonna get screwed later on this. Let's hope that Rock Band undercuts them...
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9-11-2007 @ 2:39PM
derek said...
As a journalist, in your article you should put the word "everyone" in quotes. It should read, "..."everyone" was up in arms at the cost..."
Just because a vocal minority creates an online petition or bitches on the X3F comment system that doesn't constitute everyone.
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9-11-2007 @ 3:40PM
bigmac375 said...
fuck activision, and ea will prob screw us more, cuase they're ea. fuck them both
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9-11-2007 @ 3:41PM
DeadPlasmaCell said...
Had the songs been $1 people still would have bitched about something, because you still have to buy 500 points to get them. So then people would bitch about them not being sold individually.. Then had they been sold individually people would complain about the choices. Then the makers would come out and say "Well we had to keep the selection limited to what we think will sell best since we have the price so low", So people would then bitch about the price being low and that they'd be happy to pay $1 more for a bigger selection and thus completes the circle of life. When people are content with paying $1 for a song and then get told they'll have to pay $2 and decide to bitch about it, you'll never make them happy.
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9-11-2007 @ 3:50PM
Kizzle said...
What happened? Gamers have no balls and never back up what they say on their little message boards, that's what happened. I have yet to buy ANY downloadable content for GH2 (songs or not) and I certainly don't plan to barring a price drop. Not to sound like a prick, but if more people followed that example we would have had more reasonably priced content.
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9-11-2007 @ 4:02PM
Tiggle said...
someone call the whaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmbulance!
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9-11-2007 @ 4:16PM
Vader582 said...
I think these numbers are fake. Activision is just trying to get everyone warmed-up for the DLC rip-off that Rock Band will become...
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9-11-2007 @ 4:21PM
DeadPlasmaCell said...
My beef with the whole thing isn't the price, it's the lack of content! We were promised DLC out the wazoo and we got bupkiss. 16oz of prime bupkiss!
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9-11-2007 @ 4:22PM
bearxor said...
You people are such idiots. How is $2 a track really bad? I mean, a regular song download off iTunes is $99, but you can't "play" it. There's a lot of work that went in to the track even if it was a rehash from GH1, it still had to be reworked to be put on the X360 and GH2. I think around $2 a track is a great price.
My complaint is with the bundling. All the pack have at least one song I don't like, except for the "Wanna be sedated" pack. In this case, I refused to spend money on songs I don't like and bought only the pack that had all three songs I wanted.
If you're listening Activision, You got 6.25 out of me. If they were available for download separately instead of bundled, I would have bought 8 songs instead of 3. If they were about 150p each, thats 1200p or a little more than double what I spent. I think 175p would be a good price point as well.
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9-11-2007 @ 4:33PM
Cr1ckt said...
They could have sold at least six times that many if the price was low enough. Ericdrum brought up a good point about people being picky about their purchases due to the price. If Neversoft ever tries to release as much content as Harmonix is planning for Rock Band, they need to lower the price, or they'll really be losing out on revenue. As the number of songs available increase, the disparity between the actual sales and potential sales will only increase.
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