Witcher 3 "Expansion Packs"
Here's my take on the devs of Witcher 3's new payola scheme.
You can not expand that which is not even done.
What these expansion packs are, are expensive new pre-orders without actually pre-ordering. How so? It's a pretty fair bet that all the people climbing over each other to buy these things are likely now expected to purchase the actual game itself without putting down even a penny towards the final price of the actual base game. I believe in preorders what you paid towards it actually came off the pricetag later yes?
Did they even state what they plan on selling the base game for? Or is everyone just ASSUMING it will be the standard 49.99 or 59.99? What if it ends up being 79.99? They don't have an obligation to sell it at any particular price after all, unless they've explicitly stated what the final price will be. And then they can just cut important parts out of the base, base game, to add to a higher tier of the base game. Yo bro, just tellin' ya this isn't out of the realm of believability with the kinds of things that have happened in the past few years alone.
*edit*
It does look like it'll be the 49.99/59.99 online at least, for the base base game. The collectors edition doesn't even have a price tag yet but I can't see it costing less than 100. In-store prices are sure to go above the online pricetags either way. They almost always do. Well, the expansion pass tacks on 19.99 anyway to the required pricetag of those who purchased it regardless making their total price in the 69.99/79.99 range as it is.
Also, I did find it funny that there's a 30 day money back guarantee on the expansion pass! Awesome... except that there's still a month or more before you can even buy the base game and see if you want the expansion pass. And I doubt people will get to the DLC content so quickly to be able to make a decision. I wonder if this means that the people buying it now will be SOL come release day in May if they regret purchasing it a week after playing it. (Actually, given the expansions themselves won't be out til much much later this year and next... HA. :p)
You can not expand that which is not even done.
What these expansion packs are, are expensive new pre-orders without actually pre-ordering. How so? It's a pretty fair bet that all the people climbing over each other to buy these things are likely now expected to purchase the actual game itself without putting down even a penny towards the final price of the actual base game. I believe in preorders what you paid towards it actually came off the pricetag later yes?
Did they even state what they plan on selling the base game for? Or is everyone just ASSUMING it will be the standard 49.99 or 59.99? What if it ends up being 79.99? They don't have an obligation to sell it at any particular price after all, unless they've explicitly stated what the final price will be. And then they can just cut important parts out of the base, base game, to add to a higher tier of the base game. Yo bro, just tellin' ya this isn't out of the realm of believability with the kinds of things that have happened in the past few years alone.
*edit*
It does look like it'll be the 49.99/59.99 online at least, for the base base game. The collectors edition doesn't even have a price tag yet but I can't see it costing less than 100. In-store prices are sure to go above the online pricetags either way. They almost always do. Well, the expansion pass tacks on 19.99 anyway to the required pricetag of those who purchased it regardless making their total price in the 69.99/79.99 range as it is.
Also, I did find it funny that there's a 30 day money back guarantee on the expansion pass! Awesome... except that there's still a month or more before you can even buy the base game and see if you want the expansion pass. And I doubt people will get to the DLC content so quickly to be able to make a decision. I wonder if this means that the people buying it now will be SOL come release day in May if they regret purchasing it a week after playing it. (Actually, given the expansions themselves won't be out til much much later this year and next... HA. :p)