Guitar Hero 2 360 Downloadable Content Announced.

[Jazar]

They are selling 3 packs of Guitar Hero 1 songs (3 songs per pack) for $6.25 per pack.

Name: Guitar Hero Track Pack 1
Price: 500 Points
Availability: Not available in Asia
Dash Details: Bark at the Moon as made famous by Ozzy Osbourne, Hey You as made famous by The Exies, Ace of Spades as made famous by Motorhead, For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com.

Name: Guitar Hero Track Pack 2
Price: 500 Points
Availability: Not available in Asia
Dash Details: Killer Queen as made famous by Queen, Take it Off as made famous by The Donnas, Frankenstein as made famous by The Edgar Winter Group, For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com.

Name: Guitar Hero Track Pack 3
Price: 500 Points
Availability: Not available in Asia
Dash Details: Higher Ground as made famous by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Infected as made famous by Bad Religon, Stellar as made famous by Incubus, For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com.
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Posted: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:05 AM by Major Nelson | 12 Comments
Filed under: In-Game Content, Marketplace

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/04/11/gh-ii-song-packs-3-of-em.aspx

[Rorschach]

So the packs are about US$2.08 per song. Hmmm... I'd be a lot happier if it was more towards the $1 range, but not quite ready to call it horse armor. I need to think about this.

[Ephraim]

Ouch, pricey. That's 9 songs for $18.75 USD.

Or am I just too cheap to appreciate this?

[Jazar]

The problem is that they're micro-bundlefucking. It's the bundlefucking of the future!

[Ben Sones]

Wow, that's, uh.... really expensive. Particularly for songs that they didn't even have to develop and playtest (as they were already in GH1). I was expecting them to be about half that much--maybe 100 points per song, but ideally more like 80. At these prices, it would cost you $100 to get all the GH1 songs. It's like buying GH1 at a $30 premium and with no guitar! What a colossal ripoff.

[Rorschach]

So where do we go to complain about the price? I understand that they need to remix the tracks and add the bass/2nd guitar for multiplayer but $2.08 per song is a bit much.

[forgeforsaken]

The pricing isn't that far off but it is a bit overpriced IMO. I was thinking closer to $1.50 a song. The problem as Jazar noted is that they are selling them in packs only. What they should be doing is selling them as individual songs and in packs with a discount if you buy the pack. So people that want only one or two songs can grab those, and people who want all the songs are rewarded with a discount.

[Ben Sones]

They are selling for roughly twice as much as they cost when you bought them as part of GH1. I'd say that's a whole lot more than "a bit overpriced."

[delirium]

The pricing isn't that far off but it is a bit overpriced IMO. I was thinking closer to $1.50 a song. The problem as Jazar noted is that they are selling them in packs only. What they should be doing is selling them as individual songs and in packs with a discount if you buy the pack. So people that want only one or two songs can grab those, and people who want all the songs are rewarded with a discount.

Yeah, I feel the same. $2.08 per song is WAY expensive for a bundle. I guess that would be close to reasonable if they were being sold individually, but what a slap in the face to overcharge AND bundle.

Track pack 2 includes three of my favorite GH1 songs, so I will probably bite on that one. Pack 3 includes three of my least favorite songs, so I will definitely not be buying that. Pack 1 is so/so, would buy if it were cheaper or I could get Bark at the Moon individually.

[Midnight Son]

Too greedy by far. This would be the "Microsoft" effect, eh?

I wonder if people will ever be pleasantly surprised by the price of DLC?

[Kid Socrates]

Well, I'd think they couldn't charge $1 or less, because that's how much it'd cost off iTunes just for the song. An extra dollar for programming and setting it up to work with Guitar Hero isn't too unreasonable in my mind.

Note: I have not played Guitar Hero, so my estimate here is under the assumption that this is more complicated for them to do than "plug and play."

[Not One Of Us]

There's a looooooooong section of unhappy comments at Major Nelson's blog. Ouch.

As for me, I was looking forward to this day, and now I'm not going to buy anything until they change these ridiculous prices. The total price of buying all the tracks of GH1, should they continue at this rate, would be more than buying GH1+Guitar for the PS2.

[forgeforsaken]

I wonder if people will ever be pleasantly surprised by the price of DLC?

I was by the cost of Jetpack. Though I guess that's more Live Arcade than DLC.

[Skipper]

Although yeah I'd love to see cheaper, this falls inline with Microsoft's inflated pricing method on XBL. And I'm sure Microsoft had some hand in the pricing. I don't have my copy of GH yet but I'll get the extra songs. I equate this to a FPS map pack or two which I always end up getting as well. Call me a sucker.

Hate the PS3 however much you want but it needs to at least be successful enough to drive some competition or this downloaded content pricing model will continue for the 360.

[Nick Walter]

Apparently I'm the only person who considers these prices reasonable :)

A single GH song is a lot of content in terms of how much play time one can get out of a song. I wouldn't buy these, as I've already played all the GH1 stuff to death, but I'd certainly consider this a reasonable price and if new songs came out at this price point I'd buy.

[Ben Sones]

Apparently I'm the only person who considers these prices reasonable :)

How is it reasonable, exactly? They are charging more than twice as much as they charged for this content when it was part of GH1. You can current buy the entire GH1 game (sans controller) for $40. That includes 47 songs, plus, you know, the whole rest of the game. These song packs are, like, the opposite of reasonable. The equivalent of announcing that Guitar Hero III will cost $100... guitar controller sold seperately. Highway robbery.

[Not One Of Us]

If they give us some actual new tracks down the line, "Rape Me" by Nirvana would fit perfectly.

[Gunmetal]

Well, I'd think they couldn't charge $1 or less, because that's how much it'd cost off iTunes just for the song. An extra dollar for programming and setting it up to work with Guitar Hero isn't too unreasonable in my mind.

Note: I have not played Guitar Hero, so my estimate here is under the assumption that this is more complicated for them to do than "plug and play."
Depends on whether these songs have additional tweaking done to make it work with the 2 player co-op. If they don't, I can't imagine it's more complicated than taking the PS2 track data and running it through their 360 exporter

At the time GH2 for 360 was announced, I was telling some friends about what a bundle-fucking Konami gave people for downloadable DDR songs on Live, and how if I was really evil, I would re-release all the GH1 songs as pay-for-play packs over Live in the same fashion.

3 songs for 6 bucks is kind of rough. I would seriously prefer either larger packs for slightly less cash overall, or single songs for 2 bucks each.

[Drastic]

On the plus side, it ends up saving me money. If they weren't microfucked to that extent, I probably would've snapped them up just as additional impulse buys. So in a way, it's doing me a favor.

[Nick Walter]

How is it reasonable, exactly? They are charging more than twice as much as they charged for this content when it was part of GH1. You can current buy the entire GH1 game (sans controller) for $40. That includes 47 songs, plus, you know, the whole rest of the game. These song packs are, like, the opposite of reasonable. The equivalent of announcing that Guitar Hero III will cost $100... guitar controller sold seperately. Highway robbery.

I said how it was reasonable. You can disagree if you like, but I did explain!

Also, for everyone comparing the cost of GH1 standalone for PS2 to buying the GH1 songs for X360 via DLC, keep in mind that ya'll who already have PS2s and guitars probably aren't the target market here. Those people, if interested in GH1 content, can just go buy GH1 for the PS2. That's what I did after I beat GH2 and started craving more songs. This is aimed more at people who don't have PS2 or don't have guitar controllers for PS2.

These prices aren't too bad for people who don't own a PS2, or even for people who do own a PS2 but don't own a PS2 guitar controller.

[Charles]

I hate that you have to buy groups of songs. Oh, one song I care about and two I don't! Awesome!

Sigh. Guess it's to be expected.

I wonder how much of this is based on research of the disposable income of 360 owners? I mean, I have enough cash that I'm not going to worry too much even though I think it's overpriced. Maybe they think most people are like me?

[Vesper]

So has anyone ponied up and tried these? Very curious to know if they have rhythm/bass guitar tracks for co-op mode.

[shift6]

I said how it was reasonable. You can disagree if you like, but I did explain!
I agree with your point that the price would be reasonable for new songs. I don't agree that it is a reasonable price for songs we already played in GH1/2 on the PS2. My reason is that those songs have already been done and don't involve much new work and don't really introduce any novelty or new stuff to me. I'm spending $2 a song for what? An XBox port. Big frowny face to that IMHO.

I'm hoping that after selling six billion copies of GH2 with guitars they will sell like four songs. Then someone will realize how bad that "attach rate" is and hopefully lower the price.

[skedastic]

Outrageous prices. I am immediately buying all three packs to encourage more offerings of outrageously overpriced songs.

[Nick Walter]

I agree with your point that the price would be reasonable for new songs. I don't agree that it is a reasonable price for songs we already played in GH1/2 on the PS2. My reason is that those songs have already been done and don't involve much new work and don't really introduce any novelty or new stuff to me. I'm spending $2 a song for what? An XBox port. Big frowny face to that IMHO.


Well I guess it comes down to who exactly they are trying to sell to here. It is a rather steep price for rebuying content so a person who already has a PS2 + GH1 + Guitar probably isn't going to be too interested. A person who only has GH2 + X360 + Guitar on the other hand might well consider these reasonable prices because they would be "new" content to those players.

I strongly suspect that they are intending this DLC for the latter group, not the former.

[Ben Sones]

I said how it was reasonable. You can disagree if you like, but I did explain!

But what you said makes no sense. If Sony decided to charge $120 for the PS3 version of Oblivion, would that be a good deal? I mean, If you look at the playtime that you'll likely get out of it, that's cheaper than a movie on a per-hour basis! And sure, it sold for half as much on the PC and the 360, but those people aren't the target market here. So it's all good!

Dude, salespeople must love you.

These prices aren't too bad for people who don't own a PS2, or even for people who do own a PS2 but don't own a PS2 guitar controller.

To get all the songs, it would actually be $20 cheaper to buy the PS2 version, including the price of the guitar.

[Nick Walter]

But what you said makes no sense. If Sony decided to charge $120 for the PS3 version of Oblivion, would that be a good deal? I mean, If you look at the playtime that you'll likely get out of it, that's cheaper than a movie on a per-hour basis! And sure, it sold for half as much on the PC and the 360, but those people aren't the target market here. So it's all good!


I think it made perfect sense. The Oblivion example isn't really comparable unless you change it a little bit. if Oblivion was a last gen game that was being made available on the PS3 for say $70 and had upgraded graphics and gameplay from the last gen version, that would be a comparable situation. And a not unreasonable price.


Dude, salespeople must love you.


Nah, salespeople hate me. I'm cheap and generally start abusing them at the first hint of upsell because I hate that crap :)

[dannimal]

To get all the songs, it would actually be $20 cheaper to buy the PS2 version, including the price of the guitar.

Of course, you'd then not be able to play co-op with lead/bass or lead/rhythm, which you can presumably do in the GHII 360 versions. Did it take extra work to add in the bass and rhythm lines to GHI songs? I'd think so.

(obviously, if there's no new rhythm/bass "track" this doesn't apply)

While Microsoft is certainly not beyond gouging, there's no indication of what the cost was to re-license the GHI songs for the 360. I'd bet that the rights holders, having seen how hugely popular GHI and GHII have been, upped their price to license the GHI songs again for GHII.

There's a reason they only dropped 3 packs, and have 3 songs per pack. It's a field test. If they don't sell, you can be sure that they'll either make the packs bigger for the same cost, or smaller/cheaper.

[Ben Sones]

I think it made perfect sense. The Oblivion example isn't really comparable unless you change it a little bit. if Oblivion was a last gen game that was being made available on the PS3 for say $70 and had upgraded graphics and gameplay from the last gen version, that would be a comparable situation. And a not unreasonable price.

It would be a completely unreasonable price point. Why would you expect to pay a premium for a remake of an old game? Especially if some portion of the content were recycled. That makes zero sense to me. I would expect such a game to be sold at a discount price, and I think most sane consumers would agree.

And why $70? The GH song packs don't cost 16% more than the same content cost in GH1--they cost double, and that's assuming that the rest of the game cost nothing to develop. So if you want a consistent analogy, PS3 Oblivion should cost double. At least. And in the case of GH, you already paid for the graphical upgrade when you bought the 360 version of the game. It's not like the song packs add more graphical content.

[delirium]

if Oblivion was a last gen game that was being made available on the PS3 for say $70 and had upgraded graphics and gameplay from the last gen version, that would be a comparable situation. And a not unreasonable price.


No, it wouldn't. Not even close. You're getting the exact same songs exactly as they were in the original Guitar Hero. The graphics are upgraded, sure, but you're basically looking at sharper lines and circles.

[Charles]

Why would you expect to pay a premium for a remake of an old game? Especially if some portion of the content were recycled. That makes zero sense to me. I would expect such a game to be sold at a discount price, and I think most sane consumers would agree.

Wow. I couldn't disagree more. There's a ton of classic games I'd pay a significant chunk of change to have in remake form.

[sluggo]

The pricing doesn't seem that bad to me. When we found out they were doing 3-song packs, we were hoping for 400 points and afraid they might be 800. 500 doesn't seem so bad by comparison, especially to play Bark at the Moon with proper hammer-ons and co-op play.

Of course, I'm an addict, so YMMV. :)

[Ben Sones]

Wow. I couldn't disagree more. There's a ton of classic games I'd pay a significant chunk of change to have in remake form.

I would pay for a good remake, but I wouldn't pay twice as much as the going rate for a brand new game. If the remake reused a significant portion of already-developed assets, I'd expect to pay less.

[forgeforsaken]

No, it wouldn't. Not even close. You're getting the exact same songs exactly as they were in the original Guitar Hero. The graphics are upgraded, sure, but you're basically looking at sharper lines and circles.

I think they added rhythem/bass parts and tweaked hammer ons/pull offs too though.

[ElGuapo]

I'm lovin' Guitar Hero 2. But these are way too expensive. New XBLA title, or 3 songs? No sale.

[Jancelot]

Well bundlefuck me!

The pricing on Marketplace is really pissing me off in general. They just don't understand that this nickle and dime bullshit drives people away and leaves a sour taste in our mouths. I love Marketplace as a concept, the technical execution is fantastic, but the cost of entry is awful. Boo to Microsoft for how they're approaching it.

If they would just take all of their prices and cut them by 1/3 I would be ecstatic and making many more purchases. As I'm new to the series I still have plenty of material to work through. I will resist buying these for the time being.

[forgeforsaken]

My conundrum is that I got 1600 points for free with the purchase of GH2. Normally I wouldn't buy, but I have these 1600 points that I got for free...what to do what to do.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Guys, I think this might all be my fault. I might have tipped our hand (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=940476&postcount=289) about how we get kinda stupid when it comes to Guitar Hero and spending money.

[Ben Sones]

I think they added rhythem/bass parts and tweaked hammer ons/pull offs too though.
So what? Even if they were setting up a brand new song from scratch, how does that justify charging 100% more for it? The fact that some of the work was already done one these songs mean that they should cost less than what you paid for similar GH2 content (or at most, the same), not twice as much. And the fact that suckers like you guys are still willing to shell out the cash doesn't make this a good deal.




Amy: Smeesh, Leela! This car has everything a beautiful woman like me needs. Victor said so.

[Victor chuckles.]

Victor: (quietly; to himself) No dog food for Victor tonight.

Leela: OK, the sticker says 55,000, but we'll only go as high as, say--

Amy: 60,000!

[Leela sighs.]

Victor: Oh, I will have to ask my manager.

Leela: Amy, you don't go up from the sticker price.

Amy: I thought it was an auction!

[Nick Walter]

So what? Even if they were setting up a brand new song from scratch, how does that justify charging 100% more for it? The fact that some of the work was already done one these songs mean that they should cost less than what you paid for similar GH2 content (or at most, the same), not twice as much. And the fact that suckers like you guys are still willing to shell out the cash doesn't make this a good deal.


Ben, you seem to be getting awful riled up over the price of a few GH songs. You've already played these songs on GH1 on the PS2 right? What's the big deal here?

Bottom line is that GH is good stuff, the pubs know it's good stuff, people know it's good stuff, so they are going to charge accordingly. Good stuff costs money. Look at the bright side, if this sells well it will encourage them to make more songs for GH and that's a good thing :)

[Rywill]

Homer: Does this car cost sixteen thousand dollars?
Salesman: It does now!

[Ben Sones]

Jeeze, you seem to be taking the price of a few GH songs rather personally, why are you so riled up? You've already played these songs on GH1 on the PS2 right?

I'm not taking it personally; I just think the price is a ripoff. And I think you guys are suckers for not recognizing that it's a ripoff, even if you still plan to buy the packs.

I guess Activision missed the boat by not selling GH2 for $160.

Look at the bright side, if this sells well it will encourage them to make more songs for GH and that's a good thing

Not at this price point, it isn't. Frankly, I hope sales tank and they adjust them down to something reasonable.

[Moore]

Well, I'd think they couldn't charge $1 or less, because that's how much it'd cost off iTunes just for the song. An extra dollar for programming and setting it up to work with Guitar Hero isn't too unreasonable in my mind.

Note: I have not played Guitar Hero, so my estimate here is under the assumption that this is more complicated for them to do than "plug and play."

The $1 per song tunes on itunes arent shitty covers though. You can buy shitty covers for nearly nothing off of emusic of almost any band. I know they had to do some work though, for multi etc... so I think I'm in the 'it's like 30% overpriced, but I'll buy a few' camp.

I'd have grabbed all of them in a big pack for a discount though, say.. the price of GH1, disc only, on ps2. Now I'll buy a couple packs with must have songs and be done w/ it.

There's a looooooooong section of unhappy comments at Major Nelson's blog. Ouch.



Thats how his blog always is.

I'd certainly consider this a reasonable price and if new songs came out at this price point I'd buy.

good luck with that, what w/ GH3 around the corner. I dont think we'll be seeing anything for gh2 except the gh1 stuff. Otherwise, why buy 3, if there is a stream of releases for 2?

[Rywill]

Ben, you seem to be getting awful riled up over the price of a few GH songs.
I see where he's coming from and I'm not sure why you don't. Assuming his math is correct, he's saying that the songs in GH1 cost about a dollar each. That was when the folks at Harmonix or Red Octane or whoever made the game had to license them, build the song tracks from scratch, and design, build, and program the entire Guitar Hero game on top of that, and pay bands to cover all of the songs.

Now they are releasing the same songs for GH2. A large amount of the work is already done -- they already have the GH2 game all programmed and done (which Ben already paid for). They already have the cover recorded. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they have to relicense the songs (although I don't know that they do) and that they have to re-do both note tracks because even the old GH1 track is useless now that there are two guitar lines (and I don't even know that they're giving you lead and bass tracks, but let's assume they are). I would guess that's less than half the work. It is certainly less than all the work.

And yet they're charging you double what they charged for the songs the first time around, when they had to do everything from scratch. Now, one could argue that the value of the songs is whatever the market will bear, and since MS has no competitors here, if people are willing to pay $5 or $10 for the song, MS should charge that. But that doesn't change the fact that $5 or $10 is pretty clearly gouging, and people have a right to complain about it.

And that's not even counting the consumer-hostile bundling!

[Moore]

Of course, you'd then not be able to play co-op with lead/bass or lead/rhythm, which you can presumably do in the GHII 360 versions. Did it take extra work to add in the bass and rhythm lines to GHI songs? I'd think so.

(obviously, if there's no new rhythm/bass "track" this doesn't apply)

While Microsoft is certainly not beyond gouging, there's no indication of what the cost was to re-license the GHI songs for the 360. I'd bet that the rights holders, having seen how hugely popular GHI and GHII have been, upped their price to license the GHI songs again for GHII.

There's a reason they only dropped 3 packs, and have 3 songs per pack. It's a field test. If they don't sell, you can be sure that they'll either make the packs bigger for the same cost, or smaller/cheaper.

the only licensing is with the entity who owns the written song, since these are re-records. Thats compulsory licensing, you just go through a service like harry fox agency and there isnt any wheeling and dealing to do, as you arent using anyones recordings, just the tune + lyrics.

And I'm fairly sure the re-records are works for hire. I dont have any contracts here and I dont think AFTRA does either, anyways.

[Ben Sones]

But that doesn't change the fact that $5 or $10 is pretty clearly gouging, and people have a right to complain about it.

Yes, that is exactly my point. The fact that people are willing to buy these packs despite the high price isn't what boggles my mind. I can actually understand that, in the same way that I could understand why a hardcore Elder Scrolls fan would still be willing to buy Oblivion even if Bethesda charged $120 for it. But I would also expect that person to at least recognize that they were being gouged, and I certainly wouldn't poo-poo them for being unhappy about it.

[delirium]

good luck with that, what w/ GH3 around the corner. I dont think we'll be seeing anything for gh2 except the gh1 stuff. Otherwise, why buy 3, if there is a stream of releases for 2?

Now that Activision is running the show, I think it's still possible we can see some new downloadable content if it's profitable. They certainly have the resources...all they need to do is assign a different team to make DLC stuff. I think it would actually be a good idea to release 5-10 new songs a few months before GH3 to keep people talking about the series and wanting more.

[sluggo]

good luck with that, what w/ GH3 around the corner. I dont think we'll be seeing anything for gh2 except the gh1 stuff. Otherwise, why buy 3, if there is a stream of releases for 2?
Things always change, but at CES, Red Octane told me that (a) they would not be releasing the entire GH1 catalogue as DLC, and (b) there would be some new content offered as DLC, not just old stuff.

[Nick Walter]

I see where he's coming from and I'm not sure why you don't. Assuming his math is correct, he's saying that the songs in GH1 cost about a dollar each. That was when the folks at Harmonix or Red Octane or whoever made the game had to license them, build the song tracks from scratch, and design, build, and program the entire Guitar Hero game on top of that, and pay bands to cover all of the songs.

Now they are releasing the same songs for GH2. A large amount of the work is already done -- they already have the GH2 game all programmed and done (which Ben already paid for). They already have the cover recorded. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they have to relicense the songs (although I don't know that they do) and that they have to re-do both note tracks because even the old GH1 track is useless now that there are two guitar lines (and I don't even know that they're giving you lead and bass tracks, but let's assume they are). I would guess that's less than half the work. It is certainly less than all the work.

And yet they're charging you double what they charged for the songs the first time around, when they had to do everything from scratch. Now, one could argue that the value of the songs is whatever the market will bear, and since MS has no competitors here, if people are willing to pay $5 or $10 for the song, MS should charge that. But that doesn't change the fact that $5 or $10 is pretty clearly gouging, and people have a right to complain about it.


Well since you went all economics on me, I'll go there too ;-)

So yeah, these tracks quite likely cost less to produce as X360 DLC than they originally did to produce as GH1 tracks. But the cost of developing a software product has a slippery relationship with final price because the per-unit cost is minimal but the up-front investment to write the software is the big cost and must be recouped over all the units sold. The art of software pricing thus lies in the forecasting the amount of sales at various price points and trying to pick a price point that will make enough sales to cover the up front set costs for developing the software in the first place.

So let's go with Rywill's assumption that these things cost roughly half to produce as X360 DLC. Now how many people are going to buy them? As many as bought GH1? Unlikely, this is recycled content. One fourth? Maybe. One fifth? Strong possibility.

So now the "cost-per-track" is actually much much higher because that upfront cost of making the track has be split up among a lot less sales. It's quite possible that despite charging more on an absolute per track basis, these song packs will actually be less profitable than GH1 tracks.

[Reldan]

If this is the pricing/bundling for songs where the recording and note track was already done, I shudder to imagine what they plan on charging for any actually new songs, where they have to put effort into it.

I really cannot imagine doing a note track for the bass/rhythm is all that difficult, compared to doing everything from scratch it's a drop in the bucket. And that's assuming these tracks even do add the GH2-style co-op.

The bundling is just crazy. While there might be a few songs off GH1 that I'd pay $2 for, none of these packs is worth $6 to me. If I could care less about two of the three songs then it means I'm stuck paying $6 for the one song I do want.

GH1 costs $40 sans guitar. There are maybe 20 songs that I'd say are worth $1.50-$2 and a bunch of songs I played maybe once or twice in career mode. The song pricing is on the upper end of what I'd pay, but I'll say its fair.

My problems:

Bundling makes it impossible for me to pay a reasonable price for the songs I do want.

The lack of effort to produce these songs for 360 since they already made a boatload of money on them with the PS2 version makes this feel like gouging. What exactly am I paying a premium for here? This is new-car pricing on used goods.

[Myth]

In addition the release date of these songs, coming right after the release of the full game leads me to believe that that they were completed before the game was released, and quite possibly could have been released on the game disk.

If the song files were huge,which they are not of course, I wouldn't be suprised if they were already on the disk, and you were just paying for an unlock.

This is just a further example of nickle and diming by Microsoft.

Of all those songs I am probably only interested in 3 or 4, but of course the songs are conveniently distributed over all the bundles and I couldn't just buy them individually.

Not very consumer friendly at all, and for that reason, I'm going to pass, and I am a 'new' customer having never played a GH game before.

[Ben Sones]

So yeah, these tracks quite likely cost less to produce as X360 DLC than they originally did to produce as GH1 tracks. But the cost of developing a software product has a slippery relationship with final price because the per-unit cost is minimal but the up-front investment to write the software is the big cost and must be recouped over all the units sold. The art of software pricing thus lies in the forecasting the amount of sales at various price points and trying to pick a price point that will make enough sales to cover the up front set costs for developing the software in the first place.

I would be very, very suprised if the cost for setting up note tracks on already recorded songs in an already programmed game engine was anything other than "minimal." Ry's estimate of "half" is pretty generous, even assuming that all the songs had to be re-licensed.

So let's go with Rywill's assumption that these things cost roughly half to produce as X360 DLC. Now how many people are going to buy them? As many as bought GH1? Unlikely, this is recycled content. One fourth? Maybe. One fifth? Strong possibility.

I think it's reasonable to assume that most GH2 360 owners would buy these songs if they were priced reasonably (and given the reactions here, maybe they will even if they are priced unreasonably). A significant portion of the people who waited for this version of the game did so specifically because of the promised downloadable content. I know I did.

[Rywill]

The art of software pricing thus lies in the forecasting the amount of sales at various price points and trying to pick a price point that will make enough sales to cover the up front set costs for developing the software in the first place.
OK, that's a good point. Even so, though, you have to assume that by far the biggest up-front cost of GH1 was designing and programming the game itself -- everything from figuring out what the avatars and venues should look like, to doing animation or motion capture, textures, etc. There's a ton of work there. All of that is already done for these tracks, and Ben already paid for it when he bought GH2. I can't imagine that the up-front development costs for some song tracks -- particularly repeats of tracks that were already designed for GH1 -- is so massive that they have to double the price to recoup their up-front costs. It seems way, way, way more likely that this is a cheap cash grab because GH2 is so popular. And that's shitty.

[Jonathan Blow]

Those making arguments about high up-front costs (including Major Nelson in the comments on his blog) just sounds ridiculous.

The costs for this kind of thing are very low.

[Kid Socrates]

Okay, a little more research on my part shows that these aren't even new songs to Guitar Hero, according to the 1up.com article on it. Now THAT sucks. Way overpriced, and just seems greedy.

[skedastic]

The "up-front" costs are sunk. The profit-maximizing price doesn't depend on these costs. That is, from Red Octane's perspective, it doesn't matter whether they paid a junior employee $100 to do all the 360 versions of these songs or whether they had to pay $10m to relicense them. The profit-maximizing price is the same in either case.

But, the decision over whether to release more downloadable content does depend the up-front costs. And on demand: so buy these tracks, signaling high demand for more songs, and maybe we'll get them.

[Not One Of Us]

Caved for the one pack with Bark at the Moon. Ah, feels good to play the GH1 tracks again, especially with the revamped HO/PO system.

However, I probably won't buy any more packs at this rate, unless the release the NOOU Orgy Pack of Clapton, Hendrix and Bowie.

Oh, and for confirmation, the songs to contain the alt. guitar. Of the three I've played, they were bass, and dear god does Hey You have a boring bass.

[Rywill]

dear god does Hey You have a boring bass.
That was one thing I wondered about with this. The GH1 songs were picked for having good guitar (which generally means good lead guitar), unlike the GH2 songs which were presumably picked with some thought towards co-op multiplayer in mind. There are several tracks on GH1 where I have a hard time thinking what you would have two guitars be doing.

[Linoleum]

There is another potential element to the cost of the GH1 tracks: the licensing.

Red Octane might have had the foresight to get a license for the GH1 tracks covering multiple platforms, but it probably only covered their inclusion into *GH1*. The GH2 DLC tracks probably needed a new licensing deal, and now that the game is a hit, the rights-holders might have demanded more dough.

That said, I suspect the bulk of the reason is they think people will pony up for the tracks at that price, but when it comes to music licensing/relicensing, things aren't always what they seem.

[worm]

So the packs are about US$2.08 per song. Hmmm... I'd be a lot happier if it was more towards the $1 range, but not quite ready to call it horse armor. I need to think about this.
Paying 2 dollars per song from a game you most likely own, but still living in the protective bubble that the great HORSE ARMOR BOYCOTT earned you?

[forgeforsaken]

So what? Even if they were setting up a brand new song from scratch, how does that justify charging 100% more for it?

The so what is correcting the assertion that they are just lifting the song straight from GH and putting it up on live, which I believe is false. You know it's possible to have the facts and still think the songs are being overpriced which if you looked further up you would see that I agree that they are, and that there are better ways to be releasing the songs.

[Jason Cross]

The problem is that they're micro-bundlefucking. It's the bundlefucking of the future!

$6.25 isn't a microtransaction, it's just a transaction.

Sorry, I was all geared up to play GH1 songs, but they priced themselves out of my league.

Does anyone know if they songs have been updated to have the simultaneous co-op? Or does playing these in 2-player mode do the "trade off" co-op of GH1?

[Rywill]

Not One Of Us said that it has a separate base-line track.

[Rasputin]

I'm DLing them now, will report back in a bit. I was sucked in because the packs had three of the five songs I was keeping GH1 for: Take It Off, Ace of Spades, and Infected. Bark at the Moon, Killer Queen and Frankenstein were just gravy.

Yeah, they're a bit pricey, but I have a bit of a problem with your math, guys. I'm pretty sure that I paid about $60 for my GH1 with controller, as I, like most of you, was an early adopter. This would add about .50 a song, or are you discounting the cost of the controller, and going straight off the game?

[Ben Sones]

The so what is correcting the assertion that they are just lifting the song straight from GH and putting it up on live, which I believe is false.

I never asserted that the costs of turning those songs into downloadables was zero. I never even implied that. There are clearly costs involved. But I think the cost is almost certainly less (and probably significantly less) than the cost of originally doing those songs from scratch, for the reasons that Rywill explained. And it's certainly less than twice the cost of originally doing those songs from scratch (which is what they are charging).

Red Octane might have had the foresight to get a license for the GH1 tracks covering multiple platforms, but it probably only covered their inclusion into *GH1*. The GH2 DLC tracks probably needed a new licensing deal, and now that the game is a hit, the rights-holders might have demanded more dough.

This seems very unlikely to me. I don't really know much about music licensing, but I do know that the 360 version of GH2 charges the same price for content as previous versions of the game have charged (the package is a little more expensive overall, but there's also more content). So the change would have to be very recent. And if that is the reason, then I guess we can expect to pay $160 for GH3. Hooray!

[sluggo]

There is another potential element to the cost of the GH1 tracks: the licensing.

Red Octane might have had the foresight to get a license for the GH1 tracks covering multiple platforms, but it probably only covered their inclusion into *GH1*. The GH2 DLC tracks probably needed a new licensing deal, and now that the game is a hit, the rights-holders might have demanded more dough.

That said, I suspect the bulk of the reason is they think people will pony up for the tracks at that price, but when it comes to music licensing/relicensing, things aren't always what they seem.
I asked Red Octane about this a few months ago. The original license only covered GH1. They have to relicense every track they want to do as DLC.

I am amazed at how much whining there is over $2 a song. "Gouging"? That would be if the packs were 800 points. I was hoping for 400 points; 500 is fine by me.

[Gladguy]

Paying 2 dollars per song from a game you most likely own, but still living in the protective bubble that the great HORSE ARMOR BOYCOTT earned you?
What ended up happening with the Horse Armor anyway? I remember hearing about it when it hit, but since I didn't play Oblivion, I didn't follow the story...

[Rorschach]

Paying 2 dollars per song from a game you most likely own, but still living in the protective bubble that the great HORSE ARMOR BOYCOTT earned you?

Ummm, I don't own a PS2 so I don't own GH1. This is all new for me except for playing GH1 at a friend's house.

I think this could have been spun better. Release the tracks individually for 160 points each and bundle them 3 songs for 400 points.

[Ben Sones]

Yeah, they're a bit pricey, but I have a bit of a problem with your math, guys. I'm pretty sure that I paid about $60 for my GH1 with controller, as I, like most of you, was an early adopter. This would add about .50 a song, or are you discounting the cost of the controller, and going straight off the game?

It actually retailed for $70 when it was new, and the game without the controller sold for (I think) $50. That's being generous--it may have been $40, which is what it sells for now in Red Octane's store. The bundle is still $70, so it seems unlikely that they would have dropped the price of one and not the other. But we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the game alone was $50.

That's $50 for 47 songs. Even ignoring all of the additional costs that went into making the rest of the game (programming the engine and shell, motion capture for the characters, hiring bands and doing recording sessions for all of the covers) that would not be incurred again in the context of reworking these songs as downloads for GH2, that's $1 per song. Which is $1.08 less. So the new songs are a little more than twice as expensive, but only if you assume that the actual game portion of the game cost zero dollars to make. In reality, they are probably significantly more than twice as expensive.

I am amazed at how much whining there is over $2 a song. "Gouging"? That would be if the packs were 800 points. I was hoping for 400 points; 500 is fine by me.

It's all relative; it's not like these song packs are being sold in a vacuum. You might think that $120 was a good deal for the PS3 version of Oblivion if you had never bought a game before. If you have, though, then you'd rightly think that price was absurdly high.

They are charging much more for this content than they have charged for previous content, simply because they can. That is gouging. They are trying to make it palatable by selling them in small bundles. $6.25 isn't that much money after all. But that doesn't change the fact that you'd spend $97.91 to buy all of the GH1 songs in this fashion.

[Moore]

What ended up happening with the Horse Armor anyway? I remember hearing about it when it hit, but since I didn't play Oblivion, I didn't follow the story...

Basically, all it did was swap out your horse model for one with armor (it doesnt protect the horse, it's not an armor system for horses like the characerts themselves have, it doesnt have a quest really, or anything other than chanigng the look of your horse)

Oh and they charged like ten million dollars for it. I think some bethsoft folks even said they knew it was too much, when asked about other upcomnig DLC post release, but they've still not lowered the price.

[Funkula]

I'm as disappointed as anyone else. I just entered the series, due in part to the promise of downloadable content. I'll have to really resist getting the first one, since Bark at the Moon and Ace of Spades sound really freakin awesome, but the others just don't have enough value to me. The third pack would be attractive if it didn't have Incubus, which actually decreases the overall value of the package in my opinion. But yeah, this pricing is way higher than I was hoping, and a bit higher than I was expecting.

That said...I guarantee, I guarangoddamntee that some people, completely independent of price, will declare it juuust above their threshold. "500 pts for 3? I would've bought if it were 400." "400? That's way too high, I was expecting 250." "80 pts a song? Psh, let me know when they drop it to 60."

Hmm...maybe some kind of sliding pricing, where the more you buy, the cheaper the remaining content is. Don't know if the Marketplace architecture would support that, but it would be interesting.

[Gary Whitta]

It seems fine to me. iTunes charges 99c for a song, so $1.99 for a song that they have to license and reproduce and create tabulation for on four different difficulty levels isn't unreasonable in my opinion. Yeah, it's a bummer that most of this stuff is recycled from GH1 but we'll get past that eventually. I'll happily by two bucks for a song that I really want. I'd prefer it if they were selling the songs individually like an iTunes though, not bundlefucking me.

[Not One Of Us]

Basically, all it did was swap out your horse model for one with armor (it doesnt protect the horse, it's not an armor system for horses like the characerts themselves have, it doesnt have a quest really, or anything other than chanigng the look of your horse)

Oh and they charged like ten million dollars for it. I think some bethsoft folks even said they knew it was too much, when asked about other upcomnig DLC post release, but they've still not lowered the price.
My horse is pimp. (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/theelderscrollsivoblivion/gamecontent.htm)

[Moore]

I wonder if it gives the horses some kickass grillz.

[forgeforsaken]

Hmm...maybe some kind of sliding pricing, where the more you buy, the cheaper the remaining content is. Don't know if the Marketplace architecture would support that, but it would be interesting.

I think PGR3 had a good setup with the car packs. You could buy say 12 cars for 60 each, or the entire pack for 400. They need to be handling the GH2 DLC like this. Sell the songs both individually and in a bundle at a discount.

[RickH]

No new achievements, no sale. Maybe Activision's holding that out for that '80s pack I'm hearing about.

[jeffd]

Raise your hand if you understand that the price that they're charging for this DLC has almost no relationship to what it actually cost to produce it?

Nick seems to get it, no one else does. Well skedastic probably does too since he's a smarty man economist type.

They're charging what they think will maximize their profit, plain and simple.

[Rywill]

Raise your hand if you understand that the price that they're charging for this DLC has almost no relationship to what it actually cost to produce it?

Nick seems to get it, no one else does.
Not only do we get it, I'd go so far as to say that is the heart of our complaint.

[Fugitive]

That's what they want to get, but the true value is what people will actually pay. So, vote with your wallet, etc., so forth...

I haven't picked up GH2 yet, but probably will eventually, and I can hold out for potentially better prices down the road.

[sluggo]

I'm surprised no one is bitching about the picture packs. 12 black-and-white icons, and they had the nerve to split them up into two 100-point packs. THAT's gouging.

[Ben Sones]

It is, but I think the difference is that nobody really cares about picture packs (which are all ridiculously overpriced, for whatever it's worth), whereas many people waited for the 360 version of GH2 specifically because of downloadable songs.

[Moore]

I'm surprised no one is bitching about the picture packs. 12 black-and-white icons, and they had the nerve to split them up into two 100-point packs. THAT's gouging.
Who cares about those? what are they even OF? guitars? how many do you need? Pick the pack that has the one pic you'll use.

[Reldan]

If they offered the entire GH1 library, selling each song individually for $2, I probably would buy maybe 15-20 songs, so even paying $2 a song I'd be able to get pretty much maximum benefit from GH1 DLC for $30-$40. I think this is about right. Except that the bundling means I'd wind up spending twice that and have a bunch of songs I don't care to play.

It's very subjective, but not all the songs are equally valuable. Everyone has different tastes, and out of 47 songs most people probably only really give two shits about maybe 20 of them. It likely is a different 20 depending on the person.

It's not really $2 a song if you have to buy bundles in which some of the songs are valueless to you. I'd spend $2 in a heartbeat for "Bark at the Moon." Would I spend $6.25 for it? Hell no.

[Myth]

It's not really $2 a song if you have to buy bundles in which some of the songs are valueless to you. I'd spend $2 in a heartbeat for "Bark at the Moon." Would I spend $6.25 for it? Hell no.

That's exactly what the problem is. MS are experts at it.

[mouselock]

The third pack would be attractive if it didn't have Incubus, which actually decreases the overall value of the package in my opinion. But yeah, this pricing is way higher than I was hoping, and a bit higher than I was expecting.


I've never really cared one way or the other about Incubus, but I must say that I think the note arrangement on Stellar makes it a fun song to try to play (at least on the totally gimpy levels that I'm still playing at, on the original PS2 GH1 game, which I'm now getting back into after having gotten hopelessly frustrated with it thanks in no small part to all the talk about 360 GH2 making me think I should try it out again).

[Rasputin]

Okay, all the DLC songs are Lead/Bass combo. While the bassline is unimpressive in a couple (Hey, You, Take It Off, for example) it more than makes up for it with the "Straight from the Devil's ass" bassline of "Higher Ground".

I hear you guys on the "valueless songs" since I'll probably never play the Incubus song, but the others rank among the awesome ones. But do you seriously expect them to bunch all their less popular songs into one pack? Which do you think will sell more, the "AW3SOME SAUCE" pack with "T3H SUXOR" pack, or spread the ones they know are going to sell out amongst multiple packs so you have to buy a lot to get the ones you really have to have?

It's a for-profit business after all.

At least they're not the other way around. The number of songs I'd pay for off GH2 is by FAR fewer than GH1. C'mon "Smoke on the Water" and "More than a Feeling"... (Iron Man and Godzilla wouldn't hurt either)

[dannimal]

So what? Even if they were setting up a brand new song from scratch, how does that justify charging 100% more for it? The fact that some of the work was already done one these songs mean that they should cost less than what you paid for similar GH2 content (or at most, the same), not twice as much. And the fact that suckers like you guys are still willing to shell out the cash doesn't make this a good deal.

First, it was "It's no work for them at all to make these available! It's outrageous pricing!"

Then it's "it doesn't matter that there's work involved to make these available! It's outrageous pricing!"

Then it's "since I'm pulling crap out of my ass, if you disagree with me you're a sucker!"

Fact is, it cost more to license songs from GHI to use on the 360 via GHII. Adding a bass/rhythm line for co-op costs money. It might even cost as much as doing the original song, because it wasn't done for the PS2/GHI at all, requiring them to start from scratch. Then the songs had to be "tweaked" to get to the GHII HO/PO 'world' from the GHI version, which sucked (this might be minor, I don't know).

You think the price is too high, we get it. Don't buy the songs. Put a sock in it.

[Jancelot]

You think the price is too high, we get it. Don't buy the songs. Put a sock in it.

What? "It's going to happen anyway so you might as well just lay back and enjoy it" is how we're supposed to take this? No thanks. If we don't voice our opinions then nothing will have a chance of changing. We'd still be paying horse armor prices if no one had spoken up back then (which is exactly what we're facing here again). The pricing is egregious and I will not be socked I tell you!

[Gary Whitta]

I would happily pay $2 for You've Got Another Thing Coming and Eureka, I Found Love from GH1. It's all about choice, they need to have a wide library of songs that you can buy individually, not be bundlefucking people.

[Jonathan Blow]

Look, this is ridiculous.

It costs a negligible amount of money to adapt these songs. All you guys talking about how expensive the licensing is, and what an incredible level of inhuman toil it takes to make the playable tabs -- why don't you actually look into the figures for those things and get back to me.

They are charging what they are charging, because that's what they hope people will pay. That is the only reason.

[Bee]

I have to admit I'm finding it pretty funny the outrage about a $2 song for a $90 game on a $400 console. heh

[Linoleum]

Look, this is ridiculous.

It costs a negligible amount of money to adapt these songs. All you guys talking about how expensive the licensing is, and what an incredible level of inhuman toil it takes to make the playable tabs -- why don't you actually look into the figures for those things and get back to me.

They are charging what they are charging, because that's what they hope people will pay. That is the only reason.

Well yes, obviously they do hope people will pay it. I do disagree that the licensing is negligible. I wouldn't be surprised if the rightsholders wanted more of an iTunes model for the DLC. Yeah, they'd probably still be making some money at a buck a song, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are shelling out .50/.60 a song in royalties.

[delirium]

I have to admit I'm finding it pretty funny the outrage about a $2 song for a $90 game on a $400 console. heh

Again, it's the fact that they are bundling them up into packages over $6 that's the real kick in the nuts.

[flyinj]

Looks like Wired picked up on it too:

http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/04/guitar_hero_2_s.html

Replete with semi-illiterate troll "defending" it in the comments.

[Moore]

Well yes, obviously they do hope people will pay it. I do disagree that the licensing is negligible. I wouldn't be surprised if the rightsholders wanted more of an iTunes model for the DLC. Yeah, they'd probably still be making some money at a buck a song, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are shelling out .50/.60 a song in royalties.

The only 'royalty' (really just licensing) issue is with the songwriter. It shouldnt be too bad, and there are agencies to clear it. Plus, they did it for cheap enough for gh1, why is this more? same tune, nearly identical use. As for the recording, unless they are idiots, they own the masters of the recordings used in GH1 that were re-records (which means that noone is being paid to replay the bass track, they have it all already). Which, unless they were idiots, were done as works for hire, which means they own EVERYTHING and only need to pay for the license for using the written song. It isnt a bank breaker. It's likely very close (possibly the same, but I work w/ musicians, not writers, so I'm not 100%) to the same fee some shit band would pay out for doing a CD of beatles covers or something.

Anything using the ORIGINAL recording from the actual record will be really fucking expensive, depending on the tune, sometimes even if the record co. charged NOTHING it can be expensive based on the # of studio musicians (big time stars have a surprising amount of help in the studio)

[shift6]

Raise your hand if you understand that the price that they're charging for this DLC has almost no relationship to what it actually cost to produce it?

Nick seems to get it, no one else does. Well skedastic probably does too since he's a smarty man economist type.

They're charging what they think will maximize their profit, plain and simple.
So you only "get it" if you agree that it's a good deal? Does this logic apply to the PS3 also?

[Ben Sones]

First, it was "It's no work for them at all to make these available! It's outrageous pricing!"

Then it's "it doesn't matter that there's work involved to make these available! It's outrageous pricing!"

Then it's "since I'm pulling crap out of my ass, if you disagree with me you're a sucker!"

There is practically no work at all involved in making these available, no. The game is already designed and programmed. The tracks are already recorded. They even have notes for the lead guitar track already laid out, if they want to reuse it. The pricing is outrageous when you consider that the costs involved are obviously less than the cost of producing the songs from scratch and building an entire game around them, and yet they are still charging double the amount that they have charged for all song content previously. I mean, how hard is that to understand?

You are the only one pulling figures out of your ass--in this very post, even!...

Fact is, it cost more to license songs from GHI to use on the 360 via GHII. Adding a bass/rhythm line for co-op costs money. It might even cost as much as doing the original song, because it wasn't done for the PS2/GHI at all, requiring them to start from scratch. Then the songs had to be "tweaked" to get to the GHII HO/PO 'world' from the GHI version, which sucked (this might be minor, I don't know).

"The fact is?" Do you have inside information on what any of that really costs? How much have their license fees increased, and where did you find that information? Do you actually believe that "tweaking" existing tracks involves more development time/costs than making them from scratch? Or are you just making this shit up? (Rhetorical question).

The one thing we know for certain is how much they have had to charge to recoup their investment in every game to date (including GH2, which is comprised entirely of songs with both lead and bass/rhythm tracks and yet costs the same as GH1, which suggests that it's not that much more work to add that in). That's a benchmark that is a guaranteed indicator of what they can sell songs for while still turning a profit.

You think the price is too high, we get it. Don't buy the songs. Put a sock in it.

Ah, yes, the "Why don't you just shut up?" defense. Truly the pinnacle of rational debate. I concede defeat.

I have to admit I'm finding it pretty funny the outrage about a $2 song for a $90 game on a $400 console. heh

The fact that they are fucking you over in multiple small installments does not negate the fact that they are fucking you over, unless you are easily fooled by simple marketing tricks.

Look, we're all just going in circles here, so I'll leave it at that. If you think this is a good price for this content, great! I think it sucks.

[Moore]

Should be under 10 cents per song if they arent terribly long ones, according to HFA.

It is a set rate, no songwriter can say 'no, my song is 50 cents!' it is not set by the owner. They CAN say 'no, my song is 5 cents!' and negotiate down if they want, but not up.

This is why any punk band can do a britney spears cover (and record it, and sell the cd) and she cant stop them from being mocking assholes while singing it (not that she writes, but the point stands) They'd only be paying this small, set fee.

[Jason Cross]

They're charging what they think will maximize their profit, plain and simple.

Yeah, but I think they're looking at it too simply. They're probably guessing at what will produce the most profit on these particular song packs, in a very old-school sort of "economics I learned in college 15-20 years ago" way. They're probably not considering some relatively new considerations that have a very real impact on the overall economic impact of your stuff: the impact of ill will vs. good will from you customers (who all now have loud, far-reaching voices thanks to the 'net), the impact of generating sales for the core game by building a growing catalog of very affordable ala carte content, stuff like that, the way public perception of your product can change rapidly and have a direct impact on future products, etc.

They're maximizing short-term profit, but probably not thinking "will this piss off everyone to the point that fewer people buy Guitar Hero 3?" or "are we setting a precedent that will have longstanding impact on the critical reception and adoption rate of all the DLC we'll produce, for this product and others, for months/years to come?"

and yet they are still charging double the amount that they have charged for all song content previously

Oh, it's way more than double. These are direct digital downloads, with no manufacturing costs, shipping costs, retail markup, or in-store placement costs. You gotta take the wholesale cost of the original game, not the retail cost, and then subtract some of those things, to find out how the money compares.

[jeffd]

So you only "get it" if you agree that it's a good deal? Does this logic apply to the PS3 also?

Did someone put crazysauce on your lunch?

It has nothing to do with thinking it's a good deal (I don't think it is). You just have to realize that arguing about how much it costs relative to the cost of production is stupid because that's now how pricing works.

[Coca Cola Zero]

The prices on these are way too expensive and the bundling scheme makes it even worse. In general, the whole DLC pricing system has been leaving an increasingly bad taste in my mouth as of late. When I first got my 360, I was in love with Xbox Live, and now that is fading due to the fact that I feel like they are trying to nickle and dime me at every opportunity. I haven't bought anything off Live Arcade in months and it is going to take a miracle release to get me to start buying again.

[jeffd]

Jason: I agree 100%. The pricing is too high, and you've probably nailed the reason why too. I'm not sure it will turn people off of Guitar Hero 3 though.

I mean honestly, when making a purchasing decision who is going to think "Well, I really really loved Guitar Hero 1 and 2 but goddamn if I didn't get pissed off at the price of all that DLC so fuck them I'm not going to buy Guitar Hero 3"

[Moore]

The other little issue that might be getting joe sixpack pissy is that music has very little value these days, $1.00 a song is the max, really. It has to be because it competes with $0.00.

But he can buy bark at the moon for $1.00 from itunes, the real version. He can license it from Ozzy, record it himself for real, and release it at his whim for 9.1 cents. And RedOctane wants $2.00+ for their cover version + whatever scripting/coding takes place to add in the notes to play. Which is apparently easy enough that tons of pepole have done it themselves (in varying qaulity, admittedly) in the past.

JeffD: I dunno, I will hold off on gh3 for a long while now. Most people wont, so I'm sure you're right. It's not that they priced it at what they thought it'd sell at, it's that they've alrady sold it for less than half as much. Now their costs are DOWN and they more than double the price?

[jeffd]

Moore: Personally I think refusing to buy GH3 (assuming it's got a comparable list of songs to the previous two games) because you didn't like the DLC price is, uhh, pretty silly.

And they're doubling the price because that's what they figure they can sell them for. My guess is they won't sell too well and maybe the price of future content will come down.

[Moore]

Thats not entirely why I won't buy gh3 for a little while, it just helps cement my resolve. gh2 is my first gh, the sequel coming a few months later (october?) is a bit close for me. I wont even be good at expert by then. Also note I'm not refusing to buy, as you say, but holding off a bit. If theres a deal/fuckup like I got w/ gh2 I might bite (my gh2 was $70 w/ guitar)

Also, GTAIV will keep me pretty busy this fall/winter.

I'm just saying (re:the price) that they've already given people an expectation of price, NOW they have added 105% to it. It isnt exactly shocking me that there is a bit of reaction.

FWIW: I'm totally buying bark at the moon and ace of spades plus whatever the throwaway garbage shit song is with them, as soon as I get home, at their horrible price. It's super duper overpriced, but its still only $6.

[jeffd]

Yeah those are good reasons not to get GH3. :D

And I actually suspect that you're going to end up pretty typical. People are going to gripe at these prices, but at the end of the day I suspect they'll pay 'em.

[Moore]

Aye. The 'it is still only $6' is why microtransactions are evil. No matter what, if you want it even a tiny bit, you'll pay, because it's less than some hideous fun meal at carls jr. (I think? not a fast foodie)

[Coca Cola Zero]

And I actually suspect that you're going to end up pretty typical. People are going to gripe at these prices, but at the end of the day I suspect they'll pay 'em.

Maybe so, but Jason Cross is right about the long-term impact of ill will. I went and bought the Lumines DLC even though I thought it was expensive and had such a huge case of buyers remorse after the fact that it made me really wary of XBLA pricing in general. And since then I've passed on a lot of other things that I was interested in and probably would have bought in the past but didn't because my basic stance when it comes to buying off XBLA is now guarded because it felt like I've let myself get rolled by these guys in the past. They've put me in a state where I won't impulse buy even at low prices. I have to be sure I'll feel like I'm getting a fair deal to pull the trigger with new content now.

I'm absolutely not going to buy any of these songs at this price. I'm sure a lot of people will, but I won't. They could have easily gotten $25ish dollars off of me for the full GH1 lineup in one package, but as of now they get nothing.

[Ben Sones]

They should totally sell Halo 3 this way. Say it's 30 levels long; just break them all into seperate downloads and sell the game by level--$5 each. I mean, come on--$5? That's pocket change. How could anyone be unhappy with that kind of pricing?

[stusser]

Microtransactions not so micro, story at 11.

[ARogan]

They should totally sell Halo 3 this way. Say it's 30 levels long; just break them all into seperate downloads and sell the game by level--$5 each. I mean, come on--$5? That's pocket change. How could anyone be unhappy with that kind of pricing?

They've already done that except it's bundled with a helmet and is called Legendary.

[Myth]

I went and bought the Lumines DLC even though I thought it was expensive and had such a huge case of buyers remorse after the fact that it made me really wary of XBLA pricing in general.

My first purchase on XBox Live left a bad taste in my mouth as well. I wanted buy both Doom and Gauntlet from the Arcade, but to do so, I would have had to buy way more Microsoft Points than I needed. I don't recall the exact amount, but essentially to get something worth $10.00 I would have to spend $18.00.

Sure you can argue that well you still have the points and it will eventually even out, but at that time there was nothing else I was interested it. As a neophyte to the service I found that really disappointing, and I opted to buy just the one game. Sure I wanted both, and the issue wasn't 'oooh 18 dollars is a lot of money. It was the principle of the thing.

Much like SOE with its charging for extra character slots, adventure packs, web features, etc it leaves a bad taste in this consumers mouth and I no longer support any of their MMO's. There are just too many other competing products that are better.

Unfortunately with XBox Live if you really want it you have no choice, but personally I won't be buying anything DLC under their current pricing scheme. Hopefully we will see a change to this if Sony and the PS3 ever get their act together.

[Dave Long]

I'm not at all surprised at their pricing. Seems like a buck a song would've been fair, given iTunes charges the same, and these you can't even take with you. :)

[Beach123456]

Yeah, the price is a little over the top, but im not going to go out and boycott them. Ill leave it at only buying the ones that really interest me, such as pack 1, in this case.

[Linoleum]

The only 'royalty' (really just licensing) issue is with the songwriter. It shouldnt be too bad, and there are agencies to clear it.

Ah, good point, you're right. I'd only dealt with projects that licensed the actual original recordings.

[VegasRobb]

Good to know that I wasn't the only person left feeling a little toasty after buying Lumines.

[Moore]

I was pissed about lumines, and actually held strong and skipped it. Cutting a game in half? fuck that.

[Ben Sones]

I wasn't too pissed about Lumines, because while the idea of buying a game in chunks doesn't really appeal to me, at least the cumulative price of the chunks was commensurate with previous versions of the game. This reminds me more of their pricing for downloadable media--particularly TV shows, which are absurdly overpriced.

[Dave Long]

I definitely don't feel bad about getting the PS2 version back at Christmas. $10 cheaper out of the box and access to all of these songs in one $50 game that you guys will get fleeced for in expensive packs. It's really hard to justify the 360 version over the PS2 if you own both systems.

[rjcc]

I definitely don't feel bad about getting the PS2 version back at Christmas. $10 cheaper out of the box and access to all of these songs in one $50 game that you guys will get fleeced for in expensive packs. It's really hard to justify the 360 version over the PS2 if you own both systems.

....sure, so you have to buy all the songs at once, don't get to play with a second player on them, and have an entirely different game and save file.
that's such an excellent use of 50 bucks.

That's not really better.

[Jason Cross]

I mean honestly, when making a purchasing decision who is going to think "Well, I really really loved Guitar Hero 1 and 2 but goddamn if I didn't get pissed off at the price of all that DLC so fuck them I'm not going to buy Guitar Hero 3"

I dunno, if the developers start talking about how GH3 will have all kinds of downloadable tracks afterwards, I'm gonna immediately think "well if they're $6.25 for three songs, then the hell with GH3."

There are studies being conducted these days in business schools and market research firms about the impact of the internet on traditional models of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. All the rules about pricing and marketing have changed (well, are changing, anyway. The games business is probably on the forefront of it).

I don't think anyone really knows the impact of doing one or two small things that piss off your happy customers anymore. At least not when your customers are an internet-savvy group like gamers. Marketers and bean-counters used to be able to manage that risk, but not anymore.

All I know is that this kind of pricing for GH2 add-on songs, especially right up front, says to me that nobody bothered to consider it. This is the kind of crap you can pull a year after release when you have sold 2 million copies of GH2 on 360, and can say "let's milk those last die-hard players that are even paying attention anymore." This isn't the kind of thing you can pull a week after release when you're still trying to get that first ramp of customers.

I mean, I was kind of their dream customer. Preordered the game, was sitting on some MS points all ready to download some of my GH1 songs (when I already own GH1!). Not at all squeamish about digital distribution stuff and buying things online. And in one fell swoop they made it so I won't even consider buying those song packs, or any future song packs with remotely similar pricing.

[Dave Long]

....sure, so you have to buy all the songs at once, don't get to play with a second player on them, and have an entirely different game and save file.
that's such an excellent use of 50 bucks.

That's not really better.
Most people play the game alone and not in multiplayer, especially not with two people playing guitar and bass. So I'm not really sure that first thing makes a difference to most.

Also, I'd rather pay $50 for a complete game with entirely different venues and different characters than per song (or in bundlepacks).

Why having a different game disc and save file matters to you, I will never ever figure out.

[forgeforsaken]

The problem is this crap is pretty much happening on all three "next gen" consoles. I mean Wii VC pricing is a joke too. Sony actually are the only ones still kind of up in the air but some of the stuff they talked about/showed makes it look like they are going to fall right in line with Microsoft.

[rjcc]

Most people play the game alone and not in multiplayer, especially not with two people playing guitar and bass. So I'm not really sure that first thing makes a difference to most.

Also, I'd rather pay $50 for a complete game with entirely different venues and different characters than per song (or in bundlepacks).

Why having a different game disc and save file matters to you, I will never ever figure out.

I understand that you're a FUDer of all things 360, but I can't really believe that you prefer to play an entirely different, earlier, game to get those extra songs. All things being equal, I'd much rather have the benefits of the newer game than have different venues and characters.

I'd also rather be able to pick up a couple songs, for a few dollars, than face an all or nothing $50 disc that requires me to unlock every song all over again.

How you know how many people do or don't play multiplayer, I will never ever figure out

[forgeforsaken]

And Practice Mode is a pretty big deal IMO. Not having that in GH1 sucks!

[Dave Long]

I understand that you're a FUDer of all things 360, but I can't really believe that you prefer to play an entirely different, earlier, game to get those extra songs. All things being equal, I'd much rather have the benefits of the newer game than have different venues and characters.

I'd also rather be able to pick up a couple songs, for a few dollars, than face an all or nothing $50 disc that requires me to unlock every song all over again.

How you know how many people do or don't play multiplayer, I will never ever figure out
I figured the only reason you quoted me and posted a follow up is because you follow me around Qt3 like dannimal. Thanks for verifying that for me.

Bye!

[Moore]

I wasn't too pissed about Lumines, because while the idea of buying a game in chunks doesn't really appeal to me, at least the cumulative price of the chunks was commensurate with previous versions of the game. This reminds me more of their pricing for downloadable media--particularly TV shows, which are absurdly overpriced.

huh? I thought the initial buy only had a few skins? the psp version is cheap as hell and loaded w/ skins.

[Dave Long]

The problem is this crap is pretty much happening on all three "next gen" consoles. I mean Wii VC pricing is a joke too. Sony actually are the only ones still kind of up in the air but some of the stuff they talked about/showed makes it look like they are going to fall right in line with Microsoft.
Take a look at the price you'd pay to get the games offered on Virtual Console. The eBay prices are usually the same or much higher. Sorry. Those definitely aren't overpriced.

...and if you say Game X isn't worth $5 because it sucks or something similar, consider that you can say that about any current release at $50 too.

[Reldan]

They've kinda painted themselves in a corner with the pricing here. I can't imagine them lowering the price any time soon because that would royally piss off anyone who already bought the packs. I also can't imagine them doing future releases for less than the current price, because that would seem odd.

The only thing I can think they might do is start selling singles for $2.50, for which the number of songs from GH1 I'd pay that much for goes down from 20ish to 10ish.

[Moore]

I'm actually not minding the classic game prices on XBLA (the wii prices sound ok to me as well, considering what games they have)

pacman is worth 5$, it just IS. It's fucking pacman. and yes, even w/ ms. coming later and probably JR someday (which I finally got to play just in 07!)

[Coca Cola Zero]

The Wii VC prices are generally reasonable, but Nintendo would be getting a lot more from me if they were less. If the games were about half the price they are now, I'd make a lot more impulse buys of games I never tried before or games that have nostalgic value that I'd like to see run but don't think I'd play a significant way through again. At the current pricing, I've only bought 4 games.

[rjcc]

I figured the only reason you post the insane rants that you do is because you don't think these things through. Thanks for verifying that for me.

Bye!

Toodles.

[jim crawford]

I don't know what you guys are bitching about. Being able to play the bass part in "Higher Ground" is worth $6 all by itself.

[Justin Fletcher]

I'm absolutely not going to buy any of these songs at this price. I'm sure a lot of people will, but I won't. They could have easily gotten $25ish dollars off of me for the full GH1 lineup in one package, but as of now they get nothing.
Hell, they could have gotten the full retail of $60 out of me. All I really want is a release of the first game for the 360. But this bundle system at this price point ain't gonna cut it.

[Quaro]

The Wii VC prices are generally reasonable, but Nintendo would be getting a lot more from me if they were less. If the games were about half the price they are now, I'd make a lot more impulse buys of games I never tried before or games that have nostalgic value that I'd like to see run but don't think I'd play a significant way through again. At the current pricing, I've only bought 4 games.

That's pretty much how I feel. I've bought 3 games, 3 AAA titles that I know are good and I've played before. I wouldn't mind trying some of the more obscure games (especially all the TG 16 games, none of which I've ever played) but it's just not cheap enough to experiment with.

[Funkula]

huh? I thought the initial buy only had a few skins? the psp version is cheap as hell and loaded w/ skins. I'm not too sure on the absolute numbers, since I haven't played the PSP version. I know that the base mode has quite a few skins (I think I've gotten to about 12 of them...I feel like I'm getting close to the end, but I've plateaued and can't complete it). I picked it up when they were offering the second round of content for ridiculously low prices. However, I don't remember which modes those were...Vs. and Time Attack maybe? Anyway, point is, I paid a total of 1400 pts and have 20+ skins unlocked. I don't intend to purchase the advance pack for Challenge Mode until I can beat base easily.

[SRFisher]

I have GH1 and GH2 for the PS2, with 2 guitars, and was steeling myself to upgrade to the 360 version. Co-op mode, Practice mode, and the lure of brand new downloadable tracks make it worth it. But at these prices, no effin' way. Especially since RedOctane apparently won't be releasing every GH1 track

To be charitable, perhaps they've calculated that $2.08 per song is what's needed for development costs of brand new, never-released-on-GH1 songs. That is, perhaps they fear the backlash after a brutal increase from(say) $1 a track right now and $2.08 later on. (The drawback, of course, is that people like me won't even bother to get the main game.)

If Activision releases a song pack with every GH1 track for $50 -- the same price as GH1 without the controller -- they so have me.

[shang]

That's pretty much how I feel. I've bought 3 games, 3 AAA titles that I know are good and I've played before. I wouldn't mind trying some of the more obscure games (especially all the TG 16 games, none of which I've ever played) but it's just not cheap enough to experiment with.

Nintendo seriously needs a system where you can download free demos of all the VC games to experiment. I can't imagine anyone buying the lesser known titles.

[Midnight Son]

....sure, so you have to buy all the songs at once, don't get to play with a second player on them, and have an entirely different game and save file.
that's such an excellent use of 50 bucks.

That's not really better.

Well, gee, the PS2 versions came out way before the 360 so having them isn't a problem, now is it?

[DaveC]

Take a look at the price you'd pay to get the games offered on Virtual Console. The eBay prices are usually the same or much higher. Sorry. Those definitely aren't overpriced.

...and if you say Game X isn't worth $5 because it sucks or something similar, consider that you can say that about any current release at $50 too.

WTF do eBay prices have to do with VC pricing? Unlike you I don't have a NES, SNES or N64 laying around hooked up to my TV so it doesn't matter. I am pretty sure that applies to most other folks as well.

[forgeforsaken]

WTF do eBay prices have to do with VC pricing? Unlike you I don't have a NES, SNES or N64 laying around hooked up to my TV so it doesn't matter. I am pretty sure that applies to most other folks as well.

Haha, did you expect Dave Long not to jump in and defend the Wii no matter what? That's part of the reason I brought up VC prices ;)

[DaveC]

Haha, did you expect Dave Long not to jump in and defend the Wii no matter what? That's part of the reason I brought up VC prices ;)

Like somehow the price people pay on eBay has anything to do with something's real value.

[Ben Sones]

It's really hard to justify the 360 version over the PS2 if you own both systems.

The 360 version has more 10 more songs than the PS2 version, which makes it well worth the extra $10. Again, that's the sort of value that I was expecting out of the downloadables. I still don't regret getting it, even if the DLC is kind of a bust. It's worth it just for the extra songs and the online leaderboards (and Achievements!). And the multiplayer really is fun. GH2 is a great party game; I'm surprised that someone who "gets" the social appeal of the Wii with its special controller would be so quick to poo-poo GH for having exactly the same appeal. Because it totally does.

Take a look at the price you'd pay to get the games offered on Virtual Console. The eBay prices are usually the same or much higher. Sorry. Those definitely aren't overpriced.

So if THQ decided to do a rerelease of Freespace, they should charge... what? $100? ;)

Seriously, I don't have a problem with the pricing of games on either the VC or XBLA in general. The GH2 song pack pricing is definitely too high, though.

[fuzzyslug]

I have GH1 and GH2 for the PS2, with 2 guitars, and was steeling myself to upgrade to the 360 version. Co-op mode, Practice mode, and the lure of brand new downloadable tracks make it worth it. But at these prices, no effin' way. Especially since RedOctane apparently won't be releasing every GH1 track

To be charitable, perhaps they've calculated that $2.08 per song is what's needed for development costs of brand new, never-released-on-GH1 songs. That is, perhaps they fear the backlash after a brutal increase from(say) $1 a track right now and $2.08 later on. (The drawback, of course, is that people like me won't even bother to get the main game.)

If Activision releases a song pack with every GH1 track for $50 -- the same price as GH1 without the controller -- they so have me.

I'm in the same boat. I sorely tempted (or was sorely tempted) to make the 360 plunge for the downloadable content, the achievements, and having the "best" version going forward. Now I realize just how expensive it's going to be. I'm going to be lazy and not look who said it but, I agree, $6 is not a microtransaction. I suggest we change the vocabulary.

If it makes you feel better, I predict that they'll bundle of bunch of these downloadable songs into a disk for the PS2. They might enjoy the downloadable revenue from the 360 but their real audience is still on the PS2. They won't turn that money down.

[rjcc]

Well, gee, the PS2 versions came out way before the 360 so having them isn't a problem, now is it?

He said that buying them now, or last christmas, was a better value.

[Moore]

I'm not too sure on the absolute numbers, since I haven't played the PSP version. I know that the base mode has quite a few skins (I think I've gotten to about 12 of them...I feel like I'm getting close to the end, but I've plateaued and can't complete it). I picked it up when they were offering the second round of content for ridiculously low prices. However, I don't remember which modes those were...Vs. and Time Attack maybe? Anyway, point is, I paid a total of 1400 pts and have 20+ skins unlocked. I don't intend to purchase the advance pack for Challenge Mode until I can beat base easily.

Oh the psp version has tons more than that. It has like 40, the 360 version has 12. The psp one is under $20 and was @ $20 for ages. Lumines 2 is also cheap and has 80 skins.

[sluggo]

So, it's been a little more than 24 hours since the DLC came out. Through nothing more than online chatter and word of mouth, nearly 10k of the 220k people on the leaderboards have Bark at the Moon. That's astounding to me. Can you imagine what that number would look like if they had little flashing in-game alerts saying "Downloadable Songs Now Available!"?

I think a number of people in this thread have grossly underestimated the value people place on new Guitar Hero content. I think Activision / Red Octane are going to rake in a fortune at $2 a song, and always have the option of doing a discounted bundle down the road to placate the unhappy minority.

[ashileedo]

So, it's been a little more than 24 hours since the DLC came out. Through nothing more than online chatter and word of mouth, nearly 10k of the 220k people on the leaderboards have Bark at the Moon. That's astounding to me. Can you imagine what that number would look like if they had little flashing in-game alerts saying "Downloadable Songs Now Available!"?

I think a number of people in this thread have grossly underestimated the value people place on new Guitar Hero content. I think Activision / Red Octane are going to rake in a fortune at $2 a song, and always have the option of doing a discounted bundle down the road to placate the unhappy minority.

they may also release a retail bundle that has all the DLC on it, as well. cod2 released a goty version with the dlc map packs in it. so if you don't buy it now, hopefully be able to pick it up in the gh2 super pack version.

[skedastic]

I'm also astounded by 10k out of 220k buying the song pack with BatM (presumably the most popular one), but I'm astounded that so few people have purchased the song pack. That's less than 5%, and the 220k who have purchased the game in the first week will disproportionately include both GH fanatics and relatively wealthy people.

I don't know what the per-download cost (royalties, and bandwidth or other charges from MS), nor do I know the elasticity of demand, but my guess is that they're charging a price which is higher than the monopoly profit-maximizing price, even without taking into account the possibility that high prices will decrease future sales by damaging good will. That is, I'd guess that they'd make more profits, and fans would be happier, if they lowered the price.

[playingwithknives]

They will sell well, and we'll be hit by this again and again. A few years down the line, they will try it so we have to pay every time we want to play the game. How about multiplayer for 25 points a go?

All because the silent majority will buy no matter what. Sheep with wallets, basically.

Edge had an article on DLC and had a quote from some smug fucker from Bethesda or MS going on about how horse armour still sells today, so all the complaints were pointless.

[Ben Sones]

Yeah, that number just doesn't seem that great to me. It's only been out a day, I know, but still, only 10k out of 220k players bought it? That's pretty low for something should be an incredibly easy sell--extra content that's just a click away. Especially when your audience is 220k early adopters who have already demonstrated a willingness to drop $90 to get their jam on.

I think Activision / Red Octane are going to rake in a fortune at $2 a song, and always have the option of doing a discounted bundle down the road to placate the unhappy minority.

There's actually some danger in doing that as well, though--you risk making people wary of purchasing new DLC. The guy who buys a $6.25 song pack on day one only to see the price drop at some point after his purchase is going to think twice about jumping on the DLC bandwagon right away the next time around. If they want to drop prices, they'd need to wait a good long while; mostl likely they'd synch the drop with the release of GH3.

[DaveC]

They will sell well, and we'll be hit by this again and again. A few years down the line, they will try it so we have to pay every time we want to play the game. How about multiplayer for 25 points a go?

All because the silent majority will buy no matter what. Sheep with wallets, basically.

Edge had an article on DLC and had a quote from some smug fucker from Bethesda or MS going on about how horse armour still sells today, so all the complaints were pointless.

Slippery slope much? It's one thing to charge for content, but you are leaping off a pretty high ledge to claim that we'll all line up to pay per game session.

[playingwithknives]

I got stung on a name change and a Chromehounds weapons pack, so I've been weary of DLC for quite some time.

I have the PS2 GH2 but I was thinking of getting the 360 version, and held off for a while to see what the DLC would be like. I'm glad I held off now, I will pick up GH1 when I see it cheap somewhere.

[Ben]

$2 a song actually wouldn't be so bad. $6 for carefully chosen "1 famous, 2 neverheardof" bundlefucks? That's significantly worse than $2 a song.

[Ben Sones]

Yeah, I agree. I think even $2 a song (individually) is too high, but I'd probably grit my teeth and do it, if only for songs that I really love. But the bundles make it even worse. I might cave and pay $2 for Bark at the Moon, but there's no way I'm paying $6.25 for it.

If they went for $1 or $1.25 (100 points) per song, I'd probably buy most of the DLC, skipping only the songs that I actively hate.

[Rorschach]

Reading between the lines of MajorNelson's Joystiq interview it would seem that the $2.08 is a bargain price because of the bundling. Would you be willing to pay $3 a song if you could choose the song?

[Ben]

Yes, there are songs that $3 per would not be bad. $3 for an original(non-GH1) song that I really, really like? That might fly. Better than $6 for Bark at the Moon.

I assumed before release the DLC would come in bundlefucks, but I thought it would be more like 10 songs for $12 or something.

[Reldan]

Reading between the lines of MajorNelson's Joystiq interview it would seem that the $2.08 is a bargain price because of the bundling. Would you be willing to pay $3 a song if you could choose the song?

Major Nelson also does some hand waiving and drops words like re-licensing costs/testing/digital distribution, then says the pricing really is set by Red Octane and that "it is what it is."

My "between-the-lines" reader detected that Major Nelson knows the excuses are pretty weak, the pricing is bullshit, and that he doesn't have much choice but to defend it because that's his job.

If you got out of that interview that $2.08 is in actually some sort of a bundle-bargain price you may want to get your "between-the-lines" reader checked.

And there are maybe three songs from GH I'd pay $3 for.

[Nick Walter]

And there are maybe three songs from GH I'd pay $3 for.

Did you buy GH1? Because I recall it costing like $90 with the guitar included and it included 30 songs. That averages out to about $3 a song, and you couldn't even pick which ones you did and didn't want. What bundlefuckery!

[Ben Sones]

It included 47 songs, and cost $40 without the guitar (and $70 with the guitar, not $90).

[Nick Walter]

It included 47 songs, and cost $40 without the guitar (and $70 with the guitar, not $90).

$70? I must be remembering GH2. I remember it being like 79.99 which, local taxes included, made it effectively $90.

[Reldan]

Did you buy GH1? Because I recall it costing like $90 with the guitar included and it included 30 songs. That averages out to about $3 a song, and you couldn't even pick which ones you did and didn't want. What bundlefuckery!

Actually I bought it, played through it, and then gave it to a friend as a gift for letting me crash at his place for a few days.

As I recall the original GH cost $70 and, as you pointed out, came with the guitar. It also had more than 30 songs. I seem to already have a guitar controller (which seems to be 2/3rd of the cost of the game based upon Red Octane's retail pricing), because I paid for it when I bought GH2.

Unless you're actually implying that the guitar costs negative money to manufacture, ship, and sell, I really am failing to see your point. You aren't implying that, are you? It's hard to tell anymore because your arguments don't seem to have any basis in reality to begin with.

Using my ninja math and logic, I paid $70 for the original GH. If I pretend that God wrote all of the code for the game engine and created the visual assets, and then gave it to Red Octane pro bono, and that copies of the game spontaneously generated and magically teleported themselves onto my local store shelves for me to purchase, I figure that I paid $30 for the guitar and $40 for the game. So, once again, assuming Divine Intervention allowed everything but the guitar and the songs themselves to magically happen for free, I'm still only paying <$1 per song.

But hey, don't let facts and logic stop you from your crusade to be a fanboy for... corporate gouging and bundlefuckery?

[Bee]

I'm surprised no one is complaining about the cost of the guitar. The ones I have seen are selling for $60 for the 360 and from what everyone is saying the old ones that came with the original GH1 were $30 I guess according to most of the math being thrown around in this thread. Everyone is ok with the price of the controller doubling, but not the price of the songs?

[Nick Walter]

Actually I bought it, played through it, and then gave it to a friend as a gift for letting me crash at his place for a few days.

As I recall the original GH cost $70 and, as you pointed out, came with the guitar. It also had more than 30 songs. I seem to already have a guitar controller (which seems to be 2/3rd of the cost of the game based upon Red Octane's retail pricing), because I paid for it when I bought GH2.

Unless you're actually implying that the guitar costs negative money to manufacture, ship, and sell, I really am failing to see your point. You aren't implying that, are you? It's hard to tell anymore because your arguments don't seem to have any basis in reality to begin with.

Using my ninja math and logic, I paid $70 for the original GH. If I pretend that God wrote all of the code for the game engine and created the visual assets, and then gave it to Red Octane pro bono, and that copies of the game spontaneously generated and magically teleported themselves onto my local store shelves for me to purchase, I figure that I paid $30 for the guitar and $40 for the game. So, once again, assuming Divine Intervention allowed everything but the guitar and the songs themselves to magically happen for free, I'm still only paying <$1 per song.


In the context of GH1, you can't separate out the cost of the guitar because at the time it had zero use outside of playing GH1. A person who bought GH1 pretty much had to buy a guitar. It was part and parcel of the cost of playing those 30 songs. Oh oops, I forgot the 17 indie tracks that nobody really likes or plays, so I meant 47 songs.


But hey, don't let facts and logic stop you from your crusade to be a fanboy for... corporate gouging and bundlefuckery?

And don't let facts and logic stop you from crying like a baby because people don't give you things you want for free. But don't give up, using the power of the internetz I bet you can convince them to reduce the price. Have you tried an online petition?

[Wholly Schmidt]

In the context of GH1, you can't separate out the cost of the guitar because at the time it had zero use outside of playing GH1. A person who bought GH1 pretty much had to buy a guitar. It was part and parcel of the cost of playing those 30 songs. Oh oops, I forgot the 17 indie tracks that nobody really likes or plays, so I meant 47 songs.
Well if we're going to set our way-back machines for when GH1 with a guitar was the only way to play any of these songs, we can just stop fighting right now because the Xbox 360 had not even been released. But that was then, and this is now. Now, a PS2 Guitar Hero 2 owner can go out and buy GH1 without the controller. So it's a pretty valid topic.

[Jonathan Blow]

Lest we forget, Nick was the mastermind of the "none of you could possibly have dated anyone more attractive than the frumpy girl in that craigslist ad -- show pictures to prove me wrong, haha, I bet you can't" part of that Other Thread.

[delirium]

Oh oops, I forgot the 17 indie tracks that nobody really likes or plays, so I meant 47 songs.

Speak for yourself. Some of my favorite songs from GH were the indie songs. I would pay more than $2 for Caveman Rejoice.

[Reldan]

And don't let facts and logic stop you from crying like a baby because people don't give you things you want for free. But don't give up, using the power of the internetz I bet you can convince them to reduce the price. Have you tried an online petition?

Is it the reading or the comprehending you have a problem with? Both? I never once said anything about wanting stuff for free. I want stuff at a reasonable price. They've got a monopoly on providing this content, and yes, they can charge whatever they want. They are choosing to be irresponsible and are resorting to gouging tactics to turn a short-term profit.

And do you really think that the amount of public outcry is going to go unnoticed? Will we see a reduction of price? Doubtful. They may rethink their current pricing and bundling tactics for future releases though. Right now I don't think anyone is buying the DLC and thinking, "this is so cool that I can click a button to get even more GH2." They're thinking, "fuck, I hope I'm not out of astroglide." That's not the PR they want, and in this case the "power of the internetz" is in it's capacity to reflect public opinion immediately. The hand-written letters will still need a few days to start flooding in.

[EvilIdler]

Actually I bought it, played through it, and then gave it to a friend as a gift for letting me crash at his place for a few days.

Bring any spare instruments you have if you're coming to Europe!! :P


corporate gouging and bundlefuckery
I'm not really sure what to think about this bundling. I know there's more work
than simply recording - motion capture and whatnot? Surround mixing and making
the tabs displayed for sure. The licensing itself is pretty cheap, but they're also
paying their musicians to record it. All the music must also have matching
volume levels (normalised sound), so they're paying a decent technician.

I guess they can make all that look like a hefty expense. What I don't like is
that they're not actually micro transactions. You're paying for three songs;
if you could buy just one, they would be proper micro transactions. I'd be more
willing to pay the per-song price if I really could get just one song at a time,
but right now only the first bundle looks a little tempting, because of two songs.

The least they could do now is to offer a masseuse to everyone who buys the
downloads. My hands will never be the same again.

[Rorschach]

If you got out of that interview that $2.08 is in actually some sort of a bundle-bargain price you may want to get your "between-the-lines" reader checked.
I don't think it's a bargain price. I was stating that MN is inferring it is a discounted bundle and individual songs would be more that $2 each. Here's the quote from the interview.
We've talked about what it takes to get content onto Marketplace. You guys know: it has to be processed, it has to be developed. Is it easier to process one song and release it and would have it to be more expensive? Or can you take some of that development, bundle it together, and drop the price down. All those songs have to go through that process. If you have three songs entering the approval process, individually, that's three times more problems--and there's more probability for error. So, let's bundle them together, and test them as a unit and drive the price down.
Personally I think it's overpriced and will probably pick up a pack or two of my favorites and wait until GH3 for new songs.

[Ben]

Wow is that a terrible argument. It's a song, not an expansion pack. Why would testing time change between 3 individual songs and 3 bundled songs? Also, no, Microsoft, you can't blame your own approval process.

[Gunmetal]

Did you buy GH1? Because I recall it costing like $90 with the guitar included and it included 30 songs. That averages out to about $3 a song, and you couldn't even pick which ones you did and didn't want. What bundlefuckery!
So it was free to program the game and create all the art assets? Are you fucking retarded?

[Nick Walter]

So it was free to program the game and create all the art assets? Are you fucking retarded?

The costs they incurred are irrelevant. If something is a good value at purchase price X because it's worth Y entertainment then it's a good value. No other factors to the equation. That's how economics works.

I'm oversimplifying of course, but then so is everyone who is decrying the bundlefuckery and high prices for the retread GH1 tracks.

[Nick Walter]

Wow is that a terrible argument. It's a song, not an expansion pack. Why would testing time change between 3 individual songs and 3 bundled songs? Also, no, Microsoft, you can't blame your own approval process.

Because certain tests have to be done three times instead of once in a bundled scenario. This is just how software testing works.

Sure the installer and download packages and so forth might be the same across all three songs but you never know when you are going to hit an edge case scenario where song X has a few more bytes than any previously released song and the installer that worked fine for every other downloadable song suddenly barfs and dies on this one . . .

[Ben Sones]

In the context of GH1, you can't separate out the cost of the guitar because at the time it had zero use outside of playing GH1. A person who bought GH1 pretty much had to buy a guitar. It was part and parcel of the cost of playing those 30 songs. Oh oops, I forgot the 17 indie tracks that nobody really likes or plays, so I meant 47 songs.

I had to buy a guitar to play GH2 songs as well. So that means... what? That the downloadables are even more expensive? You can't even start playing then until you spend $90 on the game--it's part and parcel of the cost of playing those extra songs. Does that mean the bundles cost $96.25?

[flyinj]

And don't let facts and logic stop you from crying like a baby because people don't give you things you want for free. But don't give up, using the power of the internetz I bet you can convince them to reduce the price. Have you tried an online petition?

Woohoo! Only 147 posts in before someone calls someone else a whining idiot child in a thread about getting screwed over by Microsoft!

[Myth]

Because certain tests have to be done three times instead of once in a bundled scenario. This is just how software testing works.

Sure the installer and download packages and so forth might be the same across all three songs but you never know when you are going to hit an edge case scenario where song X has a few more bytes than any previously released song and the installer that worked fine for every other downloadable song suddenly barfs and dies on this one . . .

Not that anyone outside Red Octane knows but the song tracks are likely a .dat or similar type extension which are downloaded into the "Songs" directory in the GH2 directory. Much like a add on level to Doom, Quake, (.pak). I don't thing there is a reason why one couldn't buy the songs they want individually, like I Tunes. I really think you are stretching it.

Sure it's fun to argue minutae, but why can't everyone admit that the pricing strategy is not consumer friendly because you are forced to buy multiple bundles to obtain the songs you really want. That's how they are designed.

[EDIT For LAME ANALOGY] It's like going to Blockbuster and wanting to rent 'The Departed' but being told you also have to rent 'Showgirls' and 'The Black Dahlia' as well.

Some people here care about it, others don't and will buy the songs regardless. It's as really simple as that.

[Reldan]

Woohoo! Only 147 posts in before someone calls someone else a whining idiot child in a thread about getting screwed over by Microsoft!

Microsoft isn't producing this DLC and Microsoft didn't make GH2. The screwee in this instance is Red Octane.


The costs they incurred are irrelevant. If something is a good value at purchase price X because it's worth Y entertainment then it's a good value. No other factors to the equation. That's how economics works.

I'm oversimplifying of course, but then so is everyone who is decrying the bundlefuckery and high prices for the retread GH1 tracks.


The reason I bought GH2 for the 360 instead of the PS2 was because I expected the additional value of the DLC to make the 360 version better. I am willing to pay $90 for the game bundle in order to get the guitar - paying a high upfront cost for the sake of getting future value out of it. The cost of the guitar is most definately not irrelevant.

Your logic is simply tarded. By your logic, if I pay $660 for a PS3 and a game, and then I play it and get 20 hours worth of entertainment value, then a future game that would entertain me for another 20 hours should also cost $660 because I've demonstrated I'm willing to pay that much for 20 hours of entertainment and the costs incurred are irrelevant. Price X and value Y and all that.

[Reldan]

I'm not really sure what to think about this bundling. I know there's more work
than simply recording - motion capture and whatnot? Surround mixing and making
the tabs displayed for sure. The licensing itself is pretty cheap, but they're also
paying their musicians to record it. All the music must also have matching
volume levels (normalised sound), so they're paying a decent technician.


The main point is that we're talking about GH1 songs, the work on which have already paid for themselves in spades. There's no additional recording needed, just remixing and creating a new rhythm or bass tab. And paying the cheap licensing. Also the digital distribution through Live should further reduce the costs since there is no marketing, manufacture, or retailing costs this time around. Also, we can infer from the pricing of the GH1 and GH2 games that they can still turn a profit selling the songs at under $1 apiece, and that's ignoring the cost of developing everything else that goes into these games, plus the marketing, manufacture, and retailing costs.

[Ben Sones]

I don't mean to derail a perfectly good rant about Nick's nonsensical argument, but here's a serious question: why is there any filler at all in the song packs? They could have picked any songs they wanted for these packs, and they've already stated that they aren't porting over all of the GH1 songs, so it's not like they were obligated to try to sell songs that nobody wants. Why didn't they just go for the jugular and and fill the first batch of song packs with the nine most popular songs from the first game? People still would have bitched about the price, but they might complain less about the bundling if all of the songs in the bundles were songs that they wanted. I doubt anyone would bitch about having to buy Iron Man along with Bark at the Moon, for instance.

[Gladguy]

Microsoft isn't producing this DLC and Microsoft didn't make GH2. The screwee in this instance is Red Octane.
Actually, the screwee in this instance is the home user. Red Octane is the screwer. But, as always, Microsoft is left holding the bag.

Unfortunately, that's how they've set it up by making Live a closed, proprietary system.

[delirium]

I doubt anyone would bitch about having to buy Iron Man along with Bark at the Moon, for instance.

I would =)

Iron Man is so boring to play.

[Drastic]

Why didn't they just go for the jugular and and fill the first batch of song packs with the nine most popular songs from the first game?
This old joke comes to mind:

An old bull and a young bull were standing at the top of a hill looking down at the pasture. "Hey, pa!" says the youngster, "let's run down there and fuck some of them cows."

The old bull deliberates and says, "No. Let's walk down there and fuck all of them cows."

Going for the jugular is only fucking some of them cows, you see.

[Wholly Schmidt]

I don't mean to derail a perfectly good rant about Nick's nonsensical argument, but here's a serious question: why is there any filler at all in the song packs? They could have picked any songs they wanted for these packs, and they've already stated that they aren't porting over all of the GH1 songs, so it's not like they were obligated to try to sell songs that nobody wants. Why didn't they just go for the jugular and and fill the first batch of song packs with the nine most popular songs from the first game? People still would have bitched about the price, but they might complain less about the bundling if all of the songs in the bundles were songs that they wanted. I doubt anyone would bitch about having to buy Iron Man along with Bark at the Moon, for instance.
There could be issues with what songs work well for all the new play modes GH2 introduced that affects song choice, as well as the whole subjective nature of what's "filler" in the first place. I don't understand the hate for Stellar, for example. It's one of my favorite songs to play.

[Ben Sones]

I don't hate Stellar; I love it. In fact, I'd say that pack is easily the strongest of the bunch--three solid songs. But the two other songs in the Ozzy pack are meh, and the second pack is none too great, either.

[Wholly Schmidt]

I wasn't accusing you of being a Stellar hater in particular. Just pointing out that taste is all over the place. I feel like it's the strongest of the three packs as well.

[StGabe]

Meh. This has significantly reduced the likelihood of me repurchasing the game for the 360. Sad, that. I really wanted to play The Toadies song.

I just read the interview by Major Nelson. Working in vaguely similar industries (cell phone games, where carriers play the role of MS and control the market, pick price points, force defelopers to jump through ridiculous hoops and such) I think he is COMPLETELY FULLY OF SHIT. Nice spin and all but seriously ... bundlefucks are so they can reduce testing costs? They set the fucking testing restrictions. Not to mention that QA costs nothing compared to licensing. Not to mention that there is no way they aren't taking half the gross (i.e. "Red Octane has to make a profit after licensing fees" = "Red Octane has to make a profit after we assrape their margin"). Lying fucker. Notice he never says that RO is getting charged more for songs. Just a bunch of spinful insinuation. And leaderboard developing cost is a big deal??? Fuck me. Is it really that hard to plug into an existing, tested, developed framework? If so, who the fuck's fault is that? Pigfucker.

It would be great for the PS3 to pick up GH and release songs for significantly less. Doubtful but still, would be a great win for them.

[skedastic]

http://gucomics.com/comics/2007/gu_20070412.jpg (http://www.guforums.com/showthread.php?t=10969)

[BobJustBob]

These days I'm coming painfully close to hating webcomic authors more than furries.

[DaveC]

Unfortunately, that's how they've set it up by making Live a closed, proprietary system.

As opposed to what? The wild open field that is PC gaming? That works for some things, but if you want a consistent, unified experience closed systems are best.

[EvilIdler]

These days I'm coming painfully close to hating webcomic authors more than furries.

So block GUComics, then :)

[mouselock]

Not to mention that there is no way they aren't taking half the gross (i.e. "Red Octane has to make a profit after licensing fees" = "Red Octane has to make a profit after we assrape their margin").


Any chance that, like discs, MS has a straight flat licensing fee rather than a percentage based fee. (Or a percentage on top of a flat fee?)

If so that alone would explain bundling and the price. If MS charges a flat $1 per DLC released plus, say, 5%, suddenly RO simply can't release individual songs and make any money.

[Ben Sones]

That would be a pretty foolish policy for Microsoft to have if they were trying to encourage microtransactions. It's a strong incentive for publishers to make all of their downloads more expensive. I don't know if they have such a policy, but I'd be sort of surprised if they did.

[EvilIdler]

I don't know if they have such a policy, but I'd be sort of surprised if they did.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9016401&pageNumber=1

"Crashes aren't a bug, they're a feature."

The Microsoft behind that statement can't surprise me anymore :)

[skedastic]

Any chance that, like discs, MS has a straight flat licensing fee rather than a percentage based fee. (Or a percentage on top of a flat fee?)


I have no idea, but that would be a poor pricing strategy. Adding such a fee would result in something called "double marginalization," which in this context means that the price consumers wind up paying would be higher than the price which would maximize the total profits accruing from the game. MS instead taking a proportion of the revenues does not create that problem.

On the other hand, given the pricing we observe, maybe MS doesn't have its shit together and is, in fact, charging a substantial flat fee.

[StGabe]

Any chance that, like discs, MS has a straight flat licensing fee rather than a percentage based fee. (Or a percentage on top of a flat fee?)


Whatever the details, Major Nelson's comment certainly seemed to indicate that the bundlefuck was effectively a work-around to MS testing reqs. I'm not sure why he thinks that lets MS off the hook. I have no idea if your comment is correct, I'm not in that market, but it's certainly possible. A lot of companies in similar positions in mobile end up skimming money off the top through ridiculous requirements and dodgy pricing.

An example: until very recently, NSTL, a very expensive testing firm that is often required for carrier deals, had a really shitty setup where they would only give you a discount on testing multiple builds of the same game if they were actually identical code/executables. The result was a shitload of work to cram 20+ phones into one build resulting in a less stable result overall that was in no way less difficult to test or requiring less testing (because you'd just hard code the #ifdefs into the game so that it would run different code on different platforms). But a lot of companies didn't have the technology/time to do that and so NSTL made more.

[Damien Neil]

I mean honestly, when making a purchasing decision who is going to think "Well, I really really loved Guitar Hero 1 and 2 but goddamn if I didn't get pissed off at the price of all that DLC so fuck them I'm not going to buy Guitar Hero 3"

Me, except that it's Guitar Hero 2 that I won't be buying.

I would have bought it for the PS2, but the 360 version was on the way with DLC, so I waited. And now the DLC that I was waiting for is absurdly overpriced, so I'm just saying to hell with the whole thing. Red Octane just priced themselves out of my market.

[sluggo]

$2/song from a product that originally featured 30 licensed songs for $40. The hysterical whining continues to amaze me.

[Wholly Schmidt]

Me, except that it's Guitar Hero 2 that I won't be buying.

I would have bought it for the PS2, but the 360 version was on the way with DLC, so I waited. And now the DLC that I was waiting for is absurdly overpriced, so I'm just saying to hell with the whole thing. Red Octane just priced themselves out of my market.
You know you don't have to download it at all, right? Is this really such a big deal that you feel like you've got to make some dramatic stand as a consumer? Over this?

[Dave47]

You know you don't have to download it at all, right? Is this really such a big deal that you feel like you've got to make some dramatic stand as a consumer? Over this?
It's annoying that, unless you're willing to invest in sets of guitars for both systems, you can't play the complete range of GH 1 songs and GH 2 songs. But that's more a "hardcore fan" complaint. I don't see how a player who doesn't own GH2 for either system can call the 360 version a bad deal: For $10 you get more songs, better graphics, and (admittedly extremely limited) online leader board options. You don't need the DLC for the game to be worth the price.

And it's entirely possible that the DLC will get cheaper in the future. I'm not sure why everyone is so adamant that these prices are set in stone for all time; it may take a while, but I'm sure you'll see a price-drop sooner or later.

[Reldan]

$2/song from a product that originally featured 30 licensed songs for $40. The hysterical whining continues to amaze me.

Yeah, but I knew the setlist going into the game. I was really only paying that $40 for the 15 or so songs I actually like. The rest is fluff and without value to me.

I have no interest in paying them $2 a song for stuff like "Stellar", "Hey You", or "Take It Off." Not all songs are created equal - at least with GH I could argue that I was paying $2.25 a song for the songs I like and little or nothing for the songs I didn't.

I can't rationalize paying $6 for Bark at the Moon though, and that currently is what I'd need to pay to get that song since the other tracks in the bundle mean nothing to me.

[Midnight Son]

The only bundlefuck I'd like is if they let me pick the three songs in the bundle.

[Reldan]

It's like when you buy an album and pay $15 for 10 songs, but you really are only are buying it for the three songs you actually want to listen to.

Except that now they've decided that if you'd pay $5 apiece for those three songs, then for 10 songs they should charge $50.

[Damien Neil]

You know you don't have to download it at all, right? Is this really such a big deal that you feel like you've got to make some dramatic stand as a consumer? Over this?

Dramatic stand? The game costs too much. I don't want it any more. Where's the drama?

[Fugitive]

It takes a lot less effort to type "OMG SUCH A RIPOFF I HAVEN'T BEEN THIS VIOLATED SINCE LAST WEEK" than it does to actually feel it.

[msdoran]

The worst part about these DLC games is that when you do beat them on medium difficulty or higher, you receive no cash!!! If I had known that
I would not have bought them. I could care less about extra songs, I want extra opportunities to earn more money!!!

[Ephraim]

The worst part about these DLC games is that when you do beat them on medium difficulty or higher, you receive no cash!!! If I had known that
I would not have bought them. I could care less about extra songs, I want extra opportunities to earn more money!!!

Although you were trying to be funny, you do raise a good point. With non-downloadable content expansion packs, you can re-sell the CD/DVD when you're done. With downloadable content, you cannot. Another strike against it, on price recovery principles.

[RickH]

Although you were trying to be funny, you do raise a good point. With non-downloadable content expansion packs, you can re-sell the CD/DVD when you're done. With downloadable content, you cannot. Another strike against it, on price recovery principles.

It's also a good way to get revenue from secondary owners who rent, borrow, or buy used.

[StGabe]

It's like when you buy an album and pay $15 for 10 songs, but you really are only are buying it for the three songs you actually want to listen to.

Unless you buy those 3 songs for $2.97 on iTunes or $1.00 on eMusic.

I.e. DLC/microtransaction systems that work.

[msdoran]

Although you were trying to be funny, you do raise a good point. With non-downloadable content expansion packs, you can re-sell the CD/DVD when you're done. With downloadable content, you cannot. Another strike against it, on price recovery principles.

No, no, you misunderstood me. I meant cash in the game to buy stuff in the Guitar Center store (extra characters, guitars, etc..) not real cash.

It seems to me that if I beat a song and get 3 stars on hard, even if it is DLC, I should get the $250 reward for finishing the song.

With the DLC songs you get nothing!

[rjcc]

one thing I've been doing, since I've been struggling on hard and I wanted some more extras like....now, I just started another band and beat all the songs on medium again, and got more cash