Maybe I missed most of the discussion, but its slowly dawned on me that, thanks to DLC, most AAA games now just assume a "Season Pass". Which means to buy the game at launch, you are gonna fork out $59.99 for the base game and then $29.99 for the season pass.

I know I should have thought smarter, but I just bought Fallout 4 PiP boy edition. At $119.00, I just assumed I owned the whole game. The first thing inside the box was a notice that I should go visit the Fallout page and purchase the season pass.... for another 30 bucks.

This just makes companies like Larian and CDProjectRed stand out above the pack IMHO. When they release massive updates, new content, and new features to owners of the game as part of the original game purchase.

At best. In the worst case, the price can go way over 100$.

W3 also has a season pass.

The difference is that with the Witcher you are getting actual expansions and not glorified mission packs.
Also the expansions themselves are not really expensive.

I only pay what I think a game is worth and I won't buy it until it reaches that price, or below, no matter how good it is.
Most people by now, I'm sure, have a big backlog of games given all the sales and bundles so it doesn't make sense to pay rip off prices for games anymore. The best thing to do is to wait for them to finish pooping out DLC and for the game to drop to a price you want to pay for the complete version and whilst you wait, play through some of your backlog.

Buying new super deluxe physical/digital limited editions and season passes just encourages the price to stay high and throw in silly little preorder bonuses and kitsch to clutter your property with because the sales show Publishers they can get away with it though.

That's why you don't buy on release day but wait for the inevitable GOTY/Ultimate/Definitive/Whatever Collection instead which gives you the whole package for a fraction of the price.

Game Buying 101

Way over hundred if you are in to games like Crusader II which costs 258€ for complete version (base game + all dlc).

I recall a while back that developers said they needed to raise prices for higher quality games, and the community revolted and said no. So they are cutting content, DLC, micro-transactions, etc.

It would be SOOO much easier to just back off and go for quality levels a little easier to develop for rather than trying to make things photo realistic and using as many filters/effects. Honestly a LOT of PS2 games are still awesome today, gameplay and graphics-wise. If they HAVE to have higher level graphics, then develop for the 360/PS3 level and stop after that, rather than pushing the envelope.

in defense of the witcher, the season pass gets you legit expansions. also, they said that there would be two and one would be around 10 and one would be around 20. so the bigger one isn't even out yet.

the best games on PC always had expansions. and they costed around there. Diablo 2 was the standard $50 at launch and LOD was $40. You could say that was cynical, considering the size difference of LOD and the base game. This was pre 1.10 now, no synergies and all that stuff. Anyway my point is that having a second much smaller chunk of the game come out later for 2/3rd or 3/4th the price isn't new in the PC realm. It's just I think usually, the games that got expansions were the best games, and as a result they were the type of games that could support more content with their base systems. That is, their base systems had so much depth that it compounded any substance in the addon content and as a result you had something that was perhaps greater than the sum of its parts from a player perspective. Combine that with the fact that expansions were usually better than the base games, usually having slightly more polished or higher fidelity content, possible improvements to the gameplay mechanics, more densely packed areas that showcase more of the engine at once. Nowadays addon content is planned ahead of time and the increased cost of developers means that expansion content is usually stock to the original game, though the realities around the economy and hardware also play a bit of a role in that but I don't think it's the largest part, so there is less justification via content improvements of the price ratio skew that's always been present. Compound that with an increase in cynical and exploitative business practices outside of the expansion. Then further compound that with the fact that the content itself is being altered at design to fit more into this exploitative "DLC" style, and you get people starting to sour on something that's actually been there. That being an $80 to $90 game, for the best games at least.

Strangling themselves.

It depends, if you wait like 6-12 months after release which is imho a reasonable time, you get them complete for around $50.

The quality of the game, the length of it, and the support is not the same either. You get big open world games now, for the price of a plateform game on nintendo/super nintendo, the extras? You don't really need them to play (except a couple of games that are pretty lame with that). Now, is the price of the extras fair, as opposed to the price of the base game? Usually, you pay as much for the add-ons as for the base game. Are they worth the same? On their own, I would say no, since usually, the quality of the add-ons combined doesn't come close to the main storyline/game.

Now, is the price kept "low"(as opposed to the work put into it), in order to sell a lot, and hopping to get back with the add-ons?

It's best to wait for Complete/GotY and a 75% discount. I won't touch any AAA game without.

This.

I ALWAYS wait for goty.

from the publishers point of view its a win win marketing strategy.... the initial sell price goes for the 'whale' (their term not mine) consumer that doesnt have a problem with the price and wants to get the game asap, then later on they offer packages at reduced prices to entice the latter group of consumers.

im now in the latter group for sure having regretted buying into game hype before

If you think that's too much, Think Again. Just expand the DLC list and scroll to the bottom for final price.

:D