Everyone likes to complain about how developers try to nickel and dime their audience with paid downloadable content. But this game takes the cake. It’s insane.
I put the question to my colleague: how much is too much for DLC? She got a bit miffed at the DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition, but that’s only in the realm of $25.
My first thought was the Dynasty Warriors series. They, like many anime brawlers, have an absurd amount of costume and armour packages that are far more expensive than they should be.
But then I came across Train Simulator 2016: Steam Edition. It’s US$45, which is fairly standard for niche titles with a hardcore fanbase. Dovetail Games were even generous enough to have a special on the DLC.
And then I saw how much DLC there was.
Whoa. 230 packs of DLC. That’s a lot. And the first three are pretty pricey. But if most of them are free or 50 cents then it’s fine.
So I added everything to my Steam cart and, well, it wasn’t cheap.
US$3061.91 for all the Train Simulator 2016 DLC. That’s $4372.25 in local currency. And the majority of those add-ons are at a 40% discount as well; just imagine how much it’d cost if you paid full price.
It’s no wonder the game only has a 66% user rating from 6,337 reviews (at the time of writing). When your pricing model makes Evolve’s pre-order offerings, what EA did with Dead Space, or Forza 5’s microtransactions look consumer friendly, you need to stop. Just stop.
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20 responses to “One Game Wants $4372.25 For All Its DLC, And That’s On Sale”
If you purchased all content in Mechwarrior online, excluding the $500 a pop gold mechs, you would be up for over usd1000. And on top of that you could buy in game premium time for another usd14 a month.
Yeah, but unless you really need that BT drip feed you won’t place MWO as its all sorts of aids.
I play Meckwarrior online.
Normally I hate excessive DLC… but this seems in-line with actual train-set collecting.
/Shrug.
…..Somehow train-sets are still cooler, even if they’re not….
I thought you were going to say PayDay 2
Yeah, but Payday’s DLC are worth it.
Weeeeeeeellllll….
Some are, many are not.
Flip it around. Most are, a few aren’t. The Western and Medieval packs are shyte. The weapons packs are the poo.
No mention of Taken King. You could argue its a “whole new game”, but then wouldn’t it get damned for containing the original, much like Arkham Origins and Saints Row 4 get?
*checks* Yep, I’m still bitter.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/09/to-buy-all-of-this-games-dlc-youll-need-over-2000/
No question, the asking price for the DLC is excessive. A single locomotive should be $5, not $20. But it’s worth pointing out that one of the reasons there’s so much DLC in the list is because some of it dates back 4+ years. Each time a new edition comes out the game on Steam is replaced with the updated version but the ID stays the same. Anyone who bought 2012 got 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 for free. Any DLC that was made back in 2012 still appears through all the later versions and, in theory, still works.
So they’ve essentially followed the pricing model of Skylanders / Disney Infinity / Lego Dimensions, but without bothering with the toys.
Sure it is a lot of money, but presumably with this model they don’t expect everyone to buy everything. From the sound of it they’ve been accumulating the DLC since the initial 2009 release (since TS 2016 is an update to the previous versions), so it isn’t as if you got 230 packs all released at once.
The real question is whether the game is fun with a subset of available content.
This has been the norm for simulators for more than 30 years, all you outraged people. It’s a niche of a niche of a niche audience – most simmers only get the trains and routes they have a particular interest in and they don’t have any worries about spending $20 because they’ll spend -hours- with it.
You’re right but if the Headline read “One game offers $4372.25 of DLC, And That’s On Sale” less people would click.
Sure, but you have to ask yourself “If I’m not playing with the Union Pacific DDA40X Centennial Loco Add-On what’s the point of playing at all?”.
Wouldn’t Rock Band and Guitar Hero look a lot like this by now? They both have insane DLC libraries (but like the sim games, nobody would expect to buy/play more than a small fraction of it).
I must make the honest confession that I have bought a LOT of the games DLC. Almost never at full price, but occasionally I do pay the full price. I don’t know why, i think its just because im a consumerist whore, and I actually genuinely enjoy the game. I have nearly 400 hours on record on steam playing it. It shames me, but i keep buying the ones that look fun.
Don’t be ashamed – it’s a cheap hobby, compared to say Games Workshop games or a drug addiction 😛
Pretty sure World of Tanks would be somewhere in this neighbourhood if you wanted all the tanks.