"'Max Payne 3' And The Rise Of The $90 Video Game"

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Erik Kain, Forbes bro, brings ill tidings...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/05/05/max-payne-3-and-the-rise-of-the-90-video-game/

'Max Payne 3' And The Rise Of The $90 Video Game

Max Payne 3 comes out later this month, but it doesn’t stop there.

The game’s developer, Rockstar, plans to release seven DLC (downloadable content) packs over the course of 2012. Gamers can either purchase these individually or through Rockstar’s DLC Pass, which costs $29.99, or half the price of the full game. The pass gives you access to all DLC released in 2012.

The Grand Theft Auto developer has laid out a fairly detailed release schedule, with the first DLC pack coming this June:

June 2012

Local Justice Map Pack

Summer 2012

Disorganized Crime Map Pack
Deathmatch Made In Heaven Mode Pack
Hostage Negotiation Map Pack
New York Minute Co-Op Pack

Fall 2012

Painful Memories Map Pack
Trickle Down Economics Map Pack

The question many gamers have is pretty straightforward:

Will there be $60 worth of gaming packed into Max Payne 3? And will Rockstar squeeze half a game’s content into its seven DLCs?

The rise of the $90 game either means gamers are getting more gaming out of each release or simply spending a lot more on each release, whether or not they purchase the DLC. It’s pretty hard to parse out the cost-to-value ratio with something like a game.

Some upcoming title’s like Dragon’s Dogma promise upwards of 300 hours of gameplay, not including any possible future DLC.

Other titles, such as Skyrim, are planning DLC releases later this year. Given the sheer scope and size of an Elder Scrolls title, however, it’s almost certain that the DLC will add value and not just cost. For shorter titles, and especially for titles that release with either day-one DLC or with DLC already planned and scheduled, the question becomes murkier.

Now, it may be that Max Payne 3 is an excellent title that’s worth every penny. I’ve been a fan of Rockstar games for a long time, and I have no reason to suspect anything but a great game out of Max Payne 3. Maybe the DLC will be worth every penny, too.

But there is something a tiny bit ominous about the $90 video game.

not even sure if it is Max Payne anymore since they switched the smug grin from the original guy to the depressed, skin-head 40+ guy

Well, it was Max Payne 2 that made the shift from "cynical, rage-filled Max" to "depressed emo Max".

When the people who spend most of their money at AAA crap like what this will be are either 12-year olds or dumbfucks flipping burgers in a fast food chain, there can be no doubt on how biased the cost-to-value ratio is in favor of publishers.

And I bet you're still going to preorder its undetermined length rental at Steam for $90.

I rarely buy non-RPGs, and never at full price.

"Trickle Down Economics Map Pack"

''So! Here's half of the multiplayer folks, if you want the rest, cough up the dough.''

Max Payne goes CoD, from noir to Rambo, chocked full with DLCs, let's hope crash and burn.

Who the fuck cares. Sounds like all this DLC is only multiplayer related.

I'm not interested in multiplayer. I can get a MP3 Steam key for 19€ and just play the singleplayer. Stop running around like scared headless chickens.

Stop having shit taste in games.

Back in the day the cretins and idiots had no interest in computers, consoles were targeted mostly at children whose parents weren't that dumb to go buying horse armor DLC back and forth and the gaming industry wasn't as much of an oligopoly as it currently. Give or take education being less shitty, mass media not having as much of a grip over the manboons, Jews, multikult, neoundomesticated snowmanism, globalization and other factors according to what you like to blame mostly.

And people didn't buy DLC and then posted on RPGCodex on how much it sucks(not pointing at you, obviously, but at certain Codexers I like to use the hyperboles of "Quisling" and "Vichy French" for).

That's one company less to get my money, then.

Already posted this in the official max payne 3 thread

But, what's with all the gaming news on Forbes > ? I thought they only were after EA

Oh, it's only 90$ with dlcs. Reading the headline I thought the initial game would cost that much and thought: well, kickstarter showed them, that people are willing to spend 100s or even 1000s on non-AAA games and it would only make sense when they starting to up their prices now

If a game is too pricey for you just don't buy the crap or wait two years and get rent it for cheap.

Games Workshop has been using an even more obnoxious version of this strategy for years and somehow hasn't managed to sink itself (one can wish).

When GW spectacularly selfdestructs due to mismanagement the IP is in all probability going to be acquired by someone even worse. For peanuts.

GW isn't in the former glory it once was I thought. I could understand their need to up the prices because there was a loss of interest in table top gaming (and rpgs) to compensate but setting the prices that high means that no new gamers (kids) enter the hobby. Last time I checked the prices out of curiosity it was ridiculous. If you have to decide as a kid between an iphone and an xbox or some books and miniatures (which you have to paint) than the decision is pretty clear.

That pricing gap doesn't apply to everyone. A brand new AAA console title costs US$120 here. PC is usually $90.

What's worse is that GW acts as the enabler for their non-existant competition (who make much better games though, often better minis too). It also doesn't help that GW's other standard strategy besides regular price hikes is to make sweeping changes to the rules whenever they manage to update them (seriously, GW is slower than anyone when it comes to updating its rules properly) to either radically change the army list or in case of the recent WHFB edition change make most old army compositions obsolete (most notably nearly every single Bretonnia list ever). Really, nothing is more annoying than "oops sorry but your army is no longer valid, go buy new minis" which happens almost every time GW updates rules. Though that's not entirely due to policy, it's also due to the rampant mismanagement of their game development (GW has *no* central management in this, every book is created in a 'flying solo' environment without any regard to the game at large, recently it's just gotten even worse).

You mean Herve is gonna swoop up GW's IPs?

Wtf? And people still buying the crap? Max payne is dirty cheap then. You get all the dlc for free!
What about online download stores? Can you make a bargain there or get the prices already adjusted for Australian customers?

If you buy all that DLC crap then you're clearly a sheeple.

Now whether the base game is worth 50 bucks to you is subjectively. Heck, I'd shell out 200 bucks for a real (non-decline) System Shock 3, but wouldn't even bother paying 5 bucks for some shit like Warhammer Space Marines. At least, if you're patience, you can always wait for Steam sales.

For the record, where I live it's already $90 on Steam. EDIT: Oh wait Destroid already covered that.

Anyway the dlc looks entirely avoidable since it's just some map packs as opposed to campaign DLC.

For that matter the whole game looks entirely avoidable.

Oh no, before this I was totally going to get Grand Theft Max: Payne 3.

Franchise butchers gonna butcher, regardless of any DLC, so I couldn't care less if they had 50 DLC's. I won't pay any money for this shit even if a certain games rental service has it on special for $2

Activision jacked up the price of modern warfare 2 base game 20 dollars for no other reason than they could plus selling about 3 or 4 map packs for 15 bucks each. nothing new here