The average gamer is never concerned with whether a developer or publisher goes out of business during or after the completion of a video game, as long as the video game gets released. Now a day’s video game companies are doing more than just throwing tons of money into advertising to get people’s attention to buy their game before it hits retail shelves.
Aside from the tactic of offering gamers different tiers of Triple A titles in forms of Regular, Limited and Collector’s Edition. The tier system can take the game from the original price and can turn it into sometimes triples the price. An example of this is Microsoft and Bungie’s Halo: Reach, the regular edition will cost $59.99. But if you upgrade to the “Legendary Edition” of Halo: Reach the price jumps to $149.99. The extras are usually art books, figurines and more DLC.
While that will only entice the most hardcore gamers, the very latest tactic is offering incentives bonus’s just for putting money down (Called Pre-Ordering) before the game even comes out.
These range and vary from retail store to store. These offerings from pre-ordering games are usually weapons, clothing, armour or in some case’s a bonus level DLC (Downloadable Content) cards given out when you place a pre-order days, weeks or months before the actually game is released.
As of late though more and more Publisher are deciding to offer bonus’s before their game is released and for the most part in the beginning it was only Publishers who released Triple A titles to gamers that would do this.
But the underlining questions that come to mind is; Why not drop the price if you want to bring the masses in to buy your video game instead?
Most of the time this DLC is already on the disc and is decoded with a simple 15 or 25 alphanumeric code, leaving many to wonder if this is more of a marketing for more profit stunt than actually looking out for the gamers interest?
With video game prices rising (Some triple A titles are sold at full price $69.99, with tax it moves into the $80 + dollar range) and with people’s wallets tighten up due to the economy, Publishers have will soon realize that they won’t move numbers like they were even a year ago. Yes there are exceptions to this (Such as Activision’s Call Of Duty series, EA’s Madden series), as these Triple A titles will continue to see high success from big marketing budgets and cult followings.
For the first time both video games have released free DLC before the release of the game, neither in the past have done this and probably didn’t need it but it shows that even the bestselling titles are using safety tactics and quick ploys to make sure even people on the fence are enticed to purchase the game.
In this economic climate, consumers are either going to do their homework or listen to the word of mouth from friends, family and co-workers. Of course there is still the majority that will purchase games based off hype alone but that number is shrinking by the day.
