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Season Passes: This is how they should be done

S

Son Of Sparda

Member
Recently I bought the One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 for PS4 in a PSN sale. Afterwards a friend of mine suggested that I go check out its season pass as well since it offers a great value.

Now, I'm usually not too big on Season Passes and DLCs in general. But yesterday after finally seeing what PW3's Season Pass had to offer, I instantly bought it.

The Season Pass for Pirate Warriors 3, costs only $11.99 and comes with all of these:
6Geo3BP.jpg
Click to expand...

This is so crazy! I know some of the costumes are returning from earlier titles but still, to offer almost 30 costumes for that price, it's an insane deal.

And that's not all that Season Pass has to offer. Beside the costumes, Season Pass owners will get the following missions as well:
All's Quiet on East Blue!
The Decent and Dutiful World Government
Whitebeard vs. the Sun Pirates
Heroes of the Coliseum
The Surgeon of Life or Death
World Government Mega-Showdown
Pirate Mega-Showdown
Sky Island Treasure Hunt Survival
Click to expand...

This has to be one of the best Season Passes of all time, right next to the ones from Driveclub and Witcher 3.

IMO, this is how Season Passes should be handled.

Edit: I guess most people missed the part that I mentioned Driveclub
(and Witcher 3)
so there you go:
black070 said:
This is how you do a season pass.

15012015800_59e678b7db_b.jpg
Click to expand...
 
H

hydrophilic attack

Member
Should be handled like Souls games

2 or 3 pieces of story DLC expansion. No costume pack bullshit (though you may find some costumes in the levels in the story expansions). At a discount compared to buying the expansions separately. And with everything known up-front

Good quality content. Full transparency. No bullshit.
 
oo7

oo7

Member
If a dev supports a game with new content well after the game ships then I am all for throwing some money their way. Not everything should be free tbh.
 
W

wbEMX

Member
I thought the DRIVECLUB season pass had very good value. It had a ton of content. Arkham Knight's "season pass", if you can even call it that, was one of the worst examples how to do it in recent memory.

EDIT: Just saw DC was mentioned in the OP. Oh well.
 
M

muteki

Member
Now don't forget to come back in a year or two when previously unannounced new content gets released and complain why it wasn't included in your season pass from over a year ago.
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
I wouldn't exactly say costumes are anywhere near my ideal season pass.

At least it's a solid price.

To me an ideal season pass has content for the majority of players. In a fighting game or musou, I'm probably only going to play a handful of characters, so a lot of those extra costumes are pointless, especially in a musou like the OP where by the time they are releasing I'm probably not super into things anymore. I'd prefer new characters, areas, campaign content, etc.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
CDPR did a pretty good job with their season pass but they basically treat DLC as expansion packs unlike others who trickle out little pieces of it.
 
S

ShadowElliot

Banned
xSSQzqxVgilJlRz5iheAGaeWo_vR2IQS.png


I believe Mario Kart 8's DLC was done wonderfully well.

2 DLC Packs with enough content to fill an extra half of the game for $12!
 
L

Lil'DigiOp

Member
lmao,

"I want people to make new content and update and patch the game 9 months down the road and then give it to me for free because I already paid for the game."

Y'all don't get it.
 
U

UrbanRats

Member
The Dark Souls 2 season pass is the only one I bought (to my memory) and it was more than worth it.
That's my golden standard as of now.
Witcher 3 would also qualify I think.

Edit:I also got the Drive club one, another superb offering.
 
S

Son Of Sparda

Member
wbEMX said:
I thought the DRIVECLUB season pass had very good value. It had a ton of content. Arkham Knight's "season pass", if you can even call it that, was one of the worst examples how to do it in recent memory.

EDIT: Just saw DC was mentioned in the OP. Oh well.
Click to expand...
I completely agree on DC. I still haven't finished all of the tours that came with the Season Pass! The Season Pass of that game had amazing value.

Corpekata said:
I wouldn't exactly say costumes are anywhere near my ideal season pass.

At least it's a solid price.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the pricing is really good. Also, the Season Pass does come with 8 missions as well so it's not just costumes.

I don't know if you've played the game or not, but the base game is packed with contents (37 playable characters, Free Log, Dream Log, Legends Log) so costumes and few more missions are really the only things that you could ask as supplements to the base game.
 
B

Brian_FETO

Banned
Bioshock Infinite's season pass was pretty fantastic. Took them forever to finish it but for $25 you get a 2 part campaign that totals around 8 hours, as well as Clash In The Clouds (which I haven't played)

Infinite is only like 10ish hours to begin with so it's a pretty solid deal, and Burial At Sea Part 2 is probably my favorite Bioshock game gameplay-wise. Story is hit or miss for a lot of people (I really liked it) but value-wise it's solid for that game. As long as you didn't preorder expecting it right away, haha. I bought when Part 2 came out
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
It probably cost that much because they didn't think they could get away with charging more. Season passes for bigger, more notable AAA IP cost more because that's what people are willing to pay.
 
C

C.Olimar788

Member
girlfriendofagamer said:
lmao,

"I want people to make new content and update and patch the game 9 months down the road and then give it to me for free because I already paid for the game."

Y'all don't get it.
Click to expand...
It's more the idea that the content that was "made and patched 9 months down the road" should have been included in the base game. In TC's example, some of the costumes were from previous games - they were already made, and were deliberately left out of the base game to stick in DLC later.

DLC should not gut existing content, which is a (very justifiable) worry nowadays.

ShadowElliot said:
xSSQzqxVgilJlRz5iheAGaeWo_vR2IQS.png


I believe Mario Kart 8's DLC was done wonderfully well.

2 DLC Packs with enough content to fill an extra half of the game for $12!
Click to expand...
This is still probably the best season pass that has ever been put out. It's filled to the brim with content that almost assuredly was never going to be in the base game and is extremely well-priced to boot. And, if that wasn't enough, if you buy a Wii U that comes with Mario Kart 8 nowadays you get the DLC for free, something which some (read: nasty) "complete editions" still don't do.
 
S

sonto340

Member
It's not about how much content really for me
It's more about the price of the DLC and how much money (if any) you're saving.

Take call of Duty for example. A $50 season pass that's four map packs that each go for $15 each. There's a $10 savings there if you know you're going to want to keep up with the multiplayer over the next year.
 
C

Conkerkid11

Member
Coffee Dog said:
No, you just dont understand! It became impossible to do this after the great unlockable purge of 2005!
Click to expand...
Games didn't used to have post-release content...

The devs released the game, then they moved onto the next one. If the game had little content or glitches, that was the way the game would be.

The money funding development on these games a year after release could just as easily be spent producing a new game entirely, with no post-release content.

And hey, turns out all that post-release content is optional! Incredible!
 
G

graybot

Member
Jigolo said:
Season passes should come in free updates after the games release
Click to expand...

Why?

A developer wants to make money at the end of the day. Years ago there was no option. You got your game on a cart and that was it.

Nowadays you have a choice to pay to extend the game.

As long as they dont take the piss I see no issues with paid DLC
 
S

SocksAndShoes

Banned
Mediking said:
You really think devs wait to AFTER the initial launch to work on and discuss charging content? STOP.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter when they decide to do it, if they're working on extra content that has to be paid for somehow.

Games are time consuming and expensive to create.
 
A

AppleMIX

Member
Jigolo said:
Season passes should come in free updates after the games release
Click to expand...

People should be paid for there work.

Witcher 3 and Dark Souls (series) are the best examples.

The content should be meaningful rather that something stitched together to make a few bucks.
 
S

Son Of Sparda

Member
Mediking said:
You really think devs wait to AFTER the initial launch to work on and discuss charging content? STOP.
Click to expand...
You think all devs have everything done and ready to go yet decide to cut them from the games and release them later as DLCs? Come on.

In case of PW3, sure the stuff from earlier games were ready before launch. But I don't think they had all the missions and new costumes ready before launch and decided to just cut them from base game and sell as DLCs.
 
F

fernoca

Member
Driveclub, Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors have my favorite season passes. So much content that could literally make for standalone games and under $30.
 
I

itxaka

Defeatist
Season passes after everything contained on them are released are OK, everyone knows what they are getting and are free to choose to buy it.

Season passes before anything is released sucks. You can either get something awesome like the witcher or you can get shit.

Don't buy season passes before anything is released just to save 10 bucks. Don't preorder. Stop giving your money away for promises in an industry that is known for trying to screw it's customers if it can.
 
M

Mifec

Member
AppleMIX said:
People should be paid for there work.

Witcher 3 and Dark Souls (series) are the best examples.

The content should be meaningful rather that something stitched together to make a few bucks.
Click to expand...

Even the TW3 is far above Dark Souls which had amazing DLC, let alone other games.
 
T

TimeEffect

Member
I bought the Resogun season pass. Fantastic value. I think it was half the game's cost but it had 2 expansions that felt like standalone modes. 4 new modes total I think, plus lots of free updates too


Rainbow 6 has an interesting season pass. It has little value if you play regularly because maps are free anyway but you unlock the new operators a week before everyone else for free. Everything else is skins.

The worst offenders are COD and BF, because their map dlc becomes abandoned due to the fracture between season pass owners, people who buy packs individually, and people who dont buy the dlc at all

I think it's robbery to sell map dlc that has no support from the community.
 
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