Basic math puts at least 12 songs, seeing each will cost $3 and pass costs $30; which has at least a 20% discount.Is there any notion of how many songs the song DLC would include? It better be damn near as many as the game comes with for frigging $30.
I agree that the content is unique, and I don't get the impression that this content existed when they first released the game. So that's good. However, the assets aren't as new as you make it sound. At least some of these songs have been released before on the PSP games or Project Diva Arcade, so there are definitely reusable assets there (admittedly adapted to the visual style of the PS3 version). But the real problem is that the game itself has more content than the DLC by no small margin, yet the DLC costs twice as much. Imagine if they took all that DLC and made Project Diva F 3rd from it and sell it for $100. Does that still sound reasonable?So it seems to me there are a lot of people judging the pricing of the game's DLC without having played it, so there is a bit of a disconnect between what the game offers and what people think it offers. Let me try to clear up any misconceptions here:
In Project DIVA, each song is a fully and independently produced affair. Everything from backgrounds, dance moves, special effects, all of it is unique to each song, with little to nothing reused in other songs. There have been five DLC songs in the Japanese version so far (with much, much more to be announced given the existence of the season pass in Western markets) and this has extended there as well - none of the five use any assets that come with the game beyond the costume you select to use.
All have come with unique backgrounds, which tend to be extremely detailed, and feature individual dance choreography. This is much more bundled content than music DLC in some other games, and I think the amount you get makes the asking price reasonable.
It's true that the DLC so far originates from the PSP version, but the process of bringing that content over is not a copy and paste job; the backgrounds obviously have to be redone to the visual standards of he newest game, and care is definitely made in regards to updating the choreography, especially to take advantage of the much more powerful facial expression engine (of which an equivalent has only recently been introduced to Arcade). I would also assume it isn't any less expensive to relicense the songs just because they have been used before.I agree that the content is unique, and I don't get the impression that this content existed when they first released the game. So that's good. However, the assets aren't as new as you make it sound. At least some of these songs have been released before on the PSP games or Project Diva Arcade, so there are definitely reusable assets there (admittedly adapted to the visual style of the PS3 version). But the real problem is that the game itself has more content than the DLC by no small margin, yet the DLC costs twice as much. Imagine if they took all that DLC and made Project Diva F 3rd from it and sell it for $100. Does that still sound reasonable?
I don't disagree, I'd never argue that they can just copy-paste these things. I was just saying that there are assets that can be reused. Work is needed to port the songs, but they don't have to rebuild them from the ground up.It's true that the DLC so far originates from the PSP version, but the process of bringing that content over is not a copy and paste job; the backgrounds obviously have to be redone to the visual standards of he newest game, and care is definitely made in regards to updating the choreography, especially to take advantage of the much more powerful facial expression engine (of which an equivalent has only recently been introduced to Arcade). I would also assume it isn't any less expensive to relicense the songs just because they have been used before.
That still doesn't mean that we should just accept the pricing as it is, just because this practice works in Japan. I'm not saying the content should be free, far from it. They're working on it after release so it's only fair that they're compensated for that. But asking people to pay double the price for 1/3 of the content that was in the full game? I don't think anyone at Sega can seriously defend this pricing. There are ways they could give people a better deal. For example, letting people pre-order a digital edition with the Season Pass included for a lower price than it would cost them to buy the game and the Season Pass separately. They already did that for Alien Isolation. Right now the digital edition has zero benefits due to retailer exclusive pre-order bonuses anyway.As for the cost, it's true that it is more expensive than the base game, but let's look at this from another angle. The announcement makes it clear that all the content was originally acquired and developed for the Japanese version of the game. The Japanese market is obviously a very different place where the sales of this content is viable - without the season passes and at a higher base price, no less. Sega of America/Europe obviously had nothing to do with that state of affairs, but when bringing the game over, a decision had to be made with what to do about content the Japanese had already decided on and developed the delivery method for. The localized versions of the game are also developed Japan-side, so the options are limited; I don't think it is a stretch to therefore assume the choices were to release them with the pricing scheme we got (which is preferable to the Japanese pricing) or to get nothing.
I'm here finding bizarre that songs cost more than anything in Rock Band, but they're around $5 each in Japan. That's insane.
big fuck you @sega.
and a general fuck you@DLC.
but there are tons of people spending money on this.
this was during the ps2 era normal that your game had tons of omake stuff, but now ripping off the poor gamers wallet is just absurd.
would spend 100 dollars on yakuza 5 retail copy though (in english)
big fuck you @sega.
and a general fuck you@DLC.
but there are tons of people spending money on this.
this was during the ps2 era normal that your game had tons of omake stuff, but now ripping off the poor gamers wallet is just absurd.
would spend 100 dollars on yakuza 5 retail copy though (in english)
For those with the Japanese version: Does the vanilla game have any "reserved" for DLC empty boxes and stuff like that that keeps making you feel you only have part of the game? Because if it doesn't, that means it's the complete package and can be fully enjoyed without having to spend on stuff that's optional.
It doesn't.
big fuck you @sega.
and a general fuck you@DLC.
but there are tons of people spending money on this.
this was during the ps2 era normal that your game had tons of omake stuff, but now ripping off the poor gamers wallet is just absurd.
would spend 100 dollars on yakuza 5 retail copy though (in english)