One of the major problems people have of Halo 3: ODST is that its campaign is incredibly short. However, apparently our perception is at fault here, not the game itself. Bethesda's production director, Ashley Cheng, believes the game was marketed in entirely the wrong way, and that consumer backlash could have been avoided if Microsoft hadn't "bungled" the advertising.
"Microsoft and/or Bungie totally bungled the marketing on this," he argues. "First saying it was a standalone expansion pack, then coming out and saying wait, no, we’re charging full price because -- surprise! -- we put 'more' stuff in it and it’s called Halo ODST now, vs it’s original title, Halo Recon."
"Like Microsoft was ever going to sell this for less than full price. It is a new Halo title, it’ll sell like hotcakes no matter what.
"Because of the waffling, reviewers are now mentioning that Halo ODST may not be worth the price point, that it should’ve been cheaper, etc … Give me a break. First off, most games -- especially first person shooters -- are anywhere from 5-10 hours. Tops. What makes Halo different from others? You can’t just ping Halo ODST for it. I bet if Microsoft hadn’t screwed up the marketing messaging, there would less talk about pricing."
Harsh, harsh words. Do you agree? Should Microsoft had been more smart about its marketing, or is ODST truly not worth full price?
Contest:
6:20 PM on 09.22.2009
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Also, in before Gene Eric.
Two year old multiplayer that's still good and still being played plus a new multiplayer mode.
This is Bungie. They can get away with it.
Almost concidering cancelling my preorder.
I'm not even that big of a halo fan and fine that it was worth the 60.
the campaign is very enjoyable and I enjoy firefight mode.
It's also nice to have all the maps from halo 3 on one disc now.
I have spent 60 on far shorter and worse games than halo odst.
I haven't bought it because I read it doesn't have matchmaking. No matchmaking? Does that mean I can only play it with friends? That kills it for me.
It brings nothing new to the table other than horde mode, and justifies its price point by adding a "bonus" disc with multiplayer maps that most Halo players already have.
If you take away the multiplayer maps, you're left with a six hour campaign and a warmed-over horde mode. That's not a insignificant package, but it's certainly not worth 60 bucks.
Also, requiring that you purchase ODST to have the "privilege" of becoming a bug-hunter for Reach is just plain insulting.
I like the Halo franchise a lot, but I'm just being honest with myself here.
I think only the firefight mode lacks matchmaking. But still... It should't.
I'm not sure I agree. A lot of FPS-games takes about 8 hours to finish and have no replay value. I just finished ODST and want to replay it again because of the way the achievements work. Also, ODST has 6-8 hours of pretty quality while a lot of other games release 6-8 hours of crap and still charge 60 bucks.
I haven't touched ODST so I won't judge it but suffice it to say after Halo 2, which was long and unvaried, the single player campaign in Halo has gotten the shaft. It's actually why I'm not very interested in Halo or MW2. Those of us who suck online get a half assed campaign. Last time I played online was when I played Nazi Zombies in WaW and 80% of it was spent listening to 12 year olds call each other gay in ways I haven't even conceived of and insult each others genatalia. Then a girl showed up and we bailed a played Rock Band.
FACT: Chicks make better online gamers.
After Halo 2the serioes got bad? But you haven't played ODST? So all you are saying is that Halo 3 was bad? Which I do not agree with.
And why is everyone bashing on the campaign when they havent even touched it?
I find it a little annoying that Halo: ODST doesn't pay you back autimatically for the Halo 3 map packs you bought before it was released, or at least offer a partial refund.
Personally, I think they should sell us every Halo map in a single game with the first three Halo campaigns and call it "Halo Trilogy," then sell that for $60 dollars. It would be cheap to make, but no one could accuse Microsoft of not supplying a game worth $60 dollars.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/7/22/
What I'm saying is it doesn't surprise if there's a boatload of complaints about the campaign.
You raise a fair point, although I don't know if I agree with your conclusion.
The fact that other crappier games charge full price, doesn't justify Halo ODST's price point. Essentially, that's claiming that it's okay for Bungie to rip you off because everyone else is doing it.
It's still a bad thing, no matter how many people take part in it.
The rehash of Halo 3 online is the the main problem here. People don't get upset at all the other short campaign shooters, because for instance Modern Warfare 2 isn't using the same online as COD4: Modern Warfare had from two years ago.
Yeah, I guess. I just watched the Gametrailers review of the game and it got about a 9 without any pricing complaints.
All I'm saying is that Mirrors Edge takes about 4-6 hours to finish and it lacks multiplayer. Noone thought that was overpriced.
1. It's an expansion, so we're going to charge less for it yay!
2. Wait, we don't make money
3. It's $60, and TOTALLY not an expansion anymore
4. Jerk off, instead of expanding game
5. $$$
VERY true. Most games today are overpriced, which sucks, but I do not think we should blame Bungie for overpricing quality, we should overprice the companies that overprice crap.
I don't get why ODST is singled out for being "too short" either. The same applies to every freakin' CoD that gets rehashed ever year...yet when Halo releases the 4th game in the series, somehow, that's considered milking the franchise.
I remember hearing a ton of complaining about how short Halo 3 is. I wouldn't have cared if the plot had gone somewhere.
Still I have high hope for Reach. I just think this reminds me too much of Halo 3 which left a terrible taste in my mouth.
--A 4-5 hour campaign mode (and I don't care what people say, 4-5 hours is WAY short for ANY single player mode. 8-10 seems to be the norm, and that's twice as much.
--Several map packs that many people that would be interested in this game probably already have.
--A new multi-player mode. This is the kind of thing you'd pay $10 for in a normal expansion pack.
--Halo: Reach beta access. So many games offer beta access for free these days (or for the price of reserving the game) that this seems like a moot point.
I'm not saying the game is bad. In fact, from hearsay the single player campaign (though short) is quite great. I DO agree, however, that the game is overpriced. Even a decrease of $10 would have communicated that the game was at least SOMEWHAT an expansion-level experience. If I had to guess, I think MS is probably behind the price hike. There are already several stories of developers wanting to bring things out cheaper or for free with MS standing in the way.
See The Orange Box for how to do a proper full-priced expansion.
I think it comes down to what it's worth to YOU. I wouldn't pay $60 for a glorified expansion, but some people would, and they have and it shows. If people don't think it's worth it, i would hope they wouldn't buy it at that price point. Plain and simple. By buying it at full price, you're proving to bungie that it IS worth it, thus validating their motivations and handing them the right to screw you. And if you bought it at $60 and are pissed about that, by this point you shouldn't complain, because in this case you likely knew beforehand that it was probably a bad idea and you should have probably rented it.
And on another note, Halo 3 still doesnt have the option of hosting your own servers and setting up your own game types. Multiplayer games have only been doing this since 1998. Seriously. Some people don't want to play griffball 15 times in a row. Fixing the matchmaking would have made it worth $60.
That's nothing. I've seen people beat the original Sonic the Hedgehog in about twenty minutes.
If you don't want to play Grifball fifteen times in a row (and I don't really know why not, Grifball is a blast), then just change to one of the other playlists. And yes, you can set up your own gametypes in the custom game mode. Matchmaking helps group players of similar experience/skill levels.
4-5?
Im pretty okay when it comes to Halo. Me and my friend beat the game co-op on Heroic and it took about 6-7 hours. It doesn't matter how good you are, if you do not play on easy and don't skip all the cutscenes there is no way yo beat it on 4 hours. If so - I feel bad for you case you rushed through a great experience.
I am a hardcore FF fanatic and I don't buy the FF versions that I don't like. but thats just me, others are the same.
I enjoy a good game of griffball every now and then. But some days, you know, you just want to play a whole lot of CTF on a few certain maps, or spend the day playing One bomb on Valhalla or something, while still being able to have a full game with strangers when there aren't friends online. using hte custom game mode limits you to your friend list. I guess I just miss the PC gaming days of server lists and such. Killzone 2 had a good hosting system, too bad the online has turned to crap.
Did you actually contribute anything to this discussion? How can you blame anyone for liking Halo? They have released four good games with amazin multiplayer and keep delivering quality. Final Fantasy hasn't really been great since FF9.
I'm just going off of word of mouth as I haven't played it myself. I've read in half a dozen places that it's 4-5 hours long.
And no, I'm not telling people it's bad or not to buy it, but from an occasional Halo fan's perspective, this game doesn't look like it's worth full price to me.
On a similar note, I'm also fighting with myself over weather or not Katamari Forever is worth $50. Though I'm leaning closer to that than I would be to ODST.
We're not discussing the topic anymore.
Also, I'm in college and HAVE NO MONIES.