Yesterday, Capcom officially revealed what some of us had already known -- there are multiplayer versus modes for Resident Evil 5. The catch? They're not on the disc, but instead are being offered as downloadable content for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, for 400 MS Points and $4.99 respectively.
As with any DLC announced, especially one so close to a release (or in this case, before), people raised a few eyebrows. In a statement to MSXbox World, Capcom explains the decision to price the content.
"Although Versus mode makes use of the assets that exist in the game, the functionality is not currently in the game and is above and beyond the initial scope of Resident Evil 5," the publisher said. "We have never included a versus mode in Resident Evil before, and as well as the costs of development of the feature, there's also additional bandwidth costs associated with it."
As gamers, are you happy with this response? Do you accept the cost of the additional modes, or do you firmly believe they should have (and could have) been included out of the box? And do you think Resident Evil 5 versus will even "work"?
We're at the Dtoid offices this morning frantically putting together our HD Resident Evil 5 video review; the text is like, totally done, man. So check back later this afternoon for that thing we speak of.
Contest:
11:30 AM on 03.13.2009
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This shit was planned on day 1.
Also, companies like money. They think they can get away with this. This isn't news, and the justification is even dumber. They planned this, and that's fine.
That's like the guys making inFamous charging us more for the Statis Shield ability, or whatever it's called, that they recently added into the game. It may not have been there on day one, but they knew that it would add more gameplay elements to the game and added it in.
If you're going to nickle and dime us for all of the abilities in the game, then why don't you just make a list of all of the abilities, items, and gameplay modes and let us grocery shop the game we want?
And bandwidth costs? Seriously, that's the best they could come up with considering the only graphics we'll be downloading are those of Jill Valentine or other models who aren't already on the disc for use in the multiplayer modes.
If Capcom is charging you for addtional modes in Street Fightever IV, then it is a problem as we come to expect such entities to be included in a fighting game.
It all depends on how you define that scope. Obviously, multiplayer can be in the scope of RE5 since you are including it later on. You can’t justify this by saying it is beyond the scope of the game, and then doing it later thereby putting it within the scope of the game. The argument is more absurd when you consider that the release of the DLC is close to that of the actual game. It could have been in the scope of the initial game, Capcom simply chose to have it not be.
"We have never included a versus mode in Resident Evil before…”
So? There are lots of games which add new game modes (Horde mode in Gear 2 comes to mind), but it doesn’t you are somehow justified charging more to have access to that mode.
“…and as well as the costs of development of the feature…”
As stated earlier, “…versus mode makes use of the assets that exist in the game...”. I can’t imagine that the development costs justify charging an additional $5 when the game costs $60. It couldn't have been terribly difficult or expensive for a large, experienced company like Capcom to develop the coding to allow for online play. Even if I grant that it was, there far too many games on the market that have high quality singleplayer and multiplayer campaigns. Companies still manage to produce a complete game for $60 time and time again and make a profit. If you aren’t competent enough to do so, it doesn’t justify passing the cost on to us.
“… there's also additional bandwidth costs associated with it."
Digital distribution is much cheaper than physical distribution, since you are cutting out the middleman. Moreover, the cost of distribution is a fraction of the cost compared to the development costs. This is an even weaker argument than arguing the development costs justify the selling versus mode separately.
For something so experimental and destined to fail, I think it should have been included on the disc. Making people pay extra for that is bogus. I decided to pass up RE5, mostly because of how short the campaign is supposed to be, I'm not a fan of replaying games unless they're ridiculously fun to play, and RE's get repetitive.
If the story is short I would hope the online play is amazing. But I certainly won't buy this one for online play!
I'll pick it up when it hits bargain bin. Nickel and diming FTW!
And we're nearing the point where I'm taking Capcom games down a peg on my personal hype-meter because I know there's going to be something cool taken out for DLC on day 1. The last three titles I've had any interest in from Capcom have all had expensive DLC that should have been on the disc: RE5, Street Fighter 4, and Mega Man 9.
As it stands now, the characters still control like tanks. RE5's cover system is broken too. It'll be a bunch of people standing still shootin at each other.
I've been playing RE5 for the past week. Fun game but I don't see multi working at all.
That is the weakest excuse yet for DLC.
Or am I just going old.
I really hope DLC dies quickly, you know somethings wrong when companies are showing DLC before the game is even released.
People, when you heard about horse armor years ago, this is the type of thing that people have feared. The slippery slope is in effect.
You would have gotten this shit for free if there wasn't such an institution as DLC.
Fuck this shit!
I love online play, so I'll bag it once I've been through the main game and Mercs mode.
Not ONLY do we have to pay more for games at retail ($60 on average) but we have to pay for the content that was formerly used to encourage replay. Lame.
PLUS! I'll be damned if I buy DLC so close to the release!
But I have to say, I am amazed at how persistent is this weird point of view that "All extra content in all games could have hypothetically been added to the game before it hit shelves, therefore its a ripoff." I mean -- isn't that obviously, logically, incorrect?
I guess it's tempting to imagine that there are senior executives that look at a finished game and go "Mwhahaha -- cut this feature out of your game and we'll charge more for it later," but d00dz -- that just isn't what happens in real life.
Multiplayer versus requires more netcode, and more engineers to build and improve that netcode, deal with lag, fix versus-specific bugs, etc. It requires designers to spec and tune the modes from scratch, because as stated, that team has never made a versus mode before and they have no pre-existing designs to work from. It takes artists to build and implement versus-specific HUDs, items, effects. They have to figure out how their online matching/lobbying system will work. It takes more producers to coordinate all that effort and get it done in time for the ship date. It takes weeks more QA effort (and team members) to hunt down all the extra versus mode bugs that will exist as the kinks get worked out -- and if they have so many bugs that the title biffs submission to 1st party, then there's more submission fees down the drain. The cost of all these things is significant.
Not only are there more man-hours and more technology to pay for, but those team members who work on such things are usually scheduled already to work on other projects, so OTHER games are going to be hurting while the team finishes building a new mode.
Again -- I don't expect anyone to be happy about paying more for things. I just don't get how anyone can think that a whole new gameplay mode is something that can be slapped in or cut out of a game at the drop of a hat, or to make a quick buck.
/devil's advocate moment. You may now resume bashing. :)
But Halo and Gears are about the vs. play. That's not really resident evil's bag. Sure hypothetically they could have done it. But my point was more about this fallacy that any time extra content drops, it must have been (or should have been, or secretly was) included and then dropped for the purpose of nickeling and diming people. Most of the time when a game hits the shelves, the team on it has busted ass to get the game to whatever state its in, on the budget they had, and it's never as good as they wanted it to be. Additional modes of gameplay, add ons, additional features -- such things have an actual cost, they take time and effort to put together, and developers need to eat, so they need to get paid to work on them.
And Im getting less for that? And have to pay MORE for pretty basic functionality? Thats nearly another $10 here. Fuck Capcom.
I also have to point out that for something like multiplayer where the success is largely tied to the install base you're shooting yourself in the foot by not tying it to every copy of the game.
and now this WTF!