And you thought Online Passes were bad.

[Blunderboy]

And you thought Online Passes were bad.

No. No, I didn't.


And back on topic: have you never heard of Activision? Go do some research. This Skylanders thing isn't the worst thing they've ever done.

How did you steal my thoughts good sir?

OT - Yeah, that's pretty messed up. The worrying thing is that about half of the people who ***** about it will probably still go out and buy all the damn things, immediately validating the company's plan.

 

[Panzervaughn]

www.penny-arcade.com
Krahulik did a long writeup about it.
Its essentially League Of Legends for Kids.
or Maybe Spiral knights.

 

[MammothBlade]

Delicious, unscrupulous profiteering. Rip-off gaming has become the norm, apparently. What's up with that, selling someone a disc and telling them they'll have to pay extra to access all of it, at no extra cost to the developer.

Two-tier marketing in gaming has become more and more common in recent years. One could argue that this is a bit like the extended editions of films, or first class transport, appealling to different segments of the market amongst gamers, etc. Thing is, games used to be complete and self-contained. No such thing as paying extra to have some added levels, what you got in the package was the game, nothing more, nothing less. Now, it's rarer and rarer that you can actually buy the whole game without forking out £10 or so more and paying for stuff which is produced at no extra expense to the publisher. It serves to divide the haves and have nots even more. Companies which lock original game content can suck dick.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Wait how was the Cerberus network bad? It was just giving people a little reward for buying new, and it for the amount of content you get from it, its well worth 15 dollars

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Online passes are good for the industry. If you buy a Used game for less, you should receive less. That's how the world works. You get what you pay for. Plus, it helps bring down the abomination that is GameStop, which is always a plus.

 

[LobsterFeng]

So somebody was finally smart enough to combine video games and pokemon trading cards together. What's so bad about that?

 

[Jandau]

www.penny-arcade.com
Krahulik did a long writeup about it.
Its essentially League Of Legends for Kids.
or Maybe Spiral knights.

Ummm... no?

I play League of Legends. I have over half the champions unlocked. You know how much I paid for them? ZERO $. I do have a couple of skins that I paid for, but these aren't mandatory and have no impact on the gameplay. Every piece of actual content (champions, maps, runes, etc.) is available free of charge. Only cosmetics and convenience is $$$ only.

Skylanders is a regular game being sold at a $100+ price point via a gimmick.

 

[Epona]

Online passes are good for the industry. If you buy a Used game for less, you should receive less. That's how the world works. You get what you pay for. Plus, it helps bring down the abomination that is GameStop, which is always a plus.

They are bad for the industry.

- They will result in fewer people online lowering the value of multiplayer. In a few years people will be skeptical about going online at all, will seem like a waste of time and money.

- They are separating the single and multiplayer aspects, soon people will demand the option to only buy the part they want for less than full price. This just means less money made.

 

[DesiPrinceX09]

Never was a fan of spyro, never played a single spyro game. But I imagine this doesn't do any justice to him at all. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

This is definitely worse than online passes, but at least they don't matter when you buy the game new. But with this, you gotta buy it new and more new things on top of that; which is stupid. Let's hope this fails and discourages people to go a step beyond the douchebaggery of online passes.

 

[TrevHead]

personally i think folk in this thread are making a storm out of a teacup, this game is marketed at kiddies as a toy hybrid. The toy / kiddie industry is notorious for over priced plastic and collectables.

If a similar thing was happening to games aimed at a wider demograph it would be a different thing but its not.

The only ppl I have sympathy for are the Spyro fans who are losing the series to the kiddies. Not that I can understand what the attraction of Spyro was, I always thought the games were really dire as a platformer same as most PS1 3D platformers were at the time

 

[everythingbeeps]

And you thought Online Passes were bad.

No. No, I didn't.


And back on topic: have you never heard of Activision? Go do some research. This Skylanders thing isn't the worst thing they've ever done.

How did you steal my thoughts good sir?

OT - Yeah, that's pretty messed up. The worrying thing is that about half of the people who ***** about it will probably still go out and buy all the damn things, immediately validating the company's plan.

That's exactly what they count on. But honestly...I just don't have that big a problem with it. As a game experience, it's different from typical games. It's more comparable to that Eye of Judgment game or whatever it was, where you bought the game (and of course needed the Eye Toy or whatever it was called), but then you also needed to buy more cards to get the most out of it. Is it shameless? Of course. But really, isn't all marketing towards kids shameless?

 

[Terminate421]

This is pure gold in a way to make money.

 

[Baralak]

I don't see why the game is getting hate. I mean, really, they just threw in a new gimmick. Keep in mind, the figurines are completely cross platform, and save character stats. So you take one figurine, play it on your PS3, level him up a bit, then take him onto your 3DS copy of the game, and keep playing!

Also, this isn't a Spyro game. At all. He isn't even part of the story, just another monster. They basically just namedropped him trying to get some more sales.


Jim Sterling actually gave the game a really good review on Destructoid.

 

[Nouw]

Actually no. I don't think they're bad. This? Now this is bullshit.

 

[krazykidd]

So we've all heard of the whole debacle with Online Passes, Cerberus Network for example, where game developers would lock you out of content if you bought a game new.

Well the new Spyo game Skylander's: Spyro's Adventure takes it to an extra level. How does it do that? By locking you out of content that you can only unlock by buying Skylander figurines. The base pack ($70) comes with three Skylanders, the portal base, and the disc. However, there are eight elemental types of Skylanders. Since certain areas are accessible only to certain elemental types, you need one of each elemental type to see everything on the disc. Those sell for $8 a pop, or $20 for a three-pack. There?s also DLC style content like a pirate ship that opens up a new level in the hub world for another $20 (though it does come packed with another character figure and some bonus items.)

So Activision is trying to get you to pay $100+ to play their full game. Kind of makes that $10 Online Pass seem reasonable now doesn't it?

Oh my ... Wow ... *looks at his 200+ consoles games*. Yup i'm ready for the video game apaucalypse.

 

[aba1]

That's pants on head retarded but it doesn't make me feel any better about online passes.
In fact, it only makes me think that because gamers were so accepting of online passes, we're sure to see more obscenely stupid schemes like this... and they're going to get even worse than that.

wow this couldn't be more accurate

 

[Baralak]

I'm still wondering why trying a new way to play and transfer save data equates to trying to gouge you out of money. It's like being pissed at Magic: The Gathering because you need to buy booster packs along with your starter deck. Seriously, it's like someone else said, making a storm out of a teacup.

Honestly, most of you people are really whining over a new way to play? They're trying something that could be truly innovative for the industry, and you're whining?! Online passes deserve the hate, because the gouge money out of you that the publishers don't deserve, but this? No, this is a new idea, one that you should look at and do research on. I'm tempted to buy this game myself, but I've already got a backlog way too huge right now.

 

[lordlillen]

Haha, oh man that's a good one Activision. Like anyone would be crazy enough to block of main game content (and not optional dlc stuff) and then tell people the only way to unlock it was by buying shitty $8 figurines. Man this coffee is good, where'd you get this?

...wuz 'at? You...you're serious about that? No, you're pulling my leg right? You're not pulling my leg are you?

love that movie.
OT: i have never had a problem with online passes but maybe thats because i dont buy used games still this is bullshit if the charackters and levels are on the disc then HACK ON YE HACKING PIRATES!

 

[busterkeatonrules]

I'm more upset what they did to Spyro...

[HEADING=2]What kind of hellish abomination are you! What did you do with Spyro![/HEADING]

I second this. Disgusted though I am by the concept of holding major parts of the game hostage until the player goes out and buys a load of crappy action figures, my main reason for not buying Skylanders will always be the fact that I expect a proper Spyro game to feature Spyro - not purple zombie Gollum!

(Yes,yes, I also expect a proper Spyro game to be made by Insomniac Games for the PS1 between 1998 and 2000, but you get the idea.)