Bioshock 2 DLC was already on the retail disc, gamers find

[Pendragon9]

Nothing anyone could say can justify this. It's on the disk, I paid for the disk, thus I should be able to play it from the get go. There's nothing in any legal bill that says otherwise.

And if you respond, I wanna see some legal documentation with you, buddy.

Edit: and no, EULA doesn't count. I bought the game, and as i've said before, no government in this entire country can legally take it from me, unless they plan on giving me a refund.

(or, of course, if I was hacking and selling the game. :/)

I swear the only two posters making sense in this thread are the two right above me.

 

[CSRusty007]

I actually read through most of these posts (scanned a lot) and the one thing I didn't really see was it's a DLC for Bioshock 2 Multiplayer. The most riveting (no pun intended) highest played FPS multiplayer of all time and probably next 20 years. How about who cares. Play BF:BC2 or MW2 or any other of the many hundreds of better FPS multiplayer games out there.

The online pay is broken (OP weapons) and not a lot of fun (no lvl balance) and lastly matchmaking is lame.

About OP: (or topic everyone keeps going on about)
I don't see what so upset about if you don't want it don't buy it.
"but it's already on the CD" And you did not pay for it you paid for BS2 not the DLC.
It might not be a true DLC but their point on not fracturing their online group is valid. Anyways maybe you'll all be lucky and by complaining a lot they will cave and go under and we can all feel happy that we made it happen.

 

[shadow skill]

Everyone who reads EULA raise your hand.

All five of you will know that you do NOT "own" anything beyond the physical disc and packaging. What you own is essentially a license, a license which like any other license can be revoked at any time for any reason. That's how software works.

So to everyone who complains about how they "own" the game, read up on it before you make your arguments, because you're basing your arguments on a misconception. You own a pretty case and a shiny disc. And don't ***** about that, that's how it's worked since the days of floppy discs.

As to the DLC, would everyone be happier if it wasn't on the disc but was available on day 1? At what point does this arbitrary "I am not pissed off" rule kick in? Exactly how far from release does something have to be released to be considered not a rip off? Because if an entire second game can be considered a rip off by some, I'd say we're pretty much shit out of luck any way we go. I mean ultimately this comes down to if it's on the disc it should be free.

Special editions have extra material on disc, and those cost extra. If they had simply called this Bioshock 2 Uber Edition would everyone be fine with it?

Really, this whole thing seems more like people complaining about the phrasing of the material rather than the actual action itself.

EULAs are thrown out in court frequently because they violate the First-sale doctrine as determined by the ruling of Vernor v. Autodesk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_v._Autodesk,_Inc.

United States v. Wise (9th Cir. 1977) If the transferee was entitled to keep the copy acquired from the copyright holder, it was a sale. If the transferee was required to return the copy, it was not a sale.

Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. Ruling: Given the conflicting precedents, the court felt compelled to rely on the earliest precedent, Wise, and thus found in Vernor's favor.

In this case, meaning that people are right to expect they should have access to all data that is on the disc they just purchsed so long as there's no monthly fee like for an MMO.

Thank you I was just going to post that. People need to stop believing that EULA's are necessarily accepted in court just because a company puts them in a product.

 

[Break]

Capcom did the same thing with Resi 5 as I recall.

Apparently there weren't enough people calling them on it to make it clear that this shit will not fly.

oh you mean JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GAME??? Looking at RE5.....

My friends and I stopped playing RE5 the second they tried to pull that shit. Granted, the game itself was overrated, but still, I'm glad I could support the second-hand market and screw Capcom out of another $60. Methinks I'll wait to grab Bioshock 2 when they re-release it with all of the content unlocked.

Thought I'd point out that this was found to be false. The filesize of the Versus mode DLC in RE5 was too big to be a key. Keys, like the one used for Bioshock 2, are usually around 100 KB, or smaller. The Versus mode was megabytes - too big for a key, but about right for a ruleset alteration to the effect of "allow four players, track scores individually, friendly fire on", and a small change to the menu. You might think it's crappy value, sure, but it doesn't have anything to do with the current issue.

Not that it changes anything - I'd just suggest that you find another example (for example, Street Fighter 4's costume packs) if you still want to find trends in on-disc DLC. Minor detail, really.

 

[Gasaraki]

This annoys me because it's basically: "We already had this content made, we put it on the disc, We could have let you play it. But instead we thought to ourselves: Fuck it, let's make extra moneyz"

 

[Mad World]

Even if the DLC wasn't on the disk and had to be purchased separately, I don't see why the playerbase would have to be split.

 

[reg42]

Hey, pulling a Capcom is not cool!
Bastards. There is no excuse for this, other than money-grubbing.

 

[sephiroth1991]

I stopped careing about this problem, simple solution don't by the DLC

 

[Pat728]

Well this is why I never buy DLC. It's sad though because everyone else does so this will continue. :/

 

[The Austin]

This is such BULLSHIT!

Why the hell are company's fucking us over?

The excuse they gave was total bullshit, and it made no sense.

You don't want to split the player base?

THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE MADE PEOPLE PAY FOR CONTENT WE ALREADY BOUGHT!


Thats like someone writing a book, and then going, "Hey everyone! Enjoy my book, I worked super hard on it! Oh, by the way, if you want to read the last 3 chapters, it'll be an extra $5."

 

[TPiddy]

I would think paying for the data and the disc it's on would grant someone the right to use it.

You'd think wrong then.

No. People paid FULL PRICE for the disc, by any average person's viewpoint, what's on it is theirs.

By the average person's view point, Quantum Mechanics is nonsensical rubbish.
The average person rarely has the most accurate or intelligent point of view.

Think about it, they put extra work into keeping people locked out from what's on the disc! It's bullshit.

Yep, they put extra work in to gain extra money, sounds like capitalism to me.

Did you even think about what you just said? By that logic I could drop 60 bucks on a game. Get it home then get a message saying if you want to play it you need to buy this code.

If that happened without a disclaimer on the box, then they could be sued for deceiving their customers, that is not the case with this DLC.

When you buy a game, you are buying the rights to play it. The data on the disc is irrelevant. If you can play the game, you got what you paid for. You bought the rights to Bioshock 2, you got to play Bioshock 2, you got what you paid for. If you want the rights to use the DLC, you can pay for that too or, if you want, you can choose not to. The physical location of the data is irrelevant.

If you bought a game that didn't work without an extra code, you would have not got what you paid for, which would be illegal.

Yes, in LEGAL terms, they are within their rights to do this.... doesn't mean they aren't complete ASSHOLES for doing so. If the content was finished before the game was pressed and you chose to include it on the disc, then let the buyer have it.

I don't see how including on the disc keeps the player base the same. Are they not dividing the player base by allowing the people who paid for the code and the people who didn't access to the same content?

 

[warmotor]

I'd like to provide a little context for this specific game: Before release 2K promised a new rapture adventure with new characters and they delivered that. Sure, the engine went basically unchanged and a lot of the original game assets we obviously re-used, but at bare minimum they delivered on the first part of their marketing hype.

The second thing they promised was an interesting multiplayer mode where the player could participate in the fall of rapture and the chaos that ensued. What we got was a deathmatch mode that (gameplay-wise) would have been embarrassing as a Quake mod. Seriously, it was effing terrible. If they had further content that improve that multiplayer mode, they should have just added it and made a experience out of the box and justified the lazy retread of a singleplayer game.

I already felt cheated after paying $60 for the game I played, especially since the first Bioshock was so damned good. This is just a slap in the face, and they won't be getting another dime from me for what I think is an half-assed cash-in from any angle.

I'd also like to note that the whole 'license' notion (as well as pre-order exclusives) does not sit well with me. I'm already a paying customer, but try and tell me what I can and can't do with a game (or music or movie) and I'll do whatever I can to screw you out of pure spite, and I'm not alone in that. I spend thousands of dollars in gaming crap every year and I don't enjoy being nickel and dimed nor treated like a child that needs to be babysat.

 

[TPiddy]

I am always struck by exactly how ignorant many gamers are of how game or software development actually works. Let me try to explain this for you all:

First, any studio-developed game has a set time limit and budget for development. This should be common sense. All of the time that artists, writers, voice actors, programmers, and QA testers spend working on content is time that they are paid for.

Because of this, there is a set amount of content that can be included in a retail game (which pretty much has a fixed price). This is typically decided early on, and as the game development progresses things are added and removed depending on the difficulties the developer encounters. At each point, a decision is made as to whether X feature is important enough to increase the time/cost of the game development - if it's not, it can get cut from the game. Many of these features might be very cool, and developers can be sad to see them cut, but this happens with every game.

At some point in the development process, the designers have to stop adding new features and content. At this point, the programmers and QA become very busy testing, optimizing, and porting content. In the past, this is the stage where most of the writers, designers, and artists either get fired or get moved to another game.

Instead of firing the content creators, many newer games are deciding to instead have them make more content, to be tested and released separately from the game as DLC. This does not mean that the time that is used to create this is free, or that it is a part of the retail game. In some cases, the designers go back to stuff that was cut from the original game and rework it and fix the problems, because they really didn't want to see it removed in the first place.

While this is happening, the final "gold" version of the game is created. This is the version that first needs to pass the console manufacturers' certifications, and then need to be sent to manufacturing. This can take several weeks. During this time, the programmers and QA can test the DLC content that the rest of the team had been working on. Because they're working off the final version of the game now, and this is just extra content, this process goes a lot faster. It is easily possible that digital content can be tested and ready to be released before the retail versions of the game are even done being manufactured.

But all this time isn't 'free' - the assumption that the people working on this content would otherwise be being paid to add things to the retail game is just stupid. That game development time and budget has already been spent - they would either be working on something else entirely, or looking for a new job.

To create this new stuff, it has to be paid for somehow. For The Stone Prisoner, it's being paid for to see if it helps make up for used game sales - a particular problem for a mostly-linear story-based RPG. The Warden's Keep content, on the other hand, is a marketing promotion to sell the more expensive digital collector's edition (sans cloth map). If you aren't 'paying' for the content in one of those two ways, then you should expect to pay for it directly.

It's not that it's DLC or that we have to pay for it... but why include it on the damn disc? Really, unlocking parts of the disc is just a dick move... if you have extra content and want to sell it to us there are avenues for that... but leave it off the fucking disc.

 

[almostgold]

This is fucking ridiculous. This 'already on disk' shit makes me sick. If you buy the game, you own the content. The point of DLC is that it is developed after the game is made.

 

[MurderousToaster]

I bet someone on the PC will use their epic hacks [http://www.google.com] to unlock these maps.

 

[hey_iknowyou]

I don't see any problem with this. At the end of the day, they spent the money developing it and if they see a way of maximising the money they make from sales then more power to them. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything, the full game was included on the disc. Therefore, people comparing it to buying a book that you have to pay to read the end are incorrect, they are entirely different.

I'd like to point out that as a general rule I don't buy DLC for most things as I don't like the idea - I'm not going to go saying that these companies are wrong for doing it though as it's obviously profitable for them. It's simple, gamers are entirely dependant on developers to provide new games. They are entirely in their rights to make as much money as possible for their efforts out of it. That's my take on it anyway.

Also, I much prefer the idea of paying for a key to unlock some content that's already on the disc than paying to download it from scratch. It saves time and storage space.

 

[shadow skill]

I don't see any problem with this. At the end of the day, they spent the money developing it and if they see a way of maximising the money they make from sales then more power to them. Nobody is forcing you to buy anything, the full game was included on the disc. Therefore, people comparing it to buying a book that you have to pay to read the end are incorrect, they are entirely different.

I'd like to point out that as a general rule I don't buy DLC for most things as I don't like the idea - I'm not going to go saying that these companies are wrong for doing it though as it's obviously profitable for them. It's simple, gamers are entirely dependant on developers to provide new games. They are entirely in their rights to make as much money as possible for their efforts out of it. That's my take on it anyway.

Also, I much prefer the idea of paying for a key to unlock some content that's already on the disc than paying to download it from scratch. It saves time and storage space.

They aren't entirely different because the full game was locked. Those extra maps count as part of the game, they aren't magically not a part of the game just because they decided to hide it from you. I don't have to pay twice to use the features listed in Windows 7 Ultimate when I buy Windows 7 Ultimate. Why should this be any different?

 

[hey_iknowyou]

They aren't entirely different because the full game was locked. Those extra maps count as part of the game, they aren't magically not a part of the game just because they decided to hide it from you. I don't have to pay twice to use the features listed in Windows 7 Ultimate when I buy Windows 7 Ultimate. Why should this be any different?

I wouldn't consider the maps part of the game because a)You don't need them in order to play through the entire advertised game and b)I'm making the assumption that this content was developed specifically for this reason and was never intended to be contained in the full game. This means that the rest of the game can be fully enjoyed eithout HAVING to purchase the additional content, unlice your Windows 7 example. In my opinion this makes it exactly the same as DLC, only more convenient for users that decide to pay for it.

 

[XT inc]

In my mind, no matter what some developers rationalizing is. When I pay them an absurt 78 bucks with tax that to me is an acknowledgement that I wish to own every last spec of content that is held within the packaging.

There is no scripture in bold on the back in bold or in fine print( as far as I know) that lets me know as a consumer that the company holds the right to charge me extra later to unlock features on a product I already own.

We are already on the slippery slope where they cut stuff off games to sell to us a week later for 10 bucks, now its okay to lock stuff out. Someone bastardized what DLC was envisioned to be. Additional content to flesh out a game that no one would ever say needed to really be there in the first place but as a bonus. Original xbox dlc no one felt like oh halo 2 just wasn't complete without the packs. Having stuff stripped or locked is just consumer abuse.

 

[Xanadu84]

What if, hypothetically, it wasn't on the disc? Certainly, they could have kept it off the disc if they wanted, and keep it on there servers, and then let people download it without dealing with all these people complaining. Functionally, the only difference between it being on the disc and off the disc (Assuming the not wanting to split player thing is BS, which we can't be sure about) is that if it's on the disc, locked, people who buy the DLC don't need to spend as much time downloading it, and use less space on there Hard Drives. In other words, the fact that it is on the disc locked can only benefit those people who get the DLC, and there is no situation where it could hurt someone who doesn't want to purchase it. What we need to realize is that really, when we purchase a game, we are not purchasing a little plastic disc. We are purchasing the opportunity and right to play a game as it has been presented to us. And those developers are not presenting any false advertisements, they are giving the game as they have presented it. The complaint here seems to be that with on disc DLC, content is taken away from the game proper. Well if that is the case, then don't buy the game in the first place because it doesn't have enough content. Stop over thinking things and invoking abstract ownership arguments. They offer a game with x content. If x content is a good enough deal for you, buy it. If later on, they offer x additional content and you like that deal, buy it. If not, don't. Who cares what all those 1's and 0's on that disc say, your buying game content, not binary. If a developer is in fact skimping on content, don't buy it for that reason.