The Season Pass Hate

[Paragon Fury]

So seeing as how this came up again in the Injustice 2 and Gaming Reddits - I never understood the hate for Season Passes (unless they're the super exploitative kind, like the Gears 4 one was at launch before they updated it).

Get content you were probably going to buy anyway if you liked the game, but at a discount (that usually winds up being 1 Map Pack or a couple characters free) and sometimes a bonus. For most games the Season Pass is generally the smart way to go and not a bad investment - some exceptions being of course, the mentioned Gears of War 4 Season Pass.

Which is what the "Ultimate Edition" is for IJ2 ultimately is - it's the base game + the Season Pass; if you didn't know it was revealed in an accidental Playstation Store leak that there will be a "Ultimate Edition Pass' for IJ2 a bit later too that gives you all the Ultimate Edition stuff for about $30 - so it's actually $10 cheaper than the current one if you go SE+UEP by waiting. The $10 difference is just for early access (now it's been revealed to be $40, which is the same thing but the point still stands).

Now as for Fighting Games - despite being a fan of DoA and SF, releasing gameplay such as characters does sour me a bit. However, I feel that an acceptable compromise would be to take the Rainbow Six Siege approach;

The Season Pass(es) in R6S gives you all the DLC Operators for free but all DLC Operators can be unlocked by anyone by using in-game credits and are fairly easy to unlock for anyone who plays the game regularly. The Season Pass holders instead can save their credits to spend on cosmetic items and extras so they save themselves time and potentially money.

 

[votemarvel]

If the season pass explicitly tells me what I am going to get for my purchase then I am okay with giving the publisher my money up front.

What annoys me are the ones with vague promises of content with no information of what that content may be.

It doesn't take a genius to work out why I am against the majority of season passes.

 

[CritialGaming]

I think a lot of the hate comes from the amount of content that Season Passes provide.

This is a double edged sword really because you either reveal a minimal content season pass, and people say it is a rip off and a worthless pack. Or you have a heavily contented season pass and people make the assumption that you basically chopped out chunks of the main game to sell to us later.

Season passes are a way for publishers to double dip on the price of a game and frankly I think people are growing tired of it. We have entered into a gaming era where you can never really be done with paying for a game. Every game now is offering DLC packs, or microtransactions, or small purchasable addons.

Fighting games in general are bad about this because often times they are selling you characters that already exist on the disc. You are literally paying extra to have full access to a game you already paid for. This is what upsets people, and to top that all off, Injustice has a pretty badass story mode right? But what if I am a huge fan of a DLC character? Doesn't that mean that my DLC favorite wouldn't be in the story at all because they decided to make him/her/it a DLC character? That would piss me off. Then they have microtransactions on top of it all.

IT just doesn't feel good to see a game trying to milk sooo much out of people. Yet this seems to be the direction a lot of publishers are going.

Halo, Battlefield, Battlefront, COD, any number of fighting games, even Zelda now. These games used to be complete experiences, and now they are being chopped up to be sold to us piece by piece.

But not all DLC is evil. I believe DLC genuinely can have a place in the market when the original game deserves it and the DLC itself deserves it. The Witcher 3 for example, is basically the greatest value package of modern times. The main game was a polished and complete experience with tons of replayability, and the first 13 DLC's were completely free! Then there game a DLC pack that was a literal expansion onto the story, another adventure for you to take your Geralt on. This DLC was a complete exeperience as well, one that clocked more than 20 hours of additional content, so it provided more content than your average AAA base game as a ADDON! Then if that wasn't enough....they did it again! Offering yet another DLC pack that added another COMPLETE adventure to Geralt's journey and provided another 20+ hours of content.

I believe DLC's are fine, so long as the initial product is complete out of the box. DLC's should add more to the game, not finish or patch in holes to the original experience.

What Injustice 2 offers is a cash grab, with characters that are clearly held back for no other reason than to milk more cash from people. Especially when in six months you'll be able to get the "complete" edition for ten bucks cheaper than the base game is now and get all the stuff for a much better deal. It's exploiting the day one crowd and that's fucked up, and fans should be upset.

Sadly people need to vote with their wallet, not rage on internet forums, and these same upset people are still gonna buy the 100 dollar edition so it will have nothing more than a negative impact on the industry.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I dont think its season passes as such more that people are sick of how DLC is sold to them and how its very much part of the development of many games now which makes it feel less oh great more stuff and more oh right heres stuff they cut from the game to sell back to me later.

I purposefully did not get Injustice 2 and the main reason was I absolutely hate Netherealms DLC practices I put up with it in Injustice 1 and MKX but have had enough now. You can bet there will be new characters coming out extremely fast so as to catch as many potential buyers as possible on new characters which have much more pull than say costumes or other aesthetics simply because they provide new gameplay routes. I am all for new characters in fighters but releasing new ones so soon just feels like they are trying to rip you off and Capcoms drip feed of constant new characters with SFV and announcement of DLC characters in MVCI before the game has even been released or we have gotten much details about the game is just as bad as Netherealms bs.

Tbh I was hesitant about getting Tekken 7 due to their preorder nonsense and announcement of DLC characters but it does not appear to be quite as blatantly gouging as Netherealms and (recent) Capcoms.

Release a new character every year or so like DOA Last Round or provide a load of content in the box and then after demand release some characters people are clamouring for like KOFXIV.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Pre-order culture has led us to now pre-ordering DLC. It's insane that people are ok with this and sometimes they aren't even clear about what you are getting when they put the Season Pass up for sale. Now in my mind I can just see the game industry executives laughing their ass of at selling people a promise (or not even a promise if they aren't clear about what you are getting).

The game industry has trained consumers to pre-order everything. Consoles, games and even DLC. It's so ingrained now that instead of discussing if we should be pre-ordering, people just discuss when and why they do it. That's what truly troubles me.

 

[CaitSeith]

Season Pass is like pre-ordering: you pay upfront for something weeks or months before knowing if it's even worth it. When you pre-order at least you know you'll get a game (if it isn't canceled before release). With season passes you don't know what exactly you'll get. I consider maps, skins, extra weapons, extra maps, extra characters and extra story DLCs to have different worth from each other (with the first four not being worth a penny from my part).

 

[BrawlMan]

If the season pass explicitly tells me what I am going to get for my purchase then I am okay with giving the publisher my money up front.

What annoys me are the ones with vague promises of content with no information of what that content may be.

It doesn't take a genius to work out why I am against the majority of season passes.

Same here, but even then I always hated when they cut out single-player for just a few extra bucks. Multiplayer is one thing, but if the DLC is essential to the story, my thought is "This could not be on the disc because?"

 

[Sniper Team 4]

If the season pass explicitly tells me what I am going to get for my purchase then I am okay with giving the publisher my money up front.

What annoys me are the ones with vague promises of content with no information of what that content may be.

It doesn't take a genius to work out why I am against the majority of season passes.

Right, discussion's over, everyone go home.
But seriously, this is it right here. Imagine, if you will, if all the DLC for BioShock Infinite had been like the first piece they released: that horde mode combat. You buy a season pass up front thinking you're going to get something like Minerva's Den, or the two Burial at Sea episodes, but instead this story-driven single player game just gives you combat challenges. That is what I think makes a lot of people scream and rage against season passes.

I've only every bought a few season passes, and they were for games that I knew I was going to get whatever DLC came out--Dark Souls III--or for games that I waited until I knew what the DLC was going to be, such as BioShock Infinite.

 

[Elijin]

Pre-order culture has led us to now pre-ordering DLC. It's insane that people are ok with this and sometimes they aren't even clear about what you are getting when they put the Season Pass up for sale. Now in my mind I can just see the game industry executives laughing their ass of at selling people a promise (or not even a promise if they aren't clear about what you are getting).

The game industry has trained consumers to pre-order everything. Consoles, games and even DLC. It's so ingrained now that instead of discussing if we should be pre-ordering, people just discuss when and why they do it. That's what truly troubles me.

The fact that you talk about business executives selling promises like its some form of absurd con that the gaming industry is falling for just shows you're fairly uneducated about executive level business. If anything they're bringing consumers up to their level (at least in their eyes).

 

[pookie101]

sometimes its worth it if you are sure you are going to enjoy it and its value for perceived value.. other times it bites you in the ass.. i was so not interested in the challenge maps in alien isolation's season pass for instance but fallout 4's was excellent value for money and i got ALOT of play time out of it

 

[Wrex Brogan]

It's yet another thing the industry likes to fuck up, with the usual pre-order bullshit of putting your money down on something on the *possibility* of it being worthwhile. Sound idea in theory, but the problem is there's little guarantee that the DLC will be worth it - maybe you'll get a quartet of inter-connected story expansions, or maybe you'll get a couple shitty maps and an unnecessary Arena mode. Sometimes, it's not even that, with just some weapon packs and multiplayer microtransactions. Maybe, sometimes, the publishers will even release DLC that isn't included in the season pass because... well, fuck you, I guess.

Personally, I just wait for the game of the year edition or for all of the DLC to come out before I get a 'season pass'. Largely because the season passes themselves tend to get heavily discounted later on in the release cycle, and partly because like fuck I'm putting 20-60 dollars down on something I can't tell will be good or not. I've lost too much trust in the AAA industry to even think about giving them money before the product's hit the shelves, since the motherfuckers can barely guarantee that it'll even run, let alone be good.

sometimes its worth it if you are sure you are going to enjoy it and its value for perceived value.. other times it bites you in the ass.. i was so not interested in the challenge maps in alien isolation's season pass for instance but fallout 4's was excellent value for money and i got ALOT of play time out of it

Unless you got into it after Bethesda jacked up the cost. Mmm, that was some bullshit.

 

[Saelune]

Part of it is "Why are you planning DLC when the game isnt even done yet?"

Part of it is "Why should I pay in advanced when I dont even know what Im getting or if it is worth it"

Oh, and also cause so many games are doing it, which, in conjunction with 1 and 2, just seems like cash grabs.

 

[Hawki]

I'm mixed about them.

Thing is, I'm not opposed to DLC. I mean, I bought expansion packs back in the day (still do - Legacy of the Void was only 2 years ago after all), so either way, you're paying for additional content to a base game, and expansion packs, while cheaper than base games, aren't (or weren't) all that cheap either. I think it's disingenuous to assume that DLC is stuff that was cut out of the base product, even if it's announced before said product. Content takes time to create, so I can buy the idea of the base product being released, and the later product being planned for down the line.

Season passes are iffy though, because on one hand, you're getting a discount, on the other, it requires committment to the entire 'season,' so to speak. DLC in theory has an advantage over the traditional expansion pack model in that you can pick and choose what content you want. In theory, this should make things easier for the consumer. Season passes are DLC without the advantage of DLC, so if you don't want everything the season pass offers, well, time to pick and choose.

 

[darkrage6]

I don't mind season passes myself, I didn't feel ripped off buying the Arkham Knight season pass.

 

[Saltyk]

Honestly, I just hate DLC to begin with. It's not really extending the game. It's asking me buy something I should have already bought. Once upon a time, I could buy a game and get literally from Day 1. Buy a fighter and you could unlock every character simply by playing the game. Buy a RPG and you can find everything just by looking for the side content (sometimes having to do special stuff to get it).

Remember when Tony Hawk Pro Skater let you unlock Spiderman? Well, today, he would be a DLC character.
Suikoden III lets you play a short few chapters as the game's villain if you recruit all 108 Stars (characters). Today that would be DLC.

And frankly, that is what I hate. A Season Pass is just asking me to pay a lot of money for the next several things that really should have been in the game to begin with. Or maybe put in a sequel.

 

[Callate]

Along with the various other things people have mentioned, a Season Pass comes with two rather large assumptions.

1: The game will emerge on its release date without the need for major patches. If it takes a month or more to get the game to a balanced and playable state that doesn't crash, doesn't fail to connect properly with network servers, doesn't have bugs that destroy saves or make progress impossible (et cetera, et cetera)- that's often a month or more of time that the studio isn't working on the content that would have gone into its vaunted Season Pass.

A good chunk of the hatred for pre-order culture that goes beyond season passes is the increasing frequency with which games stumble out of the gate on one or more systems with holes that never should have made it through quality testing. That's the world we live in- and the platform that allows publishers to sell DLC in its various forms is trust, trust which the publishers often do a poor job earning.

2: The game is going to be such a phenomenon that you're going to want to keep playing it a year from now. Yeah... nearly every major game's advertising campaign would like you to believe this. Are there that many people still playing Mafia III? Or Watch_Dogs 2?

Consider also that many of the big games that release at the hot spots, like the December Holiday season, will be substantially marked down within a year, passing through the various Steam, Origin, Green Man Games, Humble Bundle (and so on) sales, as well as permeating the "used" and "mark down" shelves of the brick-and-mortar retailers. With a Season pass frequently costing between $20 and the full price of the game itself... Does it even make sense for the gamer on a budget to get dribs and drabs of extended content for a game, even a game they like, if they could get an entirely different game of a similar pedigree for the same amount of money?

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Y'know, if you hate the season pass, you could always just wait a year and get Injustice 2: Final Ultimate Kombat edition. I'm a big NRS fan but I'm waiting for the Komplete edition before I buy this game. Worst case scenario: They don't release it and I pick the game up for $12 and THEN get the season pass.

 

[pookie101]

It's yet another thing the industry likes to fuck up, with the usual pre-order bullshit of putting your money down on something on the *possibility* of it being worthwhile. Sound idea in theory, but the problem is there's little guarantee that the DLC will be worth it - maybe you'll get a quartet of inter-connected story expansions, or maybe you'll get a couple shitty maps and an unnecessary Arena mode. Sometimes, it's not even that, with just some weapon packs and multiplayer microtransactions. Maybe, sometimes, the publishers will even release DLC that isn't included in the season pass because... well, fuck you, I guess.

Personally, I just wait for the game of the year edition or for all of the DLC to come out before I get a 'season pass'. Largely because the season passes themselves tend to get heavily discounted later on in the release cycle, and partly because like fuck I'm putting 20-60 dollars down on something I can't tell will be good or not. I've lost too much trust in the AAA industry to even think about giving them money before the product's hit the shelves, since the motherfuckers can barely guarantee that it'll even run, let alone be good.

sometimes its worth it if you are sure you are going to enjoy it and its value for perceived value.. other times it bites you in the ass.. i was so not interested in the challenge maps in alien isolation's season pass for instance but fallout 4's was excellent value for money and i got ALOT of play time out of it

Unless you got into it after Bethesda jacked up the cost. Mmm, that was some bullshit.

for me 1700 hours.. worth it haha

 

[Kyrian007]

It's yet another thing the industry likes to fuck up, with the usual pre-order bullshit of putting your money down on something on the *possibility* of it being worthwhile. Sound idea in theory, but the problem is there's little guarantee that the DLC will be worth it - maybe you'll get a quartet of inter-connected story expansions, or maybe you'll get a couple shitty maps and an unnecessary Arena mode. Sometimes, it's not even that, with just some weapon packs and multiplayer microtransactions. Maybe, sometimes, the publishers will even release DLC that isn't included in the season pass because... well, fuck you, I guess.

Personally, I just wait for the game of the year edition or for all of the DLC to come out before I get a 'season pass'. Largely because the season passes themselves tend to get heavily discounted later on in the release cycle, and partly because like fuck I'm putting 20-60 dollars down on something I can't tell will be good or not. I've lost too much trust in the AAA industry to even think about giving them money before the product's hit the shelves, since the motherfuckers can barely guarantee that it'll even run, let alone be good.

sometimes its worth it if you are sure you are going to enjoy it and its value for perceived value.. other times it bites you in the ass.. i was so not interested in the challenge maps in alien isolation's season pass for instance but fallout 4's was excellent value for money and i got ALOT of play time out of it

Unless you got into it after Bethesda jacked up the cost. Mmm, that was some bullshit.

for me 1700 hours.. worth it haha

That was the only good experience with a season pass (or pre-order) I've ever had. Yes, Bethesda cranked up the cost of the season pass. But they gave customers a week or so warning before they did so. Anyone who pre-ordered or was planning to really only has themselves to blame if they paid the higher price for that pass. I don't know if the DLC would have been worth the full price. But the half price of the original season pass, the content was easily worth that.

But never again. For me, no pre-orders, no season passes, not even any first day purchases. I went off those things cold turkey and the only was developers will learn and change pre-order culture is if enough of us just wait a day.

 

[pookie101]

It's yet another thing the industry likes to fuck up, with the usual pre-order bullshit of putting your money down on something on the *possibility* of it being worthwhile. Sound idea in theory, but the problem is there's little guarantee that the DLC will be worth it - maybe you'll get a quartet of inter-connected story expansions, or maybe you'll get a couple shitty maps and an unnecessary Arena mode. Sometimes, it's not even that, with just some weapon packs and multiplayer microtransactions. Maybe, sometimes, the publishers will even release DLC that isn't included in the season pass because... well, fuck you, I guess.

Personally, I just wait for the game of the year edition or for all of the DLC to come out before I get a 'season pass'. Largely because the season passes themselves tend to get heavily discounted later on in the release cycle, and partly because like fuck I'm putting 20-60 dollars down on something I can't tell will be good or not. I've lost too much trust in the AAA industry to even think about giving them money before the product's hit the shelves, since the motherfuckers can barely guarantee that it'll even run, let alone be good.

sometimes its worth it if you are sure you are going to enjoy it and its value for perceived value.. other times it bites you in the ass.. i was so not interested in the challenge maps in alien isolation's season pass for instance but fallout 4's was excellent value for money and i got ALOT of play time out of it

Unless you got into it after Bethesda jacked up the cost. Mmm, that was some bullshit.

for me 1700 hours.. worth it haha

That was the only good experience with a season pass (or pre-order) I've ever had. Yes, Bethesda cranked up the cost of the season pass. But they gave customers a week or so warning before they did so. Anyone who pre-ordered or was planning to really only has themselves to blame if they paid the higher price for that pass. I don't know if the DLC would have been worth the full price. But the half price of the original season pass, the content was easily worth that.

But never again. For me, no pre-orders, no season passes, not even any first day purchases. I went off those things cold turkey and the only was developers will learn and change pre-order culture is if enough of us just wait a day.

ive still got the nuka world song stuck in my head months later