The Season Pass Hate

[TheMysteriousGX]

For me, it depends on whether or not you can still buy the season pass after all the content comes out.

Like Mario Kart 8, where you can still, today, buy both DLC packs at the reduced season pass rate.

Past that it's just pre-ordering expansion packs. Can't say I'd be against pre-ordering something like Brood War or Lord of Destruction in this day and age. But then, I like DLC in general and only get pissy about it when devs and publishers are blatantly hacking apart their game to make DLC out of. Like, if part of the MK8 DLC was a proper battle mode, and they announced it would be available before the game was live, that I'd be mad at.

Heck, I'm even theoretically okay with DLC being announced before a game ships. It's entirely possible for a game to be almost ready to go, and a DLC pack being at 50% or whatever. As long as that DLC isn't level 5, which goes between levels 4 and 6 of the main game, and has crucial plot points where not having it makes level 6 of the main game feel disjointed.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

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.

Yeah this guy gets it. I mean, I don't mind paying more for more game, but DLC is quite often just costumes and shit that used to be unlocked by playing the game itself. So I fear it's just something for sore old buggers such as myself that now they nickel and dime for this stuff, especially on special editions only available on pre-order from a particular retailer, etc. Extra fighters, cars, maps, guns, skins, and game modes all used to be unlocked by in-game currency, grinding something, beating a difficulty, finishing with a certain character. Now, just fork over some cash. It's extremely annoying, and stopped me giving a shit about anything other than base game content altogether, unless a decent amount of game is given for the price (e.g Witcher 3).

 

[Quellist]

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.

Seconded or thirded. Tell me what i'm getting for my money and i'm happy

 

[Pseudonym]

Because the DLC sold in it is ussually not worth the money at all and I would not have bought it anyway. And lets say I do want the crappy DLC which doesn't add nearly enough to justify any more than a 2 dollar price tag. Why would I pay now? There is no reason for me to buy this content in advance. I'll buy it when it is finished, if it is worth it. Let the publishers bear the risks of developing content.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Sell me something that is good and worth the money - Where it should be and used to be

Tell me what I am pre-ordering - Where it is now

Just sell me a promise and I'll be happy - Becoming the new norm

Think of where we started, bitching about the horrible value of Horse Armor and now we are pre-ordering DLC based on a promise and what do we do if the DLC doesn't live up to the promise? Nothing useful and then we do it all again for the next game.

I used to think that people would hold these companies accountable and shit would hit the fan when that DLC became unavailable due to online stores shutting down but now I am almost certain that gamers will roll over and say 'eh, whatever' while shitting on those who do complain. They'll say 'well, you can't expect Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo to keep the PS3/360/Wii U store open forever'. This applies to DD full games too.

 

[bjj hero]

Season passes are awful. You pay for content of an unknown quality up front. Look at the Battlefield pass, it is as much as the original game. That is rediculous.

I will never buy a season pass and avoid games that use them.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Like with dlc, if it's content I want to play, even if I know that they're screwing me in a conceptual sense, still, my gratitude for the creation of something I want to play and my love for the content will win out with no contest. Conversely, most dlc and most season passes come out for games I wouldn't even touch for free due to time constraints, so I am completely apathetic about their unethical nature because I don't have any attachment to those games.

Even if it's something as bad as Asura's Wrath real ending being dlc, if it's as good as that dlc was and as hype, I will always pay up the premium price with a smile.

 

[hermes]

Because most season pass are really vague in terms of content. They don't tell you exactly what you are going to get, exactly when are you going to get it or, in the case of new IP or game features, how relevant it is the new content to the experience. It doesn't help many season pass are not available after a certain date, so you can't wait to see exactly what it includes before buying it. Most will say something like "One single player story DLC and two multiplayer DLC". That gives the developers some leeway in terms of what to build as DLC, but it can make people feel ripped off.

For example, no one specifies the length of the single player DLC, so it can go from something the size of Minerva's Den to a handful of challenge maps; from Citadel to Pinnacle Station; from Clash of the Clouds (a combat arena) to Burial at Sea (itself a problematic DLC, since the take one story and divided it into 2 pieces of DLC). Multiplayer DLC can range from map packs to a couple skins. That is even discounting the fact most games (multiplayer in particular) will be a shell of their former self by the time all the DLC is released.

So, the point is, you are asked to pay upfront for something you don't know how impactful it will be on the game, before you play it, trusting the developers will deliver in time and the content will be worthwhile.

 

[Mangod]

Here's one thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: if you buy the Season Pass for a Multiplayer game, you run the additional risk of having commited to paying for extra content for a game... that might never even get made, because the games playerbase dies off before all the stuff is even out.

 

[Qoajo]

I don't dislike DLC/Season Pass, I just dislike crappy DLC. For example, a DLC with maybe 2 maps and some skins or other cosmetics isn't something I'm willing to spend money for.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Why would you ever give a corporation your money for a promise? Give them your money now, maybe they'll deliver what they promise, maybe they won't. Maybe it will be high quality, maybe it won't. Maybe it will substantial, maybe it won't. You don't know, you can't, and trusting a corporation in an industry that has regularly and continues to implement vile business practises does not deserve your trust. You can wait till after the content is released and enjoy it then, after your friends, reviewers and critics have tried it, after it's shown to be bug free and worth the asking price.

It is not a question of value or enjoyment, it is a question of paying for a thing that doesn't exist, on the promise of an untrustworthy source and no guarantee on what the final product will be. It's a gamble and an unnecessary one. Buy it on release, not before.

 

[laggyteabag]

I often find season passes to be very vague.

"Buy this and get some 'stuff'... 'later'!". The price reduction is decent, but by the time that all of the content is out, they're pretty much ready to release a GOTY edition, anyway, with everything packed in, or at the very least, the DLC goes on sale.

I also hate map packs in general. Most games worth their salt these days release maps for free, because they put their brains ahead of their wallets, and they realise that the DLC maps are played maybe for the first week or so, and then all of the servers pretty much roll back to the vanilla maps because not many people have the content, and all it does is split the community.

Im also not a big fan of paid-for characters with different skills, like Mortal Kombat or Halo Wars 2, because it creates a community of haves and have nots, and it can be pretty easily labelled as Pay-2-Win, if one characters is particularly powerful. But, at the same time, Ubisoft style season passes, like in R6: Siege or For Honor, I find to be mostly pointless, as the characters can be bought for in-game currency, anyway.

Singleplayer content, I am perfectly fine with. Im currently running through The Witcher 3's Blood and Wine expansion, and I just finished Hearts of Stone, which was fantastic. I suppose it really depends on who is making the game, and how committed they really are to making something awesome. Im sure we've all played some pretty shitty DLC in past, but for every Oblivion Horse Armour, there is a RDR Undead Nightmare, somewhere in the world.