Wednesday 17 February 2010

Should ‘Land of the Dead’ have been free?

I have just finished listening to show 58 of Shut Up. We're Talking, which they discussed when is it alright to charge for downloadable content? They discuss and rightly so that Mythic charging for the missing classes was not optional and would have made a lot of people angry.

But I am wondering if giving us Land of the Dead free a good decision in business terms. I don’t remember if Land of the Dead was meant to make it in on release and could have been a prime contender for DLC without the gated system. As it works as a separate zone, gives you access to new content and gives players of 25+ a good place to power level.

Today’s MMO market is vastly different from the days of regular free updates and large paid expansions. Lots of games are offering $10 pets, so could they have got away with charging us $10 for account access to Land of the Dead. Then would War's numbers then appear more positive and offer potential in Electronic Arts eyes.

If it meant more regular content and a rosier future for War with regards to funding with this model in place I know I wouldn’t mind paying.

2 comments:

  1. Charging money for access to lotd would have been no good idea. Mythic tried to get a positive swing in PR with release of that content and charging money for it would just feed the nay- and doomsayers..

    I don't expect any new thing like lotd to happen for free, but in that time lotd was released it was imo the right decision to keep it free.

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  2. I am with you it seemed the right choice at the time, but when it hit a lot of the doom-sayers complained anyway calling to fix AoE and end game and not give out more content. Depending on its commercial success as a DLC could they have weathered the cuts by EA a little better to provide more income?

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