Capcom is Here to Take Your Monies with RE5 DLC

Oh, Capcom. You give us great franchises like Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, Dead Rising, and yes, even Resident Evil; yet you must pull stupid, stupid practices like this. If you’re not aware of the recent controversy with the newly-announced Resident Evil 5 downloadable content (DLC), where the game itself just released a mere 2 days ago, then let me catch you up: Capcom is readying some “new” content for RE fans in the form of the franchise’s first ever online multiplayer modes, Versus, Survivor’s Rule and Slayer’s Rule. 

From Kotaku: 

“Versus allows up to four players to match wits in online battles across two very different game types. Slayer’s Rule is a point-based game that challenges players to kill Majinis. In Survivor’s Rule, players hunt the most dangerous game, each other! Players can begin the hunt as Chris, Sheva or other secret characters, and choose from either one-on-one or two-versus-two team matches for either of the two gameplay styles.”

For a game that already emphasizes co-op game play, this would seem like a nifty extra right? Wrong. Why? Because Capcom execs have seen the need to actually charge, for essentially, a new online multiplayer mode – you know, something which is practically standard in the industry these days. Not saying that all games would do well to fit the multiplayer option – RPG’s for instance, are single player only affairs – and RE does seem a peculiar pick given its stop-and-shoot controls, but when DLC is only a few weeks off of the game’s original release, one has to wonder why this couldn’t be a part of the on-disc content. 

To justify the $5 (or 400 MS points) cost on the 360 and PS3, Capcom has attempted to explain the reasons behind it at CVG:

“Although Versus mode makes use of the assets that exist in the game, the functionality is not currently in the game and is above and beyond the initial scope of Resident Evil 5,” Capcom told us.

“We have never included a Versus mode in Resident Evil before, and as well as the costs of development of the feature, there’s also additional bandwidth costs associated with it,” it added.

For content that already utilizes all of its art/character/graphic/environment assets on the disc, is it really necessary to charge for what amounts to the new modes and net code? Now I’m not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of video game development, but for a game and franchise that is practically guaranteed to be a certified blockbuster in sales due to its rabid fanbase, can’t that profit cover those “functionality” costs?

And if the Versus modes are described as being “above and beyond the initial scope” of RE5, then why were there already Achievement/Trophy listings dedicated entirely to the paid content? That’s because that the modes were already pre-planned, already a part of Capcom’s business decision making, probably knowing full well it was going to be charged ahead of time. Coupled with the fact that this DLC is set to arrive in a few week’s time, one can even venture to speculate that the DLC was being developed alongside the original game in the first place – which in itself seems to be common practice for developers these days and only supports the negative stigma associated with DLC.

Remember, it’s not the cost of DLC that has generated backlash over Capcom and other similar situations, but rather the principle of it: if people keep on blindly buying supposed “add-ons” assuming that that’s just the way the industry works, then more companies could continue down this path of utter ridiculousness and greed. While the paid-for DLC market is still in its infancy stages (only being introduced in this current generation of consoles), we have quickly seen that there have been right ways and wrong ways to do this. Capcom have unfortunately, fallen in temptation for the latter.

On EDGE’s K2 Review…

Don’t know if you’ve taken notice of the eruption of arguments across gaming forums in the last few days, but EDGE magazine’s recent review of Guerilla Game’s Killzone 2 ranks very high on top of those threads. For purely informational purposes, the link to the review is here.

Done reading? OK, let’s get on with it:

The dispute, contrary to popular belief, is not because EDGE simply gave an “against the grain” score of 7 out of 10 (amid a sea of upper 9’s, mind you), but rather because the reviewer utterly failed to justify their reasoning behind it. For all intents and purposes, it seems EDGE had given the “lower” score in order to intentionally separate itself from the pack just to seem “cool” or “better” than everyone out there. Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with dissenting opinions, but when there is a clear lack of evidence to back up those opinions, than it must be questioned. 

Sharing my beliefs is the folks over at PSXExtreme, which, while mainly a Playstation-centric site, make some very valid points in Ben’s article here. Since I’ve already ranted over in the comments section over there, I thought I’d repaste my thoughts here in this post:

“Jesus christ here, people… how many times do Ben and others here need to repeat it for you? Forget any of that fanboy non-sense, either 360/PS3/Wii/Dreamcast/Genesis, what have you, and realize from the get go that Edge’s review is a poorly worded article filled with ambiguities masked in poetical jibber jabber. Please just TRY to defend that review after reading it… I think you’ll find it quite the challenge.

The writer basically eschews clarity for, it seems, the sake of sensationalistic headlines. Aside from citing a “weak” plot point and the game’s lack of innovation – which is a whole ‘nother point of contention entirely – the reviewer fails to give any other concrete evidence for their 7/10 score. Ben is calling him (and others like it) out on the validity of their journalistic integrity: as others have already said, there is a FINE line between fact and opinion when it comes to game reviews, and this review has simply chosen to cloud their review with more opinion than fact. God forbid that a review actually INFORMS readers on the merits of whether a game should be purchased or not…

We’re not denying his opinion, no; opinion does indeed play a role in reviews no matter what anyone says. The problem comes when that opinion practically overwhelms the FACTUAL evidence needed to give consumers proper information… for instance, while I may not enjoy Halo 3 as much as many other people do, I still can RESPECT its technical achievement and contribution to the industry at large. Opinion should have little effect on an overall score for a game, which should be judged by its technical merits and not what the reviewer just happens to think off the top of his head. In this regard, Edge has failed spectacularly…”

Hopefully you see that the problem has nothing to do with having a different opinion, but rather using that opinion to try and wrongly persuade others to your reasoning, without much evidence to back it up. The job of a reviewer is to properly inform readers about the technical merits of a product, and while subjectivity does indeed play a role in this process, it should not be an overwhelming factor in deciding a “score” – see why I write scoreless reviews now? ; )

It’s important to be able to distinguish between opinion and fact in video game reviews, and to avoid such cases as EDGE has done here in trying to pass the former for the latter. The industry is growing at an exponential amount these days, but it’s disappointing to see that gaming journalism itself must witness enormous setbacks detrimental to its survival.

The Nature of Exclusivity, Preface

Just how relevant are video game exclusives today?

Fire up the topic in any one of your favorite local search engines and you are sure to come across hundreds upon hundreds of pages worth of articles and comments alike. From passionate debates about evaluating the current console wars, to hearing the cries of thousands of fanboys as news break of a title or company switching console allegiances, exclusive games are obviously a hot topic for the hardcore gamer. This point is only emphasized by the large price differences in gaming today – will you purchase the $500 Playstation 3, the $400 XBox 360 (excluding its “core” packs) or opt for accessible gaming with the hard-to-find $250 Wii? With such discrepancies, more and more people are relying on console-specific games to define these systems and ultimately decide which to spend their hard-earned money on.

After all, there’s a reason why Halo 3 became one of the biggest video game releases that the industry has ever seen: since the original title in the series put Microsoft’s rookie XBox system on the map, it has become synonymous with the brand and has undoubtedly helped propel the console to the #2 spot in the console wars (alas, Nintendo’s mighty dominance with the Wii is for another day). If we can take away anything from this recent phenomenon, it’s that console-exclusive titles hold incredibly powerful influences among the gaming masses; indeed, as in previous console generations, exclusives are seen as essentially “defining” the systems they are built for.

However, with the extremely high costs of development for the current console generation, are exclusive game titles even a viable business option for game developers anymore? Is it fair and accurate to define a console simply through its exclusive games alone?

In an effort to come to terms with those questions – as I’m sure many others wish to do, too – this three part feature will focus on the strengths of the upcoming console exclusives, or at least, those that have been announced as of their posting. Each week, starting with the Playstation 3, I will focus on major console exclusive titles and evaluate the games based on a certain set of criteria (outlined below) to see if they have the potential to strengthen their system lineup or merely fall by the wayside in the process. The purpose is not to find the next “killer app” for each system insomuch as it is used to gain insight on what these exclusive games tell us about a particular console, and whether or not they should be worth your precious time and gaming dollars.

Criteria
Hype: What type of prerelease attention has it been getting from the press and message boards?

Developers: Have they had prior success on the console before? Is a well-known game designer attached to the project?

Potential: Is the game part of an already-established franchise? Does it intend to introduce anything “innovative” to the genre? Pushes the technological envelope? Does it add or detract from the existing library of exclusive games to that console?