A trend has began to emerge in the downloadable content market. Though Sony is currently trying to push its PLAY four-game promotion and its own brand of online passes, Microsoft has started to roll out “Season Passes” for its most anticipated titles, including Gears of War 3 and more recently, Forza 4.
Kris: This new approach to DLC is either brilliant or idiotic. On the upside developer’s get fans paying you more for their game upfront, and they’ll also be more likely to keep playing the game as they know they’ve got more content coming. On the other hand it removes at least part of the reason for DLC: the long tail. DLC is supposed to give a more long term revenue stream, putting out a DLC bundle every six months (for example) gives you new cash coming in every half a year to fund the development of a new game. By front loading that money with a “season pass” it’s completely negated and developers must be more careful to spread that money over the appropriate period.
Aran: Season passes are here to stay. They offer a much better deal for the customer instead of spending more money by buying DLC as standalone items. Expect other franchises to follow suit.
Dan: I don’t have an issue with these season pass style offers. With a saving of 30% or so it makes sense for the die hard fans of a franchise. However, what I’m not keen on is the fact that we simply don’t know what we are paying for yet. Yes, there will be 60 cars, but (from memory) Forza 3 only really had a handful of DLC cars that actually interested me.
Next week’s TSA talks will return to it’s regular weekend slot and it will be a Eurogamer Expo special.
teflon
I’ve found OnLive to be quite good on my computer. The resolution isn’t fantastic, and my connection often falters, because of TalkTalk in combination with running over WiFi, but a dab of Deus Ex (£1!) has been good enough that I might do that offer on Saints Row 3 and get a console.
If it doesn’t get used, it doesn’t get used, but for quieter months, I can drop £7 and access a decent selection of games I’ve not played.
Ben
I will try out OnLive again, certainly great for instantly jumping into a new game. A huge advance compared to the hours of updating and installing we usually out up with, sometimes just to play a short demo.
yogh_wayne
I don’t like the idea of cloud-gaming at all. If there’s any problem with your connection or their servers, you just have to hope that there’s something good on TV. Also I agree that OnLive is pretty much a “glorified rental system” (nice description, Aran). But I’m surprised to read that Dan didn’t notice any input lag, their system seems to work better than I thought. Still I really hope that the future of gaming doesn’t only consist of OnLive and iPhone apps!
FriendlyFiend
I’ve been really impressed with OnLive. I was lucky enough to score a free console at the Eurogamer expo and have to say that the experience of using it has been great, with graphical quality seeming much better than when using OnLive through my (not too shabby) computer. The fact that I’ve managed to play several of the games lag-free, despite the much-lower-than-claimed speed of my BT broadband (3MBps if I’m lucky) has left me hugely impressed.
Jakster123x
I’m intrigued to try out Onlive after the largely positive response here, but I’ll probably never get around to it.
skibadee
it is surprising a lot of people hate it on CVG.
flatspikes
Onlive is part of my gaming solution… the problem was the introduction of my new baby (3 months old now!). I couldn’t justify keeping my PS3 gaming habit, a smattering of Steam titles and my iOS gaming… So I sold the PS3 and felt sad… for a day as Onlive UK launched the next day!
Although it won’t have the exclusive titles and there are still some big names (EA anyone) missing it will certainly give me my fix when I do get a few hours to indulge. £7 a month the rent 100 games… that’ll do. When I’m out and about iOS or PC/Mac gaming with Steam fills the void. It should…. in theory be a more cost effective and flexible option that PS3 ownership… but with obvious drawbacks.
Oh and I am lucky enough to have a 30mb BT Infinity connection so no issues with lag or resolution here:-)
Dan Lee
good news, EA will be bringing Bulletstorm to OnLive. Yeah it’s a few months old, but paves the way for the newer stuff.
flatspikes
Oh, that is good news, I thought they might go Gaikai only… I can live without those console exclusives if all the main publisher are on board.
Another concern I did have was pricing… however unlike the PSN sales Onlive do seem to offer full games at $5 pretty much every month… and their major sales offer good discounts across the board. Oh and the 30% off everything subscriber discount is something Sony could learn from I’d say:-)
skibadee
50MB Virgin connection it still lags it is gaming going backwards imo hop Sony try it with demos on PS4 about the only reason I would try it you will never play gears or UC3 on it.
skibadee
there not on board & you can get a lot of the games dirt cheap on there.
kivi95
Really hate this Season pass thing.
C_S15
If the U.K. had a solid, fast internet connection Onlive would be perfect. I don’t really see the problem with it. Just like LoveFilm and Netflix, it’s a rental service so I don’t really agree with it being what it is as a downside. If I had a better, more reliable internet connection, I’d jump ship.
Season pass is a brilliant idea. It is a much better way of adding incentive to not entering the second hand market rather than the shitty Online Pass which takes things away. I do agree that there should be more ideas of what you’re getting when you actually enter into this sort of agreement.
Don’t really have an opinion for Homefront 2. It was a decent game, it’s just a shame Kaos got so little development time and now Crytek are getting about 2 years to work on it!
Hamzz
Completely agree, only if i was in south korea (1000mbit internet!)
heedbaw
I thought that OnLive was horrible. Using a wired 20mb Virgin Media conection and even the main menu was a nasty artefacted mess. I then tried Metro 2033 trial and it was impossible to see about 5ft in front of me due to the blurry madness. The fact that you don’t actually own what you pay for, and that prices fall roughly between PC and console game prices is another turn off. Not mentioning that a game could just disappear if not enough people are playing it, or after 3yrs. Then there’s the ‘servers full’ thing to, which is just mental. Also seen reports that it goes through about 2gb and hour, so with my VM connection it would get throttled after about 2 hours or so.
I did like the Arena thing though, being able to spectate on random games is quite cool. Yet it’s one of those features that would be of the used once, went ‘sweet’, then forgot about.
Hamzz
20mb? are you sure you hav’nt downloaded anything today over 1gb because if you have Isp’s usually limit your DL limit :)
Hamzz
This is absolutely awesome! Even on my 10mb connection it runs fluidly with the occasional jitter but and blurriness but heck thats because of ‘fair usage policy’ for people with 20mb+ internet it should be a defo buy :)ps- i was playing the Arkham asylum demo.