Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Blizzard's Shift into Anti-Consumer Policies

Reaper of Souls has pre-order bonuses. And always-online DRM. And it almost has micro-transactions and pay-to-win elements. Almost.

How long will it be before we get into expensive, overpriced DLCs? And in-game content purposely removed from the finished product as pre-order bonuses or DLC? Or pay-to-enter betas?

I ranted about pre-order bonuses before. They encourage people to buy games before knowing if it will be any good. Granted, Blizzard is only giving out cosmetic items as pre-order incentives, but with regards to the Demon Hunter, not enough is known about Heroes of the Storm so it leaves to be seen if it will be an issue.

I guess I'm just sore because I've made it a point not to pre-order, and to not buy anything that has always-online at full price, and because I'm a collector, since I won't be getting the full package when I don't pre-order, it means I won't buy it in future even if there is a sale. (Yes, there are sales on the Blizzard store - Christmas and Black Friday.) AND because it crosses over to other Blizzard games, and I won't be able to complete my 'collection', I'll be giving up on collector's editions, digital deluxe editions or what not. Yes, I know I'm dumb for collecting games, but thanks to Blizzard, I won't have any IP that I'm devoted to anymore, so I can save my money.

The Aliens: Colonial Marines incident should have been a wake up call against pre-ordering games, and really, since it's on the online store, there is no need for Blizzard to get the numbers so they can stock up on copies. What reason is there but to bait people into making rash purchases? What annoys me is that because it is Blizzard, they can get away with absolute anything. If it were EA, the internet would have exploded in a rage equivalent to the detonation of a million nuclear warheads.

Edit: My bad. Turns out Blizzard actually announced that the 'pre-order loot' will be available till 31st March, i.e. after the launch so people can actually wait for reviews before purchasing, instead of buying blind. But then again, people thought Diablo 3 was good for the first few hours...

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