The Cost of Vision?

Should you raise the price of your season pass if your vision for the project expands beyond what you initially intended? The question of value when it comes to season passes has been something that I have spoken about on the podcast repeatedly. I have had a hard time justifying season pass purchases for nearly every game, with the exception of Forza because I am INSANE about cars.

Within the last two months, two high-profile games have raised the price of their season pass. Those games are Dying Light and as of this morning, Fallout 4. It is really hard for me to reconcile the idea that a major video game publisher would market and sell a season pass to millions of people and then mid-stream decide to completely change course and abandon all commonly held video game retail practices by raising the price on the package. I don’t have a problem with someone realizing that the vision is outstripping resources, but it leaves people who play games in an interesting predicament, especially in the case of Fallout 4. We haven’t seen any substantial amount of information on those planned expansions in any way and now they are holding that content up for ransom. “Oh, you want this new Fallout DLC? Well, you better pay me $30 today or it is going to be $50 next week.”

I feel only slightly different about the situation surrounding Dying Light. By the time that the final piece of paid DLC was going to be coming out, most people could look at the depth and breadth of existing DLC for the game and see if they had confidence that the final piece would justify the cost before jumping in.

I realize that I run the risk of sounding overly entitled. But, I still don’t feel like the season pass industry is something that I really support. It hasn’t convinced me to jump on the Fallout pass or the Dying Light pass. I suppose I will let those seasons pass me by and pick them up on sale later on.