Borderlands 2 and the Season Pass
Borderlands 2 is offering a “season pass” to allow you to get all of their DLC in one go. This is a new phenomenon that we have seen from publishers. Dungeon Defenders also released a “season pass” for the Lost Eternia Shards Quest.
As far as consumers, it is good to keep an eye on this. You can actually save a lot of money this way. The season pass itself with retail for around $29.99 USD. It will consist of four different DLC packs that you will get for one price. If you were to buy them some other way, they would cost $39.96 or more.
Discounts are not a New Premise
While this is an interesting trend, we can’t really applaud them for it. Discounting has been around for some time. To be honest though, this minor discounting is common lately. Sadly it is the alternative to reduced overall prices.
As usual there will be a premier edition with additional DLC. Overall it seems that Borderlands 2 will have more DLC than before, which is not a huge surprise. In fact you need to pre-order to get the Mechromancer class.
More and Bigger DLC for Borderlands 2, Day 1
Weapons, character classes and guns are unique to pre-order people. This is a trend in AAA gaming that is rather troublesome for the consumer. You better hope you can buy the game multiple times. This trend will continue with Borderlands 2 and a slew of other titles. Guild Wars 2 also did this. Huge DLC day one and beyond is the new trend.
The DLC issue is troubling for consumers, but can be good for companies. Many designers get their start on side projects. It allows a company to hire more people and keep them around longer. So it is a real double-edged sword. On one hand, a segment of the gaming audience is missing out on huge parts of each title. On the other hand, developers have more room for employment and growth. Can we say whether it is right or wrong? Not really. That is for you to decide.
It doesn’t seem that the new class will be only available to owners of the Premier Club Edition, it only says that she will come for free to those who own it. Might arrive as a paid DLC, then.
And about the day 1 DLC, personally I disagree with this approach, no matter how good this might make the company and/or game after-life. Paying extra content the vanilla game have since the release is like buying a pair of shoes and then charge for the shoelaces: you’ll feel robbed having to buy something the full package should give you for free (not the case for the extra class though, they’ll still be working on it – or so I believe – then it’s fair game charging an extra =))
Sorry I gave you that idea, that’s not what I was actually trying to say. They’ve said the character will be released later at a cost.
I would be fine with all the DLC if I didn’t know that some people just don’t have the money for it. That’s pretty much what gets me.
As reviewers, many of us get the DLC for free as part of the job. So we don’t have to pay for it anyway. So it adds another layer of reviewers getting it and having that somewhat influence their views.