- tiger7
- |
- Exalted Legendary Member
Posted by: The_omen
Posted by: tiger7
Take a moment to think about this from the perspective of a business. Yes, I said it. Bungie is also a business. As a business, would you want to reward your most loyal customers for consistently purchasing your content by actually letting them use it in the playlists that it was designed to be in, or would you want to shortchange them by not letting them get adequate play for the maps they paid for. According to you, the maps are overpriced. So someone who does pay for them should be able to use them as much as possible, even if it takes priority over the other, less valuable (from a business standpoint) customers.
My nickel.
Exactly! There goes the "They're a business so they charge high" argument. There is no reason for them to charge high. In the contrary, their fans (who already bought three games. Maybe even four) already have all the content available in ODST. They shouldn't even release it with the multiplayer at all. That's just stupid. Specially since the Halo3 Population is over 4 million. Those four million people will pay for something they already paid for. MS/bungie should be doing this "expansion" as a sort of gift (not a free gift of course), I mean why would they even do this? Halo:Reach is their newest "full" game, but since its a year from now, they decided to work on something small to please the fans while Halo:reach comes out. This shouldn't be priced as a full game. Period.
Please Microsoft, I know you have been known to be moneyhungry beasts, And you know why? Because of things like this. If you would at least just take away Halo 3 Multiplayer (which is easy since its in another disc) you could decrease the price to please your 8-year-halo-fans. This would change the whole view on your Company. It would be Micro>3soft instead of Micro$oft.
There's two reasons they're releasing it with multiplayer. The first is money. You and I both understand Microsoft, so I obviously don't have to explain how their pocketbook benefits from having a low price way to add a bullet point to the back of the box.
The second is that Bungie, for what ever reason, didn't like the idea of ODST multiplayer. Having a Halo game ship without some sort of multiplayer in the box would seem rather unusual. It also allows people without hard drives or live to get all of the maps.
As for whether or not it should be priced as a full game is in the eye of the consumer. You look at it as an expansion, with no new multiplayer that is only a hold over until Halo: Reach. I choose to see it instead as a full featured game, with a new campaign and survival mode. That's in addition to being able to clear some space off of my hard drive for those map packs. That's going to drive how we decide as consumers.
And being money hungry beasts has lead them into also being known as one of the worlds richest corporations. They have an extensive understanding of the free market system, and as nice as it would be for them to do what you suggest, they most certainly won't.
I believe it was in January of 08 that they said it was 8.1 million copies sold. Let's say that we take ODST at a hypothetical $40 price point, because even in this crazy situation in which Microsoft is particularly generous, it wouldn't be lower than that.
So if every single one of those, we'll call it 8 million people bought ODST at the $40 price point, it turns out like this.
8,000,000 x 40 = $320,000,000
Obviously, if they sell it for $60, not as many people will buy it. But plenty still will. It becomes a question of how many copies do they have to sell at $60 before they turn a profit compared to the $40 price point.
Let's say only 6 million buy ODST at the $60 price point.
6,000,000 x 60 = $360,000,000
Over 1/4 of the people who bought Halo 3 could decide not to buy ODST because of the price point, and Microsoft still turns a profit by charging more. That won't happen. On this forum, or through other parts of the internet maybe. But on a whole, I'm sure it won't struggle to sell at least 7 million.
The key is for them to find the sweet point at which they maximize profits by matching quantity supplied with quantity demanded. I'm sure it's higher than $60, but breaking convention is dangerous, even for Microsoft. Overall, Microsoft is looking to find out how many people value ODST more than $60. That's a basic idea of the free market. Ain't it a -blam!-?
It's not that I don't agree with you, it's just that it doesn't make sense from a logical or economical standpoint, and it just won't happen.