Dear Bethesda,
Actually, this isn’t specific to just you, but ALL publishers, really, so, EA, Ubisoft,
and all you little buddies out there with marketing departments and sales figures and
P.R. leads, huddle up. This is for all of you. We need to talk about Season Passes.
And look, I know you’re already bracing yourself because, you know, a lot of us who
are critical of season passes really tend to lay it on thick. We talk about how it’s
a shameless attempt to akin to pre-orders that are yet-another-attempt to part consumers
with their currency before they even have anything in their hands. Which, admittedly,
in a capitalist market where you look at incentives and motivations is kinda fucking weird. If
we’re supposed to motivate you to produce quality content by more or less making you
beg for our money, doesn’t a lot of that get tossed out the window if we give you money
ahead of time?
Anyway, that’s not really what I wanted to focus on this time. Smarter and sexier
people than I have already mentioned that. Plus, honestly, actual economics are way more
complicated than basic “invisible hand of the free market” type models. I’m not
here to convince you that Season Passes are wrong because they’re bad for the consumer
and bad for the quality of Downloadable Content. Well, not entirely, anyway.
And I know fans of these letters I write are probably expecting this to be the part where
I pick some arbitrarily useless point to nitpick, but nope. I just wanted to talk to you directly,
Bethesda and other Publishers, about why Season Passes aren’t only just bad for consumers
like me and our fans, but are actually bad for YOU, too.
The only reason I’m singling you out Bethesda is that you’ve been dropping DLC hints all
last week, and, well, if I can be cynical for a moment, people here LOVE when we talk
about Bethesda. But honestly, I’ve noticed people getting restless for DLC. I’m sure
you have, too. It’s all pretty normal, I’m sure. You have passionate people who passionately
love a game, and they want more. MORE. So three months after your game released, it’s
not surprising to see people getting antsy.
Unfortunately, a lot of them are going past antsy and are getting demanding. Like, holy
shit, guys, can you calm down? I know three months seems like a long time to YOU as a
gamer. I mean, in three months I’ve clocked nearly 200 hours in Fallout 4, which I KNOW
for a fact is almost nothing compared to other folk, but whatever, that’s an amount of
time that can actually be measured in days. But while it may seem like a long time to
US, when it comes to developing extra hours of content, that’s basically no time at
all. Game development takes time. You have to write scripts, make new models, code in
the new features, test for bugs--and that’s for MEDIOCRE features.
But before you start pumping your chest and being like “YEAH! THANKS FOR DEFENDING US,
AUSTIN,” just, stop for a second. Imma let you finish, but I have to tell you...the people
getting shitty with you? They’re actually kinda right.
And see, this is one of my big problems with people treating Season Passes like they’re
actually just a convenient way to buy DLC at a cheaper price, like it’s some kind
of bundle, when it really isn’t. What you’re buying when you buy a Season Pass is a PROMISE.
You’re buying the PROMISE of DLC. Unless you purchase it AFTER DLC has already come
out (which, I admit, I did for The Witcher 3 with a little bit of guilt. But seriously,
they won Game of the Year, and for good reason, and have proven that they’re really determined
to not follow the formula of most DLC. In either case, they could still fuck me over,
which will make me curse the heavens for all time)--anyway, unless you’re purchasing
the Season Pass after most of the has come out already, you’re entirely betting on
a wing and a prayer.
But that’s not worth nothing. I mean, it’s one thing to promise us DLC, and quite another
to promise it while taking our money. Now you’re obligated to get something to us,
and we’re justified in getting angry if you don’t deliver. Need extra time? Why?
We already gave you money with the expectation of a timely release. Dig into that to pay
for overtime. And this isn’t just me being a whiney consumer here--I don’t buy Season
Passes (Except for the Witcher 3 AAAAAGH), okay I don’t normally buy season passes.
But if you’re going to take people’s money ahead of time, it’s not unreasonable for
them to expect a speedy delivery.
I mean, Bioshock Infinite delayed releasing their DLC for quality reasons, and there was
HUGE backlash.
See, the Season Pass model kind of puts you in a tight spot as a developer. Of course,
everyone wants the DLC to be quality, and you will get absolute mounds of shit from
people if your DLC is crappy. I don’t need to remind you about the Horse Armor DLC, do
I? Well. I mean. I guess I just did. But anyway, people don’t forget that. Nor will they
be particularly forgiving if it’s buggy and broken. But now you’re obligated to
get us DLC in time, because the consumers paid for that. Sure, you may have some EULA
thing that means you’re technically allowed or whatever to take as much time as you want,
and you’re not owing us whatever blah blah, but when has an End User License Agreement
EVER protected a business from P.R. backlash, mm? It didn’t help Facebook when it ran
analytical tests on its users, and I definitely doubt it’s going to protect publishers from
backlash brought about by broken, buggy, or delayed DLC.
So this is why I really think you, publishers across the board, need to take a better look
at your season pass models. I’m not against them in theory--I definitely see the merit.
But you need to do extensive in-house analytics to figure out if a Season Pass model is something
you can deliver on. Because if not? Oh boy. You’re in for a world of hurt.
We’ve yet to see what your DLC is going to be like, Bethesda, and personally I do
hope it’s good. I’ll admit, I’m worried. Fallout 4 felt rushed to me. I know. I know.
You spent like 7 years on it. But you also tried to do a lot. But I don’t want your
game or your DLC to be bad. So I hope it’s good. And I don’t think you’re taking
too long. Yet. But just be warned, this “give me DLC now” attitude? It’s not going to
go anywhere. Not as long as season passes exist, and especially not as long as publishers
treat them as though they’re the “best practice” for every game franchise under
the sun. So just think about that for a while. It’s not just about us. It’s about you,
too, and about nailing yourself down for promises that you may not be able to keep. Do you really
want that kind of pressure ALL the time?
But hey, if Ubisoft can stop doing annual releases for Assassin's Creed for a while,
maybe there’s hope yet for the AAA Game Industry.
Sincerely, Austin
P.S.
Speaking of Bethesda, I know a lot of you folk are just getting antsier and antsier
for Season 4 of the Storyteller to come back. We are too. Our Machinima artists are working
in the engine, getting familiar with how it works differently from Gamebryo, BUT here’s
the deal: Season 4 of the Storyteller is definitely going to be in the Fallout 4 engine, which
means for now we’re entirely dependent on Bethesda releasing the Creation Kit. We can’t
even begin production until then. So. Yeah. If you want to bug Bethesda about something
other than DLC, do that.
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