Lately though, specifically with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, you see that if you don't get the pass that essential modes that some people SPECIFICALLY buy your game for are locked out until they buy your pass. This year, Activision and Sledgehammer Games locked out the Zombies mode to anyone who didn't purchase the Season Pass for Call of Duty. Some people buy that game purely to play that specific mode, personally I still think Left 4 Dead is better but to each their own. I don't think it is fair that these people paid $69.99 to essentially be locked out of their favourite game mode unless they pay another $49.99 on top of that when in every other Call of Duty game the mode has always been included in the base game and the map packs will add an extra zombie map or two. If Activision is wondering why their last two Call of Duty games have been duds, it's this kind of stuff that's what kills it. People are always looking for the Black Ops games both 1 & 2 and Modern Warfare 2 as those were the true pinnacles of the franchise and still the most popular. If they want to do better they can't rely on Season Pass sales and pissing off fans.
I'm not going to talk about all the different kinds of DLC today, just to talk about Season Passes. The idea that I'm paying in advance for content that isn't out yet has never really sat well with me 100%. Sometimes the stuff you get with Season Passes is totally garbage and sometimes it's fantastic. I do see the convenience to pay for it all at once rather than individually because it will save you a few dollars in the long run and they usually add bonus incentives to people who buy the pass, such as smaller DLC content specifically for people who bought the pass. Some people are just not comfortable forking out an extra, anywhere from $14.99 to $49.99 for a pass for DLC after they just paid a minimum of $69.99 for the game itself. I have bought Season Passes in the past but only for games I know that I will 100% buy all of the DLC for anyways so why not, but with other games, I may just pick and choose my downloads or not get any at all so why get such a pass ?? Lately though, specifically with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, you see that if you don't get the pass that essential modes that some people SPECIFICALLY buy your game for are locked out until they buy your pass. This year, Activision and Sledgehammer Games locked out the Zombies mode to anyone who didn't purchase the Season Pass for Call of Duty. Some people buy that game purely to play that specific mode, personally I still think Left 4 Dead is better but to each their own. I don't think it is fair that these people paid $69.99 to essentially be locked out of their favourite game mode unless they pay another $49.99 on top of that when in every other Call of Duty game the mode has always been included in the base game and the map packs will add an extra zombie map or two. If Activision is wondering why their last two Call of Duty games have been duds, it's this kind of stuff that's what kills it. People are always looking for the Black Ops games both 1 & 2 and Modern Warfare 2 as those were the true pinnacles of the franchise and still the most popular. If they want to do better they can't rely on Season Pass sales and pissing off fans. One of the few companies that does the Season Pass properly is Telltale Games. For a very convenient price, usually ranging from $19.99 to $24.99 they sell a Season Pass for their episodic game series. You're paying for it all in advance because you'd rather do that than individually for games like that, save money, and you know once you start you'll want all of the episodes so it's good on their part to sell it that way. They just released Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones this month and both games follow that same pass format they laid down for Walking Dead (1 & 2) and Wolf Among Us. Season Passes, whether we like them or not, will be a thing that sticks around for awhile and won't just suddenly disappear. Publishers and developers know they'll be releasing DLC and they know it'll be a bunch of DLC so they're willing to "package" it together conveniently for people with a tiny discount (which I suppose is nice but the idea of DLC is another topic entirely).
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The question presented is simple, is it time for these two franchises to make a comeback, and my response to it is a simple yes. Yes it is. These two franchises started their own genre of game that other games like Rock Revolution, The Gig: Rise of the Six String, and Rock of the Dead all tried to duplicate but failed miserably. From the get go the Guitar Hero franchise on the PS2 was set for success with its wide range of songs to cover all different styles of rock to give everyone something to enjoy. It also brought with it a resurgence in Classic Rock as a genre of music, not to say that it was ever truly dead, for I live in a city where fossil rock is a corner stone of the community. What you did see was younger and younger kids learning more songs from Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult to Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas and more. It was a fresh experience to see people of all ages get into all styles of music. Then something happened. We saw a dramatic shift in the amount of games being produced and with a dramatic increase in games came a dramatic increase in instruments. We saw Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2 with its expansion Rock the 80's and Guitar Hero 3 spaced far apart and Rock Band at the same time as GH3 but after that, it was nothing but game after game. Within the space of (blank) years we saw Guitar Hero: World Tour, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Band Hero, Rock Band 2 + 4 track packs for it, AC/DC Live Rock Band, Rock Band 3, and Lego Rock Band. Now add to this the gigantic amount of DLC available for all of the games and you have a giant oversaturation. Along with this we saw both Red Octane, the developer of Guitar Hero, and Harmonix, the developer of Rock Band in bad situations. Harmonix went bankrupt and was sold to EA Games, while it wasn't their downfall, that largely had to do with the instrument backstock; EA was the ones that made Harmonix push out more Rock Band titles than necessary. Activision owned Red Octane and that was a whole other can of worms, see around this time the Calll of Duty franchise struck it big with Modern Warfare 1 & 2, this led to a majority of Activision's fund being pushed on their powerhouse money making franchise and saw the end of both the Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk games. Now, why do I think we need a new one.......we have the old ones you say, we have the instruments, we have everything still why not just play what's out already ?? And that's a fair enough point, I still thoroughly enjoy playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero games, have em all, plus about 200 DLC songs on top of that. I was very committed to it, I loved that style of game. The problem is this, those instruments were not built to last even when they were new, so now pushing on since about 2010 or 2011 we have these plastic instruments that are either broken or missing pieces and people can't enjoy their games even if they wanted too. I have no idea what I'd do without my instruments to play some of my favourite games. We have 3 brand new consoles to work with so I say release a new game from each franchise for the systems and this time Activision/Red Octane, EA/Harmonix please keep the release dates to a minimum. I'm cool being flooded with new updates and DLC if it means you aren't gonna release 8 games in 3 years. We need a new Guitar Hero and a new Rock Band. Cover Art For the Various Titles (Not Including Track Packs) |
AuthorThere's not much to say about me other than I'm an avid gamer, comic reader, sports fan, etc. just passionate about things I love. Archives
February 2023
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