But I’m not off to join anti-globalisation activists just yet. It’s just a matter of looking at these things in a sober fashion. The corporation is, after all, a psychopath.
There’s a point here and it’s THQ selling off the formerly free content for Full Spectrum Warrior. At $5 a pop (or $4.99, if you want the haggle semantics) you can get the additional content that comes with the PC version of the game anyway. Now, I’m not a Live subscriber and I’m glad I can clutch my copy of the game and run home to my PC to play. But it must really be a downer for any poor sap who paid for the Xbox Live subscription, full price for the game and is now expected to cough up $5 for additional content, especially when it was originally touted as free. And there’s another pack coming out, also at the cheap, cheap price of $5 (not so cheap, since that was also supposed to be, well, free).
Do this in the PC market and you have a riot. PC gamers simply won’t stand for it or not support it. And I thought console culture was finally onto the right idea: nothing says ‘Thank You’ quite like free content. But no, THQ has to make more money, even though I’m pretty sure Full Spectrum Warrior massaged their profit margin quite nicely.
It gets better – now Ubisoft want to do the same thing with Rainbow Six content. When I first read about THQ’s shenanigans I wondered who would follow suit, since there is no way this would be a one-off event, unless it ended up being financially stupid. Sadly, $5 isn’t that much and gamers would pay that for the extra content, but let’s not lose focus: the stuff was supposed to be free.
Microsoft has been very quiet on the matter; a pity since they are the ones who can enforce a bit more policy here. It might be a bit worrying to have companies tell publishers what to do, but EA has been getting away with it for a while now and nothing has broken just yet. The real issue is what if such a software giant decides to charge for extra content? Who exactly will tell EA to take a long walk off a short, shark-surrounded pier if they want to charge us $5 a pop for new Burnout 3 content? Not Microsoft – that’s for sure.
This is wrong, people. Very, very wrong and I’ll always eye THQ with a certain level of disgust, because they are prying open a chamber of Pandora’s cash box we certainly can do without. Don’t tell me they need the money: if your final product can’t make you returns, then maybe you’re doing something else wrong. It’s the equivalent of paying extra for the interviews now common on DVDs.
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