Verno wrote on Mar 26, 2010, 13:43:
Creston wrote on Mar 26, 2010, 13:33:
If the publishers come up with something that a significant percentage of the market will not bear, then they will lose too many sales, and they will CHANGE their methods. This has happened time and time again, and it will keep happening, not just in the game market, but in pretty much every market. If you annoy the customer too much, he will go away. Then you as an entrepeneur will have to change your way of doing business if you want to stay IN business.
If game sales of recent titles using launch-DLC and first use unlocks is any indication, the market will absolutely bear this.
It's a slow process. Of course it's not going to be boycotted to the extreme on the very first sale. Starforce was around for several years until people got too fed up with it.
The bad experience people have had with AC2 and SH5, as well as C&C4, will have an effect on the next games to be released with it, and it spreads from there, until the publisher loses too many sales because of its DRM, at which point they'll drop it and come up with something else.
In some cases, like EA and SecuROM, it goes pretty fast. Other times it takes awhile.
You cannot take a sample size of three and say that it means anything.
(edit : I sort of misread your statement, I thought you were talking about the always-online-SP DRM. The first launch DLC, eh, other than irritating Bioware distribution bullshit, how is that bad for the consumer? You get it if you buy new. The publishers don't care about the used market to the extent that they'll let used market buyers dictate their policies in that way.)
Creston