How do prices for DLC evolve?

Especially for XBox360.

I was thinking about downloading RAAM's Shadow, for Gears of War 3. For games I know they reach the €20 mark sooner or later, usually later. When a full game is €20, €15 seems too much for just an expansion of a few hours of campaign for that same game. I'm not a big fan of DLC and I didn't check how prices vary through time for them, I think it's reasonable to expect it will hit the €5 mark at some point, which would be a fair price IMHO.

Am I being too optimistic?

I would wait, but only because Christmas and the New Year are so close.

If RAAM's Shadow isn't at a discount over that period for a Microsoft special then I wouldn't hold out hope for it being cheaper any time soon.

Microsoft don't need to lower the price to get free up retail space, so prices tend to be static. Maybe a reduction a year or so after release and the occasional sale offer.

If things on Xbox LIVE in Europe are anything like they are in the UK, then I doubt you're going to see it drop that low unless there's a sale of some kind. I think Microsoft have learned that having sales for downloadable content more regularly benefits everyone, but because they can exercise the level of control they do over their content as the console manufacturer, I don't think we're going to see them casually dropping DLC to prices that low any time soon.

First, thank you both for your answers, I perfectly understand there are not many chances to see that kind of pricetag.

@Metzo_Paino: the point is not to free up space, but to get some more money. If they keep it at €15 I'm not going to buy it, I would buy it at €5, maybe €7.5, and I guess I'm not the only one. That's some money they could get with the approach of lowering prices through time. That's a way to get the most sales at the highest price (for each of them and thus average) starting with a high price, people buy it, then when no one else is buying it lower the price and so on, it's as a kind of auction.

@Gamer_152: I'll check sales for DLC from time to time. That's how I got Portal for €5 if I'm not mistaken. I don't think €15 is a reasonable price for a small DLC like this or a game like Portal when Mass Effect 2 (in my wishlist) is €20, for instance. The state of the art changes constantly and prices should change with it. At least that's the way I see it, I don't think maintaining prices is a good approach, but it's their business. Thanks for the info about how they rule it ;)

@Trylks said:

@Gamer_152: I'll check sales for DLC from time to time. That's how I got Portal for €5 if I'm not mistaken. I don't think €15 is a reasonable price for a small DLC like this or a game like Portal when Mass Effect 2 (in my wishlist) is €20, for instance. The state of the art changes constantly and prices should change with it. At least that's the way I see it, I don't think maintaining prices is a good approach, but it's their business. Thanks for the info about how they rule it ;)

Are we still talking about Xbox LIVE? Because in the UK you cannot buy Mass Effect 2 on there and if you could, I doubt it would be that cheap. I'm totally with you that a lot of the prices on XBL are not reasonable, I think it was a mistake when they started considering 1200 points more of a standard for content that they would have previously priced at 800, just because they knew they could, then again, I'm pretty unhappy with the way most video games are priced full stop. I'm not an economist, but I do suspect that lower prices for more of that stuff would benefit them, and some of the moves they've been making more recently do seem to trend in that direction.

I still think the XBL pricing falls down in a lot of ways, and new high demand content still gets consistently highly priced, but there are more sales than before, online passes are a thing now, and there are full downloadable console games being sold for prices now that they never would have dreamed of at one time. With your thing specifically I don't know how likely they are to put that on sale, it seems like a pretty big gamble, so I'm not quite sure what to tell you, but maybe it'll just work out that it goes cheap in a sale over the holiday.

@Gamer_152: Yes, I don't think ME2 can be downloaded on XBL, but it's €20 and a good example for comparisons sake, IMHO.

I agree with you and I hope there is a strong competition among companies to lower the prices, I think other options like Steam may help to escape the control of Microsoft. Time will tell. There is an interesting dispute wrt Windows 8.

For now, I'll keep my eyes peeled on the sales and specials: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/marketplace/sales-and-specials

Thank you again.

Frozen in price.

@BisonHero: Frozen in place works too if you consider that nobody is going to buy them at those prices.

@Trylks: The simple answer is they don't evolve. On Xbox Live or PSN, Origin, Nintendo's Network or whatever it's called, hell, even Steam eventually, prices will continue to remain stagnant unless it's a specified "deal" or special that the platform is running. Whether you want to or not, you're going to be forking over more than you'd like for RAAM's Shadow, it's just a matter of whether or not you bend over now or later.

@BisonHero: Frozen in place works too if you consider that nobody is going to buy them at those prices.

@Trylks: The simple answer is they don't evolve. On Xbox Live or PSN, Origin, Nintendo's Network or whatever it's called, hell, even Steam eventually, prices will continue to remain stagnant unless it's a specified "deal" or special that the platform is running. Whether you want to or not, you're going to be forking over more than you'd like for RAAM's Shadow, it's just a matter of whether or not you bend over now or later.

They don't? The prices for almost everything have never changed except on sale. If I want map packs for a game like Timeshift I still have to pay as much as when it came out even though nobody is playing and the content is utterly worthless. Until someone gets a real grip on this stuff and really starts working on maintaining and running real online stores (next gen probably) don't expect to see any evolution whatsoever.

@BisonHero said:

@Oldirtybearon

@BisonHero: Frozen in place works too if you consider that nobody is going to buy them at those prices.

@Trylks: The simple answer is they don't evolve. On Xbox Live or PSN, Origin, Nintendo's Network or whatever it's called, hell, even Steam eventually, prices will continue to remain stagnant unless it's a specified "deal" or special that the platform is running. Whether you want to or not, you're going to be forking over more than you'd like for RAAM's Shadow, it's just a matter of whether or not you bend over now or later.

Well, he could wait for a sale, but I have no idea what the likelihood is of Gears 3 DLC going on sale. I'm used to Steam sales, where goddamn everything goes on sale every six months, which is definitely not the case on XBL.

Gears 3 DLC MIGHT go on sale during the Christmas break, but then again the Christmas deals on XBL tend to solely focus on the new releases of that year. As for Steam, that's definitely the only platform you can trust to remain fairly priced, for now, but that'll change once Gaben is sick of running that company and sells it off.

While Steam does have an eventual point where prices become static, it is much lower than on XBL, as Valve leaves pricing decisions largely up to publishers. I think the only real restriction is requiring them to sell DLC through Steam - as a consumer this streamlines the process and has made me more likely to buy it than having to go through some publisher site. (The horrors of ME2 PC DLC. Never again.)

Gears 3 is of course exclusive, but XBL does have sales a few times a year - though they are rather infrequent, and getting a price drop from MS is nearly impossible. The points system also doesnt lend itself well to percentage discounts, as it causes you to need wierd amounts, so you still have to pay the same amount of money, but will have more leftover points after buying the DLC.

Before anything else, thank you all for your answers.

@Oldirtybearon said:

Whether you want to or not, you're going to be forking over more than you'd like for RAAM's Shadow, it's just a matter of whether or not you bend over now or later.

@BisonHero said:

Well, he could wait for a sale, but I have no idea what the likelihood is of Gears 3 DLC going on sale. I'm used to Steam sales, where goddamn everything goes on sale every six months, which is definitely not the case on XBL.

I'm not going to wait for a sale, I'm basically not going to buy overpriced stuff, whatsoever, not because any kind of moral principle or ideology, but simply because I have better ways to spend my money. I'll check XBL sales because I consider that to be the fairly priced stuff. If I find something interesting there I'll buy it, if I don't then I'll probably forget about DLC and arcade games, and considering how Microsoft is doing everything (from sales to apps like internet explorer) only for XBL Gold subscribers I may move to PC for the next gen, I don't need to pay regularly, I can install any browser, etc. The hardware may be more expensive, but you get freedom and it pays off in the long term. Smartglass? Try VNC...

@Oldirtybearon said:

Gears 3 DLC MIGHT go on sale during the Christmas break, but then again the Christmas deals on XBL tend to solely focus on the new releases of that year. As for Steam, that's definitely the only platform you can trust to remain fairly priced, for now, but that'll change once Gaben is sick of running that company and sells it off.

That wouldn't be very wise. Too much control and high prices may move users from consoles to PC, and in PC from Windows to Linux. Trying to milk people further will only promote piracy, IMHO. Any offer that is overpriced will simply move the demand away to something else, call it competitors, piracy, board and card games, sports or whatever. Of course it's their business and they are free to do as they please, they are making huge amounts of money, so maybe they are making the right decisions, but I think we all agree here that the prices are too high and specially too stale through time, so maybe they could be doing things better, for the market, which means better for producers and consumers.

Basically, these digital markets are regulated markets, not free markets, and this regulation is ridiculous. A great example is the one provided by @JohnstonThistle about Timeshift maps. The real value of those maps today is close to zero, but that's not the pricetag, that makes the market less efficient because the only effect the regulation has is to lose some sales which is bad for producers and consumers.

Thank you all for your answers again and sorry for the offtopic. I simply can't stand this kind of stubbornness.

Steam really has spoiled me. I recently took a peek at stuff on the consoles and was blown away at how terrible it is in comparison. They really need to play catch up to Steam with next gen because if they keep doing what they are now they are going to get left in the dust.

Steam really has spoiled me. I recently took a peek at stuff on the consoles and was blown away at how terrible it is in comparison. They really need to play catch up to Steam with next gen because if they keep doing what they are now they are going to get left in the dust.

@BisonHero said:

@Trylks I think the moral of the story is that the rent is too damn high.

We can say that because there is a large stock of available houses. And the same goes for DLC, there is a large number of potential buyers that will not get that DLC for the rigid prices. It's money that doesn't flow in both cases.

@BisonHero: Indeed, I love GOTY versions, it feels like buying the whole game when compared to buying bits and pieces, which is the usual experience.

I'll get the GOTY version of Borderlands soon, after I've finished one or two games I have now on the shelf.

I can only hope there will be more GOTY releases of more games, it simply feels right.

I hope it gets a lot cheaper and they realize they can make more money with more reasonable prices as more and more consoles or gamers will be online. If this stuff that is $10-$15 was 5 I would buy a lot of it. As is? I'm going to put my money towards a whole new retail game or buy a downloadable with far more content.

I don't buy almost any DLC just because I refuse to pay their prices. When you look at these $15 DLC packs in comparison to expansion packs of the past or even some of the stuff currently going on... it's just inexcusable.

Undead Nightmare for example or Liberty City Stories make a mockery of most DLC. Rockstar is probably the only developer whose DLC strategy I respect (but even they went to the dark side on Max Payne 3's DLC).

Dragon Age Awakening was a great piece of DLC and I thought EA got it... but then they completely fucked up ME 3 (cutting so much essential shit out as DLC).

This needs to be rectified as well. If you burn me on content like that I am going to refuse to buy your DLC.

Totally agree. I have ME1 for XBox and I think I'll move to PC. I hope to find the three games with DLC for a reasonable price as a pack in a few years, I'm not in a hurry, I already have many games pending.

The prices for DLC and specially in consoles are becoming ridiculous. There is a big offer right now in XBL and I turned my computer to check how good it is (and then post it here).

XBL: Borderlands 10€ (pretty good), DLC 4x800 points (which is about 27€).

Retailer: Borderlands GOTY: 27€.

So basically for the price of the DLC you can get the game for free by making a person work and earn a salary, spending more materials, etc.

It's complete nonsense that physical distribution can be cheaper than virtual distribution (download), there are many costs that the former has and the latter doesn't. Those costs go to the profit margin, if they sell something at some point, but the sales are probably very low, given the prices.

Maybe I'm very mistaken and they are making these decisions based on some information I don't have, but it seems to be plainly stupid.

PD: edit this was posted 1 week and 5 days ago. Today (Jan 9th) the DLC is half that price, 4x400 points.