A Quick Look at Gears of War 3's Paid Weapons Skins

All proceeds go directly to Cliff and his fiance's "New Matching Ferrari's Fund". Yay.

@Terjay said:

Horse meet armor. Armor meet horse.

Win.

So it's true.

Jeff DOES make poor purchasing decisions.

No but seriously this video is one of the most important editorial videos Giant Bomb has ever made. People need to see this! People need to know that this shit is beyond stupid.

TF2 store? I undestand that. Portal 2 store? I even understand that. This shit? Four dollars for a kind of animated rainbow on your gun? What in the living shit

This is the most compelling video in Giant Bomb history.

People have all the right to buy stupid things , but that does not stop this from being stupid

for the record. I was in that CoD MW2 group and did not buy it.

@Sharpless said:

I think this qualifies Jeff for sainthood.

For the sacrifice he made for the rest of us.

@thebigJ_A said:

Christ, this is dumb.

THREE DOLLARS for a texture to make your gun look different.

This puts Bethesda's Horse Armor to shame.

Gun Camo is the new Horse Armor.

Patrick: "I'd be willing to spend $2 on that."

But it costs $4.

I think this qualifies Jeff for sainthood.

What kind of person actually buys this crap?

@xCharlieSheen said:

Personally, I think spending money on weapon and character skins is alright. Especially for a game this awesome. What's more crazy is spending $60 bucks a pop on mediocre to just above average shooters like: Space Marine, and Resistance 3 or broken games like Dead Island, right before Gears 3 drops. I like to skip those 4/5 star reviewed games, and get something truly epic. If, like me this is one of only a couple of games someone is getting this fall; Why not have a techno-color shotgun, and a pink lancer, and 2 or 3 different skins for each character; it's fun. I'm skipping on Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield, and Batman. Gears is my game of choice, for the limited time I have for gaming. If you don't want it don't buy it. It's nice to at least have the option though.

So would you be willing to state on the record that you think that all of these skins combined roughly equal the PC versions of Battefield 3 or Batman: Arkham City? Neither of those sound like they'd be broken or mediocre...

Christ, this is dumb.

THREE DOLLARS for a texture to make your gun look different.

This puts Bethesda's Horse Armor to shame.

I'll be so glad to get this game from someone else, not buy any of this bullshit, and then sell my copy to someone else.

It's not just that they're charging for this stuff, it's the fucking INSANE prices. THREE BUCKS for a few weapon skins? That giant pack should be 5 bucks.

Go fuck yourself, Epic. This is one of the worst I've seen since Horse Armor and Capcom's nonsense where they lied about the on-disc DLC.

Remember when you used to unlock stuff in games by PLAYING THEM rather than PAYING for them?

These are ridiculous! At least Call of Duty lets you create something like this yourself for free.

Greedy bastards!

@RandomHero666 said:

@normalpants said:

no offense Giant Bomb, 'cause I love you and everything, but It's kind of hard for me to get worked up over paid weapon skins when you're asking me to pay you to watch you play Halo

Without money from subscriptions Giantbomb would be gone, pretty fucking different to paying that much to look like a complete idiot on a vidya game

Have you subscribed?

Son of a bitch, Jeff. You're fired.

@CABBAGES said:

My limited edition came today and i bought the season pass and the all skin pack right away and im not even a huge gears fan.

Do you also shit ducats?

Think of all the money that Jeff isn't spending on Game Room QL's. He's still *way* ahead.

Thank you Jeff for buying these so we don't have to!

@Unenthusiastic said:

This should be free.

Honestly, they should be earned.

Kind of a silly item too, its going to be impossible to make out any of the weapons during the action anyway.

Edit: Its hard to swallow paying $60 for a full price game with a short campaign and then when you finally get into the game, the company wants you to spend more money. The $60 price point has pushed me away from most games at launch as it is. In a world where I can buy full games for $5 dollars on steam (just picked up darksiders on sale) its a little hard to put $5 dollars into some silly points so I can get a new color on my gun.

There's also the thought of DLC at once being like another slice of cake. You pay $60, like the game and a few months later for $15 you can get some more of that game. Now with games getting like Dragon Age you pay $60 for the game and then need to pay $30 more to unlock a piece of the game they took away at launch to make you pay extra for. Weapons skins are less critical but it still stings a similar kind of pain.

LOL, what a waste of money.

Horse meet armor. Armor meet horse.

I really am disappointed in Jeff.

No, thank you.

I try to tell myself that EPIC doesn't intend for people to buy every skin. Only that certain people may want one or two of them and that's it. You offer so many of them because different people may want a different one or two of them.

And then you see them selling the entire bundle of weapon art for $45... sigh.

People pay money for this?

Goddamn...

I would pay money if it let me design my own still or animated skin and I don't mean like a crappy wrestler maker editor but one that really let me create something no one else has so that when playing I would be distinguished by a unique mark which would come to identify me (like the Red baron).

But 2-3$ for some generic gunskin...? O.K., the animated rainbow one was neat for like 5 seconds, but still, not really worth it.

Great Quick Look though!

Jeff is a good man

I don't get why paid unlockables being downloadable justifies it when having it on the disc is wrong.

This is utterly redonkulous. Well, I guess Cliffy B needs a new Lambo or Ferrari, and we are gonna foot the bill.

"If you want to own all the DLC for this game..."

I think we're all going to have to come to terms with the fact that we will not own all the DLC for a game ever again, unless there's just like one to five things or whatever. Then maybe.

@MoleyUK: That is the single best image I've seen on the internet in this week.

The new whiskey media subscription message should be -

Your subscription helps boost nasty, filthy, DLC statistics!

$45 isn't that one years subscription wasted on gun skins?

It bothers me to see a few people in this topic still running out and buying them just because. It's the apathetic buyer with too much money on his hands that perpetuate this nonsense.

It doesn't even look good. I'm no gears of war player, but that stuff just clashes in the worst ways.

Though I do suppose it's those people that help pay for the content everyone else receives. Valve gets away with it because they actually give back to the community. I sure hope Epic has the same mindset. Still ridiculously overpriced though.

Personally, I think spending money on weapon and character skins is alright. Especially for a game this awesome. What's more crazy is spending $60 bucks a pop on mediocre to just above average shooters like: Space Marine, and Resistance 3 or broken games like Dead Island, right before Gears 3 drops. I like to skip those 4/5 star reviewed games, and get something truly epic. If, like me this is one of only a couple of games someone is getting this fall; Why not have a techno-color shotgun, and a pink lancer, and 2 or 3 different skins for each character; it's fun. I'm skipping on Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield, and Batman. Gears is my game of choice, for the limited time I have for gaming. If you don't want it don't buy it. It's nice to at least have the option though.

So this is where all the new membership money from the last show is going towards....

@Napalm said:

@sofacitysweetheart said:

@Buckfitches said:

@sofacitysweetheart: Charging 3 dollars for a poorly done texture swap is plain wrong.

It is on the disc that you purchased, and you shouldn't have to shell out another 45 bucks to get access. Stop defending this rubbish.

It's optional, and some look quite attractive. Had this site not blown it out of proportion, I wouldn't have even known it was there tbh.

But hey, don't buy the Gears of War 3 Premium Content, buy Giant Bomb's instead :/ k guys.

Why the fuck do you even still visit this site? You just spew bullshit, hate and frustration in literally every response you have to everything on these forums.

Obviously you represent to opposite? Good to know you're paying attention to everything I say and post. Try again. Maybe relax on the over-dramatic Internet tough-guy act next time ;)

@sofacitysweetheart said:

@Buckfitches said:

@sofacitysweetheart: Charging 3 dollars for a poorly done texture swap is plain wrong.

It is on the disc that you purchased, and you shouldn't have to shell out another 45 bucks to get access. Stop defending this rubbish.

It's optional, and some look quite attractive. Had this site not blown it out of proportion, I wouldn't have even known it was there tbh.

But hey, don't buy the Gears of War 3 Premium Content, buy Giant Bomb's instead :/ k guys.

Why the fuck do you even still visit this site? You just spew bullshit, hate and frustration in literally every response you have to everything on these forums.

"The pricing still feels out of whack..."

Yeah, particularly when you can get an entire GAME for your iOS device for the price of one skin.

Excellent quick look. Good commentary about a stupid practice that's gaining traction (charging for lame stuff like skins that used to be part of included character customization in games).

At the very least it's just pointless skins not something useful in the game, so whatever if there are people stupid enough to spend the ridiculous amount of money they are asking for this stuff better for the devs I guess, the problem is that the more people buy it the longer they'll keep doing this sort of thing....
 
I guess the cost of development has gotten so absurd that they have to offload some of it with this sort of crap right off the bat....
 
edit: I mean seriously, some of those skins looks like they were by a intern with a couple of built in photoshop brushes in under 5 minutes, *SIGH*...................

All in all, a pretty useful Public Service Announcement by Jeff...

Jeff Gerstmann just bought $75 worth of on-disc DLC for a quick look. These are dark times we live in, and the road ahead seems no brighter.

Totally worth it to me as I like the game series and related stuff enough to justify buying it, it doesn't affect gameplay, and it supports the developers.

Now considering the cost of development for a game like Gears 3, I am surprised that we have not already reverted back to SNES game costs of $80-$100 for the base version of the game. The average $60 for the standard version of games I think is a bargain that was not meant to last. If it means "cheap" skins for large profit margins so be it.

And it's on the disc so we don't end up with another MK9 problem.

@ProfessorEss said:

Yeah Epic's got it all wrong. You're supposed to wait 9-12 months and then put this stuff in for free. ...well, free when you buy a full new retail copy of Super Gears of War 3. As usual, this won't effect me because I have no need or desire for it.

I just preordered my copy for Super Gears of War 3. Can't believe it took them this long to implement a jump mechanic.

nice to see that jeff is still making terrible use of his money!

Jeff just dropped $75 on dlc. My lord.