Collector's Editions of Games

[WhiteKnight77]

Today I was reading through the Ubi Splinter Cell: Conviction forum and after rereading through the thread about buying the collector's edition I had to reply (again mind you).

One person brought up the fact that he couldn't see paying an extra $25 for stickers or other trinkets (my word) and I have to agree. Why not spend that money for all that extra stuff on actual game development? Game quality (and not just Ubi mind you) is in the crapper and gamers are not getting features wanted in a game (it appears this is mostly a Ubi fault to me though I may be wrong) and games are not getting fixed (this is Ubi big time) so the games are playable. When the Ubi CEO stated that:

However, as some of our games did not meet the required quality levels to achieve their full potential they need more sales promotions than anticipated.

Source

Some of us wondered if that meant more advertising money spent on mediocre products. We now that they were bundling the poorly selling games with games that did sell well, but now we have preorders for collector's editions for games we have no idea on how well they will sell.

Here is an idea. Instead of throwing money at cheap stickers or Fun Meal type figurines or a steel DVD case, how about putting that money into actual game development. That money could go to proper testing or development of features gamers are wanting.

What are your thoughts?

[JohnTC02]

Well for me this is a no-brainer , I would rather buy the game in a paper sleeve knowing that every available penny has gone into the development of the game giving the consumer a better product from the outset. Even then there is no guarantee it's going to be bug free.

I always think that if a game developer needs to package it with all those extra "trinkets" then they are not confident that it will sell on it's own merit so they add all those bells and whistles to move it off the shelves.

I also think the consumer is as much to blame here, we seem to be drawn by the fancy packaging even if whats inside is not what we really want. This applies to most products not just games, maybe we have been brainwashed into this way of thinking.

So I say, keep the packaging simple then we will get a better product at possibly a better price while doing the environment less harm.

[CR6]

When the Ubi CEO stated that:

However, as some of our games did not meet the required quality levels to achieve their full potential they need more sales promotions than anticipated.

Source

LOL! I can't believe he admitted that.

So the question is why do the games not reach their "required quality level" - did they run out of money? Something seems seriously wrong with their game development process.

There is something to be said for making quality games that have a long shelf life. Blizzard is still selling a ton of games it made 10 years ago. Games like Mario Kart Wii was released by Nintendo in spring 2008 and it was still one of the top 10 games of 2009.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/npd-top...endo-dominance/