Why does no-one own me anymore?
Remember back to those heady days of April 29th 2008; seems like a very very recent memory I am sure, but in video games it is a millennia ago. Back in those heady days, thousands of gamers worldwide waited outside games retailers at midnight to get their clammy hands on Grand Theft Auto 4. The GTA4 publicity machine had been in full working order for several months and gamers were positively foaming at the mouth in anticipation to get their hands on the latest and greatest instalment of the most controversial and profitable franchise in this millennia’s gaming landscape.
However, predictably gamers were not united in their anticipation. Much of the pre release chatter was idiotic console zealots arguing over the merits of the promised Xbox exclusive downloadable content. The content was (and still is) a very unique arrangement in gaming and showed the importance that post release internet delivered content had taken; something which is even more remarkable considering that this market had been non-existent on consoles at the time of the time when GTA3 was released (ignoring the Dreamcast’s joke of a delivery service with no memory, no content and a 56k modem; I loved my DC BTW so no hating people but the truth hurts). Microsoft dropped a big $50m to secure this exclusive loveliness and the Microsoft advertising machine did a pretty good job of publicising the existence of the 2 content packs and telling the boys and girls who would be getting a new console for GTA (turns out there were not many) that a 360 and not the PS3 was the plastic box of joy which they should invest in to get the best GTA4 experience.
However, fast forward nearly 4 months and I think that the gamble is starting to look a little foolish. In the past 17 weeks we have seen the release of MGS4, Soul Calibur 4, Lego Indy and a whole host of great games and movies which have pushed GTA4 from the hearts, minds and disk drives of most gamers. Think it over; I doubt that many gamers will have seen more than the odd person on their friends lists playing GTA4 in the past 2 months. Looking at the wider picture, my local Gamestation (a small one) has literally 20 pre-owned copies of GTA4 for each platform up for sale; strolling past my local Cash Converters (a national pawn brokers chain in the UK) they are selling GTA4 on Xbox 360 for just £9.99 ($19 or 20% of RRP), a truly astonishing figure this close to release and considering the overwhelmingly positive reception it received.
This is kind of a problem for Microsoft, while trumping the merits of the exclusive DLC for over 2 years, there has still been no information about what it is, how much it will cost and no concrete info on when it will be released. Without this information, hoards of gamers are simply looking at that game on their shelf as being not worth keeping and are instead taking the discount on a new game it offers. Therefore whenever the mystical content is announced and released there will be a significantly reduced audience for the content than there was a few months ago, reducing further the chances of Microsoft recouping their substantial investment. Even if the content is truly magnificent in scope, how many gamers will be willing to buy back a copy of the game to buy it? If half of the gamers who sold the game buy a pre-owned copy back, the market for the DLC is still significantly reduced.
Of course, the number of trade ins on PS3 is less than ideal too but without the promise of DLC on the horizon, Sony and Rockstar/Take2/EA (future proofing is a good idea) are losing little by comparison except for a devaluing of the title with very cheap 2nd hand copies saturating the market competing with new Platinum range copies.
So what is Microsoft to do you might ask? More importantly, how did such a situation arise? Well first I have to point the finger at Microsoft who have displayed an almost Sony Europe like lack of communication and foresight with its customers. While everyone knows how outrageously well funded Microsoft is, you would hope that when they signed the cheque for $50m they had some idea about what content they were buying and what form it would take. Microsoft should have been jumping from the rooftops screaming about any info they had, even if limited, to anyone who would listen since pre-orders started properly after Xmas. If they want anyone to wait as much as 12 months for new content then they need to keep them informed about what it is they are waiting for or else they will move onto something else which is what seems to have happened.
In the end it comes down to inexperience. Net delivered content is still a new industry and everyone is learning. However, one thing is abundantly clear; communication and advertising are key to the success of DLC, not only up to and around launch of the disk game but also well after this time or else your market will shrink fast. I am sure more gamers are excited about getting their hands on Gears of War 2 or Dead Space than the GTA4 expansions.
I hope it is not the case, but at this moment with no information and a shrinking market to sell to; Microsoft’s $50m gamble could be one of the biggest commercial failures in gaming history.
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