22/03/2010, 05:29 PM
Smart idea IMO - especially considering how many suckers are out there who absolutely must be among the first to try out something.
Quote:After an investor visit with Electronic Arts, analyst Michael Pachter said that the publisher is planning a strategy that will involve selling "premium downloadable content" before a packaged game's release.Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27759...unches.php
According to a Monday investor note from Wedbush Morgan's Pachter, Nick Earl, general manager of EA-owned Dead Space studio Visceral Games, revealed the new strategy.
Pachter wrote, "The PDLC would be sold for $10 or $15 through Xbox Live and PlayStation Notwork, and would essentially be a very long game demo, along the lines of 2009’s Battlefield 1943."
He added, "A full-blown packaged game would follow shortly after the release of the PDLC, bearing a full retail price. Mr. Earl believes that the release of the PDLC first limits the risk of completing and marketing the full packaged version, and serves as a low-cost marketing tool."
Pachter separately told Gamasutra in an email, "I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point."
"If DICE were able to follow Battlefield 1943 with a full-blown European WWII campaign game a few months later, it would have been a wild success," Pachter said.
He continued, "EA’s view is that the PDLC costs a lot less to develop (essentially, it’s the first few levels of the full-blown game), and they have the opportunity to fix whatever needs to be fixed in the packaged product that is released a few months later, whether that entails doing more of what people like or doing less of what they don’t like. It sounds like a brilliant strategy to me." Gamasutra has contacted EA for further clarification about the new strategy.