AC1 did episodic content pretty well… just ask Baal Zharon and his black city smashing towers.
Yes, but typically only a small subset – back when I was following the sales charts, expansions sold maybe 10-50% of what the full game sold. Has this changed dramatically over the last year or two?
Or 3. the nature of the game makes the addition of discrete content particularly compelling, and the cost of producing those discrete modules is far less than the profit derived from them. Like NWN modules. Arguably the growing library of content continues to drive sales of the original game and allows it to retain shelf space.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of when I mentioned games with editing tools. But the only product that’s making more profits here is the original game, as the modules are available for free download. And once everyone who is interested in the subject owns NWN they’ll happily keep playing free modules without paying Bioware another cent.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that developers make moddable games. But the economic reasoning for including editing tools seems dubious at best. They spend resources on creating these tools and get only a few more sales for their original game, probably at a time when it’s already in the bargain bins anyway. Cases like Half-Life where the developers can actually recruit retail-quality mods from the fan community are extremely rare (I don’t know of any other example). BG2 sold much better than NWN (didn’t it?), and it wasn’t moddable.
Yes, but typically only a small subset – back when I was following the sales charts, expansions sold maybe 10-50% of what the full game sold. Has this changed dramatically over the last year or two? [/quote]
Not to my knowledge – I was supporting your comment, and also just correcting your statement that they “typically” sell less, which left open the possibility that they could sell as much or more, which obviously isn’t the case given their nature. There have been a few stand-alone expansions, like SF2-Orion Pirates, but they’ve certainly never outsold the original game.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of when I mentioned games with editing tools. But the only product that’s making more profits here is the original game, as the modules are available for free download. And once everyone who is interested in the subject owns NWN they’ll happily keep playing free modules without paying Bioware another cent.[/quote]
But what I’m suggesting is that there’s a commercial market for downloadable content with some new art, music/sound, etc. For instance, there are already several adaptations of the “Against the Giants” series of 7 classic D&D modules available as fan-made mods. But if Infogrames released more sophisticated versions each of those modules, with new art for creature types, magic items, tiles for the particular setting, I think they’d be able to sell those mods on an ongoing basis, for less cost/effort than a full-fledged expansion pack.
More frequent releases would also do a better job at retaining interest in the original game – often, I find, expansions for RPGs come out way too late to really interest anyone other than people who haven’t yet played the game – the Morrowind Tribunal expansion will make a great “gold edition” for players who haven’t finished the original game, but it doesn’t contain enough stand-alone gameplay to really interest players in returning.
Every genre is different – I think expansions work well in RTS games, since they can essentially provide a comparable campaign to the original game, a bunch of extra multiplayer maps, and some new units – all that’s necessary to spice up the original game. But the amount of gameplay added in RPGs is usually so minor, compared to the rest of the game (notable exceptions of BG2-TOB and D2-LOD) that more frequent, smaller, “adventure packs” would work better.
The problem I have with Morrowind’s expansions (and BGs) was that the original game was already huge enough. I enjoy RPGs but have yet to complete this massive game. A shorter game like the Ultima 7s profited more (with my money at least) from add-ons.
Yes, but typically only a small subset – back when I was following the sales charts, expansions sold maybe 10-50% of what the full game sold. Has this changed dramatically over the last year or two?
High quality expansion packs have been doing extremely well the past few years. Blizzard’s expansion packs garner almost as much attention as new games from them. MOH Spearhead has been on the charts since release (surprising due the lack of singleplayer content). Ensemble’s packs have done well, as did BG2 ToB. How many expansions has Ghost Recon had? 2 or 3? They must have done fairly well to justify their continued production.
Poor expansion packs like the godawful one for AvP2 and Star Trek Elite Force have bombed, but that isn’t any great surprise.
I would expect the NWN pack to do very well. Not only is their a 40 hour campaign, but the new tile sets should be a big incentive to the mod community.
Generally, expansion packs from with quality and quantity comparible to the original game seem to be doing very well in the market.
The problem I have with Morrowind’s expansions (and BGs) was that the original game was already huge enough.
Well in the case of BG2, Throne of Baal was much closer to BG3 and brought the storyline to a close.
I agree with Morrowind. I would be much more interested in a Morrowind expansion that made the game world more dynamic with more interactive NPCs, better quest variety, etc than with just more landmass.