Squeenix stoops to a new low

[Carl the Llama]

So every day I have been checking out the DLC for this game and have even made a few purchases, but I have just gone in there today only to find that they have now started charging for the Japanese Voice Pack... £3.19 the same price as one of the outfits, when only yesterday they were giving it away free!

Very disappointing.

[Sephiroth]

That was said from the very beginning.

[Freya]

Yeah they stated that if you get it the first few weeks it will be free, after that it'd be priced.

[Carl the Llama]

That knowledge doesn't change my opinion, if its free for some then it should be free for all.

[Del Murder]

That's not how marketing works, though. Maybe they could have comminicated it better, but it's a common model to give something away for the first few weeks of a product and then charge for it later.

[Mirage]

SE were clear about how this would work. In addition to that, most gamers are aware how many games drop in price after not too long, especially sequels and remakes. You had the choice between buying it right away and getting the voiceovers for free, or waiting until the game became cheaper and buy the DLC with the money you saved.

[Carl the Llama]

Its now about whether or not I wanted it - I didn't, it's about the fact that I knew nothing about it, they should have publicized it better but tbh I still think it would have been bad form, I mean they could have easily done one of those messages across the bottom (the ones about the outworld post count) saying "Last day to download the Japanese Language Pack! Get yours today before time runs out!" but instead nothing.

Oh an as for the game lowering in price and about choices, well if that's the case then why don't they stop giving the language pack when retailers start to lower the price? No matter how many people say it's business standard I think that standard is a cheap tacky way to make money, either charge for something all the time or don't.

[Jessweeee♪]

Wasn't the DLC free at launch regardless of whether or not you bought the game? Couldn't you just go in and download it?

[Psychotic]

I was hoping for something more exciting with the thread title. Like Square have added a Nazi sidequest where Lightning must enact the Final Solution to the Moogle Problem or something.

...I'd play the hell out of that.

[Bubba]

I was hoping for something more exciting with the thread title.

Agreed.

Squeenix has again cut the food rations for all the slave children they force to make Final Fantasy merchandise.

[NeoCracker]

"Square Enix working on sequal to All the Bravest based on the same model as the first"

[WildRaubtier]

@jess yes, thats exactly what a lot of people did

anyway, this thread: whiny entitled gamer stereotypes

[Shauna]

either charge for something all the time or don't.

Developers should never offer any of their stuff for free again ever, then? All those times Valve offered Portal for free, they were completely in the wrong and should have just continued charging? Or is that sort of thing perfectly okay and it is just Squeenix that is in the wrong this time because you missed the notification about it being free for a portion of time? :3

Not saying that this sort of DLC is anything but money-grabbing and that developers are in the right when they do this, but they publicised that it was going to be free for a few weeks and they did exactly that.

[Mirage]

This DLC is actually not necessarily just money grabbing. While I am not sure if SE does the voicework themselves, I know that voice acting companies often charge in accordance with how big the potential audience is for whatever it is they're making.

It is actually entirely possible that a VA company would charge a lot more money to make japanese voices that would be available for the entire world rather than just japan. If they were included in the game, they might have to pay for every english-speaking customer who never are going to use the japanese voices. However, by making it DLC, they can easily see how many people bought the japanese voices outside of japan, and only have to pay the VA company for those who did. As an added bonus to "early adopters", they made it free for the customers the first few weeks, even if SE might have had to pay royalties for these downloads even if they were free for us.

In short, giving every customer access to every voice language can actually cost more money for the developer/publisher. It's not necessary "free" to do just because the voices have been recorded anyway.

[Aulayna]

Yeah this was communicated well in advance, we even had a news article about it on the front site back in November.