The Marketplace Fallout from Guitar Hero II's Expensive Encore

The Xbox Live Marketplace at one time seemed like a paradise where, for microtransactions, gamers could be rewarded for their loyalty with fresh gameplay experiences – but it's fast becoming a consumer nightmare. Gameplayer have taken a look at how the recently released Guitar Hero II downloads have revealed a system spiralling out of control and examines what can be done to revitalize consumer belief in the Marketplace.

[JasonXE]

i remember this being talked about on atos with major nelson. He'll pretty much state "You see this A button here, it's about choice..no one is forcing you to buy it." If consumers continue to buy it then companies will still offer it at this price range. I guess there 9 songs in a single pack which could equate to 9 buxs per song. That is equivalent to 9 buxs for 500 ms points = 6.25. Saving $2.75 difference so it sounds decently fair to me. I could probably hand you the money right now out of my pocket lol.

[Firewire]

Wasn't it just a little while ago, a dev wanted to give out some
new free online maps! But MS wouldn't have it! That went out the window! MS is raping you from behind with a hand in your wallet!
MS doesn't give a crap about you bots! only your coin!

[kornbeaner]

that is just foul.

If you buy, all the packs you would pay more for the game then if you were to buy guitar hero 1 on the PS2.

There should be some sort of discount for bulk buyers.

[power of Green]

lol... Hope it doesn't get out of control but theres always a type of person/people that complain if given a chance no problems with XBL yet.

Yes some sections are like the Banana Republic vs Good will. I'm waiting to find out what HOME for the PS3 will be like; at least you'll be able to avoid things visually and only then will it make more sense to people not to buy what they don't want.

No one knows how ligit different companies do business with celebrities and their content Copy rights etc. and fee's. Oh well!.

[Firewire]

I think MS is being to greedy!
Sony announced that for "SingStar" they will be doing
the apple itunes thing. I'm not sure about the actual involvment with itunes,
but the price per song was determined to be 99 cents per song!
Thats reasonable but 5 or 6 bucks for three songs , that u can't even mix or match is just pure greed!

[Ravenator529]

And hopefully people will just not buy them.

These packs are a total ripoff! Not to mention, if you have Guitar Hero 1, then do yourself a favor and hook up your PS2 if you want to play the older songs.

These songs should be no more than $1 a piece.

And Major Nelson can feed us all the bullsh1t he wants. I can't stand to listen to his podcast anymore. He never has objective opinions to what Microsoft does. Yes, I understand he works for them. I just can't take listening to a guy defend a company when they are doing something wrong. Yes we have a choice to "buy or not to buy", but that doesn't make it OK for M$ to overcharge for content.

Did he forget that we are paying a monthly fee for XBox "Live"?

If you aren't going to give us dedicated servers for our montly fee's then the least you could do is not "ram it up our @ss" when it comes do marketplace content.

[Brian360]

if we boycott buying these from the marketplace and others alike e.g Horse Armour!!
Then maybe Microsost would see that nobody is buying them or is willing to pay for them.

[badkolo]

its a rip off.

you pay 400to jump in, plus tax, you pay for games, you pay for live.

you pay for alomost everything an theres over 6 million olnine 360 owners yet they charge the highest orices for everything.

guitar hero costs alot fo money just to own, an if they want to charge for more songs then why charge the ihghest price when you just released the game and it costs over 100 bucks form the get go, dont oyu want your customers to be happy, why would they leave the songs out in the first place, dint they realize there would be a backlash and releasing packs a week after the games release shows that you held it back to milk the consumer, and to a point i understand but to cvharge so much for the content is insane.

the article is right, the devs ad industry will turn this into a nickle and dime era, shorter games and less content ad then you get more and pay for it. some games are worth it and some models of the micro transaction work so there will always be people and devs that will say screw it and charge a high amount.

But we pay to be on live and they want us to buy more ocntent, cant they reasonably price things.

I hate the people that say just dont buy it, you dont have to buy it, its a choice, well obviously when so many people are screaming about it then its a problem not a choice. we obviously would love the songs and we just spent way over a 100 bucks and we know your holding the new packs just to release them on live to charge us, now why would they go ahead and then charge so freaking much on top of what they already are doing, which is giving oyu a crappy choice.
and while i miht say that sucks and i wont buy it mnay others will say that sucks but i really want more songs and they buy it and the cycle continues. The devs will us ein game advertising and give us nothing in return, not even discounted prices.

its like we by the games at top dollar, we buy the premium live service, we bought the system, we are buying the gaes, we will even buy extra content,we will pay for tv shows, we iwll rent the movies, we will pay for iptv and video and music, butplease, for the love of god price things with your customers in mind. they nver had it this good before, they said so themseleves, arcade is a hit, live is a hit, content is a hi, so you want us to keep buying yet you charge the highest premium for oyur ocntent instead of making it more then fairly priced.

[Bill Gates]

This is a perfect example of why M$ created the 360 the way they did. All they’re doing is “Microscrewing” their blinded loyal consumers in the long run.

M$ is getting a lot of heat from investors to start making them money soon. It’s no wonder why everything about them during this console generation is so shady. Everything from their HDD scam they have going, the “Elite”, also the inclusion of having DVD 9 so they can milk money for the rest of the content that should’ve been included in the disk through Markeplace.

Like M&M once said, “You don’t, wanna fuk with shady, cause shady,will fuking kill you”…..hahahahaha

[Silver Bull3t]

Aren't Power Rangers on or something?...

[Boon Tarkas]

MS, if you want to hand your competitors the crown just continue screwing your loyal customer base.

Micro-Transactions my @ss!

[Anego Montoya FTMFW]

"MS, if you want to hand your competitors the crown just continue screwing your loyal customer base."

is the best comment i`ve heard in weeks on here.

it`s true.
friends can become enemies, quick.

[omansteveo]

THEN DONT BUY THEM, IT REALLY IS THAT EASY PEOPLE END OF ARGUMENT!

[Boon Tarkas]

Here's my one line response to that well-thought out end of argument:

"Rich boys opinions don't count!"

[Keyser]

If people want the songs (and they do) and they are over priced people will start hacking and tearing away at Microsofts system to get it. The demand is still there but they are going to start seeing hackers come out the wood work to get songs and whatever else they think MS is charging too much for.

I think this may be a recipe for disaster...

[slugg]

Microsoft is in a rather tough position. First, it is the companies providing the extra content that are making "most" of the money from these micro-transactions. Their success (as well as the success of the Video Marketplace) is one of the reasons that publishers keep jumping on board the Live Marketplace bandwagon, but if you look at the content publisher by publisher, it becomes a little more clear that Microsoft isn't the big evil force behind microtransaction pricing schemes. For instance, the whole Horse Armour debate. Bethesda admitted they "misjudged the price point, but hey, we are new to this" and prices for following content packs were more in line with what customers want to pay. Ubisoft- the first GRAW's extra maps, etc., were pretty pricy. Not as many people bought the extra content as they hoped, so when they offered the same type of extra package for Rainbow Six Vegas, the price dropped from 1200 to 800 MS points. Also of note is the whole bru-ha-ha over GOW's annex add-on. Reports that Microsoft was "refusing" to let Epic release it for free turned out to be unfounded. I am sure, as reported elsewhere, that Microsoft trys to "encourage" publishers to use some pricing scheme that keeps all content in line-- not every developer can AFFORD to make extra content for free, but to the average consumer, some content being free vs. what other content costs seems "unfair." The long and the short of it is, downloadable content is here to stay-- Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all use it. Microsoft may be the innovator here, but Sony was really quick to virtually copy MS's model of demos, videos, etc., and Nintendo uses pointcards eeirily similar to MS points for their "version" of arcade. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Some companies (EA) will always try to use something like this just to yank more coin out of your pocket, other companies (Epic) reward you for buying their game (and with 4+ million copies of GOW sold, they can afford to be generous), while others (Bethesda and Ubisoft) have listened to consumers complaints and adjusted pricing. So vote with your wallet, by all means. But with Rockstar's announcement that downloadable content WILL be exclusive to 360, giving Microsoft's console the definite edge for this huge multi-platform release, most gamers who own a 360 would admit that they are glad that Microtransactions and their success on Xbox Live Marketplace made that possible. And there is no way that extra content will be free, but most people will buy it (if it is compelling) anyway, no matter what the price.

[Leathersoup]

paragraphs

[nirwanda]

100 points per song would be fair don't forget as well as m$ taking a cut and the dev there will be royalties to pay to the musicians as well

[FrostyMelon]

They bought the license to the song, and since it's all cover bands there are no royalties going to musicians.

[SETBAK]

thank you MS may I have another.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Guitar Hero II is not your average game as it comes with hardware (plastic guitar) and…The music don’t’ belong to them and the artist want royalties from the sale of there music. So if this guy wants to b!tch about the price that’s who he should talk to the “Artist” or shut the hell up and don’t buy.

[SlappingOysters]

I think the point that may have been missed by some is that choosing not to buy something may restrict you from getting the full value of your game. For example, if you buy a game because it features on the outside of the box '2-16 online multiplayer', but when you try to play online you cannot get a game because everyone is on the new maps, all of sudden you have been passively coerced into shelling out more money to get the full functionality out of your game. Perhaps this is less of an issue in big countries, but in Australia where player numbers are relatively low and gamers must play online as a community it's an issue.

[surferace22]

sorry to you m$box owners I think that m$ needs to cut that damn points system and make with the real life currency you know $ and $ents I know their investors know what I'm talkin bout and I damn sure as hell know mr. BILLY GATE$ know that, until they change that your always getting the hard shaft(wii owners too).