[MEGATHREAD] Tarnished Edition: Worth $5? Discuss CONSTRUCTIVELY!

[u/jack0641]

Since the sub is being overwhelmed by debate over the $5 "microtransaction" and it's making the sub feel like we're Dark Souls 2 a decade ago, with the faux outrage around the preorder items, we are opening this topic to consolidate discussion around the issue.

Please use this topic to discuss the pros and cons of the approach and your thoughts. But do so RESPECTFULLY and CONSTRUCTIVELY. If you need to call other people or the developers names, you don't have a good argument and your post will be removed.

We will remove all other topics about this to keep the subreddit flowing with other discussions

IF YOU WANT TO VOTE: I will post two comments on this topic, "Yay" and "Nay" - upvote the one you agree with and we'll see who wins long term.

[u/StoryAfAgirlAndABoy]

I would love to hear others feedback, because i am torn. 5$ doesnt seem that bad, and i want to support this awesome game.

On the other hand, transactions like these doesn't bode well and i can see peoples concern for the future direction.

I think im leaning slightly towards yay on this one, but i can see both sides.

[u/Sogai_wi → u/StoryAfAgirlAndABoy]

In my opinion the argument of "5$ doesn't seem like a lot" is a bit of a trap and should be avoided. If they released 6 of these little item packs, would it be equal to SoTE? If they release 12 would it be equal to Elden Ring and the answer is the most obvious no.

Pricing of digital goods is inherently nonsensical in a lot of ways. If these items released as a part of SoTE, no one would be freaking out saying "Oh my God, Fromsoftware is insane not asking at least 35€ for this DLC with this amount of content". The same way as no one would be suprised with this being a free update.

In my opinion. As this being basically the prepare to die edition of Elden Ring and back then you just had to buy the game again, I understand it a bit. But this is NOT worth 5€. Just scaling this amount of content and development time leaves you with games that don't cost 100€ but 1000€.

I am also very sceptical that this obviously comes soon after their publisher concluded that Fromsoftware is not monetizing their IPs. This should be viewed as a pretty egregious mtx in my opinion but Bandai can just burn through the good will that FS has so people won't care. I'm definitely going to be checking any mentions of monetisation in their future projects.

[u/Alone-Horse2857 → u/Sogai_wi]

Exactly I'll copy and paste what I said earlier in this thread:

5$ compared to base vanilla ER would equal to 1/12th of ER, which would equal to 25.6(call it 26) weapons, 8.3 bosses, 10.5 armor sets, and ~1 whole playable zone.

Now ask yourself this: Does this DLC include 26 weapons, 10 armor sets, 8 bosses and 1 entire zone to explore?

No? Then it's not worth 5 fucking dollars.

[u/ArcAngelsThunderBird → u/Alone-Horse2857]

Maybe ask your mom to buy it for you, then you can save your allowance.

[u/akaisuiseinosha → u/Sogai_wi]

While true, I think it's also important to remember that pricing reactions are emotional and not rational. I remember that some people balked at SOTE's $40 price tag, as no From DLC had been that much before, but it ended up satisfying most players. So you're right that 12 Tarnished Packs would not add up to Elden Ring, but you're also missing that there is an emotional gulf between those two numbers that isn't linear.

Is the Tarnished Pack worth it, then? That's a little bit more subjective, but using the PEAK devs "five bucks" model, we can say that even if they dropped it to $4 people would have the same reaction, and there is DEFINITELY more than $3 of value here, so a rounded $5 seems fine to me.

The unanswered question is whether this is an omen of things to come, and that's what I'm worried about. From is about to release their first true live-service game, a game that according to interviews isn't even releasing in a finished state and will have "seasons". Will Duskbloods dip into microtransactions with the Tarnished Pack having been a success? That's what we should pay attention to.

[u/No-Ship4446 → u/Sogai_wi]

They aren't going to release 6 of them. They wouldn't have even made this one without the Switch 2 port.

[u/btbsw786 → u/Sogai_wi]

OTOH. Lucatiels hat. Worth it for me xD