Epic’s Tim Sweeney On New Gears Content
- Scribbled on April 7th, 2007 by Devin Grimes
- Filed in Microsoft Xbox 360, Shooter, Xbox Live Marketplace
So, what exactly is going on with the flip flopping of the upcoming Gears of War content? Is it Microsoft’s certification process? Or something else entirely?
To find out what exactly is going on, the gang from the 1UP Yours Podcast phoned up the founder of Epic Games Tim Sweeney. Sweeney mentions the pressure behind them from Microsoft to charge for the content, and that the debate is still up in the air.
Epic Games has built up a reputation for their games for continuing to support their games long after release…and for free. Of course, Microsoft’s cash cow hungry ways (as if they need more money) are rebutting Epic from putting the new content up on the Marketplace in order to capitalize in extorting gamers of their hard earned cash.
With Gears of War we’ve gone through our own effort and built a bunch of different maps that are free for download. We already released two and we have four more maps that we’ve built. We’ve been willing to give them away for a long time, but actually Microsoft has been pushing back on us. They’re trying to build this business model around selling additional content for games and and that’s a valid idea, but we would definitely like to release more stuff for free, and we haven’t been able to do so yet, which is unfortunate, I mean there are a lot of good business reasons for releasing free content for a game. First of all you want to increase the player base and keep the game alive and the business reason, right now trade-ins of console games are a big issue. If people hold on to our game longer, or forever because we release more stuff over a time for free than that’s a good business incentive for us. But we haven’t been able to do that so far because of Microsoft’s business strategy around selling content.
Sweeney then goes on to state that Annex will definitely be free, yet they still don’t have a specific release date because it’s still in the certification process. It’s definitely interesting to see the perspective from a game developer’s point of view on microtransactions and downloadable content, and the kind of pressure they are receiving to charge consumers for the content.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I can’t blame Microsoft for what they’re doing. It’s their network and if they want to charge for every packet that flows through it they can. That would be stupid, but there’s nothing really wrong with it.
Epic should look into a different way of releasing the content. A free iso file players can burn to a disc and then install on their XBox, maybe? That might be too complex for some individuals but there are enough tech-savvy XBox-ers that the discs would be pretty ubiquitous before long. Or possible new levels that are downloaded on a computer and installed through to the XBox through the network.
Whether these strategies are viable or not isn’t the point – the point is showing Microsoft that there are other avenues that developers can take to release content. A game like Gears of War is a good start because it is so popular. Microsoft can’t afford to ignore it.
April 8th, 2007 at 11:14 am
And it should be free
__________
http://www.howtogetfreewiipoints.com
April 8th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
If Epic is the one spending the money on development of additional content and not MS then Epic should be able to say it’s free.
April 8th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Nice selective quoting of what Sweeney said so you could spin this as anti MS as possible
April 8th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
This looks like a golden opportunity for Sony to pony up $50 million or so for a PS3 port w/free reign of the PSN.
April 8th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
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April 8th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
What MS can’t afford that these guys have to go out on public talking about stuff like this.
With a studio like Epic Games, they should literally let them do whatever they want with their game, releasing free content is good for the game and their fans, if the content improves the game that will keep people playing it on live and maybe make more people buy the game or even subscribe to xbox live gold. MS can keep selling themes and the other stuff they sell on the Marketplace.
April 8th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Tom:
Disagree on why MS wants to do this. If MS wanted to charge XBL based on packet flows, there would be different tiers based on XBL usage.
The real reason I believe MS wants to push the charge is precedent. It’s revenue opportunity that goes away if your top tier games are giving away content for ‘free’. The remainder of the 360 game catalog would have to follow suit.
I agree with Tim in that MS is missing the big picture on this one — added value = less trade-ins = less used games = increased new game sales. Unfortunately for us, the effect on added value and trade-ins is a statistical grey area which is why the pricing model for added value isn’t going away anytime soon.
April 8th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
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April 8th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
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April 8th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
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April 8th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
“as if they need more money”
Umm . . . I would expect a site that covers video games would know that Xbox still is unprofitable for Microsoft. So yes, if they want to pursue avenues to make it profitable (that is after all why a business would enter this market correct) then yes you could say they need more money.
I don’t expect you would expect Walmart to sell upgrades on items you purchase at cost because “they don’t need more money.” Businesses are businesses and they are entitled to seek revenue. If you disagree thats fair but to suggest there is something wrong in trying to turn an unprofitable business profitable is ludicrous.
April 9th, 2007 at 1:49 am
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April 9th, 2007 at 5:51 am
“Nice selective quoting of what Sweeney said so you could spin this as anti MS as possible”
Well, if you’d actually have listened to the whole podcast you’d know that’s not really selective quoting. Sweeney and Mark Reign kinda used the podcast to vent their frustrations towards Microsoft, and went beyond the Gears situation. They mentioned how they might not make UT3 a GFW game unless they change some of their policies.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:27 am
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April 9th, 2007 at 7:50 am
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April 9th, 2007 at 7:57 am
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April 9th, 2007 at 10:01 am
John, you’re right – that was a bad example. MS definitely wants a precedent set for game expansions because they want to skim their share of the profits. (It does make one wonder why they don’t have a “minimum price” for any content on XBox Live and then have the developer add a surcharge if they so choose or let the developer offer content for free if they take the hit by covering the minimum price for the consumer)
I’m just trying to say that there are other avenues for content distribution and if MS is made to understand this they’ll be more willing to work with developers who want to release free content. People will go out of their way to get new content for a game like Gears of War – that’s why MS is so adamant about not making it free – so it would be the obvious choice as the first game of a new content distribution system.
April 9th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
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April 10th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I believe this yo be the greatest issue with XBL. You pay a subscription fee for a reason. I’m pretty sure that the argument for paying a subscription has always been the content rich environment that you can’t find on any other console. Well if you’re still charging more on top of this how do you justify it? The developers are coming out and pointing the finger to Microsoft. It’s on them now. When Microsoft is showing this type of business strategy so publicly who’s to tell that this wont effect their exclusives? Again, the gaming community suffers from the internal politics of the business.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Microsoft just need a marketing strategy of differentiating between the free content and paid content. They need to make the people playing feel like they are getting more even if they aren’t.