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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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I reject the presupposition that season passes can ever be "proper." What's "proper" is buying a game once, receiving a game that's finished and complete, and owning the whole thing forever.
A game can both be complete and have expansions later. While it is true that many games strip what seems like core content off the main purchase to sell it separately as DLC, there are many examples of DLCs expanding upon an already finished game.
Exactly. There were a ton of these in the 90s, like StarCraft Brood War, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, and my personal favorite Lords of the Realm II: Seige Pack.
Even today, there are plenty of great examples, like the new DLC for Factorio, Space Age. Good DLC isn't a problem, MTX and DLC acting like MTX are the real problems.
A recent example is Owlcat's Rouge Trader. Full game on release, season pass is just a bundle of their two big expansion DLCs which offer full story additions and party members. Season passes work when they are lower cost bundles of high quality DLC, they are awful when they are incoherent slapped together offerings of cosmetics, random content, and stuff which should be base game.
The way I read it the "proper" in the title refers to "proper support", not "proper season passes"
What a silly take. Game expansions have existed nearly as long as games themselves. The expansions for Anno 1800 have given it hundreds of hours of new play for me.
I don't preorder games and I'm not subscribing to DLC. I would be willing to buy DLC after it's released(and reviewed), but I'm not whatever the fuck Live Service shit is.
Season passes predate the proliferation of live services. Live services tend to have "battle passes". In my world, fighting games, "subscribing to DLC" has its advantages.
I'm just combining all this shit together and putting into pile called, Shit I Don't Fuck With.
What exactly is a "battle pass" for fighting games and why should I trust major game studios?
A battle pass for fighting games, if you're a competitive player like me, is easily ignored because it's a carrot at the end of a stick to keep you playing to earn cosmetic items. In fighting games, this currently only exists in Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and kinda sorta in Mortal Kombat 1, to my knowledge.
A season pass is where you get new characters, just like you can get expansion content in any other game. These are what I do buy as a competitive player. They usually come with 4-6 characters that are released over the course of the year. There's no world where I wouldn't want to have every character, since even if I don't intend to play as that character, I'd still want to bring them into training mode to figure out how to beat them. So the package is slightly discounted compared to buying each character as they release, and I know that I'll have each character unlocked the second that they're available.
Are you paying for content before it comes out?
Yes. There's no reason to buy the season pass before there's even a single character ready, so I usually buy it the day that character comes out, but like I said, it hardly matters to me what the other content is in this case, because I'll need it one way or the other.
You're talking about an entirely different thing. The convo wasn't about live service games.
How is a subscription for getting dlc content isn't within the umbrella of Live Service? I buy a game and I own a game. Anything else is Live Service.
Season pass aren't a subscription
...
Ok, so what are they? I think I bought a season pass for something ages ago and couldn't figure out what it was for. I'm paying for something without knowing what it will be, right?
Season pass are bundled dlcs usually at a discount. While it's true most people buying it don't know what they're paying for, it's totally possible to buy it once every dlc included has been released.
Paying for something without knowing what it will be for is also not really a hallmark feature of a subscription.
What about paying for online functionality?
Yea I don't understand what a "season pass" is in reference to video games. And I dont really care either. Can I just buy the game normally and play it whenever I want, please?
Season pass means you get all the dlc / expansions for a discounted price since you are buying "in bulk". So it is about as "buying it normally" as it gets. The difference Steam introduces now is that they need to state what will be in the pass and when it can be expected.
The discount is mostly for giving them your money early, not for buying in bulk. Money is worth more the earlier you get it, because it can be invested. You're giving them money for the promise of something in the future, with very little knowledge on what that is.
Except you can buy season passes after they are released and no more dlc are planned.
Not usually, no. You can sometimes buy packs of DLCs, but that's not a season pass —though it may use that name. A season pass is, as the name implies, a pass to get whatever content comes that season (or whatever period).