Maybe you saw it. Maybe it missed your newsfeed entirely. I’d been feeling pretty conflicted about video game DLC for the last month or two. I did something a little different last week, I decided to ask readers their opinions and run a piece about it. DLC Rising took a while to write, but it was worth it. It’s the best performing piece I’ve hit the publish button on at The en in a month. Before it went live, I had to trim it down. That meant removing mentions of two games. Forza Horizon 3 and Watch Dogs 2.
Why is that important? Watch Dogs 2 launched yesterday. I love the first game, so naturally I purchased a digital copy last week. For days before, I agonized over which version I’d spend my hard-earned dollars on. Eventually, I settled on the Gold Edition. It came with a few extras and the Watch Dogs 2 Season Pass.
More on Watch Dogs 2 itself later this week or early next week. I’m only an hour or so into it. Yesterday morning, I began my day with a fresh cup of some off-brand coffee I keep buying because Folgers looks expensive beside everything else on a shelf at Wal-Mart.
I picked up my Xbox Controller and said, “Xbox on.” A few minutes later I found myself inside the game menu. The game has a very convenient screen for learning about new downloadable content. I saw a character skin that I liked and figured I’d download it. After all, I spent $100 on a game and Season Pass. I might as well take full advantage.
Quickly I realized something I hadn’t before, there were skin packs that were unlocked thanks to my season pass purchase, but all of them weren’t. One of the packs I wanted cost a whopping $6.99. That’s $6.99 on top of the $40 premium I’d paid to get the season pass before the game launched because I trusted the studio and enjoyed the previous title.
Back away from Twitter
People cooler than I am call a heightened state of anger and loss of rational mental capacity going HAM. I call it a perfect excuse for Twitter rage and swearing. Luckily, I refrained from doing the latter. I did do an awful lot of swearing. Then I did some soul-searching.
Was I silly for letting excitement get the most of me and pre-ordering a game with a season pass that wasn’t fully detailed? Yes. I’ll own that one.
The fact remains that something seems to have shifted at Ubisoft regarding cosmetic upgrades and season passes. Forget that the season pass costs more than half of what the final game does. (Yeah, I know that’s a big ask.) When did buying a season pass suddenly not mean that you get all the game’s related content?
After I’d calmed down a bit, I realized that this wasn’t the first time the publisher had done something like this. I purchased The Division’s Season Pass too, only to realize that character skins weren’t included in that purchase either.
The fault clearly is with my purchasing habits, but still. At long last gaming business development leads, have you no shame?
