Explain to me the benefits of a Season Pass?

[Jaco Smit]

I bought the Deluxe edition of Ghost Recon Wildlands, way back in December already, spending a piece of my Christmas bonus on myself and getting a scolding from the SO.

I have hyped this game here and elsewhere, participated in both closed and open betas. I am counting down the days to the 7th of March 2017...

Last night a video appears on YT, detailing some future DLCs and game updates.

Watching that I am filled with horror to learn that I will need to lay out some more cash on a Season Pass to get into some DLC. I am used to paying for DLCs by now, but not being forced to buy a Season Pass.

Now, to me, a season pass to a game always meant that you did not have enough to buy the full fledged thing (like paying for a time limited demo ???). If you liked what you saw, you went out and spent some more cash to buy the full thing. Clearly, I was wrong. I have never bothered looking at season passes for any game before.

Time to get educated...

My NOOB question is, what is a season pass then actually, in layman terms?

 

[VirtualForce]

Now, to me, a season pass to a game always meant that you did not have enough to buy the full fledged thing (like paying for a time limited demo ???). If you liked what you saw, you went out and spent some more cash to buy the full thing. Clearly, I was wrong. I have never bothered looking at season passes for any game before.

I disagree with that. Season Pass, imho, when dealing with an honest dev, is to add and prolong the life of a game. As in, you get the full game when you buy it and if you like and want more, you can buy the season pass. Games like Battlefield is both a good and bad example of DLC.
Good as in you get more, maps, vehicles, weapons, etc, you can get more for the game and it doesnt get boring fast.
Bad, it tends to split the community. Its nice to have new maps and vehicles, but not everyone can and wants to join you by paying extra. So then you sit with not so full DLC servers and everyone playing vanilla maps until the end of live for the game when DLC goes dirt cheap.

The perfect example of a good Dev is CD Projekt Red, giving you tons of free stuff, with excelent paid for content.

Bad devs, and there are alot of them, hide game breaking/making content behind Season Pass, DLC or pay to win. Its sad to see devs do this, do they really not care? Do they really think we are that stupid?

Bottom line for me is, I dont mind Season Pass, I get that these days, to develop something, especially in HD or 4K textures, almost realistic animations and lighting, sound, etc, its not cheap, it takes alot of ppl to do it. So make some extra money and keep your studio floating and giving us more great games. But done lock stuff that breaks the game behind DLC or Season Pass.