Price of games blamed for “absurdly entitled” gamers

Was BioWare’s release of the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut a good thing? Depending on who you ask, maybe not. That probably also includes those gamers who thought the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut wasn’t what they’d wanted, anyway, but the point is, BioWare’s relenting to fans’ demands may present problems for other publishers and developers.

Asked about the controversy in a Q&A hosted by Kotaku, an anonymous employee at a “large gaming publisher” said that fan outrage and BioWare’s decision to create additional finale content for the game is a matter of some concern, but that the whole culture of gamer entitlement can be blamed on the high price of games in the first place.

“Gamers are absurdly entitled, but I think they got there because we ask so much money from them every step of the way,” the mystery source said. “No one’s demanding re-shoots for the final Matrix, because it only cost you 10 bucks to see it. Sometimes I think we in the industry lose sight of what it’s like to pay $60 for a piece of entertainment.”

“We’re worried about the precedent that BioWare set here. Will it fan the flames on future titles? No one knows for sure.”

Later, the insider responded to a question about launch day DLC, or basically a suggestion that publishers stop releasing it.

“Stop buying it,” he or she said. “Look, it’s simple. One team puts together a rough estimate on how much they expect the company to make from DLC. Let’s call that ‘A’. Then another team puts together an estimate on how much it will cost to develop that DLC. Let’s call that ‘B’.

“If A > B, you get Day One DLC.”

Business, people. This is how it works.