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General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 07, 2015
Two full-blown expansions for the epic RPG.




The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is almost here. That means the game is pretty much finished, and the devs are about to take a deep breath while CD-presses and hype machines slowly wind up to take things through the home stretch. It's not gold yet, but now that development is coming to an end, the CD PROJEKT RED team is ready to start their work on two new, ambitious monster-hunting expansions.

The expansions will be called <span class="bold">Hearts of Stone</span>, and <span class="bold">Blood and Wine</span>. Combined, they'll offer over 30 hours of new adventures for Geralt, and the latter introduces a whole new major area to roam. More items, gear, and characters (including a few familiar faces) will all be crafted with the same attention to detail as the game itself.
<span class="bold">Hearts of Stone</span> is a 10-hour adventure across the wilds of No Man's Land and the nooks of Oxenfurt. The secretive Man of Glass has a contract for you - you'll need all your smarts and cunning to untangle a thick web of deceit, investigate the mystery, and emerge in one piece.
<span class="bold"><span class="bold">Blood and Wine</span></span> is the big one, introducing an all-new, playable in-game region to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It will take you about 20 hours to discover all of Toussaint, a land of wine, untainted by war. And to uncover the dark, bloody secret behind an atmosphere of carefree indulgence.







There used to be a time when buying an add-on disk or expansion for your game really meant something. That's what CD PROJEKT RED are going for, it's about bringing that old feeling back. You can take it from our very own iWi, (that's Marcin Iwinski, co-founder of CD PROJEKT RED):

"We’ve said in the past that if we ever decide to release paid content, it will be vast in size and represent real value for the money. Both of our expansions offer more hours of gameplay than quite a few standalone games out there.”

Hearts of Stone is expected to premiere this October, while Blood and Wine is slated for release in the first quarter of 2016, so there's still plenty of time ahead. We're offering you the <span class="bold">Expansion Pass</span> now - it's a chance to pre-order the two expansions and even show your support for the devs. But we can't stress Marcin Iwinski's words enough:

“Don’t buy it if you have any doubts. Wait for reviews or play The Witcher and see if you like it first. As always, it’s your call."







The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is just over a month away, and you can pre-order the game right now - it's a particularly great deal if you own the previous Witcher games and take advantage of the additional fan discount (both The Witcher and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings are 80% off right now!). You can also take a rather unique refresher course on the universe with The Witcher Adventure Game at a 40% discount, all until Thursday, 4:59 PM GMT.
Post edited April 07, 2015 by Chamb
Posted April 09, 2015
high rated
Hello Everyone,

First of all let me thank you for your feedback. Although a bit harsh at times, it is always very passionate, emotional and we really do appreciate it.

I wanted to add a few words to the original press release, which will hopefully shed some more light on the Expansions and the timing of the announcement.

Let me start with the Expansions themselves. The work on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is almost done and we are waiting for the final certifications. Thanks to it we were able to allocate part of the team onto the expansions. Yes, we have been thinking about it for some time, as with over 250 people on the Witcher team good planning is essential.

Rest assured, there is no hidden agenda or cutting out any content from the game. Both Expansions are being built at this very moment, from the ground up – hence the release dates long after the launch of Wild Hunt. We develop them in-house by the same team, which was working on Wild Hunt. This is the best guarantee we can give you that our goal is to deliver both the story and production values on par with the main game.

Now, on the timing of the announcement - in other words “why now” and not - let’s say – “a few months after the release of Wild Hunt”. The reason is very simple: we want to get the word out about the Expansions to as many gamers as possible out there. There is no better time for it than during the apex of the Marketing & PR campaign of the game. Doing it sometime after the release would mean that our reach would be much smaller.

Yes, we are a business, and yes, we would love to see both the game and the Expansions selling well. Having said that, we always put gamers first and are actually quite paranoid about the fact that whatever we offer is honest, of highest quality, and represents good value for your hard earn buck.

Yes, these are just my words. So let me repeat myself from the original release: if you still have any doubts -- don’t buy the Expansions. Wait for reviews or play The Witcher and see if you like it first. As always, it’s your call.

Cheers,

Marcin
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Destro
Posted April 09, 2015
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JDelekto: last time I went to the movies (which can be a bad experience based on the audience), it cost me about $8.50 for a Sunday matinee to see a 1 1/2 hour film.
Being teased to pay $25.00 for 30 hours of game play (in which I have some influence over the 'movie' being played), is one *heck* of a bargain.
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jerff: Regarding the price: $25 is totally reasonable for 30 hours of gameplay content by any standard.
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jerff: ...most of modern $60 singleplayer games offer you less than 20 hours of gameplay.
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Ratharos: 30 hours for 25 bucks is more than reasonable.
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Kabuto: The price seems more than reasonable to me and the main game is huge.
Well, last book I bought cost me $5 and I read it in like 50 hours. Movies are notorius for being super-expensive for what they actually offer and a really bad "investment" of your free time and money.

What I'm saying is the price for the W3 expansion should be compared only with the price of the W3 base game, and not with movies, books, other games etc:
-Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: $50/200h = $0.25/h (source: https://twitter.com/Bacon_is_life/status/582276508556869632)
-Witcher 3 Expansion: $25/30h = $0.83/h (source: http://www.gog.com/game/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_expansion_pass)

So the expansion "features" a 333% price increase over the base game! Imo, that's not reasonable at all and at the opposite end of a bargain.

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lliam: witcher 3 is being offered free now right left and centre on every Nvidia card / motherboard purchase.
I could end up owning about five of the games now.
It's not free, you'd still have to buy a video card and for each one sold nvidia pays cdpr the previously agreed amount.

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jerff: But where did they fail their ethos? In making expansions? In announcing them now? In charging $25 for 30 hours worth of gameplay? In offering an option to buy them now (while discouraging it for people who are in any way unsure, in the press release)?
In all of the above. See below why.

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synfresh: I find it interesting and somewhat mildly amusing that many people in this thread think CDPR (and GoG for that matter) are different from other producers and distributors
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jerff: Because I can't see what's wrong with any of the above.
That's because both of you are not familiar with how GOG appeared, how they advertised themselves and thus gained a particular market niche, how they grew, what was their attitude towards bad industry practices, you're not familiar with their history so far. If you would then you'd see and understand.
Posted April 09, 2015
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jerff: But where did they fail their ethos? In making expansions? In announcing them now? In charging $25 for 30 hours worth of gameplay? In offering an option to buy them now (while discouraging it for people who are in any way unsure, in the press release)?
What part of it makes you think that they lost their ethos? Because I can't see what's wrong with any of the above.
Since I don't think you've read the entire thread I'll quote myself again here to repeat what my thoughts were on what went wrong with this announcement:
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d2t: Except many if not most of complainers here argue, that this is bad that they dared to announce it this early, before the game is out.

Lets consider.
option A - CDPR is transparent and announces expansions as they start working on them => bad CDPR, how do you dare to announce them this early, it is surely a money grab to fool people into buying DLCs!!!!!
option B - CDPR hides their plans for expansions until few months after release => bad CDPR, I would never buy this game if I knew it is not a complete edition, it was surely some money grab to sell more standalone copies!!!!!
This post has a good point and the core of it is true, however a lot of grief is over the way they're doing it.

Yes, they should announce the expansions, or at least their intent to have them, before the initial release for the reasons mentioned above. Give people the option to opt out of buying after having learned this information. Good move there.

But to start selling the expansions right away? And not only that, they're doing it in this ...dreaded.. 'pass' format. One of those horrid practices you do *not* want to associate with GOG.

I'm pretty sure the idea a lot of people took away from the '16 DLC' for free announcement was that people who would buy the Witcher 3 wouldn't feel nickle and dimed for extra content. That they could be assured were buying 'the full experience' unlike what those 'other' developers do. And while that impression may have been right or wrong, since apparently they were only talking about 'Small DLC' and not 'Large DLC', it certainly felt like that's the point they were making.

But now, before the game has even come out, people find out that their initial purchase is going to be the 'base game', to be added on by expansions which have to be paid extra for. It's getting thrown in their face that their game is *not* going to be the full Witcher 3 experience.

To summarize it best I'll quote this part of the '16 free DLC announcement', the part they were mocking.

Haven’t we just paid a lot of cash for a brand new game?
And while it's now clear they were only talking about small piecemeal 'dlc' only, tell me this isn't exactly the feeling they just gave their fans by announcing this, in the manner they did, at the time they did.

In my opinion, GOG should have announced they were going to do expansions and then leave it at that. Leave the preorder and sale for some time after your game is out, give a preorder discount. Give a loyalty discount on the second expansion for owners of the first. It would amount to the same thing, but the way it would've been handled would've been so much better.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/witcher_expansion_0f2a2/post524
Posted April 09, 2015
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ChrisSZ: I think the reason why some users are upset is that there was the unsaid assumption that the game is complete. No need to spend any additional money at a later stage to get the complete game. Because that was the case for Witcher 1 and 2. The additional content was free, the "upgrade" to the enhanced edition was free. Now with Witcher 3 this has changed. There is paid additional content for the first time. Now you could argue whether it is reasonable to complain about paying additional money for additional content. In my opinion it is not, but many customers got used to the free content from the previous titles.

About the timing, well, there's always somebody who complains. If CDPR had announced the expansions after release of the base game, somebody would say "If I had known that earlier, I would have cancelled my preorder and waited for the GOTY or something. I want to play the complete game."

Gamers like to whine and complain ;-)
Yeah, so the only solution would have been to have a big disclaimer on the pre-order site: "We reserve the right to produce paid expansions to this game.". Only then nobody could have complained.

On the other hand now at least everybody not comfortable can cancel the pre-order. So apart from some negative PR nothing really is bad. Everyone can get what he/she wants. This is much better than announcing it after the release.

Now at least everyone who is still pre-ordering does it in complete knowledge of the coming expansions. I think that is fair.

Personally I did not pre-order, and I actually (after some sleep) think that GOG indeed has the right to announce and work on expansions. I do not think that they really cut out content from the game but rather produce new content. My idea is now to buy the game including everything as soon as a version including both expansions comes out, probably next year. That way I can play a lot of TW3 at once (and I would need a new computer before anyway).

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mobutu: ... So the expansion "features" a 333% price increase over the base game! Imo, that's not reasonable at all and at the opposite end of a bargain. ...
Expansions might be more expensive per playing time than the base game because less people buy them, so you have to spread the production costs over fewer heads.

On the other hand the current price will surely fall in the future tremendously and soon there will be a GOTY version including both for even less price than the main game now. If you want a bargain just wait a bit. You cannot really expect a bargain before release.

Also with books you have this. The cheap paperback version often is published one year after the nice double expensive book version.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Trilarion
Posted April 09, 2015
Meanwhile the season pass is on place 28 on the best seller list on Steam, so CDPR achieved what they want, here.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by ThePunishedSnake
Posted April 09, 2015
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Trilarion: On the other hand the current price will surely fall in the future tremendously and soon there will be a GOTY version including both for even less price than the main game now. If you want a bargain just wait a bit. You cannot really expect a bargain before release.

Also with books you have this. The cheap paperback version often is published one year after the nice double expensive book version.
Actually the GOTY edition is already being sold on gog.com here:

http://www.gog.com/game/the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_game_expansion_pass
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Matruchus
Posted April 09, 2015
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Trilarion: Expansions might be more expensive per playing time than the base game because less people buy them, so you have to spread the production costs over fewer heads.
On the other hand DLCs and expansions don't create the same production costs (because several things are already done for the base game). So this isn't a valid reason at all.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by PaterAlf
Posted April 09, 2015
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rfchen2k: I have mixed feelings about this. I was really surprised to receive the e-mail promotion on the expansion pass as I always had the impression the CDPR is against paid DLCs. No matter how they spin it those are like the content DLCs for Mass Effect 2 and 3, whatever they want to call them...DLCs can be cosmetic or actual contents. ...
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Trilarion: In the public discussion it's actually not that clear. DLCs are often meant as minor addition that do not change gameplay substantially. Expansions are bigger and in an interview which is linked several times here in the thread CDP actually explained what they mean by being against paid DLC (they only meant the small changes kind). They explicitly said that in case they make substantial additions they will be paid. So they were quite upfront about it.

It's not a matter of spin, it's a matter of the ambiquity and multiple uses of the word DLC. Everything is DLC, even the main game itself.

Therefore I propose to shoot the word DLC as the root of all evil (everything is DLC anyway) and speak henceforth only in terms of "base game", "patch", "expansion".
The days of base game, patch, stuff pack, expansion pack wordings are long gone, the term DLC has been around a good 5 years, oh and btw base games are NOT dlc they are actual games not some frikkin content that has been CUT from the base game and you have to pay extra just to add it back in

DLC phrase 1 - downloadable content, content that you actually DOWNLOAD digitally (based on steams success)
DLC phrase 2 - Disc locked content, based on certain companies that would LOCK content on your paid for dvd behind a paywall to prevent access and is seen as another form of DRM dev/publisher manipulation to make you PAY money for content you already paid for!!!
Posted April 09, 2015
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Trilarion: On the other hand the current price will surely fall in the future tremendously and soon there will be a GOTY version including both for even less price than the main game now. If you want a bargain just wait a bit. You cannot really expect a bargain before release.
I only used the term "bargain" because those forum users I was responding to stated "$25 for 30h it's a bargain" or "its reasonable priced".
Well, it's not and the proof is in my post.

Regarding your other argument please see, no use in repeating something perfectly valid:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/witcher_expansion_0f2a2/post868

Oh, and I already stated that I'm going to wait for a definite complete edition (and probably better priced too and polished to almost perfection) in 2016 before I touch the game:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/witcher_expansion_0f2a2/post44

because after the game is released I'm pretty sure they'll work A LOT on bug fixing. A LOT.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by mobutu
Posted April 09, 2015
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mobutu: ...
That's because both of you are not familiar with how GOG appeared, how they advertised themselves and thus gained a particular market niche, how they grew, what was their attitude towards bad industry practices, you're not familiar with their history so far. If you would then you'd see and understand.
Being here since GOG started, I think I'm familiar with all of these but at the same time I don't feel cheated by the expansion announcement:
- they always stated clearly that bigger DLCs may have to be paid for;
- CDPR is a company -> wants to maximize profits and reduce expenses -> taking advantage of the publicity around the launch of the Witcher 3 to also promote the DLCs is smart;
- regarding the value, the game length in terms of time is really irrelevant for me because if you go this way then you can say that the value of FIFA 15 is way higher than the one of Day of the Tentacle but I had so much more fun with the second than with the first one. In this specific case, nothing tells us how the DLCs will differ in terms of rhythm compared to the main game that's why waiting a little bit (as proposed by GOG) may seem like a smart move.
Posted April 09, 2015
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d2t: And what are you doing here on the website of this company which is insulting you so much more every month? If it's so bad, you surely haven't bought any games here in recent months, right?

Just leave if you don't like it here and put your money where your mouth is.
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Klumpen0815: How I love people trying to cut off criticism.
I wouldn't care for all this if I hadn't put so much money into GoG before all those changes, mostly to support the principles they dropped later.

My buying curve here has had steep drops with every good news™ and has come to a stop with the full on regional pricing for the absolute majority of games here a week ago indeed although the alternatives are mostly still worse than GoG (because it was really awesome at some point), but comments like your's show me, hoping that things will go back are small indeed.
That said, this planned expansion thing with the Witcher 3 is really one of the minor points in all this and imho negligible
Cutting out criticism?
So if i want you to stop spreading misinformation that is cutting off criticism?
Even i reacted at the regional pricing change.
That being said i think that gog found a solution in the issue by offering store credits.
Its not perfect but its better than nothing.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Lodium
Posted April 09, 2015
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PaterAlf: On the other hand DLCs and expansions don't create the same production costs (because several things are already done for the base game). So this isn't a valid reason at all.
Depends. You have two effects. You can build on existing structure but still you have to spread over less buyers. So which effect prevails? You don't know that and therefore the validity is still there. We just don't know exactly.

If you have more inside knowledge about the prospected profits that the expansion will make, let me know.

I think (my opinion) that even a 300% higher price for an expansion compared to the base game in a pre-order is still reasonable. I would not order it, but then I also did not order the TW3 pre-order.
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ThePunishedSnake: Meanwhile the season pass is on place 28 on the best seller list on Steam, so CDPR achieved what they want, here.
Surely you get a bit bias by just looking at the thread because I guess that more people canceling the pre-order will report that as opposed to people pre-ordering the season-pass.

And I actually also don't like the word "pass". Pre-ordering an expension-pass would actually be the last thing I would like to do - would I do pre-ordering.
Post edited April 09, 2015 by Trilarion
Posted April 09, 2015
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Trilarion: Depends. You have two effects. You can build on existing structure but still you have to spread over less buyers. So which effect prevails? You don't know that and therefore the validity is still there. We just don't know exactly.

If you have more inside knowledge about the prospected profits that the expansion will make, let me know.

I think (my opinion) that even a 300% higher price for an expansion compared to the base game in a pre-order is still reasonable. I would not order it, but then I also did not order the TW3 pre-order.
I don't have any inside knowledge. But from my point of view, you are doing something wrong when you need a 300% higher price for a product for which much of the work is already done. As a company you should ask yourself if the expected number of buyers really justifies the ammount of wok and the financial risk in that case.
Posted April 09, 2015
Sadly if other developers see this they will continue to not advise people of planned updates prior to a pre-order release and hence not lose pre-orders.

All these people cancelling or saying they will cancel I don't think this will change business practices except for encouraging publishers / developers to keep a lid on things until after game releases. Not changing the practice of DLC or expansion releases.

Still it's all your choice, just extra reason not to pre-order in future as honesty in the process leads to less sales and makes it harder for any one willing to spin the wheel of luck on pre-orders.

Lesson to game developers, keep future dlc and expansions secret until after release.
Posted April 09, 2015
I'd rather they used the time to work on another game but if the story is self contained and has no bearing on the core game then I have no issue with it.

If an addon adds more to the core story or makes significant changes etc then I won't buy it until the complete version is cheap.
Posted April 09, 2015
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Trilarion: On the other hand the current price will surely fall in the future tremendously and soon there will be a GOTY version including both for even less price than the main game now. If you want a bargain just wait a bit. You cannot really expect a bargain before release.
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mobutu: I only used the term "bargain" because those forum users I was responding to stated "$25 for 30h it's a bargain" or "its reasonable priced".
Well, it's not and the proof is in my post.
No, there is no proof in your post. You claim that the expansions are 333% more expensive than the base game per hour of play time. Fine. That does not make them unreasonably priced. If anything, it just makes the base game ridiculously cheap. The only "proof" you make is that there is a relative price difference per hour. That has nothing to do with what is reasonable and what is not.

I bought the latest Humble Indie Bundle for $6. That netted me 9 games altogether. Let's look at just one of them, Torchlight 2. Now, some of the games I got I already had, and some of the others I have no interest in. I'll probably only play 3 of them, Torchlight 2 among them (I'm already playing it). So let's say I paid $2 for Torchlight 2. According to www.gamelengths.com, Torchlight 2 has an average play time of just over 40 hours. That comes to $0.05 per hour.

Following your logic, the fact that The Witcher 3 costs 500% more than that ($0.25 per hour), The Witcher 3 is hideously overpriced! It should cost just $10! Of course it shouldn't. It just means that I happened to get Torchlight 2 ridiculously cheap. That doesn't mean that $50 for 200 hours of gameplay is not a reasonable price. Just like $25 for 30 hours of gameplay is not inherently an unreasonable price.

You can always find something cheaper. You can also always find something more expensive. What matters is what each person considers a reasonable price, and they should spend their money accordingly. What is "reasonable" is a subjective notion, and is not something you can "prove". All you can prove is that not all games cost the same. Well done. We weren't aware of that, honestly.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Expansion Pass(1100 posts)(1100 posts)
(1100 posts)