Home Gaming You can pre-order the Black Ops 3 season pass right now!

You can pre-order the Black Ops 3 season pass right now!

2 min read
57

WWWWOOOOOOO

I’ve defended both DLC and Call of Duty before. While many abhor the franchise (and truth be told, I’m not the biggest fan myself), it certainly has its place. With millions of loyal ardent fans lapping the game up every year, it makes sense for Activision to capitalise on that. The same goes for DLC; “a fool and his money are soon parted,” the cliche goes. What I can’t stand though, is Season Passes.

They’re quite honestly a piss-take. Paying early for potential content that doesn’t yet exist takes the idea of pre-orders (which are stupid) and dials them up to eleven. At least with pre-ordering a game – especially one in a franchise that you know you love – has some sort of benefit, buying add-on content for that game with no notion of what it may be or how good it may be. If pre-ordering games is a stupid thing to do, then buying a Season Pass is asinine.

It especially gets up my nostrils when publishers make those Season passes – or any DLC really – available to buy months in advance. That’s the case with Black Ops 3. You can buy its season pass right now. It’s available on Steam for you to spend $49.99 of your hard-earned cash on. Yup. $50 Dollars. Nearly the price of the whole damned game. There’s no mention of what it contains, or what new features of maps might be added to a game that’s still six months away from released.

And it highlights perfectly what’s so wrong about the way publishers handle DLC. I don’t think too many people have as many issues with DLC as they believe they do – it’s just that the timing of it is generally pretty damned awful; announced before a game is even available. While it’s hardly the case, it leads consumers to believe that the content has been ripped out of the game, giving them a less than complete experience. I sincerely believe that if publishers held out on their DLC announcements until after games are already out, people would be far less angry about it all.

Last Updated: April 30, 2015

57 Comments

  1. WitWolfy

    April 30, 2015 at 10:30

    Jumping the gun a bit, aren’t they?

    Reply

    • Aries

      April 30, 2015 at 10:50

      Pre-fire, and the idiots just run cash in hand into it

      Reply

  2. Mistake Not...

    April 30, 2015 at 10:38

    Us: “Why is it so expensive?”
    Them: “Because there is a large amount of content.”
    Us: “How much content?”
    Them: “More content than the base game itself! Amazing right?”
    Us: “Has the game even gone gold?”
    Them: “Nope.”
    Us: “So we must pay you in advance for planned DLC for a game that’s not even done yet?”
    Them: “Genius marketing, right?”

    And unfortunately it works.

    Reply

    • Mistake Not...

      April 30, 2015 at 10:39

      Disclaimer: I made all of that up. In case you didn’t know. I wouldn’t blame you, it’s that realistic a situation.

      Reply

      • Greylingad

        April 30, 2015 at 10:44

        As ridiculous as it sounds, you’ve hit the nail on it’s head man… what a joke these oaks are…

        Reply

    • Kayoss860

      April 30, 2015 at 16:09

      Unfortunately there are some truth to this. It seems to me that developers are more focusing on DLC before the game is even complete. This makes one wonder, how do they decide what is “Game content” and what is DLC? DLC, should always be an afterthought after the game have gone gold. If you were planning a year worth of DLC, this only means that this DLC should have been in the game and that the game was not your main priority.

      Reply

  3. Rock789

    April 30, 2015 at 10:39

    That’s COD norm at the moment… AW’s season pass was R749!! I sh$t you not! Kinda ri-donkey-less!

    Reply

  4. Umar

    April 30, 2015 at 10:40

    MOUNTAIN DEW CAMACHO!!

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      April 30, 2015 at 10:42

      Cod players are so hardcore the drink Doritos.

      Reply

  5. Francois

    April 30, 2015 at 10:40

    Hahahaha. This is such a big “fuck you” to gamers.

    Reply

  6. Hammersteyn

    April 30, 2015 at 10:41

    I bet they’ve sold at least 500 000 season passes already…

    Reply

  7. Greylingad

    April 30, 2015 at 10:42

    Whaah!? ok, So what have we seen of Blurps 3 so far, a two or three minute gameplay trailer, showing off an old and dated engine, with ideas stolen from other games and absolutely no innovation whatsoever. And they have the audacity, the nerve, to announce a season pass… I’m done, just, no….

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 30, 2015 at 11:05

      ./care about the dated engine.
      the visuals are pretty, so i no longer care about that.

      there are many reasons to hate this game / what the franchise has become, but the engine is way down on the list.

      as for stealing ideas, i disagree, its rolling with the trends and has been heading in this direction since blurps 1. exos / exo effects, mech suits etc are popular among several developers. its no reason to get excited about the game, but its hardly stealing.

      Reply

      • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

        April 30, 2015 at 11:08

        Have to agree with the ideas thing. WoW keeps stealing ideas from other games and no a single word gets said but let anyone even dare have a remotely similar ui and it is a WoW clone. Happens in games all the time.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          April 30, 2015 at 11:12

          no idea about that.
          i just think theres a difference between stealing and following / predicting trends.

          Reply

      • Greylingad

        April 30, 2015 at 11:12

        As I’ve mentioned, I’m done with anything Activision related, they have now unlocked Greylingad full Rage level 80, in past I didn’t care about them copying certain elements of games, but don’t blatantly take the whole franchise of Deus Ex and slap a III on it…. That is simply put, kak

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          April 30, 2015 at 11:18

          you’ll probably be able to apply that rage to several other games, so dont blow all your explosions on this one.
          if CoD has picked up on stuff in deus ex, you can bet that similar things are going to be applied to other games.

          also keep in mind that deus ex doesnt have the monopoly on the whole “human weapon” or “man x machine” concept either.
          Ghost in a Shell is the first thing that comes to my mind when you talk about those concepts.

          its a trend, a trend that, to be fair, deus ex HAS been building itself around for years now, but it is a trend nontheless.

          Reply

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 30, 2015 at 11:20

            GitS was years after Astro Boy.

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 30, 2015 at 11:22

            then we have another example, it was just the first thing that came to mind. never watched astro boy, even the new movie was too much for me…

            but it only helps to prove my point.

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 30, 2015 at 11:25

            Indeed.

          • Greylingad

            April 30, 2015 at 11:27

            You’re right and I agree fully, every game leans to a forefather of some sort, take for example all of the fps’s that we currently have, they can all be traced back to Wolf 3d etc. Prince of persia, for that matter tetris, then we move to it’s predecessor, movies, then theatre, then a guy that clubs a deer to death with a stick, yes, if we follow trends we can date copying back all the way to the first organism wanting to stand out from a crowd and grow a pair of eyes even, the only difference is that the ones that evolved it uniquely and with great focus succeeded, where CoD merely chucks whatever is trending into their recipe with the hopes of scoring big and the whole world of Deus Ex:HR is based on this principle and will be continued into the foreseeable future… Anyway, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that if they want to copy certain elements of games, they should at least do it justice, but you won’t accomplish that by selling season passes 6 months prior to release….

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 30, 2015 at 11:30

            Hahaha. No the way to do it is to set up a kickstarter. Look at how much bloat Star Citizen is getting. FPS? Can bet you none of the original backers ever asked for that feature.

          • Greylingad

            April 30, 2015 at 11:32

            You, sir, deserve an upvote for that!

  8. Lord Chaos

    April 30, 2015 at 10:42

    I…

    Fuck this, I’m calling NASA and volunteering for a manned mission to Titan.

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      April 30, 2015 at 10:44

      I’d miss one thing and one thing only. Internet access.

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        April 30, 2015 at 10:46

        Can always go to the moon. It has WIFI.

        Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      April 30, 2015 at 10:46

      You are visiting your mom?

      Reply

    • Greylingad

      April 30, 2015 at 10:46

      Apparently the flights are fully booked, I’m also changing my number to 072 f-u-c-k-c-o-d….

      Reply

    • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

      April 30, 2015 at 11:03

      Easier way to avoid CoD.
      1:Lock yourself in your house

      2: Delete all steam friends
      3:Buy and play Kerbal Space Program
      4: 365 days later FINALLY get a damn rocket in orbit and back without it exploding/burning up/crashing.
      5:Profit.

      Reply

    • HvR

      April 30, 2015 at 13:37

  9. Admiral Chief

    April 30, 2015 at 10:48

    Don’t support this, just don’t. Stop playing CoD and all these other silly yearly cash-ins. Don’t be part of the problem!

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 30, 2015 at 10:58

      yeah, but they forget to tell you that if you dont, your potential matchmaking queue decreases by 75%
      locally, that puts you into a pool of about 50 people online at peak times.
      combine that with their broken MMR system, after about a month of MMR balancing, you have a pool of about 5-10 people.

      so if you’re going to waste money on this game, you better be prepared to waste money on the seasons pass aswell.

      games like this are why piracy exists.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        April 30, 2015 at 11:11

        Aye, arrrr

        Reply

    • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

      April 30, 2015 at 11:05

      Downvote you if I can cause:

      1: More CoD player = less idiots in other games (Dota seems to be immune to this effect though)
      2: More CoD players = less hackers in other games cause they and I quote here “Are just to hard”-DayZ script kiddy
      3: You did not change your name like I suggested dammit!

      Reply

      • Lord Chaos

        April 30, 2015 at 11:10

        What? No PowerPoint presentation? 😛

        Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        April 30, 2015 at 11:12

        Last time I checked an Admiral does not take orders from an Ensign?

        Reply

        • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

          April 30, 2015 at 11:18

          I AM THE EMPEROR!! (no not the other one). 😛

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief

            April 30, 2015 at 11:27

            I bow to no man!

          • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

            April 30, 2015 at 11:31

            The I shall arrange for you to take an arrow to the knee!

          • Hammersteyn

            April 30, 2015 at 11:38

            A women said that. Are you a woman? 😛

  10. Greylingad

    April 30, 2015 at 10:50

    Activision Directors meeting: “On the agenda today, we will be looking at screwing over every single one of our customers, would there be anyone to oppose this notion?”

    Silence fills the boardroom….

    “Ok, Will we be doing with any form of lubrication?”

    Silence again….

    “Meeting adjourned, We will be screwing them till daylight comes!”

    Reply

  11. Hammersteyn

    April 30, 2015 at 10:51

    What he said

    Reply

  12. Matthew Holliday

    April 30, 2015 at 10:53

    50 fucking dollars for a seasons pass…
    for a fuckign map pack…

    well done battlefield, your entire game price “premium” map pack has spread to everything else.

    battlefield downscales and lessens their game with hardline to compete with CoD.
    CoD upscales their DLC price to compete with battlefield.
    we always talk about competition between AMD / Nvidia being a good thing, but it doesnt make games better, it makes them worse. if a bad thing works for one game, it must work for another. impliment said bad thing.

    Reply

  13. Blood Emperor Trevor

    April 30, 2015 at 10:55

    Why’s everyone so upset? This is awesome! If you look on the bright side you’ll notice that if you only buy the base game you’re getting it at a 50% discount compared to buying the whole game, and you’re getting more than half of it. Excellent value!

    Reply

  14. Kromas,powered by windows 10.

    April 30, 2015 at 11:12

    Anyone else notice that this is like the most offencive thing you can pretty much do and all BA gets is a few snarky comments but EA on the other hand get major backlash for dropping the BF trailer with little to no detail except space battles.

    Not defending EA but I feel other companies should get just as much flak. Unless they are Ubisoft … they need to shut down and like yesterday.

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 30, 2015 at 11:26

      honestly give zero fucks about specifics from trailers.
      theyr promotional tools, even gameplay trailers and indepth dev discussions are wildly inaccurate and purely for promotional purposes.
      whether it shows legit details or not, its all marketing BS.

      Reply

      • Kromas,powered by windows 10.

        April 30, 2015 at 11:28

        True but the backlash was unjustified.Never thought I would ever says that about EA.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          April 30, 2015 at 11:36

          agreed.
          how would you feel though, if the new mass effect trailer came out, and all it was, was a camera revolving around shepards head for 30 seconds, ending off with “you are no longer shepard, time for a new adventure” “pre order the seasons pass now”

          Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      April 30, 2015 at 11:46

      Warner is becoming a bit disgusting with its DLC. proper disgusting. Mortal Kombat, Arkham Knight. Terrible.

      Reply

  15. Matthew Holliday

    April 30, 2015 at 11:29

    that feeling when you’re watching the disqus feed and you notice new upvotes flashing from the top of the page to the bottom.
    a wild hammer floating his way down the page.

    Reply

    • Hammersteyn

      April 30, 2015 at 11:32

      😛

      Reply

  16. Gr8_Balls_o_KFM_Fire

    April 30, 2015 at 11:34

    Vote with your wallet.

    Don’t support DLC

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 30, 2015 at 11:37

      i support GOOD dlc.
      but never will i pre order a seasons pass for CoD or premium for battlefield.

      Reply

  17. The Sten

    April 30, 2015 at 11:57

    Surely the bubble will burst on this “MOAR DLC!!!” trend soon.

    Reply

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