Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Resident Evil 5 is a good game, but the more competitive amongst us were hankering for some competitive multiplayer after the single player campaign. Well tomorrow we get the chance, the chance to pay some money to unlock what was already on the disc.
I am probably being prematurely unfair, but CAPCOM have just announced new download content for the high selling not-zombie shooting game Resident Evil 5.
The info from CAPCOM reads thus: We are happy to announce that the wait for new Resident Evil 5 content is almost over! The new online multiplayer Versus mode will be available to download on Xbox LIVE and PlayStation Network beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, April 7, 2009. For 400 Microsoft Points on Xbox LIVE, or US$4.99 on the PlayStation Network, Resident Evil fans will be able to go up against each other for the most terrifying Versus mode to date.
Versus allows up to four players to match wits in online battles across two very different game types. Slayer’s Rule is a point-based game that challenges players to kill Majinis. In Survivor’s Rule, players hunt the most dangerous game, each other! Players can begin the hunt as Chris, Sheva or other secret characters, and choose from either one-on-one or two-versus-two team matches for either of the two gameplay styles.
Was multiplayer something that the RE community were crying out for? Was this CAPCOM’s quick response - given the game has only been released for a few weeks – to a feature that fans thought the game needed? Probably not, more likely, this DLC simply unlocks code already contained on disc, to simply milk more consumer bucks,
Get used to this folks, it is a growing trend in interactive entertainment delivery, to harvest more revenue via micro-transactions. And why not? It is a model that feeds the hunger of fans, whilst giving the more frugal amongst us the option to not participate.
Where the model falls down, is if the public get cynical about its implementation – I see two forms where this can happen.
In competitive games where players can purchase powerful, balance changing equipment using real money, such as purchasing that extra blasty gun for Battlefield 2142.
Secondly, if the balance between perceived value is tipped into the negative, for content that is simply unlocked from the original purchase. Paying extra for stuff you feel you have already payed for, or felt should simply have been included in the original release is de-motivating to future franchise spending.
Whatever the motivation, or the mechanic of delivery, Resident Evil 5 owners will soon be moving, stopping, aiming and blasting each other into high-res bits. And what could be more fun?
David Bass
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