I greatly enjoy co-op games and since completing both Call of Duty, World At War and Gears of War 2 co-operatively, I’ve been seeking advice for my next co-op experience. Whilst I’ve seen some excellent suggestions, (Left 4 Dead is now definitely on the list), I thought I’d go over the Xbox 360’s back catalogue and see what co-op experiences were available from older titles.
A dim and distant memory recalled how much fun Simes thought Crackdown was. That memory sealed the deal along with the fact my usual co-op partner, Tony, still had the game in his back catalogue.
Since this was the first time I’ve attempted to pick up an old game, I thought I’d try my hand at purchasing a used copy. I was shocked at how little it cost; Gamestation were selling it with free delivery for a wonderfully cheap £4.99! A few days later, it arrived and I duly set up a co-op game which Tony joined. However, in order to continue, I needed to download the same content he had. I was pleasantly surprised to find that co-op play with players who owned the premium Getting Busy DLC was possible by downloading the eponymous Free-for-all DLC. The price of Getting Busy in the single player campaign is 800 MS points however and that, ladies and gentlemen, is £6.80.
Now I accept that second hand prices cannot be compared to DLC cost. However what I cannot accept is a game that I can buy brand new for £12.71 (from the same place I purchased it second hand) still has DLC at the same price point it was at release. This ridiculous pricing structure gave me a sobering thought.
It occurred to me that as DLC creates episodic gaming possibilities (e.g. Rockstar Games’ impending The Lost and Damned), it also creates a bypass around publishers’ loss of earnings through second hand purchases. If I give Gamestation £4.99 for Realtime Worlds’ Crackdown, do the publishers at Microsoft care about the lack of income if in order to get the DLC, I still need to pay them at least that much again? After all, DLC cannot be sold on with a game.
The counter arguments are obvious: I can still play the game without the DLC and I could buy another game instead but what concerns me is the bigger picture outside of Crackdown‘s fairness. If games become simple keys to access episodic content which everyone who wants to play together must buy, this surely spells the end of the second hand games market. After all, who buys a second hand copy of the WoW discs?
Gloomy portents aside, Simes was right. The game is enormous fun, so much so I’m considering renaming it Craicdown. If you haven’t already played the game, I highly recommend picking it up second hand before that particular market is performance managed out of existence.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.