Do you buy Season Passes for the games you buy/own?

[Shalafi]

As the title said, I'm curious how many of you guys buy the Season Pass for the games you buy or own. The thing about the Season Pass is it's a way to deliver content after the release of a game, and so if you buy a Season Pass before all the content is released, you are basically buying a Season Pass for content that you won't be able to ascertain the quality of before purchase. Basically, you're taking a gamble.

Personally I buy a Season Pass only if all the content has been released and I can get the Season Pass at a discount. One game that springs readily to mind where I have done this is Borderlands 2. But again, Borderlands 2 is a really fun game and I found the content to be excellent.

The only thing I didn't like was that I had to buy the 2 "extra" classes which really should have been included with the game.

What are your thoughts on Season Passes, are you happy with your purchases? Are you underwhelmed by the content if you buy a Season Pass before all content is released? Or do you feel as if developers are delivering when it comes to having you pre-purchase content before you see it? Or are you one of those who waits before deciding whether to get a Season Pass?

 

[Rattle]

I always wait till or similar unless it's BF series

 

[Hornet]

I'll wait for GOTY. Not going to spend 2x the full price just for some extra maps or addons

 

[Dion]

I will never buy a Season Pass. Buying a pass with the hopes they bring DLC out for the game. What if they never do? $ down the toilet.

 

[ashmelev75]

Got BF3 Premium and Borderlands 2 season pass - enjoyed both very much.
Got a season pass for Defiance - terrible waste of money, good thing I didn't pay the full price.

 

[Derangel]

Depends on the game.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

Borderlands 2 Season Pass was a waste. By the time I got around to the playing their most recent DLC, I was bored to tears with the same old rehashed mechanics.

 

[Pringle]

By the time I got around to the playing their most recent DLC, I was bored to tears with the same old rehashed mechanics.

Can't this be said about pretty much any series that endorses their Season Passes? Very legitimate question, btw, not trying to troll.

 

[vikingod]

I've purchased the premium editions of Battlefield 3 and 4, both at a discount and only after I know I like the game. I rarely purchase DLC for any game unless I really like the game and can get it cheap. So rarely do I revisit a game after I'm done with it, so DLC doesn't really appeal to me. I have a Steam liabrary so large and so incomplete that I don't have time for DLC.

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

Can't this be said about pretty much any series that endorses their Season Passes? Very legitimate question, btw, not trying to troll.

Probably. I think I'm going to wait for GotY editions and/or holiday sales to acquire the DLC I want to play, rather than having a 5-course "meal" of DLC that I may or may not want.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

I don't even know what a season pass is.

 

[ballistic90]

The closest I've ever done to buying a season pass was to buy Fallout 3: GOTY edition.

I don't generally buy DLC, so most Season Passes would be a waste.

 

[Shalafi]

I don't even know what a season pass is.

Basically buying a Season Pass for a game is when you make an up front investment of usually $29.99 in exchange for being able to download new content releases for the game as they become available. This is almost always post-release content that either gets produced or has already been in production after the game's release date. Some DLC is planned Day One DLC, which really stinks . . . imo.

I personally wait for it to go on sale, and if possible I try to go for the Game + DLC bundles. I buy games so infrequently that it's not out of the ordinary to get a Game + DLC, but on the other hand, some games I do buy when they come out, I try to get the DLC when it's on sale.

 

[KickAssCop]

Only if discounted. The only games for which I bought Season Passes are BF3 (Premium), BF4 (Premium), COD BLOPS 2. Every other game with a season pass was bought at huge discounts like 50-75%.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

Basically buying a Season Pass for a game is when you make an up front investment of usually $29.99 in exchange for being able to download new content releases for the game as they become available. This is almost always post-release content that either gets produced or has already been in production after the game's release date. Some DLC is planned Day One DLC, which really stinks . . . imo.

I personally wait for it to go on sale, and if possible I try to go for the Game + DLC bundles. I buy games so infrequently that it's not out of the ordinary to get a Game + DLC, but on the other hand, some games I do buy when they come out, I try to get the DLC when it's on sale.

Er, no. In that case, I'll wait for GOTY/DLC bundles to go on sale.

 

[dgz]

I don't even know what a "season pass" is. Are we talking games or tv series here?

 

[Pringle]

I don't even know what a "season pass" is. Are we talking games or tv series here?

This was literally just explained a few posts before this one.

 

[dgz]

This was literally just explained a few posts before this one.

Where's the explanation for this ultimate stupidity, though?

If things continue to go this way, I'll skip gaming completely. Idiots buying every crap that being shitted their way is a serious problem. First it was only the console noobs, new even PC folks are falling for this bullshit. FU guys.

 

[Zepher]

Only if discounted. The only games for which I bought Season Passes are BF3 (Premium), BF4 (Premium), COD BLOPS 2. Every other game with a season pass was bought at huge discounts like 50-75%.

I do the same.

 

[Domingo]

Never have, just because I usually don't care about MP maps, which are the prime "season pass" content items. Plus, many others eventually become GOTY bundles, too.
The one game I'd consider it would be Borderlands 2. Those devs know what they're doing.

 

[Tudz]

Depends on the game.

Pretty much. If a game does the "season pass" bullshit, I'm less inclined to want to buy it at all, but if it's a game I really want, yeah maybe. I haven't yet bought a season pass for any game, but I won't discount that I might if the game is good enough.

Once games are older and bundled, I judge it on the price of the bundle as a whole. If it seems like good value, I might buy it.

 

[Tudz]

Actually that's a lie, I bought the Telltale "The Walking Dead" season 1 upfront. Though I think that's slightly different to what this thread is talking about.

FWIW, I don't plan on buying TWD season 2 upfront though. Not because I think it'll be a bad game, simply because I found episodic gaming to be shit. By the time the next episode comes out you've totally forgotten what happened in the first episode and quite possibly lost motivation to play it. TWD season 1, I bought the full season when episode 1 came out, played episode 2 when it came out, then didn't play the game again until all episodes were out and just played 1->5 in one hit once they were all out.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

That's why I buy episodic content when all of the content is released. At least I do now after a few companies dropped the ball with their episodic BS.

 

[Shalafi]

I understand that and I'm with you on that. I find it particularly interesting that very few people here actually buy the Season Pass before any content is released. I thought that number would be somewhat higher, but I think it might have been misleading for me to think that because I saw a lot of love here in the past for DLC releases before the DLC was even released. I figured people would just pony up for whatever DLC got released, and people don't have a problem with pre-ordering games to begin with, sight unseen, you know?

So that's sort of why I asked this question, wondering what kind of value judgement other people on here placed on Season Passes.

 

[Shotglass01]

Nope. Almost to next to almost never. Didn't get any BF3 additional content. Don't know why. Guess I'm "old school," and don't feel like I should have to pay for a game twice.

Sometimes I do wind up with a game of the year edition.

 

[polonyc2]

I only bought 1 Season Pass ever- Assassin's Creed 3...all I care about is single player content and pre-release they announced 3 single player DLC's so I was confident...don't think it was really worth it but I had fun with it...the fact that you can buy the DLC for cheap with Steam sales etc makes Season Passes not really worth it except for hardcore fans

 

[Shotglass01]

Season Passes not really worth it except for hardcore fans

Just my opinion, but I'd hold off calling them harcore fans. Revenue generators maybe?

 

[MrWrong]

For me it really depends on what the game is. For the most part though at this point I have such a large backlog that I will just wait for the GOTY version to come out. The one recent exeption I had to that was with Skyrim. I got that right away and they just waited to the DLC to go on sale before picking them up.

 

[Hacendado]

I always wait for the discounts. You can easily save 80-90% of the money if you are able to wait.

 

[Morphene]

i bought premium for bf3 for xbox 360, learned my lesson, maps were decent, but just did not get my 50 bucks worth of play time out of them.

 

[Shalafi]

So far the poll results are interesting, as of this moment, we have 62.2 percent of voters saying that they find DLC bundles, Season Passes to be relevant to their interests, however out of that 62 percent, only 6 percent actually buy the DLC up front before it is released, sight unseen. That's particularly interesting. Again, 37.78 percent say they eschew DLC and season passes entirely.

So that sort of suggests that developers have a ways to go to make DLC seem like a good value to their customers, because in some responses here, we have people who say they will buy DLC for some games but not others and we have some people saying they bought some DLC and were less than satisfied. A few others noted examples like Borderlands 2 having good DLC.

Still others felt burned by "map packs", which I personally agree that they are sort of a rip off. I mean, map packs used to be free content updates which made their money back by drawing in new players and serving as good post-release support by the developers and solidifying their reputation with their customer base.

I think this is pretty interesting, but I am still somewhat surprised to see the up front investment voters be such a small percentage. I realize that this is a small sample size as we have thousands of members here and have about 500 to 1000 looking at this Gaming section during most of the day. It just seems like attitudes about DLC when they first came out a few years ago was about half for, half against, I think maybe we got a little more picky since then and maybe more jaded since we don't buy things sight unseen for the most part anymore.

 

[MavericK]

Not up-front anymore...learned my lesson a couple of times on that one, though I never bought any for full price regardless.

 

[ClutchAutomatic]

+1 for BF3 and Borderlands 2

 

[brennok]

I voted no not at all. My plan is to wait for the edition with all the DLC. Usually by the time that comes out though I don't care about the game anymore so I end up not even buying that version.

The only Season Pass I have ever bought was for BF3, and I bought that this summer during the Amazon sale for like $15 since I had some free Amazon credit. I hadn't played the game in probably six months but I built a new PC and was looking for something to play.

 

[LeviathanZERO]

I play too many games to waste money on waiting for bullshit like this. No, never.
The concept needs to die. How this is not seen as just plain greedy is beyond me. Especially for day one purchases.

 

[Stiler]

There's no answer for me in the polls.

Generally I never buy a season pass HOWEVER if I can get a package of the game that includes the season pass at a discount I will generally get it if it's a game that I intend to buy brand new.

Cause in point, AC IV Gold package, it's 79 bucks but I was able to get it at 25% off (gamefly had a coupon that worked on it) so I picked it up for 59 bucks, basically paying full retail and getting the season pass for free along with all the other items that come in the package.

That is really the only time I'll ever buy a season pass, otherwise I don't.

 

[Jellylesg]

No, because I am not a muppet.

 

[eurin]

I wait for the GotY edition. I'd buy more games at release if ~$30-50 got me the full game. If I don't get it at release when a lot of people are still playing it, I'll just wait out the cheap complete package for <$20. Something like Borderlands 2, I wait for <$10, since I'll have to buy a 2nd copy, so a friend will be around to play it so late.

Price isn't the only factor, it's unlikely I'll revisit games I've finished before all DLC is out. So waiting gets me a complete game that's finished being patched, all for a cheaper price. I avoid so many day 1 purchases due to games needing to be patched.

 

[JayJapanB]

I much prefer the idea of a larger one time transaction over micro transactions.
For better or worse.

 

[Krenum]

I don't buy them at all. Seems like just another way for companies to squeeze more money out of you.