Would you pay for season-by-season DLC?

[CriggleWiggle 9]

Seeing that Codemasters has now had the F1 licence since 2010 and the popularity of the classic cars element of the game, surely it's time they gave us career mode fans the opportunity to start our career from whichever season we like (2010 onwards) up until 2020?

I'd happily pay for each season DLC (say, £9.99 for example) and carry my career over to the next DLC season (cars and circuits). Take £49.99 for the game and £9.99 for each season from 2010 - that's nearly £160 from just one customer. It'll be a good cash-cow for CM too.

For me, I get a little bored of career mode about 3 seasons in, then start again with another team. Same cars, same drivers, same circuits. Add proper year-on-year seasons to it and bingo - complete immersion is achieved.

Thoughts?

Edited September 24 by CriggleWiggle

[Ultra3142 384]

The most obvious thought from Codemasters' perspective would be that your £160 figure would be rather less than they'd make from someone buying the new full game each year. Which I'd guess many do?

There would also be an issue spanning different console generations I'd have thought?

[CriggleWiggle 9]

32 minutes ago, Ultra3142 said:

The most obvious thought from Codemasters' perspective would be that your £160 figure would be rather less than they'd make from someone buying the new full game each year. Which I'd guess many do?

There would also be an issue spanning different console generations I'd have thought?

They've incorporated the 2009/2010 cars into the game pretty nicely, so I don't see an issue with replicating the entire grid with a few extra circuits thrown in, especially on the next-gen consoles.

And what I meant about the £160 figure is that I'd pay that amount every year if there was an improvement in the graphics/physics of the game year-on-year, which there obviously has been over the last 3-4 releases. So basically that's £160 every year from a die-hard F1 fan like me. I'm sure others would do the same.

The only thing I like about 2020's career mode is that you can start your F2 career from 2019, before progressing to F1 2020 and seeing Latifi progress with you (unless you replace him as Russell's teammate of course). Then, once my first F1 season is done I'm pretty much bored. Yes, I may switch teams, but the field and circuits are always the same. I switch driver moves off as I want that realism factor. Having successive F1 seasons would be the icing on the cake for me.

[Ultra3142 384]

1 hour ago, CriggleWiggle said:

And what I meant about the £160 figure is that I'd pay that amount every year if there was an improvement in the graphics/physics of the game year-on-year, which there obviously has been over the last 3-4 releases. So basically that's £160 every year from a die-hard F1 fan like me. I'm sure others would do the same.

Oh, right, sorry, I totally misunderstood your there. I thought you meant to you wanted to pay for the game once and then £10 per year after that. I'll be honest I don't really follow what you are suggesting though. Maybe I'm being thick and others understand you though.

[Guga_Cyr 67]

Yeah I probably would pay up for a “season” DLC. Certainly much more chance of me spending money on that than the podium pass BS which appeals not one iota. 

Before that happens though, I’d really like to see them stop taking the absolute **** by removing things year on year (The young driver test from the early games for example) which worked fine & added to the overall experience for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

It’d also be an absolute wet dream if they’d stop treating customers like fools by making silly claims like it takes a whole year to develop a new track when other studios & indeed even independent modders are able to knock out new tracks (ok, not for this game but the techniques used are the same if not much more advanced) not only faster but in most cases more accurate representations of that which they’re trying to depict than Codies is seemingly able to do - despite the level of access they’re granted through having an exclusive licence. That alone (Nevermind the incident a few years back where they ripped a car model from someone else to include in the game & only came clean about it when they original creator of the model kicked up a stink about it..) to me completely contradicts the name above the door of their studio & makes their representatives spouting such drivel look as dumb as they sound, irking my feeble little brain so very much more than any of the bugs they can’t seem to squash could ever hope to do.

Speaking of the bugs, Don’t even get me started about the ones which carry over from one game to the next 😒

Credit where it’s due, the game has improved over the years & for that at least I take my hat off to Codies for their efforts - I’m not wearing a hat atm tho, just to be clear - But the flip side of that coin, when coupled with the various gripes I’ve stated above is that it very much seems to be a quite severe case of indifference or apathy towards giving customers the very best iteration of the game it can possibly be year in, year out than it is a case of them being ignorant/oblivious or perhaps even incompetent to rectify the increasingly well documented issues present in their products.

Speaking just for myself obvs, but I think Codies’ is luckier than Pierre Gasly at Monza to have that exclusive licence in their back pocket because if they had even a little competition from another studio - they’d have to produce something truly remarkable to make me consider parting with any more $$ than I already have.

Just my 2c. Clearly I’m very bored & more than a little frustrated, but you catch my drift 🤓

Edited September 25 by Guga_Cyr
Spelling

[CriggleWiggle 9]

Having read my OP back, I appreciate that it might sound confusing!

Basically, when you start career mode you have the option of playing it as it is right now (F2 to F1, or straight to F1 and play the same season over and over), or choosing a season from 2009 onwards in which case there'll be DLC for each season you wish to play. Think EA's F1 Challenge 99-02 as an example - and that was back in 2003!

I genuinely think CM is missing a trick by not doing this. If they really want an immersive career mode then this is the route to go down.

[CriggleWiggle 9]

4 hours ago, Guga_Cyr said:

Yeah I probably would pay up for a “season” DLC. Certainly much more chance of me spending money on that than the podium pass BS which appeals not one iota. 

Before that happens though, I’d really like to see them stop taking the absolute **** by removing things year on year (The young driver test from the early games for example) which worked fine & added to the overall experience for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

It’d also be an absolute wet dream if they’d stop treating customers like fools by making silly claims like it takes a whole year to develop a new track when other studios & indeed even independent modders are able to knock out new tracks (ok, not for this game but the techniques used are the same if not much more advanced) not only faster but in most cases more accurate representations of that which they’re trying to depict than Codies is seemingly able to do - despite the level of access they’re granted through having an exclusive licence. That alone (Nevermind the incident a few years back where they ripped a car model from someone else to include in the game & only came clean about it when they original creator of the model kicked up a stink about it..) to me completely contradicts the name above the door of their studio & makes their representatives spouting such drivel look as dumb as they sound, irking my feeble little brain so very much more than any of the bugs they can’t seem to squash could ever hope to do.

Speaking of the bugs, Don’t even get me started about the ones which carry over from one game to the next 😒

Credit where it’s due, the game has improved over the years & for that at least I take my hat off to Codies for their efforts - I’m not wearing a hat atm tho, just to be clear - But the flip side of that coin, when coupled with the various gripes I’ve stated above is that it very much seems to be a quite severe case of indifference or apathy towards giving customers the very best iteration of the game it can possibly be year in, year out than it is a case of them being ignorant/oblivious or perhaps even incompetent to rectify the increasingly well documented issues present in their products.

Speaking just for myself obvs, but I think Codies’ is luckier than Pierre Gasly at Monza to have that exclusive licence in their back pocket because if they had even a little competition from another studio - they’d have to produce something truly remarkable to make me consider parting with any more $$ than I already have.

Just my 2c. Clearly I’m very bored & more than a little frustrated, but you catch my drift 🤓

I get what you're saying - whilst 90% of the game might be excellent, that extra 10% is everything. I'm in the middle of writing a post of my perfect F1 game but it's so detailed it's taking longer than expected.

I wasn't aware of the issue with car modelling either. Thanks for sharing!

[Guga_Cyr 67]

2 hours ago, CriggleWiggle said:

I wasn't aware of the issue with car modelling either. Thanks for sharing!

Not many do. They did a good job of sweeping it under the rug with lots of legalese but you should look it up. Makes for interesting reading.. 

I look forward to your post 🤙🏽

[cgfdoo 23]

On 9/24/2020 at 2:38 PM, CriggleWiggle said:

For me, I get a little bored of career mode about 3 seasons in, then start again with another team. Same cars, same drivers, same circuits. Add proper year-on-year seasons to it and bingo - complete immersion is achieved.

Thoughts?

Question: what would make you NOT get bored with the season(s) you buy? What difference would there be between them other than the tracks + car handling/sound? And the £160 figure, while sounding high and nice. is probably nowhere near what will actually land in the pocket of Codemasters after they payed for licenses, fees for platforms, marketing, programmers, research, designers, management, QA. facility staff and so on and so forth. And then the tax man comes and wants his cut as well. Long story short: it is probably not viable from an economics point of view to invest that money into what, at first, sounds like a niche.

Now, from a technical perspective it sounds like a huge technical liability to do something like that. You'd essentially need to support a DLC for at least 2-3 years which will slow down your potential for innovation and takes away important focus time from engineering.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be all for additional content and game modes, even if that means to pay for it. I guess it is just not super feasible from a technical and financial perspective given what goes into making such a game happen in addition to "just writing some code".