Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4/Xbox One - 26 October 2018)

[killthenet]

Where do you have to get it from to get the exclusive content? I saw an advertisement for Game that mentioned exclusive stuff - are they the only retailer with it or do a bunch of different ones have their own variations? I'm kinda tempted to buy it from Game if it means I get a bit more stuff, I haven't been able to find it anywhere for much less than £50 so feel like I may aswell get it from them.

Surely only Rockstar/T2 (and maybe Activision) are capable of enforcing a ban on retailers shipping it early? 

Oh and it seems to be confirmed from Japanese boxart that the game comes on 2 Blu-ray discs, so it will probably be the same situation as GTA V on 360 - one disc just for the installation and the other one to boot it up every time after.

[Julius]

5 hours ago, killthenet said:

Where do you have to get it from to get the exclusive content? I saw an advertisement for Game that mentioned exclusive stuff - are they the only retailer with it or do a bunch of different ones have their own variations? I'm kinda tempted to buy it from Game if it means I get a bit more stuff, I haven't been able to find it anywhere for much less than £50 so feel like I may aswell get it from them.

I’m going to assume that you’re referring to the standard edition of the game? In which case, GAME seems to be offering the same pre-order bonus for this version of the game being offered by other retailers:

I believe that the exclusive content which their advertisements were referring to were with reference to the Ultimate Edition and (Ultimate) Collector’s Edition Box (the Ultimate version of this is just the Collector’s Edition Box - which strangely does not include the game itself - bundled with the Ultimate Edition), for which they have exclusivity in UK retail. These also include the pre-order bonuses mentioned above.

Special Edition — RRP: £74.99

Ultimate Edition — RRP: £89.99

[dwarf]

Disgraceful, pathetic, bewildering, greedy - but enough about your mother's appetite for cock.

Just get the standard edition like a rational human being. It's staggering that anyone would pay almost double the price for a case and (minimal) content which should be available to all buyers. Thick, whiny teenagers who fall for such wank as "ultimate" editions make me feel physically sick. Fuck off.

Edited October 17, 2018 by dwarf

[killthenet]

Thanks for summarising the different versions @Julius Caesar, it's astounding the number of ways publishers try and gouge their customers. I only asked about the exclusive content because I didn't want to miss out on any story missions but I won't pay through the nose just to get an extra mission or two. I'd just buy the digital version if it wasn't £60, will keep an eye out for any offers over the next week but expecting I'll just end up paying RRP.

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, dwarf said:

Disgraceful, pathetic, bewildering, greedy - but enough about your mother's appetite for cock.

Just get the standard edition like a rational human being. It's staggering that anyone would pay almost double the price for a case and (minimal) content which should be available to all buyers. Thick, whiny teenagers who fall for such wank as "ultimate" editions make me feel physically sick. Fuck off.

Not sure you can call out teenagers, a few sentences after using a "your mother likes cock" joke...

[dwarf]

Nintendo are gay

[Sheikah]

Not sure you can call out teenagers, a few sentences after using a "your mother likes cock" joke...

I'm pretty sure he just did.

[Ronnie]

2 hours ago, killthenet said:

Thanks for summarising the different versions @Julius Caesar, it's astounding the number of ways publishers try and gouge their customers. I only asked about the exclusive content because I didn't want to miss out on any story missions but I won't pay through the nose just to get an extra mission or two. I'd just buy the digital version if it wasn't £60, will keep an eye out for any offers over the next week but expecting I'll just end up paying RRP.

It's a more a case of... games have never been cheaper than they are now (thanks to inflation) yet cost 10x more to make than in the old days. It's sadly the world we live in, publishers have to find ways of funding their game and no one wants to raise the base cost of a game, so we get DLC/Special editions/microtransactions/season passes. It's either that or base games get more expensive.

Obviously some publishers get it right, and others (like EA and Battlefront, yikes) get it horribly wrong. Glancing at the above, nothing there seems must-have so if diehard fans want the "complete" Red Dead experience, let them have it, certainly don't think it should be making anyone physically sick over

[dwarf]

 

[Sheikah]

It's a more a case of... games have never been cheaper than they are now (thanks to inflation) yet cost 10x more to make than in the old days. It's sadly the world we live in, publishers have to find ways of funding their game and no one wants to raise the base cost of a game, so we get DLC/Special editions/microtransactions/season passes. It's either that or base games get more expensive. Obviously some publishers get it right, and others (like EA and Battlefront, yikes) get it horribly wrong. Glancing at the above, nothing there seems must-have so if diehard fans want the "complete" Red Dead experience, let them have it, certainly don't think it should be making anyone physically sick over    

 

 It’s really not out of necessity. Don’t take my word for it - EA themselves said after taking out microtransactions from Star Wars Battlefront 2 that there would be no material effect on earnings - here’s the link. Not to mention there are many big games that have not gone the microtransaction route e.g. Witcher 3, which proves this is not a necessity.

It is important in these discussions to separate microtransactions (bad) from DLC, the latter of which has been around for a very long time (see PC expansion packs) and is generally a good and pro-consumer thing (in that you are providing more game to people without any gambling mechanics involved), providing it is not main game content that was set aside to make more money. I suggest you check out the vid dwarf posted as I’ve seen you say something like this before and it’s simply not true. There is so much to suggest that microtransactions are down to greed and the pleasing of shareholders rather than it being necessary. Many of these big companies are making MOST of their money from microtransactions as opposed to game sales! Microtransactions are big earners for publishers and said publishers will defend them with weak excuses like they’re enabling ‘player choice’. It’s only when they get called out for being too greedy that they remove them.

[killthenet]

GTA V has held its value the majority of the time it's been on sale and they've sold upwards of 90 million units - that's several billion pounds. Even if Red Dead sells 1/5th of what GTA V sold at close to the £50 RRP that's still pretty much £1billion. Even considering that GTA and Red Dead have teams of hundreds if not thousands of developers they would have to be absurdly financially irresponsible to not make a profit on base game sales alone. When you add in the cash cow that GTA online turned out to be and that Rockstar clearly expect Red Dead online to emulate, they will literally be printing money so these obscenely priced 'Ultimate Editions' are entirely needless. It's fair enough releasing two SKU's - one standard edition and one special edition with an added souvenir for fans that are particularly into a series - but the majority of the 'extra content' in these editions just consists of codes for special items which almost certainly aren't worth the extra £25 - £40 they're charging for it. 

[Jimbob]

Went for the standard edition myself, with the pre-order content for the War horse and Outlaw survival.  Can't even justify spending upwards of £25-£30 more for a mission and a hide-out.  Last hideout that was a pre-order for Red Dead wasn't that good of one, so doesn't seem i'm missing out.

[Julius]

 

[killthenet]

Retail version is confirmed to come on two discs - one just for the install and one for launching the game just like the Xbox 360 version of GTA V. Kind of absurd that games have already outgrown standard blu ray discs but I guess that's the price we pay for 4K assets. 

[Ronnie]

Are Rockstar relying purely on hype for this game? I only ask because the launch trailer wasn’t up to much and if the campaign really is 60 hours long then they’ve barely shown anything of it. 

I guess they’re one of the few devs who can get away with it on reputation alone, but it’s interesting how little we’ve seen of this game. 

[Hero-of-Time]

8 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Are Rockstar relying purely on hype for this game? I only ask because the launch trailer wasn’t up to much and if the campaign really is 60 hours long then they’ve barely shown anything of it. 

I guess they’re one of the few devs who can get away with it on reputation alone, but it’s interesting how little we’ve seen of this game. 

Not that I'm buying the game but I personally welcome this approach. Far too many publishers are eager to show off too much of their game and end up spoiling things.

As you said, Rockstar can get away with such an approach. The game will be a massive seller even without a huge marketing push.

[Ronnie]

38 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Not that I'm buying the game but I personally welcome this approach. Far too many publishers are eager to show off too much of their game and end up spoiling things.

As you said, Rockstar can get away with such an approach. The game will be a massive seller even without a huge marketing push.

Totally agree, love this approach but sadly wouldn't work for most publishers

[Eenuh]

6 hours ago, Ronnie said:

Totally agree, love this approach but sadly wouldn't work for most publishers

I've actually just walked past two big digital posters/ads for the game in Brussels train station. Bright red so very noticeable haha.

I think it's better when not too much is shown from a game, but enough to get people interested. Too often trailers just show too much (same with movie trailers).

[Fierce_LiNk]

Movie trailers already show too much. What you ideally want is something that gives you a feel for what the game/film is about, without actually ruining the content of it too much. I guess more of a teaser, rather than the 3-5 minute trailers we have these days.

[Glen-i]

Just chiming in to say, I much rather prefer less info if I was going for a game that I knew I was getting immediately anyway. But if I'm on the fence, I definitely need to know more.

I guess there isn't a marketing campaign that will satisfy everyone, really.

[ArtMediocre]

There are posters all over town here in Oslo, Norway, and that usually never happens with games. Pretty cool to see gaming posters all over the place. 

MediaMarkt has supposedly put out a placeholder for Red Dead 2 for PC next year, so it is highly possible that the game will launch on PC platforms some time next year. 
Source: https://gamerant.com/red-dead-redemption-2-pc-2019/ 

[Dog-amoto]

I’ve bought the digital version on the Xbox store. Cost £60 as opposed to £50 for the physical copy. But it means I can play it with the missus when the online eventually launches without having to buy another copy. And it’ll be nice to have it permanently installed without having to switch discs to play an indie game or whatever. I can’t imagine ever trading this game in, so digital was the way to go for me. 

It was an 88gb download. Took overnight to do it, now currently in the process of copying it onto a hdd to transfer it onto the other Xbox. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Dog-amoto

[dwarf]

9 minutes ago, Dog-amoto said:

I’ve bought the digital version on the Xbox store. Cost £60 as opposed to £50 for the physical copy. But it means I can play it with the missus when the online eventually launches without having to buy another copy. And it’ll be nice to have it permanently installed without having to switch discs to play an indie game or whatever. I can’t imagine ever trading this game in, so digital was the way to go for me. 

It was an 88gb download. Took overnight to do it, now currently in the process of copying it onto a hdd to transfer it onto the other Xbox. 

Isn't buying on disc better in pretty much every conceivable way bar the convenience factor of not needing to swap discs (which in itself comes with the downside of taking up more data on the HDD, no?)

Disc version is £10 cheaper and you can lend it to friends. I guess I'm not understanding the bit in bold.

[Ronnie]

I can't decide between physical or digital either.

What I want to know is if all the content is already on people's consoles, how have hackers not managed to unlock preloads by now. Given how careful Rockstar are being making sure there are no early copies sent or leaks, I'm surprised they're allowing people to preload the game, but I guess if they've never been broken into before it must be pretty safe.

Edited October 22, 2018 by Ronnie

[Sheikah]

Isn't buying on disc better in pretty much every conceivable way bar the convenience factor of not needing to swap discs (which in itself comes with the downside of taking up more data on the HDD, no?) Disc version is £10 cheaper and you can lend it to friends. I guess I'm not understanding the bit in bold.   

 

Disc games get installed fully to hard drive now so take up pretty much the same space as digital. However I read somewhere that the digital version of RDR2 needs an extra 50GB space initially (which is then deleted after install) so 150GB total, so there is that to consider. 

The thing about sharing the game means that you can have 2 separate accounts playing one digital purchase, so long as you play the PSN account that didn't purchase the game on your assigned primary console. Then the non-primary console needs to be logged in with the PSN account that bought the game.

 

That said, if you're not planning to share then yeah, physical makes a lot more sense. £10 cheaper and can be lent/sold. I find that I tend not to switch discs all that often anyway - I often return to the same game that I'm into at the time.

 

I got an e-mail from SimplyGames confirming copies will be sent out first class on Thursday (when they receive it) and this is indeed a nationwide policy. If they can't get early copies out then no-one can. [emoji14]