Andrew, on 24 May 2016 - 11:29 PM, said:
When we were discussing the season pass at $5 a month including a free downloadable course each month everyone complained that we were gouging the player base and taking advantage of the designers who provided courses for free. They said they would be much happier supporting PG by purchasing the courses as they came out and any other items in the pro shop.
When we started to add items into the pro shop everyone complained that we were going to gouge the paying customers by leaning on Microstransactions "Death to Microtransactions and DLC" They all said mcicrotransaction items should be earned by playing the game which effectively means they should be free
The other reality is that every golf game that has released a free designer for their game has gone the way of the DODO.. People purchase the game and then never purchase official content because there is always going to be so much free content from the community who will never have to abide by the licensing rules we as a gaming company have to abide by. There is a reason that TW08 was the last PC version. EA realised that letting people design their own courses means that people will sometimes not even upgrade because in many cases all the courses that were built for 08 will not run on 09 version. This is why the idea of making the 2015 version of PG always play 2015 courses will not work.
As a result the game does not generate enough ongoing revenue to survive and so eventually it winds down it is not updated and the back end ceases to function, the multiplayer stops working and eventually the community dies. This is what happened to Links. We really believed in the Season Pass concept for User Made Courses because it would have solved all the issues and would have meant a new game for everyone each year without ever having to purchase a new game. Imagine instead of buying the new version of TW each year and getting the same 12 courses you got a new game each year on the latest gaming engine release with ever expanding features without ever having to buy a new game. But everyone hated it so we relented. But the need for it never went away
The community who decried the season pass decided to purchase a couple of hundred copies of Bethesda. Thats it. So it became clear to us that if we listened to all the people who said just make it all free and we will purchase everything you throw at us we would never survive.
Yes I agree that what we are doing is saying that you need to upgrade the game each year if you want to continue to play content created by the community. If you dont want to support the game by upgrading each year to the latest version of the game then that is your choice. You will still be able to play all the courses that came with the game you bought as well as any official course releases you purchased. Thats pretty much what you got when you purchased a Tiger woods game on a console.
We have learnt the hard way that if we try to please the community who want us to deliver everything for free we will never win. We are not a gaming studio who can just move on the the next title and confine JNPG to the discount bin. We are a golf company. We will be continuing to develop and grow the game along with our broadcast business and everything else golf.
We know we cant win, we have to find a revenue model that works to make the game survive. We have lots of competing avenues for our development time from Simulators to Consoles to our Broadcasting services which are all expanding. It will not survive if we rely on people to purchase DLC and Courses. Of course without Course Forge people will always purchase new content. But we also wanted to give people probably the most comprehensive course design tool ever released for PC.
We have at least at this point communicated a worst case scenario and if it pans out this way no one will be able to say we did not communicate it to people. If events turn out differently and the game does well and DLC does well and Career Mode is popular and so on and we do our job right we may just be in a position to just release a milestone release without turning off anything.
We can then always regress to a position where we just allow people to continue to play the content regardless of whether they get the DLC. It gives us the option to just say thanks. But if we go into this the same failed way that every other PC Golf Game company has done it in the past expecting a different result we all know what will probably happen.
This misses the point that even course creators wouldn't be able to play their own creations. Just plain daft.
This must have passed m by 'cos I don't remember your conclusion is what actually happened. People will pay for DLC that they think is worth the outlay. It's not a case of all or nothing. Again, just plain daft.
The reality is that there may well be lots of free content produced (courses) but on past form with other games a lot will be crap and people won't be interested. A number of class designers will rise to the top of the pile and their offerings will always be worth considering but not every time. So the "flood" of new content (courses) will not be as extreme as might be feared, especially if you have a "lite" version of CF.
Then why didn't you stick to your guns for goodness sake. You feel you were right all along so stick with it. If you relented you must have thought there was merit in the arguments against because otherwise to relent would be just plain daft.
Can't you concede that Bethesda doesn't look that different to other official courses. Just because its official doesn't necessarily mean it has a divine right to sell in any great numbers. Why not try something more original. All free !! That's not what I see. I see people will pay for the right deal. No-one wants everything for free. That's just plain daft. And while we're at it take my £100 (minimum) that I keep offering. The only proviso is that you don't try to keep anything back from me, overtly or covertly. However, if you think that's a bad idea then tell me why. I'm trying to throw money at you. You don't want it !
Yes, you can win. You're just not aiming high enough where revenue is concerned and you need to abandon this idea of keeping things back. I don't think Steve Kerr has been saying "we can't win" and the Raptors wouldn't say "we can't win".
Winning is relative. You won't win every one over to a particular line of argument but if you win enough over to make the game survive and make a living then you will have won.
So take my £100 plus.
I like the sound of that.
Take heart Andrew. I believe in what I've said that the community is receptive to paying a fair price . The only dissent you are seeing is this clinging to the notion that something has to be taken away. You can see that the bulk of the discussion is about that issue. Move away from that and you will have cracked it - all other things being equal.
The only legitimate reason that something can be taken away is that it is made redundant because the core game changes so greatly that the content in question just will not run any longer.
Anyhow, we're really all in the same boat pulling on the same oars trying to get to the same destination. We can do it 
Hope I got my colours properly aligned 