[promo title=”The Imperial Edition”][/promo]
Collector’s editions are nothing new to the gaming industry. They typically cost more than the base game and include special features and collectibles designed for the more hardcore fans. In the final few days of January earlier this year, the collector’s edition of Elder Scrolls Online was revealed, labelled as the “Imperial Edition.”
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone complaining about a game shipping with a collector’s edition. Plenty of people enjoy their hobby enough to the point where they find the higher price acceptable and totally worth it. Of course, this is Elder Scrolls Online we’re talking about. Essentially nothing can be revealed about the game without a horrific outbreak of complaints.
The Imperial Edition includes an annotated guide to Tamriel and a truly terrifying statue of the game’s antagonist Molag Bal.
The $100 package contains a few lore-based physical items as well as some rather negligible in-game items. As nice as this sounds, there is one aspect of the Imperial Edition that has sparked outrage: the Imperial race is only available to those with this edition of the game. The standard edition of ESO allows the player to choose between nine races, with the Imperial being the tenth for those willing to shell out an extra $40.
There isn’t much to say here beyond the fact people are arguing that this is a scummy, money-grabbing practice being put into place by Bethesda and Zenimax. It’s being labelled as a “pay-wall”, blocking out one of the more famous races in Elder Scrolls lore. I think what most people are failing to take into account is a pay-wall blocking out races isn’t exactly something new to MMOs. After all, if an expansion pack for World of Warcraft includes a new race or two, they aren’t about to give them to you for free. In addition, we went the longest time without knowing Imperial would even be a race. Why should there be any anger over it being announced as a special bonus to the more dedicated Elder Scrolls Online fans? They didn’t have to include the race in the first place, but they clearly wanted to pack as many special features into the Imperial Edition as possible to ensure that we, the consumers, would be getting the best deal possible. Curse you, Bethesda and Zenimax, for your desire to ensure we are given more bang for our buck!
Amusingly, the Imperial Edition was reported as outselling the standard edition at a 5 to 1 ratio. Despite the vocal outcries, nothing talks louder than money and sales. It’s clear that even the average Elder Scrolls Online fan wants the best experience possible, and is willing to shell out some extra cash for the enjoyment.
[promo title=”Conclusion”][/promo]
I could go on and on, of course. You know that very well. Some PC gamers are angry that the game is coming to consoles, claiming that it will “dumb down” the game as a whole. Plenty of people who participated in the beta have found the game to be buggy and a bit lackluster in terms of content (even though you’d think the word “beta” and the fact that hardly any content was live on the test servers would repel such complaints). It’d be extremely time consuming for anyone to go over all of the “atrocities” being committed by Zenimax and Bethesda.
Gamers have been known as notorious for their bandwagoning and lack of patience. Look at how quickly people are willing to shoot down the idea of a subscription-based MMO simply because they believe that it isn’t the industry standard anymore, or that no game developer could possibly meet the expectations set forth by a monthly fee. Look at how many are willing to label a game as broken and terrible strictly based on experiences with the beta. Even more terrifyingly, you’ll see plenty of people going off of what they’ve heard other people say about the beta. It turns into a vicious parroting of irrelevant opinions formed by people who only care to bash a game they know very little about.
Let’s give Zenimax a chance, folks. Sure, the game may go free-to-play after a year or so. Maybe it won’t sell as well as Pete Hines hopes. Or, maybe, Zenimax will completely fall through on their promises. But this nonsense where gamers crucify a developer and their game based on their own personal lack of insight and information needs to come to a screeching halt. You might consider yourself to be an industry expert, capable of producing meaningful predictions and condemning games before they even release, but I highly doubt that this is the case.
The Elder Scrolls Online releases in April for the PC and in June for consoles. After that time has passed, we can finally begin to have arguments based on proof instead of speculation.