For all we know, maybe
that's how the EA contract has changed. Maybe Porsche has to be paid-for DLC for other titles.
I really wish Porsche themselves would just clear things up for the entire gaming community.
Yeah I wish they would clear things up. I think you're spot on with you're assessment. Here's my quick take.
From the way BADNED describes it, EA is the
sole owner of the digital Porsche license for video games (link:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=198048081&highlight=#post198048081). Regardless of whether that license has an end date or not, as of right now, it's theirs.
So essentially they are free to do with it whatever they please. If they weren't then you wouldn't see Porsche only being premium DLC for every other racing game.
With AC getting Porsche's as DLC it's become pretty clear to me what EA's strategy is. They're trying to make a competitive advantage in the market by saying 'If you want Porsche's, you play EA racing games (real racing, NFS No limits, NFS 2015 and beyond) or you pay a premium for them in other games (FH2/F6/AC DLC).
Of course this leaves Turn 10 in a tricky spot. They're sitting on a bunch of in-game assets they can't use unless they pay a big fee to EA and hope that it sells well enough to make the money back (and then some) and actually be worth there time. T10 is a business, remember. Then of course comes the problem that they can only do this so much. A consumer can only take so much of stripping away the same Porsches and re-selling them again. New Porsches would be great, but think of the opportunity cost of doing that.
If they spend a lot of time modelling new Porsches for an expansion that
only might sell to expectations, there's a certain element of risk to that especially with Porsche being DLC in the last two games and consumers being less willing and willing to pay for them (that is speculation, we'll see if that really is the case) - which will be a net loss for Turn 10. Instead there modelers, artists and outsourcers could be spending there time modeling other cars, body kits that wouldn't carry as much of an element of risk to them. The return on that work would be lower for Porsche than that of other models. The only way I see Porsche really doing well again is if
- They really improve in terms of new Porsche models - 928, 968, 911 GT2, Rauh-Welt widebodies etc.
- Bundle Porsche with a new map expansion (Tasmania, New Zealand etc)
Otherwise I think Porsche will be a no-buy for me and probably a lot of other people around here. It'll be interesting to see if the market as a whole is still okay with paying a premium for them, for the third game in a row.
