10 mo. ago • 98%

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is making the utterly bizarre decision to lock New Game+ behind a $15 upgrade

www.pcgamer.com Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is making the utterly bizarre decision to lock New Game+ behind a $15 upgrade

Sega is gating a very normal and staple RPG feature behind its premium editions.

39 comments

I don't even do NG+ in these huge games, but now I'm going to skip this one on principle, even though I do like the series. Nope, not going to allow a company to treat me this way.

There will of course be a lot of people who bend over and take it (or even defend it), but I'd rather replay an older title than encourage this shit.

87
- Exactly. NG+ doesn't add any content, it just gives you an alternate way to explore the content you missed.
  
  I'd pay for an expansion, online access, and maybe additional characters (i.e. different play style in existing content), but not NG+.
  
  37
  
  It depends on the game. Japanese devs are notorious for adding new content in NG+ runs. A good example is Armored Core 6 where you can still get new content up to NG++ and the one that takes this to an extreme is Nier Automata where the meat of the game is the NG+ runs.
  
  10
- Same. I liked Like a Dragon. I don't do NG+ almost ever.
  
  But fuck them hard for this horseshit.
  
  6
- Hope you didn't buy the other ones that did this, it's not the first one.
  
  Don't encourage it by simply not buying the dlc. It's easy. You obviously don't notice it.
  
  1
- This is why I rent games. I pay a subscription to an online site and they post games, meaning that Sega isn't getting my money to do shit like that. The base game is £70 and it's 85 quid for the edition with NG+ which is honestly insane.
  
  -2
  
  This is why I pirate games.
  
  11
It will probably be free on the pirated version.

68
~~bizarre~~

greedy

fix'd

67
- Infinite Wealth mindset
  
  21
I was excited for this game but this pisses me off. This is more egregious than when they locked classes behind DLC for Yakuza Like A Dragon (which was also really bad).

34
- If you guys want to politely send Sega some feedback like I did, you can send their customer support a message here
  
  5
I’m sorry Mario, but our princess requires $9.99 to continue our session.

25
I bought all the Yakuza games when they were crazy on sale, and in their GOTY version. I absolutely loved Like a Dragon and would have considered buying it sooner.

Well, looks like I'll play it in five years when it's on sale.

17
That's sad because I have loved the Yakuza games. Obvious money grab, and even though I never play NG+, this makes me feel like I won't buy this title.

16
- Same. I think the only time I've ever done ng+ is for souls games. But I'm not gonna support this. A few years back I really came to terms with the fact that I'm never gonna play all the games I want to, and it's OK if some of them slip through the cracks. Now I don't regret skipping out on a lot of games. Like I would love another old school Assassins Creed. I'm not getting anytbing from Ubisoft. Part of me wanted to give in for that. Then I saw shit about ads on the loading screen, and said nope.
  
  EA. Finally coming out with a new Skate. I still gave copies of the first 3. I would buy a new one after years of wanting it. But it's EA and Session exists. So I'm good. I'm not even gonna download their free game.
  
  2
I don't know how I feel about this.

I feel like either you don't care about this, because a lot of Yakuza fans will just play the game for the story and be done with it.

Or you do care about this and...I guess pirate it because NG+ being locked out seems kindof outrageous

It just doesn't seem like an audience thats going to bring in much money compared to the outrage?

It's not like you can even target streamers cause most don't play NG+

14
Only legislation will stop this.

Nothing inside a video game should cost money. Games make you value arbitrary nonsense. That is what makes them games. Developers are being told to invent new forms of bullshit that cost the company nothing and don't feel like the same old lootboxes everyone finally recognized are a scam. It's still just lootboxes. You are being manipulated into throwing unlimited sums of money at a game you already own just so it will function, as a game.

There is no ethical form of that. It's an abuse for free money. You were never going to shop your way out of it. Boycotts don't work, here. So long as they gouge one sucker in ten, your nonparticipation counts for nothing. You will be subject to the restraint, addiction, and frustration that coerced them, until you cough up more money to briefly enjoy the fun version of the game that is being kept from you out of abject greed.

If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.

9
- Fuck that. The government and booklickers like you should stay out of gaming
  
  -4
  
  Abusive business models have no place in the market.
  
  Stop treating "this is literally a scam" like it has a damn thing to do with what's in the game part of a game. Nobody's coming to censor your precious vidya. This is about the money.
  
  4
Little did anyone know that the games title was actually a Mission Statement for SEGA.

9
Yeah... I already wasn't a fan of where the series was going story and gameplay-wise, now I'm just gonna have to call it here. I think im gonna be taking a looooong break from Like a Dragon/Yakuza. I'm not gonna back this shitty behavior with my money. Even If this turns out to be a fun game, they're saying "Oh, the STORY is 100 hours by itself!" No way in HELL that is all forward progress and gripping tales. These games have fluff and filler in their normal ~20 hour stories. I'd just end up losing track of things and burning out well before any the end of the game.

9
First the change from brawler to bog standard jrpg combat, now they're pulling shit like this. Yeah, this series is going downhill fast...

-2
Isn't this the longest lad game ever? If it's something only the doe hards are actually going to get to, I could see locking it behind more $

-8
No, all the yakuza games have done this for years now. It's not a new decision they made.

-10
- Except they haven’t? Pretty sure both Zero and LAD at the very least didn’t charge for NG+, same with 6. No idea about the Judgement games.
  
  8
Bizarre in what sense? People will pay for it and it likely won’t stop anyone from buying the base game. NG+ is for niche players.

It’s scummy and slimy, but who doesn’t expect scummy and slimy at this point?

-26
- It's bizarre in that I've never heard of it before. I've heard of paying for online access, expansions, and new characters, but not for NG+, which is usually just replaying the same campaign with higher stats and maybe more difficulty.
  
  8
  
  Sure it’s new. But I’ve come to expect that the games industry will generally be very innovative when it comes to finding ways to squeeze more money out of people for the same, or less, content. It sucks but calling it bizarre implies we don’t know why they would do it.
  
  -3
- Fuck that. It's absolutely guaranteed now that I'll never buy that base game and there is zero chance that I'm the only one.
  
  1
  
  Same and I’m not sure why people seem to think I’m a fan of this shit, lol
  
  1

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