Remember when games simply came out as one game for one price on one day? Sure some games would get collectors editions that came with some fancy statues or a steelbook and some goodies, but the actual game you bought was the same game. These days? Well these days you can spend more money to get the game early or even get extra content. In my opinion it's a plague on the industry.
Today fans of Star Wars were furious to learn that in order to play a Jaba The Hutt mission in the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws game they had to have the season pass to do so which just so happens to cost another (region depending) $40 by buying the gold edition of the game, which also includes 3 days early access to the game. Or for an extra $20 on top of that you could get a few cosmetics as well! What a bargain right!?! Wrong.
Ubisoft isn't the only company doing this. Xbox is famous for the "pay extra for early access" as a way to help boost revenue for their day one first party Game Pass releases. They offer it both as an ultimate edition or separate for Game Pass users. At least Xbox included the first major Starfield DLC as part of the package, otherwise it's mostly just paying $40 to play a few days before everyone else. EA does it as well and I'm sure more and more will do it moving forward.
The crazy thing (to me) is, people buy these editions. Starfield reportedly had over 2 million players before the game even released. Forza Horizon 5 had similar reports. So until it's proven to be a waste of time for companies they will continue to do it. And there's an argument to be made that the early access stuff isn't a big deal. While I don't like the idea of it, at least you are still buying the same game, you are just paying to get it early.
But what is definitely crossing a line is locking missions and legitimate content behind these higher priced editions. What Ubisoft is doing with Star Wars Outlaws is completely unacceptable. Gamers should be getting the full, complete game whether they buy the standard edition or an ultimate edition.
If you want to do these more expensive versions fine, but find other ways to boost the value of them, because locking missions ain't it.
