"Loanet;c-17818727" wrote:
All of those three kits put together add up to a Stuff Pack, but mark my words you'll have to pay more if you want all three.
I'm completely expecting it to cost more to buy them individually than as a Stuff Pack.
I'm expecting a price point of between $4 and $6 USD, with hopefully an option to buy a "bundle" at $10 (same as a stuff pack) to $12 (maybe as much as $15). The bundle will probably have to be one BB, one CAS, one Gameplay (just like the current option to build a bundle on Origin requires one stuff, one game, one expansion) so if you want only gameplay kits, or only BB, or only CAS, you're going to be shelling out.
This is generally the way with all sales setups like this. EA's not breaking new ground in grubbing for money with this tactic. Not saying it's right, or fair. Just that it isn't new. Heck, check the pricing of a 6 pack vs a 12 pack of your favorite individually packaged beverage at the grocery store. This is basically the equivalent of just selling single cans ... which, coincidentally, my grocery store does for some products.
Yes, I'm assuming that bundling will be an option and we don't know that. But we don't know that it won't either. And it's more likely that we can convince EA that it's ultimately more profitable to add bundling as an option than that they'll take it away after introducing it. I only want one of the three kits, but if I wanted two, and I could get a third for only an extra dollar or two, I might be tempted to throw it in anyway. It's part of how the psychology of marketing works.
Now, the fate of Stuff Packs, in general, will be interesting to see. The last three have been very robust. Possibly budget-breakingly so. I'm not convinced they're going away, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they did. What I think is less likely is that they'll continue this breakdown through the Game and Expansion packs, as those usually include systems that in and of themselves won't fit inside what I expect the budget is for a Kit (at least in terms of man-hours, if not in terms of gameplay impact)
I mean, right now with these three kits, they could be a Stuff Pack, sure. But they don't really fit together as a pack unless you squint (and even that's only possible because of the pandemic - if people hadn't generally been cooped up for the past year, no one would see how they went together at all), and the aesthetics of the three packs are very different. They could be leftovers from previous packs that were cut for budget/time, or they could be ideas that came up later that don't fit in the update team's budget. But they're not all on the same theme.
Now, if next month they have an 80's themed CAS, some 80's throwback BB, and a Retro Tech gameplay that includes newspapers and landlines, then there's an argument to be made - and a very strong one that should be made very loudly - that they should have been a stuff pack. Heck, if they release a set of kits like this over the course of six months, they probably should have been a stuff pack. Outside of a six-month spread... it gets fuzzier, depending on how frequently packs are coming out and how long you think is reasonable for the team to hold back on an asset/Asset group until they can come up with either CAS and BB to fit with the Gameplay or else Gameplay that fits with the CAS or BB.
