US Collector Edition Lacking ... Discs

[{CH}ArticleBot]

IGN have picked up a story first reported by Reddit users: The Heroes VII Collector's Edition sold in the U.S. (no confirmation as to the status for the rest of North America) contains all the stuff advertised earlier, except the physical DVDs. As Ubisoft have since admitted in their comment, their advertising material has omitted any mention of this missing feature and - indeed - the physical material seems to be made with a DVD release in mind. According to the comment, Ubisoft "are accepting complete refunds from any dissatisfied customers", so that's going to work out OK, except that you won't get the discs, of course. Unless you visit a store and buy them seperately, I guess.

You can read all these stories and even comment in our forum but I'd like to clarify our official view on the matter:

• Yes, it's misrepresentation and we don't like that. All info released thus far has given fans the expectation that the Collector's edition would contain physical DVDs as well as the other stuff. We were really happy to report back in the spring that the edition would be available in the U.S., so this is a bit of a let-down.
• Is it a huge deal? Well, maybe not. For all practical purposes, the discs are all but useless anyway since the day 1-patch is so huge (11Gb), but there's still the matter of what such a special edition is for: it's for owning, coveting and putting in a special place on the shelf. The fact that the discs are missing from this "ensemble" makes it a little bit less special.
• What's really annoying, though, is that this seems so unneccessary. Ubisoft were already making this big box thing with lots of stuff inside it ... was it really so hard to print some DVDs for that box as well? Are Ubisoft unable to produce DVDs? Don't they have that technology in the U.S.? Seriously, for $100 and since you're already making and shipping those big things, chuck in a DVD, eh?

Read full article...

[cjlee]

Collectors' edition. Has sound discs. No game discs?

Why is it Ubisoft is always making these face palms? Is it not interested in making money? Hasn't it been in the gaming world for many years and sold many games already - enough to at least understand how to make money?

Would 3DO ever have sold the Collectors' Version of H3 without any game discs?

That said, I would like to ask if the 11Gb patch is the biggest in the history of gaming to date. That would take up 2DVDs by itself which is pretty much as big as most games already.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Why is it Ubisoft is always making these face palms? Is it not interested in making money? Hasn't it been in the gaming world for many years and sold many games already - enough to at least understand how to make money?

Sounds like bloated bureaucracy. What likely happened was the marketing and production department did not have proper communication and the product manager decided that he's too good to be taking ownership of the product's progress (which happens).

As for making money, the company already got most of the money it could from selling the base game (the rest coming from DLC and GOTY edition). For those suckers who don't like the experience, a good chunk of them will forget about this horrible memory and buy from the franchise again in a few years.

That said, I would like to ask if the 11Gb patch is the biggest in the history of gaming to date. That would take up 2DVDs by itself which is pretty much as big as most games already.

No, there were bigger downloads than that. There was a game that took 20GB of my bandwidth but I forgot which. Regardless, it is still an indication of poor optimization considering that there are far better games out there that do not require such ridiculous amounts of resources.

[ttague2005]

I was told there could be no refund and that all "digital sales" are final. In the end, it took Ubisoft a few days to add the game to my UPlay account and all was well. It was only mildly annoying. I would have liked to play the game the day it was released, but I have more important things to complain about. I really like the game AND the statue is really cool! My son and I really like to kit.

[Pol]

They did an official annoucement. By that, there's no DVD, all content is digital, including soundtrack. Looks more like Deluxe + Physical Goodies.

With all that fuss I fail to see reason, why they didn't postponed sending out Collector's edition, to equip packages with patched DVD, like month back, with some apology. In the end, it would be better for everyone.

[jeff]

I agree; the 'gold' disc was produced far too early regardless of production schedules. If they had waited until the beta testing issues had been dealt with, the 11gig patch for day one would not have been necessary. It would have already been part of the basic game files; then the second patch would have been the true day one patch. Everyone should realize however that no matter how long they wait; it will not be long enough if you hit a bug that is a game blocker. However this is an example where they did not take advantage of all the beta testing inputs they received. For a company that already lacks credibility; especially in the NA market to not include game discs visible in the picture. I doubt most of the NA market will trust UBI again. They are lucky in the sense that UBI is small enough and acted somewhat quickly with a refund plan; that the FTC will most likely not receive enough complaints for them to do a criminal investigation.

[ttague2005]

I am sure many of you received the apology from Ubisoft and the offer of refund or free game. I really appreciate their willingness to make it right. I went for the free game, FarCry 4.