Very well-put Urben.
With the WOA rebranding and re-bundling it really felt at the time like HITMAN (ALL CAPS)'s swan song. A – finally – definitive single-purchase way to get everything that had been released to date, this is the standard, this is the deluxe the game is complete.
But then Freelancer DLC was released. And then Elusive DLC was released. Then a new Part One bundle made a repeat of the Hitman 2 days. And then the PS4 Missions came out too.
And now this?? Buy one single episode from 9 years ago?? Yes, I get that Sapienza is the big-showcase well-reviewed mission, but that was 9 years ago. Surely Hitman WOA as a whole has received many more accolades, reccomendations, exposure, and promotion to justify people being interested in The Full Experience, rather than one single level. And wasn’t that what the Starter Pack was for in the first place???
I wholly agree with @Dribbleondo that the Starter Pack should instead be modified to be the lucrative “Try A Full Mission Out”, having Paris, the actual first full mission bundled in. It sets up the story hook, it introduces so many social stealth concepts, it really is a better fit to acclimate and get players used to Hitman’s structure.
And cmon, it’s been so many years since the Season 1 content. Surely there’s not much to be earned from people who somehow haven’t yet bought into WOA, let alone enticing them with one single mission…
It really feels like WOA is going backwards and in turn possibly IOI with how complicated they’re making purchases, focusing on impulse-buying-small rather than informing customers on higher-priced, more valuable purchases.
I thought you guys already took the feedback two years ago and learned your lesson with the full WOA Bundle.
And just think – wouldn’t it retain more consumers playing your game – if they had the looming “Oh No I bought this 40$ game and I have to play it to make my purchase worth it” thought in their heads, rather than the “well that was a good 7$ purchase of a Hitman Mission. Time to Play something else.”
Lord knows I’ve had that thought many times about my own purchases.
One more thing: Does anyone remember that IOI also tried this with Hitman 2: The Miami Pack? (With its own Upgrade Pass DLC)
No idea if that strategy worked, but… I really really thought, since Hitman 3 at least - we’ve gone past this episodic piece-meal release, and focused on easily-readable Bundles for enticing content/value…
Hell, just remember when IOI surprisingly started giving away Season 1 Missions for free, own forever, for a limited time while H2016 was still the latest mainline title…
In December 2017, IOI released Paris for free to own for nearly a month. Not even two years after the game’s initial launch.
Nowadays, you’d be lucky to even play Paris for free for a month… limited-time-only aww 