Another Monday is here and you know what means… unless you’re new. If you’re new, you have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s time for Deja News. The every Monday article where I discuss some of the news today that happened last week. If you already know about the news, then consider yourself a cool kid and if you don’t already know about these news stories, then I’ve got great news for you. You’re about to become one of the cool kids. You’re welcome! As always, thanks for reading, and whether it has to do with one of the stories I talked about today or maybe there was a story I left out that you want to talk about, either way, feel free to leave a comment down below or over on the Facebook Page.

Final Fantasy 15 Royal Edition Brings New Content and Questions About the Industry as a Whole

So many times game developers and publishers have told gamers that first week sales are the most important. After the first week, the number of units a game sells is irrelevant. Well, we now live in a world where gamers are still being told this, while developers learn new ways to keep games fresh and new with updates that range from free expansions like we’ve seen in No Man’s Sky to paid DLC like we’ve seen in Final Fantasy 15, the game that has inspired today’s topic.

Since its release in 2016, Final Fantasy 15 has frequently put out updates to make certain parts of the game more enjoyable to play or to make the overall story more fleshed out. This has all been done through a combination of both free and paid DLC. In other words, if you were someone that was extremely excited about Final Fantasy 15 and purchased the game day one, you’ve been on quite a roller coaster as developer Square Enix essentially tries to finish their already released game. Even with all of the updates though, Square Enix isn’t finished. Coming to the Xbox One, PS4, and for the first time the PC, Square Enix has announced Final Fantasy 15 Royal Edition for the low, low price of $49.99. This version of the game will include all of the DLC that’s been released so far. This includes the multiplayer expansion and character-specific episodes for Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis. On top of that, the game is adding new areas to explore, new enemies, new abilities, a boat, a first-person mode, and somehow there’s more, but you get the idea. There’s a lot of content available to players playing the game for the first time.

And before I get to my rant of how frustrating this news is, yes, gamers that still own Final Fantasy 15 can upgrade their base game to the Royal Edition for $19.99 and get all of the content listed. The fact that I can do that is great, but I’m only saying that because I still have my copy of Final Fantasy 15. In a world of trade-ins, there are a lot of gamers that buy physical copies of games and then trade them back in for the next upcoming title. Those gamers are now out of luck when it comes to simply paying the $20 for the upgrade. Instead, if they were interested in jumping back in, they would have to buy the game for the 2nd time. That doesn’t seem very fair when you consider the fact that what has been added to the game really seems like the kind of content that should have been in the game at launch.

I know I personally dealt with this issue when Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition was released. This arcade mode, by all accounts, has improved the game greatly, but it should have been in the game at launch. Yes, it’s great that players who already own the game get this upgrade for free, but for people like myself that were excited to buy the game at launch and were so incredibly disappointed that they traded the game in are now being asked to rebuy the game now that it’s more like the game that gamers were hoping for at launch.

Obviously, no one is forcing anyone to repurchase these games, but the fact that developers and publishers are putting gamers in this position in the first place is a real problem. Thankfully, as the industry slowly, and I do mean slowly, moves towards an all-digital future, games with long tails like Final Fantasy 15 won’t be an issue. People will play the game, uninstall it, and then a year later when they hear that it has all of these new updates, they can just redownload it and enjoy. Until that happens though, gamers are having to deal with the growing pains of the industry. One very simple solution to this would be for developers to lay out their DLC plans to gamers as the game comes out. With everything I said was coming with Final Fantasy Royal Edition you would think that’s it for the updates but no. In fact, Square has said that following the Royal Editions release, FF15 will be getting at least 3 more downloadable episodes coming this year. If everyone had been made aware that Final Fantasy 15 was going to be more like Destiny or Tom Clancy’s Wildlands with constant updates and DLC, maybe gamers would have been more inclined to keep the game rather than trading it in. If the way video games are going to be handled by developers is going to change so dramatically, maybe they could let gamers know next time. Just a thought.

A New Scribblenauts?!?!

Had I know that a new Scribblenauts game was coming out March 6, it would have easily made my Most Anticipated Games list. As far as I know, Scribblenauts is a series that has always been on either handhelds or Nintendo consoles that I haven’t owned and that has been one of the most frustrating things to experience because this game series looks like so much fun, but now it’s not only coming to the Switch but also the PS4 and Xbox One. If you’re not aware, it’s a game that requires players to use words to solve puzzles. For example, let’s say you needed to get a cat out of a tree. Well, you could just type in the word ladder to make a ladder appear so that you could climb it and retrieve the cat. That’s something a boring person would do though. If you’re a cool kid, maybe you type in, “plane,” and try and fly to the top of the tree and grab the cat. The great thing about the game is that the possibilities were nearly endless. I’m pretty sure I once saw God fight the Devil in one of those games because someone typed that in. Like I said, if you can think it, it’s probably there. The game has a dictionary of 35,000 words. On top of the great single-player mode, Scribblenauts Showdown will also feature a versus mode where you and some friends can battle it out in more than 25 mini-games. Throughout the year there’s usually a hand full of games that I try and convince the other Secret Thoughters to purchase and Scribblenauts Showdown will definitely be one of those games.