Dilution of the English langauage for profit

A current trend I’ve noticed, mostly in the gaming sector of the PC and console market, is the way in which certain words are used or attached to a product.

Quite often when a game releases it’ll come with a few different versions, a PC-CD version (multi-disc), a PC-DVD version (same content, 1 disc) and sometimes a Collectors or Limited edition. Most often in a slightly modified case, based on the standard PC game box (~180mm x ~200mm). The last couple of Collectors editions that I’ve purchased have been more of a letdown than I had hoped.

Same DVD Disc (in my experience Collectors Editions always come with just the DVD), slightly bigger manual, often just in color and maybe one or two nick-nacks, which, while they may be cool aren’t worth my extra $20 – $50 (depends on game and publisher).

My fiencée and I both play WoW (I know, I know…) which recently released it’s first expansion(additional game content for a smaller charge, but requires the original game) which came in multiple flavours. We got one of each, a normal version and a Collectors Edition.

If you’d had a look on various online shopping carts (DSE, Gamesman, Amazon) the icon graphic that they used for the Collectors Editions of the expansion looked like a slightly greener box than the non-ce version. I figured, “Yeah, that’s about right.”

How little I knew.

When she (the fiencée) finally brought it home the thing was huge, and the bonus content was more than worth the extra $20 or so over the standard version, full size, hard cover art book, the game files on CD and DVD, mousepad as well as a few other things.

Needless to say I was stoked, this was what a collectors editions should be. Just like back in the good old days of gaming (™).

Maybe I just come from a different era (in gaming, i’m not that old) when developers were smaller, and put more effort into their collectors editions, rather than just slapping a fancy sounding suffix on something to make some extra money. Before they were absorbed into the industry-spanning monoliths that churn out version after version of the same game year after year, leaving little room for innovation or uniqueness.

Anyway, that’s my rant…

tl;drToo Long; Didn’t Read? – Don’t use words like “limited”, “collectors edition” and “premium” unless the content deverves it!