I’m really getting sick of bundled reissues of recent video games. I understand that not everyone can acquire downloadable content (DLC), but this has gone far beyond convenience or value. It’s just scummy marketing now.

In the past, we’d sometimes see the release of a “special edition” of a game many years after its initial release, often when the platform the game originally appeared on was no longer viable. These special editions were usually full-fledged remakes, complete with updated graphics, sound, and other goodies. While remakes can get out of hand as well, at least you’re still getting a lot of new content not found elsewhere.

Special editions that bundle an original game with its expansions and the like have been a staple of the computer gaming world for years, but they’ve begun to infect console games at a rapid pace. Recently, we’ve seen so-called Game of the Year editions of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, LittleBigPlanet, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, plus Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition and Super Street Fighter IV, just to name a few. (The Street Fighter franchise has seriously abused the reissue market over the years. Cripes, how many versions of Street Fighter II have there been?!)

These special editions are undoubtedly a good value to gamers who never picked up the original games, but they’re a slap in the face to early adopters. I understand that this can come with the territory when it comes to high-end electronics and associated media, but the problem lately is that these special editions are coming out only a year (or less!) after the original title! It’s almost reached the saturation point. Why bother buying a hotly-anticipated title on day one, when it’s going to be reissued at a cheaper price point months down the line with additional content? Furthermore, early adopters who buy the game on day one and grab the various DLC as its released really get screwed.

For example, you buy a game for $60, plus three expansions for $5 each. Now, your total cost for that game has become $75. Eight months later, the game is reissued, including those expansions plus some new stuff, for $40. Same game, more content…for nearly half of the price! And if there’s unique stuff in the reissue, then in order to get it, you’d have to buy the game all over again! Doesn’t that piss you off?

The logical response to this is to quit buying these super-hyped games when they’re released…but we all know the gaming hobby and logic are arch enemies. Furthermore, it’s impossible to know for certain if a game will get reissued, so it’s a crapshoot either way.