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Here is the trailer for the Expansion Pass announced on March 6th, 2024:
If you have played P3 FES (PS2) before (or watched the longplay on YouTube because of only playing P3 on PSP) then you can recognize from the trailer that this isn't just starting in production.
Persona 3 Reload released on February 2, 2024. The P3 FES story announced as DLC occurred a month later, not one year later. This heavily suggests they had already worked on this DLC during production of P3 Reload before it released.
So instead of having this story content being included with the standard edition of Persona 3 Reload, you now have to pay extra for it as DLC.
Let's go over a few things, I am not saying that all DLC is economic rent. There is a labor-cost value for producing Persona 3 Reload, and then there's the profit margin that Atlus gets for selling a number of copies at its suggested retail price.
Wave 3 of their Expansion Pass which contains the P3 FES story gets announced a month after P3 Reload released, the trailer clearly shows in-game footage of the remade story, meaning it is likely that they have already completed the content during the production of P3 Reload.
If the DLC was worked on during production of P3 Reload, then that means that was part of the budget for P3 Reload and not, "We have stopped production of P3 Reload. We now have to start pre-production of the Persona 3 Reload Expansion Pass by setting up the budget that we will need to pay for the labor-costs."
What does this mean? There is a good chance that Persona 3 Reload has already reached profit since they announced their 1M units sales milestone previously. I am arguing that if the Expansion Pass was already in their budget for the production of Persona 3 Reload, then they have already made a profit on the Expansion Pass content.
The Expansion Pass content is not free with the standard edition of Persona 3 Reload. You have to pay $34.99 for the Expansion Pass. This means that Atlus is going to receive an excess in profit. This excess in profit is economic rent, it is unearned income. They are being given money for a product that has already had its costs included in the budget of Persona 3 Reload, they have done rent-seeking by not including the Expansion Pass content with the standard edition of the game for free.
By all means, you can tell me that you are glad to give Atlus thousands of dollars for Persona 3 Reload and the Expansion Pass because they deserve it.
You can also tell them, "Please have an option that lets me set the price of how much I can pay for your game so that I no longer have to pay for the standard price and instead I give you $500 for the game."
I am pointing out how they are extracting wealth from you through "tollbooths" or what people are more familiar with, "paywalls" and that there are terms for explaining that concept and that there are circumstances where it can be correctly pointed out that it is economic rent.
If the Expansion Pass DLC started production after the release of Persona 3 Reload, the DLC would have probably been announced in 2025. Regardless of it being announced in 2025 or later, it would have had a budget associated with which means there was a cost for producing the DLC. I am arguing that isn't the case here because the budget and production for the DLC was already included with the production of Persona 3 Reload.
I have done all this arguing without even referencing the IGN article that talked about datamined data from Persona 3 Reload that said the following: https://www.ign.com/articles/persona-3-reload-looks-like-its-getting-fes-expansion-after-all
Before finishing this post, I will give an example of another title from Atlus where I don't think there is economic rent. Back in November 2021, Shin Megami Tensei V released on the Nintendo Switch. On June 21st, 2024, there will be the release of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series.
Here are details of the game from Wikipedia:
The details from the Wikipedia are to tell you what the content is and how it occurs. I don't know the exact details of why you can't transfer your whole Switch save file instead of just three demons, the only guess I can make is that they didn't account that they would be making Vengeance in the future and hence they weren't going to waste time making the Switch save file of the original SMTV futureproof. With the speculation of the Switch save file not being futureproofed, it would end up being a lot of work to make sure things don't break to make a Switch save file from the previous game work in SMTV: Vengeance.
It makes sense then that production for SMTV stopped. Then after some time, a greenlight was given and pre-production started for SMTV: Vengeance which is not only for Switch but is also getting ported to other platforms. They are given a budget for making this new content and for getting the game released on multiple platforms.
I would argue then that SMTV: Vengeance is an example where economic rent is not occurring because it is a completely new production with a new budget to cover the labor-costs. There is no scenario where they completed all of Vengeance using the budget of the original SMTV which results in an excess in profit.
If you have played P3 FES (PS2) before (or watched the longplay on YouTube because of only playing P3 on PSP) then you can recognize from the trailer that this isn't just starting in production.
Persona 3 Reload released on February 2, 2024. The P3 FES story announced as DLC occurred a month later, not one year later. This heavily suggests they had already worked on this DLC during production of P3 Reload before it released.
So instead of having this story content being included with the standard edition of Persona 3 Reload, you now have to pay extra for it as DLC.
Let's go over a few things, I am not saying that all DLC is economic rent. There is a labor-cost value for producing Persona 3 Reload, and then there's the profit margin that Atlus gets for selling a number of copies at its suggested retail price.
Wave 3 of their Expansion Pass which contains the P3 FES story gets announced a month after P3 Reload released, the trailer clearly shows in-game footage of the remade story, meaning it is likely that they have already completed the content during the production of P3 Reload.
If the DLC was worked on during production of P3 Reload, then that means that was part of the budget for P3 Reload and not, "We have stopped production of P3 Reload. We now have to start pre-production of the Persona 3 Reload Expansion Pass by setting up the budget that we will need to pay for the labor-costs."
What does this mean? There is a good chance that Persona 3 Reload has already reached profit since they announced their 1M units sales milestone previously. I am arguing that if the Expansion Pass was already in their budget for the production of Persona 3 Reload, then they have already made a profit on the Expansion Pass content.
The Expansion Pass content is not free with the standard edition of Persona 3 Reload. You have to pay $34.99 for the Expansion Pass. This means that Atlus is going to receive an excess in profit. This excess in profit is economic rent, it is unearned income. They are being given money for a product that has already had its costs included in the budget of Persona 3 Reload, they have done rent-seeking by not including the Expansion Pass content with the standard edition of the game for free.
By all means, you can tell me that you are glad to give Atlus thousands of dollars for Persona 3 Reload and the Expansion Pass because they deserve it.
You can also tell them, "Please have an option that lets me set the price of how much I can pay for your game so that I no longer have to pay for the standard price and instead I give you $500 for the game."
I am pointing out how they are extracting wealth from you through "tollbooths" or what people are more familiar with, "paywalls" and that there are terms for explaining that concept and that there are circumstances where it can be correctly pointed out that it is economic rent.
If the Expansion Pass DLC started production after the release of Persona 3 Reload, the DLC would have probably been announced in 2025. Regardless of it being announced in 2025 or later, it would have had a budget associated with which means there was a cost for producing the DLC. I am arguing that isn't the case here because the budget and production for the DLC was already included with the production of Persona 3 Reload.
I have done all this arguing without even referencing the IGN article that talked about datamined data from Persona 3 Reload that said the following: https://www.ign.com/articles/persona-3-reload-looks-like-its-getting-fes-expansion-after-all
Dataminer ruinedsteg0 discovered six titles for downloadable content hidden within the files of Persona 3 Reload, and while this doesn't mean the content is guaranteed, it certainly suggests it's on the minds of the development team. While most of these are just for costume sets, one is for "Episode Aigis / The Answer".
...
This comes despite Atlus saying the team has no plans for any such content. "Currently, we are not considering a revision like with Persona 5 to Persona 5 Royal, which involved significant changes and additions to the original title," Persona Team production manager Kazuhisa Wada said. "Fans can rest assured knowing that Persona 3 Reload offers a complete experience."
Before finishing this post, I will give an example of another title from Atlus where I don't think there is economic rent. Back in November 2021, Shin Megami Tensei V released on the Nintendo Switch. On June 21st, 2024, there will be the release of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series.
Here are details of the game from Wikipedia:
Vengeance allows the players to experience the original story of Shin Megami Tensei V in the "Canon of Creation" route, or choose a second route, "Canon of Vengeance", with drastic changes in the latter half of the game. Each route is estimated to be 80 hours long, and features different endings.[19] The "Canon of Vengeance" features new characters, such as the heroine Yoko Hiromine and a demon group Qadištu headed by Lilith.[20]
This version adds new locations, quality of life features, gameplay mechanics, and over 40 additional demons, including some specifically created for Vengeance by artist Masayuki Doi. The downloadable content from the original release is included with the base game, but Vengeance will launch with its own DLC quests, featuring Dagda from Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and a new demon Konohana Sakuya.[20]
Vengeance does not offer an upgrade path or save file transfer for players of the original release. Instead, they can transfer three demons from the Shin Megami Tensei V compendium to the Nintendo Switch version of Vengeance.[19]
The details from the Wikipedia are to tell you what the content is and how it occurs. I don't know the exact details of why you can't transfer your whole Switch save file instead of just three demons, the only guess I can make is that they didn't account that they would be making Vengeance in the future and hence they weren't going to waste time making the Switch save file of the original SMTV futureproof. With the speculation of the Switch save file not being futureproofed, it would end up being a lot of work to make sure things don't break to make a Switch save file from the previous game work in SMTV: Vengeance.
It makes sense then that production for SMTV stopped. Then after some time, a greenlight was given and pre-production started for SMTV: Vengeance which is not only for Switch but is also getting ported to other platforms. They are given a budget for making this new content and for getting the game released on multiple platforms.
I would argue then that SMTV: Vengeance is an example where economic rent is not occurring because it is a completely new production with a new budget to cover the labor-costs. There is no scenario where they completed all of Vengeance using the budget of the original SMTV which results in an excess in profit.