Bought our game? Buy it again, please.

So the new trend for a lot of big titles seems to be to re-release the game about a few months to a year after the game’s original release. A few examples of this include Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Ultimate Sith Edition and LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition. Both of these games are re-releases of games that came out last year, but they add content that was not found in the original game. Most of this content is stuff that can be found as DLC on the Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Store, but now the companies behind these games have decided to add some new content to the game, content that’s not available anywhere else.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand where they’re coming from when it comes to these types of re-releases. They want to add even more content to an already attractive package to entice even more people into buying the game. I have no problem with that as long as they just stick to stuff such as already released DLC or new DLC that’s also available for owners of the normal version, but what point is there in adding exclusive content to these games? From what I’ve seen it does nothing but anger people who have already bought the game, as they obviously want the content but can’t justify buying a game they already own at nearly full price once again.

In addition to angering fans, it’s also a missed monetary opportunity. As long as it’s reasonably priced, I’m sure most people would not have a problem purchasing the additional content as DLC. Another $5-$15 investment goes over much easier than a $40-$60 one, and at the same time it still makes the re-release an attractive package for new buyers as it would still be cheaper to get it over buying the old game (even at a discounted price) and all the DLC separately. Thus, they’d obviously have more sales from old fans buying DLC then they would of old fans buying the re-release. But of course, this makes logical sense, so of course a lot of companies wouldn’t actually do it.

Then again, this could all just be a marketing ploy. While the developers/publishers may have come out and stated that this content would be exclusive to the re-release version, there’s nothing stopping them from actually releasing the content as DLC later on down the road. But by making people believe the content is truly exclusive, it may help raise initial sales of the re-release as some truly diehard fans may still be willing to buy a game they already own at nearly full price. Thus, they still get the benefit of better sales in the beginning but can satisfy fans and make even more money in the long run by going this route.

Of course, without any solid examples to back any of this up, all of these theories are nothing but my opinion. It will certainly be interesting to see how these two titles, and any future titles that employ this method, turn out in the end. So what do you think? Am I just channeling my inner fanboy rage, or is this a disturbing new trend that needs to be stopped now?