Liked the Game - No Interest in DLC

I just finished Mafia II and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The graphics were good enough to simmer me in a great environment (late WWII / Early 1950's New York City) that I had only gotten to experience in movies before, the characters were interesting, the writing was good, the missions were engaging, and I found the end to be completely 100% satisfying and thematically appropriate.

AND I have zero interest in doing any of the DLC. None.

For me the story is over and while I enjoyed the world I feel like the time I spent in it was all the time I desired to spend in it and any DLC would probably lessen my memories of the game.

But what about you? If there is a game that you finished and liked playing - what is it that makes you NOT buy DLC in those instances?

I can't name any story-based examples, tbh. I've always bought expansions if I really liked the main game and if it hasn't been too long since I played through it. The main thing that would prevent me from purchasing story-based expansions/dlc would be if it reviewed really poorly.

Non story-based expansions/dlc I'm far more likely to ignore. Cosmetics/music almost never get purchased, but extra factions or campaigns for games I've really enjoyed such as Civ V or Crusader Kings 2, usually get a pass if I feel the base game already offers enough meat.

I rarely buy DLC for myself any more. In the last decade I've only bought Civ, Age of Wonders, SKyrim, Dishonored, and Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage -and that was just for the stealth suit.

For me the story is over and while I enjoyed the world I feel like the time I spent in it was all the time I desired to spend in it and any DLC would probably lessen my memories of the game.

This pretty well sums it up for me. If the new content isn't integrated into the main game (Civ, AOW) then it feels extraneous.

I'm glad it widely exists though, because to some extent it lets others subsidize my gaming habits.

Mostly, it's when I don't think I'm getting a good deal for the amount of content on offer. I typically don't buy DLC until it's deeply discounted. And I'm really irked about buying the Season Pass for XCOM 2 and getting so little for it; I feel very cheated. That was the one time I was willing to buy something sight unseen, because it was Firaxis, but I got burned. That won't happen again with any company, no more Season Passes until I understand exactly what's included. With Firaxis in particular, I'm not buying even their base games at full price, anymore. They do too much iteration, and charge for improvements that should have been there in the first place. I'll wait until the game is actually done, as opposed to when they're willing to put it on sale.

This is also why I haven't bought any of the DLC for the Mass Effect series, because it's so overpriced. It's just rent extraction from fans, not charging a fair value. They spend a ton of money building crap I don't care about, like forced multiplayer in their supposedly singleplayer games, and then try to recoup it by charging me too much for the content I actually do like. No, thanks.

There are certainly times when I'm willing to buy DLC, but, in general, it needs to offer me a better value in terms of entertainment than the base game did, because it was a lot cheaper for them to make than the base game was. If they're not willing to offer that, I just don't buy it.

Every Assassin’s Creed, ever.

Some games can be great, but like you said when they are finished they are just ready to be 'done'. It's just more of a feeling than any hard and fast rule. I couldn't imagine skipping any Witcher DLC. I don't buy cosmetic DLC. I'm likely to buy DLC for a strategy game that I like a lot if it introduces more mechanics, or more races / classes.

It also depends if I feel like I'll need to replay a story from the beginning / start a new game to enjoy the new content. I loved Dark Souls 3, but I haven't touched the season pass content because I haven't played in so long that I feel like I need to restart a new game. I loved the game but that just seems exhausting to me right now.

I can't remember the last time in recent memory where I actively purchased DLC for a game. I usually tend to get on the train so late with most games I play nowadays that by the time I pick up a game of renown, it's already had all of its DLC come out (Memories of starting up a new game on Fallout 3/New Vegas and immediately getting alerts about all the DLC opportunities before even hitting the wastelands in earnest).

Blend that with the backlog of full games I just keep on building up and it becomes too easy to let the DLC slip between my fingers.

I actually never get through DLC even with games I really love. I've stopped buying it because of this. For me games are like a relationship, and when it's over it's over.

The Witcher 3 is the only exception for me. Man that game is unbelievable.

Yeah, the DLC for The Witcher 3 is absolutely amazing, much longer than many full games, and cheaper to boot. I have zero complaints there. They really delivered on the value front.

I saw a thing where they made more money off TW3 this year than they did last year, when they actually released the Blood and Wine expansion. it's apparently going to have an unbelievably long tail.... and one that's richly deserved.

Not many singleplayer games go up in revenue from year to year.

I take DLC on a case by case basis and I'll never pre-order a Season Pass, it's just too much of a gamble, and will usually be on sale later.

The DLC for Dishonored 1,was great. I have the DLC for Bioshock Infinite wishlisted for when I have the time, despite not liking Infinite that much, but I'd like to get back to Rapture. Haven't bought the Witcher 3 DLC yet, partly because the confluence of time and finances hasn't worked out appropriately, and partly because I don't want my time in the world to end.

Also the nature of how I consume games means that often when I wander across a game 2-3 years after launch I can get the whole bundle for a song. In these instances I'll usually get the whole bundle.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. I'm a generall a huge DX fan - played through the original and Human Revolution (including it's DLC) multiple times. But although I liked Mankind Divided well enough from a gameplay perspective (not so much on the story angle) I've had zero interest in the DLC they've put out to date.

Also, Bioshock infinite. Never played through any of the DLC for that either. (To my shame, I've never gotten around to Minerva's Den for Bioshock 2 either despite it apparently being amazing...there's just something about the constantly respawning goons and the way the combat plays out that's a major turnoff for me in Bio 2).

Loved all the Assassin's Creed games released for the 360, but was never even curious about the DLC for any of them. Same with Shadow of Mordor: absolutely loved the game, didn't get the DLC. I rarely ever get any DLC though, so it's not the games' fault, I guess.

If I see a game is going to have a lot of DLC, I mentally put it on the "Buy the gold edition when it comes out" list. But even then, I tend to hate the DLC.

I think it was Borderlands 2 I picked up that way, main game, all the DLC. Fire up the game and spends the first 45 seconds with various pop-ups about new content now unlocked because I have all the DLC. I finish the first quest, look at my quest log, and its so full of DLC content, I can barely find the level 2 quest I need to complete next, not the 20 level 35-45 quests that'll get me killed instantly. I remember wishing at that point that I didn't have any of that extra content. Just let me play the main game, and if I'm happy at that point, install the DLC, but as I bought the complete version, I didn't have that option.

This is why I love Day 1 DLC. I can play it as part of my main play through of the game. When I'm 'done' playing a game, it is really hard to go back and play some DLC.

I am half and half on this.

MP/games i really truly love like HZD and Last of us I will always buy DLC. (MP if still playing or friends interested in it).

However, many single players games I don't if I've already moved on. Fallout series, BB, Civilization games. These games that the story has ended and I did not love the story enough to thrive for even side stuff. Or games like Civilization which are just such huge time sync's that a few small differences are not enough for me to return.

However, games like Dying light I am always happy to go back and play expansion again because it's a great time with friends. Any Destiny or Destiny 2 expansion I will go back if nothing else for the people I play with more than the game.

I never bought any Mass Effect DLC. That started out as "the games don't need it", then added a bit of "Srsly? I don't want to encourage that kind of behavior" with the ME3 day-one DLC.

I did buy Knife of Dunwall for Dishonored, but never got very far into it. Dishonored is Corvo's story for me.

I've played a lot of the DLC for the Assassin's Creed games, but I had no interest in what they did for AC III. The DLC was a two part alternate history asking what would have happened if George Washington had become a tyrant. The premise was too silly for me, even though I don't believe it was supposed to be taken seriously. Templars fighting Assassins over centuries influenced by space aliens? Sure, I can buy in. Despostic George Washington? Hogwash!

DLC is for people who aren’t me.

I don’t finish the base content in 99% of the games I play. So the DLC that’s available for any of them is quite literally surplus to requirements, and I’m not interested in it.

Even for the rare game that I do devote myself to, I’m often happy to be done with it by the time the end credits roll, with no need to extend the game through DLC.

I can count on a Boy Scout’s salute the number of games I’ve bought DLC for and not regretted it. Mass Effect 3 (because I loved the series), and both XCOMs (because both Enemy Within and War of the Chosen substantially mix up the ruleset *and* I was still playing the base game).

Jonman wrote:

... a Boy Scout’s salute ...

Is that a euphemism? Given posting track record, I am guessing that is a euphemism.

As for the topic, I also struggle finishing base games. For changes to the fundamental gameplay in games I have been heavily invested in, such as the Civ series, AoE series, Crusader Kings, I have generally purchased. Otherwise, I don't go back. Loved XCOM and XCOM2, not planning on the expansions, as I am unlikely to play through them again. Given Jon's statement of XCOM2, maybe I need to reconsider. If it is in a bundle and it is included, sure.

bhchrist wrote:
Jonman wrote:

... a Boy Scout’s salute ...

Is that a euphemism? Given posting track record, I am guessing that is a euphemism.

Do you have your glasses on? How many fingers am I holding up?

IMAGE(https://tentaroouscentral.blob.core.windows.net/tentaroo/resources/camp35/cmsblogphoto1874/med_boy%20scout%20salute.jpg)

Still not convinced.

bhchrist wrote:

Still not convinced.

Urban Dictionary suggests that there is indeed an alternative meaning.

I didn't mean to invoke it, but that said, it still works in the context I used.

Yeah, I've recently experienced this with Fallout: New Vegas and Sleeping Dogs. I enjoyed both games thoroughly, but when I was done, I was done. I had no desire to play the DLC I purchased (to be fair, the DLC came with the original games in GOTY packages). You just reach a point where enough is enough. My exception is the Bioware DLC. The Dragon Age and Mass Effect DLC are almost all great additions, with Citadel for ME3 being mandatory. And the Witcher 3 DLC is really needed to see Geralt to the end of his story. I guess DLC works when it fits either seamlessly into the main story or if it naturally tacks on to the end of the game and continues a story. For me, when DLC feels like a tangent that doesn't fit into the main storyline, I'm less likely to play it.

Yeah. I VERY rarely buy dlc. I've played the game. Its done. On to the next. This is something that really annoyed me about the plot of Dragon Age 3.

(Very early game spoiler for DA3)

Spoiler:

There's a dramatic build up. The main villain appears. Everyone is like "Oh no its that guy". And I'm like ....who? Did I miss something? I think this very important plot information is actually locked away in some DA2 dlc?

Notable exception is Shadow Broker (of course) but a big thumbs down to Mass effect 3 for excluding what I feel was core story information to paid dlc.

I rarely buy or play DLC.

The last time I bought DLC was probably the first expansion of Battlefield 4. At the time, I felt very strongly that this was simply content withheld from the main game, and I resented that. I also didn't like the way that this split the player base. I haven't bought DLC for an online game since then.

In terms of playing, the way that I buy non-online games means that I tend to end up with Game of the Year editions and the like... which usually means that I end up with DLC included. I think the last expansion I attempted to play was 'Left Behind' for the The Last of Us. It didn't grab, so I stopped at the first sequence. Since then, I've ignored similar DLC for games such as Dishonored.

The main reasons I move on are:

I regard the game as the main story as presented by the developers/publishers. I have no interest in further 'short form' explorations of the same game world
Life is short and my Pile is big.

To simplify things quite a bit, for me there are two types of games: games where the story is told to me through the game and games where I make the story (like strategy games). I don't usually buy DLC for the former. I almost always buy DLC for the letter.

For the first category, I will play through one time, for many reasons (time, I got a complete narrative, etc.). DLC for these games does not interest me. Dishonored is an example of this kind of game: played it, loved it, was done with my Corvo story. The Dragon Ages, Mass Effects, Just Causes are other examples.

For the second category, I will probably play through those games many times. I will buy DLC that enriches the game and makes for different types of stories. For example, I buy all the major expansions for the Paradox games. Each expansion adds some new mechanics, new events, new things to mess around with. Playing a game of EU4 now, with all the major expansions, is greatly different from playing EU4 around the time it was released with no expansions. The Civs are another example of this sort of game (even though I have come to not like Civ much any more).

This is not a hard and fast rule, of course. For example, if I ever get to the end of The Witcher 3 base game, I may buy its DLC (big if for me though). Or if I get a game's "GOTY" edition with all the DLC I will play the DLC. But reflecting on when I buy DLC and for what games has led to this observation of my buying and playing habits.

Bioshock was this for me, and not just DLC i didn't play any of the following releases until Infinite. I was completely satisfied with the way the story ended with the first and had no desire to try and add to it.

Thinking about it, I think I tend to jump on DLC when I'm really invested in the world - building. Mass Effect, early Dragon Age, etc. I also tend to go all in on single player strategy games where the DLC offers moderate changes to the gameplay.

For anyone moderately interested in Dragon Age, I'll point out that Inquisition's DLC continues the tradition of having extremely important plot/lore motivations in post-release DLC.

beanman101283 wrote:

For anyone moderately interested in Dragon Age, I'll point out that Inquisition's DLC continues the tradition of having extremely important plot/lore motivations in post-release DLC.

See, I really hate that.