A Dirge for the Sinking Ship

Ask certain people in the know, and they will tell you that the current gaming market is unsustainable. It’s pretty rare that I turn my Sauron eye to the forums for support, but this particular comment about Electronic Arts’ recent layoffs is the kind of science I like to see laid on people. It ties together with troubling research I’ve done on my own end, and while I’m not on board with the full conclusion, there does seem to be some strong evidence that the gaming industry is stuck in the Death Star trash compactor and can’t seem to get 3PO on the communicator.

I honestly have a genuine fear about what the next 3 or 4 years might bring in the gaming marketplace. Even if there is not dire writing on the wall some troubling graffiti has turned up portending dark days ahead. The industry has been in a struggle for nearly a decade to monetize their transactions outside of the initial purchase, and instead of making progress the rise of the used market, an unreliable consumer base and the omni-present piracy revenue suck have just made things worse.

So, when Bioware and EA put so many resources into developing a hardcore gamers-game like Dragon Age, and people light pitchforks on fire because of optional DLC, I can’t help but feel intensely frustrated at what I see as thin-skinned entitlement and monumental naivete.

I consider many in the angry mob to be friends, and it does not give me pleasure to stand against them. But, I firmly believe that if you want to keep getting games like Dragon Age, like Fallout 3, like Uncharted 2, like The Beatles: Rock Band then gamers are going to need to get on board with or at least stop openly revolting against things like Day-1 DLC.

I have been watching with trepidation and concern the past 2 years as a conflict of game publishing ideology has erupted between the once mighty Electronic Arts and the laser-focused, unrepentant capitalism of Activision. And, as EA sheds hundreds of jobs, and more importantly dozens of projects, my worst fears are come true. The focus on scatter-shot approaches to new IPs and emphasis on driving quality over quantity is great for warming cockles in hearts, but ejaculating dozens of crappy iterations of go-to franchises has tragically triumphed as the profitable way to go.

The only way to sustain that emphasis on gamer-friendly qualities is by making a profit on the releases that do well to off-set the costs of doing business. Warden’s Keep isn’t about greedily slurping up the ignorance of gamers. It’s about funding the next Mirror’s Edge. It’s about having the resources to take chances on games that gamers love.

Have cake or eat cake. Sorry, kids, you only get to choose one, and I fear now even that choice may have been taken from our hands.

While we were all squabbling in the corner over meaningless skirmishes about DLC and dedicated servers, the war was waged on another front and it’s starting to look like we lost.

I hate to be dire, but I’ve seen 3 years of the Bobby Kotick doctrine, and if that’s what the future for companies like EA and TakeTwo and THQ is going to be then we’re going to sit back in a few years and long for the day when we got to whine about Day-1 DLC in a game like Dragon Age. Let me describe the future I see. Subscription based services married with microtransactions. Hobbled initial releases where the DLC is not just an optional quest, but key game mechanics. One-time required online authentication that prevents multi-player for used games. A virtual death of games like Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend, Borderlands or Dragon Age.

You're standing on the Titanic, and you're complaining about the color of the deck chairs.

If I sound mad, it’s because I am. It is an unfocussed rage that simmers and burns, because many of the kinds of games I adore are destined for the dust bin. And, the reality is that no one is clean in this fight. Publishers have adopted a model that is proving unsustainable to match the rising cost of development. Retailers who struggle against thin new-release profit margins have compromised the industry as a whole for their own profit. Gamers have waged their own zealot war against a changing marketplace, irresponsibly made unreasonable decisions about their entitlements and bent the rules as they see fit to get what they think they’ve got coming. Nobody comes out of this smelling like a rose.

As our well-informed forum commenter mentions in his post, the acquisition of Playfish along with the cancellation of mid-range games might as well be EA’s white flag waved in the breeze. You recall when Activision let go of Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend and the Chronicles of Riddick remake. These are exactly the kind of games that major publishers can’t afford to make any more if they can’t find a meaningful way to continue profiting beyond initial sales. These are exactly the kind of games that EA just ejected.

Let me put it this way, if having Day-one DLC in a game like Dragon Age means that Bioware gets to make the sequel, and not having it means they don’t, I will happily take the opportunity to make my informed purchasing choice and I will fold my arms and look sternly at those who gripe and complain. Drawing the line in the sand has consequences, and I’m not nearly invested enough in the ideology of consumer activism in the gaming marketplace to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

If you want an industry that can take chances. If you want an industry that can be agile and adaptable to niche demands. If you want publishers that are willing to explore new IPs and put resources behind projects like Dragon Age, then you, my stubborn and well-intentioned comrades, need to turn down the righteous fury.

Comments

Quintin_Stone wrote:
emyln wrote:

People decry about the graphics in Dragon Age (Which I totally disagree), but if you want crazy graphics then that bumps up development costs significantly. I would venture to guess that graphics/3D is the culprit for the high costs of today's games.

I'm sure saying this won't make me popular, but graphics whores are the actual people ruining the industry.

I don't know about unpopular. You are the great QS after all! I do think you are wrong however. Games have proven time and again that having fantastic graphics, while a nice checkpoint on the back, and sometimes a positive point in a review, are far from a deciding factor on whether to buy a game or not. From two ends of the spectrum: Uncharted: Among Thieves and World of Warcraft. One is so beautiful it makes grown men cry. It has god rays, it has water that ripples convincingly. It has snow that sticks in a powdery fluff to clothing. It looks amazing.

The other does not have any of that. Yet, to many people, it still looks amazing. Why? Strong art direction.

The reason people love Uncharted was the great gameplay, the fantastic voice acting, the believable characters AND the wonderful graphics. The reason people love WoW is because it has great (hugely addictive) gameplay, deep lore, interesting encounters, and a chance to play with their friends.

Fantastic graphics are great. But saying that people who love them are ruining the industry is false. Games sell oodles despite not catering to the graphics whore crowd - and sometimes despite selling to the graphics whore crowd.

Also, I agree with everything Parallax Abstraction said. Well done mate. I could not have put it nearly as coherently.

Just to add a side point to the DLC discussion, I had a very interesting conversation over Twitter with @GamingSteve a while back. For those who don't know, he used to run a really good gaming podcast that he had to stop because family life was taking up too much time. He was going on about how DLC doesn't work, how Lost and Damned for GTA4 was a bomb and how people are still heavily fixated on boxed product.

I finally chimed in and asked him to explain what he was getting at. He pointed me to the Episodes From Liberty City retail package that came out with Gay Tony and which includes that and Lost and Damned in a standalone retail package that doesn't require GTA4. He said (and he knows the industry and a lot of key people in it well) that the DLC version of Lost and Damned was a financial flop because if it wasn't, both Microsoft and Take-Two would have been issuing press releases and screaming about how well it did. Instead, they both said nothing. He said the gaming press is so focused on enthusiasts that they don't take into account that more than 50% of all consoles are not online and have no access to DLC and that many people either don't want to buy add-on content or are younger players who don't have the means to. He believed that the retail expansion package (which was never initially planned) is coming out to try to appeal to those people because Microsoft is desperate to make back the $50M they gave Rockstar for exclusivity. He said that Microsoft and several large publishers had banked on DLC becoming part of the mainstream gamer mindset this generation and it hasn't nearly done that. And as we all know, hardcore gamers alone are not enough. His belief was that if the episodes did become a success, that it would be the retail package that led it.

He did grant that these were massive content packages and not indicative of typical DLC as they cost much more to make but didn't sell for that much more. They were banking on volume and they didn't get it. Interesting food for thought anyway.

TheGameguru wrote:

Thats the sense of entitlement I talk about.. not the right for the consumer to "speak" with their wallet since that's EXACTLY what I always say to do.. don't like something.. don't buy it....case closed move on.

So your message is... vote with your wallet but shut up about it?

If the industry is really giving people what they want, why are they complaining? More likely, it's more that there's too many different people with different tastes to keep them all satisfied. There's no way that any company can give everyone what everyone wants.

Rallick wrote:

I do think you are wrong however.

You're just bitter that you got killed by goblins and I didn't.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Thats the sense of entitlement I talk about.. not the right for the consumer to "speak" with their wallet since that's EXACTLY what I always say to do.. don't like something.. don't buy it....case closed move on.

So your message is... vote with your wallet but shut up about it?

That's extreme.. but at the same time is there a reason people feel the need to post on a public forum several times over and over that they aren't buying something? I mean why stop there? I want to know about everything you aren't doing lol

Also.. many times said people after all that end up buying it anyway. 0_o

OG_slinger wrote:

Personally, I'd much rather just go for a subscription-based system, even for FPS's.

When I look back on the games that sucked up my time the most--BF2, TF2, L4D, etc.--I would have been happy to pay a couple of bones a month to make sure that there was a steady stream of new maps, weapons, etc. that everyone would get. It would keep the game fresh, the community unified, and me playing.

Subscription models that give all players the goodies included in the price are definitely appealing -- a la EVE Online giving all expansions to all players as part of their subscription -- but I think you're assuming an awful lot in return for a subscription fee they probably just want to charge you to get in the door alone.

Personally, I think I'm on record for wanting more, smaller, shorter, cheaper games with more ways to continue my relationship through DLC and microtransactions. Mostly, I think I'm getting that. Game prices have remained relatively flat for decades, and hardware is practically free. An Atari 2600 was roughly $750 in 2009 prices, the games were all well north of $50. In the meantime, cars, food, and most everything else has just gone up like crazy.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

So your message is... vote with your wallet but shut up about it?

That's kind of what I've been getting at. It isn't enough to just buy something you don't like. If you don't tell the people who made it why you didn't buy it, how does anyone expect them to learn for the future? I think not saying why does more of a disservice to the industry. If everyone just spoke with their wallet, I think there's be a lot of bankrupt companies out there scratching their heads.

CptGlanton wrote:

I would also agree that the response to the Modern Warfare 2 situation on PC did not reflect well on our hobby.

It's such a weird situation. It really feels like a lovers' spat. The cooling of the relationship could already be felt when, after CoD 4 came out Infinity Ward commented on the piracy rate (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50748) and caught flak for it as well.

In response Infinity Ward has now in turn actively taken steps to alienate the PC players of their games.

In the meantime I just want to play good games and not get caught up in this bloody bickering, but I'll be damned if I'm buying a poorly-featured game, which is only poorly-featured because of hypothetical lost sales which I'm not a part of.

Depressing.

Reading the article and many of the comments I'm not getting a sense of entitlement so much as I seem to be reading a lot of aggrandizing of fellows. We, the readers of this website and denizens of the Internet, are not responsible for either the downfall of the gaming industry nor the creation of new and interesting intellectual properties. To say that the vocal group of enthusiasts that complain about or defend downloadable content even matter is an absurdity on par with believing an Internet petition will actually work.

The bleak future presented in the original article will or will not come to pass based on the movements of the majority of video game buyers; you know, those people. Those people who own an Xbox 360 but never hook it up to the Internet, those people who hear about new game releases at their local game store, those people who were being marketed to by EA for Dragon Age, those people who will never read this article, let alone my own post. The sad truth is that the industry of video games is simply too large for us to matter anymore. The self-importance of websites such as this and forum goers from here to VGEvo is, I feel, the desperate cry for relevancy of a peoples long since left behind by the past time they love.

We should, and will eventually be forced to, adopt a position similar to that of car enthusiasts or movie buffs where we realize our praise of or complaints against a product are of interest only to those within our community. And while occasionally a product will come out that seems tailored to our tastes and will do surprisingly well for itself we are still a niche being catered to with no real power beyond that small market.

Stylez sent me this link this morning. This is a prime example of the hypocrisy that exists within the "entitlement crowd." It's people like this that make those who are trying to make a well reasoned point get lumped in with them and Elysium, I have no problem with any amount of snark being levied at them.

I don't see a connection between DLC and funding new projects. I agree that DLC sales are likely to spur one thing only, and that's more DLC. Which is not necessarily bad. If you want Mirror's Edge 2, people need to buy Mirror's Edge. Buying extra sprinkles for your vanilla ice cream does not encourage Kemps to produce more Butterscotch Crunch flavor.

As for righteous fury about day-one DLC, if DA feels inadequate to someone without the add-on, it'll likely feel inadequate with it. I don't understand why anyone would smile and pony up for new car extras like power windows, then scream bloody murder about "extra" content released alongside a new game.

harrisben wrote:

Developers, like children, are constantly testing our limits of acceptance and as such require continual reminders of what is and is not permitted.

I understand your desire to support the industry in which you have entangled your life and the fact that you care so for your favoured developers is cute, but it's all ultimately pointless because I assure you that not a single one of them give a damn about you.

(emphasis mine)

That vord, I do not sink it means what you sink it means. --Inigo Montoya

I imagine publisher or even better the vendor of any given product. You're describing any competitive marketplace. Think of operating systems, computers, music players, cars, ooh even better how about TV, kids shows, and food?

To say that the vocal group of enthusiasts that complain about or defend downloadable content even matter is an absurdity on par with believing an Internet petition will actually work.

I used to believe this. I don't anymore. I know enough people who actually make games to know that they are not deaf. What can not be so easily predicted is how companies backed into a corner will react.

It's people like this that make those who are trying to make a well reasoned point get lumped in with them and Elysium, I have no problem with any amount of snark being levied at them.

Indeed. That is the image conjured in my mind when I get whipped into my frothy fury.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Just to add a side point to the DLC discussion, I had a very interesting conversation over Twitter with @GamingSteve a while back. For those who don't know, he used to run a really good gaming podcast that he had to stop because family life was taking up too much time. He was going on about how DLC doesn't work, how Lost and Damned for GTA4 was a bomb and how people are still heavily fixated on boxed product.

I finally chimed in and asked him to explain what he was getting at. He pointed me to the Episodes From Liberty City retail package that came out with Gay Tony and which includes that and Lost and Damned in a standalone retail package that doesn't require GTA4. He said (and he knows the industry and a lot of key people in it well) that the DLC version of Lost and Damned was a financial flop because if it wasn't, both Microsoft and Take-Two would have been issuing press releases and screaming about how well it did. Instead, they both said nothing. He said the gaming press is so focused on enthusiasts that they don't take into account that more than 50% of all consoles are not online and have no access to DLC and that many people either don't want to buy add-on content or are younger players who don't have the means to. He believed that the retail expansion package (which was never initially planned) is coming out to try to appeal to those people because Microsoft is desperate to make back the $50M they gave Rockstar for exclusivity. He said that Microsoft and several large publishers had banked on DLC becoming part of the mainstream gamer mindset this generation and it hasn't nearly done that. And as we all know, hardcore gamers alone are not enough. His belief was that if the episodes did become a success, that it would be the retail package that led it.

He did grant that these were massive content packages and not indicative of typical DLC as they cost much more to make but didn't sell for that much more. They were banking on volume and they didn't get it. Interesting food for thought anyway.

I don't quite agree on all points.

MS knows how many online customers they have and online content has been released on disc later on in many cases. MS has released XBLA games on disc later on. Also the most popular 360 model is the ARcade. So I don't think there's a big surprise here and I believe MS planned to released a GTA IV expansion disc from the get go to reach those who aren't online.

I do agree the gaming press is too focused on enthusiasts. But on the other hand that is their audience afaik. IS there room for folks that like games (and more than just mini-games,) but don't have a ton of time to play everything and anything to have a mag of their own? And MS and developers are focusing more on others even as they release DLC. It's just that DLC allows them to empty the pockets of the enthusiast who wants more.

A consumer electronics company knows their low-end $200 stereo receiver will sell best, but they still release the hi-end stuff for those that want all the extra features that most don't care about.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

So your message is... vote with your wallet but shut up about it?

That's kind of what I've been getting at. It isn't enough to just buy something you don't like. If you don't tell the people who made it why you didn't buy it, how does anyone expect them to learn for the future? I think not saying why does more of a disservice to the industry. If everyone just spoke with their wallet, I think there's be a lot of bankrupt companies out there scratching their heads.

Who is representative of their customers though? Gaming forums/media (present company usually excluded) are in general a horrible place to find out what "the masses" want. Those masses can really be what makes or breaks you budget wise.

I've started to wonder if gaming is just falling back out of pop culture a bit, taking piles of "Madden Money" with it. As an old timer I see that as a good thing.

I've started to wonder if gaming is just falling back out of pop culture a bit, taking piles of "Madden Money" with it. As an old timer I see that as a good thing.

I think its less of that and more that theres a shift where the gaming dollars are coming from and exactly how they flow in.

A lot of what I would say has been said by others. Elysium, great article, as usual. Parallax, get out of my head!

The emphasis I want to add is that we do need a voice. There really should be a Gaming Consumer Advocacy panel or voice that gets heard by the developers. Unfortunately, that role is currently regulated to forums on developer websites that are almost universally filled with the whiny, uncouth masses with entitlement issues. This does not do the greater gamer community justice. Instead, the gamer community needs metered, intelligent discussion, without the trolling and yelling so common on other forums. (Heck that's why many of us are here at GWJ!) Developers need to hear that purchase decisions are about logic and personal preferences, not about a popular boycott and idiots screaming "ME TOO!" The gaming community, in general, has grown up. We're adults now, and we need to act like it. We need to communicate with respect and dignity if we want to be heard; internet petitions and poorly spelled outrage will never accomplish that.

I do believe we need to vote with our dollars, but that voting has to have some additional voice besides just a sales figure.

LilCodger wrote:

I've started to wonder if gaming is just falling back out of pop culture a bit, taking piles of "Madden Money" with it. As an old timer I see that as a good thing.

I hope so, I wish my hobby went back to being a hobby rather than a multi-billion dollar business with all the nonsense that entails.

One of the reasons I'm primarily a PC gamer is that when the Dragon Age's of the world have moved on, there will still be people who make stuff I want to play, like Torchlight.

bnpederson wrote:

The bleak future presented in the original article will or will not come to pass based on the movements of the majority of video game buyers; you know, those people. Those people who own an Xbox 360 but never hook it up to the Internet, those people who hear about new game releases at their local game store, those people who were being marketed to by EA for Dragon Age, those people who will never read this article, let alone my own post. The sad truth is that the industry of video games is simply too large for us to matter anymore.

Keeping the Titanic analogy - Are we the gentlemen who are calmly sipping the brandy and smoking cigars until the water breaks in through tastefully decorated glass ceiling?

I'm the shrieking, hysterical woman.

TheGameguru wrote:
I've started to wonder if gaming is just falling back out of pop culture a bit, taking piles of "Madden Money" with it. As an old timer I see that as a good thing.

I think its less of that and more that theres a shift where the gaming dollars are coming from and exactly how they flow in.

I'm not terribly informed on the subject, but is the iPhone/Facebook crowd the same folks who pushed 360 sales through the roof? If the money is coming from a different source and flowing to different outlets, is that the same market?

It would almost seem as if the mobile games market is a completely different group of folks, which I suppose is why so many are lamenting the death of their beloved hobby. If the folks who make "my games" switch to making "that casual crap" ...

*sigh* a double post for my first ever on GWJ. I'm going back to bed. Many apologies guys

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

So your message is... vote with your wallet but shut up about it?

That's kind of what I've been getting at. It isn't enough to just buy something you don't like. If you don't tell the people who made it why you didn't buy it, how does anyone expect them to learn for the future? I think not saying why does more of a disservice to the industry. If everyone just spoke with their wallet, I think there's be a lot of bankrupt companies out there scratching their heads.

Mind you I don't disagree with what you are saying.. but rather that you feel "WE" are the wrong group being ignored.. rather we SHOULD be ignored.. our tastes don't really speak for the mainstream "growth" segment anymore (I think that's really Ely's point in all this and mine) "WE" are railing against and industry that is rapidly moving on...

Since if we really were then we wouldn't be having this discussion now would we?

NOW the flipside is that there's a far deeper argument that perhaps the industry is trying to shoehorn two radically different ideals together.. that they are trying to mush the "hardcore" older more sophisticated PC crowd with the "console" younger demographic crowd and producing crap that we as PC gamers sorta like but comes along with all sorts of crap we don't really like...

And that if they just produced more games like Planescape and Deus Ex we'd all still be blissfully happy.

"Do you see the "thin-skinned entitlement and monumental naivete" crowd complaining about Torchlight? Sure, some people wish it had multiplayer but most are very happy with it and I haven't heard one podcast or read one post where anyone said they refused to buy it because it lacked multiplayer and that Runic Games owed them that. In the case of MW2, people were mad because IW stripped everything from the game (dedicated servers, lean, banning, mods) that made the previous games so great on the PC. You truly believe the people who supported the previous games don't have a right to be upset about that, especially when being charged a premium for it?"

Well said Parallax. Even with no interest at all for Modern Modern AND being a (predominantly) PC gamer it's hard not to look at some of MW2's design choices without being cynical. Having said that I'm not going to scream about the changes.

I think alot of issues with the Dragon Age DLC have to do with the way they ask you in game if you'd like to buy it. I don't have a problem with DLC. I have the option to buy or not to buy, therefore I feel like I have some control over the whole process. But just leave it out of the in-game experience please.

Do words like 'crisis' and 'apocalypse' really need to be used here? Aren't we just talking about change?

I think this is all much ado about nothing. Look at Guild Wars -- when every MMO was subscription based, GW smashed it with a one-time purchase model. So I'm all for companies heading up subscription models, it just adds another way for games to differentiate themselves.

Also: Torchlight.

I question whether DLC in single player games will be sustainable. It is, in effect, a price hike, albeit one that's voluntary and is currently masquerading as 'bonus material.'

I keep thinking back to Rob's comments during the podcast, and I don't think he was unreasonable. Here is a man who has decided how much he is willing to pay for the product, and he will not pay more. He paid. He got his game. He's in.

Only... not really. Not all the way. There's this other game, the game that other people will play. Some people will play a $70 game. Or an $80 game. Or (as is my case with FO3) even a $100 game.

On the surface the tiered model looks smart. You can move boxes to people at the entry level, and a lot of them will be satisfied. Some people want more, so why not give them more? Sure, it'll cost them, but it's optional... right?

The problem here is that the prices on the boxed games don't go down in relation to how much content is withheld from the game to be released later as DLC. Game companies won't hire more people to make DLC, they'll just divert resources away from other projects to create DLC. That time comes from somewhere - maybe not the game you're buying DLC for right now, but maybe the next gen super spiffy game that'll be released next year. Only when you get it, it'll be that much thinner since there were all these guys working on DLC for the old game instead...

So the guy who's buying games for $50 will basically get screwed. He'll get less for his $50 and well... what next? When the $50 boxed versions of games get thinner and thinner, how does he respond? Does he pony up for the DLC, buying into the $80 or $100 complete game? Does he stick to his price point and accept lesser games in return? Or does he give up, and pirate the whole $150 ultimate DLC edition instead?

In a way, this flies in the face of the major lesson learned from Steam: that if you reduce the price, you can generate more revenue in the long run. The trick with DLC of course is that the whole shift is happening slowly, in the shadows, and they can milk the system for years before people catch on.

Ultimately, I don't think the market will stand for it. Sure, this model will pay off big at first... but once people realize that their games are costing hundreds of dollars? I just don't think that's going to last.

Wow. An amazing article by Elysium (Which even made up for your latest Escapist piece, which made me cry) followed by an even better response by PA. Seriously top-notch stuff guys.

I think my bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with having well-reasoned, intelligent qualms with decisions Publishers make to monitize their games. If railing against this is bad, then how is railing against those railing against it any better?

And if consumers vote with their wallet and make their opinions known that they don't support DLC, and this somehow leads to the implosion of the industry as we know it - then screw it. Let it implode. I don't want an industry that relies on people tolerating content they don't want in order to get content they do want. I think that there is a way to have your cake and eat it to - even if it has to come from people like Runic instead of people like EA or Activision.

I personally bought the DLC without a second thought, mostly because I'm fortunate enough to have the means to, and that supercedes any kind of qualms. But if people have a problem with it, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to say so. Yes, its unfortunate that most of the complaints come from hypocritical boycotters, but that doesn't mean that they don't have an actual point that can actually be expressed more intelligently by someone like PA.

trip1eX wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Just to add a side point to the DLC discussion, I had a very interesting conversation over Twitter with @GamingSteve a while back. For those who don't know, he used to run a really good gaming podcast that he had to stop because family life was taking up too much time. He was going on about how DLC doesn't work, how Lost and Damned for GTA4 was a bomb and how people are still heavily fixated on boxed product.

I finally chimed in and asked him to explain what he was getting at. He pointed me to the Episodes From Liberty City retail package that came out with Gay Tony and which includes that and Lost and Damned in a standalone retail package that doesn't require GTA4. He said (and he knows the industry and a lot of key people in it well) that the DLC version of Lost and Damned was a financial flop because if it wasn't, both Microsoft and Take-Two would have been issuing press releases and screaming about how well it did.

On DLC's Failure
I can't help but think that the failure of DLC is a marketing failure, plain and simple. Take it from me, a PS3 owner who doesn't have a Wii or a 360, I know utter and complete marketing failure when I see it.

Steps in the right direction include the What's New section of the XMB just recently added to the PS3 and the information ticker in the corner. I also get frequent emails from SCEA about new products, store updates, and so on. Heck I even got mail supporting the new Netflix streaming disc. This is marketing. Maybe they need to get more aggressive about pushing users to attach their email account to their console account, give them a discount on your store or something, that will make anyone sign up for anything.

Direct digital distribution is supposed to be the big money maker for publishers though, isn't it? If something is ten bucks, don't they typically make almost as much off of that as they did on the game itself from retail?

My biggest issues with DLC is that it's too often stuff for modes I don't play, or doesn't have Trophy support. I will buy the Red Faction single-player DLC when I'm done with the main game, but probably not the multiplayer stuff because (1) I haven't tried the multiplayer yet and (2) I'm likely to get steamrolled nonstop by people who have been playing it a long time. Plus I'm rather guilty about buying RFG used instead of new, but the price was almost half! I want to buy the Saints Row 2 DLC but no Trophies in the game means I really don't want to explore what's new in the DLC. The game itself was fun, and I bought that one used as well, don't get me wrong, but no Trophies patched in makes me sad. Anyway, RFG is even better...

Controlling costs
This generation might be the start of a turning point, if you think about it. Sony has been really good to some self-publishers on the PS3's PSN, letting them set their own price point (according to interviews with developers of Shatter and I think Burn Zombie Burn) and they need to keep in mind their enormous red ink incurred by the PS3.

The digital channels are in place, the firmwares on the 360 and PS3 are advancing rapidly with revamped UIs, Microsoft is steadily injecting onboard storage into their 360's to build up the core system's ability to grow, and Nintendo is... Anyway, yeah the signs are pointing to both systems being ABLE TO have a long lifespan. Maybe, just maybe if the publishers beg long and hard enough they'll get them to delay the next generation by 1-2 years.

That will bring dev costs down, dev kit costs down, publishing costs down, and expand the market greatly. It will also allow titles to grow and really get everything out of these very connected systems, maybe even bring new online gaming modes that aren't just shooting your friend in the face all the time (thanks to GameCritics).

Not to mention it will let them iron out all of these yellow+red light of death problems and produce cooler and more energy efficient systems as time goes on. We don't really know yet what a firmware fix can and can't do on these systems, so I'd wager there's nothing we really wish these consoles did that they can't probably already do in the right developer's hands?

Remember the lessons of the PS2's long lifespan. At the end of its life we saw niche titles appear that were considered successful critically and even financially, probably because of how cheap it had become to develop for the system at that point and how such a broad audience of gamers it had reached. Everybody wins then, don't you think?