"DLC" or "This topic would be better if it came on a disc."

How about 'Additional Gameplay Tax' :p

gbuchold wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Zero Day DLC is taboo to me. I don't like it. Smacks of a cold, cash grab.

This is a bit of a quandary to me. I understand the feeling that if it comes out Day 1, it feels like a cash grab... How many times have you looked at DLC for a game a month or two after the game came out, and the download is a suspicious ~186 KB? You can be sure that's exactly what happened here - content is on the disc already, and the DLC code just 'unlocks' it.

A few things to respond to such sentiments:

1. A publisher may 'sit' on the release of a game after it's mastered and ready to go for marketing reasons - perhaps delaying the launch in an attempt to take advantage of the Christmas rush. During this time the developers are of course not getting paid, as they're not working on the game any more. So while you may see the DLC as zero-day, chances are the developers only started work on it once the main game had been finished and was in the process of going for TRCs / being printed / all the other things that make a retail disc take so much time to distribute.

2. I can't say this for sure but I think TRCs are shorter for DLC than retail games. If this is indeed the case, that would add to the perception of DLC taking less time to create, because the console manufacturers would be able to return to the devs with a "yes" or a "no" much more quickly.

3. On the subject of small DLC filesizes: I think making judgements based on this alone is folly. Assets (maps, models, textures) are large, but code is tiny, and there is a lot you can do with some extra code. And if you're looking at larger download feeling pleased with yourself - how do you know it's not 186kb and has just been padded out to look bigger?

It depends, sometimes it will be worth it, sometimes not, the same way that some games are worth it and some are not (it's the same buying pretty much anything). It also strikes me that savvy informed gamers may well include the features and 'terms' of DLC into the decision to buy the base game, so unless you've got everything thought out you could see people not buy the base game at all.

As long as the base game is complete by itself and you don't need to make additional purchases before you even get started, I don't see a big problem. The scene becomes a bit foggy when developers say that DLC consists of content that was cut from the development of the base game as that implies the base was compromised for the extra DLC even if it was cut for legitimate reasons and then that content 'resurrected' as an extra.

I don't think having extra content ready at or near release of the base game should surprise anyone given the way games are developed now where features are locked months before release, leaving the base to be solidified and the content makers to either twiddle their thumbs, move onto the next new project, or make more content for the game and get the most out of it.

Besides personal assessments of 'is this bit of game worth my money', why are people against companies finding ways to make money from their efforts (and it's not as though expansion packs are new)? If they've got something that is valuable to you, but has cost them to produce it, why shouldn't they. I would actually prefer that companies find a way to make money from making what they want to and how they want to, and not forcing every company into a 'big disc full of content on a store shelf every 2 years' formula. There is room for everyone, and if a company can be successful by purely microtransactions and DLC, then go for it, if you don't like buying that, then there's plenty of options for you as well.

I love DLC, and I tend to buy a lot of it. It adds to games that I love, so that I can play them longer. I bought all the extra costumes in Street Fighter IV, not because they provided good "value," but I liked being able to give the characters a different look after many hours of playing the game.

I'm also thankful that publishers haven't raised the prices of games all that much. Despite the $10 jump this generation, games haven't risen in price like many other things have. When you consider all the great stuff you can get for $20 or less, gaming is a great value.

TheCounselor wrote:

I'm also thankful that publishers haven't raised the prices of games all that much. Despite the $10 jump this generation, games haven't risen in price like many other things have. When you consider all the great stuff you can get for $20 or less, gaming is a great value.

As long as you don't buy a game in the first few weeks after release, it seems like games are actually cheaper this generation. Maybe I wasn't paying attention last generation, but over here plenty of games are dropping below £30 pretty quickly now, and there are loads of great deals around. Combined with all the Steam/PSN/Live deals it's a great time to be a gamer.

Zelos wrote:

As long as you don't buy a game in the first few weeks after release, it seems like games are actually cheaper this generation. Maybe I wasn't paying attention last generation, but over here plenty of games are dropping below £30 pretty quickly now, and there are loads of great deals around. Combined with all the Steam/PSN/Live deals it's a great time to be a gamer.

It is cheaper to be a gamer now than it has ever been in the history of the medium. Even at $60 MSRP, games routinely go for less only days or weeks after launch. For example, Amazon and Newegg frequently sell new games at the $55 level. If you can bear to wait a month or two, there's a good chance it can be had for $40 if you're a savvy shopper. Wait until it goes into the "Greatest Hits" or "Platinum" collections, and you can get it for $20 or $30 off the shelf.

With the exception of blockbusters like Modern Warfare, LittleBigPlanet, etc... which stay at or near full price for a year or more, you can get the game and the DLC for the same price or less as a "new" game. This makes arguing against DLC on principle alone seem illogical to me.

NSMike wrote:

Zero Day DLC is taboo to me. I don't like it. Smacks of a cold, cash grab. Ergo the recent Dragon Age stuff. It was overpriced for very little content and a utility of somewhat dubious use.

DLC releases that come after the game is delivered? I don't really know. No amount of DLC released to date has really sparked my interest.

For what it's worth though, I look at most DLC in the same way I look at expansions. It's a way of capitalizing on an existing property. It's smaller, and cheaper. It's something businesses have been doing and will continue to do for a long time to come.

It's when we start to lose pieces of games, real content that was developed before release, making incomplete experiences, that I will truly hate DLC. For now, It's rather neutral.

This is pretty much where I stand on the issue as well. Dragon Age is a rather unique situation though; the game is by all accounts complete on its' own. Putting the stash addition in Warden's Keep smacks of a cash grab, but the rest of it could go either way. I personally was rather incensed by it, but I'm not about to get my shorts in a wad over it.

Overall, I like the idea of DLC. It allows for some good additions to a game after release, and as others have pointed out, the desire by those who want prettier, bigger more have driven costs up. Sadly, this means that getting more content actually requires money to do so. I'd have to say that my favorite example of a game supported by ongoing DLC is probably Rock Band followed a close second by Fallout 3. In both cases you had a very complete experience that has been absolutely buoyed up by large amounts of DLC.

In dev's defense computer games have been 50 dollars for...quite a while despite taking far more resources to make. Instead of some 100 mb game, they're now DVDs, or multiple DVDs with realistic graphics/sound, professional voice acting, complex physics engines.

I mean it's a pretty smart idea. If you like a game, most likely you're invested in it in some way. So you finish up Assassin's Creed 2 or whatever, and you wish there were more, and then you're offered a 10 dollar deal to find out what else happens. Chances are, someone's going to jump on board, especially younger gamers.

It's true most of our culture is based on instant gratification but it was most intense when I was a kid. Everyone got their Playstations, new games, cell phones on release date

I think another reason why gamers get mad is when the original game is severely buggy, but they're pumping out DLCs instead of fixing these issues.

For all the hatred I have toward the Steam service when it's down, I do love Valve for not only giving PC gamers that free DLC love, but giving people the tools to make their own maps. Some of the custom maps on L4d1 were incredibly close to campaign quality and they were all free.

Not sure if this was addressed. But historically the brunt of all expansion content is content intended to be in the game, but cut for time or budget. Most of what was in Brood War for example.

I am just curious as to what Shangri La some of you lived in where you bought completely finished games, and expansions or sequels were new.

KingGorilla wrote:

Not sure if this was addressed. But historically the brunt of all expansion content is content intended to be in the game, but cut for time or budget.

I think it's important to note though - and forgive me if I'm labouring the point a little too much - is that this is a good thing. Most games these days end up with chunks cut, even if you don't hear about it. If it weren't for DLC, it would never see the light of day.

"I'm not paying for content that was cut - it should have been in the game to begin with, otherwise I'm not getting what I paid for" is (by and large) a fallacious argument, since it was cut specifically because the developers couldn't afford to keep that content in and remain within budget. So it's either a case of leave it in and charge more for the game (not going to happen), or cut it from the main game and hope you can finish it off and present it as optional DLC.

Two addenda here:
1. Making games - indeed, making any software - is hard. It is nearly (if not actually) impossible to write a plan, get a budget, and write the game exactly to plan and budget. Things getting cut is part of the process; if the DLC never saw the light of day, you'd have assumed that the game in the box was the complete experience, and wouldn't be making such "but I'm entitled to all the content because I paid for it" arguments.

2. The argument above doesn't hold water for games where the DLC was "created" by actually removing finished, polished sections of the main game and packaging it separately. But I'd contend that happens far less often than you think. And games that do do this are usually crap to begin with anyway.

mooosicle wrote:

In dev's defense computer games have been 50 dollars for...quite a while despite taking far more resources to make. Instead of some 100 mb game, they're now DVDs, or multiple DVDs with realistic graphics/sound, professional voice acting, complex physics engines.

This is true but it is also worth mentioning that the market of consumers is thousands of times greater than it was even 10 years ago. The games do cost more to make (something which is largely a result of the e-peen technical arms race developers insist on locking themselves into) but there are a lot more people out there buying them than before. From the industry's current state, it's clear the ratio isn't 1:1 but charging $50 for a game has a lot greater revenue potential now than it did in the past.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

The games do cost more to make (something which is largely a result of the e-peen technical arms race developers insist on locking themselves into) but there are a lot more people out there buying them than before.

Good point, but I don't think that it's purely the developers driving the arms race. Some, like Crytek, seem to take pride in it, but most others seem to be trying to do more with less.

Personally, I'd be happy if graphics stalled at the Doom 3 level, but imagine someone trying to release a game like that now. The reviews and public reception would be unkind, to put it mildly.

I was perfectly ok with DLC at day one or whatever day it came out until Dragon Age. I don't care that the DLC was released on day 1, I care that there's a guy with an exclamation point above his head in my camp at ALL TIMES. Advertising your DLC right in the game while I'm playing it after paying full price is ridiculous. I can understand advertising it in a game that makes it's money through microtransactions (League of Legends). I can understand day 1 DLC to try and get more sales rather than rentals.

I don't mind it. It definitely works on me: I can't stand not having 'the complete package,' even when that makes little sense. (I've purchased all the Fallout 3 DLC...I've only played like half of it.) I had to get the digital deluxe version of Dragon Age, too, although a Steam sale meant the whole thing was only $48, so I'm not complaining.

Frankly, my gaming dollars go so ridiculously far these days with digital distribution that I don't mind kicking a bit more to the people making the games. Especially if it means that genres I enjoy continue to thrive.

The price of games is a based on what the market will bear. It doesn't matter how much the game costs to make, or what profit the publisher hopes to make. The publisher tries to figure out what the market will bear for any game, and tries to come up with a budget with that in mind.

We don't automatically get cheaper games because the market has expanded. The price will drop if the publisher believes that the additional sales driven by the price drop will result in greater revenue overall. Period. That's why there were so many ways to get Batman: AA cheap. My guess is that there won't be so many opportunities for the sequel.

Let's not forget that DLC does one more thing for publishers. It generates income from games that are bought used. That's automatically assumed for "DLC" that is included with the game via code. But the same goes for DLC is additional content. A used copy generates zero revenue for the publisher. But any DLC that is cought with that used copy helps them get something for their effort.

I'm extremely disappointed at the reasonable, thoughtful tone of the posts in this thread. Do you people realise that we haven't had a single post in all caps yet? That no-one has been called a 'noob', 'fanboy', or one of the marvelous array of personal observations easily available over the LIVE service? You're on the internets, guys, so let's get with the program!

Lard wrote:

I know I'm just going to get shouted down, so I'm not even going to bother.

QUIET YOU.*

*just kidding

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

The games do cost more to make (something which is largely a result of the e-peen technical arms race developers insist on locking themselves into) but there are a lot more people out there buying them than before.

Good point, but I don't think that it's purely the developers driving the arms race. Some, like Crytek, seem to take pride in it, but most others seem to be trying to do more with less.

Personally, I'd be happy if graphics stalled at the Doom 3 level, but imagine someone trying to release a game like that now. The reviews and public reception would be unkind, to put it mildly.

I agree that many developers are trying to focus elsewhere, more so than ever and I think that's awesome. I just find that the arguments about costs ring hollow from guys like Crytek when they release a game that was literally incapable of running at its highest settings at the time of release (something they flaunted as some kind of bragging point) and then complain that it didn't sell well enough. As I argued back in Elysium's thread a while back, I don't think the majority of consumers would have whipped Uncharted 2 if it didn't look much better than Uncharted 1. The industry are the ones who ultimately have control over such things and they are the ones driving costs up but then blaming consumers for them not making money. If your games are costing too much and you aren't regularly selling enough to make a profit, then stop raising costs. I know it's not just that easy but that is the fundamental issue.

Coldstream wrote:

I'm extremely disappointed at the reasonable, thoughtful tone of the posts in this thread. Do you people realise that we haven't had a single post in all caps yet? That no-one has been called a 'noob', 'fanboy', or one of the marvelous array of personal observations easily available over the LIVE service? You're on the internets, guys, so let's get with the program!

This post sux0rz.

(Did I get that right? I'm kind of new at this...whole...broken internet English thing.)

RSPaulette wrote:
Coldstream wrote:

I'm extremely disappointed at the reasonable, thoughtful tone of the posts in this thread. Do you people realise that we haven't had a single post in all caps yet? That no-one has been called a 'noob', 'fanboy', or one of the marvelous array of personal observations easily available over the LIVE service? You're on the internets, guys, so let's get with the program!

This post sux0rz.

(Did I get that right? I'm kind of new at this...whole...broken internet English thing.)

STFU, n00b. uR, so gHey!!!!!

Srsly, Rofl. looollllloooooo111110000011111000000!!!!!!!???!!!!!!!!!!1

Spoiler:

(god the pain, make it stop)

Coldstream wrote:

I'm extremely disappointed at the reasonable, thoughtful tone of the posts in this thread.

REASONABLE PEOPLE SUCK. OMG.

That is hard to type on a iPhone!

cube wrote:
Coldstream wrote:

I'm extremely disappointed at the reasonable, thoughtful tone of the posts in this thread.

REASONABLE PEOPLE SUCK. OMG.

That is hard to type on a iPhone!

Try double-tapping the shift key.

cube wrote:
Coldstream wrote:

I'm extremely disappointed at the reasonable, thoughtful tone of the posts in this thread.

REASONABLE PEOPLE SUCK. OMG.

That is hard to type on a iPhone!

LOL, Appelfag. Rofl!

I like sequels. They are full games, costing full price, that come out a while after the original. I don't buy all of them because many suck.

I like expansions. They are not full games, they usually don't cost full price, and they usually come out not too long after the original. I don't buy all of them because many suck.

By extension, I don't have a problem with DLC in principle. They are not full expansions, they don't cost as much as an expansion, and they usually come out fairly quickly. I don't buy all of them because many suck.

That said, by their nature most DLC is not available at retail, on physical media, so they need to have a good system for making microtransactions before I'll even consider them. While I had a great time with Fallout 3, charging for DLC to undo the stupid ending, and originally having to use GFWLive to even get the DLC (later released on disc) really soured me on those mini-expansions.

I'm trying to rack my brain for DLC I've in fact paid for. As a PC user whose most advanced console is a PS2, there's not as much of a DLC market for me. Not until Valve starts charging for hats.

Now that that's out of our systems:

Someone asked about a barebones type release a bit back and it got me thinking...

Releasing something like Maple Story through XBLA, then creating a microtransaction center to gain more value, probably wouldn't meet with much scorn. In a way, I'm surprised no one's tried this with some kind of D&D campaign system. As long as it's priced reasonably, at least.

I think push-back would be felt from an established name. I heard a lot of bellyaching from the GT5 Prologue, but that was more of a techdemo situation. I think the fact that people had been able to buy a "full" GT game before, and in this case had just a barebones system, caused a bit of confusion as to the purpose of the Prologue release.

Coldstream wrote:

You're on the internets, guys, so let's get with the pogrom!

See what sort of fun Lard is missing out on?

(By the way, Lard, I completely respect your decision to stay out of this thread.)

Jayhawker wrote:

The price of games is a based on what the market will bear. It doesn't matter how much the game costs to make, or what profit the publisher hopes to make. The publisher tries to figure out what the market will bear for any game, and tries to come up with a budget with that in mind.

Hmmm, I find game price sorta static at 50 for PC, 60 for consoles

Sure, hot games stay there longer, while forgettable games tend to stagnate quicker to the 25-40 dollar mark. Smaller devs, and ones for casual market may be less

The only $60 PC games is I recall is Diablo 2 - 60 at gamespot, and the one PC gamers love to hate - Modern Warfare 2

Speaking of Blizzard, I read there's a lot of flak they get about the 3 part Starcraft 2 series. I don't really see anything wrong with it. Based on their past record, each one of their parts will most likely easily surpass 95% of any RTS out there. The first game is still one of the most played RTS, if not the most.

Spaz wrote:

Releasing something like Maple Story through XBLA, then creating a microtransaction center to gain more value, probably wouldn't meet with much scorn. In a way, I'm surprised no one's tried this with some kind of D&D campaign system. As long as it's priced reasonably, at least.

Are you not aware of D&D Online, or am I misunderstanding your post (i.e. consoles only)? DDO has a free-to-play main campaign, with DLC character classes, dungeons/campaigns, and equipment. I'm right there with Quintin, as a PC gamer with PS2 carrying the console flag in the house, so I'm somewhat disconnected from the modern console experience.

BlackSabre wrote:

In a world where people buy $5 lightsabres for their avatar, I honestly think the publishers will keep upping the price and lowering the content quality because you will always get the tools who will buy it and accept that.

This in frickin' spades. Compared to a virtual dog for your avatar, functional DLC that is playable is a stellar value proposition.

And thus we are where we are. The market has been tested, and it has been proven that it can support DLC. Regardless of whether we like it, enough people out there will eat it up.

My personal code of conduct is to not buy DLC until I'm ready to play it that instant. I still have some Mass Effect DLC that I've not played, so that was a waste of $5. On the other hand, I waited until I not only finished the main story, but until I had a hankering to return to Liberty City before I bought TLaD, and that worked out great.

I'm generally a sceptical, stingy sod, so DLC has to earn my space-bucks. I'm happy for it to exist as long as those selling it are happy for me not to buy it.

The DLC battle is like arguing over politics. No one is going to change the other person's mind. Lets just agree to disagree. On a serious note: Have we started a catch-all for

Final Fantasy Versus 56 Hyperfighting Sigma Chipotle, Mario & Sonic Teach You To Survive Terrorism and World of Modern Warfarecraft

Yet?
Dammit MS, as I said before, you are a mad genius/savant of sorts.