How DLC Actually Helps Games

Converge said:

A Call of Duty DLC that includes 5 new maps and 2 new guns is BULLSHIT (dont play that shit anymore anyways)

A GTA DLC that includes an entire new campaign ALONG with MP maps and modes is legit.

There's one side.... and then there's the other. I don't think its cut and dry and it certainly comes down to the people behind the game.

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I agree with you....

Zarathustra[H];1041438779 said:

I mostly agree with you, except for point 1.

What does how it is distributed determine if it is OK or not?

Paying to license/unlock features on equipment/software you already own is commonplace across just about every industry. Nothing wrong with that.

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I think what he's referring to is when developers have completed content, lock it on disc, release the game, then release it a day to a week later as "pre-order DLC" or "day 1 DLC". Basically, paying for something extra that should've already been included with the "initial cost". Essentially, as a really simple example, it'd be like buying any Zelda game for 59.99 + tax and requiring the player to have either pre-order to unlock the bonus DLC or paying 14.99 for the release "DLC" to be able to fight the final Ganon boss.

Friend and I were just talking about this and when you used to unlock extra costumes or extras after doing an objective or finding a secret. Having to pay for it as a "dlc" is ridiculous. Someone said it used to be called an "expansion pack". When those were out and they offered extra content on top of the polished story or game mode that was cool.

When I bought WWE 2k15 at Best Buy I had the cashier rattle off a 5 minute prompt about buying the season pass and/or dlc. I cut her off and told her no, but asked her what was up with the prompter and what not. She said they force them to try and sell at the register now. Also, dlc for a wrestling game is retarded in itself. Having to pay for "dlc" of wrestlers that have been on the main roster for almost a year is an insult.

I have no problem with DLC...

Assuming:
It's not pay to win, day 1 addons or just other junk.

The first DLC i remember was Halo2 map packs, they expanded the playability of the game and was well worth the investment.

Zarathustra[H];1041438779 said:

I mostly agree with you, except for point 1.

What does how it is distributed determine if it is OK or not?

Paying to license/unlock features on equipment/software you already own is commonplace across just about every industry. Nothing wrong with that.

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Cause it's a game not Microsoft Windows. Even then I have issues with features that is withheld from Windows. It's a game that you bought, and you thought you bought the whole game not a part of it. It's a dick move if the content was there but it was decided to hold it back for profits.

Look at Elder Scrolls Online and how it was ruined by it's withheld content. If you didn't pay for the extra special Edition you couldn't play a race. Fucking really? Now the game is free to play and nobody gives a shit.

BTW this does make pirating more attractive cause you get all the DLC for free. The way the game was meant to be played if it came with Day1DLC.

Ashbringer said:

Cause it's a game not Microsoft Windows. Even then I have issues with features that is withheld from Windows. It's a game that you bought, and you thought you bought the whole game not a part of it. It's a dick move if the content was there but it was decided to hold it back for profits.

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Even if you completely outline what someone is getting when they buy something?


I would agree with you, that there should not be DLC in order to finish a story line (though with how sequels works, this becomes a hairy definition)

That being said, if a company says at launch:

Base game: $49.99
Addons/Expansions: Whatever price

This seems perfectly fair to me, as long as the expectations are well defined to the buyers at the time of purchase.

I just really think that adding maps into a mainly MP game like CoD or BF is something that you should get for free, for christ sake games are $60. That is STEEP. 5 games and you're close to the price of your system. $60 for a game with 7 maps and you have to pay $15 to get 3 new maps and a new gun? That is suchhhhh BS!. I've never bought a single CoD DLC. I'm not a huge fan anymore and I don't even own any version of CoD at the moment. Last year when I got my PS3 for the first time I was playing ghosts fairly often, enough to prestige two or three times. But never once did I feel like spending another $15 on the game for 3 or 4 maps. That is crap, and it should be added to the game for free.

To be honest, I enjoy the single player campaign in those games. I would definitely have considered paying $10-$15 on a DLC if it included another full length campaign and a couple MP maps as well. Depends how long it is, but a 7 hour campaign would have been fine. Its not just like a new game, as you're playing on the same engine with the same graphics and probably seeing pretty much similar environments. So it would be much easier for them to make a new set of missions. Just like the old MoH expansion packs.

I agree that this DLC stuff is getting out of hands. I dont think it should all go away as I do see promise to it. The greed just needs to be done away with. Like I said $60 for a game in the first place is pretty hefty.

I am curious about how many people actually buy the game on release, then purchase each DLC pack on release, at full price for each, especially in the Steam/Amazon/Whatever digital distribution model economy. I typically wait for the game to be released as a "complete" edition and purchase that on sale via digital distribution. It doesn't even take that long for most games to drop by 50% or more, with the DLC bundled in, via an online service.

Are there enough consumers like myself out there that it makes a significant difference one way or the other in the overall sales of games? Is there sufficient evidence that lower prices with bundled DLC increases sales volume? What is the break-even point for a developer/publisher to see enough sales at a lower price versus sales at a higher price and is this enough to encourage them to release their product differently?

Zarathustra[H];1041439063 said:

Even if you completely outline what someone is getting when they buy something?

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Especially if they outline what shit you're getting. Cause it doesn't change that you're getting less game for your game. Also understand that you don't have much control over this. It's a walled garden within the games. They prey on your addiction to games in hopes to get you to buy stuff.

This is what you do with DLC. Go back to expansions where you get nearly a whole game for a cheap price.

That being said, if a company says at launch:

Base game: $49.99
Addons/Expansions: Whatever price

This seems perfectly fair to me, as long as the expectations are well defined to the buyers at the time of purchase.

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PC gamers don't buy games at full price. That's for console kiddies who take their parents credit cards. PC master race always waits for sales, and if you wait long enough they even include the DLC with the game.

DLC is asinine cause you'll eventually hurt your own market. Keep doing DLC and watch as the industry falls apart because game developers plan ahead for DLC like Destiny has. I have no idea why that game hasn't fallen to the ground and combusted. This is why games are so bad today because they're intentionally incomplete for DLC.

Ashbringer said:

Especially if they outline what shit you're getting. Cause it doesn't change that you're getting less game for your game. Also understand that you don't have much control over this. It's a walled garden within the games. They prey on your addiction to games in hopes to get you to buy stuff.

This is what you do with DLC. Go back to expansions where you get nearly a whole game for a cheap price.

PC gamers don't buy games at full price. That's for console kiddies who take their parents credit cards. PC master race always waits for sales, and if you wait long enough they even include the DLC with the game.

DLC is asinine cause you'll eventually hurt your own market. Keep doing DLC and watch as the industry falls apart because game developers plan ahead for DLC like Destiny has. I have no idea why that game hasn't fallen to the ground and combusted. This is why games are so bad today because they're intentionally incomplete for DLC.

https://i.imgur.com/gNwURyR.png

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Oh I agree.

Since Steam was first launched in 2004(?) most of my purchases have been during various sales. Every now and then a title has been one I have anticipated for a while, and then I buy on launch (or even pre-order), but in the last 11 years I can count those titles on one hand.

- Counter-Strike: Source
- Half Life 2
- Civilization V
- Red Orchestra 2

It happens every now and then though.

Zarathustra[H];1041438061 said:

The argument made little sense to me.

With proper project planning there is no reason that the small core planning team can't have title 2 ready for the large team to start work on when title 1 goes gold...

The massive laoyoff cycle is just a matter of really poor management in the industry.

I have never in my life seen an industry which as a whole is managed so incredibly poorly.

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Those guys had better be making great money while they are employed, otherwise that constant cycle would really suck.

Zarathustra[H];1041438061 said:

The argument made little sense to me.

With proper project planning there is no reason that the small core planning team can't have title 2 ready for the large team to start work on when title 1 goes gold...

The massive laoyoff cycle is just a matter of really poor management in the industry.

I have never in my life seen an industry which as a whole is managed so incredibly poorly.

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If the professionals are this bad, it is no wonder the neophytes running crowd-funding campaigns fail so much. The guy that made the Falskaar mod for Skyrim deserves even more credit in light of this.

The word DLC always makes me think about Battlefield 1942 with its expansions and all of the great mods like desert strike and star wars. Then what we get with the new Battlefield games. DLC that gives no where near what the 1942 xpacs gave for the same price and pay to bypass the grind for unlocks(AKA pay to win) with out any player made mods and maps.

Plus DLC doesn't stop the layoffs except for maybe 5-10 people they keep around to create it. Lets not forget that a lot of dlc was already created by those that were laid off and they just need those 5-10 people to touch it up.

DLC could be good but many of the companies choose to use it as a way to milk money from the player base.

MrCaffeineX said:

If the professionals are this bad, it is no wonder the neophytes running crowd-funding campaigns fail so much. The guy that made the Falskaar mod for Skyrim deserves even more credit in light of this.

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An acquaintance of a friend is part of the leadership of a small games studio around here.

They just secured another multi-million dollar round of financing, and instantly gave all of the leadership raises increasing their burn rate to the point where not much changed from where they were before the funding.

The people running these small ~50 person games development companies don't seem to care much about running a sustainable business. They care more about paying themselves, feigning progress on some title that may or may not be phantom-ware on the hope that they will cash in when they trick some major studio into buying them out, and then lay off all the worker bees.

It is a sham of an industry, and if I were into investing, it would be the last place I would put my money.

What I really love is when games like Total War Attila come out and remove one of the best factions to play, and make that faction a day one DLC instead of including it in the game. Thats just one of my favs...

Right this minute I think Evolve is the biggest offender.

My friend has a good gaming pc, an Xbox One, and Wii U. He said he's hesitant to go all out pc gaming because there isn't resale with the games. I get where he's coming from because he's one of those that will buy a game when it's new. But the fact that even recent games are so much cheaper on pc and go on sale much faster is reason alone to fully make the switch. Even picking and choosing what dlc you want for pc is a nice option. I recently bought the 'season pass' for Saints Row IV for $1. Good luck getting that for a console.

Yeah, I see no problem with them hiding the real cost of a game by selling parts as DLC. Games have not gone up in price since 2005, and we have a whole lot more content in most AAA games today. IF you must have it now, all of it, then you must pay. The rest of us will; buy it in a discount pack next year

I only buy a game after I read reviews and know what I'm getting, so while I miss out on some ore-order "specials," I know I'm getting what I paid for.

Kalmado said:

Right this minute I think Evolve is the biggest offender.

My friend has a good gaming pc, an Xbox One, and Wii U. He said he's hesitant to go all out pc gaming because there isn't resale with the games. I get where he's coming from because he's one of those that will buy a game when it's new. But the fact that even recent games are so much cheaper on pc and go on sale much faster is reason alone to fully make the switch. Even picking and choosing what dlc you want for pc is a nice option. I recently bought the 'season pass' for Saints Row IV for $1. Good luck getting that for a console.

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Cause gaming is generally an expensive hobby and a lot of people do revolve around resale value of games. For PC gaming to be cheap it requires patience. The longer you wait the better the deals will get. Really depends on the game. Despite GTAV being over a year old its still going to cost $60 for a "new" game. Because it's GTAV they can hold onto that price for a much longer period of time.

defaultluser said:

Yeah, I see no problem with them hiding the real cost of a game by selling parts as DLC.

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Except who gets to determine what something is worth? Look at EVOLVED with its DLC. It's an insult to gaming what they offer people. Who thought that game was worth $60 and split the rest into DLC hell was a good idea? Nobody gave the game a good score.

Games have not gone up in price since 2005,

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So what? Is it time we start paying more for games? Before we get into talk about inflation keep in mind that this is what a Super Nintendo Cartridge looked like. It's equivalent to a USB memory stick with an ARM CPU to give the system a boost to playing the game. SuperFX chips were hella expensive. Today the discs you get games on are worth pennies and downloading the game is cheaper.

and we have a whole lot more content in most AAA games today.

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That's entirely debatable. World of Warcrafts latest expansion costs $10 more and will only have 1 content patch update. When it used to be cheaper with 3 content patches per expansion. That's more for less to me. Not that I'm playing WoW at the moment.

IF you must have it now, all of it, then you must pay. The rest of us will; buy it in a discount pack next year

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If I want it all now I still have the option to pirate it. If the game isn't worth a damn then why buy it when it's on sale? Two can be dicks about it.

nooo, i accidently clicked on a kotaku link...

All DLC is greedy corp stuff.

Simplest example in the world CD Project Witcher I think was the game. They wanted free DLC add-ons (my brother plays series religiously). And went with that to Atari and bosses across ocean said something along the lines of: "no f* way you morons! DLC is P2Play/Download or we terminate our agreement". And so lemmings pay for something that was meant to be free in the first place.

In short all charging for DLC is theft IMHO (excluding MMOs as this is different thing). Take (e.g.) Paradox Interactive. They show some sprites before game is out and then they sell those sprites separately as something new. It's moronic. And people are stupid enough to buy it.

DLC and mods can become a problem with each other as well, as pointed out by this guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hFBq77N5iM