limitedaccess
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 10, 2010
- Messages
- 7,594
Day-1 DLC is a clear indicator that they stripped content to sell it in pieces, because it was ready when the game released but they're still charging for it.
This is not an accurate understanding of development to launch time lines and resource allocation. I'm not saying that what you present is never the case, but the hard reasoning you use misses a few things.
For instance games are finalized, in terms of shipping state, usually at least a month before the actual launch date. Further more the final period before that is spent on polishing/bug fixing the game, at which point you stop making content addition to the game. Modern game development is also much more specialized, as such not everyone on staff is utilized equally throughout the process. For instance those tasked with mainly "content creation" roles are less needed towards the end of a development cycle since you cannot continually add content until launch date, as at some point you have to focus on testing/polishing the game into a shipping state.
There is also the impact of budgets and schedules. You develop a game within a certain budget and schedule, which is usually determined relative to how much it is expected to bring in. But DLC offers additional revenue that can have its own budget. Likewise with preorder DLC, a retail giant such as Gamestop may offer money to commission specific DLC. You would not otherwise have this additional budget to work on the core game with.
Edit: Just to add, the quality expectation on DLC is also often lower. They usually, especially day 1 types, have lower QA and do not properly integrate into the game like actual content planned from start. Using DAO as an example, since I'm playing that at the moment, most of the day 1 DLC content for that simply does not actually fit the game both in terms of balance and lore fit.
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