Who else thinks DLC is just an evil money grab lacking content?

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Oct 9, 2010
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I'm really getting sick of all the BS DLC releases on Xbox.
Back in the day it was an expansion pack with patching updates.
No every little fracking add on is a DLC. :mad:


BOOOOOOO!
Goes back to playing Starcraft 2 :cool:
 
Yeah I'm more angry about how a lot of DLC actually comes on the retail disc and you have to pay 800-1600 MS Points to download what is essentially an "unlock" code.

Purposely omitting content to then flog it as DLC upon release is also extremely bad form. Mafia II had almost all of its non-story content stripped so 2K could have it as platform-exclusive or Day 1 DLC. I understand that some of "Day 1" DLC is produced between the game being sent off for production/shipping and the actual release date, but I'd wager that the majority is deliberately left out.

I really think there should be some kind of industry watchdog to monitor this blatant price-gouging. The industry is too big to ignore or to allow self-regulation. You don't see CDs being sold with half of the songs available and then an "offer" to download the rest for more money.
 
I really think there should be some kind of industry watchdog to monitor this blatant price-gouging. The industry is too big to ignore or to allow self-regulation. You don't see CDs being sold with half of the songs available and then an "offer" to download the rest for more money.



What would this industry watchdog do? Tell you that some company is charging extra for DLC? You already have 100+ different people/websites telling you that.
 
Because SC2 didn't leave out any content with the intention of making you buy it down the road...
 
I agree.

*But* isn't DLC done by the initial studio as opposed to expansion packs (which cost money aswell) done by a 3rd party? - And usually never met the standards of the original game.

Mappacks should be free and they should refrain from releasing 0dayDLC, at least wait a month.

Hey they might be doing us a favour with bandwidth costs by having the DLC on the disk!?
 
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Because SC2 didn't leave out any content with the intention of making you buy it down the road...

Exactly, whether you wait 10 times longer and spend 10 times as much.. an expansion is just the same as smaller iterations diced up into DLC and 1/10th the price. Plus its more a la carte, giving the consumer the ability to download which additional content they want w/o having to pay $40-60 for a full expansion of features they might not care about.

DLC is the modern expansion, just in a la cart form. Most of the DLC I encounter is worthwhile, but there will always be shit DLC, just as there have always been shit expansions. Don't like it, don't support it by not buying it.

Also, have fun waiting until 2012 for the next SC2 expansion.
 
My favorite is when they release DLC within a short window after the game releases. The only acceptable DLC IMO is Guitar Hero or Rock Band. I've never gone for any myself, but I can't see myself ever buying DLC anyways.

Though guitar hero and rockband are kind of hokey anyways because there are open source versions of the game for PC. Any songs that you'd buy on DLC you probably own the mp3/cd anyways, meaning you can just play the open source version.

Anywho, i'll only go as far as buying a DLC bundle after several have released which in my mind is an expansion pack. ie: borderlands GOTY (comes with all 4 dlc)
 
Exactly, whether you wait 10 times longer and spend 10 times as much.. an expansion is just the same as smaller iterations diced up into DLC and 1/10th the price. Plus its more a la carte, giving the consumer the ability to download which additional content they want w/o having to pay $40-60 for a full expansion of features they might not care about.

DLC is the modern expansion, just in a la cart form. Most of the DLC I encounter is worthwhile, but there will always be shit DLC, just as there have always been shit expansions. Don't like it, don't support it by not buying it.

Also, have fun waiting until 2012 for the next SC2 expansion.

This is what DLC should have been. Unfortunately, it's the exception rather than the rule, with it most often used as a way to flog content that five years ago would have come with the game.

What ever happened to unlocking extra stuff by completing the game at the hardest difficulty levels? Now to get stuff you have to pay for it, and the only thing you get for your efforts is a pseudo-reward in the form of trophies and achievements. Some of the Japanese games still give you new toys for beating the game on the hardest setting but the same can't really be said for the west.

I particularly liked Namco's approach to DLC with Soul Calibur 4 - there was a huge amount of DLC...but the vast majority of it you could unlock by playing the game. It was similar to how a lot of MMOs operate now - if you don't want to grind away to get the good stuff or your skill level isn't quite up to it, you had the option of buying it for peanuts.
 
DLC - If it is really true added content and is a bonus to a game, I don't mind. I bought all the addons for Fallout 3.

We used to have these a long time ago. Remember Ultima 7 and Forge of Virtue? How about Wing Commander and the speech add on? We have had this in some form in the past.

However, recently, the DLC makes me sick. Empire: Total War and it's "unlock units on the disk" crap.
Dragon Age and "sell you a Day 0 expansion on the disk".

This is FAIL.
 
Because SC2 didn't leave out any content with the intention of making you buy it down the road...

WTF do you work for them?

They announced this money grab f you shit last year. Each race is an expansion.
typical for that f u activision.
 
It really depends

Certain dlc like Fallout 3 dlc are actually well worth the money

Some custom character or recycle map is a waste of money of course.

But what I hate the most is when they disallow moddings to prevent users from getting free skins and maps and other addons, just to sell their own dlc content.
 
Paid DLC should be for Developer teams who work on little side project extras for a game after it comes out to make their money back for distributing it to you.

What makes me mad is that I've yet to see any DLC (yes except borderlands which are actually expansions.) that take any more labor than HL/Source mods who are literally responsible for games like, counter-strike, team fortress and L4D, and the mod community doesn't ask for shit.

If they opened up IW 4 for open development and server side access the franchise would be overrun in minutes by people who will make the games better and MAKE BETTER GAMES for free.
 
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Yeah, I would say that Fallout 3 DLC's are worthwhile. They seemed to learn their lessons after they tried the horse armor DLC. As far as Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I haven't purchased a single Bioware DLC except Warden's Keep which came with my game (and the package cost me no more than the standard edition at the time). All of their DLCs look great, they just don't appear to have much content per price. I'm waiting for a fair price.

This day 0 stuff is nonsense. I'm almost of the opinion that if it ships on the DVD, then it's fair game to extract.
 
Expansion packs had shit loads of content, sometimes enough to make what would be considered an entire game nowadays. DLC is like $10 for a day's work.
 
eh, it all depends on the game, what the DLC costs and what you're getting out of it. With a few exceptions (map packs for COD and FO3 expansions) I don't really buy DLC. The stuff that ships on the install disc and just needs to be unlocked pisses me off, but I'm also a realist... they need to make back millions in development costs (and continued dev and support costs after release) so I don't fault them for trying, I'll just look to another publisher and/or developer for my next game :)
 
They'll do it as long as people keep shelling out for it. It seems like DLC offers some killer profit margins, so they'll take what they can get. I, too, feel like a lot of it is drastically overpriced, but it's hard to argue with economics.

A few things I don't like about DLC:
1) DLC, unlike the base game, is sold as a service. A few years down the line, it'll be gone for good, see Xbox Live content for the original Xbox as an example.
2) Because it typically ends up being bundled with a refreshed SKU a year later (e.g GotY editions), their already-inflated prices feel that much worse to pay.
3) DLC has fundamentally changed the game development pipeline. It's part of the plan from the design boards, giving the feeling that DLC does not necessarily expand or breathe new air into a franchise so much as it completes what should have been there in the gold pressing.

... This coming from someone who has still bought their fair share.
 
I think when DLC is done right (Fallout 3 , Mass Effect 2) its fantastic. When its done wrong (BFBC2 , Bioshock 2) its just a money pit.

The worst DLC is the lazy DLC they sell when a game just comes out for those that don't wanna spend anytime unlocking anything. People who buy that garbage are just feeding into whats wrong with DLC as a whole.
 
Case by case basis.

I'm very concerned by this trend I've been seeing where a game can get rushed out to meet a deadline, you pay $50 or more for it, and then a bunch of DLC comes out later that you get to pay extra for that really should have been in the game in the first place and/or it's simply content already on the disc you paid for that you get to "unlock" also for more money. I'd argue that latter example is borderline dishonest outright.
 
I think when DLC is done right (Fallout 3 , Mass Effect 2) its fantastic. When its done wrong (BFBC2 , Bioshock 2) its just a money pit.

The worst DLC is the lazy DLC they sell when a game just comes out for those that don't wanna spend anytime unlocking anything. People who buy that garbage are just feeding into whats wrong with DLC as a whole.

What DLC was paid in BFBC2?
 
Um if charging for DLC didn't make them money they wouldn't do it. As long as people keep buying it, they'll keep selling it.

Especially franchises like Starcraft that were so balls-out cool when they released. Blizzard isn't stupid, they're going to spread out their content, break it up, sell it in smaller bits. And the only reason this works is the market will support it.
 
Never bought any DLC and never will.

I'd rather buy a virtual hat in TF2!
 
This is what DLC should have been. Unfortunately, it's the exception rather than the rule, with it most often used as a way to flog content that five years ago would have come with the game.

What ever happened to unlocking extra stuff by completing the game at the hardest difficulty levels? Now to get stuff you have to pay for it, and the only thing you get for your efforts is a pseudo-reward in the form of trophies and achievements. Some of the Japanese games still give you new toys for beating the game on the hardest setting but the same can't really be said for the west.

I particularly liked Namco's approach to DLC with Soul Calibur 4 - there was a huge amount of DLC...but the vast majority of it you could unlock by playing the game. It was similar to how a lot of MMOs operate now - if you don't want to grind away to get the good stuff or your skill level isn't quite up to it, you had the option of buying it for peanuts.

You know, you bring up some good points that I will not disagree with. I know there are games out there that make unlockables DLC, instead of ingame. I tend to avoid these games or DLC so I suppose I'm not as exposed.

It is wrong in this regard.
 
Back in the day, you got no expansions for consoles, only pc games. I would rather take DLC than not have a choice if I really like a game (which is pretty rare).
 
I think we'll see that people buy less and less "garbage DLC" (hats, guns, extra clothes, horse armor) and that will start to subside. The best DLC is the stuff that adds extra content. New zones, new characters, etc.

Developers will try to "save" content for DLC by not including it in the game, but if everyone votes with their wallet, this tactic should fail. Only buy games that you know are worth the money for what's on the disc (or maybe what's in the initial download is more accurate these days), and then only buy the DLC that offers a good content/$ value. The rest will take care of itself.
 
My 2 cents: Couple of new and rehashed maps for MW2, one of the most popular games today = 15 freakin' bucks. Preposterous developement sadly. Even The Sims expansions offer more value
 
It certainly doesn't have to be, but that's usually what it is. A good chunk of it is just a fee to unlock something already on the disk, or maybe to add an hour of gameplay for $5. That's garbage.
We need more items like Dragon Age: Awakenings and less horse armor and $20 worth of Street Fighter 4 outfits.
 
I have a solution fellas

it's called

VOTING WITH YOUR FUCKING WALLET

simply don't buy games that leave out content in order to peddle you DLC

simple
 
I have a solution fellas

it's called

VOTING WITH YOUR FUCKING WALLET

simply don't buy games that leave out content in order to peddle you DLC

simple

Or vote by just waiting a year for the ultimate or GOTY edition. I'll probably be doing a lot more of that.
 
I have a solution fellas

it's called

VOTING WITH YOUR FUCKING WALLET

simply don't buy games that leave out content in order to peddle you DLC

simple

While that sounds great on paper, millions of people have to agree to do something like that. That's like suggesting nobody buy another Nickelback record because everything sounds the same. Well, unless all 5 million people agree, it doesn't matter.
To get a backlash in this industry, someone has to do something pretty horrible...or suggest that piracy is a problem.
 
While that sounds great on paper, millions of people have to agree to do something like that.

They already do... it's not easy to find sales figures for DLC, but I'd be really shocked to see that every DLC pack sold through PSN/Live/PC was a complete success.

With that said, there is some killer DLC avalible for a lot of games (Fallout and Borderlands are great examples)... not all of it is junk.
 
Valve is genious in this arena. I can almost guarantee that TF2 will make more money off the Mann Co. store now than game sales.
Item store games are seeing huge profits especially in the asian markets.

Especially ones that don't actually effect game play anymore than a non-paying customer can.
 
People complaining about SC2 shouldn't bother buying it. You get the full multiplayer experience with the purchase of the game anyhow. The campaign was just as long as SC1's three races in just one game.
 
I have a solution fellas

it's called

VOTING WITH YOUR FUCKING WALLET

simply don't buy games that leave out content in order to peddle you DLC

simple

Dont buy games that peddle DLC, dont buy games that dont have dedicated servers, dont buy games that dont offer proper widescreen or multiscreen support, dont buy games with restrictive DRM, dont buy games that require you to be online to play single player... The list of games to buy is getting really small these days :p
 
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^ yes it would but when people actually do vote with their wallen en masse, company's tend to listen.

problem is you got a bunch of fools who are easily parted from their money and the companys know it....lol at $5 teeshirts for your in game character lol
 
not all DLC is lame. there are some companies that use DLC well and others exploit it.


i very rarely go for the DLC. for me most of the time when i finish a game it feels complete and i am done. game gets uninstalled and i move on to the next one. i still have like 10 games unplayed and 15 or so unfinished from christmas steam sale.
 
I don't mind DLC if it actually adds to the game. I never minded purchasing expansion packs in the past as they were usually 75% as long as the actual game was. They typically added new weapons and features as well. That's worth the $29.99 price tag. Asking for $10 or $15 for four maps? Blow me.

I have all the DLC for CoDMW2 only because Steam had a badass sale on it. They were 50% off and I like the trailer park map. :D
 
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