Is DLC Ruining Your Favourite Games?

It seems every Tuesday I’m bombarded with new releases and it’s becoming more common practice that they are all being released with DLC or are followed up by it in a week or two. Of course this adds a significant cost to your original purchase. It seems like a growing trend in our industry to leave parts out of games in order to sell add-ons.

[Yi-Long]

... it means I don't buy these games when they're released, so I'll have to wait longer before I can enjoy them.

That said, because I wait, I'll pick them up a year later, including all that extra content, for a fraction of the original price, and I can enjoy those games then.

For online games like Battlefield 3, I do feel it kinda ruins it, cause it's splitting up the online community between the 'haves and have nots', so suddenly half your friendlist can't or won't play the same maps anymore.

[maelstromb]

Aside from what you said about playing the waiting game or just shelling out the money up front as the DLC releases, what I find most annoying is having to allow said games to take up hard drive space on my PC for months and months after I've completed them, just so I can play some extra content down the line that may or may not be worth it. And more often than not by the time some worthwhile DLC does see release, my attention has moved on to newer games and I have little to no desire to revisit those games regardless of the quality--with a few exceptions, of course.

I acknowledge and appreciate the fact that pubs/devs want to continue supporting their products well after release, creating content that is going to drum up new interest, draw in new players and appease existing ones, but there's got to be a better approach than the current system. One example of a developer that I believe HAS figured out and streamlined a system on how to deliver new and exciting content to existing players is CD Projekt RED.

[dragonopt1]

I think so, I miss the days when you bought a game and got the "whole" game. I'd rather you have to do stuff in-game to unlock extra content.

[dawgs4ever]

The problem is... there will not be, at least in the foreseeable future, a sufficient groundswell to actually punish game publishers from going this route. You're not going to get a large group of folks that will bond together and say, hey, we're not going to buy Call of Duty Black Ops 3 (or whatever the title may be) because it requires you to keep purchasing DLC to compete or to participate in multiplayer.

As with many things, it will probably eventually require a lawsuit by a consumer who finds they can't "finish" the game they were promised (or led to expect) for the price paid. It should be interesting to see where that goes.

[TuxedoMoon]

Games with DLC are released and sold with 90% or less content accessible to the consumer. DLC was a good idea on paper, but when you have companies SELLING THE REAL ENDING TO A GAME (Asura's Wrath, FF13-2), then it's just sheer bullcrap.

DLC is made alongside the the whole game, so the extra costumes and guns you "download" are technically already on the disc. If it wasn't in the game's code in any way...other players wouldn't be able to see it. It's like a TF2 mod. If you mod TF2 to have a female scout/character, only you will see that female character. Everyone else in the room you're with will see the character as male or whatever mod they may have.

I personally hate DLC because most DLC are Disk locked content and things that should be UNLOCKABLE through hard work. Obtaining a trophy or Achievement should reward you with a costume or something... DLC is simply one of this gaming generation's major problems.

[Dogswithguns]

Yes!!.. The more DLC for it the more I don't wanna play.

[Dovahkiin]

Makes you feel like you're missing out, and playing an unfinished game. Which doesn't feel too great after spending 30 pounds on a game.

[deletingthis34675334]

Not my favorite games: Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, 3D Dot Game Heroes, Skyrim, RDR etc. But it DID ruin the majority of games that I would have enjoyed more if it wasn't for the shady practices that usually goes hand in hand with DLC like Dragon Age Origins. Really hate BioWare's approach to DLC. If memory serves me right all the DLC combined did cost nearly the same amount as the vanilla game if not more, and you'd get WAY LESS gameplay content per dollar too. What a shameful cash grab.

[kagon01]

Yes it is specially in fighting games...

[kingPoS]

I don't mind it too much if an extra level or character becomes available one or two months after I've bought a game. The problem I have is when game dlc is promoted at least 30 days before it's release. When they go that route I start to feel like I'm being cheated.