For those who haven't read Cliffy B's firestarter of a blog post, you can find it here: http://dudehugespeaks.tumbl...
To sum, Cliffy B defends micro-transactions, he defends DLC, and he says that if you aren't interested in extra content, then you should simply not buy it and then shut up.
And gamers everywhere are pissed.
There are a few things he says that I truly disagree with. Chiefly, I don't agree with his assessment that game companies NEED to charge more because the cost of living in large cities is more. They don't HAVE to live in those cities. Games can be (and have often been) developed in a garage or a basement. You don't need to work in a San Fran high-rise for your game to turn out well.
However, I think we're all over-reacting just a little bit, and we're all being just a wee bit bratty.
To start off, he is correct when he says that videogames (and even videogame consoles, to a degree) are cheaper now than they've ever been. I remember paying $60 for Phantasy Star III on my Genesis...and that was 20 years ago. I couldn't afford Street Fighter II when it came out. My next-door neighbor got it for his birthday. It was a $75 cartridge.
There are problems with the industry, no doubt. It DOES feel cheap when you buy a brand-new game and the instant you pop it in, something is prompting you to spend $15 more on some extra maps or some extra weapons. That irks me, too. Personally, I'm a big fan of fighting games, and the modern fighting genre (Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, BlazBlue, etc) is by far one of the WORST when it comes to DLC and "Super" editions. It definitely ticks me off when I buy a new fighting game and three of the fighters are locked away behind a $3.99-each price tag.
But you know what? I wasn't lied to. It typically says on the back of the case how many fighters there are. If I really wanted to know, I could have looked it up online. Companies have always been faithful to let gamers know before launch if such-and-such character is going to be DLC. Sure, I do feel a bit taken advantage of, but whose fault is that?
It's mine.
Why is it my fault?
I'll tell you why, but you might hate the answer. It's my fault because I didn't have self control. Let's not be silly: videogames are 100% toys. They aren't essential for life. You don't HAVE to buy a videogame, let alone all the DLC for it. It's not like the price of gasoline going up, or the price of fresh produce, or something like that. Videogames are toys. They're fun, but they're not essential for life. We don't HAVE to buy them. We CHOOSE to buy them. And if we CHOOSE to spend money on a videogame that doesn't meet our expectations, well, we goofed up, didn't we? If it pisses us off and we scream "I'll never buy a game from you guys again" and then we turn around and buy the next game, well, we're hypocrites and cry-babies, aren't we? I haven't bought a CAPCOM game since Ultimate MvC3. I have no sympathy for people who buy CAPCOM games and then turn around and complain about the DLC. Are you kidding me? Where have you been for the last 5-or-so years. CAPCOM has been doing this for a while. It's your own fault that you couldn't say "no" to the game if it really bothers you so much.
I'm a huge fan of the Disgaea series. I've played Disgaea 1, then 2 on PS2, then Disgaea 1 and 2 again on PSP, then Disgaea 3 on PS3, then Disgaea 4, and now I'm playing through Disgaea 3 on Vita. All I'm trying to emphasize is that I - obviously - am a fan of the series. However, Disgaea is HORRIBLE when it comes to DLC. In order to buy all of the extras in Disgaea 3 for PS3, I would have to pay $49.99 for the Complete DLC Pack. And that's actually CHEAPER than it used to be when each individual item was sold for a few bucks each. So, you know what I did? I rented Disgaea 3 on PS3 to see if I liked it, and then I waited. I waited for years until it came out on PS Vita. Why? Because it came with all the PS3 DLC and a few extras. I rented Disgaea 4 before starting D3:Vita, and while I do like D4, I'm a bit sore about the $100+ worth of DLC that wasn't included with the price of the game. But you know what? I'll just wait until the eventual remake. Problem solved by the virtue of self-control. I didn't write any angry letters to Nippon Ichi. I didn't throw away the game in disgust. I simply am going to wait until later.
And this is what Cliffy B's blog is about. We don't HAVE to own all the content. If we could simply say "no", or perhaps just "I'll go ahead and wait", the problem would be solved one way or another. DLC-whoring would likely diminish, and we wouldn't feel so angry about DLC, anyway. We only get angry because we have this sense of entitlement that every single scrap of code made for the game should be included with the base price. How about the alternative: no extra content and bare-bones games. Besides, DLC is nothing new at all. It's just a faster, more accessible version of expansion packs from back in the day, and instead of paying $40+ for an expansion pack like we had to do for games like Starcraft or Wing Commander, you pay $2.99 for that one EXACT item you want without being forced to pay for anything else.
And as Cliffy B said, if you don't like it, don't buy it. If you don't want all the DLC characters for Marvel vs CAPCOM 3, well, don't buy them. It isn't as if CAPCOM promised you 40 characters in the base game but then only gave you 20, forcing you to pay for the rest. No! The extra characters are just that, extra. You're mad at CAPCOM for charging for...let's say...different "color packs" for your characters? Um, then don't buy it! How many colors does a fellow need, anyway? If it makes you angry that the content exists, well, then don't buy the game! Or, if you're clever, just have some self control and wait until CAPCOM (or whoever, depending on the game) releases an Ultimate Edition like they always do.
Cliffy B makes another very good point, a point that a lot of gamers are flaming him for. He says it's a double-standard that we should rag on EA but praise Valve. He's right. Valve is just as bad at DLC-whoring. Heck, one could argue that Valve is WORSE. They don't just DLC-whore. They mod-whore, by taking fan-made mods and turning them into full games, charging you for the "upgrade" in the process. Valve's library is full of such games.
I'm not advocating for a DLC-filled world. But there's another point he brings up that people forget: DLC keeps the game in a lot of people's library. It's true! Bethesda is incredibly good at this particular aspect of DLC. No way, José, are you going to trade in a Bethesda game when you know two, or three, or more 30-hour-sized DLC packs will be coming out within the next 18-24 months. No way are you going to trade in Halo, or Call of Duty, or Mass Effect when you know that new maps, new weapons, new character skins, and even new chapters are coming out in the near future. A DLC pack that I'm really excited about is the extra content for Dark Souls, Artorias of the Abyss. Granted, I haven't dropped the money yet to buy it, but I'm glad FROM Software took the time to expand a game that the fans obviously enjoy. And if the money from the DLC helps them make yet another Souls game? Heck yeah. If there's a market for DLC, why shouldn't companies make more content for the game?
Now, let me backpedal a little bit. It's easy to shout and complain when we're fans. That's because we're fans! We love videogames and we like it when we get to play really good ones. We don't like being tricked, and we don't like getting scammed. I'll admit that those feelings are going around, especially during this last console generation (The DLC Generation, it will one day be called). People don't like getting taken for a ride. However, we need to realize that if we showed a bit of self control, if we didn't insist on owning 100% of every scrap of content for a game, then perhaps we wouldn't get so upset when the DLC inevitably comes out. The videogame industry is an entertainment business. And DLC entertains a lot of people. If DLC was unprofitable, then companies wouldn't make it, so clearly it works. I would be happy if companies...hmmm, shall we say "adjusted" some of their practices with DLC (like, if you're going to obviously slice something out of a game, please at least TRY to trick us by releasing it in a few months instead of Day One), but as a whole, DLC is really nothing new, and we really shouldn't be so up-in-arms against it.
Find out everything about how to unlock Weapon Aspects in Hades 2, what they are, and how to upgrade them.
A new Fortnite leak shows another massive change coming to the game, and it might arrive with the next season.
Think you have what it takes to become the model employee? It's time to prove it as CorpoNation: The Sorting Process comes to Xbox and Switch.
The issue is if such practices are allowed to become standard, more so than they currently are anyway, there will be no choice in the matter. You'll either have to pay full for half a game, or as someone who puts time into a title and earns skills be regularly be outclassed by someone else who only spent more on the same game.
This is exactly what's going on with P2P and MMOs, but EA is planning on doing this with EVERYTHING they make. Which will effect everything they make. End SP gaming with them for one thing.
The pendulum won't swing that far, because all it takes is one company to advertise their games as "all content included" and boom, market adjusts itself. I'll take optional DLC instead of mandatory $80 retail price for all games. Believe me, because gamers keep demanding more content and better graphics, DLC is the only thing keeping the retail cost of games down.
"Heck, one could argue that Valve is WORSE. They don't just DLC-whore. They mod-whore, by taking fan-made mods and turning them into full games, charging you for the "upgrade" in the process."
I don't see how anyone could argue that what Valve does is worse.
Most of Valve's multiplayer games might be from mods, but they've done a lot of development on those games. They have kept supporting their games through free updates years after their launch, while also letting the community make their own mods.
... that isn't in any way comparable to day-1 DLC, microtransactions in paid games, and DLC abusing (like Sims)
Good blog, although there are a few things I'd disagree with you on. But before I mention those first I will say well done for pointing out the fact that gamers are in general bad consumers, and that as a group we bring what we have gotten on ourselves. If we didn't constantly ask for more of the same and weren't nostalgic all the time, we wouldn't keep getting rehashes or HD collections or DLC that doesn't add anything. Also as you say Cliffy B is also right in saying that people ought not to hate on EA so much all the while unendingly sucking up to Valve.
Onto the things I disagree with, first I think labelling games as "100% toys" isn't right. They're not a necessity, there's no doubt about that. But the way you talk about them in this light is as if to say that everything that isn't a necessity in life is a toy. Music and/or music instruments aren't toys. Movies aren't toys. Practising a certain sport isn't always just relaxing or just playing - exercise is beneficial to the body and mind, as is socialising with other people. Movies and games can transport us to other worlds and engage us with other people and stories. They can help put our minds at ease for a time where we can become very stressed. They can encourage our imagination and can encourage creativity. Music can do all of these things too. (I see your point about them not being necessary in order to live life day to day of course, just I think labelling them as merely toys is rash.)
"It isn't as if CAPCOM promised you 40 characters in the base game but then only gave you 20, forcing you to pay for the rest. No! The extra characters are just that, extra."
The thing with this is that it's often the case where these other 20 characters aren't "extra", they're taken from the game. They were developed and made for the game at the same time as the 20 that were included in the game were, but were taken out in order to make a profit. If this is the case then we're not getting extra, we're getting less. Again I see your point and you make a good one, that if a company tells you they're giving you 20 then you should either accept it and buy it or not accept it and not buy it, but I don't think it's wrong for people to be angry and have an issue with this practice.
"Bethesda is incredibly good at this particular aspect of DLC. No way, José, are you going to trade in a Bethesda game when you know two, or three, or more 30-hour-sized DLC packs will be coming out within the next 18-24 months."
I'm being nitpicky here but I don't recall Bethesda ever making a 30-hour DLC pack, certainly not two or three of them. I mean a 30-hour DLC pack is effectively enough for a full game isn't it?
But good blog nonetheless, you raise some good points about the DLC practice. I think in general people need to be more aware of what they're buying into, and they need to have more backbone and say "no, I don't like this so I won't buy your game or your DLC", but instead the majority of gamers just tend to end up getting both all the while still complaining. We certainly are hypocrites.
I don't buy stuff that I don't like but giving my opinion is free. ;)