God of War creator and Twisted Metal developer David Jaffe never hesitates to speak his mind, and in a recent interview with GamesIndustry International, the outspoken designer weighed in on the economics of the games business and how high price points are driving away consumers from the traditional space.
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$60 for a game + day 1 DLC is theft.
and majin and most people including myself do not feel entitled. we dont think we deserve the content just becuase we are gamers. we think we deserve the content becuase there is a 99% that the $60 we paid for that game also paid for the production of that content. considering the content is on the disc and completed at the same time as the rest of the content it is a safe assumption that the initial budget/production cost included the locked content.
therefore, we already paid for that content, charging us for it again is charging us twice, that is why most people have a problem with it.
im all for dlc produced after the fact, but not for content produced simultaneously, thats a scam.
Makes sense?! No?!
Neither does locked content on disk!
Thats all, this article doesnt need anything more than this.
Jaffe bbl + to you
Gamers are basically paying $100+ for titles that have DLC elements. As I said in another article's comment section, I want a good reason to purchase DLC for a title I like - I do not want to be exploited for things that are already on a disc that should be an unlockable, but the publishers thought it would be better charge consumers.
Online passes, day 1 DLC, $60 price tag - can't you see how terrible gaming has become, nowadays?
Gaming's future seems bleak at the moment, and only time will tell how it all plays out.
Every other generation when a consol reaches 5 years into its lifespan games have always went cheaper like 35 bucks a new game. Stop defending these companies who would charge for Air if they found out a clever way of doing it.
Laugh out loud!
Maybe I'm too old school, (I'm 22) but I like to not pay for those things separately.
Dont buy the DLC right away and price will drop sooner or later its not like you will be playing the DLC in day/week/month 1 anyways.
Buying games day 1 is a big mistake.
You can't compare the 90s gaming industry with that of now. It's like the automobile. When they were first made, you bought one of a few models and that's it. Nowadays you are sold a ton of features for a single model, let alone how many more models do you have now?
The industry is growing, there is more competition, there are more costs, there is more advanced technology, there are more options, more consumers.
The thing is that people fail to realize what being a business means. They see DLC as a way of withholding game content from the customer rather than as a way of selling smaller and additional elements, typically not even integral to the game, as a way of selling a bit extra to those customers who want it.
So, the question is determining not whether DLC is bad as a general statement, but whether the DLC for a game is akin to spending a bit more to upgrade the rims on your car or is it that fake underbody wax that prevents rusting?
tl;dr: DLC isn't bad, it's how you use it that can be bad or good.
Most of the DLCs we've had are only meant to lock our games until we give publishers/developers more money. It isn't always the case, but it has tarnished this generation.
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I understand your point of view. In the few past months, I've read a lot of opinions about DLCs.
The thing is, Downloadable Content wasn't always available like it is today. This used to be called an add-on or an expansion pack, when you would get a lot of content for Age of Empires or The Sims. It was supposed to make the experience different.
Just because it is available digitally, it doesn't mean that such practices have disappeared. You can clearly see that the Fury pack for WipEout HD or Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption gave players quite a lot of new, fresh content.
But then, you get the retailer exclusive content, the day one "Upgraded Arsenal" packs for Dead Space 2 (I laughed a lot when I saw that these were available 1 day before its official European release), the "Unlock it all"/payed cheat codes (Burnout : Paradise for instance) which also removes cheat codes from within the game (though trophies/achievements are also to blame), the cut content that's on the disc (it was all about RE5's Versus, it's now about Street Fighter X Tekken's characters and Mass Effect 3's Prothean pack).
This is laughable.
Sure, there is also the issue of overpriced content, like Call of Duty's Multiplayer maps, but at least it brings variety to the players (to a certain extent, of course).
Added content isn't bad, but it is quite easy to see that a lot of DLCs are simply removed/withheld parts of games, intended to be sold separately to make more money. That is unacceptable. It basically means that, 10 or 15 years from now, when I'll want to play the oldies that PS3/Xbox360/current PC games will be, I won't have access to the entire game.
How the industry has changed doesn't matter to me. If I want to watch a movie, I can still grab a VHS, a DVD or a Blu-Ray, put it where it belongs and enjoy the show. If I want to read a book, I'll just grab that book. I'm not talking about bonuses here, like commentaries or behind-the-scene videos, but only the main content for which I've paied for.
When it came to games, grabbing a cartridge or a disc while having the appropriate platform was enough to have a good time. However, ever since this generation has started, it doesn't suffice. You'll need to have an Internet account to unlock your game (Ubisoft, eh?), parts of it will be locked until you enter the appropriate Online Code and still you'll have to purchase more data to access the whole thing.
I understand that DLCs were an experiment but I believe it has gone too far when, last year, I bought MotorStorm 1 for 6 euros only to see DLCs for it costing something like 30 euros. That same day, I bought PS2's SSX 3 for the same tiny price, and it was one of the most complete games I've ever played.
I thought better technology meant better user experience. But I can only see that current games aren't future proof.
I mean, when Ubisoft's servers die, will Assassin's Creed II on PC be locked forever (I'm half serious with this) ? Then they complain about piracy for the wrong reasons...
1. In this day and age, when aren't customers feeling like they are getting shafted?
2. How serious can people be taken when they claim they are getting shafted but continue to buy the biggest name products that give them the biggest shaft of all and only complain about getting shafted by lesser products?
2.can't disagree i buy cod but i don't buy the dlc.
2. This never fails to surprise me. Certain FPS games haven't done anything new in ages, and are nothing but cash grabs. You see lots of people complain about these games yet when another sequel appears they(customers) immediately put their faces down and asses up time and time again, then when it's all over they complain again.
They have no right to complain since they are allowing the nonsense to continue.
The ones acting entitled are the greedy companies holding content back to charge for it. What gives them the right to lock stuff away that is finished and decide to charge what they want? These self entitled companies need to stop double dipping our pockets. We already bought their game so why can't we have everything with it? I want to see what companies say to that. Self entitled greedy suits.
BTW I'm not trolling. I'm voicing my opinion because I get tired of this. Releasing finished content online and charging for it (especially when it exists on disc) = we are entitled to your cash so either pay up or do one.
The differences between then and now are many however. Then, cartridge media was used which was a lot more expensive. Development costs weren't nearly as high. We got A FULL GAME without nickel and diming. Games were just all around better. Guess that's why the SNES/Genesis days were the Golden Days of gaming. There was actual competition for people's money, not just "here, take this and like it" along with "but if you want the full experience, you'll need to pay extra for these."
In short, gaming has become like the toys we wanted when we were kids. They looked awesome on the commercials and we were hyped up to get them, but at the end of the commercial you'd hear "Batteries sold separately." That's what gaming is like today. It's like a $60 action figure that requires assembly and is missing the batteries.
To those that say gamers are so spoiled nowadays, you have no idea what you are talking about. If the older generations of gamers seem like they feel cheated or seem like they have a sense of entitlement, it's only because we know what gaming used to be. As soon as gaming became mainstream, it became more about the business and less about the entertainment. We WERE spoiled with the gens of the NES/Master System, SNES/Genesis, N64/Saturn/Playstation. Those gens were when gaming was about the games. The gameplay, the characters, the music that still hasn't been surpassed with all the modern codecs and formats, the stories. We grew up with those, we know gaming can be worth our dollars but it's just not this gen.
With the DLC milking, the emphasis on sales and graphics over pretty much every other aspect of games, the annual releases, the complete lack of respect for the userbases that built the foundations of each dev/pub's success, telling us what we like instead of listening to what we like, hiking prices, charging for free services, and the general flaming/trolling/fanboyish journalism this gen has been about; how can we sit by and be happy about this? Explain to me, to us, why we should feel like we aren't being cheated? If someone can come up with a legitimate, well thought reason to post, I will be happy to listen and entertain a discussion about it.
Gaming was better when it was seen as a hobby for geeks and nerds and the occasional social outcast than it is now. Where the emphasis is on feeding people their twitch gaming with flash over substance and making sure the casual audience gets their fill so that the mega millions can be made. It's just wrong.
This generation it seems I got my wish, but it came true at the cost of what made gaming so great in the first place.
It just isn't what it used to be folks.
wot,they gonna sell you the digi copy and give the free limited edition/collectors editons stuff away for free? rofl
When Bethesda charges the $60 for a game as big as Skyrim, something is wrong with some of the other companies. So having the nerve to charge for "DLC" day 1 is out of line.
I have been burned by my last crappy 100 dollar game purchase .