Hello N4G community!
Lately there has been a lot of talk about DLC schemes (notice schemes not scams) in recent games. I would like to discuss a few of my thoughts with the N4G community and get insight from the people who really play the games and are the consumers. Developers, retailers, and brands spokespersons don’t provide real insight of the matter because they are biased towards their companies.
DLC stands for downloadable content:
DLC stands for downloadable content and not LCAOTDBYHTPFAAKTPI (locked content already on the disk but you have to pay for an activation key to play it)!!! In a recent interview on Gametrailers, David Jaffe, a man that really knows his stuff and a very likeable person, stood and claimed that if people get satisfaction from the initial product, they should not feel cheated when faced with DLC. I agree! But this isn’t as linear as that it might seem. The letters LCAOTDBYHTPFAAKTPI came in to play in this. In my recent personal experience, regarding Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed 2, you get to a moment in the game when a story related excuse skips you from playing 2 levels from the game. This isn’t game breaking since you get to play the last level anyway but a lot of the story plot suffers from that cut. I will not get in detail why it does in order to avoid spoilers from people who haven’t played it yet. Anyway, the 2 levels quickly came as LCAOTDBYHTPFAAKTPI later in the Marketplace and PSstore. For a total of 7€ or 9€ (more or less). Add that to the game’s price and that’s when I feel I’m getting robbed! Seriously! How can they sell a simply activation key for that sum?! Another example that I experienced was Campcom´s Street Fighter 4 and Resident Evil 5 DLCs. Both of them were activation keys. And Street Fighter comes as my next sub-theme:
DLC that should be unlockables:
Street Fighter 4 comes to mind when you have to pay to get all the costumes in the game. Sure, you get the basic coloured costumes while playing but the extra ones you have to pay. Again, DLC in not a bad thing but when you play online you see people wearing the pay-to-have costumes instantly telling you that those are already on your disk and are only inaccessible to you because you didn’t pay extra for them. This type of extras appeared over the years in gaming as…, well,… extras! Taking a recent PS2 era example, God of War. GoW had various unlockable costumes! If you meet certain criteria, they would be yours. Right now, most games don’t do that for you! They give power ups and all but costumes they could sell to you??!! Nope!! Might as well put a price tag on them! If you want them, you buy them, if you don’t… Sorry!
DLC is optional:
Some say that this shouldn’t be a problem because if you dislike it, you don’t buy it! It’s simple, right?! My honest opinion differs. I’ll take a really, REALLY drastic/radical example here. Imagine you buy a house with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 living and dinning room and an hallway that gives you access to those spaces. You have 7 doors to access those spaces and 1 door to exit the house. Now, it that same hallway you have 2 more locked doors. You buy the house because it fits your needs and the salesperson gives you the key. You pay and it’s yours. One week later the salesperson comes to you with a key to those 2 locked doors for a sum of 10000€. What do you do?! Those doors are already yours but you can’t access the spaces behind them! And you know the cost of those spaces was already covered in your initial investment. What do you do?! You RAGE!! Again, I know this is an EXTREME example.
DLC that is worthy:
However, with this I don’t mean that every DLC is bad. When a DLC comes and gives a game new life and new content, I’m all for it. Either it is new maps for multiplayer or an expansion in a single player game that expands the universe. Again, I’m all for it! It may use game assets like textures and other technical stuff, but if it brings new locations, new characters, new gameplay elements, etc… That’s the kind of DLC I would buy!
How to be fair with DLC?!
Developers should make sure that the game they put out to the public is as complete and polished as they could have imagined. If the game is successful and there is demand for DLC, put the team back to work to expand that universe by means of DLC. A great example I personally experienced was Fallout’s expansions. They perfectly blended in the universe and didn’t break the core story. The price however is another issue. But in this case I agree with the – “if you don’t want it, you don’t buy it”.
Closing comments:
DLC fairness lies in the eye of the beholder. I like DLC and I will support DLC and long as I see its gives me more from my game. But I would really like to read your opinions about this matter. Do you buy DLC that you know it’s already in the disk?! If so, why?! Do you feel cheated?!
Thanks for reading.
(Sorry for the grammar and some typos. English is not my primary language.)
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DLC shouldn't restrict you from original content like with Bungie's BS DLC maps. I don't know if the maps are free today, but the maps that restricted Halo 3's 'Big Team Battle' weren't for well over a year.
Actually your English is quite good. The only complaint I have is that the "DLC That should be Unlockables" section is kind of hard to understand at times. The rest is fine, I didn't notice any other problems.
IMO dlc should be an expansion to an already finished game and not access codes/keys to content that is already on the game disc but is restricted. One example would be burnout paradise, I bought the complete dlc pack(which was $20+tax) on psn only to find out that there were 4 or 5 packs that were 100kb each which because of the size of these packs leads me to believe that these were obviously access codes/keys that unlocks the content that is originally already on the disc, I was a little mad but then again criterion has released quite a few free dlc packs in the past for this game so I was not quite as mad and besides I only paid $30 for the game so it was like buying it at full price. Also capcom is getting a little ridiculous with releasing 2 versions of their top 2 franchises resident evil and street fighter, as they should have just released the superior versions and actually created entirely new content to supplement the already superior versions. A lot of companies bs excuse for dlc unlock keys is that "If you don't like the game then you don't have to buy dlc and wont feel like getting ripped off", but that is exactly what they are doing which is ripping their consumers off because that content should already be accessible on the disc to the consumer in the first place free of charge whether the consumer likes the game or not, as it was last generation. I think if someone actually wanted to they could sue some of these companies that sell unlock keys for content that is already on the game disc(s) in question and probably win based on the companie(s) in question of violating consumer laws/rights. All of this just discourages me from buying games at the full price and encourages me to wait until the game(s) in question get a lot cheaper, if game companies want to make less money off of me then keep on using shady business practices because they are only hurting themselves because I hardly ever buy dlc for games in the first place. I totally agree with the author of this article.
Games like Bad Company 2 has both map packs on the disc but still called DLC. Or EA's new definition of DLC is "DisabLed Contents"?
Even Map Pack 2 is on the disc disabled, EA uses it as a marketing strategy to get gamers excited about Map Pack 2 is coming for a month since the game came out. So, gamers are not allowed to access the Map Pack 2 for month.
Also EA's new definition of VIP to access the "DLC" is only for one account. Anyone else also playing the same game disc (like your brother) with different account must buy his own VIP to be able to access the map packs on the disc.
The reality is when DLC was first introduced, it was to add new contents to the game after release. Now, DLC is used more and more as a way to get more money out of the gamers by removing as much contents as possible from the game on the disc. And with BC2, the DLC is already on the disc but disabled.
Since too many gamers today don't care or think about spending more money for DLC, game publishers see that as acceptable, and over the time, more "enabled" contents on the disc will be stripped to the minimal. By then, it doesn't matter if we complain because it will be too late because too many game publishers are doing it.
We just have to accept the complete game contents isn't US$60 anymore but easily more than $100. That is the way to raise the price of the game without changing the MSRP $60.
Resident Evil 5 comes to mind. Excellent article by the way.