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Are Game Consoles Ruining DLC?
A round-table discussion at Gametopius looks into the state of downloadable content for games as it has evolved over the past several years, going from an occasional, welcome supplement to being a common marketing strategy for most of the industry, frequently causing irritation over pricing and availability.
"All of the map packs so far released for the Call of Duty games have been $10 each to download on consoles through closed networks, while PC gamers could download those same packs for free off of FileShack or somewhere else. Valve's own Team Fortress 2 has received a significant amount of DLC that's been completely free on the PC. Xbox owners of the same game, however, have only received perhaps half of that content, and they have had to pay for it in $5 packs. Why is this? The idea of this kind of content delivery was scarcely heard of on consoles, so console gamers see no reason not to pay for it. But on the PC, these amounts of content are usually just considered parts of patches. Furthermore, why pay for a few extra maps and costumes when modders are making and offering new ones for free all the time?"
Take that, you console-owning-PC-haters! :>
Life is too good to waste... Read!
But on the upside; by their very nature, closed systems suffer less piracy - which is translated into cheaper games for the consumer, since the developers suffer reduced losses on these platforms.
For example, upcoming Wolfenstein is a reasonable £37.96 to pre-order from Amazon UK for the Xbox 360 and PS3, but a whopping £24.96 on piracy-rampant PC.
Upcoming Call of Duty - Modern Warfare II is an outrageous £34.99 on PC, but good value £44.96 on Xbox 360 and PS3.
Ermm...
Amongst its strong points are such diverse elements as: small indie gamges, modding communities, emulation, abandonware, better performance and nice fancy cases. Oh forget it, I'll come in again.
Back in my day...
Grr, I can't even do an old coot accent right online. =)