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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?"
Whenever Valve or any other company wants to release DLC on the Xbox 360 or PS3, they have to pay either Microsoft or Sony to certify the content. They charge gamers to make up for the cost of this certification.
Of course, the fact that gamers will pay for downloadable content on consoles is certainly a good reason by itself...
Sllow me introduce you to Steam, Valve's content delivery system that every Team Fortress 2 player has installed.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
PC gamers purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD.
How many people pay $7,000 for a PC? I'm not even sure how you can spend $7,000 on a PC unless you get it gold-plated or insist on a terabyte of 15k SCSI disks.
Even a decent gaming PC shouldn't cost you much more than $1200 these days.
While you are correct for the situation where everyone wants to play the same game with or against each other, this advantage goes away when those gamers want to play on their own at the same time. In most households I know every gamer who has reached their teens already needs a computer for themselves. Upgrading that to reasonably handle games makes more sense to me than to buy an extra box. Plus then the kids do not occupy the living room TV.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
For the DLC, I believe Microsoft FORCE Valve to charge. Gabe (who looks more like Peter from Family Guy by the day) has said that they want to give it away, but MS won't let them. Not sure how much truth there is in that given Valve have recently turned to the dark side and taken this DLC to its natural conclusion and are releasing what should be DLC for Left 4 Dead as a full title.
That's debateable. New engine, new art, new campaigns, new voice actors, vastly expanded team working on it. Most people arguing against L4D2 seem to be arguing because it's "too soon". It's like you guys would be happier if it were released in 2012, rather than 2009. And the irony is, the release date won't affect anything, because L4D updates are still going to come out as slow as they have been. It'll just give some extra content before the release, giving the perception that they kept their word.
Nah...no thanks. If they can churn out a quality sequel, and fix all those engine bugs in the process, I'll bite. I don't believe they're going to just ditch L4D gamers, and I don't think they should have to artificially delay release to satisfy foolish angry self-proclaimed non-customers.
Companies now realise that instead of a full expansion for, say, $20, they can now put it out in chunks and make twice that.
So what you're saying is, you're against the implementation rather than the concept? Me too. I'd be quite happy to buy extra L4D campaigns(well made ones) for say $4. That would be 5 campaigns in a $20 expansion.
$10 though is too steep.
But from Valve's point of view, it's far easier managing a unified platform, so they'd rather charge more for the game and just trickle out DLC for free forever.
"New engine" is a stretch, IMO. Most of the actual content--new weapons, new campaigns, new enemy types--were supposed to be free DLC for L4D, according to interviews before L4D's release.
They were also supposed to have a real, full-featured dev kit for it so the community could do what it usually does with games like this, but they've been dragging their feet on releasing it. Probably worried that the community would just clone the stuff they have slated for L4D2, which is exactly what would have happened if they'd released it months ago.
This is the first time I've seen Valve act like a greedy corporate whore, and it's troubling because they're one of the few remaining PC developers who are worth a damn.
You can't mod the TF2 codebase, but owning any source engine game on steam lets you download the source SDK Base. This is a minimal source engine install you can add your own assets and code to for making mods based on the source engine. It included enough assets to load the Lost Coast HDR sample map and the Half-life 2 code. Using this base means your mod can be played by anyone who has a source game (so someone with just L4D can play with someone who only has HL2), but it does mean you need to provide your own content.
Come as you are, do what you must, be who you will.