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Dragon Age: Origins To Get Paid DLC Expansion — On Launch Day
BioWare's upcoming RPG, Dragon Age: Origins, is set to launch on November 3rd. Today they announced details about some of the downloadable content they have planned for the game. In fact, it's scheduled to become available on the same day the game launches, at a cost of $7. (The PS3 version will be slightly delayed). "Called the Warden's Keep, the DLC will add a dungeon-based quest to the game along with six new abilities, a variety of items, and a base where players can trade with merchants. It will feature a supernatural storyline set in an ancient — and possibly haunted — fortress once used as a redoubt by the Grey Wardens, the ancient order at the center of Origins' main storyline." There will be two additional bits of DLC that are available for free to people who have purchased the game new. One "adds a stone golem character to the player's party from the beginning of the game, unlocking numerous story options," and the other increases a character's defense against some attacks in-game.
This indeed feels like draining additional money out of the people buying the game. If they brought it out 3 months later no one would complain but this looks more like ripping off customers than anything else.
What next, basic game for full price which unlocks you the first levels and for finishing the game you have to buy at least 200 dollars of special items?
EA at its best, I am pretty sure this was not Biowares intent, but they were forced to do this by EA. This is not the Bioware I know of where the two bosses posted on Usenet (Baldurs Gate time) and talked directly to the fans.
Next up: Mass Effect 2 in-game gear to be sold separately. Publisher quoted: "We believed that the vendor system in the first game was very good, but in order to give the player the real experience of buying weapons from a merchant, we have created an online weapons shop which can be accessed from within the game. Players of course have the option to play through the whole game using only biotics. Think of the weapons as DLC with a bang!"
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So far collectors editions generally include vanity items, mild bonuses for the start of play - items that just show off that the user bought the CE, but don't have much impact on the game. Making DLC including an *area* and *new abilities* immediately splits the game into haves and have-nots.
This is less like a CE, and more like WoW when Burning crusade came out - you want to be a blood elf? Well, you can't unless you have the expansion. Want to give your character jewelcrafting? Want to go to new areas (let alone progress pass 60), you can't.
These expansions are fine, though even in WoW's case it really made second class citizens of those who didn't have the expansion. However, to do this on LAUNCH day is nothing short of a money grab.
The difference is that, as you mentioned,
If they released the DLC in say a few months later - maybe the reaction would not be so negative.
By releasing modules for NWN months down the road, it implies that Bioware devs spent time and effort, after the game was initially released, into improving the product and giving players more content.
With this and other recent games, releasing DLC near or even on release day implies some executive went "Okay guys, strip out 5% of the game's content, and put it online for $10 instead."
EA has already done that.
A guy from Bioware had some things to say about this on Blue's News. He (obviously) was very adamant about how the content had not been removed from the game to make a quick buck. Bioware has had a dedicated team working on DLC for a long time, working in parallel with the main game team. The DLC would not have been ready early enough to pass through QA etc, there was no time to have it in the game on release day; obviously the QA process for just the expansion is faster than for the whole game -- I'd assume the criteria are more relaxed, as well, if the DLC breaks, it is optional after all. There is free DLC on launch day, as well.
That said, the obvious question is, if the people working on the dedicated DLC team had been part of the main team, wouldn't they have had the resources to include more content in the released game? In that way, it still seems like they're "cheating" customers out of content. On the other hand, while it started out controversial, DLC in general is very accepted these days, and it seems arbitrary to react differently to it simply because it's released on launch day. Should they have simply let the DLC lie on a HDD somewhere for a few weeks?
BTW, the developer (Derek French, I think) implied they founded the dedicated DLC team after very positive experiences with NWN, which let them support the game for another couple of years, and which was very well received from the community IIRC.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
The problem with the whole "DLC" concept is the second I heard this term used I figured it would translate into "big game corp says pay full price for a piece of a game, and THEN pay us more monies for the rest!". Why? Because we PC games have had "DLC" for years in the form of mods, only nobody came up with marketspeak to try to push them, that's why.
When you look at the way the games have been going- "multiplatform" being a code word for shitty x360/PS3 port, more and more "DLC" that smells like stuff that should have been in the "real" game in the first place but was ripped out to make the extra monies, blaming piracy for everything when your DRM sucks ass and many of the games have no gameplay or are about as fun as a trip to the DMV, games the any beta tester could tell you are gonna suck but loaded to the brim with "Graphics 2.0" and "Ultraphysics" and other bling that gives you the sinking suspicion that is was designed with some Dilbert PHB checklist, it all comes down to one thing- corporate greed.
Real games take time and love. And with the exception of a few genres where the hardcore will buy every year (Hi Madden!) you can't just repackage the same bullshit with another notch or two added to the features PPT. And with a dead economy I think we can all agree that the $59+ they have been charging for new releases is pretty much a mugging, which is why so many of the corporate drones are trying to find a way to kill first sale and places like Gamestop. So it appears the next idea to "maximize our profit potential" is a death of a thousand cuts upon the consumer. "Why give him the whole game" they say, "when we can just give him a piece of it at full price, and the gouge him out of more money for the rest of the game? Hell we can make $100-$200 a game!"
You mark my words, we'll be seeing more and more games where it feels like larger and larger chunks are missing, only to have the "rest of the game" show up as expensive "extras" thanks to the marketspeak called DLC. That is why I am so glad there are still dedicating modders out there in the PC gaming community, that make add-ons because they love the game and want to see it continue. If any of you are reading this...thanks. There are so many games out there from top notch titles like Freelancer to even bargain bin titles like the Delta Force series where dedicated modders are giving us lots of new worlds to explore and levels to beat years later, all for the incredible price of $0.00 dollars.
So I truly hope this DLC phase dies in a fire. The mega game corps like EA find new and more nasty ways to screw us over every time we turn around anyway, the last thing we need is a way for them to easily sell us less game for more money, and then turn around and bend us over for what should have been in the game in the first place. So bad move EA, and this is one less customer you'll be getting for Dragon Age. Bioware, it is sad to see you go, but since you got bought by EA we really shouldn't be surprised. Hell the only bunch worse to sell to would have been Actiblizzard. So Long Bioware, and thanks for the fish.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I don't see a problem with this. I agree people should be able to resell games and all but, what's wrong with companies giving people incentive to buy it new? With piracy going up, I don't blame them for wanting to encourage more people to buy the game new so they can see greater profits and success.
If they brought it out 3 months later no one would complain
I'm sure *someone* would complain.
It is an interesting discussion. What is appropriate for new content release? Especially if that content costs extra. If Bioware already had this content done and finished, and it was always planned to be offered as extra content, does it make Bioware any more/less "evil" by releasing it on day 1 or releasing it 'x' days later?
The thing that leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths is trust. There's no reason to trust that this content is truly "extra", rather than a piece withheld from the original game. Another question would simply be, is the original game worth the sticker price without this extra content? Are you getting value for what you're paying for? We'll find out soon enough.
I can say, if Dragon Age doesn't offer massive amounts of time investment without the DLC, the move by Bioware to offer DLC on day 1 is going to backfire big time. If Dragon Age offers 40+ hours of epic RPG goodness without this DLC, it will change minds as to if this DLC was truly "extra" or more of a scam.
Right now, Bioware still have good will with their fan base. If Dragon Age fails to deliver value for the money (While good, Half Life 2 was considered to be too short and the episodes even shorter and caused some ill will towards being shafted for the price, but Valve came back and offered the original game for fee with the orange box, a very value stuffed package, thanks in part to the great experiance Portal became, and even allowed you to gift that part of the game you already owned to a friend. Much good will was restored.).
Let hope Dragon Age turns out for the better!
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Paradox had pay-for DLC available for their game East India Company on the day it was released.
Speaking of Paradox, the recently released Majesty 2 - published by Paradox outside Russia - doesn't have any DLC available yet, but it was stated that it will be available soon. Some enterprising modders unpacked the game resources, and found a bunch of new content that is already there, apparently only waiting for some bit to be flipped to get activated.