When DLC Goes Wrong

kube00 writes "Poorly done downloadable content is one of a gamer's worst nightmares right now. Where a publisher stands to make some money, gamers get screwed. Whether it's the overpriced extra maps/costumes DLC, on-the-disc-at-launch DLC, or DLC that is nothing more than a remake of other content, no game is safe from bad DLC. That includes Modern Warfare 2, Bioshock 2, Uncharted 2 and a host of many other popular games. Is there a chance to fix this system?"

Comments

Yes!

[zcomuto]

When people realise this, and stop buying DLC.

Re:Yes!

[sg_oneill]

Some DLC is great. The Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead was practically an entirely new game, and both the Gay Tony & whatever the biker one was called where both great content add ons for Grand theft auto.

Re:Yes!

[Starteck81]

Considering how well Zynga is doing selling virtual items in games like Farmville, Mafia Wars I suspect that we will only see this trend grow.

Re:Yes!

[mjwx]

DLC can be good for experimental game ideas. Most of the fallout 3 DLC took place in different settings than the main game

But Fallout 3 was sold at full price as a complete game. DLC came months after release.

Some games are being sold in half with DLC being made available 5 minutes after release.

Now I have no issue when a developer and publisher creates additional content, traditionally this was released as an expansion pack or more recently the phenomenon of "expand-alones" such as ARMA Operation Arrowhead or Fallout New Vegas but when a publisher only sells you half the game and then tries to charge you $10 to see the ending, that's what is wrong with DLC.

Fuck you, developers.

[Stormwatch]

If I pay for a game, it damn better be a COMPLETE game. But these days, they sell incomplete games now and the missing parts later. DLC is nothing but a scam.

Re:Fuck you, developers.

[Nursie]

Beautiful Katamari

It was a very short game, and the DLC was available from day1, completing the game. IIRC the original game was pretty low priced though, so instead of looking at it as being ripped off and getting nickel-and-dimes for the full game, you could say that they were offering a half-game for half price and you could buy the rest if you liked it.

I'm not sure, this is a big grey area. When am I not getting a full game I've paid for? When am I genuinely paying for extra content? How long *should* a game be?

Meh.

Re:Fuck you, developers.

[Squapper]

As a senior game developer, i can tell you that no game released nowadays is EVER complete. And trying to making a game complete is like trying to write all the digits of Pi. It cant be done, you just have to draw the line somewhere and say "this is good enough". We work until our employers pry our hands from the keyboards and force us work on a new project. Then we sneak back and work a little bit more on the old one either because we are ashamed of the quality or because we love the project. And we HAVE to move on to new projects, otherwise game development would not be economically feasible and there would be no AAA projects such as the ones mentioned in TFA.

And the point of doing minor DLC is not to make money from it directly. The point is to give a promise to the consumers that there will be DLC shortly, and make them hold on to their copies instead of reselling them, which would bring zero money to the publisher. This is not some theory of my own, it is what our publishers tell us when they are ordering us to do minor DLC. Why they charge so much for stuff that would have done it's job perfectly when released for free is beyond my understanding though.
It's funny that the example in TFA where the true strategy was most obvious, the DLC for Alan Wake, was where the author was most happy with the product...

There Is a Chance

[umbrellasd]

Don't pay for the shit DLC, and Supply and Demand economics will take care of the problem.

Let's Be Honest

[Cylix]

I get the feeling someone is on the war path with video games lately. At least regarding the story trend and I'm not saying I disagree... just saying.

In any event, the issue isn't even as specific as DLC. Sure, there are plenty of awful examples and I would very much like to point the finger at Halo. Whole sections of multi-player simply disappear if you do not purchase the down-loadable map packs. This isn't even close to misrepresentation, but more like bandits along the highway. At some point, someone thought it would be a really good idea to cripple your current style of play unless you pay a few dollars. I believe someone's soul is headed toward damnation for that one.

Ignoring fire and brimstone, let's get back to the broader and real issue at hand. Bad game or bad content for purchase are not really the issues either. The fact is if we had more honest reviews floating around this would be a no brainer. The truth is we as gamers have been sold out countless times by these fan fiction writers who like to pretend they are writing a game review. In my personal experience, Red Dead Redemption was pretty much the worst multiplayer experience I have had in a while. It however managed to have a lot of good reviews. A more recent example of abuse of a good name is COD Black Ops. This is a good example of how to take something that wasn't terribly and just twist it into a hellish house of mirrors reflecting on a shadow of it's former self.

Having been in the broadcast world for a good while in the past there are important lessons I did learn there. What I happen to like or dislike may not necessarily be in tune with the populace at large. However, I would like to point out that the current early trend with user reviews seem to favor my opinion http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/call-of-duty-black-ops?rating_login=1.

I believe what has happened with both retail games and addon pay content is something very simple. It appears to be much easier to simply spend oodles on marketing and advertising rather then produce something original. (Well, original is probably a bad term... how about enjoyable). It cannot be argued these triple a titles have a fairly large budget, but in my horrid and unimportant opinion is that publishers have gone the McDonalds route. Seriously, how else would you sale poison the the people of our great nation.

Just wait for the GOTY.

[PhrostyMcByte]

I bought Fallout 3 when it first came out. Had a blast, but was occupied at the time and didn't buy the DLC. In the intrim the GOTY edition came out, with all the DLC, for $50. Only problem is, the DLC hasn't dropped in price -- and there is $50 of it. Now I can either buy $50 of DLC, or $50 for the GOTY edition. Either way they want me to spend $100 on the game, and I can't justify that. Something is wrong here!

Now I just wait for the GOTY edition to come out.

Re:Change your attitude first

[lostmongoose]

You chose to give them your money. They *owe you nothing* other than what you could access out of the box. Unless you're paying a monthly fee, you have no entitlement to anything beyond that. If you are paying a monthly fee and the devs aren't performing as you think they should *stop paying them*.

My answer to all DLC is simply patience

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

I just wait a year or so for the Gold/Ultimate/GOTY edition of a game which comes with all addons and DLC built-in for £20 or less. Money saved, disaster averted.