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When DLC Goes Wrong

Posted by Soulskill on from the horse-armor dept.

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?"

21 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Yes! by zcomuto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When people realise this, and stop buying DLC.

    1. Re:Yes! by sg_oneill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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    2. Re:Yes! by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Gay Tony is what you call an expansion pack. It is a completely new campaign, rather than a package of costumes and multiplayer maps. It also provided more gameplay time as a cheap expansion than Medal of Honor or CoD:BO in their full $60 campaign splendor.

    3. Re:Yes! by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      DLC can be good for experimental game ideas. Most of the fallout 3 DLC took place in different settings than the main game, there were some interesting ideas in there. Some were utter failures, mothership zeta was terrible. On the other hand, point lookout was great, and most of my favorite fallout 3 experiences were from that.

      Obsidian loses points though for making the end of the game contained in a DLC. I don't know if they had the original ending and decided they could do better (which would be more legitimate) or if they decided they'd be losing money to put all that content in one game (less respectable) or if they decided they could squeeze more out of us by breaking it up (woudn't put it past them).

      However it happened, it was a good game and I didn't think twice about buying New Vegas.

    4. Re:Yes! by Starteck81 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
    5. Re:Yes! by ratinox · · Score: 5, Informative

      Obsidian loses points though for making the end of the game contained in a DLC. I don't know if they had the original ending and decided they could do better (which would be more legitimate) or if they decided they'd be losing money to put all that content in one game (less respectable) or if they decided they could squeeze more out of us by breaking it up (woudn't put it past them).

      However it happened, it was a good game and I didn't think twice about buying New Vegas.

      Are you referring to the Fallout 3 Broken Steel DLC, which raised the level cap to 30 and allowed the game to continue past the original cutscene-to-menu ending once the main plotline had been completed? If so, I think you meant "Bethesda", as Obsidian are only responsible for developing New Vegas.

      As far as I can recall, the decision to expand the "endgame" in Broken Steel came about as a result of request from fans who wanted to continue playing past the conclusion of the story. I seem to remember some BethSoft employee being quoted as saying they never anticipated that people would enjoy their game that much...

    6. Re:Yes! by icebraining · · Score: 4, Informative

      An expansion pack you download is a DLC.

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    7. Re:Yes! by mjwx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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  2. Fuck you, developers. by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
    1. Re:Fuck you, developers. by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I disagree with that broad statement. If I'm interested in the DLC, I probably felt like the game itself had good value. If I didn't thoroughly enjoy a game, I'm not going to be paying them any more money. What's a "complete" game anyway? I'd rather play a good short game than a tedious long one.

      Furthermore, if DLC comes out months after a game is released, it indicates the devs didn't just decide to withhold content for a premium. And I can understand being in a situation like "We have this interesting side story to develop, but that would push back the release date a few months." I'd rather have that option to extend the game if I'm enjoying it.

    2. Re:Fuck you, developers. by Nursie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Fuck you, developers. by Squapper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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...

    4. Re:Fuck you, developers. by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As an ex senior game developer, you and I know very well that the problem is that we write two (or three or four) games for every one that's published. And we do this because most of the industry is institutionally incompetent.

      Writers who can't make themselves understood; designers who say "give me an engine then I'll tell you what I really needed it to do"; engine devs who think they're writing the game; game devs who think they're writing the engine; artists who view resource limits as only applying to lesser talents; testers who are just frustrated designers; project managers who want to be producers; producers who want to be distributors; distributors who want to be writers, it's a massive dysfunctional clusterfuck from beginning to end. What amazes me is that anything actually gets released.

      If we had the discipline (as an industry) to write just one game for every game released, they'd all be AAA, and turn at healthy profit at $30 retail.

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    5. Re:Fuck you, developers. by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'll clarify my point: each AAA game that gets released tends to have been (re)written at least twice. There's no need for that to happen, other than poor management of the process. Egos run rampant, mavericks are brought in and allowed to throw away man-years of work because they think they can re-write it all in less time than it takes to fix it, code is written before requirements, requirements are delayed until code is available, content is produced before it's clear whether it's needed, or suitable, and all the while layers of writers, managers and producers fight turf wars over what game they're actually trying to create.

      Games are expensive because the process of developing them is horrendously wasteful. Take a look at the credits on any AAA title and ask yourself how many of the people there actually contributed to the game that's on your screen - the version that actually got released, rather than all the abandoned attempts. It's surprisingly few.

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  3. There Is a Chance by umbrellasd · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  4. Let's Be Honest by Cylix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
  5. Just wait for the GOTY. by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Change your attitude first by lostmongoose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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*.

  7. Compare to boardgames and RPGs by mcvos · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's interesting to see how DLC is detested in computer games. In boardgames, expansions are popular and sell like wildfire, even if they tend to hurt the game experience (the basic game is often sleek and elegant, and expansions add lots of extra crap). But when people love a game, they love to pay to get even more of it. In RPGs it's even worse: a game is considered unsupported if there's not a regular schedule of source books and other stuff prying money out of our wallets. But here, more stuff usually gives the game more viability. The basic rules are nice to get you going, but we want more setting, more adventures, more careers/classes/abilities/spells, etc.

    There's no real reason for it. There are lots of excellent games that have a complete and very enjoyable game in a single package, but the big sellers are the ones that keep releasing more and more stuff.

    Why wouldn't this work for computer games? A big part of it is of course the way in which the game is released. If the basic game is broken and no fun at all, you'd be crazy to spend money to get more. Releasing an incomplete game and finishing it in DLC is a terrible idea. But releasing a small but fun complete game for a reasonable price, and then selling expansions and more content to those who love it so much they want to get more out of the game, that sounds like a very sensible approach. A company might make the last game you'll ever need, and live from continued support, expansions and new ideas for that game, and of course the new customers that are attracted to such a well-supported game. But yes, it needs to be about honest support, and not merely teasing some extra money out of your customers' wallet.

    I think there's also a collector's itch at work with boardgames and RPGs, though. That's probably less the case with computer games, simply because they're not physical products.

  8. My answer to all DLC is simply patience by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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  9. DLC is good when done right. by brunes69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Look at what Rockstar has done with Red Dead. First DLC pack is free and adds totally new capabilities to the game.

    Now, one might argue this pack has content that should have came with he game in the first place and all it means is the game was rushed...

    Well, that explanation does not hold water with the Red Dead Undead pack, because it really is a totally new storyline and side-plot of the game, where you kill freaking zombies. It is also VERY well done and well worth the $10.