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Some Players Want Day-1 DLC, Says BioWare
An anonymous reader writes "Speaking at GDC Europe this week, BioWare Montreal's Fernando Melo spoke about how the oft-disparaged first-day downloadable content for video games is actually something a significant amount of players want. 'Melo argued that on the occasions when BioWare hasn't provided DLC from day one, those players who complete the game quickly then complained that there was nothing more to play and asked for extra content. If DLC isn't provided for these players, they may well move on to a different game and never come back to play DLC later on. As proof that day one DLC also works in terms of sales, Melo said that 53 percent of all sales for the first Dragon Age: Origins DLC pack — which was released on the same day as the full game — were made on release day."
They want the frigging Day-1 DLC because the content currently in Day-1 DLC was supposed to be in Day-0 product.
You know what that really means? We're now going to "get what we want" because more companies will just leave out things that would be in the game otherwise and monetize it into "Day1 DLC" instead.
Or you could, I dunno, release the whole fucking game all at once.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
I have a solution for you. Just release half of your game and put the rest in DLC. Pure genius. Too bad it's not just my imagination.
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...would prefer if that content was included in the game in the first place.
They don't just take that "Day One DLC" that everybody wants so much, and just makes it a part of the initial release at no extra charge. Why does it have to be DLC at all? It's already finished and ready to be played, right? So why isn't already on the disk with the rest of the content I bought? If people are finishing your game and complaining they want more to do, it doesn't mean people want to pay MORE for more content. It means people didn't feel they got $60 worth of content in the game, only for the publisher to turn around and demand more money if you want to be satisfied. If somebody orders a full cake, you cannot only give them 3/4's of it, charge extra for the remaining 1/4, and then turn around and claim that people are obviously clamoring to pay for that extra 1/4. That's now how it works, Bioware.
When he says there are players who "want" Day-1 DLC, what he means is that there are players who will buy Day-1 DLC. Therefore Bioware is going to keep doing it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I'm old and crotchety and can't stand that sort of whining either, but I think it's less "I want it now" and more to do with what publishers can get away for their boxed releases. I think the gaming audience does have some legitimate complaints about this sort of stuff.
Exactly. It's interesting that the Bioware drone mentions Dragon Age, since the DLC was advertised IN the game. You reached a quest giver, and he told you that you had to buy his quest!
People who rail against day 1 DLC have no idea how releasing a game works. Especially with giant sprawling games, once you near the release date, there are a lot of specialists who have completed their contribution to the final project. Artists may be done with their portion, story writers may be done with their portion, certain programming teams may be done with their portion, etc. They need something to do, so they start working on DLC.
"Ah, but they could put that right on the disc in the first place!", you may say. No, they can't. By this point, the game needs to be finalized so they can thoroughly test it, create a master copy, and begin mass production. In the month(s) that this can take on a large title, there's plenty of time to get a significant DLC pack out.
Now, I'm not saying ALL day 1 DLC is because of this (especially rageworthy is something that's on-disc but a day 1 "unlock" DLC) but a very significant portion is. They're not trying to cheat you out of content you should have had, they're just making good use of the time it takes for a game to go from finished to available in stores.
True. And that's mostly because they are now making games too full of shiny. Lots of cutscenes, voice actors, gorgeous maps and models, a plethora of sidequests... which is great, really, but it drives the cost of the thing way up. And in the midst of all that, they often forget to make the game interesting to play. Or even finish the damn thing. Me, I'd rather have lots of 9.99 games like Braid than 59.99 + 9.99 DLC like Mass Effect 3. The first is way cheaper to make, but incredible from start to finish and never, ever, feels stale. An engrossing experience from start to finish. The latter is amazing mostly because of its magnitude, but its gameplay is quite repetitive, most of its characters feel superfluous because of the current trend towards extreme story modularization (which is The Way Of The DLC, BTW) and... let's just not speak about that sorry excuse for an ending, ok?
The one that gets me is the "DLC" that isn't even DLC. Instead, it just unlocks content that was already on the CD/DVD.
Exactly. It's interesting that the Bioware drone mentions Dragon Age, since the DLC was advertised IN the game. You reached a quest giver, and he told you that you had to buy his quest!
And that is the reason I never completed the game, I got sick to death of having the suspension of disbelief ruined by its blatant attempts to nickle-and-dime me.
Okay, so I was kind of pissed that I wasn't going to get the Werewolf Army I'd hoped for to battle the undead, but what pushed me to breaking point was finding someone on the way to the Dwarf City who was desperate to have their Significant Other rescued or somesuch. I figured it would help me get over losing the wolf army, so I agreed - and he demanded money for the privilege of having his beloved back. So I played System Shock instead.
Wait until the "game of the year" or "platinum edition" or "gold edition" or "diamond edition" or "complete edition" goes on sale for $10 and you'll have ALL the DLC on day 1. On top of that, most of the compatibility and quest bugs will have been squashed.
Problem solved.
Ditto, except MOO 1 not MOO 2 (I play it some but it's just not as good as the original).
Speaking of not as good as the original, I also still play TFTD. Tacky and unoriginal as the story may be, it has some elements I like.
BTW have you seen XComUtil? (ironically, the guy's now at BioWare): https://sites.google.com/site/stjones/xcomutil Speaking of DLC...
Also http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/69341191/xenonauts/ and http://ufoai.org/wiki/index.php/News (I've played the latter, it's excellent).
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Bioware are blatant liars and greedy money mongers. Nothing else. Ever since they have joined with EA they have gotten worse and worse and worse. For many many years bioware made great games but ever since they joined with EA they have just been pimping dlc left and right and creating games that for the first time in their history have been garbage. All the DLC codes they were whoring in dozens of products for mass effect. Dragon age was pimping DLC before its release and it was a shit game. Even knights of the old republic is a major let down. Bioware's prestiege and pedigree has gone right down the crapper since joining EA.
Bioware before tried to say "Well the reason we had day 1 DLC for mass effect 3 was because we finished the game 6 weeks before it was released and that finished product had to have 6 weeks to be approved, then packaged and shipped to store. So in that time we decided to create the day 1 DLC to keep our teams busy blah blah blah". Bullshit. You cant tell me they suddenly at the drop of a hat decided to write, design, storyboard, create, build, code, debug, trouble shoot, beta test, bring voice actors in to record dialouge, have artists create the levels, sound guys put in effects, compile the code, submit it to sony/microsoft for approval to be uploaded and then uploaded it in less than 6 weeks? Horse shit.
Then what happens when mass effect 3 turns out to be yet another bioware turd? They blame the gamers. That bitch at bioware actually had the balls to say "gamers arent developers so dont act like them" because gamers didnt like the game. Ok sure Im not a developer, but that doesnt mean I cant know if I like something or not. Im no chef but I damn sure can tell you mcdonalds hamburgers suck, Im no director but I really hated the transformers movies, Im no author but I dont like the book atlus shruged. Just because I dont make games doesnt mean Im not able to dislike them and it doesnt mean I should automatically like everything just because the creator tells me I should because they say so.
So in short. Fuck bioware.
And now. Why DLC is bullshit.
1) When you pay for DLC you are telling developers "I want to pay more for my games. I am willing to pay you more than 60 dollars for my game". The more you buy DLC the higher the chances of games costing more instead of less because you prove youre willing to spend over msrp for a game.
2) Its all digital and you will never own it. DLC is digital content. You pay for it but you dont actually own it. You cant sell it, you cant trade it, you cant let a friend borrorow it and in 10 years from now Im willing to bet you wont even be able to download it again.
3) DLC encourages developers to split up content for the game you paid for full price for to sell you later. They design a game they say "We will take out this part and that part and sell it to them as extra" instead of saying "They paid full price for a game so they should get the full game". Developers/publishers would probablly sell more games if they would actually give their customers full games instead of selling partial games at full price and selling the rest for even more money.
4) DLC pisses off gamers when its sold as incentives at different stores. Say a game is coming out and 3 different stores has bonus DLC codes with each one being different. Now for gamers who really want that game and to play everything thats a asshole move.
Bottom line is I dont support developers that pimp DLC a lot, especially before the full game actually comes out. I buy their games used so I dont give them a single cent.
Fuck bioware and fuck every developer like them that forces DLC down our throats and then says we want it. Dont buy their games new, buy them used or pirate them.
Loved these guys in the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights days, they supported a huge modding community and made in-depth, long RPG games that were a joy to play. Not so much now, though graphically Dragon Age is of course superior, I'd still take BG/NWN over DA any day.
Not sure if it's because they sold their soul to the devil (EA) or just greed, but they've become just another "rush it out the door, and nickel and dime them later" big company that forgot their roots imo. They don't even really support the mod community now, since they want to make their money by releasing ridiculously short RPGs (too much shiny fluff, not enough meat) then charge for DLCs from day 1. Patooeee...
This is why I hardly by games when they're released anymore. I'll wait until a year later when the special pack with the original game, patches, and all the DLCs comes out for 1/2 the price or less. I got like 9 premium titles with all the DLC/expansions during the Steam summer sale for like $55 a few weeks ago. They'll keep me busy for more than a year, easy.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
You forget the most important thing in any business regardless of sector: customers.
Give them what they want (regardless of how silly or selfish the demand) or they will go elsewhere.
With digital content there is another factor to consider. If I feel slighted by a company that I give money to, why would I give them any more when any torrent site can give me a better product, faster, and for free?
Seems that you are the one with the entitlement issues. Customers don't owe you a salary, they don't owe you anything. It is up to you to prove that you are worthy of your salary by making the customer feel good about giving it to you.
Wow...You're complaining about entitlement issues? You're the one advocating stealing a company's product because you feel slighted by them trying to cover the ever-increasing costs of making all that content for their customers. And you wonder why companies are resorting to horrible DRM and day-1 DLC? Just look in the mirror for the real reason companies are reacting this way.
I'm old and crotchety and can (and do) wait until you release the GoTY/Complete version at a fraction of the original price.
A lot of problems would be solved if you wanted 3-6 months after a game is released to play it. The game drops in price, most bugs are fixed, and a lot of DLC becomes available, sometimes at a discount. I haven't played ME3 yet, and I'm glad I waited.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
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If you aren't buying the DLC and they aren't making money, it's because of all the pirates... arrrggh
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
How it actually works: the game studio cuts features out of a game to make the release date. Before money-grubbing-fucksticks came up with the idea of nickle and diming their customers, this cut content would be released when the main game was complete and the bugs were worked out.
For free . As were small and medium expansions of the game to keep people buying it.
Now, not only are those bug fixes and missing features being turned into paid for "DLC", but games are planned from the beginning to have nickle and dimed bullshit from the first day of release.
This! Additionally, once the decision is made to turn the "side" content into DLC, some of the experienced folk who make awesome stuff more awesome are instead assigned to head / work on the DLC team. This means your core game would have been even more awesome than if the DLC hadn't been made. No game is ever finished, we always have more cool ideas to put in; However, making day 1 DLC only after the game has gone Gold isn't nearly as common as it once was. It's lucrative, so now it's actually part of the release plan. Furthermore, the premise that Day One DLC is made while waiting for the game to ship completely ignores the fact that pre-production on other projects is underway before said game release -- You know, so we can actually have more work to do and keep our jobs.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
I'm willing to be that he's including in his numbers all the people who bought editions of the game that came with the DLC included.
For DAO, these included a home base with a storage chest. I mean, FFS, a home base with a storage facility has been part of the RPG milieu for as long as I can remember (in games where you have a limited inventory capacity). You have sufficient camp followers with wagons in DAO to justify a chest being part of your camp, so it's not done for narrative reasons - it's done to exploit the well-known hoarding tendencies of RPG players.