What do you think of DLC?

[Mooga]

I've noticed that a lot of games now-a-days have Downloadable Content for sale. While I understand that it adds more features to the game, is it not just another way to pull money from it's players?

While I admit I'm a cheap-ass, most DLC seems like a scam. "Here's our full game.... oh by the way, you need to pay 10 bucks to unlock this weapon and 10 bucks for that weapon and 20 bucks for five more game maps.

[MonoXideAtWork]

new mechanics/weapons? Hell no. An achievement system is bad enough.

New content? hell yeah. And for real, it started with everquest. Want the new classes/races on the new island? BUY THE XPAC!

[Mooga]

My problems is where you have a STRICT disadvantage for not buying a pack. Or limited online play because of it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand expansion packs, but giving me 2 extra cars or 5 new missions is rarely worth the money :-\

[Anshinritsumai]

I see DLC in both a good light and a bad one.

Having lived with free DLC on PC for many, many years - I find that the DLC that has to be paid for, to be pointless and more along the lines of microtransaction scams.

It would be more understandable if the DLC was large enough to be an actual expansion, but if it's nothing more than a map pack or a weapon pack or something, then it should be free...

I do know however that there are quite a few dev studios out there on the X360 that have been pressing for free DLC but Microsoft consistently denies their requests and forces it to be put up for a small fee - which is absolute bullshit considering the devs wanted it free to begin with... in my opinion, the devs should be in charge of whether or not things are free, not the console manufacturer...

Though, all of this boils down to the main reason why I do not play console games anymore... I stopped caring when the 360 came out.

[Ihmhi]

DLC is a backdoor MMO. See: Rock Band.

Some games are really egregious with DLC/Xpacs, such as Battlefield 2. The players with the expansion can play with the players who don't have it, and thus they have more weapons/classes/etc. You pay for a competitive advantage.

[Innoc]

Originally Posted by Ihmhi

DLC is a backdoor MMO. See: Rock Band.

Some games are really egregious with DLC/Xpacs, such as Battlefield 2. The players with the expansion can play with the players who don't have it, and thus they have more weapons/classes/etc. You pay for a competitive advantage.

BF2 was actually my first thought. As I never play online I was actually able to find a way to unlock the elite weapons for BF2 so my son and I could use them for LAN play. Personally I hate DLC and won't play anything that uses it.

[DarkeN_HellspawN]

but only if these are add-ons after the game has already been built. I dont believe in DLC for add-on's right when the game is release so that you could own with a sniper rifle that you spent $10 more to get. Now DLC after the game has been made helps cut down on the distributed software via the stores model and help keeps costs down and releasing new versions every six months. Now such as BF2 you could add the European content in which took time to develop in which was not based in the orginail design costs of the game so I would say in that case from a business persepctive you would have to charge for it. A company cannot make money by developing and distributing free DLC after the game has been released. Now by saying that you should get something for you money as it always is such as 6 Halo multiplayer maps for $10.00 or whatever it is. Now you shouldnt have to pay per gun like on fuking Crackdown for the XBOX 360 for the best guns of the game. That shit was just stupid. If you want to add content and a huge amount for a cost like the new Grand Theft Auto add-on gameplay for the XBOX 360 I would say the $20 is worth it since the game manufacturers do not have to distribute the actual media, books or case for the game and it is easily distrubted to the masses through downloads. Now bandwidth is not cheap as well and you have to have data centers across the US like Microsoft for the XBOX 360 online content and that does not come cheap.

dh

[MonoXideAtWork]

I'll pay for new content all day, but I won't pay for new guns/cars/whatever.

[greenday5494]

Originally Posted by Mooga

I've noticed that a lot of games now-a-days have Downloadable Content for sale. While I understand that it adds more features to the game, is it not just another way to pull money from it's players?

While I admit I'm a cheap-ass, most DLC seems like a scam. "Here's our full game.... oh by the way, you need to pay 10 bucks to unlock this weapon and 10 bucks for that weapon and 20 bucks for five more game maps.

Agreed. Just another nickel and dime method

[puppychow]

it's called capitalism...you have a choice to participate or not, think it's on the level or whoring.

[Shadow00Caster]

DLC = Pure profit .. the cost of servers and bandwidth compared to manufacturing and costs of EVERYTHING else that has to go into creating physical media is nothing compared. Valve has the market cornered with STEAM, being able to do a 66% discount on a game for the weekend, making it 5 bucks with absolutely no loss of profit to them whatsoever, just makes pure profit and makes everyone want to buy the game. Discounts appeal to the general public, if you see that game for 66% off, even if that means it dropped from 70 bucks to 30 bucks, you buy it .. people want to save, even if it means spending.

[Mooga]

A friend of mine has a PS3. There was one game, Warhawk, which you can actually buy as a download rather then on disk. I think it was like 20 bucks or something which seemed like a good deal... until you realize that you have to pay 10 bucks for each of the 3 expansions.

While I understand content is good, massive amounts of "required" DLC is a money suck. I feel similar about MMO expansions (even though i don't play any). If you want to start playing WoW, (don't do it!) you have to buy all the expansions to get the full worth out of the game. Blizzard at least bundles them together for a decent price...

[greenday5494]

Originally Posted by Mooga

A friend of mine has a PS3. There was one game, Warhawk, which you can actually buy as a download rather then on disk. I think it was like 20 bucks or something which seemed like a good deal... until you realize that you have to pay 10 bucks for each of the 3 expansions.

While I understand content is good, massive amounts of "required" DLC is a money suck. I feel similar about MMO expansions (even though i don't play any). If you want to start playing WoW, (don't do it!) you have to buy all the expansions to get the full worth out of the game. Blizzard at least bundles them together for a decent price...

im mostly referencing the ridiculous prices for halo 3 maps and such. of course the infamous oblivion horse armor. you could make better maps in Hammer for free, than you get from Halo 3. Custom maps are why i mostly play PC games, and mods. Mostly the whole community thing that really brings everyone together, making content, and skins and such. console is just wayyy too limited and controled.

[Iggy]

I don't mind if it's something like with HL1.....

You buy Half Life, and you can play it all you want. Some time later, you can buy Half Life: Blue Shift, which includes a shorter game, and some updated graphix for Half Life, which are optional for you to use, or not.

That was a great buy, and I would have paid full price for it, had I not found it at "5 Below", and gotten it for $5.

As for buying an advantage.... I'll never do it. I refuse to pay money for PART of a game, then have to pay for more of the same game, that should have been included in the first place.

[KubeDawg]

Paying something like $10 for DLC, it really depends. I mean, if there are new maps, possibly other new stuff as well, then it probably is worth it to just pay the $10 and be done with it. I guess it also depends on how often you play.

I play Call of Duty World at War, and they just released their map pack DLC, and if it is $10, I probably wouldn't buy it simply because I don't play nearly enough for it to be worth it to me.

But it's no more expensive than your average pay-per-month RPG game like WoW or Everquest.

[xks]

The term DLC irritates me and the concept of DLC itself is also mildly irritating.

I like the idea it's clean and simple to purchase extra things for the games you love, I understand why it can cost a little to do this and I can live with some of this.

However, many of these things were things we used to get free in Patches on PC games, extra maps, tweaks to guns and the like. A lot of these things are now charged for which is quite wrong and it creates a divide in the games community which will only serve to weaken it. If half the community has the map pack and the rest don't, how can you expect fair competition or expect to run a league without either forcing people to buy the packs or avoiding them completely, both options upset one of the groups.

As for the cost of DLC, I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was priced normally, or if you could buy as many points as you actually needed for the purchase. As it stands now they are a bunch of bastards ripping you off with their points systems. You pre-pay for points, usually in quantities that lend themselves specifically to being either too much or too little to buy whatever it is you actually want to buy. You continually end up with surplus points in your account which is effectively your money sitting in the companies account generating them interest, however insignificant. The weak minded also seem to end up compelled to purchase stupid avatars or other gimmick products with their left over points, things they would never have bought unless they had a stupid obscure amount of points remaining in their account that they don't want to leave there.

By all means have points to represent prices if you want, but make these points equivalents to something and then allow us to buy as many as we want.

Another argument against it is the DRM. Most of you know the 360 goes wrong about as often as it works correctly, all those people buying things have their stuff tied to their exact console. It is quite the effort to get your stuff transferred to your replacement console due to the DRM and inability to copy it or transfer it in any way.

If I'm buying the content, I do not want DRM infested crap that's tied to my one piece of hardware, that I have to purchase with points that are almost always sold in chunks that require you to buy too many in order to buy what you actually want.

DLC is becoming a massive hit for the console whore games producers because consoles are mostly bought by average joe stupid people who still haven't even realised the amount of money they could save simply by intelligent use of the internet, or even just using the internet to buy stuff. These producers are loving the fact they can now sell things they used to give away in patches with next to zero distribution costs whatsoever.

I would venture to believe that a lot of the map packs released are maps that didn't make the cut into the final game for various reasons, but have been tarted up and released as DLC for extra revenue.

Buying new cars and tracks in a game like Forza seems logical to me, but the concept doesn't suit the console as much as it suits the PC. Many people have enjoyed the fact that everything you need for a console game is in the box on the disc, now it's not the case.

The final reason why DLC sucks and why the manufacturers absolutely love it is because it's not transferable between people and there is no second hand market for it. They are always whining about the second hand market ruining their revenue streams and whilst it's true in part, so what? We're allowed to trade what we buy and if you try to stop us with DRM we are just going to do it without buying your product in the first place.

For example you could buy Fallout 3, buy the DLC (which is crap btw) and then proceed to finish the game. In the old days you could go to a shop and trade it, whack it on ebay or sell it to a friend. You might still be able to lend out/sell the game but you can't do anything with the DLC.

DLC would be a bit fairer if you could get your money back if you no longer have the game, but they'll never do that now will they.

Unfortunately since it makes the companies so much damn money we are only going to see more of it implemented in more annoying ways so as to suck up as much cash as possible from the consumers.

It has more bad sides than it has good ones.