Your Opinion on DLC's

[Window]

annoys the living hell out of me unless they are a near expantion quality like shivering isles or dawnguard are fine
but when you have day one dlc as per mass effect 3 or over charging for cosmetic items which is blantent cash grabbing im not a fan of that mentality

[Buxton McGraff]

I love DLC. It gives me a chance to see all the game has to offer right then, and then explore further with the new content. It lets me enjoy the game for far longer. I just don't like it when it seems like the game was released partially finished, and then you're expected to buy the rest of the game a few weeks later.

[Semihage]

I recall Cliff Bleszinski mentioned about why.

Day 1 dlc occurs mostly because a game needs to be "done" 2 month before it hits the shelf.. So what does the artists/designers in the meantime? Well.. they could get layoffed or force to go on vacation without pay (which is what a lot of studio do.. Like LA Noire and Star War Force Unleashed).. Or the management gives them another project to work on so they can earn their pay.. But the thing is during this time most engineers are busy fixing bugs, so the artist and designer have to build something with the existing tool set.. That's why you get day one DLC..

I personally don't mind DLC.. 15 bucks is really just another month of WoW subscription if you think about it.. And some DLC (especially the BF3 ones) offers me far more entertainment than another month of WoW..

[Mashpotaters]

I recall Cliff Bleszinski mentioned about why.

Day 1 dlc occurs mostly because a game needs to be "done" 2 month before it hits the shelf.. So what does the artists/designers in the meantime? Well.. they could get layoffed or force to go on vacation without pay (which is what a lot of studio do.. Like LA Noire and Star War Force Unleashed).. Or the management gives them another project to work on so they can earn their pay.. But the thing is during this time most engineers are busy fixing bugs, so the artist and designer have to build something with the existing tool set.. That's why you get day one DLC..

I know the reason why you get the day 1 DLC, but it's a bit wonky having to pay for the time that they spent working on content after the game is complete when the game isn't even in the hands of consumers. I mean, the whole point of DLC is to support the game after release. How do you support a game after release if it hasn't been released. Part of that support is taking the feedback from the game, and making sure the DLC reflects the feedback. When you create DLC before the game is released you are essentially still working on the game. The game isn't complete until it hits release date. Anything made before that point should be part of the game.

[Krolikn]

I detest day 1 DLCs and this new trend of season passes. Also the likes of CoD and Battlefield are slowly but surely increasing the price for their small amount of DLC content. They want overpriced DLCs to be the norm...and well it seems to be working. The fans are eating it up and other games are following suit.

[Detheavn]

Most DLC nowadays are just made for the sake of leeching extra money out of people for things which should already be in a game. Take for instance the amount of DLC available for Street Fighter X Tekken (link to steampowered.com) ...

There's a shitload of stuff labeled as DLC, like the €0.99 per additional character costume. Then there are packs for all the Street Fighter character costumes as well as the Tekken character costumes, which will send you back €12.99 for one of them, or €25.98 for both, whereas the original game required costs €39.99 ...

A couple of years ago this stuff would already have been in-game, just waiting for you to play the game through with a character an X amount of times, or on the Nth difficulty setting so you could unlock this. If a game needs this kind of DLC, then the game simply wasn't finished to begin with.

For DLC to warrant it's existence it should actually add something meaningful to a game ... it shouldn't patch a game up to what it should have meant to be in the first place.

[anabolicz]

DLC's is minor upgrades like 2extra maps on COD i have to have the maps... but i dont feel i should pay for it. cuz their game is already expensive and it stays expensive until the new 1 comes out 1 year after....

[pickley]

more money = more games = more DLC's

win win situation

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Horse_Armor_Pack

Oh...yay...more DLC...

[Remilia]

DLCs are fine to me as long as they're actually decently done content.
I don't mind DLCs done like Dungeon Defenders or Magicka (though DD does do some weird things).

DLCs has quite literally gotten a terrible look with the current business practices.
$15 for a map pack. (COD)
$60 for items that you can't obtain. (BF3)

Stuff like Sims 4.
$60 for the 'normal' edition or $80 for the 'deluxe' edition right at release. Removing 1/3rd of the things unless you purchase the deluxe one, is quite absurd.

[L4ZOR]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Horse_Armor_Pack

Oh...yay...more DLC...

cant pay for your games? im on welfare and can!

more money more games... no money... .... hey look... no games

[Remilia]

cant pay for your games? im on welfare and can!

more money more games... no money... .... hey look... no games

It doesn't really work that way.

The games take time and money, yes. However any excess in money required to develop a game becomes money into the company's pocket, not being sent back into a game. It's a cost and efficiency in business. After a certain point there's no point in shoving more money into a game. If you end up getting more employees, chances are there'd be more people twiddling their thumbs, or there would be more conflict in programming which causes more issues than it does to help.

[L4ZOR]

It doesn't really work that way.

yeah SWTOR 120mill and a indie game 50k are all games... and time does factor into it

im just glad were moving away from piracy

[Remilia]

yeah SWTOR 120mill and a indie game 50k are all games... and time does factor into it

im just glad were moving away from piracy

Hiring more people to make a game at a certain point will become detrimental to the whole goal.

If you have let's just say 40 programmers for the hell of it. Then you suddenly bring in 40 more. The people that were already working there, will have to babysit the new employees for a bit. The new employee's style also has to be taken into account. The more people conflict with each other, the more issues.
If a dev team is trying to compile so many different things from different people. Having the program class for a character, or for a world or for whatever (for object orientated programs), and since there can be inconsistencies between it all, especially when you have so many different people. Bugs arise. Then you have to debug it, and you have people that don't know the person's code and has to debug that, and then have to do all the stuff required to get it back into functional shape, and then you repeat this process over and over. This isn't some far out scenario though. It can happen, whether in programming, or in any other business. You'd end up losing more time and more money.

[Kisho]

DLC, when done correctly, is a brilliant thing for consumers and video game developers. The problem is that we're seeing a lot of downright disgusting money-grabbing ideas with DLC, so consumers are tending to tar the whole thing with the same brush. Which is unfortunate, because there's some brilliant ways it can be used. Here's a few:

Day 1 DLC: Yes, shock horror, I'm saying this is a good thing. It's good for consumers (or at least neutral) but more importantly, it's fucking fantastic for the video game development team. It gives them job stability in a career which is notorious for laying people off en masse and other terrible practices ('crunch time', low pay, bad working conditions, etc.). To re-iterate the reason:

At some point in a game's lifespan, it must go live. The producer must step in and say 'right, no more: it's DONE!', because if given the opportunity the development team would work on the game forever. At this point the game is shipped off to be put onto CD, prepared for launch, etc. During this the game can't be touched. Normally, this is the 'perfect' time to lay off half of your development team, or put them to work on another project. However, with the idea of day 1 DLC, they can keep working on the game. During the period of time of a few weeks between this cut off point and the launch date, the development team can work on giving us more content, which is a win for us.

Yes, it can seem like one of those money grabbing things. However, if done correctly, it gives us more content and more of the game we love. We are going to get charged for it though: that's just how business works. As said above it also gives job stability to game developers, which is fantastic: less stress for them means better games for us.

The time = money principle: When playing games, you'll either have a lot of time or a lot of money (maybe both, but stick with me here). Spending either currency should be a valid means of progression: either you take the time to unlock everything, or you spend the money to unlock it instantly. So long as anything you could get via money is also available through just playing the game, then there is no issue whatsoever. This is a good thing for everyone: it gives more choice to the consumer and more money to the developers, which in turn means better games for us.

Just stop giving a shit about what everyone else has and you'll be fine.

Expansions to the story: For example, the 'Missing Link' DLC for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Brilliant addition and tons of fun. More story/plot is fantastic, and these are essentially the 'expansion packs' of olden days (which I notice people like the idea of in this thread, but dislike DLC: it's basically the same thing, so... wat?).

I love me some story, so anything that gives me more of it is a win.

The other thing about DLC and why it always seems to come out a few weeks (or less) after launch... There have been studies which outright prove that the longer they wait to release DLC, the less people are going to buy it. If you don't get in there in the first couple weeks then you've lost a ton of profit because people just won't bother. The game has already left the console, so why bother buying the DLC? There's new games to play!

That's why they rush to get DLC out. It seems like a terrible money grab, but it's pretty much the only choice available. Because of how consumers act.

At the end of the day, DLC (if done correctly) is a brilliant thing. Sure, there's the companies who abuse it, but vote with your wallet: buy only the ones you think worth it, ignore the ones you don't. If you play COD/Battlefield, only buy the DLC you think worth it instead of mindlessly buy everything for it. If you think the day 1 DLC isn't worth it, then ignore it.

That's why DLC has gotten this out of hand. Consumers have proven that they will buy it, so if you don't buy it, things will change. That said it's still a pretty new concept so people are still figuring it all out. We'll get a winning formula soon that we can all agree on, then things will be golden.

[Djuntas]

Depends what Id get inn the DLC. I have never paied for any DLC trough inn any of the games Ive played, seems to be FPS-trend mostly.

[Lusitan]

my personal view, is that DLC's are just rip-offs from part of the DEV's/Publishers, they just milking us gamers.

DLC's content should have been in a game since its release

[mitbrandir]

DLCs are just crap usually. Activision already releases a CoD game that is still in what alpha is for propper companies , they ask €60 for it , and then ask you €15 just to play their craply designed maps. Either or release a full game or use subscription that requires you to pay monthly and just get them then anyway.

[Deleted]

Borderlands DLC was great. GOTY versions of games with all DLC included, awesome. Pre-order DLC, not something I'm a major fan off, as I like the second-hand market.

[Edgetroll]

Ruined any replay value games had, just using resident evil for my example, back in the early resident evil games, you would beat the game on norm, get the infinte ammo revolver and then PLOW your way through the game again destroying everything and then after beating it super fast you get another cool addition to the game giving you another reason to replay the game and this was norm for a lot of games out there. Now, buy game>DLC all the cool shit like that straight away>play game once>buy new game.
That's my opinion of the effects of DLC personally.

That's the one example I always use when it comes to DLC nowadays. I remember playing resident evil 4 so many times because of all the cool things I could unlock (taken from IGN because i couldn't remember all of them):

Unlock Matilda Weapon: clear the game.
Mercenaries Mini-Game: Beat the game to unlock the mercenaries mini game.
Mercenaries Mini-Game Characters
To unlock Ada Wong in Mercenaries get a 4 star rating on the Pueblo map of the game.
To unlock Albert Wesker in Mercenaries get a 4 star rating on the Waterworld map of the game.
To unlock Hunk in Mercenaries get a 4 star rating on the Island Commando map of the game.
To unlock Jack Krauser in Mercenaries get a 4 star rating on the Castle map of the game.
S.T.A.R.S. Uniform: Complete The Game On Normal Or Hard Mode.
Hand Cannon Weapon: Get the five star ranking on mercenaries
Chicago Typewriter Weapon: Beat Operation Ada
Each weapon has a special "exclusive power" when all of its stats are custom tuned to the maximum:
Handgun - Increases the chance of a headshot being fatal by a factor of five (5% or 20%, take your pick).
Punisher - Each bullet can penetrate up to five bodies.
Red 9 - Increases firepower to 5.0
Blacktail - Increases firepower to 3.4
Matilda - Increases magazine capacity to 100.
Shotgun - Increases the effective damage range of the gun.
Riotgun - Increases firepower to 10.0
Striker - Increase...
New Game +: When you beat the game you are able to keep all of your remaining weapons and items. Start a new game with the "cleared game" feature and buy that Infinite Launcher!
Broken Butterfly Weapon: In the hall south of the hedge maze there is a locked door. Return to that area with Ashley, piggy back with her and she will unlock the door. This reveals the broken butterfly.
Punisher Weapon: Finding and shoot more than 10 of the blue medallions
Assignment Ada Minigame: Beat the game to unlock the mini game


Now imagine if this game had been launched today with the DLC mentality companies have now. The mercenary game would probable be a preorder bonus with the characters released later on as "character packs", assignment Ada would be a DLC, all the weapons would probable come later on as a "zombie slayer weapon pack" and there would be a costume pack later on for leon and ashley.

I'm also biased against dlc because I work for a game retailer and I HATE getting that email from corporate saying "Are you ready guys? Are you ready to hype up and get reserves on DLC for the new copy paste shooter that comes out in a few months? Tell your customers that if they reserve this game that doesn't come out until November that they can also pre purchase the map pack and weapon packs that will be released later on in december!" It just sucks because I feel that the video game industry as a whole has fought very hard to become an acceptable medium and considered art in a way, and now it's nothing more than a prostitute whoring pieces of itself out for as much money as it can rake in.

[WarpedAcorn]

Borderlands DLC was great. GOTY versions of games with all DLC included, awesome. Pre-order DLC, not something I'm a major fan off, as I like the second-hand market.

I agree. Borderlands has had, in my opinion, the most robust DLC options. I am okay with content the way it was done in this game, but most games instead offer a rather uninspired 45min worth of bonus content for 1/6 of the retail price.

That being said, and maybe I am dating myself, I still prefer Expansion Packs. I remember the Half Life expansions as well as expansions for games like Baldur's Gate that provided a solid quality product with depth, but at about half the original retail price. I really miss those, but understand that financially its easier to release less product for more cash and save on the costs of boxed products and shipping/storing/ect...