Gaming... What Happened?

[VersedalX]

I wont say that I own every game and have played every type of game because its a lie, I will say what I have tho.

I myself got into gaming from Diablo 2, Which then lead to Starcraft/brood war. I was later introduced into Xbox live on original Xbox.

My favorite FPS of all time would be "Rainbow Six 3" although I also enjoyed the ghost recon series. What I loved the MOST about these is after a month or so they would release downloadable content.. (FREE!) allowing you to play new maps.

Now recently I've gotten Dirt3...

I'm in the start of my tour when the 8th race or so lets me pick from the 1980's time period of cars and I see "Enter VIP Code", to look at and realize that you need to pay for an additional code if you wish to use that select vehicle, so I scroll across looking if its the only one, and to my surprise its not.. Why is it that games these days have downloadable content that you have to keep throwing money at?

Will there ever be a game where the developers release new maps simple to make their community happy instead of trying to sell pack after pack for insane amounts of money?

[Daedius]

This only holds true for Consoles... PC games generally have a Modding community that provide extra content for w/e game for free.

Example, Half Life 2... and what have you.

[VersedalX]

*snip*.

But what about games that do not support modding communities or at least not legally.. for example Crysis 2 has been out how long and already have a $10 map pack? ( http://www.crytek.com/news/fire-your...vailable-today ).. (Just one example I can give many more)

[Deleted]

Wasn't rainbow six 3, rogue spear? IIRC it was around the time CS started gaining popularity and was entirely free plus had tons of maps available.

World at War and BC2 both released quite a few new maps for free, at least on PC.

Sadly with the way consoles have been traditionally developed they did not support additional content so I suspect this is one of the main reasons they see it as normal to pay for any new content. Which then carries over into the PC market.

---------- Post added 2011-06-04 at 01:10 AM ----------

This only holds true for Consoles... PC games generally have a Modding community that provide extra content for w/e game for free.

Example, Half Life 2... and what have you.

Yes exactly. You can state this quite happily without being at all trollish. As I said though it does seem to be encroaching more into the PC market to make things more equal.

[Deleted]

probaly would be but i guess all the pirate copys and the lose it gives the developers forces them to take other actions to profit in money

[Buckwald]

Do you know how many times I played the same damn tracks on RC Pro-AM? How many times I played RadRacer? Classic console games never really had replayability but we, sure as hell, replayed them. Beat the original Castlevania with out using a subweapon. That was stuff we did.

A lot of games have replayability with out the new maps/DLC. A company puts time and effort into making new content for a game. They used THEIR resources, why would they give it to you? I'm sure larger companies probably won't lose money if they did give out the DLC for free. But that's not the point. It's a product. They are a company. It's not the norm to start and run a business to give your product away for free.

I don't always buy DLC. It depends on what it adds to the game. Horse Armor? Are you kidding me? GTFO with that. Adding entire new quest pack with +X amount of hours, sure. I think it's crazy that you can buy clothes for your XBox Live toon. And yet I see a lot of my friends with them. Crazy.

Don't like it, don't buy it. Don't want to spend money on it, don't buy it.

[Deleted]

It's funny I was thinking earlier about how I played Tom and Jerry on the master system excessively till I beat the game. It wasn't actually hard, except in the sense you had to memorise every single scripted sequence or your failed the level.

Old games were massively repetitive but we didn't have anything to compare them to, plus when you start playing computer games you will happily play anything put in front of you.

"I'm sure larger companies probably won't lose money if they did give out the DLC for free."

Last time I checked the amount of money made from a DLC wasn't inversely proportional to the size of the company.

[VersedalX]

*snip*

While I agree that you've made a point I also must say, Hypothetically(Yes I Dare Cross Into These Shores!) A game that has 100000 players, 80% of the said players buy the new map pack because their 1 friend on their list does it, so they have to to continue to be able to play with that person. sooner or later the ones who don't but it are left on dead servers unless playing at peak hours, so on.

Edit:

Shouldn't company's want to keep the community together and build it instead of divide and subtract it?

[Buckwald]

Shouldn't company's want to keep the community together and build it instead of divide and subtract it?

Why? When they can just pump out a new shiny games to distract the millions of kids that flock to the same FPS/Racer/Sports game just with a new name every 6 months?

[georgevonfranken]

Shouldn't company's want to keep the community together and build it instead of divide and subtract it?

Most of the time company's arent worried about the community they just want money.

Offtopic: Buck you change your avatar alot!

[Buckwald]

Most of the time company's arent worried about the community they just want money.

Offtopic: Buck you change your avatar alot!

I have avatar A.D.D.

And you are 100% correct. But, games built around a community (MMOs) are the place you want to be for games w/communities (too obvious? I'm tired).

[koodledrum]

Difference - in PC games a lot of mods/addons can be created by amatuers & easilly added to gamefiles without much hassle, sure i'm guessing the games companies have their own thoughts about this, but for the most part it's inspired by folks & their ability to create.

Console games however are not so easy to deal with, for a start you need to get the shit ON the network, you gotta KEEP it on the network & you gotta be able to have it merge with the game itself. Now for the first 2 parts, that's gonna cost - for the third part, well it might be POSSIBLE but it's nowhere near as easy as it is with PC games, so hence the companies realise this & have guys who create DLC for you and well, unlike the amatuers those guys expect to be paid for what is a legitimately professional job. (well, for the most part)

The good thing is you don't HAVE to buy the DLC to enjoy the game though - it enhances your gameplay but is not necessary to PLAY the product.

[VersedalX]

The good thing is you don't HAVE to buy the DLC to enjoy the game though - it enhances your gameplay but is not necessary to PLAY the product.

Once again, It divides the community, separating those who have the money to spend on it and those who dont, or do and choose not to. It's taking the game the players paid for to play together and splitting it into two games.

[Buckwald]

It only "separates" them the new maps are picked for the random map. So, I might only see you in 2 out 3 matches. Hardly dividing "the community".

[VersedalX]

Imagine if for example,

People played A,B,C,D,E maps for months.

Now, F,G,H,I,J maps are released for downloadable content..

Do you honestly thing the people who played A,b,c,d,e for months are going to play a,b,c,d,e,f every 2 out of 3 matches or play f,g,h,i,j in order/mix/scrambled?

[Achaman]

ive pretty much lost interest in gaming all together all i play are the ocasional free games like f2p mmos and things like alien swarm but i recently bought an indie game from steam which has kept me busy for awile and my mom decided she wanted a "new" snes to play the donkey kong country games weve had since they were released and she's been playing that quite a lot but other than that i play WoW every few months or try an eve trial to see whats changed in the latest expansion which since recently steam had a 5euro deal has made me want to finally continue past the trial but ofc i missed out on the deal which has made me check steams deals every day incase they bring it back (although its very doubtfull they'll (bring it back for atleast a year)

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

The purchase and premium purchase is reserved for, the elitist rich, the casual gamer who doesn't have the time to unlock such features, and gamers too stupid to realize they are getting ripped off. In the end if the company doesn't give you options then move on, it is a bad company with bad designers.

[Putmalk]

I would disagree about DLC being for the elitist rich - generally, if you like a game, you will get -plenty- of hours of enjoyment out of it. If you want to pay extra to get more from the game, then most likely you're going to get more hours out of that, as well. It boils down to cost per hour...I would say video games are the cheapest form of entertainment out there now.

DLC favors people who play one game consistently. If you continuously pay for multiple games at a time, then DLC is probably not a smart choice, economically.

[khh]

is actually very simple, games became way more expensive to develop.

and 2nd reason is that the market is way more segmented now
7 years ago used to be, ps2, pc and gba and a few smaller niche markets which capitalized your investment

now you have 3 times as many consoles, single player and online games, indies, downloadable games, browser games... is very fragmented now and the current business model of "make a game, sell 90% of the copies during the release month" dont work anymore. so till they figure something better we are stuck with micro payments, dlc and monthly fees

[mordale]

Once again, It divides the community, separating those who have the money to spend on it and those who dont, or do and choose not to. It's taking the game the players paid for to play together and splitting it into two games.

no, it doesn't.
if you don't have the money to buy what you want for entertainment, what did you use to get the original game?
the only people at a disadvantage with coded DLC are kids who can't convince their parents to buy something for a game, and in some cases pirates... who really have no say in any of this.