I don’t mind the DLC. If I don’t like it, or if it looks like the game is built around shoving it in my face, I don’t buy any of it.

Before all of this DLC hubbub, us gamers used to have the mod scene. The developers would release their game editing tools and the users would make their own content.

Allowing for a mod scene added a ton of value to a game. You could customize the game to your taste, or smooth over some of the issues with the game (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC is infamous for needing mods just to smooth over much of the sloppy implementation of the development team). One of the big draws of the mod scene is the “total conversion” that practically revamped the game. The best part is that none of this costs a dime apart from the game and internet connection.

There is a still a mod scene around, but it isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be.

Nowadays, developers won’t release their game tools and wall off the game to try to sell you this additional content. On the positive side, the official developer content almost always well polished.

In the end, I guess I’m just a bit sad because a lot of this content that is sold as DLC used to be free user mods.

We have lost something, but I think it’s more related to DRM than DLC. For instance, remember the amazing Battlefield mods, Project Reality and Desert Combat? We’ll never see something like that released for BF3, largely because of it’s DRM and lack of SDK.

Whether or not publishers/developers realize it, mods really improve the life of their game. The best example would be the sudden explosion of popularity with the standalone Arma2 expansion pack because of DayZ. One day, the game suddenly skyrockets up to the top of the Steam charts again, at full price even.

Cute. I might point out, BTW, that the betas you were playing? The additional content had already been culled and relegated to later release as DLC. The reason people complain about this tactic is because rather than releasing a complete game and DLC being additional content, companies are selling an *incomplete*, but functional game and making customers pay extra for the rest of the game.

One category you missed, BTW–the situations where companies include their ‘DLC’ in the purchased game to begin with, but require customers to pay an additional fee in order to use the content they’ve already paid for and installed. It’s similar to the case above in some ways–except rather than excise parts of the complete game as separate downloads, they are instead converting their complete game into crippleware.

I couldn’t agree more with both comments.

Actually Jason, I think you are WAY off on your assessment (I’m Marcus since I am using your first name here). DLC has been a joke since it started. It is a big rip off, and it is time journalists in the industry, such as yourselves, take it to task. I also agree with the above comments, but I think you guys industry wide have been way too soft on the developers regarding this subject. Where it has gone really wrong is in specific games, the Madden franchise we’ll start with, where content that FOR YEARS was part of the core game is NOW considered DLC. Don’t even get me started on the Tiger Woods franchise. I have stopped playing BOTH of those franchises altogether due to their shunning of the hardcore and ridiculously bad business practices. The fact of the matter is that MOST companies are doing it wrong, and show no signs of changing their practices anytime soon. While I am all in favor of quality developers making a profit, it is not justifiable to think you can put content on a disc and consider it DLC as MANY companies have done and are doing. And yes, I have read some of the excuses developers give for this happening, and their stupid explanations don’t hold water. I love gaming still, but the way this industry is headed I will be forced to find other entertainment to spend my hard earned money on if it ends up where I think it will. As your article and another comment already pointed out, I have chosen to make my statement by choosing to disown some of my most favorite franchises without regret because the value AND quality had been completely depleted by shitty business practices. And I will continue to do so, which is a shame for the industry because it shows that they are losing their way and alienating the crowd that made it what it is, the hardcore. At 41, I still will continue to game for the short term because of games like The Witcher 1 & 2, Rise of Flight, the NBA 2K series, the Assassin’s Creed series, the Total War series, Birds of Steele and a few others I will omit so I can finish up and get on with my life. I think this topic is far from being finished with and give you prop’s for tackling the issue. I think it is an issue that needs to be sorted sooner rather than later before the industry suffers any long term damage. That’s my two cents anyway.

Keep up the quality articles guys.

When DLC was originally pitched in the early 2000s, developers talked about using it as a way to extend the life of a game after launch so it didn’t end up on the used rack in Game Stop or whatever used game seller so quickly.

Some developers like Bioware have made good on that and extended their games after launch.

Other developers have used DLC that rub players the wrong way. One of the biggest upsets is hiding what used to be basic functionality behind a DLC pay-wall. You can hide behind the “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it” argument, but it doesn’t hold a lot of water when older games used to do it for free.

Capcom has to be one of the biggest offenders of obnoxious DLC. In Street Fighter X Tekken, they turned pallet swapping for characters into for-pay DLC (I wouldn’t mind if you got full costumes, but these are just color options). Just about every fighter since the 90s let you switch character colors without shelling out more money. In Dead Rising 2, they want to charge players for cheat codes.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start? That will be $5.99 + tax, please.

It wouldn’t be such an issue if publishers didn’t charge FULL PRICE for a game, then shoved the cash shop in my face asking me more money to get some basic functionality out of the game.

If these games sold at a moderate discount, then nickeled and dimed me for functionality and frivolous junk, I wouldn’t care.

Gamers do have their limits. When Microsoft tried to charge for multiplayer for Games For Windows Live, PC gamers treated it as a black mark on the game box and refused to buy. This caused Halo 2 to be stillborn on the PC. It also caused some good games like Universe At War to end up prematurely in the bargain bin.

Perhaps I have a bad case of the “entitlements,” but I expect certain games of certain genres to have certain functionality out of the box when I pay full price for them.

Let me respond to some good discussion:

@Ian and Adam

The whole modding scene is one of my regrets about the direction DRM is taking. However, I have one ray of hope in this regard. Paradox Interactive has contracted with mod makers to make really inexpensive stand alone games, expansions, and DLC. The results have been mixed, but what I love about it is that, under this model, the developers can make some additional money from the modding community AND the modders can make some money for their work. Everyone wins when it works out.

@Marcus

Reading through your post, it sounds like you took my advice to heart. If the Madden and Tiger Woods franchises are putting fewer features in the main game and still charging full price, then it seems like the right answer to just not buy it and to just ignore the DLC.

That’s the real point of all of this. The goal is to just say, “Hey, this content is not satisfactory at this price. I won’t buy it.” I can’t think of a developer or publisher that can keep creating crap that people won’t buy.

As for games being upfront and in your face about buying additional content, again I’ll say that if it’s making the game less enjoyable, I’ll make a different choice. I had real reservations about LOTRO when it when to a micro-transaction model. But they weren’t all in my face about it, so I didn’t mind. But had it been worse, I would have dropped it like a bad habit.

DLC, as a business model, has its advantages and disadvantages, but crappy content will still be crappy content. And charging too much for content will still be charging too much for content.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against DLC. It is here to stay and I am okay with that.

Though, I think reviews need to catch up with the times. A lot of game reviews I read today still follow the formula of:
1) What the game is
2) How it plays
3) Good and bad points
4) Whether or not it is worth your money
This was fine in the pre-DLC days when what you see is what you get.

I’m not going to make the absurd expectation that post-release day DLC to be covered.

What I would like is for reviews to go a little more in depth about release day DLC when it is there. I know with pre-order bonuses and other DLC as bait it can be hard to cover in detail, but it would add value to a review. A lot of reviews just get to the end and say “also, there is some DLC if you want” and leave it at that.

Adam, you make an excellent point.

However, let me point out something that we actually have no control over. We really just get to review what they send us for free. Just from what I’ve gotten for various games, I sometimes get DLC available for people who pre-order, sometimes I get nothing, sometimes I get all the DLC, and at least one time I got a beta version of the game and no DLC until release day, when it magically turned into a release version of the game with a nice pile of DLC on Steam. That’s great, but I was already done and my editors wanted something to publish already. And guess what? The publishers want us to post reviews before release, too.

What I will say is that we should probably be better about researching available DLC so I can at least make a statement about features included with what content. But then we have to decide how to talk about content we haven’t seen, so it becomes a vicious cycle.

imho, 0-day dlc means publisher chose to be evil, so maybe have an evilness rating to the games…

@Jason:
Fair enough, if the developers or publishers are not going to be forthcoming about their DLC or its handling, you can’t report on it. I understand.

It would be nice if reviewers were able to give a mini-review of some of the DLC at a later date. It doesn’t have to be anything special, it just has to answer: is it worth the petty change? On the other hand, it brings up the issue: when do you stop reviewing the game? I understand that there are business issues and that you can’t comb over every petty detail of the game.

@z:
Don’t be so hard on developers for release day DLC. Games are still software products, and as any developer will tell you: it is hard to make changes to one part of a software product without breaking another.

There is a lot of testing that has to go into making sure new content works without breaking the game. Console companies aren’t very forgiving about releasing game patches over their online networks either. Preparing the DLC prior to release day is more or less risk mitigation, not greed.

I’m going to toss this into the maelstrom because it seems relevant: You do not deserve additional content for free. If it’s a rip off, say so and don’t buy it, but don’t act like you’re entitled to it. There’s a reason that this thread, of all threads, has exploded.

@z:
Wow, Evil, eh? There’s a three-month gap between when the game is finished and it actually ships, and instead of just siting on their their hands, they can use those months to make something. Also, from day one onward, the chances of someone picking up DLC drops dramatically because they finish the game and move on.

Lets reserve evil for things like child abuse and animal cruelty and not apply it to luxury entertainment goods whose prices have plummeted in relation to inflation.

I was using evil in the terms used in the post. We can all agree there are much worse things than gaming dlc…

Perhaps below is a better example of whats happened to the gaming industry.
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/ubisoft-uplay-drm-found-to-include-a-rootkit-20120730/
I also remember fondly origin.ea.com (we build worlds…) and detest the reuse of the word Origin by ea and yes I have not bought anything from them since. So I do vote with my wallet and vote for the indy games.

I don’t mind paying for DLC per say. What I do mind is when the game seems to be a delivery method for DLC rather than to enhance the game. The MS example is an extreme case in point, however the difference between Dragonage (bought all dlc)and Dragonage sequel (no dlc bought by me) was the turning point for me.

I have mixed feelings about DLC.

I find it frustrating when there’s DLC on the disk that you bought, but it’s locked and not available to you — that’s not content the developed while the disk was going through production and distribution, that’s something they built and walled off to begin with. If they’re clear about it up front, then it’s not so bad, but it’s still annoying. And while annoying isn’t evil, it’s not FUN, either.

DLC is also encouraging me to wait even longer to buy new games. Why buy it at full price, pay full price for DLC as it comes out, and THEN see the “Game of the Year” edition on sale with MSRP that’s half the original pirce, AND has all the DLC included for free?!?! What a way to tell your current players that they made a tremendous mistake buying your game and the DLC as it came out! Even if you were reasonably happy with the purchases as you made them, that just feels like a slap in the face — again, not really evil, but not really FUN, either.

OTOH, if they’re really using DLC to extend the life of the game (and for more than just putting new costumes on characters without affecting gameplay at all), then that’s awesome. Again, quality matters, and your point about quality and price and the relationship between them is well taken.

But at some point, the industry trains its customers – and if we constantly feel that they’re biting us when we buy DLC, then as an industry customers will start buying less DLC. Yes, new kids joining the ranks who haven’t faced these issues will keep the churn going, but companies that figure out how to offer REAL, enjoyable DLC will be able to keep selling it – and those who see their customers as ATMs will, eventually, see the ATMs dry up. There’s just a lot of room for getting hurt in the meantime.

i have never trusted the dlc concept. sharewares (remember those?) was a trustworthy concept. with dlc, there’s always a carrot dangling beyond your reach, and developers are not ashamed to wave the carrot stick gleefully in front of you.

“It only matters whether the content is worth the price and whether the DRM is acceptable.”

-

Nonsense. Bad DLC also break up your game into disconnected little shards that destroy your gaming experience and destroy immersion.

I do not just hate DLC because they are abused to extract inordinate amounts of money from our pockets. I mostly hate DLC because they potentially can destroy the gaming experience.

First let me say something about the correct use of DLC. For example for RTS games companies can decide to release extra maps, campaigns and units. I personally see nothing wrong there if they have not deliberately maymed the original game and ripped stuff out to sell to their customers later. A good use of DLC in my opinion is also the way Rockstar handled it for GTA4. The DLC were quite large, seperate episodes that could each be enjoyed without having played the original game. Although there were smart links to the original story, this did not negatively influence the gaming experience at all. And best of all, the DLC were released on disk.

The way Bioware did it with Mass Effect 2 is in my view completely wrong and game breaking. First they released a few free DLC.
Nothing wrong there, although some of it was obviously deliberately left out to begin with (Zaeed). And another DLC like the Hammerhead was totally pointless and useless for the actual game. The vehicle was dropped in our lap as an unfinished afterthought and was not integrated in the gameplay of the full game. I consider this gamebreaking. And this is exactly what bad DLC can do. The missions that came with the Hammerhead were a total failure as far as I am concerned. They were laughable and offensive in being obviously tagged on and created in no more than 30 minutes.

Then Bioware had the audacity to ask money for pieces of clothing/armor and a few shooty things. There was no story behind it and the stuff was just dumped in the game. Worst of all the original second game (as opposed to ME1) sorely lacked clothing/armor options and weapon options to begin with. To me it is clear this was deliberate. Bioware used this as a trick to force us to complete (as compared to ME1) our game for extra money.

Some of the DLC we had to pay for added characters to the game, but the problem is the DLC were released at a time most of us had already played the full game once or even twice. Again these extra characters were also ripped out of the game deliberately in advance. This was obvious because in the spaceship there were already inaccessible rooms reserved (which is weird and immersion breaking of itself) for these characters that should have been in the game and should have been part of the bigger story from the start, because they are supposed to be teammates that should be used for the main storyline. Because the characters were released after the fact most of us were unable to use them in the full game as many of us had already finished it at least once or twice. We could play the missions that were connected with the characters but that was it.

These DLC felt like they were ripped out of the game, and I felt ripped off. Bioware out of greed deliberately deminished our gaming experience of the full game by breaking it up into pieces to sell to us seperately. To me as a long time gamer this wanton destruction is pure evil.

Yeah of course you can play through the game a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth time for every single DLC that is released, but the point is a DLC should not be implemented that way. It is bad for the game and the coherence of your gaming experience. To me as a long time gamer this a crime against gaming.

As I already stated Rockstar did a much better job with the release of two large and completely independent DLC with new player characters for GTA 4 that were smartly interconnected with the main story. I gladly bought these DLC and I would have bought more from Rockstar if done the same way, but I did not spend a single dime on the Mass Effect 2 DLC. Bioware’s greed even made me decide I would not fall into the money trap twice. I will buy Mass Effect 3 when it is released as a complete edition with all the DLC parts integrated into the game, or I will never buy it at all. It is not an easy decision for me, because I love Mass Effect.

@Ian: I know we aren’t entitled to free DLC. Part of the original concept is that the developers sell it for a minor fee. I do consider it an act of good faith when a developer throws me a freebie.

One thing I’m concerned about with DLC is what happens when the games and systems you have DLC for have reached end of life?
Will you still be able to take your DLC to another box?
Will you still be able to use the DLC at all?
Will the developers/publishers just gives us the unlock patches?

Back in the early 2000s, there used to be a bunch of music DRM schemes. As they started to die off, people began to wonder: if the DRM servers aren’t running, how am I going to use my music?
The DRM’s and music industry’s answer: No. It’s gone. Thanks for the money.

This left a foul taste in the mouths of music fans. Why pay for something if it can be snatched away if some company across the internet doesn’t feel like holding up their end of the bargain? Music fans didn’t have this problem with classic media like CDs and unlocked formats like mp3s.

Will gamers face the same fate?

One thing I would like to clarify about my previous post: when it comes to online games like MMOs and online oriented games, once the developers pull the plug, it is all gone DLC and all. This isn’t an issue for me.

@Argos

Yes, ME2 was heavily monetized, but it hardly broke the game. I played it with only one piece of DLC installed and it didn’t effect me at all. Having Space Horse Armor for sale didn’t somehow work eldric magick and ruin my singleplayer realm of existence.

This is where start to smell that scent of entitlement/completionism. The existence of extra doodads doesn’t effect what you have. The only exception might be when its so loudly advertised (Dragon Age wasn’t very subtle about it), or if its somehow required to complete the game (which hasn’t happened yet). Getting ripped off by buying bad doodads for a high price is just a fake algebra problem.

It’s true that in multiplayer situations, it can be implemented badly. Charging for content tends to divide up the player base, which can leave one or more groups high and dry. The higher the player base, the better it works. This is why COD can sell maps, but it killed Section 8.

@argos

It sounds like ME2 and the armor DLCs were right up there with Horse Armor in Oblivion. The content sounds lousy and not worth the money. So, why purchase it?

As for the free DLC, well, not to put a fine point on it, it’s free. Did it make the game unplayable? Was the content forced upon you and you had to play it once you installed it? I mean, it sounds like either you just don’t buy it, or you ignore it.

In fact, it sounds less intrusive than maps and other RTS DLC. If everyone else gets a map pack, then you end up having to get it just to play with them.

@Jason Pitruzzello

“It sounds like ME2 and the armor DLCs were right up there with Horse Armor in Oblivion. The content sounds lousy and not worth the money. So, why purchase it? ”

I did not. And that is besides the point anyway. What matters is that if you compare ME1 and ME2 you can clearly observe how Bioware left out virtually all armor content on purpose, only to ask money for it later.

“As for the free DLC, well, not to put a fine point on it, it’s free. Did it make the game unplayable? Was the content forced upon you and you had to play it once you installed it? I mean, it sounds like either you just don’t buy it, or you ignore it. ”

Of course you do not have to play it. Again, that is besides the point. You do not know how bad it is if you do not play it either.
The direct consequence of this type of DLC is that you get little shards of very low quality content and it tears the game to shreds instead of offering one comprehensive immersive gaming experience.

It simply is very bad game building practice. It is a practice that only serves one goal: Money grabbing. The choice to release DLC of this type is not made because EA/Bioware want to enhance an already good game (I think ME2 was a fine game). It is made because they want to feed their greed. And it was obvious that the low quality free DLC were only distributed as day one DLC to generate publicity and good will before the real money grabbing got started.

” If everyone else gets a map pack, then you end up having to get it just to play with them.”

Yes, I agree, that can indeed be a problem for multi player gamers. I am not one of them and I never buy games that depend heavily on multiplay.

Argos has brought up a point that’s been in the back of my brain for a while now but I couldn’t find a way to express. I could not agree more about the immersion busting nature of many DLCs. Bethesda games like Fallout and TES are good examples. Say you haven’t’ actually played the game yet and buy some DLCs for it. Well, right after you get through the tutorial/chargen phase, your screen explodes with messages telling you about this quest or that content, and sometimes items magically appear in your inventory. Its hilarious in Oblivion where you’re a fresh toon who’s suddenly heir to a magical tower, an underground lair, horse barding and lord knows what else! Extremely immersion-breaking. Why not save all of those little chunks of disparate content up and release a proper expansion pack like the old days? I’d think a big pack of new stuff that’s well-integrated with the original game would be far more attractive to players. And then there’s the issue of DLC add-ons for multiplayer: I think the publishers know exactly what their doing. Their hope is that even if you’re not too keen on paying more you’ll want to join the cool kids playing the latest content. Worse, a lot of that content amounts to pay-to-win as DLC includes superior weapons, armor, etc. (we can tank the freemium MMO segment for that “innovation”). The games industry is getting lazy, charging customers for things that used to be included. It would be one thing if the core games had improved noticeably compared to five years ago, but for the most part their not. Better graphics on the very latest hardware, maybe, but that’s about it.

I don’t think DLC is per se evil. I think the implementation of it, though, needs to be done carefully, and the message sent needs to be managed carefully.

For example, EA is NOTORIOUS for including “on-the-disk” DLC. Under those circumstances I DO feel entitled to it for free. It’s already on the disk. I bought the disk. I shouldn’t have to pay extra to “unlock” the disk content. I can understand Day-0 DLC — especially if it’s free — as an issue of production schedules. They want the game to drop on a particular date, so it goes gold before the whole package is finished, and the remaining bits are released as Day-0 content, giving them a month or so to finish up that stuff. I get that, that’s fine. Don’t make me PAY for it, though. I even SORT OF get the concept of on-the-disk DLC operating as a kind of staged-release to extend the life of the game….again, as long as it’s free.

I don’t feel compelled to buy every bit of DLC, though. Some stuff really adds nothing much at all to the game. Extra armor? New guns? Meh. Whatever. If I want to buy it, I’ll buy it. If not, I don’t feel I’ve been “denied” something.

HOWEVER

It really depends on HOW this stuff is implemented. If you leave a lot of content out of your game JUST to have stuff you can sell to people (especially when they get the sense that the code was always there from the start) that’ll just piss folks off. And rightly so. I dropped $60 to get a complete game. If your game has only 4 armor sets, and I have to buy the “Super Special 27 Other Armors DLC Pack” just to stay alive in the game…then yeah, we have a problem. If you told me up front “(Armor sold separately)” then I could just make an informed consumer decision and not buy, or wait for a Game Of The Year edition (which is usually what I do with games anymore). BUT if you basically do a bait-and-switch, then yeah, we have a problem and I don’t think I’m being unreasonable by calling a company on it.

The integration of DLC also is important. Psycros’ Fallout 3 example is a good one. Just shoving a DLC ubergun in someone’s backpack from the start and telling them “Congratulations, Lord Stinkybritches! You are heir to Iceheart Keep, located far to the west!” is poor integration, not poor DLC. The DLC is stuff that should be gradually revealed.

Dragon Age: Origins did some of this well. You couldn’t access “Return to Ostagar” until….AFTER OSTAGAR. You couldn’t do The Stone Prisoner until you had access to the world map. And some of the DLC was standalone DLC which addressed side stories, back stories, or “what happened next.” That was good integration. Other stuff was available from later-level shops, or even if it was in your backpack, you couldn’t use it until you hit a certain level. To me, that’s all good integration and is far closer to a true “expansion pack.”

But let’s also remember that, as mentioned, some expansion packs….sucked back in the good old days. There were plenty of ho-hum Duke Nukem or Doom expansion packs that were basically just collections of mediocre maps. There were plenty of rip-off expansions, too. “Three new scenarios and one plane and I’m paying $15 for this?! Like hell!”

So, DLC, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, to me. It’s just a delivery mechanism and it’s really no different from the expansion packs and patches of old. The real issue is HOW it’s done. Sometimes it can be done really poorly and look like a cheap cash-grab…just like in the old days. Or it can look like some hastily thrown-together pile of crap…just like in the old days. To me, the major difference is the size of the DLC (which can vary, whereas older expansion packs were usually more substantial if not necessarily better or worse in quality) and the fact that you might pay $5 for something small. That said, the $5 small item might’ve just ended up as part of some lackluster expansion pack. For example: Dark Forces II: Mysteries of the Sith. It added the DL-44 to Dark Forces II, along with a new player character and some voices, and a new campaign which was…meh. Nowadays, the character and gun would be a $5 purchase, the maps would be a $12 purchase, or you could get them together for $15….which is what you’d pay back in the old days. The per unit pricing might cut more in favor of the developers, but if they make QUALITY stuff, who cares?

From Brian Fargo, and i quote
“The movement against many forms of paid DLC is only going to get stronger. DLC has now become a 4 letter word with one less letter. I have no problem with things that you download that are cosmetic only and other smaller forms that are more trivial and non-essential. I used to look forward to expansion packs for games. Tons of new game play for like $20. I never had an issue with that. To get as much content in the expansion packs of yesteryear would probably cost $100 in the new DLC model today.

Of course the Red Boots DLC pack is a different story… Maybe I should Kickstart the Red Boots DLC pack and then sell the shoelaces as extra DLC. I bet my sarcastic humor is going to get me in trouble one of these days!”

@ Jason Pitz. You are a hard man to find. LOL