Chargeable Download Content

As long as companies can make profits by releasing low quality and short DLC we will see them. I have never bought a DLC yet and probably never will. (except GOTY editions, and GTA4 DLC on DVD).
 
Evilsod said:
Thats funny because at the moment the 'budget constrained developers', ie, indie, seem to be the 1 releasing the free or fairer dlc. Its pretty much only the big companies that are releasing these crappy excuses for content.
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That's the point; they are all constrained by these deadlines and budgets, regardless of size -- what tends to differ is how realistic or how well managed they are. I'm sure you've read of the past developer for the latest C&C games talking about how ridiculous the deadlines they were given to produce what came to be not only the worst C&C games in the series but just horrible RTS games compared to all others.

But what you two apparently are actually posting about is an unsubstantiated conspiracy of developers making a 'complete' game then arbitrarily cropping a chunk of content, then selling it weeks later having pretended to be working on supporting the game, when I guess they've just been sitting in their evil office rent lairs stroking fluffy white cats or something. Then blaming the advent of DLC for this underhanded practice. GG if thats what you want to buy into.
 
It's all supply and demand though, isn't it? Games are a luxury good, DLC even more so. If you think it's worth the money, buy it. If you don't, nobody's making you.

Honestly, people go on like they have no choice in the matter. I agree it's a bit of a cod charging for stuff that's already on the DVD, but it's not like you need it to live or anything. Just don't buy it, or don't buy the game in the first place if you know there's locked content on the disk.
 
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Spektor said:
That's the point; they are all constrained by these deadlines and budgets, regardless of size -- what tends to differ is how realistic or how well managed they are. I'm sure you've read of the past developer for the latest C&C games talking about how ridiculous the deadlines they were given to produce what came to be not only the worst C&C games in the series but just horrible RTS games compared to all others.

But what you two apparently are actually posting about is an unsubstantiated conspiracy of developers making a 'complete' game then arbitrarily cropping a chunk of content, then selling it weeks later having pretended to be working on supporting the game, when I guess they've just been sitting in their evil office rent lairs stroking fluffy white cats or something. Then blaming the advent of DLC for this underhanded practice. GG if thats what you want to buy into.
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I'm not really sure what wave of arrogance you're riding here but how can more and more developers releasing less content with a game to sell things that either should've been there in the first place or already were and merely get unlocked not be connected to DLC? Sure its not unheard of in the past but releasing an expansion was still considerably more effort than a DLC and doing so was probably more down to the dev/publisher being crap, not greedy.
 
Spektor said:
But what you two apparently are actually posting about is an unsubstantiated conspiracy of developers making a 'complete' game then arbitrarily cropping a chunk of content, then selling it weeks later having pretended to be working on supporting the game,
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Bioshock 2 has the DLC on the actual Disc.

Mafia 2 DLC is being released 2 weeks after the full game has been released and there are posts floating about which are saying some of this DLC can be unlocked from the already installed game ie its already on the disc.

Kane and Lynch 2 has only been out for 3 or so weeks and already there is DLC.

You dont have to be Einstein to work out that these devs have purposely held back part of the game to sell as DLC.
 
Only games I've found worth it are:

Borderlands
Mass Effect + Mass Effect II
Dragon Age: Origins

They're only games where content : price has been sufficient enough for me to purchase.

Borderlands in particular as I got them during a Steam sale at 50% of the cost, would've happily paid full price for them, they're brilliant!
 
just because addons come out soon after the release of the game, doesn't always mean it was stripped out the game to start with.

there could be many other reasons.

gotta remember that games go gold long before the are released, usually a few months before.

so the developers can then spend those few months waiting for it to be released to work on patches, DLC, etc

also, sometimes DLCs can be made by a seperate department, so you have a seperate team that work along side the core team making new content.

the unfortuatlly reality is that making games is expensive, and a lot struggle to turn a decent profit, so its logical that companies will find every way they can to make a profit on the games they've made.

not that i tend to agree with paid for DLCs, i just understand the reasons some companies choose to do them
 
There are two... three sides to this:


The good:

Borderlands, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 amongst others had DLC created after the game had been released > This is fine. Extra content for games which sell well. Win-win.

Dragon Age was a funny one. There was on-release DLC but the PC version of the game was finished long before the console port. As the team now had nothing to do it was decided that DLC based on content cut pre-production due to time constraints (A standard practice. Not KoToR2-style unfinished) would be craeted. Again, this is good.


The bad:

On release DLC:

The Sims 3 had much content removed and added to an EA store > This is bad. There was no reason for the content to be removed except for monitary gain.


The ****ing Ugly:

Pre-puchase - The new bane of PC gaming.

I hate it so much I gave it it's own heading. Pre-purchase, the new marketing fad for PC games, made possible by digital distribution, often comes with incentive DLC. Basically you get a few extra items, which should by all rights be in the full game, for paying up-front for a product you know very little about and prior to any reviewers getting their hands on it. What's worse is when different stores offer different items. Knowing you're missing content regardless of where you purchase the game leaves a bitter taste in the mouth from the outset. Pre-purchase also gives developers more freedom to release rubbish titles as they can sell their product before anyone's been able to critique it. I just hope enough people get stung by such purchases that they never pre-purchase again. :mad:
 
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Cycrow said:
just because addons come out soon after the release of the game, doesn't always mean it was stripped out the game to start with.

there could be many other reasons.

gotta remember that games go gold long before the are released, usually a few months before.

so the developers can then spend those few months waiting for it to be released to work on patches, DLC, etc

also, sometimes DLCs can be made by a seperate department, so you have a seperate team that work along side the core team making new content.

the unfortuatlly reality is that making games is expensive, and a lot struggle to turn a decent profit, so its logical that companies will find every way they can to make a profit on the games they've made.

not that i tend to agree with paid for DLCs, i just understand the reasons some companies choose to do them
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The expensive part of making a game is actually making it, not releasing extra content. Sorting out the engine, designing and coding the textures, voice acting, all done. Seriously once you've got the basic coding down for wielding a gun, how hard is it to simply use a different skin? Change a few variables here, alter the recoil and damage there, whoop-de-doo, a new gun, that'll be 2 pounds please.

Some DLC don't even bother to try. Return to Ostagar for Dragon Age is a perfect example, no new voice acting and 99% of it was already existing content. The only things that weren't old were the boss (i think) and the gear.

If they were releasing the initial game for £15-20 instead of £35-40 then you're "i can see why they do this" might be valid. Instead what they're trying to do is maximise profit.
 
Evilsod said:
The expensive part of making a game is actually making it, not releasing extra content. Sorting out the engine, designing and coding the textures, voice acting, all done. Seriously once you've got the basic coding down for wielding a gun, how hard is it to simply use a different skin? Change a few variables here, alter the recoil and damage there, whoop-de-doo, a new gun, that'll be 2 pounds please.

Some DLC don't even bother to try. Return to Ostagar for Dragon Age is a perfect example, no new voice acting and 99% of it was already existing content. The only things that weren't old were the boss (i think) and the gear.

If they were releasing the initial game for £15-20 instead of £35-40 then you're "i can see why they do this" might be valid. Instead what they're trying to do is maximise profit.
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yes but what if the initial game didn't make a profit to start with, and the cost of all that initial development would mean you need to sell the game at more than games usually sell at, ie £60 instead of £40.
so instead of increasing the price, they release the game at a normal price then add more content to make up the rest.

im not saying some DLC's havn't been made just to try and maximise profits.
just saying, that releasing them close to the release of the game doesn't always mean they are just trying to maximise thier profits and screw over gamers.

pc games have already released around the same price, yet the cost of development continues to rise.
so if the development costs are higher, and your selling at the same price, then the only way to make profit would be to sell more copies
 
From my experience Borderlands and most of the ME2 dlc was worth it, adding a good collection of content.

Whereas the MW2 dlc is obscenely overpriced for the amount of content they add, I'd never buy it
 
Cycrow said:
yes but what if the initial game didn't make a profit to start with, and the cost of all that initial development would mean you need to sell the game at more than games usually sell at, ie £60 instead of £40.
so instead of increasing the price, they release the game at a normal price then add more content to make up the rest.

im not saying some DLC's havn't been made just to try and maximise profits.
just saying, that releasing them close to the release of the game doesn't always mean they are just trying to maximise thier profits and screw over gamers.

pc games have already released around the same price, yet the cost of development continues to rise.
so if the development costs are higher, and your selling at the same price, then the only way to make profit would be to sell more copies
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What makes you think if the original game couldn't make a profit that spending more on DLC would make it better? If it didn't make a profit there is probably a reason for it.

Developments have risen but so has the number of people buying them. And you still can't forget that Activision spent, what was it, 4x more on Marketing than they did on producing the game?
 
what i hate is games where you play it and you know for a fact a specific DLC will be released after.

look at some of the old mafia 2 E3 videos there are missions that arent even in the game

i bet they are in one of the DLC packs though.......

anyone remember at e3 in one of the videos how they were talking about all the side missions? i bet they are in one of the DLC.

anyone remember the videos showing melee weapons? yep i bet thats going to be another DLC.

all stuff they showed when they were promoting the bloody game, we will always get people like Cycrow who are ignorant of it and want to believe the devs are going out of there way to code all this stuff.

we know the dev team who made the game also made the dlc at the same time for most games it wasnt some seperate dev team dont be ridiculous, if DLC gets released within a month its blatantly obvious to anyone who isnt stupid what they have done.

in the past sure games got released without promised features but you could bet your ass they would release them in a free patch.

DLC also killed modding and for that reason alone i wont buy any DLC for a game that hasnt released modding tools
 
Only DLC I have bought was TBoGT and TLAD for GTAIV. Really great DLC and added loads more playtime to an already long game.

Hate the way some games have the content on the disc and you basically pay for a 10kB key to unlock it.
 
Evilsod said:
What makes you think if the original game couldn't make a profit that spending more on DLC would make it better? If it didn't make a profit there is probably a reason for it.

Developments have risen but so has the number of people buying them. And you still can't forget that Activision spent, what was it, 4x more on Marketing than they did on producing the game?
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a large number of games barely break even

only a small number actually turn a decent profit
 
arknor said:
what i hate is games where you play it and you know for a fact a specific DLC will be released after.

look at some of the old mafia 2 E3 videos there are missions that arent even in the game

i bet they are in one of the DLC packs though.......

anyone remember at e3 in one of the videos how they were talking about all the side missions? i bet they are in one of the DLC.

anyone remember the videos showing melee weapons? yep i bet thats going to be another DLC.

all stuff they showed when they were promoting the bloody game, we will always get people like Cycrow who are ignorant of it and want to believe the devs are going out of there way to code all this stuff.

we know the dev team who made the game also made the dlc at the same time for most games it wasnt some seperate dev team dont be ridiculous, if DLC gets released within a month its blatantly obvious to anyone who isnt stupid what they have done.

in the past sure games got released without promised features but you could bet your ass they would release them in a free patch.

DLC also killed modding and for that reason alone i wont buy any DLC for a game that hasnt released modding tools
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your talking about a specifc game, i was talking in general.
and yes, sometimes companies do have a seperate team working on additional content, so dont say its ridiculous, coz it does happen

i happen to know abit about games development, and i know that devs dont just cut out features from game to sell extra.
maybe the publisher might, but most likly, it was cut because it didn't make the budget

as i said, some developers/publishers might do this to make a profit, but just coz some do, doesn't mean all devs are like that
 
Cycrow said:
as i said, some developers/publishers might do this to make a profit, but just coz some do, doesn't mean all devs are like that
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The point some are trying to make is that this behaviour is becoming more and more common in pc gaming. No one is accusing all devs/publishers of doing this. :)
 
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