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Posted By Shaun K. about 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Episode 3 – At Least Its Not Horse Armor
Welcome back to the show where we introduce the debate and you continue it. This week’s topic: Is paid DLC really an exploitation of gamers or just another necessary facet of the video game industry?
Thumb Wars is a weekly show hosted/produced by Shaun Kronenfeld dedicated to starting and encouraging dialogue and debate on a wide variety of topics within the video game industry. Look for a new Thumbs Wars every Sunday. Comments, opinions, and thoughts are not only welcome, they are the entire point. Feel free to follow Shaun on Twitter @bigred_13 if you feel so inclined.
As far as the Mass Effect 3 thing goes, you get the code for the DLC with a new copy of the game, so it’s more like a fuck you for buying used. Lets call it alternative DRM. You also have to take into account the fact they released the Extended Cut DLC plus all the multiplayer DLC for free.
Honestly I don’t think you could call DLC in general exploitation in and of itself. The fact of the matter is it’s a legitimate avenue to add extra replayability and life to a game at a nominal cost. Whether the DLC is exploitative really needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
Practices like day one DLC Are becoming a bit too common, but in cases like EA I think that’s more a matter of DRM and anti-used game sentiment. If you’re talking about Capcom tho, how do you tell if the content wasn’t ready when they began printing the disc? If it’s on the disc doesn’t that mean it was necessarily ready on initial printing? Is it worse to withhold the DLC or leverage it to make people buy new instead of used?
I don’t think you can really call something that’s optional exploitative, even if it’s a “true ending (or some BS to think up later and call the true ending),” cause it’s still cheaper than re-releasing the same game for full price with some minor upgrades *coughCapcomcough*. Yes it’s their game and they can do what they want with it, but if they can make more money milking hardcore fans and losing casual fans and they like conducting their business like that, don’t they deserve any hate being sent their way for it?
I’d also like to point out there are alternative DLC practices like letting you pay money to unlock characters/costumes/stages that you can otherwise unlock via gameplay, or the booster packs in ME3 multiplayer which you can earn via gameplay or buy outright. You don’t have to buy anything but it offers the option, which allows the company to make money without withholding content from other players.
DLC is currently a near-cancer to gaming…and that’s because it’s being abused by greedy whores like EA and Capcom.
DLC should of been a tool to extend the life of games..used to fill in things that might of been missed during development, expanding the story/game (like the Expansion Packs of Old) or even as extra-awesome content that wasn’t planned and was put as a “thank you” to fans/supporters of the game.
All i see DLC being used for is cutting out main game chunks and selling it back (Mass Effect 3, Asura’s Wrath, MvC3, SFxT, -insert recent capcom games with DLC here- ), overpriced Map/Item packs (CoD..or was that Battlefield? They look the same..), True Endings (FFXIII-2 and Asura’s Wrath).
DLC, in my opinion, should only be used as a “last resort” sort of thing. It shouldn’t exist unless certain conditions are met; one of those being: “DO NOT $*@)ING PLAN FOR DLC”
“Planning for DLC” translates to: “We’re going to leech your wallet dry by purposely cutting content for -reason that’s utter bullshit the moment we said ‘planned DLC’.”
DLC should NEVER be “planned for”…if you’re going to “Plan” expanded content on your game then make a goddamn sequel OR make it something that matches the weight of an Expansion Pack back in the old days.
“Planned DLC” speaks to “i’m getting an incomplete game”..because all things considered THAT IS what it is. The developer is saying “we’re making content for this game we’re making now that you’ll download later after we release it instead of putting it into the game now as we’re making it.”
Now sure, i don’t know a damn thing about the insides of game dev…but take this into account as this is what THE PERSON BUYING THE GAMES IS THINKING when they hear/read this stuff. If the Devs are truly doing DLC legit, they need to prove it and show a bit of transparency.
Maybe someone should do a documentary at a (non-EA/Activision/Capcom) developer that’s done DLC to see how DLC comes into existence? Is it really planned or is it by chance once a game is “finished”? That’d be educational to watch i bet.
Honestly, I know your advertise these as meant to encourage discussion . . . but the video actually came off more as an ultimatum. You literally trashed and talked all over the opposing opinion on DLC, to the extent we didn’t really get to hear the counter points. It was all praise for DLC, outside of capcom. Any point he made about the failures and digressions of developers, publishers, and the industry in general where DLC is concerned? You dismissed them, talked over them. You were delivering an ultimatum that we should eat up DLC no matter what, that they have to do this.
Well, they don’t.
We know they don’t. We experienced times when they didn’t. We know for a fact that their financial issues are an issue of ‘them’ not managing their budgets correctly, and going over the top. They are forcing the idiotic amount of sales they have to make to recoup costs, and, when they don’t, forcing DLC to make up for those costs. All because they couldn’t manage their financials in the first place and keep things in check.
In contrast you see development studious, high end studious, who can. And that is the real difference. These are the developers giving us free, extensive, and enthralling DLC, as opposed to 25usd for ‘something worthless’ brand of DLC the industry is pushing on consumers.
You bring up Lair of the Shadow Broker. Well, great, it’s the bare minimum of what I find acceptable in paid DLC. The bare minimum. You go less than that and I don’t find it acceptable, and I actually expect more, because I’ve bought low cost titles, full titles, with more content than that and no lack of visual prowess.
The reality is that Bioware, outside of Lair of the Shadow Broker, have also released brands of DLC that are unforgivable. Should I mention the Arrival DLC for ME2 that promised it would effect the beginning of ME3 with the trial? You know. The Trial. What? You don’t remember the Trial? That’s because THEY AXED THE TRIAL ENTIRELY AND THAT DLC YOU PAID FOR WENT NOWHERE AND DID NOTHING IT PROMISED. The DLC itself was lacking in every area, it failed in every area that the Lair of the Shadow Broker succeeded in.
Those free to play games, it’s a hit or miss. Some of them, yeah, you really do have to pay in the long run, ‘if they are the sort that make you pay for power.’ Well, guess what? They don’t all do that. Some of them really do stick to wholly cosmetic things, vanity things, things you don’t need in the long run of the game to be successful. Those exist and we see them all over the place, you only need to watch the MMO grinder to see examples of all both types, those that make you pay for power, and those where the cash shop has literally no effect. In those purely cosmetic cash shops it’s the player’s choice to support the game or not, and they’d paid nothing to come to that conclusion. And these games thrive.
I always felt that DLC should compliment the main gaming experience. Regardless whether or not they decide to sell their DLC, it should never feel like a missing piece to a larger experience and it should NEVER feel like a requirement.
Fallout 3, despite how you felt about its “original ending”, felt like a “complete” experience. Arkham City was a complete game even without the extra characters or Harley’s Revenge. Hell, KOEI’s handling of DLC for their Dynasty Warriors Gundam games are better than whatever Capcom’s been doing. Please note that I said “handling”, not “pricing”; that’s always up for debate, but once again, so long as it doesn’t feel like a missing piece to a larger experience, I can accept it.
I think Shaun had the right of it in the recorded conversation there. For the most part, DLC is perfectly fine – bonus content that we would not otherwise have, which it is perfectly fine for the developer to expect a little extra money for as long as it remains totally optional.
There are outliers, mostly coming from Capcom, where this is not the case, and those need to get as much backlash as possible to discourage it, as Capcom has supposedly been discouraged after the SFxT backlash (we’ll see if they hold to their stated intent to change those policies or not as future games come out). But those also need to be known offenders, not just paranoid people assuming that all DLC is like that, which seems to be what the majority of complaints about DLC in general that you see on the internet are.
On the last part, I’m not holding my breath. I think it will take one or more of their high-profile titles failing miserably because gamers refuse to pay for them until they know they are getting their money’s worth. But as long as their high-profile titles still rake in the bucks, they’re just going to find sneakier ways to rip gamers off.
For the most part, DLC is additional content. The video cites examples like The Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption. TUN was basically a whole new game; even though it used the same engine, the same map, etc., what they did was basically put out a whole game with enough content to rival the main game. Frankly, I think that, if the DLC gives us this level of quality and gameplay experience, I think it is worth it to pay the extra for it.
I don’t even mind the idea of DLC being developed along with the main content. But it has to be additional content, something that adds to the gaming experience. For example, if I found out they were working on The Undead Nightmare at the same time as Red Dead Redemption, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. Why? Because I feel a title like RDR already gives me my money’s worth, and anything else they add is bonus.
The bottom line here is, it doesn’t matter WHEN it was developed, only that I as the gamer get real value from it.
But then there’s Capcom. And I do honestly believe that they are not really giving gamers their money’s worth. And that’s the general feeling. Asura’s Wrath was cited, noting that the true ending of the game was published as paid DLC rather than included in the actual game. That’s just cheap, Capcom! Instead of adding value for the gamer, this approach to DLC actually subtracts value from the game.
In other words, rather than adding value to the gamer’s experience, this approach takes value away, and that is despicable.
But overall, I feel that DLC has the great potential to increase the value from a game. And to me, this potential is a positive. Whether a particular DLC lives up to this potential depends on the approach of the game producers.
Sometimes when I think of exploitation in the DLC market, I get about as angry as Angry Joe. But I suppose in the larger picture, there is little exploitation going on, especially since most DLC is optional content and not necessary to enjoy their respective games.
There is one example of exploitation, however, that’s worth mentioning yet was left out of this video. Downloadable outfits in Final Fantasy XIII-2 cost three dollars each, and some outfits in Tales of Graces F cost four(!) dollars each. Doesn’t that seem like a highly disproportionate difference between cost and worth? At least in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the downloadable outfits came in bundles.
“There is one example of exploitation, however, that’s worth mentioning yet was left out of this video. Downloadable outfits in Final Fantasy XIII-2 cost three dollars each, and some outfits in Tales of Graces F cost four(!) dollars each. Doesn’t that seem like a highly disproportionate difference between cost and worth?”
Yes, but how is that exploitative? It’s an extremely minor piece of purely cosmetic content. I’d certainly never buy anything like that for prices like those, but developers are well within their rights to make them if they wish. Just like with anything else, the responsibility is on the consumer not to purchase products they find overpriced – developers will stop overpricing such content if it doesn’t sell, after all.
Heck, your example for UMvC3 is actually an example where that’s actually exploitative, since just like Capcom’s “DLC” characters, those outfits are on the disk, just withheld so Capcom can make an extra few bucks off them.
I find this to be a topic to be escalated more than it needs to be because of the mistakes of a few, yet stupid, individuals. As said before Capcom is defiantly one of these companies. I find the topic of this kind of funny because I really had no problem with horse armor. I mean in a way Horse armor is kind of something that is what I want. Does that really sound strange? It kind of adds something to characterization. Really, any idea on paper is a good idea. But… lets look at Saints Row 3, 3 of the DLC’s actually add something to the game, the rest are all cosmetic items. Cosmetic items are good to have… but do you really need so much DLC for cosmetic items for a game you pay for that the cosmetic items alone can cost you more than the game actually did? I prefer to think of cosmetic items as donation packs, if you like the game donate. and these work for games like say Killing Floor, or Team fortress 2. or many free to play MMOs. But a game you actually pay alot of money for in the 50 dollar range or more to have DLC that is purely cosmetic and adds nothing more than that is well a bit of a rip off. Horse armor itself is not a bad thing but make 50 dollars worth of horse armor DLC for a single game and that’s a real problem if you release only 3 actual things that expand the enjoyment of the game play and story. You don’t have to buy these sure but it alienates your customers. While games have gotten expensive to develop so has just the ability to buy them, much like the movie industry itself has too. You see people paying 12 dollars for movie tickets, I live in a place where you can pay 4 dollars for a ticket on Tuesdays… the key is while they have upgraded their equipment they don’t treat you to radio music before the show, or have something constantly advertising on screen like the people watching are on ADD medication everywhere. I think a lot of video game companies are just well trying to hard to entertain their audience just like the movie industry has been for a while. Independent companies might have a lot less restrictions in their way but their is still a lot you can learn from them even if you can’t make DLC the same way as them, and their is a lot to learn from other entertainment industries but don’t try to be them. Its really just alot of common sense.
You can’t honestly tell me that you’re not getting a full experience, for free I might add, with League of Legends, which is an F2P title. As you said, the things you pay for are purely cosmetic and are for the hardcorest of hardcore. Everything else you can get in this game by just investing your time to play it, so calling it an “extended demo” is extremely unfair and the same could be said about a lot of other F2P titles. I don’t mind paying for the traditionally distributed titles, but I see them as a thing of the past. Business is business, if F2P makes both the consumer and publisher happy then why not embrace it? As I said, if it’s a quality product I might consider paying for it, this goes both for games I have to pay for before I play them and games I can pay for if I feel like being pretty or just throwing the money at the developer.
From the consumers point of view, unlockables in F2P are the same as DLC in other games and the reason they get angry at DLC more than unlocks is that in DLCs case they have already payed for the game. But they also get angry at F2P games that lock the mayor part of the experience behind the micro-transactions or if said micro-transactions break the games balance. I don’t know how many F2P games are out there, but there are many games that do not do that and as such are truly Free to Play. Bottom line a good F2P game is not an extended demo. Free game weekends on Steam, that is more of an extended demo (unless you can beat the game in that time) and it is a great business practice in my opinion.
Now, you also brought up that games used to be more expensive. As a much younger gamer I may not have an intimate knowledge of gaming history, so I may not know all the stuff that went on between then and now that may be tied into to the game prices. However, lowering prices is one of the ways to compete in a free market and in that context F2P format just seems like a logical conclusion to this trend of lowering prices. Yes, they still have to make money somehow, but the less money players have to throw out from the get go or at least the less they notice that the better. If a player pays for the game, they think that they own everything in the game or even associated with the game, but if they didn’t play for the game they may not notice how much money they spend in the game or at least they won’t notice as much as they do with DLC for the games they payed for. F2P just seems like a logical general direction for games to move in.
Ultimately, from the consumers stand point the questions are: Is/was this game worth my money? Is/was this DLC also worth my money? While from the publishers and developers standpoint the question is: How do we make (enough) money off this?
Both sides need to make viable decisions. Sometimes this decision is buying/making DLC, sometimes it’s going for F2P.