DLC – Blessing or Curse?
Every month, on that wonderful day we call ‘pay’, I haul myself down to my local gaming boutique (or, you know, Play.com) and buy myself a few new games. This has been the routine since I was 14 years old, spending every last penny I earned from my meagre bob-a-jobs on PSone titles. Usually I would swap a game purchased weeks ago for a new one, paying the difference each time. Not only was this a brilliant way to ensure I was constantly playing new games of every genre, creed and colour, it also meant I got a taste for exactly what type of game I liked.
Years later and not much has changed (trust me, with any extra money you earn merely comes an extra bill to pay). I still have a list of games I want but can’t afford, I still reward myself for a month of, ahem, hard work by buying a few of them, and I still have to ask the woman in my life if it’s all OK (except now it’s my girlfriend, not my Mum).
I tell you all this so that you might grasp how big a deal this month has been for me. This month, for the first time in a decade, I didn’t buy myself a new game. Nope, all this months gaming budget was spent on DLC.
Some new songs for Guitar Hero – World Tour, a promise of 30 hours additional gameplay on the Oblivion expansion packs Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine and Crash Bandicoot – Wrath of Cortex (OK not technically DLC but give me a break! It was still purchased with mythical Microsoft Points and was still downloaded content on my console). All legitimate purchases, but not a disc, case or instruction manual in site.
I was perfectly happy with this set of circumstances until my ever-suffering girlfriend asked me which games I’d wasted my money on this month. To say she looked perplexed when I explained all the games I’d bought this month didn’t actually physically exist would be a little more than an understatement. She just couldn’t believe that I’d spent money on games I already owned.
After the concussion had worn off I started thinking, is DLC actually worth the money we pay for it? Is it worth anything at all?
First, the good. GTA IV – The Lost and the Damned would’ve been heralded a brilliant game in it’s own right, and in my opinion, anything that gets me back into Liberty City is absolutely fine. The aforementioned additions for Oblivion add even more sand to a box almost overflowing to begin with (and don’t have to be downloaded. They can be purchased as a complete disc; the GotY edition of the game). These expansions are the work of companies who clearly love the games, no, worlds they have created, and merely wanted to give people another chance to explore them.
Then of course there is the bad. Fable is still to this day one of my favourite games ever. It’s successor one of the main reasons I invested in a new console. The series, however, has been constantly marred in disappointment. Fable was good but only became briliant once The Lost Chapters were released (before DLC, this meant having to buy the game again). The same goes for Fable 2, which, in my opinion, just felt short and unfinished. It would appear that Lionhead Studios agreed as they were one of the first companies to release game-expanding DLC with the Knothole Island expansion. They offered two types of dowload, a premium (payable) version and free version. Surely if they felt the game didn’t need to be longer in the first place you would’ve had to pay for it no matter what?
The same can be said for patches. More and more often the first screen I see when I pop in a new disc is a “download update” option. Why should I need to download an update for a game that’s only been out for three weeks (I’m looking at you Fallout 3)? Once again we have ourselves a conundrum. Do we take on faith that developers merely want to fix bugs they missed in testing? Or will companies start releasing games in hideous states of disrepair and wait for the game-buying public to test the games for them?
We’re at a cross-roads it’s true. Even for an industry as ever-changing as this, surely so many avenues have never been open to game players and makers alike. Online connectivity has seen the link between studio and player grow smaller than ever before. Whether this is a good or bad thing however, remains to be seen.
- Mikey Base
Like I said on Twitter, I’m not a big fan of buying DLC. I don’t get much money, and spending it on games is my first option. But, seeing owning games is a luxury for me, buying DLC has lost it’s sparkle. I now see that all that money I spent on DLC is pretty much wasted, the $90+ I spent on Rock Band DLC, the countless I’ve spent on Game DLC or XBLA titles, like Castle Crashers or Geom Wars 1+2. In terms of buying arcade games, I think it’s a great way to get games and is better than paying tax on them at a store or something, but when it comes to video game DLC, it just feels stupid. I like that RB is adding new tracks, but fuck they’re making bank off of it. Not only that, but they’re pumping out music game year after year, with a set of plastic toys to set you back YET ANOTHER 200 bucks. I bought GH 1 and 2 when they came out on PS2, the second one only the game, then buying Rock Band 1 for $180 when it came out, it seems so stupid. I know I got off track, but music games need to cease to exist, or at least stop making instruments. They’ve got easily 600+ tracks in the RB DLC library, each spanning $2 or so each, that’s $1200 dollars to spend on DLC!!! Plus the millions of people actually buying them, I mean jesus. If I actually paid for songs online, I can get them for around 60 cents each, so WHY do I have to pay $2 for a fucking song in a music game?!
The reason I didn’t mention rhythm action DLC too much in this article is that, abundance of peripherals aside, I think it’s the most valid genre for DLC in the shape of downloadable tracks. If one views the extra tracks more like you would a music store then there validity is more apparent. The core game is there, it’s merely user choice on what song they wish to rock out to. It isn’t like they forced you to pay for something that brings the game up to an acceptable standard or play an additional instrument.
yes I know, but 2 dollars a track is simply outrageous.
Very well written article mate, Personally I think DLC is a blessing. It keeps me playing a game and brings me back to the game, even if I haven’t played it for months. The only hinderence I see with DLC is the price.
I think you’re exactly right with saying dlc is at a crossroads. Couldn’t agree more with some content being great and others like the streetfighter costumes, having a distict whiff of ‘rip off’ about them. Well written article and look forward to reading more.
The pricing is defintiely the main issue I believe. In Oblivion for example for 200 MP you could buy a brand new dungeon which had, at it’s end, a new weapon that was absolutely fantastic. Look at Gears of War though, and for the same price you get an identical multiplayer map to the ones you already had, they’re just snowing.
DLC on muliplayer titles is definitely a double edged sword as everyone playing a muliplayer game must have the same DLC to enjoy it online. I found this with GH:WT. I’d spend loads on new tracks and got myself on Xbox Live immediately to play them, but with no matching feature for people who also have those songs there was no way to play them with anyone else. Luck was your only hope of finding someone with the same songs. Saying that though it was my choice to buy them… So I don’t really have a leg to stand on.
It’s a double edged sword.
There was a time when DLC content would just have been part of the original game, complete and entire bugs and all. The game was “finished” and that was it.
What we have to remember is that as games have evolved so have development costs and time, so I don’t doubt that a lot of what developers originally plan to have in the game gets shifted into DLC now.
It’s this sort of mentality I’d like them to move away from, the idea that there’s that contingency plan for their ideas that didn’t make the final cut. Either add an extension properly to broaden the direction of the game (and help the project break even, or make a profit whatever) or don’t do it at all.
Definitely some DLC screams of merely missing from the original game due to time contraints (’extra’ maps, costumes etc). Decent DLC, like the Fallout 3, Oblivion the GTA IV additions though are definitely game expanding and worth the cost.
Even if the fallout 3 expansions arrived so broken as to be almost unplayable!!!
As an FPS gamer, I find that DLC is a blessing. I play a lot of Halo, and the one thing that I always look forward to is a brand new map… or three. I end up playing the maps so often that if you look at the $10 I spent compared to the 100+ hours I’d spend on that one map after just one year, you realize that it’s not expensive at all.
I think the one thing that is most important when deciding if you’re going to buy a DLC pack is the amount of time you’re going to spend using that DLC… I didn’t buy the Fable 2 DLC because I know that the $/hour factor just won’t be good enough. I played Fable 2 once, I didn’t go back, and I’d say I only got 10 hours out of the $70 purchase. Gears of War 2 DLC? I didn’t buy it because I don’t play Gears 2… The maps look awesome, I’d really love to play them, but $10 isn’t something I can justify when I play Gears 2 once every 2 months for a maximum of two hours before I want to throw my controller out the window… Fallout 3? I plan on buying all of the DLC as soon as I finish the massive campaign on the disc because I know I’ll get several hours out of it.
I always hate when a game feels like it isn’t finished. It sucks because you want more, but the only way to get more is to buy the DLC… Fable 2 comes to mind. It kind of feels like you’re being shaken down.