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[Glloyd]

What it says on the tin.
Basically, going through sales on Steam, I happened to notice that everything Tomb Raider ever was on sale. In there, was a ridiculous amount of DLC for the 2013 Tomb Raider game. The first thing that struck my eye was DLC for single guns. That's right, pay us more money to help complete the game you already paid us for.

I posted this discovery of mine in the "Steam Sales" thread, and it was pointed out to me that this was the general trend that the gaming industry had been taking. Selling you a "full" game, then nickle and diming you for endless waves of dreck that expands the game in such a minor way as to not be noticeable. Now, I don't play many "mainstream" games, or many newer games at that. But, I'd actually taken notice of this a little bit back when a friend of mine wanted me to play the new Splinter Cell game with him on his Xbox. While equipping our characters, I noticed that some of the guns that were locked had monetary requirements to use. Yeah, they put it in the game, but locked it until you paid more for it.

But little was I aware that worse was to come.

Behold:



That's right kids, for the low low price of a dollar, you can get that much closer to having a complete game. That price of $59.99 you paid? Oh, that was just to get access to the ability to buy the rest of the game you paid full price for. Yes, buying skills, the wave of the future. And today, it's only $0.19, that's 81% off something that should be included in the game! Wow! Such a deal!

Yeah, as is obvious, this really annoyed me. It seems so insane to me that a developer will charge you extra for a damn skill, a central component of most games. Does anyone remember the days of expansion packs where you would be given almost a complete other game for your money? Or you know, just having a full game on release. Now, I'm not saying all DLC is horrible, but this method of flooding people with pointless, low price DLC is a bit insane.

So what are your DLC woes and complaints? What are your thoughts on this frightening direction that the video game industry is going in? Or just your thoughts on the future of the gaming industry? Just want to vent about really dumb DLC? This is the place. Keep it civil between each other, but feel free to voice your true thoughts on the nickle and dime method of DLC, and the future of the gaming industry as a whole.

[Talvara]

Yeah its mostly disgusting, I don't believe the concept of DLC is bad at its core but the way its being used most of the time is just money grabbing madness. I suppose there's also a difference between what you classify as DLC and what I would call Expansions.

for instance if you look at the DLC for crusader-kings 2 you got both expansions and actual DLC in there. You have the buck or two for extra graphical variety and the buck or two for extra musics. and then you have the actual expansions that allow you to play with new content for 10 bucks. Both are classified as DLC on steam, but I'd argue they're different things.

First off if DLC meant a lower price for the 'main' game then I'd be al right with that, players get to game for a decent price and if they end up really liking the game they can get a bunch of DLC to support the developer further. In this scenario I'd prefer the dlc to be cosmetic mostly. but I wouldn't be disgusted with minor additions, like extra levels or missions or whatever.

Secondly building DLC straight into the game just seems wrong to me, like those guns you mentioned in Splinter cell, its clear that they already made the guns. so its not like it cost them extra production time after the fact they're just holding them hostage to squeeze out a few more bucks. Once again, if this meant that the 'basic games' price would go down then sure I still think its pretty vile but understandable.

If DLC comes out later and essentially makes the game bigger then sure they can put a price on that. as long as its reasonable I guess. after all they already had a lot to work with so production costs would be lower and that should be reflected in the 'expansion',

Finally having said that I do believe that DLC and expansions have a place. I think they either need to clearly lower the base games price point and allow die-hards to go above and beyond the reasonable price voluntarily, or be cosmetic (and thus more voluntary) as a means of further supporting the company.

I think Crusader-kings 2 did DLC very well. While the main game could have been a little lower in price It feels to me that the expansion DLC is priced very fairly (10 bucks) and the other DLC's are (mostly) just cosmetic upgrades that don't impact the way the game is played.  beyond that You dont even have to get the expansion DLC to experience them. every expansion essentially updates the game, but won't let the player play directly with the new features unless she gets the expansion. Its like a free upgrade, and a demo for the expansion.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Selling cheats as DLC has become increasingly normal in the gaming scene, Saints Row the Third had a bunch for example (and most of the dlc was already on-disc, argh).
I'm sure the inspiration is from the mobile market where inapp purchases are the norm but they are usually extremely cheap or free/add-supported. Selling a full retail price game and then nickel and diming consumers is just an abhorrent business practice and needs to go away.

It looks like the problem is only going to get worse as publishers are desperately pushing it onto the consumers so it becomes an accepted norm. We can see this with the latest Xbox One launch which was just plagued by microtransactions in full release full priced games.
Gating off content and/or adding cheats/boosters will change the pace of the game. I don't believe developers/publishers can be trusted to maintain a decent and fair pace when they'll try and force your hand into buying something to make the game easier.

DLC by itself isn't evil but rather it's so often abused. If done correctly I think DLC is better delivery system than expansions. Paradox (and as much as I hate to say it) Bethesda seem to (mostly) have the right idea about DLC. EA, Activision, hell any of the big publishers are just squeezing what they can.

[Virtz]

The funniest example of this is in the newest Forza, where there's a car DLC (Lotus E21) that costs as much as the game itself. And it's just one car. That's kind of amazing.

Personally I usually just steer clear of DLCware.

[scrdest]

I actually like what they did with Rocksmith: music games should be done with relatively cheap base game with a small selection of basic songs, and a fuckton of DLC songs. I sure don't want any Maroon 5 or Nickelback in my rock game, but I sure do want Rush and Iron Maiden. But there are people who would want the exact opposite (IMO anyone who desires the former set has no businesses in doing music, but that aside) and sure enough, they can get it.

Compare to Guitar Hero, which in the later versions would put a ton of awful, awful unavoidable base content you just couldn't avoid (TOKIO FUCKING HOTEL?!).

[Rolan7]

That Tomb Raider DLC is weird because it isn't new content, it's simply a boost.  I don't have a problem with buying expansions to a game, including new weapons, new maps, even skins and things (though in most cases I'm not interested, I don't consider it unethical).  Buying simple advantages like this is what bothers me.

New gun that's different and NOT a better version of something else: Fine DLC

Powerful gun that you get for free at the start of the game (Fallout DLC): No, why, stop

New map or campaign to play and explore: Great DLC

New map that's a whole lot easier to level in: Uugh

So I don't mind at all that developers release games "unfinished".  I love games like Killing Floor, Payday 2, and Crusader Kings 2 which take user ideas and steadily improve the game after release.  Those examples are my favorites because even non-DLC buyers get a lot of new content due to the updates.  The DLC also doesn't give any multiplayer advantage (KF's DLC guns do offer more options, but they aren't simply *better*.  Plus it's co-op only).

Selling cheats as DLC has become increasingly normal in the gaming scene, Saints Row the Third had a bunch for example (and most of the dlc was already on-disc, argh).

Yes exactly, selling cheats is the absolute lowest.  (I don't mind locked content on the disk, though...)

Editedit:  I don't mean that games should be hard and uncheatable.  Everyone ought to be able to cheat, or better yet have a reasonable difficulty level to play on, for free.

[Mephisto]

Powerful gun that you get for free at the start of the game (Fallout DLC): No, why, stop

I do not recall this. I've got both 3 and New Vegas.

[Iceblaster]

Powerful gun that you get for free at the start of the game (Fallout DLC): No, why, stop

I do not recall this. I've got both 3 and New Vegas.

The exclusive pre-order guns most likely.

[Grendus]

Generally, I try to look at it like this. If I were to ignore all of the DLC in the game, would I have gotten my moneys worth out of the game? Sometimes, this means waiting 2-3 years until the game hits the $20 bin and/or grabbing it in a Steam sale. I could get angry over the principles, but I usually don't care about the missing DLC - it's just a pack of guns that make the game unbearably easy, or a bunch of skins that I really don't care about. If other customers want to throw their money away on giving their Sniper a snowmans head, who am I to argue?

Powerful gun that you get for free at the start of the game (Fallout DLC): No, why, stop

I do not recall this. I've got both 3 and New Vegas.

I don't think Fallout 3 had this, but New Vegas had four different DLC addons that gave you more stuff. If you got the Ultimate Edition, you started the game so loaded down with crap you barely had room for anything else. You could also walk into the first part of Lonesome Road and pick up an Arc Welder and a few Bowie Knives which would get you several thousand caps in the extremely early game with no risk since the marked men don't start spawning until later. Still doesn't bother me though, single player mode cheats are fine. Especially considering that you could do the same thing by enabling the in-game console and just gifting yourself equivalent weapons.

[TheBronzePickle]

I got New Vegas and all the DLC and just scrapped all the crap I got loaded down with at the beginning, especially since I had no plans on using any of it.

As for other DLC, they can do whatever they want. If they keep treating their customers like crap, eventually they're not going to have any customers, the bubble's going to burst and they're either going to have to actually become a worthwhile company, find something else to rip off gamers with, or close their doors.

[nenjin]

Not that I'm defending the practice but it's a sign of the times when game companies feel the need to monetize on top of already selling a $60 game. Because game companies know the bulk of their sales are going to be at release, they want a little something extra coming in down the road, to reach the mythical sales numbers their publishers expect.

I truly don't mind post-game DLC. I don't even necessarily mind the "pay us money for an in-game item in a single player game." Because i'm not that desperate. It's when whole levels are made Day 1 DLC that my hackles start to rise.

[Cthulhu]

I was always annoyed by all the games I had to play that screwed me over with on disc DLC and microtransactions until I realized I don't have to play any games.

If you don't like what a game does, don't buy it, don't play it, ignore it.

[Sonlirain]

Hmm i remember there were several DLCs for Alice: Madness Returns.
At first sight those were just alternative dresses... but look again and BAM one of them gives you the ability to trigger "fury mode" at ANY time (usually that would only be possible at nearly 0 health... and you'd have to be lucky to get hit in a way that leaves you with that spack of health instead of killing you outright).

There are other DLCs tho... Just Cause DLC for example that give you extra guns vehicles ETC... but those actually work because JC2 is just THAT type of game.

[Iceblaster]

Explosions the game did do a good job with its DLC.

I mean, an Icecream truck that has a CANNON on it is something if pay for.

[TripJack]

lol you think that 'skill' dlc is bad, check out the hard RANGER difficulty mode dlc for that crappy metro game and see what a truly fucking shameless cash grab really looks like