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[Folly]

Every 'Season Pass' that I've seen was a package of upcoming DLC, priced less than the sum of buying each individual DLC at the time of it's release. So it's a way to save money, if you're reasonably confident that you're going to buy all of the DLC's anyway. And the dev's get the funding they need to continue working on the DLC's.

Of course if the game bombs, or the DLC's don't meet your expectations, you're SOL.

[LordBaal]

I am the star of the Solar System?

[Doomblade187]

I am the star of the Solar System?

Depends. Are you currently experiencing nuclear reactions?

[Lord Shonus]

SOL = Shit Out of Luck.


DLC isn't inherently a bad thing. It can be a very good way to add fresh content to an existing game at relatively low price, or serve the same role as expansion packs used to. Yes, some companies use it to the consumer's disadvantage, and some companies -Paradox- release so much DLC that the list can be pretty daunting if you're picking up the game at a later date, but the concept itself is neither good nor bad.

[Reelya]

DLC isn't inherently a bad thing. It can be a very good way to add fresh content to an existing game at relatively low price, or serve the same role as expansion packs used to. Yes, some companies use it to the consumer's disadvantage, and some companies -Paradox- release so much DLC that the list can be pretty daunting if you're picking up the game at a later date, but the concept itself is neither good nor bad.

Not only that. What's harder to see is the opportunity cost: what would things be like with no DLC. Games would be released more "complete". But funding runs out, so to compensate for the increased risk, they'd reduce the scope and complexity of games and be less willing to take chances with new ideas. Being able to plan for DLC from day-one means that you can plan out games with broader scope since you can release some game, get the engine working and the first chapters, then add the rest of the chapters as DLC. Without DLC you might get the same story, but with less work done on each part since they had to cram it into a 3 year development window and hit crunch-time trying ship it. The fault lies in the extreme costs now faced by developers to keep up with the standards of graphics that the players expect out of new titles. You just can't make an original $60 boxed game and expect it to have cutting-edge AAA visuals along with 40 hours of fresh gameplay at the same graphical fidelity, and not have any other source of revenue. Consumers expect new AAA games to have more density of stuff in them, super-detailed graphics and constantly fresh content, then they burn past the content as if it doesn't matter anyway, then they complain when $60 only gets them such-and-such amount of game. Reality check: $60 doesn't buy as many hours of game as it used to, because each hour of game is super-expensive to produce now.

[Lord Shonus]

DLC isn't inherently a bad thing. It can be a very good way to add fresh content to an existing game at relatively low price, or serve the same role as expansion packs used to. Yes, some companies use it to the consumer's disadvantage, and some companies -Paradox- release so much DLC that the list can be pretty daunting if you're picking up the game at a later date, but the concept itself is neither good nor bad.

Not only that. What's harder to see is the opportunity cost: what would things be like with no DLC. Games would be released more "complete". But funding runs out, so to compensate for the increased risk, they'd reduce the scope and complexity of games and be less willing to take chances with new ideas. Being able to plan for DLC from day-one means that you can plan out games with broader scope since you can release some game, get the engine working and the first chapters, then add the rest of the chapters as DLC. Without DLC you might get the same story, but with less work done on each part since they had to cram it into a 3 year development window and hit crunch-time trying ship it. The fault lies in the extreme costs now faced by developers to keep up with the standards of graphics that the players expect out of new titles. You just can't make an original $60 boxed game and expect it to have cutting-edge AAA visuals along with 40 hours of fresh gameplay at the same graphical fidelity, and not have any other source of revenue. Consumers expect new AAA games to have more density of stuff in them, super-detailed graphics and constantly fresh content, then they burn past the content as if it doesn't matter anyway, then they complain when $60 only gets them such-and-such amount of game. Reality check: $60 doesn't buy as many hours of game as it used to, because each hour of game is super-expensive to produce now.

It isn't just graphics, either. Consider the Paradox titles. The base Crusader Kings II is already an incredibly complex game, but it is a pale shadow of what CKII has become with all the major DLCs. There's just no way that Paradox could have developed a single release to the level the current game is, so the DLC made for a much better game overall.

[Reelya]

Yeah, if they didn't do DLC, they'd have immediately started working on "Crusader Kings III" because that was the olden days business model. The previous version of the game became landfill and you pretend it and the customers who bought it don't exist so you can flog off the next title.

Ironically, another common complaint is that devs stop supporting some old title because they've moved on to developing the next one. Devs are either damned if they do, damned if they don't: it's comparable to expecting Toady to bug-fix Liberal Crime Squad while still hurrying the fuck up with the next release of Dwarf Fortress.

[ChairmanPoo]

Every 'Season Pass' that I've seen was a package of upcoming DLC, priced less than the sum of buying each individual DLC at the time of it's release. So it's a way to save money, if you're reasonably confident that you're going to buy all of the DLC's anyway. And the dev's get the funding they need to continue working on the DLC's.

Of course if the game bombs, or the DLC's don't meet your expectations, you're SOL.

Yeah, problem is that it turns out the game is lame

[Kagus]

And then you get games like Helldivers, where certain parts of the DLC are considered so effective and efficient that it becomes mandatory equipment, and you'll get kicked from a multiplayer game if you don't have it.

[scourge728]

And then you have the sims, where they cut out content from the last game and release it as less featured dlc in the next, for high cost

[Kagus]

And then you have the sims, where they cut out content from the last game and release it as less featured dlc in the next, for high cost

I mean, one thing was removing expansion pack content so they could re-add it in another expansion, but removing the color wheel? Removing terrain manipulation? Removing toddlers?

And the community just laps it up like it's fine. The only way this is going to end is when The Sims 5 comes out and doesn't include money cheats.

[scriver]

They removed that? Do kids just spring into childhood from their mother's loins? Grown and ready for school?

[Maximum Spin]

They removed that? Do kids just spring into childhood from their mother's loins? Grown and ready for school?

As I understand it from people who play, they essentially come out as little pupae that eventually molt directly into children.


No, I'm not being facetious.

[scriver]

This is clearly the lzardmen at EA trying to condition us to care for their unhatched spawn

[Kagus]

They removed that? Do kids just spring into childhood from their mother's loins? Grown and ready for school?

As I understand it from people who play, they essentially come out as little pupae that eventually molt directly into children.


No, I'm not being facetious.

To be fair, this is how they worked in Sims 1... In fact, they went from being an inanimate object that yelled a lot directly to being a child of around 10-12 years of age, a point at which they would remain for the rest of their lives. To my recollection, they couldn't grow into adults in Sims 1.

In The Sims 2 they implemented actual aging, and they went from swaddled pupa, to toddler (with their own assortment of age-exclusive items for mental stimulation and entertainment...), to child, then teenager, then adult. 3 and 4 retained the aging mechanics (so far as I'm aware, haven't played either), but 4 did not have a "toddler" stage to begin with. 4 whatever reason.

Just checking up, toddlers were later added in a free update to The Sims 4. Their absence at launch was probably just simple incompetence, and not an attempt to gauge the market for an eventual paid DLC that would insert another growth stage into the game... Probably.