Let's talk about DLC

[RepentantSky]

DLC as we know is a common practice in the industry these days, but some DLC is better than others and some DLC costs more than the base game, for less content. Take a look at the soon releasing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, priced at 40 dollars. There is a season pass for this game which has varying prices on what's in it if you buy it piece by piece. The Season Pass, costs 45 dollars, buying things on their own costs 52 dollar. The content in the season pass will include at least 3 dungeons and 4 new maps, as well as a prologue to the entire game, and something else that has yet to be announced. Here's the problem though, even though that sounds like a decent amount of content when I say it that way, but some of this content, people aren't going to care about. For example, one of these pieces of DLC that costs 10 dollars, has some extra hard maps, not everyone is going to want that challenge. Now, you think yourself, that's fine, let them just buy the rest of the DLC, but even if they do that, they are still going to end up spending 42 dollars. which is still two dollars more than the base game, and all for content that's clearly not going to be as much as the game's base content.

 

There's also the fact that the release dates of this content are really shady. For example, the first bit of DLC launches tomorrow with the game for 8 dollars, bringing up the total price of the game should you get just that DLC, up to 48 dollars, before Tax comes into play for the game itself which brings it up over 50, add to that if you bought the two Amiibo which cost 25 dollars together, which is the only way to get either one, and your total price for the base game and one bit of DLC, which promises easier money, items and EXP, perfect for the start of the game, comes up to over 75 dollars. Even without tax, assuming you bought the season pass and the Amiibo, to play the game and all it's content, because Alm and Celica each unlock a dungeon when tapped on the 3DS, and you are spending 107 dollars for all the content, and 112 dollars if you don't buy the DLC. Destiny, when it finished all it's year one content, cost 7 dollars less than that without the season pass, 17 if you did buy the pass, and of course, they may have had that 40 dollar DLC which you had to buy to continue playing after year one content concluded, but they also sold the entire thing for a base price of 60 dollars and had versions of DLC of year 2 that were available that cost only a little bit more. But to play everything in Fire Embelm Echoes: Shadows of Valenita, which is by the way, a remake of the second game in the franchise called Fire Emblem Gaiden, meaning it's literally 25 years old, costs over 100 dollars, and that's just in USD, some places around the world, it might cost more and it wouldn't surprise me. Also there's the fact that most of this DLC, will be out by Month's end. The only things coming out for DLC that don't release this month, are the prequel DLC, which launches on June 1st anyways, and the DLC with no name or release date.

 

I don't get what the point of doing DLC like this is, especially when it's Nintendo doing it, the same Nintendo that by the way, has two games coming to the Switch that will have free content updates in ARMS and Splatoon 2 a trend carried over from the original Splatoon. Look at the DLC for even for Bayonetta 2. It offered many different costumes that actually changed the gameplay style, and released with the first game ported for the Wii U and it's controllers all at the base price, because none of the costumes cost anything. With that in mind, even if the game's main story had only been about 5 hours, each costume would have given you a reason to play it over again, just to see what changes. The Fire Emblem DLC, doesn't do that. Instead it costs more, and gives less, and that wasn't really all that different with Fates or Awakening, in fact this DLC is kind of the same idea. Sure Fates had that special edition where you could get everything at launch for 100 dollars but at the same time, that didn't include DLC maps or missions or anything of the sort. Problem was, there wasn't enough of those to begin and they sold out right on the first day, and never came back, as with the special edition for this game. So the model actually improved with Fates a bit because there was a lot of content, and got horrifically worse with this one? That makes no sense.

 

This is just one example of bad DLC practices that I thought about as it's coming up so soon, but let's talk about this kind of thing, I think it's important.

[zoop]

Yeeeaaah, that sounds like a bit much to be honest.

 

I tend to be fairly easy going when it comes to DLC. The Breath of the Wild stuff has me hyped, I have all of the Mario Kart DLC, a fair bit of the Smash Bros DLC, and so on. If it's a game I really like, and it's a type of content that I'm interested, I'm more than willing to lay down some money.

 

One thing I've found myself not terribly fond of however, is the gating off of content behind amiibo. I think it's perfectly fine for things to be unlocked by them, but please give me an option to just toss out a few dollars for that same stuff on the eShop. While there are some amiibo I'd like to collect, I'm not very interested in owning the majority of them.

[RepentantSky]

Yeeeaaah, that sounds like a bit much to be honest.

 

I tend to be fairly easy going when it comes to DLC. The Breath of the Wild stuff has me hyped, I have all of the Mario Kart DLC, a fair bit of the Smash Bros DLC, and so on. If it's a game I really like, and it's a type of content that I'm interested, I'm more than willing to lay down some money.

 

One thing I've found myself not terribly fond of however, is the gating off of content behind amiibo. I think it's perfectly fine for things to be unlocked by them, but please give me an option to just toss out a few dollars for that same stuff on the eShop. While there are some amiibo I'd like to collect, I'm not very interested in owning the majority of them.

 

See, now that I can get behind. The idea of DLC being worth what it costs is fine, because sometimes extra content is worth it. Take The Left Behind

DLC for The Last of Us, which later became a sort of stand alone title. It had a great story, clearly in line with the quality of the main game, and was pretty fairly priced. The DLC for Infamous 2, called Festival of Blood was also really good because it was fairly cheap, but still had a decent amount of collectibles, and it gave Cole some new powers to mess around with and new enemies to fight with, and it to was fairly cheap. Good DLC, I have no problem with, and in fact I encourage it because I understand that in order to make a profit off of a game, you need to sell more than just it's 30 to 60 dollar base price. Making games is expensive after all.

 

The idea you have for Amiibo is actually pretty good as well, some people really only buy them because of the DLC they have, but a lot of others collect them, or want them because they figures of their favorite characters. I for one collect them. Right now I have 25 Amiibo, and four others on pre-order. However because I don't use them for their content, and in fact keep them in their boxes, it would be nice if I could by the DLC they contain regardless, because rarely, some DLC will come out that I might want, and like you said, there are people who just aren't interested in owning them at all. I completely approve that idea.

[zoop]

Along those same lines, what are your thoughts, specifically, on microtransactions?

[RepentantSky]

It depends. For example I don't like Injustice 2's microtransactions because they offer non-stat based cosmetic changes. That goes completely against the grain in all the wrong ways. Why would I buy a cosmetic item that doesn't change my stats, when I can earn plenty by playing the game, that do. The same goes for any game like that, it doesn't make sense to charge real life money for cosmetic differences. In another sense it can be okay, such as how some of Pokemon Go's transactions work. I don't agree with having to pay real life money to get certain items like Pokeballs, since those are usually always easy to get off of Pokestops, however paying to increase item space or to buy Incubators, is okay, but it's still not great. I also hate how games with microtransactions tend to have items come up at a certain, desirable rate, that can also be bought down which gets people into the game, and then decreases that item later, just to make it more likely people will pay for it, because now their invested.

 

There's also the odd forcing of trying to make people pay for stuff to complete the game. I have a story about that actually. I was playing this one mobile game that was about matching shapes and clearing a stage by getting rid of all the shapes. There was this one level I got to that was really hard, and I kept losing, but then I remembered I had been given special moves that would make the level easier, so I thought I'd try them to get past it, and I used every move I had to get to the end of the level, and these meant getting rid of certain shapes, changing some of them to be the same, and all that. So, I got to the end, and you have a certain amount of moves for each level, and I had 10 moves left to get the final shape after using all those moves, and it never came up, and then the game asked me to pay to continue the level with more moves and one of my specials recharged at random. That kind of thing, obviously is not okay. The game was obviously rigged at that point to try and force me to pay in order to move on.

 

When were talking about microtransactions in AAA titles, I have a little less patience with them though, because I already bought the base game, don't offer me content that can only be bought by chipping away at my bank account bit by bit, that either has no effect on the gameplay, or a huge impact on it. There's better ways to do that, and microtransactions are usually handled poorly.

Edited May 23, 2017 by Guest

[zoop]

It depends. For example I don't like Injustice 2's microtransactions because they offer non-stat based cosmetic changes. That goes completely against the grain in all the wrong ways. Why would I buy a cosmetic item that doesn't change my stats, when I can earn plenty by playing the game, that do. The same goes for any game like that, it doesn't make sense to charge real life money for cosmetic differences.

 

While I'm not very familiar with how Injustice handles this, I find your perspective on this to be interesting, because it's basically completely opposite from my own - I really enjoy optional cosmetic items, purchased or earned in-game, and am quite okay with something having a mixture of both. In fact, when it comes to games that are traditionally competition-oriented, such as first person shooters or fighting games, I generally prefer that all such cosmetics be purely cosmetic, without conveying any stat changes at all.

 

This is especially the case with, say, free to play games - I'd view paid cosmetics as basically being an excellent way to be able to support the developer while getting something neat and cool out of it, without it having any real impact on gameplay, preventing things from going into a pay to win sort of model.

 

There's also the odd forcing of trying to make people pay for stuff to complete the game. I have a story about that actually. I was playing this one mobile game that was about matching shapes and clearing a stage by getting rid of all the shapes. There was this one level I got to that was really hard, and I kept losing, but then I remembered I had been given special moves that would make the level easier, so I thought I'd try them to get past it, and I used every move I had to get to the end of the level, and these meant getting rid of certain shapes, changing some of them to be the same, and all that. So, I got to the end, and you have a certain amount of moves for each level, and I had 10 moves left to get the final shape after using all those moves, and it never came up, and then the game asked me to pay to continue the level with more moves and one of my specials recharged at random. That kind of thing, obviously is not okay. The game was obviously rigged at that point to try and force me to pay in order to move on.

 

Eeeyeah, this right here is exactly the sort of thing that keeps me from being at all interested in mobile gaming. I know that not everything is like that, and that it's an extremely unfair stance to hold on my part, but I've ran into things like that enough that I'm a teensy bit wary of getting too invested in anything with regards to mobile games. Organ Trail, Fallen London and Super Mario Run are about as far as I've ever gone.

 

When were talking about microtransactions in AAA titles, I have a little less patience with them though, because I already bought the base game, don't offer me content that can only be bought by chipping away at my bank account bit by bit, that either has no effect on the gameplay, or a huge impact on it. There's better ways to do that, and microtransactions are usually handled poorly

 

Depends on the type of microtransaction for me. I utterly despise the fact that things that were previously considered to be in the realm of cheat codes (such as being able to easily unlock a game's content) has become something that is being pushed as a microtransaction. Similarly, I get irritated when stat-based items and weapons are walled off behind microtransactions for the reasons I touched on in my first paragraph.

 

But yeah, overall I tend to be exceptionally picky about microtransactions and DLC in general when it comes to AAA titles, and much more easy going when it comes to indie or free to play games: I've happily thrown a few chunks of change at Fallen London, for example.

[RepentantSky]

Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with cosmetic items most of the time. There's hardly a person alive who doesn't like their character to look a certain way when the option is there, even if they way otherwise. Injustice 2's system however, bothers me. You buy these crystal things that can be used to unlock the cosmetic items and it's handled like a mobile game such as say Pokemon Duel or Fire Emblem Heroes where you can buy several different amounts for ever increasing prices. That particular model just bothers me.

 

Other than that, we seem to largely agree about things. Really I only tend to play mobile games when I don't want to play anything in my backlog and I'm bored enough to try them out so that practice rarely bothers me, it's more that I believe in better business practices than that.

[Orius]

I'm afraid that's just the way it is with modern gaming. Some modern inventions are annoying to certain individuals, such as the smartphone, or how every movie has to be in 3-D nowadays. I'm afraid that, as long as people are paying like blind sheep - and you bet they will - the trend will carry on. It only stops when the marketers see that the sales have gone down, and not just for a single game's DLCs, but for a large amount of them. Unfortunately, that's just an idealistic situation I don't see happening. Mob mentality is such an awesome trait of humanity, isn't it?

 

Personally, I don't like it either, DLCs. I think it's cheap marketing, and it encourages gaming studios to be lazier than they already are. "Let's just churn out an unfinished product so that we can complete it later on with DLCs and patches." It's shameless and unethical. I'm actually quite amazed how weak-minded game developers are to be swayed by the power of money like that. I mean, I'm dirt-poor as heck, so I'm in no position to talk about money being unimportant, but c'mon, you game companies make millions every year. Even avarice has a limit in 2017.

 

That said, I can only complain on some Internet forum. No power of mine will change a thing about game developers and how they do business. The keyword here is business, and that's the only thing they see video games as, a business. Micro-transactions will continue because it's good business. They won't suddenly grow a heart and say, "Man, would I like to change the gaming industry this morning! Howdy doo!" So, I just have to suck it up and buy games to distract me from my otherwise mundane and meaningless life. It's a vicious circle we cannot escape...

[sbauer]

i like micro transactions in mmo games

[Florida Fool]

I'm fine with DLC that adds to the experience and is purely optional, but things like the Destiny fiasco left me with mixed feelings on DLC. Now I wait for complete editions instead of jumping on to a new game and buying a game in bits and pieces.

[RepentantSky]

I'm fine with DLC that adds to the experience and is purely optional, but things like the Destiny fiasco left me with mixed feelings on DLC. Now I wait for complete editions instead of jumping on to a new game and buying a game in bits and pieces.

 

Yeah Destiny did an extremely poor job. So much so that I have no interest to try and play another Bungie title until or unless they do independent and don't utilize any of the tactics brought on by their current publisher.

[Cy~]

*wonkery hat goes on*

 

I really can't help myself, so I'm just going to point out that DLC is actually a form of price discrimination. I'm not sure if it started out that way or not, but at some point, game companies realized that their were people that were willing to invest a lot more in a game than other people. They also realized that they could make a SHIT TON of money by taking advantage of these folks.

 

The result? Well, the result is what we have today where entire series of games end up receiving a dozen minor DLCs each, including things that really should have been included in the base game for a better experience. Furthermore, the fact that they can squeeze so much money out of every major title means that game companies lose any and all incentives to give that better experience.

 

Want a better experience? Buy the DLC! Well... Frankly speaking, I think that it's total and complete bullshit. Sadly, this is capitalism. The reason that game companies are doing this is because they're making money while doing it. It's profitable, it isn't illegal, so they optimize for it. Soon, we get used to it.

 

The only way to stop price discrimination is to stop buying the product at any price and hammer badly packaged games into oblivion with negative reviews and bad press. Make them feeeellll the heat of their stupid decisions.

 

WITH THAT SAID, I don't think that all DLC is bad. Sometimes, a little bit of "price discrimination" can actually be a good thing because it gives players that want more story/appearance options/etc the ability to buy those things, without increasing the price of the base game.

[RepentantSky]

*wonkery hat goes on*

 

I really can't help myself, so I'm just going to point out that DLC is actually a form of price discrimination. I'm not sure if it started out that way or not, but at some point, game companies realized that their were people that were willing to invest a lot more in a game than other people. They also realized that they could make a s*** TON of money by taking advantage of these folks.

 

The result? Well, the result is what we have today where entire series of games end up receiving a dozen minor DLCs each, including things that really should have been included in the base game for a better experience. Furthermore, the fact that they can squeeze so much money out of every major title means that game companies lose any and all incentives to give that better experience.

 

Want a better experience? Buy the DLC! Well... Frankly speaking, I think that it's total and complete bullshit. Sadly, this is capitalism. The reason that game companies are doing this is because they're making money while doing it. It's profitable, it isn't illegal, so they optimize for it. Soon, we get used to it.

 

The only way to stop price discrimination is to stop buying the product at any price and hammer badly packaged games into oblivion with negative reviews and bad press. Make them feeeellll the heat of their stupid decisions.

 

WITH THAT SAID, I don't think that all DLC is bad. Sometimes, a little bit of "price discrimination" can actually be a good thing because it gives players that want more story/appearance options/etc the ability to buy those things, without increasing the price of the base game.

 

 

One thing I need to ad to this, is that there is a little more than just base level price discrimination going on, and it's actually in favor of developers who use this practice, so, sorry about that. One of the reasons DLC became a standard in the industry, is the increasing price of making a AAA title. It started to get to the point where selling a game at 40 to 60 dollars or the equivalent elsewhere wasn't enough to turn the kind of profit that investors wanted. Developers though, aren't stupid. Most of them at the point more than likely still remember the backlash of raising game prices on consoles from 40 dollars to 60 dollars when the 7th generation started. However, they knew they needed to churn out more money in one way or another, and DLC was how they decided to do it. That said, some devs have really exploited the ever loving hell out of such as Nintendo making all the content in Fire Emblem Echoes cost at least 117 dollars to access or Destiny making you spend a minimum of 90 dollars for all it's year one content, only to drop a 40 dollar DLC that was required to really play the game heading into year 2, but yeah, originally it was not intended to go the way that is has. That said, things like On Disc DLC, which people figured out was way more common than it ever should have been have kind of gone away, but the idea of DLC being everywhere has only increased.

[sbauer]

on steam i usually get free dlc for some reason