Visceral Defends Dead Space 3 DLC

[The Wooster]

Visceral Defends Dead Space 3 DLC

Dead Space 3's Awakened DLC didn't go into production until after the main game was finished insists producer, John Calhoun.

By this point, I probably don't need to explain how the song-and-dance that accompanies every major DLC release goes, but here's a quick refresher anyway. Company releases game. Shortly afterwards, company releases DLC. Gamers take note of suspiciously short time frame between those two dates and accuse company of cutting content from the game to release as DLC. Company vehemently denies those claims. Gamers remain unconvinced. Rinse. Repeat.

This time around it's Visceral Games' John Calhoun explaining that work on the recently announced Awakened DLC campaign for Dead Space 3 didn't start until the main game was finished.

"Dead Space 3 is finished months before it's actually sold, 'cause you have to go through manufacturing, certification, and all that stuff," he told Destructoid. "So in that time we a have team with nothing to do."

"It's definitely not the case where we take a level, and just decide we're not going to include it in the main game. This was not even part of Dead Space 3; it was developed by a smaller set of our team that were run with a different producer, and all that stuff. You're looking at something that was wholly created as a standalone product."

Of course, short of revealing timetable or budgetary documents, there's no way for Calhoun to prove Awakened isn't the gaming equivalent of Soylent Green. Gamers will either take him at his word, or assume he's part of the industry-wide conspiracy to break down games into expensive, bite-size chunks.

Rinse. Repeat.

Dead Space 3: Awakened will hit 360, PS3 and PC on March 12th.



Source: Destructoid [http://www.destructoid.com/dead-space-3-dlc-work-began-after-main-game-was-finished-248009.phtml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter]



Permalink

 

[Full]

I believe him, and I'm fine with even Day-1 DLC as long as it get's started after shipping, I don't see what's wrong with that. I for one greatly enjoyed DS3 with all it's shortcomings and I will be buying this at least eventually.

Company releases game. Shortly afterwards, company releases DLC. Gamers take note of suspiciously short time frame between those two dates and accuse company of cutting content from the game to release as DLC. Company vehemently denies those claims. Gamers remain unconvinced. Rinse. Repeat.

Oh you.

 

[Ukomba]

Come on people, this is the exact same thing as ME3. How game development works shouldn't be a surprise at this point.

 

[Weaver]

I still just miss the days where you bought a game, and you got the whole game. The end.

 

[Sean Strife]

Also to add to this: after the fiasco with Aliens: Colonial Marines, who's to say that they aren't outright lying to us about this? How about this gaming industry, if you want us to quit thinking you're all a bunch of filthy liars, show us some proof instead of just expecting us to take your word on it. You know, just a suggestion, seeing as you people haven't exactly fostered a lot of trust in us, especially in the past couple years.

 

[gigastar]

Company releases game. Shortly afterwards, company releases DLC. Gamers take note of suspiciously short time frame between those two dates and accuse company of cutting content from the game to release as DLC. Company vehemently denies those claims. Gamers remain unconvinced. Rinse. Repeat.

This happens so often nowadays i seriously question whether any mention of it is worth calling "news" anymore. As filler, maybe, but not if theres bigger fish.

 

[weirdee]

I'm still uncertain if it precludes the possibility that game development at some point plans to have DLC included before it's finished (with the assumption that certain features are "nonessential" and delegated to the DLC pile), and then slated to be developed at the "free" time post-main development, instead of it being added on as a possibility, but not designed to occur in such a way that it suspiciously meshes with the game.

It's very easy to toy with the definition of "main game".

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I still just miss the days where you bought a game, and you got the whole game. The end.

Yeah, those were the days.

 

[weirdee]

I still just miss the days where you bought a game, and you got the whole game. The end.

Yeah, those were the days.

are we having some sort of EA reference joke here or is this just coincidence

 

[grigjd3]

You know what would be refreshing, if the developers just kept their mouths shut and observed the market forces. I know people complain, but sometimes, you can't please people.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I still just miss the days where you bought a game, and you got the whole game. The end.

Yeah, those were the days.

are we having some sort of EA reference joke here or is this just coincidence

AC10 may be referring to some EA joke but I was simply reminiscing about the past.

 

[Mirrorknight]

Here's the thing. It takes about 3 months to do the certification. You don't plan, flesh out the story, make art assets, code, do music/sfx, and debug in that little of time. I simply can't believe that some of the process isn't done prior to the certification process. Granted you can reuse some of the stuff from the main game for the DLC, but people get kinda torked being asked to shell out 10-15 bucks if you just throw something together out of completely existing assets.

I don't mind day 1 DLC -if- it doesn't feel like it should have belonged in the main game. Something like Zaheed from ME2 . You didn't really get to socialize with him like the rest of stock characters. He's just a nice extra. On the other hand, you have ME3's From Ashes. It had a recruitable character that you could socialize with like your others, and the character itself was a VERY VERY big part of the lore. Not to mention that there art assets that belong to the DLC ON THE DISK. Meaning it HAD to have been worked on before it went to certification. Oh, but they swore up and down that they didn't work on it until it was in certification.

You know what. Fine. You work on day one DLC prior to when the game's shipped off for certification, whether it's something you sliced off the main game for it (although this decision would piss me off), or something you came up separately. Just don't BS me and say you weren't.

 

[JediMB]

I'm still uncertain if it precludes the possibility that game development at some point plans to have DLC included before it's finished (with the assumption that certain features are "nonessential" and delegated to the DLC pile), and then slated to be developed at the "free" time post-main development, instead of it being added on as a possibility, but not designed to occur in such a way that it suspiciously meshes with the game.

It's very easy to toy with the definition of "main game".

And this is why I prefer the types of DLC that are clearly created in response to players' reactions to the main game. That way you can truly know you haven't been ripped off in any way.

 

[weirdee]

So yeah, the main issue is the fact that they're still planning this DLC alongside the main game while it's in production, and while there's nothing wrong PER SE with that, it still means that part of the game is being designed as monetization (overpriced too, if their claims of using the last few months over the rest of the development time compared to the price ratio of initial game to DLC), and to claim otherwise is foolish.

This is more apparent with "season passes" because in order for them to come up with a pricing model, they would have to know what their budget for the DLC is, and going by how much detail a publisher usually wants when they're being anal retentive about money to the point where you can get a game cancelled based on a bad impression to the executives, all of that was premeditated to a T.

 

[Rednog]

Also to add to this: after the fiasco with Aliens: Colonial Marines, who's to say that they aren't outright lying to us about this? How about this gaming industry, if you want us to quit thinking you're all a bunch of filthy liars, show us some proof instead of just expecting us to take your word on it. You know, just a suggestion, seeing as you people haven't exactly fostered a lot of trust in us, especially in the past couple years.

What are you talking about?
First of all Visceral had nothing to do with Colonial Marines and to somehow staple that nonsense to every developer is ludicrous.
And what proof would satisfy you? The development cycle of games is well known, if you want something like a personalized tour of each company and daily reports on what they're doing just to convince you, don't be surprised when it doesn't happen.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'm just happy that this DLC is taking place after the ending and is still starring the main characters. Now, I liked Dead Space 2: Severed just fine, but the ending to Dead Space 3 left me on a bit of a down note. I wanted more closure, and without spoiling anything, I wanted to know what was going to happen next and what happened to everyone. So I, for one, am very happy about this.
Glad to see a release date was finally nailed down. Next Tuesday huh? Guess I need to go buy a PS card.

 

[Something Amyss]

Or you could just be smart and wait a month or two so it at least LOOKs like you're telling the truth.

Yeah, but they don't want to give up the extra sales from that early impulse point. In other words, they want the cash but don't want their feelings hurt.

 

[chstens]

After the game is complete, it has to be sent to verification(If it launches on consoles, and I suppose Steam), at this point no changes can be made to the game, and in addition, near completion of the game, the art team's got practically nothing to do. Why not spend the time from then until launch on making DLC? And to all of you reminiscing about when you got the whole game when you bought it, what about expansion packs? DLC isn't anything but a modern take on expansion packs, sure some of them are practically microscopic in scale, just some custom armor or weapons, but then you have stuff like Dragonborn or Undead Nightmare for RDR. Personally I find the whole "Back in the day, you got the whole game when you bought it" argument to be utter bullshit. Games had DLC back then as well, you just had to buy it in a brick and mortar store instead of download it from the internet.

Hell, some of the older SimCity games had "expansions" that were practically nothing more than texture packs!

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Considering how long it takes to make the game that's on the disc (assuming that's all that's on the disc), I can't imagine that a DLC of this scale can be made in 3 months. I'm not even so sure about the "cut off small team working on it while we were making the game" thing. Leading up to gold, it's almost always "crunch time", and everyone is pulling together working ridiculous hours to get it ready for approval. And even if "the art team has nothing to do" in those 3 months, you need more than an art team to code it, program the AI, do the voice acting, scripting, and music/sound effects.

I know that I sound really cynical and skeptical...there's just been a whole lot of left hooks I've taken since the consoles got broadband connections. I'm also still very pissed about being stupid enough to buy the Gears of War 3 season pass, and that damned "horde command" thing being the first release. That wasn't even DLC. I downloaded like fucking 60kb to make horde mode what it was probably supposed to be out of the box. Okay, that's out of my system now. That also had nothing to do with EA.

Edit: From a more sensible standpoint, I realize that this is just the lines being blurred regarding what the "main game" is. I'm sure that the publishers are in a situation with rising budgets (some of which is their bloated marketing and their fault) and would like to price games above $60/your local equivalent. DLC, DLC (Disc-locked-content), microtransactions, and avatar clothing are ways to offset the budgets without raising the MSRP. I bet that if games launched at $69 or $75 sales would drop a lot, and they know that.