Batman Voice Actor Says Arkham City Will Have Downloadable Episodes

[tiredinnuendo]

Without poking too much fun at your butthurt, I have a quick question to see if there's any way whatsoever I could relate to where you are coming from.

Let's say that a game is released. And it's good. Really good. You love it. And the developers call you up personally and say, "We had a few extra ideas that we didn't have the budget to put into the main title. Would you rather we release those ideas as DLC, or just scrap them and move on to our next project?" Are you saying you'd tell them not to make it?

- J

Either do it like with movies or books and keep it like it is (there was probably a good reason certain scenes or storylines didn't make it into a "final version" anyway, stuff lands on the cutting room floor in about every project) or put your hands together and release an Add-On e.g. a Content-Update that is so massive it is worth the price as a separate product... some of these still exist today mislabeled as "DLC" (e.g. Episodes from Liberty City) cause apparently "Expansion" or "Add-On" is out of style ... on that note all these people willing to spend that kind of money for a new multiplayer level or two and a few new fancy weapons and character models nearly killed that practice off entirely...
After all, why put yourself to work on something that requires money and manpower to do and gets to be "worthy" when there's enough idiots out there paying about the same money for pony-models, 2 new multiplayer maps or 30 minutes of new content that is mostly recycled anyway.

So, am I to infer from this that your answer to their question, which I remind you had only these two options:

1) Additional content to be released in small bites as inexpensive DLC
-or-
2) No additional content to be released

You would pick option 1? Is that correct?

- J

 

[DivineBeastLink]

Batman: Arkham Asylum comes out for PC, PS3, and Xbox 350 on October 18th.

Might want to change that to Arkham City. =P

Looking forward to this game.

 

[4173]

Yay, additional bits and pieces that could have been in the original game or Patches like The Witcher 2, but we are allowed to pay for them, let's rejoice everyone!

That's a pretty hefty sense of entitlement there. I'm surprised you can still type with it weighing you down. It's like complaining that your local pizza place charges more for extra toppings.


Studios working on extra content for a game at the same time as the game itself is just the way things are done these days. If Rocksteady delivers a game that isn't good value for money, then you can complain all you like about things that could have been in the game but weren't. But y'know what? I don't think that's going to happen.

Yep, me and my immense sense of "entitlement", wanting to have a full product if I pay for it or being "entitled" by not paying for my Online gaming (like them consoles people), being "entitled" because I don't want microtransactions in my games and just generally being ripped off with whatever new "scheme" they come up with to get more money for the same product and good job on comparing games to food, what kind of brainwashing device have they been using these past 7 years (you know, when publishers would have been sent to hell for doing something like this before Microsoft managed to "marketize" it [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content#Criticism]... just like their inane licensing fees and paying for Online) that you get to call me "entitled" in a derogative way?

Honestly this kind of stuff makes me not want to buy a game in the first place, especially if they have the audacity to come out with it even before they release the game to not support them in their double-dipping ways.

And no, that's not the "way of the industry", it is the way of a select few greedy publishers, most notably EA and Activision (that unfortunately are also the largest), there are plenty of examples for games that either don't have any DLC or offer content for free like Witcher 2, Terraria, MineCraft, most of Valve's games (although they introduced Microtransactions...), Tripwires games etc.

I just don't see it. The full game is whatever they release. Now of course everyone is free to decide if that release is worth the cost. But talking about a "full game" like this does sound like entitlement.

Also, why the fuck shouldn't a company pursue the strategy they think will maximize revenue? Are you arguing DLC should be illegal, or that there needs to be a legally mandated game length? Are they under some moral imperative because games are such an important human right, or a moral imperative to not make "too much" money?

Again, you're welcome to your opinion on whether or not a game has enough content to be worth the purchase price, but I really don't get the "full game" concept.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Yep, me and my immense sense of "entitlement", wanting to have a full product if I pay for it or being "entitled" by not paying for my Online gaming (like them consoles people), being "entitled" because I don't want microtransactions in my games and just generally being ripped off with whatever new "scheme" they come up with to get more money for the same product and good job on comparing games to food, what kind of brainwashing device have they been using these past 7 years (you know, when publishers would have been sent to hell for doing something like this before Microsoft managed to "marketize" it [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downloadable_content#Criticism]... just like their inane licensing fees and paying for Online) that you get to call me "entitled" in a derogative way?

Honestly this kind of stuff makes me not want to buy a game in the first place, especially if they have the audacity to come out with it even before they release the game to not support them in their double-dipping ways.

And no, that's not the "way of the industry", it is the way of a select few greedy publishers, most notably EA and Activision (that unfortunately are also the largest), there are plenty of examples for games that either don't have any DLC or offer content for free like Witcher 2, Terraria, MineCraft, most of Valve's games (although they introduced Microtransactions...), Tripwires games etc.

Considering how hostile you are to the idea of DLC, it's pretty clear that I'm not going to change your mind, no matter what I say. I will say this though, it's one thing to be concerned about how DLC might be affecting the games you're buying, but its quite another to assume you're getting screwed because you're not getting every scrap of content that a developer creates.