DLC for Dummies

[Belated]

Here's the thing. It's true that Portal 2 hasn't done anything terribly evil with their DLC, and they're a lot better than some other game developers out there. But you didn't address the point that the DLC was available from day 1.

Here's the problem some of us have with that. If the content was ready on the game's launch, there's no reason they couldn't have included the DLC in the game. It's like they withheld some content to make extra money off of it. It's almost like Bioshock 2, how the content was literally on the disk but they locked it off unless you paid extra. Portal 2 is not quite THAT bad, but has a similar principal.

Now it's true that the DLC isn't important to experience the game. But it was still finished with the game. Remember the old days? Some of your favorite games probably had little bonus items you could unlock with enough game play. In fact, some more recent games do too. The Cobra gun in Saints Row 2, the gold Desert Eagle in CoD4, the ninja armor in Halo 3. Well if every new game behaves like Portal 2 did, we may see the end of bonus items like that. (Except those of us who have large amounts of disposable income.)

If the content is finished on the day the game is finished, it shouldn't be DLC. It should come with the game. Charging people extra money for add-ons is only an acceptable practice if you didn't have time to finish that content by the release date, or if you didn't think to make that content until after the game came out. But you should never finish content during game development, and then withhold it to make extra money.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

I still think it's stupid to charge for this stuff. I guess if Valve makes good money off it though, then fair play to them. It's not like the DLC actually affects gameplay at all in any way. Day-one-DLC is always a bit dicey though since it feels like the content (however trivial that content is) has been purposely excluded from the main game just to make a quick buck. In this particular case though, I could totally believe that they made these cosmetic enhancements after the game was finished, but they're still cutting it a bit fine.

 

[Derelict Frog]

Why do people think Valve is some sort of philanthropic giant? They're a corporation. Their goal is to make money: no different to any other publisher.

It just seems to me a lot of the people on these forums and site are Valve-zealots who like to believe it is a gleaming saint; where all of its decisions are the right ones and all of its games are good.

 

[Longsight]

[cut]

Our very own Virgil has an excellent post about how software development really works [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.154083#3719305], and how the existence of Day 1 DLC is not a ripoff. Short explanation: Stuff gets cut from game development all the time, and there comes a point at which games are feature locked (no more new ideas can be added) and content locked (no new content can be created to put on the disk), after which you have teams of developers who aren't doing anything. After that, you can A.) fire them or B.) put them to work on finishing content that was already cut from the game anyway, which can't go on the disk because the disk is content locked.

Obviously this doesn't apply to what Valve is doing here, as I find it very hard to believe that something like "a new hat" was cut from the game because it wouldn't have been finished on time. But in a general rule of speaking, this is how Day 1 DLC exists.

Please educate yourself on the matter, it might save wonders for your blood pressure.

This makes very little sense. They stop working on the content for a very good reason, primarily because they want to start ironing out the bugs. But the reason isn't even that important for my argument; if you keep working on the content, and it is releasable by the first day, it could still have been on the disk. Bar a few days for printing the discs this is undeniably true. The DLC and the normal content is indistinguishable, it is a cosmetic difference.
I'm sorry, first day DLC is a marketing tool and nothing more. Valve's DLC is by far the best and least intrusive and I'm fine with them making money this way, but it still is just the equivalent of the shops in disney world and nothing else.

The problem here is that you're assuming that development can essentially run right up to printing, and that printing can happen a few days before release. While this may be true to an extent with digital delivery such as Steam, with console markets it's most definitely not. Everything has to be checked and certified by external sources, and for quite some time you're beholden to someone else's timeframe.

What's really happened with the arrival of regular day one DLC is that developers have got better at handling DLC. A few years ago the concept didn't exist, and as Virgil pointed out, most developers would just fire the content designers at content-lock time. Now it's understood that when content-lock is reached, those writers can be moved, with minimum of fuss, onto creating extra stuff. Granted, some companies still then charge ludicrous amounts for it or put references to it in the main game, and those companies should know better. They're the ones that need to be warned about it by community outcries, not the ones that understand what it is about day one DLC that actually bothers people in general and act accordingly.

 

[CD-R]

DLC haters, please oh please oh please start with Bioware. Their DLC is getting on my nerves. Ever since someone like Shale was DLC I've weeped about DLC. DLC is for putting in new stories and new ideas into a game after it's been published. It's for putting in those final touches of a game the the publisher didn't allow you time to do. It's not meant to take holes out of a game and then sell them back to you.

That being said I have no problem with Portal 2 Day one DLC. It's purely aesthetic. I for one LOVE aesthetics. A game where I can customize my character and make them look awesome is something that I can't get enough of. But I mean I know that extra aesthetics don't really have any hold on how good a game is. Portal 2 shouldn't suffer for a few extra aesthetics that you have to buy.

You do realize Shale was free right? So was the Cerberus network fluff like Zaieed and Firewalker for Mass Effect 2. So were the map updates for Bad Company 2. None of which were included on the disc.

 

[Longsight]

Having played TF2 for what seems like an awful long time now, and watched the item drop situation develop from a couple of new weapons into full-blown insanity, I genuinely get the feeling that the reason Valve is choosing to sell items that can be attained through play anyway is because there's a market for these things. Just check out the number of TF2 trading servers online, or the number of people who willingly throw huge amounts of money at the Mann Co. store so that they can trade those items to people who are unwilling to spend the money themselves, or go achievement-hunting. I know a few people personally who knowingly and willingly spend all sorts of money on cosmetic items so that they can supply them to friends who are unable to, or simply because they like being able to flash them about. It's not like this just happened overnight; they tested the waters with TF2, and it turns out that overall, people who like to spend money on cosmetic crap do so, and the rest just don't care either way. Perhaps they misjudged their market, or perhaps they released this just as a large-scale anti-DLC wave was beginning to crest, but either way, the market does exist now. It exists not just to rip people off, but so that people who enjoy spending money on micro-transactions or like to trade with their friends for mutual benefit can do so.

And before it sounds too much like I'm a rabid Valve fanboy: yes, well maybe I am, but even I'm willing to accept that Portal 2 had its faults, and I wouldn't personally score it higher than 8/10. I just genuinely don't think the DLC situation was one of them. It didn't affect my enjoyment of the game in any way whatsoever, so I'm simply unable to judge the game on the basis that it had DLC that I didn't care about.

 

[TundraWolf]

Experienced Points: DLC for Dummies

Shamus skewers the Portal 2 DLC backlash

Read Full Article

Completely agreed. I wrote something very similar on my blog [http://loadingcheckpoint.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-day-one-too-soon.html].

Honestly, I probably could've done without the DLC content at all, but I don't understand why this, of all things, was where DLC crossed the line. I'm pretty sure people were just sore about the whole Valve ARG thing and were looking for something to complain about, but I can't be sure.

Yeah. Well-written article, Shamus, and completely agreed.

 

[Smithburg]

I have to agree with you, I don't often buy DLC cuz 1. I don't use credit cards so I cant order it unless I give someone else the money, and 2. I dont think investing in something that can be gone when the servers are down is the best Idea. But they did it perfectly in portal 2, what I cant stand is when they shove it down your throat with ingame advertisements for it (Dragon Age)or constantly telling you there is something new to buy! DOnt you want it!? HUH HUH HUH? (Fable 3).

Worst of all (And I HATE that they do this) Are the project ten dollar crap where if you buy it used you dont get the entire game because I cant often afford new games and the percent off for used games helps immensely and the games that actually lock out features of the ORIGINAL game until you purchase the DLC (Halo 3 with the game types being locked GRRRR)

Hopefully others can learn from this and fix it

 

[soes757]

Just to comment on the time played, I talked to my roommate this morning and he said he finished it in about 4 and a half hours his first play through, 2nd play through in about 2 and a half. And I've been hearing from various other people on my steam friends list that they've done it in 4-5.
I personally have yet to get a crack at the game because my copy is somewhere in the mail...

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but the timer DOESN'T count the time after you die or before you die.
So if you play a test chamber from checkpoint A not hitting checkpoint B for 2 hours and you keep dieing then you beat it in 10 seconds you get the ten seconds recorded and not the 2 hours.
I think this whole Portal thing is stupid no game deserves to be rated poorly because it has dlc and is different. The people on metacritic are idiots and as far as I am concerned this gem of a game is the game of the year.
Even if something else wins.

 

[John Funk]

[cut]

Our very own Virgil has an excellent post about how software development really works [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.154083#3719305], and how the existence of Day 1 DLC is not a ripoff. Short explanation: Stuff gets cut from game development all the time, and there comes a point at which games are feature locked (no more new ideas can be added) and content locked (no new content can be created to put on the disk), after which you have teams of developers who aren't doing anything. After that, you can A.) fire them or B.) put them to work on finishing content that was already cut from the game anyway, which can't go on the disk because the disk is content locked.

Obviously this doesn't apply to what Valve is doing here, as I find it very hard to believe that something like "a new hat" was cut from the game because it wouldn't have been finished on time. But in a general rule of speaking, this is how Day 1 DLC exists.

Please educate yourself on the matter, it might save wonders for your blood pressure.

This makes very little sense. They stop working on the content for a very good reason, primarily because they want to start ironing out the bugs. But the reason isn't even that important for my argument; if you keep working on the content, and it is releasable by the first day, it could still have been on the disk. Bar a few days for printing the discs this is undeniably true. The DLC and the normal content is indistinguishable, it is a cosmetic difference.
I'm sorry, first day DLC is a marketing tool and nothing more. Valve's DLC is by far the best and least intrusive and I'm fine with them making money this way, but it still is just the equivalent of the shops in disney world and nothing else.

Please read that post again. A game's disk is often content-locked many months before the game actually ships. And the disk itself starts printing probably a month before ship. That you think otherwise just demonstrates ignorance of the matter at hand.

Digital delivery allows them to deliver the content alongside the disk at launch, not on it.

That said, I don't have a personal problem with any of it. Stuff gets cut from games all the time, and developers ought to be paid for their work. It's the height of arrogance to suggest otherwise.

Whether or not content that is cut from a game becomes DLC or not doesn't have anything to do with people getting paid. If someone's paid to model a hat and it's later cut from the game. He's still paid for it.

Now if someone takes those cast offs, and tries to market them as DLC, and people are dumb enough to buy them then that's another matter.


The P2 situation as I understand it, is that they're basically selling in-game achievements for the most part because a lot of this stuff was available in released game. Now wasn't there some hullabaloo a while ago because some hacker or some exploiter got a bunch of free achievements they shouldn't have, and those were later taken away because people value that sort of thing? Like the XBL gamer score, or general achievements.

And if you're selling stuff to give gamers an in-game advantage, isn't that what you were arguing about in your article? Are cosmetic advantages okay to sell off while gameplay advantages are not? That depends on the gamer I suspect, I mean people play a dozen games in a sitting, they win some and they lose some but what doesn't change is how they present themselves in that gaming environment. It's purely a matter of perspective.


Point is, if some gamers have to work their butts off to get an in-game item, and other gamers can just buy it off the store, then whether that item is beneficial gameplay-wise or not is irrelevant, at the end it's still giving someone an advantage by them paying for it. Because the individual gamer is going to value different things.

Are you confusing me with Shamus? This article was his, not mine.

And I'm referring to the further development of unfinished content. If a mission is cut from the game when half-finished because it won't be done/it isn't up to par, should the developers not get paid for the work to finish it?

 

[sms_117b]

.....Am I like the only person to have never disliked DLC?

However I'll have to wait until after exams to see Portal 2 and it's glorious DLC

Yeah, that's the one thing I kinda won't forgive Valve for. What kind of timing was that, Valve? I have finals in two weeks, you know. Goddamnit.

The way I see it is, if you have nothing better to do with your life than play video games, you'll play a lot of video games, so games companies release their major titles around exams to weed out the addicts and make them fail and succumb to the routine of new game addiction.

But I'm not falling for that, oh no, not this year...with the exception of Dynasty Warriors 7, which has lost a lot of appeal now I've unlocked Lu Bu and all the Halbard weapons

 

[Longsight]

Ah, Lu Bu, Mr. Easy Mode himself. Man, I have an urge to find Dynasty Warriors 3 again now.

 

[TitanAtlas]

Dear Shamus...

First let me say... You are a God.... you adressed the matter perfectly, i couldnt put better words....

I have been hating on DLC's mainly because they leave hoels in the game, in great majority of the times it punishes people for not getting that super-weapon or having that continuation of the story.

But things Valve did On Portal 2 about the DLC... no warning, no references and no lack of experience if you didnt get them... pure perfection. Valve.. you are and always will be in my heart, you are from the community to the community and ALWAYS think in youre fans.

I trust the waiting time for HL3 or HL:ep3 is worth it, because you guys never delivered a half experience... you always worked to maitain a standart, and i love you guys for that.

So again Shamus... you adressed the matter perfectly... thank you very much for clearing this ghost that has been in my mind for so much time ;D

 

[McNinja]

I had no idea the Day 1 DLC was a clothing item.

Who is complaining, and why? Bitches need to quit trifling.

I finished single player in about 6 and a half hours. I thought it lacked some things that could have made it interesting (like exploring more of the hows and whys of Aperture Science, especially in the far underground 1960's era area), and it felt a little long because it lost my interest almost completely in the last few puzzles, but I enjoyed the humor and how ridiculous (ly awesome) the ending was.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

Haters gonna hate.

 

[Calderon0311]

*while reading the review*

Yeah! YEAH! YEAH! YOU TAKE THOSE LEMONS! YEAH! (Oh I like this guy!) BURN THAT HOUSE DOWN!

He says what we're all thinking!!

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

Thank you calling these little damn ingrates on their BS Shamus; Blizzard, BioWare, and EA have committed far worse in terms of DLC. They are just picking on Valve because they didn't get Portal 2 a whole DAY earlier as WAS NOT promised by the Potato Sack ARG

Excuse me? WTF does Blizzard do with DLC? Activision has its moments, with COD map packs and other things that gullible people buy, but I haven't seen anything about DLC in any of their games and I've been playing since Rock N' Roll Racing.

The worst they have is the Sparkle Pony, which falls under all four of Shamus' rules.

The problem I've heard about Blizzard isn't really DLC, but it is a micro transaction. Realm transfers.

I heard arguments that this easily done, and automated, process should be free with a month long cooldown instead of $25 per character. The main reasons are, as stated before, it is so easily done that is it now automated and that it could be considered an essential part of the game.

If your raiding guild decides to move to another server, and you don't have the $25 to spare to pay for a transfer yourself then you are out of a raiding guild. I've had that happen to me, so I can see the point in that argument.

Faction change isn't an easy process. Think about it, they need to take all of your quests and reputation and switch them for alternate quests from the other faction. More to the point, the fee is there as a penalty to discourage people from doing it a lot. Even a cooldown wouldn't stop someone determined to abuse the system.

I said Realm Transfer not Faction Change. You know when one of your characters is moved from one realm/server to another realm/server.

And again, a cooldown wouldn't discourage abuse, particularly from gold sellers. Money does.

 

[MisterColeman]

Attacking the game because of DLC is stupid. You either like the game or you don't.

Portal 2 actually doesn't have DLC though. It has code in the game that is protected until you pay them money. There are no downloads when you purchase these items. They are already IN THE GAME. They are not really DLC. That is a problem. Is it worth not buying the game over? Of course not, but I'm tired of reading articles that refuse to at least acknowledge what it actually is. It's cosmetic items behind a wall of code you have to pay to remove, and it doesn't make me feel that great about the developers who are responsible for that decision.

 

[subtlefuge]

Who organized this whole thing? I know the internet too well to believe that this all just happened.

I wouldn't put it past SPUF, but it somehow doesn't seem like their style.