EA Exec: On-Disc DLC Complaints Are "Nonsense"

[Vicarious Reality]

I feel like i sold my kids by buying their 30 dollar Inquisition expansions yesterday, as well as Mass effect

 

[RealRT]

'From Ashes' was a launch-day DLC, not an on-disc DLC.

Similar, but not exactly the same.

Actually it was both, which makes it even more despicable.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I despise EA and pretty much don't buy any of their games. I think the last EA game I purchased was Mass Effect 2. They use day one DLC as a way to charge more than $60 for a game. It is disgusting and I don't support this kind of stuff.

 

[thewatergamer]

*phew* EA was actually in danger of earning some respect for a moment there thank goodness!

 

[Vigormortis]

Does it matter if it's on disk or not?

In short: Yes, it does.

If the content is on the disc (and is complete, save for some small arbitrary files the developer/publisher purposefully left off to keep it from being used until it's purchased), then keeping it locked away behind a paywall is damn near highway robbery. It would be like buying a film on a BluRay, popping it into your player, having it stop by the end of the 2nd act, and then prompting you to continue the story by pre-ordering the upcoming "Finale DLC!". (only the ending is already on the disc, you just have to pay extra to see it)

That example is limited, obviously, but I feel it conveys the point. When you buy the physical disc, or even the digital files, if the 'DLC'[footnote]This is in air quotes as it's incredibly stupid to call non-downloaded content 'downloadable content'.[/footnote] is present on the disc or within your drive, you have legal ownership of those files. That these companies then demand you pay them to access those files is absurdly insulting. You are paying for an arbitrary 'privilege' to use that content instead of paying for delivery of a product. That's why many of us take issue with their insistence on calling such content "DLC". They aren't delivering the content to you, you aren't downloading it. They're just granting you the 'right' to use what you already own.

I love the progress that's been made within the industry in regards to DLC and the systems and infrastructures in place to deliver and update such content. But what Peter Moore said in that interview is condescending and insulting to his customers. It is a small snippet of truth buried under a mountain of bullshit.

Or, as another poster put it:

It's okay. All on-disc DLC is technically yours from a legal standpoint. So if they actually put the content there, and not just the place holder, and you can find a way to access it, feel free to enjoy it. I'm looking at you Street Fighter

Ignoring the crappy tone, isn't he sort of half right?

No. He's maybe 10% right. The rest of his spiel is nonsense.

Yes, expansions and addon content are often planned and in development well before a game goes gold and ships. However, that doesn't excuse content-complete DLC being included with the gold product and locked away behind a paywall.

See the beginning of my post.

 

[Naldan]

[...]

That was a rhetorical question I tryed to answer.

I know that my English sometimes goes more haywire than usual. And I think I missed one point, where perfectly usable content is on disk/on HDD even and it is intended for DLC.

But then you have portraits for example. Let's say you have a game where portraits are of cosmetic value, not a whole character or something. Like in strategy games, or in Baldur's Gate. These portraits are on the disk, they were delivered with it. But they were created after the standard set of portraits.

Normally, those artists get fired (or idle around doing concepts for stuff that never gets realized, etc.) after their work is done. Or they are hired for specific purposes to begin with. Now, you have DLC. They do this mid developement, before the DLC-era, they would have been fired.

I think this is the only case when I could tolerate DLC that is on disk.


When it's so freaking much almost usable (not really glitchy) content though, I can't help but to think that this is a smoking gun. It is much content, but: - In its predecessors, this was available. - It is just a mode that is more or less common. - It is a map. This is what I will never get: buying and selling maps. If they were much cheaper maybe.

 

[Atmos Duality]

There's no such thing as a 'complete game' - merely one that the developers said is 'good enough to ship'.

From their perspective, perhaps. But they're only half of the equation in the market.
So pardon me if I call this point semantic at best.

Frankly, I can understand why developers go for content-adding DLC separate from the main game - Costs of developing games have gone up, while the price of games have plummeted.

Hmm, and who set those prices?
Ah right, the free market. Demand AND Supply.

Funny thing is, I tried warning people away from nickle-and-dime schemes about a decade ago, and they called it "slippery slope". Now they have "Less for More", despite all their grumbling.

I don't have that problem because I see what is actually being offered before committing.

The easiest way to save on development costs is to cut non-critical content development. DLC is a way to get more return on investment for more content.

I agree with that completely: Big name developers are heavily leaning on Less-for-More these days.

Quite a bit of DLC is overpriced relative to a good core game because on average, it's less effort put into it per dollar charged. (call me crazy, but, I think shitting out hats and skins for 1-10 bucks a pop seems quite skewed compared to developing the core game, in terms of value)

You can call game developers greedy all you want,

Actually I didn't call anyone greedy; nor do I need to because I assume everyone is greedy (or acting in self interest) in a luxury market. Kinda why these lines are in my post.

To be clear: That isn't a moral indictment or complaint, it's just stating how the process works.

Though it is one reason (among many) why I stopped buying games from your company, and others like it.

Just sayin'.

but it doesn't change the fact that you're now getting far more (In terms of economic value in the game - Man-hours, skill/education, art, etc) for far, far less.

Strange how you claim that DLC is effectively Less-for-More, and how development prices are rising, but then assert this.
In any free market, costs are always passed on to the consumer (until it becomes unsustainable); either directly in the form of offerings, or indirectly in the form of Gotchas (contract services thrive on the latter; which is why I am 100% against turning game sales into a pure service model, or Eternal Rentals).

In any case, the point I'm pressing is that Mr. Moore can lie "mislead" about his company's practices all he likes; it's not fooling me and he's definitely not selling me on his shitty game offerings.

 

[Vigormortis]

That was a rhetorical question I tryed to answer.

I realized that. I was using the question as a segue into addressing the topic. I wasn't really targeting you specifically. Sorry for the confusion.

I know that my English sometimes goes more haywire than usual. And I think I missed one point, where perfectly usable content is on disk/on HDD even and it is intended for DLC.

But then you have portraits for example. Let's say you have a game where portraits are of cosmetic value, not a whole character or something. Like in strategy games, or in Baldur's Gate. These portraits are on the disk, they were delivered with it. But they were created after the standard set of portraits.

Normally, those artists get fired (or idle around doing concepts for stuff that never gets realized, etc.) after their work is done. Or they are hired for specific purposes to begin with. Now, you have DLC. They do this mid developement, before the DLC-era, they would have been fired.

I think this is the only case when I could tolerate DLC that is on disk.

Except
A: It's content that was complete before the game shipped and was included on the disc, meaning you technically own the files when you purchased the product. (making the paywall arbitrary)

B: It's not DLC if you're not downloading it.

This is the crux of the issue for me. It's not a matter of the perceived subjective value of the content, it's the principle of locking away on-disc content behind paywalls and calling data already owned by the customer "downloadable".

I do appreciate what you're saying though.

When it's so freaking much almost usable (not really glitchy) content though, I can't help but to think that this is a smoking gun. It is much content, but: - In its predecessors, this was available. - It is just a mode that is more or less common. - It is a map. This is what I will never get: buying and selling maps. If they were much cheaper maybe.

Provided the files aren't already in the possession of the user, I don't take issue with companies selling map packs and the like. Especially if the maps are community made and the proceeds of the sales go to the map makers.

But I agree. A lot of publishers charge way too much for extra content like map packs.

 

[Scow2]

There's no such thing as a 'complete game' - merely one that the developers said is 'good enough to ship'.

From their perspective, perhaps. But they're only half of the equation in the market.
So pardon me if I call this point semantic at best.

Frankly, I can understand why developers go for content-adding DLC separate from the main game - Costs of developing games have gone up, while the price of games have plummeted.

Hmm, and who set those prices?
Ah right, the free market. Demand AND Supply.

Funny thing is, I tried warning people away from nickle-and-dime schemes about a decade ago, and they called it "slippery slope". Now they have "Less for More", despite all their grumbling.

I don't have that problem because I see what is actually being offered before committing.

The easiest way to save on development costs is to cut non-critical content development. DLC is a way to get more return on investment for more content.

I agree with that completely: Big name developers are heavily leaning on Less-for-More these days.

Quite a bit of DLC is overpriced relative to a good core game because on average, it's less effort put into it per dollar charged. (call me crazy, but, I think shitting out hats and skins for 1-10 bucks a pop seems quite skewed compared to developing the core game, in terms of value)

You can call game developers greedy all you want,

Actually I didn't call anyone greedy; nor do I need to because I assume everyone is greedy (or acting in self interest) in a luxury market. Kinda why these lines are in my post.

To be clear: That isn't a moral indictment or complaint, it's just stating how the process works.

Though it is one reason (among many) why I stopped buying games from your company, and others like it.

Just sayin'.

but it doesn't change the fact that you're now getting far more (In terms of economic value in the game - Man-hours, skill/education, art, etc) for far, far less.

Strange how you claim that DLC is effectively Less-for-More, and how development prices are rising, but then assert this.
In any free market, costs are always passed on to the consumer (until it becomes unsustainable); either directly in the form of offerings, or indirectly in the form of Gotchas (contract services thrive on the latter; which is why I am 100% against turning game sales into a pure service model, or Eternal Rentals).

In any case, the point I'm pressing is that Mr. Moore can lie "mislead" about his company's practices all he likes; it's not fooling me and he's definitely not selling me on his shitty game offerings.

I never said DLC is "Less for more". I said it was "More for more" - you pay more money, you get more content (Or, if you want more content, you pay more money). As it is, games are less-for-more on the developer side: They're putting far more into the games (Art, manhours, etc) and getting less per unit sold... and the market isn't necessarily growing, either. Especially if they're chasing a more niche or saturated market such as RPGs. Yes, DLC pricing is sold for more than the game is... but that's because the main game is sold for either an unacceptably low profit (Compared to opportunity costs of development), or outright gross loss, and DLC helps pay for that... and, DLC also costs more because it's less widely distributed than the original game - nobody buys DLC for a game they don't own.

Also - there's a funny thing about customer and seller psychology when it comes to games that has left the market's prices on games pretty rigid around a $60 'base game' price point ($50 for PC), and multiples or fractions of that for deluxe editions and DLC - a company can not sell a base game for more than $60, even if it has significantly more content than Call of Duty... and if they try to sell for less than $60 ($50 on PC), or it is perceived as a second-rate, knock-off shovelware (Or, at best, the game everyone talks about buying but never actually does. Especially if it's a new IP). So, companies have to use DLC to inflate the price of the game to where it actually needs to be to be sufficiently profitable for the company.


Would the Prothean character in ME 3 have caused such a shitstorm over "YOU'RE SELLING US AN INCOMPLETE GAME!" if he was left half-finished and dummied out on the disk?

 

[Scow2]

I feel like i sold my kids by buying their 30 dollar Inquisition expansions yesterday, as well as Mass effect

When you sell your kids, you generally GET money, not LOSE money.

 

[Sylveria]

Oh and here i was under the impression that Moore didnt want EA voted Worst Company in America for a third time?

And here he is dismissing legitimate concerns and then promptly justifying them by saying that DLC is in fact developed in tandem to the core game.

Thats a years work of biulding up good PR gone in an instant.

He found out Konami was at the top of the publisher hate-boner list.. and wanted his throne back.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I never said DLC is "Less for more". I said it was "More for more" - you pay more money, you get more content (Or, if you want more content, you pay more money).

I know you didn't say "Less-for-More" directly, but that's gist of what needs to happen for your assertion to have any weight here.

You say there's no such thing as a "complete game"; I have a large collection of games from Atari through PS2 that proves otherwise.

Before, the less-for-more devil came in the form of Shovelware; quick cash-grab titles made with no intention of quality save maybe for the box cover. It was ruthless exploitation so bad that it crashed the market in 83'.
Later, we learned how to spot shovelware by using some discretion and not being fucking idiots.

At some point, the developers realized they had one shot at making an impression with their game and once they started taking that seriously, the games market improved dramatically. Shovelware became little more than a novelty joke, we got great games, they got paid. Everyone was happy.

But now, developers can play god with their content access on a piece-wise basis. So now they feel the need to twist arms and charge money for purchasing opportunities instead of just being up front with us or exercising some restraint.

I have nothing against developers charging extra for extra content; but that doesn't mean I will blindly buy every offer placed before me, and it definitely doesn't mean I can't tell when someone is just fucking with me to make a buck.

Case in point: Proverbially, Peter Moore is pissing on our heads and telling us it's raining.
And for some reason, he thinks this will help his business.

As it is, games are less-for-more on the developer side: They're putting far more into the games (Art, manhours, etc) and getting less per unit sold... and the market isn't necessarily growing, either.

Informally, I agree with that assessment. But I think it highlights the bloat in the business more than anything.

IMO, AAA is very spoiled from their previous market success. So much, that they act like they dictate what the entire market does on their terms and that we must accept it (despite the fact that demand and supply act on each other), mainly because they think their customers are just that stupid.

You can see the barely-restrained contempt behind statements like Moore's and the attitudes of AAA companies.
The most brazen example being back when Microsoft revealed the Xbone. They honestly thought the world was ready for a shitty system that, objectively, has no value to the customer. (more over "statistics", "convenience" is the hot new PR lie in town!)

To finish this point: Maybe the AAA market isn't growing any more because their potential customers don't trust them as much as they used to. Just a hunch.

Especially if they're chasing a more niche or saturated market such as RPGs. Yes, DLC pricing is sold for more than the game is... but that's because the main game is sold for either an unacceptably low profit (Compared to opportunity costs of development), or outright gross loss, and DLC helps pay for that... and, DLC also costs more because it's less widely distributed than the original game - nobody buys DLC for a game they don't own.

It's very easy to turn around blame everything on the customer (as you're about to do in the next paragraph), but who actually sinks those 200 million into Starcraft 2, 300 million into Dead Space 3, and half a BILLION into developing Destiny?

And more importantly, why? Because it works?
If it does, why are we even discussing this? Why does Peter Moore feel the need to comment on anything here?

Those games clearly need the DLC inflation to pay for their bloat, and it "obviously" works so...No problems here. Nothing to see here. Move along now.

...right?

Also - there's a funny thing about customer and seller psychology when it comes to games that has left the market's prices on games pretty rigid around a $60 'base game' price point ($50 for PC), and multiples or fractions of that for deluxe editions and DLC - a company can not sell a base game for more than $60, even if it has significantly more content than Call of Duty... and if they try to sell for less than $60 ($50 on PC), or it is perceived as a second-rate, knock-off shovelware (Or, at best, the game everyone talks about buying but never actually does. Especially if it's a new IP). So, companies have to use DLC to inflate the price of the game to where it actually needs to be to be sufficiently profitable for the company.

Bolded part is textbook "Less-for-More" (for the customer).

15 years ago, the AAA publisher's catalogs were more diverse. Now, they're specialized to the nth degree.
You don't so much buy a product as you buy a half-finished product with the opportunity to buy the rest later.

I know we're the fringe minority when it comes to openly discussing these things, but over time, people can see what's happening, they adjust both their standards and behavior accordingly.

Why pay full price (or worse, preorder) for a feature-incomplete, buggier game on launch when you can wait and see if the game is worth a damn?

Why pay 10-25 bucks for DLC on Day 1 when it's smarter to pick them and the game up for 30 bucks during a Steam sale/bundle?

For that matter, why trust the publisher's official material or the "review" they bought from IGN (or damn near any other major game site they're affiliated with), when you can get an unadulterated second, third, fourth, nth opinion from a streamer or youtuber?

AAA wants to train its market to lower its standards for convenience, but is in fact training their customers to distrust them more.

It's why they have little trantrums like this when they don't get their way, and why people like me mock them.
(at least Moore is retaining more of his dignity than Microsoft after after the Xbone reveal.)

Would the Prothean character in ME 3 have caused such a shitstorm over "YOU'RE SELLING US AN INCOMPLETE GAME!" if he was left half-finished and dummied out on the disk?

Probably not, because it wouldn't be complete content just sitting on the disc mocking the customer that just bought it (the disc, not the content).

EDIT:

Oh and here i was under the impression that Moore didnt want EA voted Worst Company in America for a third time?

And here he is dismissing legitimate concerns and then promptly justifying them by saying that DLC is in fact developed in tandem to the core game.

Thats a years work of biulding up good PR gone in an instant.

He found out Konami was at the top of the publisher hate-boner list.. and wanted his throne back.

Jokes on him; Konami probably isn't even going to be a video game publisher in a year or two given the change in their company's direciton.

 

[SteinarB]

Well, you can't accuse him of not playing his role to the hilt. I mean, in that photo the man even _looks_ like a sleazy "I wouldn't trust that man to hold my wallet for a second" used car salesman.

 

[cikame]

I'm unaware of DLC content included in EA games, but if it's anything like it was with SFxT then here's where i stand.
Years ago, developers of PC games would put all their efforts into finishing said game, that game would receive patches to fix any issues (which now seem tiny compared to modern issues), then if enough interest was shown through sales or otherwise then development of expansions would begin. Of course there would be code in the original game which made expansions possible, but time wouldn't be spent mid development on pre-planned extra paid content as part of a marketing deal to eek out more $'s from people... especially when the base game wasn't even finished yet.

I have a hard time believing developers of most games are behind these small dlc money grabbing decisions, they are just creative people attempting to make something cool or tell a good story, it's publishers holding the reigns and forcing money making exploitative schemes into games.

 

[conmag9]

I have a difficult time taking this from someone who:

1) Works for a company whose anti-customer antics are practically legendary
2) Considers important fixes and patches bonus content
3) Looks like he's escaped from the cover of Far Cry 5

It's just...no.

I feel like i sold my kids by buying their 30 dollar Inquisition expansions yesterday, as well as Mass effect

When you sell your kids, you generally GET money, not LOSE money.

If anyone could pull that off, it's EA.

 

[shintakie10]

When it comes to the whole laying a foundation thing with on disc dlc I can (sort of) understand. Somethin that they didn't quite finish, but had time to shove some of the code in before shipping to make the transition easier for everyone else? Fine. Annoying that I have to pay for it, but at least its not actual content that has absolutely been cut up from the main content to make extra profit. Would I have rather they delayed it however long it took to finish that bit? Sure. However given the way development works most games would probably end up in a giant cycle of delays just to accommodate that style of thinkin. There's always someone without somethin to do so they'll do somethin else after all.

However the stuff that is literally all there and works perfectly fine (if you can say hack the game files to allow them to work) and all you're waitin for is a simple code to unlock? That shits scummy and needs to stop.

The problem I have with his statement is that he is takin the first (slightly) acceptable scenario and pretendin that's the only thing that happens which is absolutely not the case.

 

[Doom972]

Is he actually telling the truth? I haven't followed much when it comes to on-disc DLC but all of the replies here are simply ignoring his statement that there is actually no content but just a framework that allows DLC to be added. Can anyone here either prove/disprove this?

There were more than enough cases where people found out that certain game DVDs included DLC on them. Mass Effect 3 might be the most well known example. I also recall that DLC for Deus Ex: Human Revolution could be activated by going into developer mode and loading up the DLC mission - it was already on my hard drive from day 1, but locked behind a paywall.

OT: EA did some great things with Origin in the last two years, and I think that now they're a lot better than Activision and Ubisoft, but they really need to shut that guy up before he ruins it for everyone. He blatantly lies in an interview and makes EA look bad.

 

[Karadalis]

There's no such thing as a 'complete game' - merely one that the developers said is 'good enough to ship'.

There used to, back when developers werent ruled by corporate overlords that act like money vampires that try to tripple cash in on one product, a practice that only exists in the gaming industry btw.

For example: Warcraft 3 was complete when it shipped, anything else was just icing on the top.

ME:3 hid a very important story character behind a DLC barrier, despite his significance to the overall plot

Nowadays you have people working on DLC before the actual game is even finished, and dont get me started with games that are "optmised" for DLC... speak the sole intention of making a game is to sell overprized bits and bytes... looking at you (d)evolved

 

[Strazdas]

Moore elaborated further by explaining that on-disc DLC isn't technically "content"

Yeah, well it's not 'downloadable' either, so there's that.

DLC - Disc Locked Content. EA silently renamed the thing.

Is he actually telling the truth? I haven't followed much when it comes to on-disc DLC but all of the replies here are simply ignoring his statement that there is actually no content but just a framework that allows DLC to be added. Can anyone here either prove/disprove this?

thats because he is not telling the truth. When a save game editor and 40 kb patch can unlock this content it certainly is far more than jut a framework.

3) Looks like he's escaped from the cover of Far Cry 5

have i missed something? where can i get this cover?

 

[Zulnam]

Well it's been a while since someone at EA said something to remind us of their scum business models.

Or you can trust the man in the expensive suit. He -MIGHT- want what's best for you.