The Day One DLC Trap

[saxybeast418]

While I agree that the whole, "Oh, content X was not ready for release on Day 1" is a whole lot of marketing bull, but the notion that Dragon Age is punishing you for not buying the game new? Come on!

Congrats on completely missing the point. The point is that they crossed the line. They broke an ethical boundary in the pursuit of money. I wish I could say that treating your customers like morons and criminals would be a quick way to the poor house but EA has done a splendid job of it. People not only buy their inferior product but they buy all the little meaningless crap they nickel and dime you for. If people weren't buying it, EA wouldn't be making a killing at it. While it's true that this is just as much the fault of the morons who buy this crap, it's not like there's a law saying you have to be complete unethical bastards that only care about the all mighty dollar.

Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 were all full games in their own right (I finished them all before any DLC was installed) and I can safely say that I don't mind this course of action. Neither games felt like anything at all was cut from them.

A person who bought either games second hand wouldn't notice anything missing.

You really make this too easy. I was just going to post an innuendo about you being their own personal whore but I'll make a real reply instead.

So, an NPC standing where your Stash should have been and begging you to buy the DLC quest to "unlock" your Stash is absolutely not an indicator that something might be missing? You're perfectly okay with a game that has entire sections cut out and replaced with an NPC begging for real world cash? Welcome to the future that you and morons like you are making possible.

Geez, you really hate EA don't you?

I would say that in terms of the recent Bioware releases, the quality is top notch. If you feel that they are inferior, DON'T BUY THEIR GAMES!

In Dragon Age, yes, there is in game advertising for Bioware/EA to hawk their wares and remind you that there is more stuff that you could have in the game. Yes, this is annoying. But your ranting about ethical boundaries becomes silly and melodramatic when you are crying over a bloody in-game Stash!

Fact: EA and Bioware need to make money. They will make money any way they can. I'm not sure how that is unethical or crossing a line. It's the cost of doing business.

In any case, the in-game advertising in Dragon Age did not go over very well. In Mass Effect 2, however, it is much subtler.

Also, your rant about people buying meaningless crap... if it is meaningless, then don't buy it. You can buy it used, get a complete game, and not spend a cent on "meaningless crap."

Resist your completionest urges, and enjoy the massive games they made!

 

[Mikkaddo]

I do know that if this trend continues, the whole DLC market is about to become very, very muddy.

Well Shamus, the thing is, like controversy in the news, (especially political) it's going to explode . . . my guess is sooner rather then later . . . and the gamers will be the ones taking the heat for it too.

I just can't wait to see the way the gaming world reacts to games that you can't play through without buying them new or paying $$$ above price to DOWNLOAD the rest of the game itself . . .

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I'm quite confused here - am I supposed to begrudge a developer for offering trivial things, such as a character that is ultimately less useful AND less interesting as a free download item or adds nudity to a game that doesn't have a lot of merit regardless to me for free in an attempt to get something out of a used game sale versus the nothing they get today? Am I really supposed to stand about and lament the "what if I can't play this game in five years when the company goes out of business" line when I can't even get an Xbox to continue functioning for an entire year?

The entire argument being made here stinks of the classic "slippery slope", which, as a rherotical device, is just a hair above a fallacy. What if a company goes out of business? Why not ask what happens if the internet breaks, my apartment burns down or zombies rise and consume the flesh of the living? In any such case, I'm quite certain my capacity to enjoy DLC will somehow be altered and all of them rely on some future, unknown calamaty befalling somebody. What's more, the argument being made on behalf of consumer rights, ultimately ignores both the developer and the publisher by tactifully discarding any arguments regarding piracy and used game sales.

Yes, there is at least a measure of merit to be had in such a type of argument - it serves to remind an audience that they should be mindful of actual transgressions of their rights, yet such things ultimately have not yet come to pass. The simple reality is, thus far the things that have been offered as day one DLC have been little more than trinkets and curiosities. In Dragon Age, I was offered a Character, Shale, that was ultimately utterly unnecessary, shallow and, as luck would have it, less useful in any circumstance than other characters present in the game. The armor I recieved proved less useful than any of a number of other sets already present in the game. The nudity patch that came with my copy of The Sabateur provided no sexual titilation, no increase in immersion and did nothing to prop up the game in a way that I could quantify. The article even acknowledges this, and as such I cannot find the entire thing distasteful.

Yes, consumers ought to have a measure of rights when it comes to such dealings but to assume that it is only the consumer that should benefit is both narrow minded and short sighted. To ignore questions of piracy and used game sales in such a debate means one is willing to ignore the very reasons why we see such activities. When you consider that Dragon Age is produced by Bioware and published by EA (Bioware's parent company for those who were unaware) and look at stories that point out that in spite of only achieving 1.5 million sales, Dead Space managed to rack up more than 3 million unique player ID's across Xbox and PS3 and you start to realize why a company might be perfectly willing to treat players with a degree of suspicion. People have long complained about DRM, often with perfectly sound reasoning behind it and yet when a company tries something that amounts to an incentive to purchase a game new gamers still pull out the pitchforks and torches. Under current models, neither the developer nor the publisher earn a single cent from a used game sale making the entire market little more than a legitimate method of piracy from a business standpoint. Since gamers, as a community, will clearly not stand for any transgressions on their right to engage in the practice, can I really begrudge a company for trying to make the market a money making propisition?

To be honest, the answer is no. Making games is big business, and in case anyone has missed the news over the last year or so, developers can easily go out of business and even giants like EA are not immune to poor sales.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I don;t mind DLC as long as a game in finished and polsihed...the trouble is no one dose this these days Dragon age is half of a other wise good game,bioshock is unfinished and very very very VERY unpolished same for FO3...... these idiots(I have little respect for game devs and pubs these days) make half a game then sell sparatic bits'n'bobs and odds'n'sods and don't finished the Gdamn game....... god its so frustrating.....

why not give the game away and charge 5$ a month to play it online(dose not really work otherwise)...I swear things are so bad that might make a game worthwhile after a year worth of finish work put on it.....

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I don;t mind DLC as long as a game in finished and polsihed...the trouble is no one dose this these days Dragon age is half of a other wise good game,bioshock is unfinished and very very very VERY unpolished same for FO3...... these idiots(I have little respect for game devs and pubs these days) make half a game then sell sparatic bits'n'bobs and odds'n'sods and don't finished the Gdamn game....... god its so frustrating.....

why not give the game away and charge 5$ a month to play it online(dose not really work otherwise)...I swear things are so bad that might make a game worthwhile after a year worth of finish work put on it.....

Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins, if one excludes the DLC entirely, provide more than 30 hours of gameplay each for the average player. The storylines are both coherent AND intact without the additional content. As far as polish, I can only assume you are speaking of teh various bugs that tend to exist in epic RPGs and while I'm certain some people experience more of them than others I have not encountered a bug in either game that significantly detracted from the experience in either game.

As such, I am left wondering what is this criticism based on? The closing bit actually confuses me more than the rest seeing as I played Fallout 3 without an internet connection from beginning to end and only leveraged the online bits of Dragon Age on a second play through.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The people who try to defend day one DLC, especially on a game like DA:O, make me laugh really hard and then I want to punch them in the face for being so stupid.

Since it's the popular game to address about day one DLC, I'll go on about DA:O. The developers claim that Shale and the Storage box quest weren't ready for release when all the other stuff was. I call bullshit on this. I admit that I can't be 100% about Shale not being ready (though, I am extremely suspect about it). There's no excuse for having to remove the storage box from being next to the camp fire(which I'm reasonably sure is where it originally was) and then put it in some quest as DLC. If you've got major concerns that a storage box wont be ready in time for release, you've either got no talent hacks working on your game or you're delusional. Though, maybe, just maybe, they flat out lied about it not being ready and just yanked it out in a lame ass money grab. Oh no, Bioware would never do something like that to their fans! I should be crucified for such blasphemy, I'm sure. It's not like we're talking about a company that sold its soul to EA and promptly screwed over their fanbase with the weaksauce that was Mass Effect. For those who fail to see the sarcasm dripping from those last few sentences, you are the fools I'm making fun of.

DA:O would have probably restored my faith in Bioware, if they hadn't decided to screw over their fans with the day one DLC.

I honestly don't really want to comment on a post that starts with the best example of ad-hom fallacy in the thread thus far but here we are.

If you purchase the game new AND have access to an internet connection, you get the character Shale for free. Let's take a quick inventory of what you get for your trouble:

A character that is a worse tank than Alistair or Loghain, a far worse damage dealer than Morrigan, Zeveran or Leliana, and a ranged figher who's only bit of fame is an AOE attack guarnteed to hit your party's tanks time and again unless you micromanage every shot. You gain a quest that takes, at best, an hour to complete. You gain a character who runs out of things to say after a few hours in the party, and a personal quest that is fulfilled simply by having her along for the ride at a particular point.

Now, I'm quite certain that some people would argue that "It should have been on the disc" and I'm willing to grant a degree of merit to this argument, unless of course we take Bioware's explation at face value as being the gospel truth (That is, that the character wasn't finished on time and as such could not be included on the disc. A reasonable excuse really considering the fact that games go gold months before retail release to give time for disc pressing, box manufacturing and all the other logistic concerns). Of course, other people, myself included, suspect that the greater reason is that it gently enourages one to purchase the game new, which in and of itself is a perfectly reasonable strategy. After all, Bioware and EA won't make a dime off of a used sale unless the player chooses to purchase DLC. The core of the argument this time does not revolve around the merit of forcing a player to purchase something cut from the game - the content is being delivered for free. Instead, it revolves around a potential future calamity that removes the player's ability to access the content in the future.

As I have said previously, such an argument holds very little weight simply because one is using the future, generally considered a variable in any argument, as the cornerstone. What's more, with respect to the content available on the disc, the proposed portion that may be lost is laughably small. You still have a full nine other party members and enough content to to consume more than 30 hours of your life. The loss of the day one DLC content is indeed a quantifiable subtraction, but the part that remains was worth each and every one of my 60 earth bucks used to purchase it.

Of course, I would be remiss if I neglected to comment on the money grab bit. Yes, in many cases this sort of thing is a shameless grab for money. But for some people, an attempt by a developer to make money so that they might continue making games is not an action that one should be ashamed of.

In the current state of affairs, I am perfectly satisfied with the day one DLC model. If, at some point, I see an example of day one DLC that represents a substantial portion of the game, THEN I will complain. Until that day arrives, I will judge my games and their worth by the price I paid versus the entertainment they delivered. By this standard, Dragon Age was the best game I played in 2009, in spite of the fact that I did not actually utalize ANY of the DLC on my first play through, free or otherwise.

 

[JohnTomorrow]

As a low-to-middle income earner in Australia, my gaming mainly subsides from game-trading. I'll typically rack up a heap of games over a long period of time, play the guts out of them, then trade them when something i really want comes out.

Games, specifically console games, are getting more and more pricey as time passes. My copy of Tekken 6 was over one hundred dollars when it first came out, and as a person with a mortgage, i cant afford to buy something of that price as soon as it comes out. I am forced to wait, something months on end, checking for sales and discounts, saving my money a little at a time. I usually end up buying a trade-in in the end anyways - the nigh-indestructible-ness of PS3 discs help with quality, unlike ten years ago when a small scratch would take out an entire Final Fantasy multi-disc game from Disc One.

But if i cannot enjoy the full spectrum of the game because of DLC, then why bother? Why bother buying a game thats half finished? Because that is what this is - the developers are trying to squeeze a few more dollars from my stretched budget in order to give me something that i may - or may not - want.

Its like buying a car. You get the wheels, steering wheel, engine, frame, etc etc. Then the salesperson will ask - would you like air conditioning? Power windows? Perhaps a stereo system thrown in as well?

These things don't make my car work any better. It will still get me from A to B. However, if i want to get from A to B in comfort, I'll want air conditioning (especially in my climate). If i want to do it in style, i want a good stereo system.

The comparison is obvious - if i buy a game, and extra content is released, in order to enjoy the full experience i will want that extra content. And i don't want to pay out the nose for it - especially if i dont know what i'm buying. Like this Shale business (i dont own Dragon Force, or whatever its called) - who knew what it would be like to have that content? Would it make the game a must-play, 'you-really-should-get-this' thing - or something that lasts for only one quest or, worst of all, actually makes you regret your purchase?

If developers released this stuff for free, then nobody would care about it. It would be like the developers giving you a present as a way of saying 'thank-you' (the Joker content for Arkham Asylum springs to mind). I personally didn't like the sneaking sections of the Joker DLC - however i loved the fighting sections. If I'd had to pay ten dollars for it, however, i would have felt ripped off, because there are more sneaking sections then fighting sections.

So the question is begged - are developers really that desperate for cash, or are they just trying to flog a few more dollars out of us, fully in the knowledge that we want that extra bite of fun?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I don;t mind DLC as long as a game in finished and polsihed...the trouble is no one dose this these days Dragon age is half of a other wise good game,bioshock is unfinished and very very very VERY unpolished same for FO3...... these idiots(I have little respect for game devs and pubs these days) make half a game then sell sparatic bits'n'bobs and odds'n'sods and don't finished the Gdamn game....... god its so frustrating.....

why not give the game away and charge 5$ a month to play it online(dose not really work otherwise)...I swear things are so bad that might make a game worthwhile after a year worth of finish work put on it.....

Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins, if one excludes the DLC entirely, provide more than 30 hours of gameplay each for the average player. The storylines are both coherent AND intact without the additional content. As far as polish, I can only assume you are speaking of teh various bugs that tend to exist in epic RPGs and while I'm certain some people experience more of them than others I have not encountered a bug in either game that significantly detracted from the experience in either game.

As such, I am left wondering what is this criticism based on? The closing bit actually confuses me more than the rest seeing as I played Fallout 3 without an internet connection from beginning to end and only leveraged the online bits of Dragon Age on a second play through.

As for polish I mean mechanics jsut having them barely work or kinda work dose not make it any more than mediocre and unfinished ...


For DA I mean the 2ndary classes are under utilized and most of which are very incomplete, the talent structure needs to be one level more deep and the spells over hauled not to mention enchantment over hauled to do all stats/spells/effects not just 1/3rd of them and enhancements/poison should also be applicable to bows/cross bows(poison at a half rate then full rate for 2nd or 3rd poison tier).... sure there's alot of content but the content is not very well polished(level design and game mechanics specifically) DA while its story is very honed the game is rather canned.....or boxed....

FO3 has solid enough level design but equipment is a joke if you could build customized weapons like you could build spells on morrowwind and to a much lesser degree better polishing to weapons,damages,rates and AI the game would not feel like a silly online lulz fest.

Sorry but they are as canned as bioshock's experience is only they may offer a tiny bit more content to mess around with the lack of solid design in its mechanics makes it a bore to play for more than 5-10 hours.


FYI I put more than 40 hours into FO3 did alot of exploring and found it to lack equipment more than anything else, tho the way damages and other things worked could be tweaked some.

As for DA I put about 20ish hours into it before I got bored the plot and story is ok if not good if not cliched its far from bad but that's not really the problem with it tactics needs to up refined some more it dose not really follow the commands I set up but that's a minor issue, equipment is ok but alil so so much better than most JRPgs but still limited enhancements and stuff bug the hell out of me and that with the way spells and 2ndary classes are done...meh..... like I said half a good to great game.

I am working on biowares FPS right now need to put more time into to it...but I can't see why they could not have made the mako stuff and inventory optional....I hate it when things are streamlined for the sake of streamlining or media zombies....


Anyway I like a game to be finished and fully polished things modern gaming dose not do as they focus on "pretty" and "monderization"(dumbing down) more than mechanics.... mechanics are E V E R U T H I N G to a game mediocre mechanics on a "supposedly" great game makes the game just as mediocre...but at least its popular.........and pretty.......

Again DLC dose not bother me its the fact games are rushed and mechanics are not fully fleshed out, I would be happy to buy the Gdamn patches that "finish" the game or buy a "directors cut" of the game with all the rebalanced and stuff that's done over a year or so time frame at full launch price...its something at least... but what do we get a new game in the series that's as broken..... or worse.....*sigh* its as bad as modern film.....

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

-snip-

Thanks for the clarification, but it seems that you complaint does not lie in a lack of polish, but a disagreement with the implementation of mechanics. In one case, you are asserting something is unintentionally broken or incomplete, in the other you simply state you do not agree with the intentional choices that were made.

That said, I do agree that the mechanics of a game are, generally, more important than the rest of the pieces. I can endure a bad story and terrible art so long as the core of the game is solid. There are plenty of games that I simply cannot stand precisely because of the inherent mechanics involved, but I am generally willing to admit that the problem is one of personal preference rather than a broken design. I cannot stand the fundamental gameplay in Final Fantasy and disagree with virtually every mechanic in the game but I don't attribute this to bad design. A bad design does not attract and keep a legion of loyal fans.

While an appeal to authority is a fallacy, in this case it seems justified. Games like splinter cell, metal gear solid and final fantasy all represent implementations of ideas and mechanics that I find devoid of value yet each franchise has cultiviated a fanbase signifcant enough that the only explanation is that the mechanics are not broken but rather simply something I do not enjoy. Given the sales figures of both Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins, I would be perfectly willing to make the same assumption.

 

[kementari]

Uh... Shale was a girl?

 

[JMeganSnow]

Those who actually follow the Bioware community news should be aware that the Shale and Warden's Keep DLC's (the "day one" DLC's for Dragon Age) only ended up that way because EA gave them an extra six months of "polishing time" when they missed their first scheduled release (which later got extended AGAIN by a month). If the release schedule hadn't slipped, The Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep would have been released more than SIX MONTHS after the game hit stores.

A LOT of content got cut out of Dragon Age--these two particular bits just happened to be close enough to "done" that Bioware was able to DO something with them.

Although, the in-game salesperson was pretty damn tacky. I'm also not thrilled that The Awakening expansion pack will cost nearly as much as the full game, but I've been saying for months that DA was *designed* for expansion sales (it's not set up well for sequels like, say, Mass Effect).

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

I felt my post was to long and crazyily awesome to put here so I put it on my blog to blow the world's mind
If you wanna check it out:
http://tinyurl.com/yj4xndl
And by wanna I mean it's obligatory, or else.

Note: Not ad'ing, just saving space.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

-snip-

Thanks for the clarification, but it seems that you complaint does not lie in a lack of polish, but a disagreement with the implementation of mechanics. In one case, you are asserting something is unintentionally broken or incomplete, in the other you simply state you do not agree with the intentional choices that were made.

That said, I do agree that the mechanics of a game are, generally, more important than the rest of the pieces. I can endure a bad story and terrible art so long as the core of the game is solid. There are plenty of games that I simply cannot stand precisely because of the inherent mechanics involved, but I am generally willing to admit that the problem is one of personal preference rather than a broken design. I cannot stand the fundamental gameplay in Final Fantasy and disagree with virtually every mechanic in the game but I don't attribute this to bad design. A bad design does not attract and keep a legion of loyal fans.

While an appeal to authority is a fallacy, in this case it seems justified. Games like splinter cell, metal gear solid and final fantasy all represent implementations of ideas and mechanics that I find devoid of value yet each franchise has cultiviated a fanbase signifcant enough that the only explanation is that the mechanics are not broken but rather simply something I do not enjoy. Given the sales figures of both Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origins, I would be perfectly willing to make the same assumption.

Its all about the attention span of the time, what was focused on 13+ years ago was about all they could do and it mostly centered around gameplay, these days design emphasis is more on the look and over all feel of the product(slick packaging,sound bite like design ideals sewn together with some random skill) due to many factors a less focused and fussy consumer base, the ease to sell most titles mostly "brands" its all diluted the design emphasis to a honed canned spam of some good parts of meat and some spam..... if I have not played better I might just be happy with it as a disposable medium...but there again spending a couple hundred a year if that on disposable media...... I suppose I am just to old and not a happy lil wooly consumer whose happy with nearly anything that slaps a brand on it.....

Every other year I kept expecting a true epiphany over game design but all I see is more shallow streamlining and dumbing it down like crap fest action films the tweens love so much.... and see so little care for real functional options, control options and depth in AI....I mean the AI on Bioshock is 2 event scripts away from being on the same level of Jericho's....... Dark messiah had such beautiful AI you can could distract with sound and hide from if your lucky...... no one makes AI like that in anything FP much anymore......

I mean Bioshock is my perfect example of dumbing it down, I can forgive the bland level design but not what they did with the AI or the weapons....or having items E V E R Y F R A K K ' I N W H E R E...not to mention no death mechanic.... this is not a game... this is a movie.... just script the AI to play it for you already.......god....... seriously do that with some options to turn up down its play difficulty have the default set to easy so it goes through at a steady pace let it stack equipment,mids and use certain weapons over others and grind using 5 or 10 set scripts that can change randomly but always using the ebst threat elvel stuff for harder fights...... sorry...creative rant mode

sorry >>
rantage is over 9000 ><

At least I am enjoying Champions online...what you know...they made a MMO that stays fun and entertaining and dose not do everything it can to keep you playing for as long as possible....

 

[Therumancer]

I don't think the waters are muddy here at all. All attempts to discuss the thing and analyze it are pointless. The bottom line is that there is a large amount of money to be made off of any kind of purely digital distribution, irregardless of when it comes out. Greed being what it is, the games industry wants to make money as quickly as possible and being able to release DLC the very first day simply leads to bigger initial sales.

Most of the arguements being made about the used game industry tend to come down to the people in the industry... who are sitting on massive piles of cash irregardless of what they claim, being stupid enough to believe that if it wasn't for used games more people would be dishing out increasingly large amounts of money for their product new. Things like "Stone Prisoner" seem to be based on the idea that after a couple of years a used game goes for like $15, so by cutting out content and releasing it digitally for $15 they can pretty much make as much as the used game sale which to them is "fair".

Of course the problem with this is that it costs the consumer twice as much, and while this might damage the used game market, it's not going to actually bring in more customers. It's simply going to ensure less people wind up seeing a product and becoming interested in a sequel. Not to mention reducing the value of trade ins, making the cost of a new game even more extreme to those who use trade ins to reduce the high cost.

In the end though I expect it isn't going to matter much. It increasingly looks like it's going to be an all or nothing proposition where gamers exhibiting behavior similar to heroin addicts will continue to support the products despite increasingly unhealthy costs, which is what the industry is banking on... or we're going to see a massive video game crash when people gradually stop gaming due to the expense. The bottom line is the industry is going to push irregrdless of what happens, and cry poverty despite the paychecks some of these guys are demanding... again I point a finger at Itigaki because he's made the "news", and was even the subject of an article here at one point I believe.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

I remember seeing TF2 for the first time on the PC, the updates were astounding and I could barely touch TF2 on my console without thinking about all those *free* updates that Microsoft refuses me...

Is this a reason why the console TF2 servers seem to be dead?

That, and just the passage of time. TF2 on PC has huge replay value because there are great new maps released every month by the community. TF2 on consoles are stuck in a timewarp where they remain in the same state they were released in, which is vastly inferior. That's just no way to appreciate a game like Team Fortress, which originated with the online modding community. If anything, playing TF2 on console is like a brief demo or preview of what to expect in the PC version.

When people talk about how precious their PC games are, this is a big reason why. As long as manufactures keep dictating the form of aftermarket expansions, consoles will never supersede PC gaming for enthusiasts. TF2 on XBox could easily be as cool as its PC counterpart, but Microsoft won't let it happen. Why? Not enough money in the equation.

 

[saxybeast418]

I have heard a lot of analogies to cars being made here, in the sense that, "Car companies aren't entitles to every transaction a car goes through after they sell it. Why should video games be different?"

Furthermore, I read on a post that the DLC was like the extras a salesman throws in when selling a car.

Finally, I have heard the lament of the budget gamer.

To the first point: cars depreciate in value over time. Newer, better models come out. When you buy a used car, you buy a car that has some millage on it. It has all sorts of complex wear and tear. You might or might not be under warranty.

Video games don't have that. Sure, newer games come out. Sure, consoles wear out, and for multiplayer games, server support is a big issue. But for the majority of games, if I want to play them 10 years down the line, I can probably do so with few to no drawbacks. Heck, retro gaming wouldn't work if the principle didn't hold true.

Also, car companies release new models every year. Could you imagine a video game company releasing moderately iterations of the same title every year for EVERY genre? I mean, Activision and EA have gotten a lot of guff for Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, Madden, and so on. Now imagine if EVERY SINGLE COMPANY did that.

Next: the point about the salesman's extras on a car. If you get an extra in a car, it is likely to be a swanky stereo, or power windows, or something significant and noticeable. With dragon age, you get a minor character and a short quest in a game filled with a large primary cast and a bajillion quests.

The video game developer is in a tricky position. It is a lower cost of entry to see a movie or buy/rent a DVD. The cost of big budget games and movies are comparable; however, whereas movies see sales at the box office, the DVD, the novelization, and the special edition DVD/Blu-Ray, video games get one release (MAYBE 2 if they decide to do a game of the year edition).


Yes, I think in-game advertising for DLC is obnoxious. Yes, I think the notion that developers are entitled to every transaction a game goes through after its release is a pants-on-head stupid idea, if not a dangerous one. But they need to make money. They face stiff competition not only from other games, but from their OWN TITLES on the used market. If they can cut into that market, then they make more money.

This is simple. If you can afford DLC, and you want it, then go for it. If not, don't worry. You aren't missing out on a whole lot. Enjoy your game you silly people.

 

[ace_of_something]

Shamus discusses the muddy waters of DLC.

dude, Now I've played through DA:O but you probably should call Shale 'it'. You totally spoiled it for some.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

1) DLC to cut small content from games so a profit can be made from preowned buys, I can live with.

2) DLC to expand on and extend on an old game with a big fan base, I love, infact this is the best reason for DLC

3) DLC that feels like part of the story is missing unless a pay an extra fee on top of my original purchase, and/or feels like it was held back to milk gamers some more: "Mr Ink smash"

The only thing I worry about with point one, if the second hand market dies, it puts alot of people out of work and makes games unaffordable for low income households.

 

[Aurgelmir]

D
*SPOILERS*

Two whole chapters are literally cut out of the main story as a plot event. Paid, yet still somewhat cheap, DLC will fill those two chapters in.

*END SPOILERS*

Well as someone else said, this had very little to do with the game, and might have been left out because it was not finished. And well this wasn't even the day one DLC fro AC2. the day one DLC was some extra dungeon you could explore, that frankly gave you jack shit at the end.

FOr me AC2 was a full game, that gets some Interesting DLC. Most games I feel have just crap DLC anyways, so I would love to see more of the AC2 DLCs in the future to be honest....

 

[LordZ]

Geez, you really hate EA don't you?

I hate any company that panders to morons and ruins my favorite past time by flooding the market with crap that said morons snatch up faster than they can press the discs.

I would say that in terms of the recent Bioware releases, the quality is top notch. If you feel that they are inferior, DON'T BUY THEIR GAMES!

That's not really helping since there's plenty of morons who buy it and keep EA in business.

In Dragon Age, yes, there is in game advertising for Bioware/EA to hawk their wares and remind you that there is more stuff that you could have in the game. Yes, this is annoying. But your ranting about ethical boundaries becomes silly and melodramatic when you are crying over a bloody in-game Stash!

Again, you miss the point. The Stash being put in DLC as a lame ass money grab is just an annoying prelude to worse things. It's the begging for cash inside of a game that I can't stand. The purpose of a game is to serve as entertainment and an escape from reality. To have reality come crashing into a game in the form of begging for money is about the gravest sin you can commit as a game developer.

Fact: EA and Bioware need to make money. They will make money any way they can. I'm not sure how that is unethical or crossing a line. It's the cost of doing business.

Clearly, you need to research what ethics is. Being a business is not a God given right to do any dirty trick you want to squeeze money from people. You might as well say that there's nothing wrong with robbery and murder. After all, there are plenty of people who make a business of those things. I'm sure anything is justifiable when you say it's the cost of business. Treating your customers with disrespect is unethical. DLC money grabs, punishing customers that want to resell their game, punishing customers who don't have an internet connection, punishing customers for being customers is extremely unethical and in any non-bizzaro world would be a good way to ruin yourself. Unfortunately, this is bizzaro world where you can treat customers like morons and criminals and make a fortune doing it.

I honestly don't really want to comment on a post that starts with the best example of ad-hom fallacy in the thread thus far but here we are.

I'm honestly tired of explaining the same thing more than once.

If you purchase the game new AND have access to an internet connection, you get the character Shale for free. Let's take a quick inventory of what you get for your trouble:

A character that is a worse tank than Alistair or Loghain, a far worse damage dealer than Morrigan, Zeveran or Leliana, and a ranged figher who's only bit of fame is an AOE attack guarnteed to hit your party's tanks time and again unless you micromanage every shot. You gain a quest that takes, at best, an hour to complete. You gain a character who runs out of things to say after a few hours in the party, and a personal quest that is fulfilled simply by having her along for the ride at a particular point.

It's funny how you rant about Shale when my whole argument was focused on the Warden's Keep DLC.

...Instead, it revolves around a potential future calamity that removes the player's ability to access the content in the future.

Who cares about the future? They're doing this stuff right now. You think that just because Shale and the Stash aren't vital to the game that it excuses doing it?

...But for some people, an attempt by a developer to make money so that they might continue making games is not an action that one should be ashamed of.

Are you seriously going to try to say that all methods, no matter how unethical, are fully justifiable because developers need money? I seriously doubt EA is hurting for money, not that it's even important to this topic.

In the current state of affairs, I am perfectly satisfied with the day one DLC model. If, at some point, I see an example of day one DLC that represents a substantial portion of the game, THEN I will complain. Until that day arrives, I will judge my games and their worth by the price I paid versus the entertainment they delivered. By this standard, Dragon Age was the best game I played in 2009, in spite of the fact that I did not actually utalize ANY of the DLC on my first play through, free or otherwise.

I don't care about excuses. I'd rather be poor and have morals than to live a life with no value. You don't have to be an immoral greedy bastard to survive this economy. Even if you did, it's still no excuse. I could never enjoy a game that breaks immersion by begging for money. If they want to beg for money, do it pretty much anywhere except inside the game.