I still find it funny that people think developers care about you. They are a company. The purpose of a company is to make money. Money comes first, then pleaseing the legions of fanboys that do nothing but complain.
The Day One DLC Trap
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Things I have learned from this article and the following comments thread:
1) Polish, bugfixing, certification, manufacturing, and shipping are instantaneous. One day (usually a Monday, if you check the release schedule), developers shout "done!" and the next morning, the game is in stores. This is how we know that any day-one DLC was "cut form the game(!)" and then sold separately.
2) The worse you plan for DLC, the better. If it looks like a coherent part of the game, then it must have been "cut form the game(!)" and is bad. DLC should be hacked in crap nobody thought to support in development.
3) Every feature or content anyone thinks of during the course of development always makes it in to the final product, unless it's part of a malicious attempt to "cut it form the game(!)" and then, you guessed it, sell it for extra to consumers later. ESPECIALLY if it ends up being free.
4) It's wrong for developers to expect to be paid for their work. It's perfectly right for game stores to push slightly discounted used copies on customers so the retailer doesn't have to split any profits with the people who actually made the product they're selling. HOWEVER, any attempt to make a new version of the product more appealing is morally wrong. This is because games are just like cars, somehow. Also, publishers already figure used sales into the new price of their games, because what *is* perfectly fair is to expect new product purchasers to subsidize people who want to save $3 at the cost of $20 to the publisher.
1) Polish, bugfixing, certification, manufacturing, and shipping are instantaneous. One day (usually a Monday, if you check the release schedule), developers shout "done!" and the next morning, the game is in stores. This is how we know that any day-one DLC was "cut form the game(!)" and then sold separately.
2) The worse you plan for DLC, the better. If it looks like a coherent part of the game, then it must have been "cut form the game(!)" and is bad. DLC should be hacked in crap nobody thought to support in development.
3) Every feature or content anyone thinks of during the course of development always makes it in to the final product, unless it's part of a malicious attempt to "cut it form the game(!)" and then, you guessed it, sell it for extra to consumers later. ESPECIALLY if it ends up being free.
4) It's wrong for developers to expect to be paid for their work. It's perfectly right for game stores to push slightly discounted used copies on customers so the retailer doesn't have to split any profits with the people who actually made the product they're selling. HOWEVER, any attempt to make a new version of the product more appealing is morally wrong. This is because games are just like cars, somehow. Also, publishers already figure used sales into the new price of their games, because what *is* perfectly fair is to expect new product purchasers to subsidize people who want to save $3 at the cost of $20 to the publisher.
Yes, that is precisely what I'm saying. I would have assumed it was clear when I ranted at length on this very point. The reason I'm NOT upset is because none of these pieces are important to the game. Were they necessary I would throw a fit just the same as the rest.LordZ said:
EA has been operating in the red for awhile. Industry rumor mills speculate the company won't survive the year without being acquired. In five years the stock value has dropped from a high in the $70/share to less than $20/share.LordZ said:
What's more, I don't consider, even for a moment, day one DLC to be unethical. In fact, from the standpoint of the very purpose of a public traded corporation, not trying to find a way to profit from used game sales would be unethical given such entities exist to make money for the stockholders.
I do love when a person takes the moral high ground in an argument because I know with utter certainty no useful discourse will occur. Your moral high ground involved a sense of entitlement where things ought to be given for free for reasons you've been unable to explictly state. Your argument has become circular one post in and amounts to - they shouldn't do it because it's wrong, it's wrong because it annoys me, I deserve things for free and not giving it to me is wrong.LordZ said:
You're perfectly free to be annoyed by such a trend and I will grant you having that guy standing around in my camp asking for money does violate immersion. If THIS is the source of your complaint then all is well - an intrusion on your game to ask for money is a perfectly justified reason to be annoyed. I can support such a complaint because there are MANY ways to distribute this DLC that doesn't involve kicking immersion in the head every time I head into my camp. The rest - that somehow a universal morality dictates an attempt to make money by offering non essential, relatively weak parts of the game for free as day one DLC to encourage new game purchases, that I'll need a far better argument before I give it any further consideration.
What Eclectic Dreck said. A thousand times what Eclectic Dreck said.Eclectic Dreck said:
LordZ: I honestly don't know how to reply to this. Comparing the practice of in-game advertising and Day 1 DLC to robbery and murder and other "grave sins" simply indicates that you need a new pastime. Badly.
Alright, I can understand a lot of the dislike for Day One DLC, but in most of the instances I have encountered it in the additions seemed to be relatively superfluous, Shale and Warden's Keep didn't affect the main story, and the game would have played the same without them, but if you brought it new then you got a little extra, and if not then you could pay a bit if you wanted those additions. Granted Warden's Keep was disappointing considering it was a misleading ***** that offered you a new "Base of Operations" and instead gave you a quest and when ever you finished it you got access to two merchants and an infinite storage chest, and got locked out of the lovely castle.
I knew things where bad, but not this bad - EA could go under this year? Bloody hell.... Let me guess, Activision are eyeing them up?Eclectic Dreck said:
I imagine its too much to hope for Valve to buy up EA, or at least Bioware and the good studios. A pity really - EA finally stops being arseholes to everyone, and thats when the company breaks. Sends a bad, bad message about the future of gaming as an industry.
gee i just bought forza 3 , and if you buy the collectors edition you get 5 bonus cars , yet on the regular edition you can't even buy these cars as dlc this pisses me off...
dlc is a great idea but taking part of a game out only to repackage it as dlc is wrong and charging a high price is just as bad
the one company that did dlc right was rockstar games , offering dlc on both download and as a disc , bethesda did that too but rockstar should be followed by all... that means you lbp makers
dlc is a great idea but taking part of a game out only to repackage it as dlc is wrong and charging a high price is just as bad
the one company that did dlc right was rockstar games , offering dlc on both download and as a disc , bethesda did that too but rockstar should be followed by all... that means you lbp makers
My problem with DLC is a little bit different. I live and work in the middle of nowhere (in a certain part of australia), and our work has no problem with us buying high-end machines for play to help on the down-time, but our internet connection is a glorified 3G with a monthly limit of 5Gb (up+down).
So the other day I bit the bullet and bought Saints Row 2 and Orange box. I finally got SR2 installed off the dvd, and HL2, but episode 1, 2, and portal will not install off the disk!! So I have to f***ing dl it from steam, when I can't. Great.
So I sit there thinking, "I have purchased this thing legitimately, and I can't f***ing play it without jumping through hoops.".
F**k you steam.
So I have 2 options:
1) Next time I got to a major city I have to take my PC with me and hook it up to a mate's internet so I can install a game I've paid for, or...
2) I call a mate in a major city to pirate the thing, burn to dvd, and mail it to me.
Like DRM, steam is forcing me to pirate in order to use it without issues. Why can't I just get the damn game when I buy it?
Next issue? Game ports.
I loved Saints Row 2, so now I want the DLCs for it. But because this is a XBOX 360 game ported to pc, I can't because they haven't bothered to release them for pc. Even though I wouldn't be able to download it anyway.
F**k you steam.
So the other day I bit the bullet and bought Saints Row 2 and Orange box. I finally got SR2 installed off the dvd, and HL2, but episode 1, 2, and portal will not install off the disk!! So I have to f***ing dl it from steam, when I can't. Great.
So I sit there thinking, "I have purchased this thing legitimately, and I can't f***ing play it without jumping through hoops.".
F**k you steam.
So I have 2 options:
1) Next time I got to a major city I have to take my PC with me and hook it up to a mate's internet so I can install a game I've paid for, or...
2) I call a mate in a major city to pirate the thing, burn to dvd, and mail it to me.
Like DRM, steam is forcing me to pirate in order to use it without issues. Why can't I just get the damn game when I buy it?
Next issue? Game ports.
I loved Saints Row 2, so now I want the DLCs for it. But because this is a XBOX 360 game ported to pc, I can't because they haven't bothered to release them for pc. Even though I wouldn't be able to download it anyway.
F**k you steam.
Day one dlc is fine if the motivation is to get people to buy it first-hand - meaning the day one dlc is free to those that do.
It's entirely reasonable for the developers to do this, they get NOTHING when people buy preowned games.
An exaggerated form of what's happening would have only one copy of the game being bought first-hand and then that one copy would get traded amongst gamers for a lower price. The developers would only recieve income for that one copy.
It's not that bad in reality but i'd imagine the dev's are still making massive losses.
In my area a ridiculous amount of games are bought second-hand, in fact their are entire stores that ONLY sell preowned games and others must be well over 50% stocked with them.
Despite not having any money i'm making an effort to only buy first-hand. I feel bad otherwise and a bit counter-productive since i tend to call myself a game-developer.
If it catches on there's a good chance we'll be seeing innovative games a lot more often!
It's entirely reasonable for the developers to do this, they get NOTHING when people buy preowned games.
An exaggerated form of what's happening would have only one copy of the game being bought first-hand and then that one copy would get traded amongst gamers for a lower price. The developers would only recieve income for that one copy.
It's not that bad in reality but i'd imagine the dev's are still making massive losses.
In my area a ridiculous amount of games are bought second-hand, in fact their are entire stores that ONLY sell preowned games and others must be well over 50% stocked with them.
Despite not having any money i'm making an effort to only buy first-hand. I feel bad otherwise and a bit counter-productive since i tend to call myself a game-developer.
If it catches on there's a good chance we'll be seeing innovative games a lot more often!
Thanks for this enlightening article Shamus love your work and keep it up!
I can go back to expecting updates like map-packs, to be free and not have to pay for it if I have bought the game.
Totally love how everyone is up in arms when i say "As a PC gamer I'd expect this stuff free" O yeah a convention that as been around for a better part of a decade suddenly changes and now they even charge you for an update, and everyone takes the side of the man. WTF is wrong with you ppl? Your never suppose to justify for them y they charge you more. Your suppose to be pissed and ask wtf is going on here. Put i guess i'm a dying breed.
Ppl mistake Game Content with Game Updates; game content is new story, stuff, gameplay, etc. added to the game (GTA:4 Liberty City Stories is a good example) and that they should charge for it and I WOULD PAY even on PC. Game updates like a new unit skin, new maps, patches, etc. are superfluous (DLC Map packs from games like Gears, Killzone, etc) are ways for the developers to express their appreciation. I don't pay for updates sorry this stuff was free and should still be free PC or Console.
I can go back to expecting updates like map-packs, to be free and not have to pay for it if I have bought the game.
Totally love how everyone is up in arms when i say "As a PC gamer I'd expect this stuff free" O yeah a convention that as been around for a better part of a decade suddenly changes and now they even charge you for an update, and everyone takes the side of the man. WTF is wrong with you ppl? Your never suppose to justify for them y they charge you more. Your suppose to be pissed and ask wtf is going on here. Put i guess i'm a dying breed.
Ppl mistake Game Content with Game Updates; game content is new story, stuff, gameplay, etc. added to the game (GTA:4 Liberty City Stories is a good example) and that they should charge for it and I WOULD PAY even on PC. Game updates like a new unit skin, new maps, patches, etc. are superfluous (DLC Map packs from games like Gears, Killzone, etc) are ways for the developers to express their appreciation. I don't pay for updates sorry this stuff was free and should still be free PC or Console.
Well Shamus, I've officially created an Escapist account to reply to this post. I hope you're happy! I'm usually such a good antisocial internet denizen.
At any rate, I found this discussion extremely interesting because my feelings on the matter are almost the exact opposite of what the general community seems to feel.
On the one hand, you have day-one DLC, which I think is brilliant if properly executed. Let's continue using BioWare as an example: I actually recently listened to an interview with one of their devs (I think it was on "4 Guys 1UP", if I recall) and he said that the day one DLC is mostly content that is created after the game has gone gold, and is in the certification process. Now, whether or not it's stuff that was planned ahead of time (it most certainly was) and assuming you take him at his word (I do in this case, but again, devil's advocate), this is a far cry less questionable a practice than locking on-disk features (Beautiful Katamari invariably springs to mind -- you even need to download your on-disk dlc to get certain achievements in that game). Continuing with the Dragon Age example, while Shale is one of the best characters in the game, both in her usefulness and her personality, the game would be no less complete without her. She's not integral to the overarching story in any way, and there's still 40+ hours of gameplay in there without a lick of DLC.
I won't even give them too much guff over Warden's Keep. Again, extending the benefit of the doubt to their claimed DLC philosophy, I can conceive of this being a feature they hadn't originally planned, but saw a demand for it and executed in time for release. I realize I'm being generous here, but it is really hard to discern genuine altruism from cynical feature-removal in this landscape, and BioWare has earned at least some degree of loyalty from me in their approach in the past. At the end of the day, if you're buying it retail, whether you buy it today or in a year, you'll get this stuff for free. And keep in mind, unlike its nefarious cousin the "pre-order bonus DLC", you still have the option to download this stuff, even if you buy the game used. And in most cases, you'll still save money when you buy the used game + DLC, AND the publisher can make some money in a market where they don't usually have that option. I understand the slippery slope argument, but I don't find this practice as it exists currently to be particularly offensive.
That said, the idea of patches being a at-retail only perk strikes me as far more unscrupulous overall. Granted, I've not been a PC gamer for quite some time, primarily because of all the hoops you need to jump through nowadays, but really, most games have at least some minor problems at launch, and quite a few have gamebreaking flaws. Granted, there's not really a (legal) used market for PC games, but as you said, console gamers are not immune from this kind of business model. I can't conceive of not being able to download a game fixing patch because I didn't pay $60 at retail, and unlike the DLC, this model doesn't allow for me unlocking the privilege after the fact.
That was probably way too long, and incoherently worded, but sue me -- I'm new here. Hi all.
At any rate, I found this discussion extremely interesting because my feelings on the matter are almost the exact opposite of what the general community seems to feel.
On the one hand, you have day-one DLC, which I think is brilliant if properly executed. Let's continue using BioWare as an example: I actually recently listened to an interview with one of their devs (I think it was on "4 Guys 1UP", if I recall) and he said that the day one DLC is mostly content that is created after the game has gone gold, and is in the certification process. Now, whether or not it's stuff that was planned ahead of time (it most certainly was) and assuming you take him at his word (I do in this case, but again, devil's advocate), this is a far cry less questionable a practice than locking on-disk features (Beautiful Katamari invariably springs to mind -- you even need to download your on-disk dlc to get certain achievements in that game). Continuing with the Dragon Age example, while Shale is one of the best characters in the game, both in her usefulness and her personality, the game would be no less complete without her. She's not integral to the overarching story in any way, and there's still 40+ hours of gameplay in there without a lick of DLC.
I won't even give them too much guff over Warden's Keep. Again, extending the benefit of the doubt to their claimed DLC philosophy, I can conceive of this being a feature they hadn't originally planned, but saw a demand for it and executed in time for release. I realize I'm being generous here, but it is really hard to discern genuine altruism from cynical feature-removal in this landscape, and BioWare has earned at least some degree of loyalty from me in their approach in the past. At the end of the day, if you're buying it retail, whether you buy it today or in a year, you'll get this stuff for free. And keep in mind, unlike its nefarious cousin the "pre-order bonus DLC", you still have the option to download this stuff, even if you buy the game used. And in most cases, you'll still save money when you buy the used game + DLC, AND the publisher can make some money in a market where they don't usually have that option. I understand the slippery slope argument, but I don't find this practice as it exists currently to be particularly offensive.
That said, the idea of patches being a at-retail only perk strikes me as far more unscrupulous overall. Granted, I've not been a PC gamer for quite some time, primarily because of all the hoops you need to jump through nowadays, but really, most games have at least some minor problems at launch, and quite a few have gamebreaking flaws. Granted, there's not really a (legal) used market for PC games, but as you said, console gamers are not immune from this kind of business model. I can't conceive of not being able to download a game fixing patch because I didn't pay $60 at retail, and unlike the DLC, this model doesn't allow for me unlocking the privilege after the fact.
That was probably way too long, and incoherently worded, but sue me -- I'm new here. Hi all.
I would like to know why game companies have not figured out how to make money off of used game sales? You will never see a film company or a car company whine that used products are bad for business. Trying to punish, rather than create a real incentive isn't the right way to go about the issue. No one deserves to pay sixty dollars for a game only to end up with the distinct feeling that the game in question is missing something. All of this because the industry missed getting into a perfectly legitimate market. Trying to pass that kind of crap off as doing me the customer a favor isn't going to fly either, Mass Effect 2 wasn't as bad as DA:O with the whole stash box deal. Mass Effect 2 felt incomplete because it should have been the last game in the series rather than the middle game. I do think that Bioware should go easy on the DLC characters.
I foresee a terrible future wherein you do not buy games but download them piece by piece for exuberant prices.