Ubisoft: "DLC is Pretty Much Accepted Now"

[XDSkyFreak]

Meh ... the only time i buyed a DLC was for a game I absolutly love and then only during the Steam Summer Sale. Lot of cash you made on me there devs. As for buying a game at launch ... I stoped doing that ages ago. Bout the time the DLCs became a thing. with all the DRM bullshit and the lunacy of season passes and pre-planned money milking DLC I have come to reject the output of some comapnies on sheer principle. With the small exception of Diablo 3 which was not cracked because even crackers were smart enough to avoid the shitstorm they would have caused breaking the protection of a game in which you can make money playing, sooner or later every game gets cracked. So I'll just do that and buy the game IF i like it (hey, remember when demos were a thing?). And even if I buy a game at launch (like I will do with Risen 3) I will usualy wait for a complete DLC pack at discount or a complete edition upgrade with all the DLC before I buy it. And if I really want to play the DLC at launch ... well DLC gets cracked same as games.

As for Ubisoft? I stoped caring for this company and it's constant explosive evacuation from all orifices a LONG time ago. They will never get my business, so my opinion is not on their radar. And if I gave them my business they would not give a crap because hey, they got my money.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I can not remember actually buying expansions after i bought the game, i just look for the goty bundle
Very tempted to get that deus ex ship thing though
As for the ''word'' DLC, i will never use it again.

 

[Demonchaser27]

This is the motivation for a lot of shady practices in general, not just in the games industry.

The idea is to create new "facts on the ground" which are politically favorable to the force creating, pushing, and benefiting from the fact. DLC helps stabilize revenue over time for the game publisher and developer at the expense of artistic integrity - consider if the Mona Lisa was halfway done, copies were sold, and then more of the painting was doled out for additional fees. This makes it extremely difficult on the artist to produce a great work - if musicians had to create half a song and then do bits and pieces more over the next year or two there would be no way to have a coherent artistic vision. It's also extremely difficult to determine just what the identity of the game IS. Is it the game with all the DLC? What about if planned DLC is cancelled? In every other artform the work is settled on, produced, and that's it. With DLC games have a myriad of versions, all of which claim to be the "same" game.

DLC is part of a philosophy that games are a product, like peanut butter, not an artform. They are the only artform in history to do anything like this, and it's not treated seriously by many gamers.

How should game historians treat this? Should they have to catalogue every DLC for every game? Should they consider only the "final" version of the game, complete with all DLC, despite many players not playing this "true" version of the game?

What about game reviewers? The vast majority of reviews come out around the same time the first version of the game is released. The reviewer is only reviewing the first "finished" version of the game, minus ALL of the DLC. So as the industry moves towards more and more DLC for each game, the relevance of reviewing the first "finished" version of the game becomes less and less, just as the relevance of reviewing a half-finished Mona Lisa is lacking.

Is this nonsense, harm, and chaos really worth it - largely so that corporations can show a steady income stream to their investors?

Just wanted to up this. Thanks for bringing out all the right questions about DLC. Its destroying any hopes that games will become art. And I'd say no, corporate profits and revenue streams are not a justification for any of this.

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

We really only have ourselves to blame

Yes I wait for GotY editions most times and pay a little more in a steam sale 18 months - 2 years later

But they still make more off me, I even pay £1 or 2 in steam sales for additional content

But it's still a little more each time.....

I think nothing can be done, but some of the practices have made me hate buying a game off the shelf new at launch as I know it's just a DLC platform for some developers (EA being the worst)

So I either play behind the times, or pay through the nose...

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Well, I guess for companies like Ubisoft "hey, people have wearily resigned themselves to the money-grabbing reality we have spawned in this industry like some hideous birthing monstrosity" is probably a pretty good result.