Ubisoft: "DLC is Pretty Much Accepted Now"

[loa]

DLC was a fine concept until you fucked it up.

 

[Sanunes]

I personally have no problem buying a "story based DLC" and never really have for I look at it as an expansion that has been cut up to be released quicker containing ideas and stories that were cut from the game to make the release schedule just like expansions used to do.

I almost never buy a "weapon pack" or "horse armor" DLC for I don't find I use them so why bother wasting my money, the DLC practice that will lead to major bad will from me is the "unlock key" for all you download is a 64kb file to unlock what is on the disk and Capcom is the worst for that.

 

[ASnogarD]

Time saving DLC is fine eh ? Not really because that merely encourages game mechanics that waste time which makes such DLC a worthwhile proposition.

I used to complain about DLC but inevitably you would get someone come in and tell you that you dont have to buy the DLC, completely ignoring the way that a lot of DLC is often cut from the main game.

I mean you dont really believe that the artist and designers make ONE texture during the development of the main game, and then develop extra textures later ?
Its much more likely that the rejected textures and concepts are simply put to one side as alternative costumes for later DLC.

I think this is also a 'iconic cap' moment where Ubi simple state something, and hope it becomes a fact... like the Watch_Dog cap, or the DRM that was effective against pirates.

... simply shows Ubi is way out of touch with the market popularity wise, but I must admit they do have a good grasp on how to squeeze the sheep for cash.

 

[laggyteabag]

Ubisoft is just creeping ahead to being worse than EA.

It was pretty easy to spot Ubisoft's shitty DLC practices early on. In Assassin's Creed 2, they skipped over sequences 12 and 13 claiming that they were "corrupted", as well as cutting off half of the city of Florence, then Ubisoft announced that both of those sequences would be released as paid DLC, one of which will unlock the other half of Florence. It boggles my mind that they would cut off 2 whole sequences of the story (of a story based game, mind you) just to flog off later down the line for a little extra money.

Also, UPlay sucks ass. "Thank you for choosing UPlay", it claims when you play a game on it. No, Ubisoft, I didn't "choose" UPlay, you forced it on me when I payed for your game on steam, yet it insists that I use your service, notorious for making the games that it runs with slower, and seems incapable to download all of the updates at once, as well as insisting that I keep UPlay tabbed in, otherwise my games will tick down to 0b/s.

 

[Roofstone]

Announcing a season pass before the game is released, knowing well it's content you could have waited to put onto the game itself, is always a grubby money grab.

To be fair, some of that dlc is made in the period between release and finished development. Which developers really should communicate better.

OT: Good DLC is accepted, yes.. Because it is good. Skins and pay-to-win is not nearly as, if at all, accepted. Guess which Ubisoft has the most of?

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

yeah, it's accepted that you're not very good at it. It seems to me that a lot of DLC is just made to try and keep profit margins up due to studios not having any idea at how a budget is supposed to work.

 

[Ratty]

The existence of DLC is one of the things that keeps me from ever buying a game at launch. I know if I just wait a year or two I can get the game and all the cut content for 1/3rd of the price or less on a sale. I imagine a lot of people think along these lines as well.

 

[Sanunes]

Besides seeing half-finished content on disks how many examples are there of content that was cut to become DLC? I know Capcom has a lot of on disk DLC, but most of the other examples I have seen people using for the argument of "content cut for DLC" generally is based on content that is about half finished with aspects that are complete, but the entire work is not near completion.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

unless that DLC is what in my days was considered an "expansion pack", no, people still hate DLC

 

[Nazulu]

Oh Yeah, Evolution baby. Though I believe it's that your DLC seems accepted because everyone that hated it became sick of your shit and decided not to bother with you anymore. I've seen many just give up on you Ubi, like I did awhile ago.

 

[AstaresPanda]

I first liked the idea of DLC as it was just cheaper smaller expanion packs. But these days its just fucking skins and weapons i never use and ultimatly leaves me feeling like i paid for bullshit or buying the rest of my dam game. So i pretty much stopped altogether and only buy expanions when ever they do come out for make sure my DLC is worth it. Perhaps the next gen have just grown up with it and are used to it so its normal to pay almost double to get your completed game.

 

[TelHybrid]

DLC that expands on a complete game = acceptable.

DLC that completes an incomplete game (especially on-disc "DLC") = unacceptable.

 

[AstaresPanda]

DLC that expands on a complete game = acceptable.

DLC that completes an incomplete game (especially on-disc "DLC") = unacceptable.

pretty simple you would think, but i guess its not greedy enough and thats what it all boils down to.

 

[Metalrocks]

this always online has been changed years ago. you dont have to be online to play the game. to many people have complained. now you can play, lose your connection, and still keep on playing. i know it since i happened to me few times. you just get a message that it lost connection but you still can play.

I bought AC2 day 1. I could not play because servers were down. My friend who pirated the game could play because it didnt need online. I boycotted Ubisoft. I do not forgive easily. Even altrough Ubisoft have changed things somewhat, they still run their malware called UPlay. and the way they act while doing this is alone not worth buying from them.

"thank you for choosing UPlay". makes it sound like "Thank you for choosing slavery". Not really a choice whne your shackled and being lashed at now is it. So i chose not to buy from them.

I planned to lift that siege if Watch_Dogs were good, but since it does not seem that way, ill wait for something else.
Its not like they have much to offer to begin with. AC1 i liked, AC2 - not that much. Far cry 2 was so terrible it turned me off the franchise (though i hear 3 is very different so perhaps....). Never cared about Prince of Persia. Settlers franchise was good when it was settlers 2, Ubisoft ruined it long ago already.

Anno 2070 is something i would like to see but not worth it alone.

Im not saying im never going to buy anything from them. I may someday, maybe if they come through with what they said about DRM lately its enough. as it is though, i have plenty of other games to play besode buying games from company i dislike.

i also got AC2 since day 1 and then of course always online was required. sure had no hassle installing uplay but it was aggravating when the connection got lost and you get kicked out of the game. my connection back then was not the most stable one but good enough for online games regardless. i think it was a year later or so when they have made this change that you dont have to be always online to play the AC series. if im not mistaken it happened with brotherhood.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I generally ignore DLC, unless it's free. But paid DLC? Unless it's like "Dragonborn" for Skyrim (for example), I won't buy it. Last time I bought DLC was Arrival for Mass Effect 2, then ME3 came out and I realised I wasted my money on the ME franchise. I think with DLC; You get burned once and that's pretty much it.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Are Ubisoft trying to get out all their daft statements in one big "stupidity burst"? Giving Jim plenty to talk about at least, which is nice of them. Not that the games industry doesn't give him enough already.

 

[Fox12]

Announcing a season pass before the game is released, knowing well it's content you could have waited to put onto the game itself, is always a grubby money grab.

I dont understand this. I hear it a lot and it baffles me. Season passes usually get you like 4-6 DLC pack over a year or so. I can maybe see people arguing that the first pack could have been included in the game. But the rest? You wanted it to just shelf the game for a year until all those packs were ready? And dont say yes, because its pretty common for gamers to say 'Pushed back another year? Well whatever, window passed, I dont care about this title anymore.'

To me a Season Pass says 'We intend to release DLC for the next 12 months.'

But I guess Im just a sucker or something?

Said sarcastically, because I've purchased like 1 season pass ever. I tend to be done with games by the time the later DLC's come out, so they're not the best option for me. I mean I picked up the BL2 pass, but only got like 1 DLC in before the unskippable cutscenes + needing to repeat all the content wore me down.

Its kind of like pre ordering. There's no guarantee of quality, so you're taking a risk. If you hav faith in the developer, however, like I do in telltale, then the deal can be good. You just have to be careful. DLC isn't evil, it's just exploitable.

 

[LaoJim]

DLC that expands on a complete game = acceptable.

DLC that completes an incomplete game (especially on-disc "DLC") = unacceptable.

pretty simple you would think, but i guess its not greedy enough and thats what it all boils down to.[/quot
I was thinking about it, this week you basically have two companies with different opinions:

EA: Gamers hate change.
Ubisoft: Gamers have accepted change.

Both companies are being ripped apart on these forums for their comments, but they can't both be wrong can they? I think they can, in that whichever position they take they seem to ignore TelHybrid's basic formula above.

I haven't played Black Flag, but from what I've heard from various people (the Zero Punctuation review, the Escapist Podcast etc) my feeling was that what most gamers liked about this game was engaging in various piratey activities which as I understand it were the things which unlocked the map and the other content Ubisoft gave people the option to buy. While many games think that these sorts of microtransactions are a pretty shadey business practice, it seemed like they didn't mind because they found these sections fun. Not only did they not feel the need to pay to unlock content, neither did they feel unlocking said content manually was all that grindy. Hence there were a lot less complaints about it than maybe there have been before, when this aspect hasn't been balanced so well.

What I think tends to infuriate gamers, is that both companies are starting out from a position that assumes the changes they are making are right and it is essentially the gamers responsibility to accept them. Often its not the changes the companies are making that are right or wrong: DLC can be good, free-to-play can be good, even microtransactions could potentially be good (I'm still not a fan). The issue is because its a new business model, there is negotiation between customers and publishers about the amount of value-for-money the customer is willing to accept. These spokesmen are always forcing the discussion onto whether gamers generally like DLC rather than whether their specific DLC provided value-for-money. (Except for those companies who feel confident that they are indeed provided good value for money)

That said, I think having to pay to unlock bits of content you could access if you played long enough is never acceptable. I think when you sell something, the price should directly reflect the effort you put into it and this sort of 'cheat code' type unlock is trivial to implement. I'm never going to buy such content on principle and if a game becomes unnecessarily grindy because the designers are trying to force players into making such purchases, I'm going to avoid the game. On the other hand, I'm not against buying a game with such purchases, if they are done in such a way that is doesn't affect my personal enjoyment of the game. If there are people who are happy buying such 'unlocks' I'll guess I'm okay with it, especially as I rarely used the old cheat codes anyway. I can understand why people who did like to use cheat codes would be upset at having to pay for them.

 

[KaZuYa]

Basically they are saying "We feel that people have got used to the fact that full fat expansions have been replaced with small scale DLC for the same price and we've won this war of greed so peace out suckers!"

 

[Thyunda]

"People are okay with these Time Saver packs." - Because they're not necessary. A little money plays the chores for you.
"People are accepting the Season Pass." - I hope they're not basing this statement off the previous one. The season pass is necessary to fully enjoy the game, and if you bought it used (as I tend to) or if you happen to share a console or games with family or friends, you have to pay extra just to play online on your own profile.

That's bullshit. I don't have a problem with DLC - except in the case of Crusader Kings II in which you require three different DLCs just to play as anything east of the Holy Roman Empire or south of Spain - but I have a huge problem with Season Passes. They're stupid and I hate them.