Ubisoft: "DLC is Pretty Much Accepted Now"

[Xanadu84]

In other news, people widely accept E Mail, therefore they are going to love this offer I have for them from a Nigerian prince.

DLC is, in theory, great. People talk about it like DLC are inferior expansions, but the reality is that DLC is just expansions with variable sizes. I think of the big Civ 5 DLCs, which I would say fundamentally altered the game far more than, say, the Diablo expansion. Or you have the Borderlands DLCs, which add less content are fundamentally alter the game less, but are cheaper. DLC can be simply a faster way to distribute content. But justifying your business practices by pointing to the acceptance of DLC is kind of like saying that experimenting on infants is probably fine since people love science (WILD hyperbole here). Sure, the DLC model is fine, what matters is what you do with it. Ubisoft seems to view video game IPs and content as some sort of fungible asset, which will lead to worse games.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Because both Child of Light and Valiant Hearts (two of the three games being referred to) belong to "milkable franchises" and conform to "safe, predictable, market-proven design".

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/15/ubisoft-not-interested-in-games-that-arent-franchises

Spot the difference.

Can't see anything wrong with offering time saving micro-transactions for those that want them, it's a win-win situation.

The fact that people are paying to avoid something deliberately placed in the game they bought should be raising serious questions about its design, not eliciting simple nods of compliance.

Why is the inconvenience (or time-wasting) element there?
Besides being a means for enabling an Idiot Tax, what does it add to the game?

If people are paying to skip it, it obviously adds nothing of value, and the company KNOWS this because they're not only offering a fix for it, but charging for it.

Creating a problem (threat of inconvenience) and then selling the solution? Sounds like extortion to me.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Since when are expansions dead? All the franchises you cited there had expansions for their next releases - Diablo 3 got an expansion in March this year, and Dawn of War 2 and Age of Empires 3 got two each. Civilization 5 has had two major ones, each of which introduced things that made the game feel fundamentally different and added new civilizations to learn and master, but it also introduced a lot of minor single-Civ DLC as well.

Expansions aren't all that common in console games (although X-COM still did one! Really hoping they bring that to iPad) but they never have been.

All that's really changed in the last twelve years is that non-strategy games are getting additional story content too.

Not sure if you read the rest of my post, so I'm just going to sum up.

Yes, those sequels did get expansions. I don't know of that many other games that did. The era of the Expansion is over, and the era of the DLC is here. Why should they work hard to give us one big expansion (again, some people still do it, but not as many as DLC) when they can sell us what is basically an expansion but split into pieces for 5 bucks a pop?

 

[RandV80]

The fundamental problem here is they can set the goal posts however they want to determine 'success' or 'adoption'. Lets say 5 million people buy the next Assassins Creed. 1 million season passes sold? Success! 250K cheat packs sold? Success! This is what the consumers want people!

It's kind of like Black Friday madness in the US. I'd imagine the majority of Americans look an appalled at the inhuman 'pigs to the trough' like shopping, same as the rest of the world. But retailers are too busy counting how much money they just made off the smaller percent of the country, and the media declares it a big massive success.

When you're talking about big numbers, and Ubisoft games tend to sell big numbers, you don't need widespread adoption to call declare it successful.

 

[Sofus]

I'm telling you... it won't be long before we actually have to buy service passes for our games in order to get patches. After that, it won't take long before publishers/developers purpously add bugs to the game in order to ensure that everyone buys a pass.


Game: 50 Euro

Service Pass: 30 Euro (Remember the Cerberus Network for Mass Effect 2? why not sell it as a service rather than a game feature.. heck they could even make the payment a yearly requirement)

Season Pass: 30 Euro (Requirement: Service Pass)

Priority Pass: 20 Euro (Servers suck.. but for a small amount, we can ensure that you will be among the last to lose connection)


I think that selling more content for games that people actually enjoy is a great idea.. but I don't trust that greed won't get the better of the tripple A industry.

 

[sXeth]

Lesse, of Ubi DLC I've ended up with.

AC2 DLC = Terrible, you obviously cut chapters out to release later. Or you released a faulty prduct. Either/or.
Blood Dragon = Not exactly DLC, but still awesome.
Call of Juarez Gunslinger = See Blood Dragon.
Freedom Cry looks pretty good, but the PS4 standalone (I have Black Flag on PS3) version crashes like it was Skyrim PS3 at Launch. So big F on that one until they fix it, if they ever do.

"Timesaver" DLC doesn't really bother me, as long as the game isn't built to force it. Its whoever decides to buy its problem. It wasn't hard to get all the stuff in Black Flag (the fact you could buy the "rare" crafting materials in the ingame store instead of doing the hardest whaling/hunting missions, was already kind of silly), but if you don't want to spend a few hours pirating and want to just toss 5 bucks out the window, whatever.

 

[V4Viewtiful]

How's this for an overused comparison, "DLC is Fast Food, Expansion Packs Are (were) Steak." Eh?

 

[Someone Depressing]

[Insert witty comment about forced DLC here]

Ubisoft has been making a bit of a stink lately, as opposed to EA or Sony, who we're at least used to hearing this kind of stuff from. They're not infamous for it, but it's not unheard of for Ubisoft. They've been slipping up a lot recently.

And now this. Ubisoft's got a ton of money, but that doesn't mean that its fancy graphics and one voice actor = one character formula is going to work forever. People are going to get pissed over their shittiness soon.

 

[wetfart]

I think it all depends on the DLC itself. Do you want four extra missions for $1? Well, sure, I'll give you a dollar for that. Do you want to spend $1 on each of our two dozen different skins? No, thank you.

It's a shame we can't force Chris Early to play DLC Quest....

 

[seditary]

I've accepted DLC.

It took me a while but I managed to come to terms with buying less games.

 

[black_knight1337]

The fact that people are paying to avoid something deliberately placed in the game they bought should be raising serious questions about its design, not eliciting simple nods of compliance.

No it shouldn't. Some people have a high income and are short on time so they don't mind paying extra to get through the game quicker.

Why is the inconvenience (or time-wasting) element there?
Besides being a means for enabling an Idiot Tax, what does it add to the game?

Here's what the dlc in question do:
-Instant upgrade for your ships storage along with some supplies
-Revealing the location of all the collectibles in the game
-Revealing all activity locations in the game
-Instant unlock for high end ship upgrades
All these are doing are making relatively easy tasks even easier. There's no reason why anyone who can sink a reasonable amount of time into the game would need to buy any of those. And even if you did want to speed things up, there's a number of tools you can use to do so.

If people are paying to skip it, it obviously adds nothing of value, and the company KNOWS this because they're not only offering a fix for it, but charging for it.

Following that logic we shouldn't have any form of progression system in games. Just have everything fully upgraded from the start. Just because some people are willing to pay to make their progression through a game faster doesn't mean that the game is excessively grindy. This is Assassin's Creed, not Dungeon Keeper.

 

[Elijin]

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.

While I agree with your statements (One of the other reasons I dont get season passes actually), my point was more towards not understanding the people who feel like announcing you're going to have a year of DLC, is bad, and they obviously feel the game should be delayed a year and released with all that DLC. As indicated by the posted I originally quoted, who called it a 'grubby money grab of content you could have included on the original game'.

 

[Kameburger]

**Snip**

In the past, gamers would complain that such "shortcut" DLC packs used to be available as free cheat codes, but Early says that those days are over as gamers have come to embrace their nickle-and-dime overlords.

**Snip**

So there you go. If you dislike the practice of developers shoveling DLC down your throat the moment a game goes live (or in some cases, even before that [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119376-Pre-Order-Borderlands-2-DLC-With-Season-Pass]), you're in the minority (at least according to Ubisoft).

lol I love the overlord comment, editorializing can be a good thing sometimes.

As for being in the minority. I guess that makes us one of the Infamous 12. I hope marvel makes a comic about us.

Here`s the pitch:
The infamous 12: A renegade group of gamers who aren't thrilled with their wallets being drilled for resources by the BP of entertainment companies, Ubisoft. Those 12 guys will sometimes speak up when they, unlike the rest of us who hate our money and wish Ubisoft would work faster to take it off our hands, decide that enough is enough. Their master plan is to heroically play other games, but how long can they hold out when Ubisoft releases the best trailer ever at next E3.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Yeah I suppose if you leave a pile of shit in your sitting room long enough, your guests will eventually see it as a normal feature in your house. That doesn't change the fact that it's a pile of shit in your sitting room.

True, though the analogy that first came to my mind was of a military occupation. After a while you get used to the jackbooted thugs harassing you, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't like to see them gone.

 

[Nazulu]

The fact that people are paying to avoid something deliberately placed in the game they bought should be raising serious questions about its design, not eliciting simple nods of compliance.

No it shouldn't. Some people have a high income and are short on time so they don't mind paying extra to get through the game quicker.

Yes it should. The whole experience should be fun to go through. If you've made a game where people feel the need to skip parts of it, then you have failed as a designer. In fact, I'd say you failed as an artist.

Why is the inconvenience (or time-wasting) element there?
Besides being a means for enabling an Idiot Tax, what does it add to the game?

Here's what the dlc in question do:
-Instant upgrade for your ships storage along with some supplies
-Revealing the location of all the collectibles in the game
-Revealing all activity locations in the game
-Instant unlock for high end ship upgrades
All these are doing are making relatively easy tasks even easier. There's no reason why anyone who can sink a reasonable amount of time into the game would need to buy any of those. And even if you did want to speed things up, there's a number of tools you can use to do so.

It's called cheat codes. I don't believe this should stay an old idea. This DLC is just taking advantage of people.

If people are paying to skip it, it obviously adds nothing of value, and the company KNOWS this because they're not only offering a fix for it, but charging for it.

Following that logic we shouldn't have any form of progression system in games. Just have everything fully upgraded from the start. Just because some people are willing to pay to make their progression through a game faster doesn't mean that the game is excessively grindy. This is Assassin's Creed, not Dungeon Keeper.

And my first 2 answers fit here too.

 

[Kolyarut]

Since when are expansions dead? All the franchises you cited there had expansions for their next releases - Diablo 3 got an expansion in March this year, and Dawn of War 2 and Age of Empires 3 got two each. Civilization 5 has had two major ones, each of which introduced things that made the game feel fundamentally different and added new civilizations to learn and master, but it also introduced a lot of minor single-Civ DLC as well.

Expansions aren't all that common in console games (although X-COM still did one! Really hoping they bring that to iPad) but they never have been.

All that's really changed in the last twelve years is that non-strategy games are getting additional story content too.

Not sure if you read the rest of my post, so I'm just going to sum up.

Yes, those sequels did get expansions. I don't know of that many other games that did. The era of the Expansion is over, and the era of the DLC is here. Why should they work hard to give us one big expansion (again, some people still do it, but not as many as DLC) when they can sell us what is basically an expansion but split into pieces for 5 bucks a pop?

Well, I just rattled off a list of games that did, but if you want more, there's Starcraft 2, all the Total War series, almost every MMO, the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise (last expansion released last year)... how many examples do you need to establish that these are still happening?

The majority of the content DLC is coming from game genres that never used to get expansions in the first place. The people who used to make expansions still do. It's just that primarily those were a strategy game thing, above all else, and those aren't as common as they used to be.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

It's more like people stopped caring for that at all.

Why waste time & energy on someone who does not listen.

 

[black_knight1337]

Yes it should. The whole experience should be fun to go through. If you've made a game where people feel the need to skip parts of it, then you have failed as a designer. In fact, I'd say you failed as an artist.

Congrats on ignoring what I said. Some people don't much time to fully invest in games that are 20+ hours long and are fine with paying extra to speed up the process. Giving them the option to do so doesn't hurt the experience of regular players at all.

This DLC is just taking advantage of people.

Sure, but the demand was already there. 3rd parties have been offering similar services for multiplayer games for years, and now we're getting legitimate alternatives. In the case in question, it doesn't affect the average player at all. It only provides a service that a relatively small number of people want to take advantage of. I really can't see the point in arguing against it when it's only an optional service that has no impact on the experience of others.

 

[JET1971]

Bethesda DLC after Horse Armor for the Fallout games and Elder Scrolls I do not mind buying at all because they expand upon the game and add allot to it, even Horse Armor wasn't a bad deal as far as DLC because it wasn't $20, it was a very reasonable amount for what you got compared to some games these days charging more for even less.

iirc Bethesda were one of the first to do DLC as we now know it. Arguably they did have mis-steps with Oblivion but, it could be said, this was very much an experiment.

I will agree that, post-Oblivion, Bethesda have been spot on with their DLC, even more so with FO:NV, Skyrim and Dishonored where the DLC was published through Steam, making it easy to purchase and download (unlike say Dragon Age 2 and messing about with Bioware points).

I think DLC, when done right, is a good thing for consumers and publishers/developers. When done badly it is poor-value, confusing for the consumer and, ultimately, diminish the brand.

Yeah Horse Armor was the experiment and it did 2 things, exploded in their faces with outrage and sold like hotcakes at a lumberjack camp. Bethesda saw that DLC makes them money but learned that cheap skins with no real content wasn't going to maintain fans and keep a good customer base. Thus they have provided higher quality DLC that is expansion packs giving players more things to do and does not take anything away from the game if you do not have the DLC. Skyrim was epic without DLC and didn't require any to get more than your monies worth, the DLC just added to it.

Fallout New Vegas DLC though bothers me because there is a story wrapped up in them that could be a whole game in itself but split up into several of the offered DLC packs. if you buy the first one you would need to buy all to complete the story. I am glad they didn't leave each one with a cliffhanger or feel incomplete but still broken up like that meant you needed to buy all the DLC to get the full story from the DLC.

Ubi couldn't even manage Horse Armor without fucking over customers and would see the outrage as a good thing. I am beginning to think Ubisoft is a company run by greedy masochists who cannot find a sadist to fulfill them. Nickle and dime customers or screw them over with DRM just to get them to be angry so they can orgasm over the outrage and hate they receive from the anti customer business practices.

 

[Johnson McGee]

I've seen two attitudes towards 'acceptance' of DLC. The first is those that buy into it completely, these people I view as akin to the 'whales' of F2P games and are correspondingly uncommon. The second and vastly more common are people that simply delay purchasing any game with DLC until a 'complete' GOTY edition comes out.

So congrats Ubisoft, you've succeeded in making people accept DLC... at the expense of a large number of full-priced game sales.