Why gamers should embrace on-disc DLC

[Deshin]

On disk DLC and day 1 DLC are nothing more than "We made the game and here it is for $60 because that's the price it always is but we want $70 instead" that's ALL IT IS.

Borderlands did DLC right, mass people bought the game so the company looked and said "wow a lot of people bought our game, maybe they want more, let's make some DLC for them" and so they did, 4 times, and made awesome stuff. Day 1 / on Disk is nothing more than wanting MORE MONEY for your upfront investment. That's it, that's all it is. There is no "fans liked it so we made more", no, you already fucking made it, that shit was ready to go from day 1 and it's just to bleed more money out because you feel like you should be making an extra tenner than the other game on the shelf next to yours.

 

[James Mann]

Holy shit, so much shitstorm bait and then I saw this.

or why there is no such thing as a great game that is also free-to-play (don't say Team Fortress 2. That game was better on Xbox, anyway).

http://d22zlbw5ff7yk5.cloudfront.net/images/cm-26400-0507b97a7ece10.gif

I'll be honest, i didn't even make it that far.

 

[Loonyyy]

But the car was manufactured with the functionality of being able to have a CD player/airconditioning. They dont jury rig it in afterwards. This was in the design from the get go, to be an extra. That is no different than the on disk DLC. The product isn't what is on the disk, but what you can play. In other words the it would be like going "Because they developed the car to have air conditioning it should be standard" and that just goes to show how the comparision doesn't work.

You analogy still doesn't fit because they get away with it. I proved no point by pointing out that you cant compare games with cars.

Furthermore games are combination of product and services. Cars are pure product. You would have better luck comparing to a cellphone and a phoneservice.

You're right of course. To complete the analogy, they install the ability to play MP3s in all the cars, but disable it unless you pay an additional fee of 25% of the cost of the vehicle, despite having accredited the gear with the rest of the vehicle, and having sold you the vehicle. Then, they have made tampering with the car to enable such functionality illegal as "Driverright infringement", and can sue your ass off if you should use something which is a part of what they sold you. (Also: Games may be a combination of product and service. A gamedisc is not. If there's data on there, it's data that they sold me, and many consumers will view that as their purchase, and do what they will with it. Wasn't there a case a while back where judges dismissed a case against people who cracked on-disc restricted content?)

On the other hand, many electrical components are made at the highest grade, and effectively "broken" to a lower grade. This actually was key to keeping the market going-it allowed them to modulate performance for price, and sell to a wide market, and keep the entire market happy. They could sell at a high cost, better products to enthusiasts of varying grades, lower cost to casual users, and lower cost to businesses etc. So I get that you might have to damage or hide part of the product to establish a market in your product. It's kind of stupid with individual titles, but, hey, no-one said Publishers were clever.

Really though, I don't have so much of a problem with the on-disc DLC. If I felt the game was worth it, I'd buy it, if I felt the game wasn't worth it, I wouldn't buy it, and if I felt the game was worth it with the DLC I'd evaluate how much I thought it was worth and wait till it would cost me that much. I don't see why it would inspire rage or defense on any part-if you like the game enough to be enraged that it costs more, maybe you should just buy the thing. Reconsider your preconceptions of the worth of games. It's probably because I was gaming on the cheap for ages, but I evaluate games on a game-by-game basis, and buy them when they drop from the release price down to one I'm willing to pay, and what I'm willing to pay varies from game to game. If you like the game publishers enough to defend them on forums to no avail for business decisions they are clearly satisfied with, maybe they'll continue ignoring you, because their decisions still weren't related to us anyway.

On-disc DLC isn't anything extra underhanded or scummy. It's an attempt to hide a price-hike. It's selling things for $99 dollars to trick you into thinking it's not $100. It's 2 for the price of one on items with a 900% profit margin. It's basic business, no cheats, steals, or wrongdoing intended. Heck, they'll usually tell you the stuff is there. It's not a cheat or a scam, or anything-it's just a raise in price.

If you feel it's worth it, you'll pay it, and if you don't (I have not yet found any of it worth it, and the increase in price to get the full game has put me off buying many games until they're 2 or 3 years old), then you won't. It's when idiots try to defend it by calling gamers entitled, for not giving money to the developers (He must be satirical, he can't have really just made a case for developers being entitled to something whilst taking a shot at his readership for being entitled, can he?), that there's something bad going on. And that bad thing is rampant stupidity.

 

[Loonyyy]

Double Post-please delete

 

[Royas]

My attitude is this... If it's on the disc, I'd better have access to it right off the bat. I paid for what was on that disc, period. The publisher doesn't get to wall off parts of it and make me pay for it later. That's entering the realm of false advertising and fraud. If I pay for a car, I expect to have both turn signals, Ford doesn't get to charge me more for 'em.

Day 1 DLC I can understand, though I'd never release it on the same day. It does take time to certify a game, and they can't add anything to it while it's being approved/tested/certified. Better to put that team to work in the meantime, and making DLC is just the type of thing they can do that will generate value for their salaries. Given that it can take months to approve a game, a team can get a lot of coding done in between the game being done and the game being released. Personally, I'd wait a week after release to put out any DLC, just to let people settle into the game, but that's me. I don't have a problem with Day 1 DLC.

On disk DLC, the publisher and developer can go to hell. I won't pay extortionists or thieves.

 

[Royas]

When it comes to DLC, customers have every right to be angry when disc-locked content exists, because it is not something extra, it is something they cut out and made you pay for.

To use a car analogy as they work well:

You go to buy a car that's say £2000 (just to have an example).

DLC is going into a shop and paying to upgrade your sound system to be able to play MP3's for an extra charge of £50.

Disc locked content is already having that MP3 ability already installed in the £2000 car, but it is not available to use unless you cough up some more money.

So the whole definition goes up in smoke the second you add the ability long as you add the ability to patch your product. The game is no longer defined as is what is on the disk, but defined as the functionality that you were promised.

The car analogy is quite simply wrong here.

As a matter of fact the whole analogy falls apart from a production and a functionality standpoint. Cars gets made without extras and have the extras added. That is physically impossible in your definition right here. If you download the extra afterwards or you take it from the disk shouldn't make any difference. It is just the delivery method. The product and the offer is the same.

You have actually just completely proved my point.

The car analogy is wrong, because they could never get away with doing what game developers are doing.

Some cars have a normal CD player.
Some have a CD player that can play MP3's.

If you have the former, then you need to go out and install the latter, as it doesn't come with the car that you bought.

If you have the latter then you don't need to, as it's already in the car when it was manufactured, so you have already paid for it and already own it.

The reason that it is wrong is because car manufacturers could never get away with including a piece of content in a car that comes with it what you bought, and deliberately blocking you from using it unless you paid more for it.

I was not suggesting that they did. I was suggesting that my analogy would be the equivalent of what some game companies are doing, and I was making the point to show how ridiculous it is.

But the car was manufactured with the functionality of being able to have a CD player/airconditioning. They dont jury rig it in afterwards. This was in the design from the get go, to be an extra. That is no different than the on disk DLC. The product isn't what is on the disk, but what you can play. In other words the it would be like going "Because they developed the car to have air conditioning it should be standard" and that just goes to show how the comparision doesn't work.

You analogy still doesn't fit because they get away with it. I proved no point by pointing out that you cant compare games with cars.

Furthermore games are combination of product and services. Cars are pure product. You would have better luck comparing to a cellphone and a phoneservice.

That's not what he's saying. Naturally, the car CAN have an air conditioner installed. That's a given. What he's saying is that consumers wouldn't stand for the AC actually being installed and not be able to use it due to the computer locking them out without coughing up extra money. If you buy a car without an AC, you have to get the entire system installed later, it's just not there (downloading from a server). If you buy a car with the AC (ie. on disk DLC) you'd better have access to it from the get-go.

The same parallel goes for the CD player. If my player can't play MP3 discs, and I want it to, I have to buy a new CD player and install it (download). If it already has that capability, then I shouldn't have to pay to have it activated, as I already purchased the player with all of its capabilities (on-disk DLC).

I'm also going to disagree with you on who defines what constitutes the game. I decide that. I'm the consumer, the publisher wants my money, that means I get to decide what I consider to be the complete game, not them. And I have decided that if it is on the disk, I've already paid for it when I purchased the game. Locking me out of any features already on the disk without my paying extra is theft and fraud, pure and simple. And I, as a consumer, will not tolerate it. The publisher doesn't get my money, and I get to play any one of a thousand other games made by their competitors.

Welcome to the free market.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

I'm not a fan of on on-disc dlc, since if it is ready before the game was released than it should have been part of the game.But I think a major issue with on-disc dlc is that it makes gamers feel like they are not getting the full game when they buy it.

Now if the content was made after the game was released or "printed", than I can understand why it would be dlc and have no problem with that, or even a dlc disc released near the same time as the game.

This is true, and combining it with the abhorent pricing model so rampant in the games industry currently, where games that should be $30-$40, due to the quality/content are being sold for $60, with other stuff on the disc that you have to pay more for just to access... it's straight up stupid. Also, seeing as you have only 5 posts on record, even though you've been here awhile, I have not seen you around, or at least cannot remember seeing you around, I must welcome you, my brother in slime!

So, I'm pretty certain the author was writing in jest. At least, I was pretty certain until I started reading these responses. Now I'm wondering: is my sarcasm detector broken, or is most of yours?

Hardest thing to tell whether or not it's a joke, based on long time experience with the internet, some people are just THAT stupid, so you can never REALLY tell if it's a joke, or if the person is really stating an opinion... It's sad when it gets to that point, but what can you do?

 

[teebeeohh]

DLC is the attempt to get more money out of the concept of an expansion. and most DLC sucks and the one that does not suck is basically what an expansion used to be, minus things like extra guns that are now sold separately.
take fallout NV, the 4 big DLC packs would have been 2 expansions in the past, with the guns from the gun runner DLC available in one of them.
oh and stop saying on disc DLC, it's just wrong

 

[carlh267]

I have a feeling that this article was probably made in jest, but on the off-chance that the author of the article really is just that dumb...

Conversely, this same reason is why nobody takes the smartphone gaming market seriously, or why there is no such thing as a great game that is also free-to-play (don?t say Team Fortress 2. That game was better on Xbox, anyway).

This is why I can't take this article seriously.

If there weren't great f2p games, then nobody would be playing games like League of Legends, DOTA 2, Team Fortress 2, and others. Seriously, TF2 and DOTA 2 are both great and are extremely generous with the amount of content they allow you to access for free. Nobody in their right mind would say that the original TF2 was better than the current version- both are unbalanced, but one version gives you a metric crapton more content, constant updates, and just happens to be free.

And if "nobody" was taking the smartphone market seriously, why are more and more developers trying to make the next Angry Birds on the platforms?

 

[Xanadu84]

I have to admit that I skimmed this before I read it. I read that there was no such thing as a good free to play game, and that seriously made me decide to not read the rest. I mean thats just...undeniably, categorically wrong.

I will say, however, that a major part of the reason why games cost more to develop is not so much development costs as it is insane marketing. Yes, AAA game naturally cost a lot more then other games, but...come on. It's shocking what a garage developer can create these days on no budget. Clearly, there has to be SOME Lessons there that make it so, for example, Dead Space could be profitable by selling less than 5 million copies. I'm not saying try to develop AAA game for under a million dollars, or something equally insane, but developers really need to show a little restraint, trim the excess, focus on development, and that will be rewarded.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Come on guys, this is obviously either a flame bait article or satire, more likely the latter.

I can't be the only one who sees this, right?

Yeah... I thought the same thing about FOX News when I first saw them on youtube. Turns out I was wrong and creatures like those really do exist in the world.

That kinda ended my childhood.

 

[Genocidicles]

A corporate apologist acting like an idiot.

Stop the presses!

 

[Royas]

When it comes to DLC, customers have every right to be angry when disc-locked content exists, because it is not something extra, it is something they cut out and made you pay for.

To use a car analogy as they work well:

You go to buy a car that's say £2000 (just to have an example).

DLC is going into a shop and paying to upgrade your sound system to be able to play MP3's for an extra charge of £50.

Disc locked content is already having that MP3 ability already installed in the £2000 car, but it is not available to use unless you cough up some more money.

So the whole definition goes up in smoke the second you add the ability long as you add the ability to patch your product. The game is no longer defined as is what is on the disk, but defined as the functionality that you were promised.

The car analogy is quite simply wrong here.

As a matter of fact the whole analogy falls apart from a production and a functionality standpoint. Cars gets made without extras and have the extras added. That is physically impossible in your definition right here. If you download the extra afterwards or you take it from the disk shouldn't make any difference. It is just the delivery method. The product and the offer is the same.

You have actually just completely proved my point.

The car analogy is wrong, because they could never get away with doing what game developers are doing.

Some cars have a normal CD player.
Some have a CD player that can play MP3's.

If you have the former, then you need to go out and install the latter, as it doesn't come with the car that you bought.

If you have the latter then you don't need to, as it's already in the car when it was manufactured, so you have already paid for it and already own it.

The reason that it is wrong is because car manufacturers could never get away with including a piece of content in a car that comes with it what you bought, and deliberately blocking you from using it unless you paid more for it.

I was not suggesting that they did. I was suggesting that my analogy would be the equivalent of what some game companies are doing, and I was making the point to show how ridiculous it is.

But the car was manufactured with the functionality of being able to have a CD player/airconditioning. They dont jury rig it in afterwards. This was in the design from the get go, to be an extra. That is no different than the on disk DLC. The product isn't what is on the disk, but what you can play. In other words the it would be like going "Because they developed the car to have air conditioning it should be standard" and that just goes to show how the comparision doesn't work.

You analogy still doesn't fit because they get away with it. I proved no point by pointing out that you cant compare games with cars.

Furthermore games are combination of product and services. Cars are pure product. You would have better luck comparing to a cellphone and a phoneservice.

That's not what he's saying. Naturally, the car CAN have an air conditioner installed. That's a given. What he's saying is that consumers wouldn't stand for the AC actually being installed and not be able to use it due to the computer locking them out without coughing up extra money. If you buy a car without an AC, you have to get the entire system installed later, it's just not there (downloading from a server). If you buy a car with the AC (ie. on disk DLC) you'd better have access to it from the get-go.

The same parallel goes for the CD player. If my player can't play MP3 discs, and I want it to, I have to buy a new CD player and install it (download). If it already has that capability, then I shouldn't have to pay to have it activated, as I already purchased the player with all of its capabilities (on-disk DLC).

I'm also going to disagree with you on who defines what constitutes the game. I decide that. I'm the consumer, the publisher wants my money, that means I get to decide what I consider to be the complete game, not them. And I have decided that if it is on the disk, I've already paid for it when I purchased the game. Locking me out of any features already on the disk without my paying extra is theft and fraud, pure and simple. And I, as a consumer, will not tolerate it. The publisher doesn't get my money, and I get to play any one of a thousand other games made by their competitors.

Welcome to the free market.

Yes it is theft and fraud.... you go to court with that or turn down the hyperbole in order to be taken serious.

And yes you get to dictate your purchase. I never said you didn't. However you dont get to dictate their product. Trade goes both ways. Like you can go to another publisher they can go to another customer. Welcome to the free market. While the customer has a say he isn't always right.

The world doesn't decide on your basis of value. It decides on it own.

And the car analogy is still a false one. Whether the DLC is downloaded afterwards or is already on the disk is completely and utterly irrelevant. The game isn't what is on the disk. It is what you can play. It doesn't matter that the game has programmed in multiplayer functionality if they dont set up any servers to do said functionality it will still count against it. Not as "Well it is on the disk so it is not our problem".

A better way for me to say it would have been to call it tantamount to theft and fraud, I find it to be the moral equivalent to those activities, regardless of the law. Legally, it is hyperbole. Morally, it pretty much states what I feel it to be.

In this industry, it's the consumer who gets to decide on what a product should be. They need the consumer's money a lot more than the consumer needs their product. Yes, they can try to find another customer, but frankly the consumer is in the seat of power here. I paid for what is on the disk. It had better be available. I did not pay for what the publisher decides to let me have on the disk. So, if they have on disk DLC, they have decided that they do not want my money. No skin off my nose, there's a lot of alternatives to any game made.

So, in this world, when it comes to my wallet, the value of an item is decided by me. If the world disagrees, well, it's not the world's money. The world and yes, the publisher, doesn't get a vote on the matter.

 

[Lunar Templar]

lmao.

what rock did the OP find this dumb ass under?

no such thing as a 'great free to play game', HA!

if a game is good, it will sell it self, and all on disk DLC is, is a blatant rip off by greedy publishers, nothing more

indie games like Bastion have proved huge budgets aren't 100% needed to turn out great games, like this moron seems to think, it helps mind you, money = resources after all, but it hardly guarantees anything.

 

[alphamalet]

All I have to say is that I hope the nonsense I just read is a failed attempt at comedy.

 

[kasperbbs]

A load of bull. It is not my job to make publishers rich, even if people did buy more games/DLC i seriously doubt that this money would go towards making better bigger games, most likely it would fill up someones bank account and they would continue cutting shit out because obiously it seems to work. Companies like that can go bankrupt for all i care, then hopefully others will learn from their mistakes.

 

[V8 Ninja]

I was going to bring up some good counter-points, but it appears this article is a joke article. This is the bio for this "Lemming" writer;

About the author: The Lemming is a die-hard follower of the Xbox. He started gaming with the original black brick, and considers anything that isn?t M-rated and/or a sim racer to be games for children. Although Microsoft has since abandoned him as a target audience with the Xbox 360 and Kinect, he still feels satisfied playing his Halo sequels and the various multiplats that he secretly would rather get anywhere else.

Also, I think this article [http://systemwarsmagazine.com/2012/10/11/lemming-new-psn-store-showcases-whos-boss/] about the PSN store update really solidifies my claims.

To fault this newer article, I will say that it is badly-presented humor.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I guess this proves that there will always be people who will gladly bend over and let the corporations fuck them. How can any sane consumer embrace such an anti-consumer practice?

 

[teh_Canape]

and while we're at it
may as well EmbrAAAAAAAce the Darkness

on a side note, if Battlefront 3 isn't coming out, I hope at least 1313 is good, or at the very least, come out on PC =P

 

[mrhateful]

Change the title to "why victims should embrace their rapist" and it would have been more believable.