DLC - Gamers gaming themselves

pingo

With the announcement that Star Wars Battlefront has sold more than 12 million copies, outrage and frustration has sparked across the internet. It's been 10 years since Horse Armor was the trojan horse in Oblivion, and DLC has changed a lot since then. Super Bunnyhop has a very interesting dissection; 


People have to stop preordering games. This behavior of games lacking content will continue as long as there are enough players enabling the developers. They are not incentivized to change anything before their sales are hurting. 

In terms of MMOs we've come full circles. The best DLC these days are considered to be purely cosmetics. Blade and Soul and Black Desert are two of the most anticipating MMO titles in '16 and they are hitting Western internet shores very soon. What we know is that they have a heavy cosmetic shop with tons and tons of outfits. It seems to be here to stay. 
Is the climate going to continue where we are okay with cosmetics? 

The Creative Assembly situation is interesting. Total War Atilla is a good game, but it's a game that has come out under massive fire. Many gamers feel that them locking some of the factions behind a paywall is extortion. It's day 1 DLC. In the case of Total War Warhammer (another highly anticipated gaming coming soon) the developers have justified the Chaos faction as a Day 1 DLC citing that it is being made by a separate team in conjuction with the main game, and thus it being a separate purchase on day 1 is fair. 


The truth of the matter is that as games fidelity, detail and IQ has increased so has the budgets, the staff needed and the time needed to finish game. A single character model in a stellar game from 2015 can require the work of many artists because the graphics and hand crafted attention to detail vastly outnumbers what was needed 10 years ago. Games keep getting more and more expensive to make, but gamers are not willing to pay more.

DLC and season pass are not going away. That much is clear. But why is something like the Witcher 3 season pass- massive DLCs that offer more value than the price justifies, the exception rather than the norm? Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone is a miracle. It's an absolute stunner. It's been a long time we've been able to say that about an DLC. 

Cleffy

I pre-ordered Fallout 4 AND the Season Pass. I still don't regret it. Just modified it so I don't get motion sickness from the FOV of 70 with head bob.

A lot of people make hoopla about how games require more time because of the increased fidelity. They actually require less to make a model then lets say in 2005. The game changer in 2005 was Normal Maps. You got the tools and texture/poly budget to get a textured modeled quickly today. Doing something like making blood look right by painting a combination of diffuse, specular, and normal maps is a lot more difficult than using Substance Painter. Admittedly the animations take substantially longer.

Foncl

Not only does DLC usually add up to a lot of money, it also splits communities. If you don't have the same DLC as a friend you can't play what you want to play together. If you look online for guides and advice on forums it's a mess when people have different DLCs.

I understand that developers have to make money but the DLC heavy model many games use now has caused me to buy fewer games. I much prefer having a big expansion once a year or every two years like games used to in the past, that doesn't split communities nearly as much either. Unfortunately devs have realised they can milk a lot more money if they slice that expansion into six DLCs, then price each of those DLCs with one sixth of the content at half the price of an expansion. People would riot if a game released an expansion at 120$ once a year but for some reason six small DLCs per year at 20$ each with the same combined content is acceptable it seems.

I rarely buy games that seem like they could be fun anymore, definitely not if I suspect they will be DLC heavy, I have to be sure that it's a game I want to play for many hours before I purchase. Very few games are good enough to justify the price of playing all the latest DLC content in a DLC heavy game imo.

Shaigh

pingo said:

With the announcement that Star Wars Battlefront has sold more than 12 million copies, outrage and frustration has sparked across the internet.

There has been no such announcement from EA, it was analyst michael pachter, he likes to be in the news and also tends to be wrong.

I agree on everything else though.