EA recently announced that their strategy on DLC for their AAA games will continue as planned. After the intense backlash from gamers, you’d think this that problem would have gone away? Not quite, as the wallets of gamers told a different story. Mass Effect 3’s Day 1 DLC had a 40% attach rate to the game. 40% of the people who purchased ME3 also purchased the DLC in some way. I shouldn’t have to make it obvious why this is a problem. Using Peter Moore’s own words,
…Not only are you selling a $60 game…you’re selling $20 DLC, so the sale becomes $80.
When did it become okay for a publisher to sell us a $60 game, and then to sell the content already made for the game right back to us? When did everyone else become okay with it? I just can’t purchase something at full price that gives me half of an experience, and expects me to pay to unlock the rest. Instead of deliberately ripping content from games, why can’t they release the full game for everyone, and offer reasonable expansions down the road?
Cater to your customers instead of your stockholders, and everyone will be happy.
Game development is expensive, no doubt about it. I can see why a developer may want to sell DLC to make up the costs of developing a game. I can’t see why a developer would want to cut out an important piece of their game to sell as a ‘reward’ for consumers that blindly purchase things. I’ve always been sympathetic to a developer’s plight for money, but when a game’s marketing budget exceeds the real price of a game by three times I see a problem with this industry. They’re even proud of these numbers, because their games wouldn’t sell without the intense marketing. The quality of the game means little now. Giving a game a $50 million marketing budget will make sure that it sells enough to get everyone at the marketing department a nice bonus.
It’s a shame that this business will continue, and it’s even more frustrating that I’ll have to keep writing about it. I’ll keep making fun of them too. Consumers have shown EA that they are okay with it. I’m sick of every AAA game ending in a scheme, because a bunch of gamers followed their latest toy like a bunch of lemmings. I’m not sure if there will be a tipping point to the controversy, but the only way to end this is to stop buying their games.
Or buying the games you want to see more of or games that follow a model you like.
Take The Witcher 2 for example. A one time cost, and has been updated multiple times, for free, adding all kinds of new content. Not only that, but CD Projekt is doing away with DRM (another subject). That’s the best model, period.
Yet even EA can get it, kind of, right at times. The latest SSX is a good example. Free DLC right with the new copy. I can get behind that, they want the new game sales and to encourage it they gave free DLC away, nice! Then there’s the Mt. Eddie DLC which–I believe–costs around $7. It adds new skins for every character in the game and a huge new mountain. That’s a fair price I think.
But stuff like Saints Row 3 having a DLC package you can buy BEFORE it’s even out? Subscribing to DLC? That’s just crap.
They’ve basically said that the strategy is only for their AAA games, and I wouldn’t consider something like SSX to be that. I have no idea if it will trickle down to their A games and even smaller games.
personally, the ME3 DLC was just a little over the line for me. These games are held aloft by the console market (a different issue, but i digress) and that market is severely harmed by used game sales. Some developers have taken to the strategy of giving DLC to customers that buy the game new, and letting everyone else buy it separately, same thing with multiplayer in some cases. I am ok with this because when you buy used, you buy at a discount, and the price of the DLC almost never puts you above full price of the game. ME2 is a great example for this, buy buying the game new, you gain free access to the Cerberus network, which gives out a plethora of free DLC including new squad members. This is where the line is, $60 gets you the full game, any and all day 1 DLC, and lots of additional DLC. With ME3 the day 1 DLC is both heavily integrated to the story, and is an additional charge (and an exuberant one at that) unless you get the collector’s edition. The DLC is no longer an incentive to buy new, but simply another charge to try to milk out of the customers.
Layer of the Shadow Broker is something i am willing to pay an additional charge for, and i still consider it one the best fucking DLCs i have ever purchased, but From Ashes DLC is something that makes be feel like im missing something unless i buy it. Instead of adding something new when you buy it, it takes something away unless you buy, and that is the major difference that i see, that is where i draw the line for DLC.
I TOLD YOU ABOUT DLC MAN
I TOLD YOU ABOUT DLC
It became okay when everyone started paying for it