Valkrionn ... no disrespect intended .. but that's a pretty standard excuse; not a very convincing one either, so saying it over and over is no good! Supermarkets do the same when they raise the theoretical price of a product in order to advertise a bigger, but fictitious, discount. It is of course possible that you are correct, but since it's counter-factual, you can't know. Whether or not you happen to be right or wrong, you're just acting as a naive profiteer mouth-piece! It is never in any customer's interest to be played like that!
Go back ten years time. Look at the amount of new content generated for a game.
Now take a typical, recent DLC game (with publishers who don't nickel and dime... Say, Red Dead maybe, or L4D). Look at the amount of new content generated.
There is much more content now that developers have the capability to produce DLC. Comparing it to a grocery store's price schemes is comparing apples to freaking hotdogs; It is an
entirely different animal. Games take a huge amount of capital, which often will not generate any income for years before you can release. DLC allows you to develop content much faster, at a cheaper cost, and make profit faster; Without DLC, you flat out would not see as much game content as you do now.
This is
fact, not a strawman argument. Whether the content is any good, or worth the money charged, is a different matter entirely and is subjective.
You may make the claim "Oh, but if it is not done as DLC, it will be included in the base game!", but this is fallacy. Including content of that nature costs developers FAR more money. Not simply extra money to develop the material, no... Extra time spent on development before release, time during which they generate no revenue. You may see some of it. You would not see the majority of the content, however.
I have said numerous times that I dislike DLC, as a consumer. My point is that for a developer, it is
incredibly beneficial, and that it can indeed benefit the consumer as well. And frankly, I've come to look at games more and more from the point of view of the developer, as I intend to pursue a career in game design.
Valkrionn, have you seen the thread about the Mogolia.mp3 file?
I have not, but I'm assuming the mp3 was included in the main game? If so... So what? That does not change the fact that development had not begun when the game was released. It was planned, yes; If you're paying for music, voice actors, etc, you tend to want to get as much as you are firm on. But actually in development or finished? No.
You're setting up a false dilemma, though. The options include no content, free content, or larger paid content bundles. The argument against DLC is that it's inefficient to pay per item.
Ooo, analogy time: Paying for each Civ as it comes out is like paying for each track of an album on iTunes. It's cheaper to buy the album as a whole, but that often never becomes an option with DLC.
Back in the good old days, developers had to put out expansion packs in chunks of content, and they had to be good enough to convince people to buy the product. Now, it's like it just needs to be cheap enough to slip under most people's impulse purchase response.
Yes, it
is cheaper to buy an expansion, rather than individual DLCs, for the consumer.
It is far from cheaper for the publisher. Again, you will see less content. Some expansions would not be made, or would be less than they could have been, without the revenue from DLC helping to offset the costs accrued during development of the expansion.
Let me reiterate:
I dislike DLC as a consumer. Far too often, it is done cheaply, designed simply to make consumers part ways with their money.
However, when done correctly, DLC can be a driving force behind content generation, allowing developers to produce more content for gamers, and hopefully rely less on funding from outside sources and publishers, thereby
keeping more money in-house, enabling expansion, new development, and other growth.
I woke up this morning and saw a Steam window on my computer that said "finished downloading Civ 5" so I curiously clicked the box which brought me to a screen that said something about Mongolia being available for download, but that Babylon would cost $4.99!
The second I read this, I went into a fit of rage and had to come to this board to see if anyone else was upset.
The reason I am upset is not because they are offering DLC. I understand that game companies must make money and that there is freedom of choice and gamers have the option of buying it or not buying it (I won't be buying it btw).
The thing that has upset me is the blatant arrogance of Firaxis to post this for sale so soon after the launch of Civ 5. With all of the identified bugs in the game still outstanding and the utter lack of gameplay features currently present, where do they get off charging $4.99 for a single Civ?
They just stole $50 from me just over a month ago for a substandard game (I know there is disagreement about this) and now they want me to shell out 10% of that on a new civ? Fix the game and put all the features from Civ4 that you striped out back into the game and I might consider DLC.
DLC used to be a way for developers to give more content to gamers for an AWESOME game that they produced. Companies nowadays think they can offer DLC on crappy games and get away with it. This is the secret to DLC, no one will buy it for a lousy game! It has to be a great game that people would be willing to spend additional money on to add that new level of gameplay or new dimension.
I know I said that I'm not upset about the DLC for any other reason than Civ5 is currently a game that is severely lacking in several key areas, but I feel like I have to go on this rant. I've been on so many forums where people stick up for game companies that charge outrageous prices for DLC. The Sims series is one such game. I don't understand why people DEFEND this practise of under contenting games only to add more at a future time.
Yes game companies have a right to make money and sell DLC to you. But YOU as a consumer have a right to demand a quality product and not be cheated out of your hard earned money. As I said, if Firaxis blew the doors off the gaming world with Civ5, then I would have NO problem with them releasing DLC. But the fact that they are doing it SO quickly after the release of the core game and after numerous complaints, REALLY upsets me.
First off... Babylon took no development time away from patch content. It
already existed, for the special edition purchasers. So complaints about the "blatant arrogance of Firaxis to post this for sale so soon after the launch of Civ 5" are unfounded; No development time required, no developers who turned their attention away from making the game better.
Once again, the first true DLC for Civ5 is Mongolia. And guess what? Yeah...
Free. How is it arrogance to release free content for a game after release? Particularly alongside patch content?
Personally, I'm outraged by the idea that the game is broken into pieces that are sold separately. What incredible hubris! I think it is a gigantic mistake for Firaxis to jump onto this 'Steam philosophy' bandwagon, which was never about game quality. This is about the industry eating itself for short term gain and eventual ruin.
Instead of making a truly memorable game with plenty of content, which by the way was always the formula for their success, they instead want to wring more money out of us by watering down the product as if we wouldn't notice! Not only does it smack of deception, but how much better of game would Civ5 be if all this content was included at first! Am I going to have to buy wonders next?
I will not buy anything less than a full expansion that corrects the mistakes made in the original and fleshes it out with the amount of content one would expect from a Civ game. No friggin way!
My advice to Firaxis is to round up these 'marketing' types and put them in a separate building, far away from where games are made.
Rather than reply to this, I'll just say to read the rest of my post. Same basic idea as the first two replies.
Assuming the content would have been made without the prospect of DLC is fallacy. Claiming the game should not have been released without said content is an opinion, but IMO just as much of a fallacy. Games require funding to develop. During development, they make no profit. Delaying release to include all possible content is NOT a good business strategy.
