dlc in games

[sted]

am i the only person who is getting annoyed about the amount of dlc in games. dlc like the extras in gta4 is fine but it seems that almost every game you get these days regardless of the fact they cost ~£45 seems to be about 75% of the whole game and to get the rest you need to shell out even more cash on dlc. Look at mario kart 8 even though the dlc isnt out yet every time you do a race there are 4 cups sat there you cant do unless you pay up again wouldn't be so bad if you could hide them but its just always there in your face. its getting to the point where im wondering if gaming is worth it its just getting too expensive or at the least makes me think about buying games after theyve been out a long while and are cheaper or the dlc is included

[Vasriel]

DLC being available when a game is released I really hate. If I buy a brand new game, I want the whole game not a cut down version.

 

Until people stop buying DLC then game makers will continue to make it as theres lots of money being made from it.

[sted]

DLC being available when a game is released I really hate. If I buy a brand new game, I want the whole game not a cut down version.

 

Until people stop buying DLC then game makers will continue to make it as theres lots of money being made from it.

 

damned hard though esp in multiplayer games sometimes if you dont youre at a huge disadvantage. Generally i dont buy it but have for mario kart 8 and bought it all for forza horrizon 2so that game cost £77ish whihc does take the pee somewhat when on its own its £45 but theyare exceptions im actually tempted to boycott games with dlc which is a shame as i was looking forward to lego batman 3 and no other lego games has ever needed dlc

[flyinghaggis]

Yeah, it's getting kind of ridiculous. My current gripe is companies releasing so called 'season passes' for content. Where you buy the game for £30-40 then have to spend another £30-40 to make sure you get the updates for it whilst it's out. Titanfall for example really annoyed me with this to the point where I flat out refused to pay twice the price of the game for a couple of map packs.

 

Just today in fact I was contemplating pre-ordering Far Cry 4 but I notice they're offering the standard (yet somehow called 'limited edition' as it gives you supposedly 'free' day one DLC) for £40 or the option to buy the 'gold edition' which comes with a 'season pass' for £65. The baffling array of editions of the game they're offering (gold/standard/kyrat/limited edition) has actually put me off wanting to pre-order the game. They're even selling a special Blood Ruby DLC pack only available for customers who pre-order FFS!!! Where will it all end?

 

If companies are going to be so underhand with the tactics they use to gouge customers at every opportunity I'd rather just pay for a subscription style model where I get access to all content and pay a weekly/monthly fee whilst I'm playing it. I understand that companies have to maintain online multiplayer servers and potentially pay a cut to MS/Sony/etc for using their online services but I really dislike the whole DLC payment model they're all moving towards.

Edited November 1, 2014 by flyinghaggis

[pooley]

I'm not a gamer but reading this, surely this will just encourage more game piracy? especially PC /PS3/Wii etc that can support pirated content.

[rich_tech]

am i the only person who is getting annoyed about the amount of dlc in games. dlc like the extras in gta4 is fine but it seems that almost every game you get these days regardless of the fact they cost ~£45 seems to be about 75% of the whole game and to get the rest you need to shell out even more cash on dlc. Look at mario kart 8 even though the dlc isnt out yet every time you do a race there are 4 cups sat there you cant do unless you pay up again wouldn't be so bad if you could hide them but its just always there in your face. its getting to the point where im wondering if gaming is worth it its just getting too expensive or at the least makes me think about buying games after theyve been out a long while and are cheaper or the dlc is included

 

Your no way on your own there, I hate it with a passion, Zero Day DLC is the worst of all, when you just buy a game and have to immediately shell out for things like "Map Packs" and EA are one of the worst companies for doing it. Its not enough to buy the game now, you have to buy and have the game reach around in your pockets and mug you for some more cash, usually in your own front room.

[flyinghaggis]

I also think another reason companies are adding so much DLC is as a way of getting a cut of sales of 2nd hand games. Often when you buy a game it will come with a one use code for access to multiplayer/DLC. If you sell the game on the person who buys it then need to re-buy the DLC content guaranteeing the publisher gets a slice of the revenue.

 

Looking at it positively when I think about it new games have cost about the same price £30-40 for the last decade or two. Taking inflation into account they should be way more expensive than they are now. I still remember paying £60 for some of the higher capacity cartridge games like street fighter 2 turbo, Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES and N64 in the 90's so maybe things aren't so bad now when you look at it that way.

 

I also don't mind companies bringing out expansion packs for games a year or so after release but DLC in general cant die soon enough! It's just a scam really.

Edited November 2, 2014 by flyinghaggis

[sted]

I also think another reason companies are adding so much DLC is as a way of getting a cut of sales of 2nd hand games. Often when you buy a game it will come with a one use code for access to multiplayer/DLC. If you sell the game on the person who buys it then need to re-buy the DLC content guaranteeing the publisher gets a slice of the revenue.

 

Looking at it positively when I think about it new games have cost about the same price £30-40 for the last decade or two. Taking inflation into account they should be way more expensive than they are now. I still remember paying £60 for some of the higher capacity cartridge games like street fighter 2 turbo, Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES and N64 in the 90's so maybe things aren't so bad now when you look at it that way.

 

I also don't mind companies bringing out expansion packs for games a year or so after release but DLC in general cant die soon enough! It's just a scam really.

 

i disagree to a degree prices havnt gone up rrp of xbox1/ps4 games is £50-£60 and many many more people buy games these days look at defined half finished as it supposedly is and as costly to make as it was they made their money back in one day. day one editions really do take the cake as cynical cash grabs. dlc like as i think i mentioned the addons to gta4 i have no issue with they are basically new games in the world of the parent game.

 

is pc gaming actually any less infested by this?

[CAM]

No, it's worse on PC. We have F2P and Early Access infestations as well.

[X-13]

No, it's worse on PC. We have F2P and Early Access infestations as well.

 

And bad ports. Don't forget the bad ports.

 

 

Stupid £1000 gaming laptop can't even play the new Assassin's Creed...

[localzuk]

DLC is acceptable only in a "we've developed an addition to the game" 12 months down the line form, or for vanity items (I won't be buying them, but hey, they'll help fund more games and some people want them). I dislike launch day DLC, and expensive DLC too. DLC should be an addon, not the same price as a whole new game!!

[Grey-gear]

I also dislike lunch day DLC, mostly when the DLC is like the from Ashes DLC from Mass effect 3 which gives you a character that is pretty important to the story, but they also have day one DLC that adds extra costumes or weapons I tend to not care. DLC should be add more game play but the prices are getting to become a lot for some games (Destiny comes to mind).

 

To get the develops to stop these practices the game community would have to boycott Lunch day DLC but I can't see that happening really.

[tmcd35]

I only play single player. I don't mind DLC as a rule, but then I only purchase additional stories/missions that extend the life of the core gameplay. I can't be done with all this purchasing additional costumes or weaponry carp. So far, all the games I've been interested in have resolved themselves within the purchase price without the need of any DLC and the DLC has been pretty much just that, an extra story tagged on to the end. Possibly the only exception was Catwoman in Arkham City, but even then the game is fully playable without needing the Catwoman content, admittedly that was a bit near the mark for hacking slices of a game to create DLC/extra editions.

[rich_tech]

i disagree to a degree prices havnt gone up rrp of xbox1/ps4 games is £50-£60 and many many more people buy games these days look at defined half finished as it supposedly is and as costly to make as it was they made their money back in one day. day one editions really do take the cake as cynical cash grabs. dlc like as i think i mentioned the addons to gta4 i have no issue with they are basically new games in the world of the parent game.

 

is pc gaming actually any less infested by this?

 

I think it would be really harmful to the gaming industry to start pricing games any much higher as it is, parent's just won't go for it, it is bad enough that it's creeping up slowly and surely with each generation of consoles though. Console is higher priced than PC I find anyway, largely because of our investment in our gaming machines, rather than having a "Uniconsole"

 

I don't know if XB1 and PS4 have taken off like their previous generations yet, I thought the opening prices were absolutely horrible, I have my doubts as to their uptake now, to me their too expensive for a console system, and along with 0 Day DLC which I think it is pretty scummy, the fact now you have "Pay for Backwards Compatibility/Old Generation Console Games" on the new platform as well, so you cant take your 360 games directly onto the XB1 is another awful turn with Console gaming.

Edited November 3, 2014 by rich_tech

[sted]

the fact now you have "Pay for Backwards Compatibility/Old Generation Console Games" on the new platform as well, so you cant take your 360 games directly onto the XB1 is another awful turn with Console gaming.

true but until the ps3/360 it was the norm hence why I have an gamecube/dreamcast/xbox in a cupboard to drag out now and again the exception to that is Nintendo to a degree but its still easier to fork out a few quid on virtual console games than drag a console out a cupboard and at least if you bought Mario world on wii its only £1.50 to get the wii u version which isn't too bad

[featured_spectre]

DLC is acceptable only in a "we've developed an addition to the game" 12 months down the line form, or for vanity items (I won't be buying them, but hey, they'll help fund more games and some people want them). I dislike launch day DLC, and expensive DLC too. DLC should be an addon, not the same price as a whole new game!!

 

I wholeheartedly agree. If they make a game (take CIV 5 for example) and then add a DLC a year later, then another one a year later, which actually expands the game and gives you much much more play options, then that's fine. However games like Battlefield, COD etc (which I will no longer purchase) which offer day one DLC, or season passes, or "ultimate unlocks" which unlocks everything available, I find that to be a con. People buy them and think they're getting value for money (I Was one of the people that was suckered into a BF3 and BF4 season pass), however the games quickly became boring when you hit the higher ranks and earned all weapons and unlocks available. Just became a grind for "dog tags" which had no actual bearing on the game.

[tmcd35]

I don't know if XB1 and PS4 have taken off like their previous generations yet, I thought the opening prices were absolutely horrible, I have my doubts as to their uptake now, to me their too expensive for a console system, and along with 0 Day DLC which I think it is pretty scummy, the fact now you have "Pay for Backwards Compatibility/Old Generation Console Games" on the new platform as well, so you cant take your 360 games directly onto the XB1 is another awful turn with Console gaming.

 

Not got the figures here, but I did a bit of a study out of curiosity looking at UK launch prices of consoles and adjusting for inflation. The PS4 at £350 is one of the cheapest consoles ever launched! The PS1 launched at £299 which in todays money would be £519, ouch.

[Garacesh]

I also think another reason companies are adding so much DLC is as a way of getting a cut of sales of 2nd hand games. Often when you buy a game it will come with a one use code for access to multiplayer/DLC. If you sell the game on the person who buys it then need to re-buy the DLC content guaranteeing the publisher gets a slice of the revenue.

And you know what? I'd be completely OK with that if companies hosted their own dedicated servers rather than relying on P2P multiplayer all the time. Sure, you might say "There's a cost incurred to run a server to store all the client info" (In the case of, for example, Call of Duty, what weapons you have, what Master Sergeant Shooter Sergeant Person To The Extreme rank you are.. For Mass Effect, your characters and loadouts, stuff like that) but factor in the fact that when Person A sells the game to Person B, Person A (more often than not) no longer plays the game anymore and thus is no longer using the service. So they don't 'lose' any money (besides about $0.0000....0001 on old data storage) because B is doing the same thing as A but A isn't doing it anymore. There's probably a technical term to explain it better, I'm probably not doing a great job. But it's like.. If someone stopped buying bananas at the supermarket, but someone else started buying them. No loss, same process, just a different person.

 

Day 1 DLC on the disk is, however, not acceptable. I appreciate that sometimes towards the end of the production cycle some people might not have a lot to do and might develop something extra, like a futuristic gun texture or a new character outfit, a different car.. You get the picture. That's cool, in fact, well done. You've decided to continue contributing to the project even though your job is finished. That's actually an awesome thing to do. But please, don't lock that content to specific vendors, or make me have to pay extra for it. That's just ridiculous.

 

More and more, though, it feels like chunks of the games are cut off to sell back to us later.. And that's just the worst.

 

'Season passes' for extra DLC I don't really mind, though. Think about it.. What's the difference between Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea and Half Life 2 - Episode 2? The only difference I see is HL2Ep2 has its own client whereas BI:BaS doesn't. They're essentially the same concept. I'd like to think that season passes/extra DLC are a companies way of saying "We sat down to plan the game and decided what the game should be, and that's exactly what we've made. Along the way, though, we've had some really cool ideas that we want to flesh out further, so we're going to expand the universe a little more with some additional content. It's not really required, though, you don't have to buy it, but we promise we're going to make it. We could've made it part of the main game, but that would have seriously set back the release date for content not everyone wants. So, you can either pay for it (since, to be fair, it cost us money to make), or you can choose to give it a miss. Your call."... I'd like to think that, but sometimes I feel that isn't the case.

[Theblacksheep]

Not got the figures here, but I did a bit of a study out of curiosity looking at UK launch prices of consoles and adjusting for inflation. The PS4 at £350 is one of the cheapest consoles ever launched! The PS1 launched at £299 which in todays money would be £519, ouch.

 

 

Sauce

[CAM]

And bad ports. Don't forget the bad ports.

 

 

Stupid £1000 gaming laptop can't even play the new Assassin's Creed...

 

Get a desktop unit! Cheaper and upgradable! I bought a gaming laptop and never used it even though my desktop unit now runs Linux. Still more useful...

 

Should probably run Windows Update on that thing. It's collecting dust at the moment as a backup machine.

[X-13]

Get a desktop unit! Cheaper and upgradable! I bought a gaming laptop and never used it even though my desktop unit now runs Linux. Still more useful...

 

I can upgrade the laptop... I'm just annoyed that a gpu was made in May[?] of this year and there's already stuff it can't run.

 

 

Also, no space for a desktop. If there was, i would have gotten one.

Edited November 3, 2014 by X-13

[featured_spectre]

[X-13]

 

MSI GT60 Dominator.

 

But don't let that stop you being a condescending wotsit.

[Tesla]

Games in the 90's were £35-40, and most new games sell at 45, that's not much of a mark up in the past 15 years, considering now days a lot more effort probably goes into making the games, and much higher budgets etc, Developers have to coup that money back somehow. DLC is the way that companies make the extra cash needed. Most people probably wouldn't shell out 70-80 quid for a game is that was the full price when first released.

[featured_spectre]

MY PC Cost 2/3 of your laptop, and its a similar(ish) spec...Chip is Intel i7-4790T. GPU is dual GTX770, 256GB SSD + 1TB SSHD, 16GB Kingston Dominator RAM...however I am running W7 Ultimate and not W8.1.

 

Could be that games don't recognise your GPU?