dlc in games

[X-13]

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?

 

I've only had 1 game not recognise a GPU and that was Contrast. And on a different laptop.

 

Ubisoft is notoriously bad at optimisation [the difference between 1080p max settings and 1080p minimum settings? about 5-10FPS], and I'm beginning to see a pattern with PC ports. Optimisation doesn't matter, because you can just upgrade your GPU [The fact they're partnered with nVidia makes this look so bad...].

 

I tested out Saint's Row IV last night... FPS ranged from 60 all the way up to 118 [could have been 180].

[CAM]

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.

 

I found GPUs were one of the bottlenecks, the mobile equivalents tended to be below par and with worse support then their desktop counterparts. Of course, these were the days I ran Counter-Strike on a 4MB ATI Rage LT Pro. 4fps and no pistol round for me.

 

Also true with Ubisoft. Watch Dogs is waaay more tolerable on PS4 then PC due to their crap code.

[sted]

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.

 

but sold to less people so low volume high cost makes sense now they are mainstream and sell in their millions rather than 10's or 100's of thousands Destiny makes its money back in a day, might take a bit longer to score the other $500 million - Pocket-lint so after the first day or so a game that was (im led to believe I havnt played it) released in a half finished state with a lot of features promised soon made its cost back in 1 day so any sales after that are almost pure profit

[LosOjos]

DLC is part of the reason I rarely, if ever, buy new games. Wait 12-18 months and you'll almost always get the GOTY edition (or a bundle with all DLC included) on Steam for at least half the price of the base game on launch, if not cheaper.

 

I realize this model doesn't work for everyone (I used to make sure I had games on day one too!), but it works fantastically for me! Also means I can be 12 months behind on hardware, with all the cost savings that brings. Win-win if you're not bothered about having everything immediately!

 

The only time this falls down is when a new generation of consoles gets released - despite PCs generally being way ahead of consoles in terms of overall grunt, it seems AAA devs really up the anté when a new console is released, pushing the minimum PC specs sky high - case in point AC:Unity. Still, I won't buy that for at least 12 months, by which point I should be able to pick up a second hand GTX 780 for a fraction of the cost it is now or there may even be an X60 equivalent that is powerful enough by that point, as hardware devs also seem to ramp it up around the same time to keep PCs on top. Also considering SLI'ing my 760, which would be even cheaper but may or may not be supported, so a gamble. Will know more in a month or so on that front

Edited November 3, 2014 by LosOjos

[Tesla]

but sold to less people so low volume high cost makes sense now they are mainstream and sell in their millions rather than 10's or 100's of thousands Destiny makes its money back in a day, might take a bit longer to score the other $500 million - Pocket-lint so after the first day or so a game that was (im led to believe I havnt played it) released in a half finished state with a lot of features promised soon made its cost back in 1 day so any sales after that are almost pure profit

 

I see your point, but if people are going to buy it so it makes it's money back in a day then why would they change their infrastructure. I've heard it's not all it's hyped up to be, so people are paying through their nose to get their hands on the next Halo that never was. Someone in their marketing division is doing well for themselves, i'm sure.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Tesla

[sted]

I see your point, but if people are going to buy it so it makes it's money back in a day then why would they change their infrastructure. I've heard it's not all it's hyped up to be, so people are paying through their nose to get their hands on the next Halo that never was. Someone in their marketing division is doing well for themselves, i'm sure.

 

but there in lies the problem while ever people buy dlc companies would be silly not to do it and I admit ive bought it myself including day 0 stuff for forza horizons 2. I Almost just wish they would make the game £70 and give you the full game rather than £45 and neutered by the removal of content. As others have said I usually buy games on release day or near to but as I rarely play online anymore (the exception being Mario kart 8 last night) the reason I used to do that has pretty much gone (i.e. buy a game after 6 months the servers are often empty or full of people who are so much better than you its not worth it) it also dosent help the download version of a game on xboxone / wii u (havnt got a ps4 so no idea) almost always costs more than going to asda to buy the disk (I understand why but id rather not have to play hunt the disc)

 

while its the case that even half finished cruddy/rehashed(im looking at you ea the most fun version of fifa was the megadrive version its got less fun but prettier every year) games make their money back and make the company cash we are going to be stuck with it and I doubt that enough people will boycott pointless dlc to make a dent in sales. The other way I see forward is renting the game from whoever so odds on I play a game mainly for a few weeks or months then it just ends up at the back of the cupboard why not allow people to rent them (and if they want it permanently have a buy out option) that way they can keep adding features and people old or new cough up every month

[Theblacksheep]

I see your point, but if people are going to buy it so it makes it's money back in a day then why would they change their infrastructure. I've heard it's not all it's hyped up to be, so people are paying through their nose to get their hands on the next Halo that never was. Someone in their marketing division is doing well for themselves, i'm sure.

 

 

I'm still playing Destiny 6 weeks later, the Raid is one of the best FPS multi-player experiences I've had.

 

Quite funny as the new COD single player campaign will last 5 hours, give you 13 arean's to play on repeat and the press will give it 9/10.

[LeMarchand]

DLC is part of the reason I rarely, if ever, buy new games. Wait 12-18 months and you'll almost always get the GOTY edition (or a bundle with all DLC included) on Steam for at least half the price of the base game on launch, if not cheaper.

 

I realize this model doesn't work for everyone (I used to make sure I had games on day one too!), but it works fantastically for me! Also means I can be 12 months behind on hardware, with all the cost savings that brings. Win-win if you're not bothered about having everything immediately!

 

Pretty much my master plan. Works with console games, too. Wait a few months and most titles are under £20. As a rule of thumb, I won't buy a "really want" title for more than £20 (preferably <£15). "Would quite like" <£10, "sounds interesting <£5. Even with this in place, I've still probably got more games than I could play in my lifetime unless I could retire today.

 

The only DLC I've played has been if it came with the edition I bought (and even then, I tend to finish the main game and then move on). Certainly never paid extra!

Edited November 3, 2014 by LeMarchand
Typo

[Tesla]

Pretty much my master plan. Works with console games, too. Wait a few months and most titles are under £20. As a rule of thumb, I won't buy a "really want" title for more than £20 (preferably <£15). "Would quite like" <£10, "sounds interesting <£5. Even with this in place, I've still probably got more games than I could play in my lifetime unless i could retire today.

 

The only DLC I've played has been if it came with the edition I bought (and even then, I tend to finish the main game and then move on). Certainly never paid extra!

 

I'm probably along similar lines to this. Though buying the Family Guy game for £15 was a huge mistake....

[Novalee]

I bought the new Sims game the other week to try out. And it's made me very angry with EA. They have missed out key features for the sole purpose of being able to flog an expansion pack. The Sims 2 and a weather expansion pack, the Sims 3 had a weather expansion pack the Sims 4...has no weather - cue release of weather expansion pack in however many months. After releasing as an expansion pack for the last two base games, it really ought to be added as part of the base game by now.

 

There is also no toddler life stage - which was always part of the base game previously. Cue 'family something or other' expansion pack.

[rich_tech]

I would argue against inflation for a lot of the prices given and adjusted there, I dont think its massively relevant, were not talking a 200+ years difference on a historic product like a sack of flour, most of the products with gaming are relatively similar base prices for the unit, to me most consoles have averaged similar original prices for the system of around £200+, though it has crept up over last decade now, same for the games, I can remember top-end megadrive games being around £39 when I had mine some 20 years ago, Budget ranges only came about the PS1 from what I remember with the older games. (I personally rule out the ones that didn't make it or were always going to be ridiculous like the NeoGeo, £100 a game 16 years ago was always going to be a loser, regardless of it being an arcade game).

 

Consoles these days are what I would consider a "Serious Purchase" for a family/home because of the costs involved, whereas before they were cheaper entry points to having them. I never go for the early adopter pricing on any of these units, though I havent bothered with a console since the Xbox/PS2, I picked both of them up reasonably when they hit £150/£130 prices and bought loads of the games off ebay second hand for them for fractions of the price.

 

I also buy the GOTY editions too, rather than fork out for DLC, also humble bundle has helped out no end there recently on their "good" sales with getting games for the PC cheap.

[tmcd35]

@rich_tech, what you're not taking in to account is the changes in wages over that time. Adjusting the purchase prices for inflation gives some idea (admittedly not exact, or ideal) of how big a purchase the console would have been at the time. If £350 today is a "Serious Purchase", £299 in 1995 would have been a "Very Serious Purchase", and game prices too. Spending £30-40 in 1995 money on a game is not like spending £30-40 today on a game.

 

I remember asking my parents for an Amiga for Christmas in 1989. At £399 it didn't sound like a lot of money. But now I'm earning my own money and am in a far better financial system than my parents ever were I can understand why they never did. If someone asked me to spend £935 (in todays money) on a Christmas present I'd bulk at that too. Hell I'm pretty sure I can't afford to drop nearly a grand on anything without considering it to be an "Extremely Serious Purchase".

 

For what you are paying for console prices are very fair and reasonable IMHO. Same too for most AAA games. If you look at the man hours involved in creating games like Assassins Creed and the Arkham series, then compare them to Holywood movies, it's a wonder they don't cost a darn sight more. I suppose a certain amount of DLC is to be expected when you've sank 4 years and a couple of hundred developers into a project that is hard to retail too much above £50 a copy. It's not as if they have the multiple revenue streams of movies (cinema, pay per view, streaming, blu-ray, etc).

[Theblacksheep]

@rich_tech, what you're not taking in to account is the changes in wages over that time. Adjusting the purchase prices for inflation gives some idea (admittedly not exact, or ideal) of how big a purchase the console would have been at the time. If £350 today is a "Serious Purchase", £299 in 1995 would have been a "Very Serious Purchase", and game prices too. Spending £30-40 in 1995 money on a game is not like spending £30-40 today on a game.

 

I remember asking my parents for an Amiga for Christmas in 1989. At £399 it didn't sound like a lot of money. But now I'm earning my own money and am in a far better financial system than my parents ever were I can understand why they never did. If someone asked me to spend £935 (in todays money) on a Christmas present I'd bulk at that too. Hell I'm pretty sure I can't afford to drop nearly a grand on anything without considering it to be an "Extremely Serious Purchase".

 

For what you are paying for console prices are very fair and reasonable IMHO. Same too for most AAA games. If you look at the man hours involved in creating games like Assassins Creed and the Arkham series, then compare them to Holywood movies, it's a wonder they don't cost a darn sight more. I suppose a certain amount of DLC is to be expected when you've sank 4 years and a couple of hundred developers into a project that is hard to retail too much above £50 a copy. It's not as if they have the multiple revenue streams of movies (cinema, pay per view, streaming, blu-ray, etc).

 

All very good points.

 

People waiting for Steam sales, bargain bins and second hand will only accelerate the reduction of variation in games (why we see so many generic FPS) and more profitable releases (mobile only IAPs, FTP, subscription, DLC). There's some great games we miss out on in the West because publishers think they wont sell enough.

 

I have no problem with DLC as long as it's good, sometimes it can better than buy literally the same game in 12 months (look at you FIFA, COD etc) or waiting 2-4 years for a follow up. I find subscription services worse, esp when you have to buy the game and the DLC, looking at you WOW.

[CAM]

Subscription is perfectly acceptable provided content and updates are provided as part of that subscription. It also pays for the server upkeep as an MMO is expected to stay online for a very long time so they have ongoing costs well beyond when the game has made it's money. As far as I am concerned, I got my money's worth from WoW.

[LosOjos]

People waiting for Steam sales, bargain bins and second hand will only accelerate the reduction of variation in games (why we see so many generic FPS) and more profitable releases (mobile only IAPs, FTP, subscription, DLC). There's some great games we miss out on in the West because publishers think they wont sell enough.

 

Not necessarily. I buy a lot more indie games than AAA as I find there's a lot more variation in indie titles, and I'm more likely to buy a new release indie title as the price is generally much lower. Transistor for instance - fantastic game, £15 brand new. Had it been made by a AAA studio, it'd have been £40, no way would I pay that so I'd have waited for a sale when it dropped below £20 to buy it.

 

It's swings and roundabouts - on the one hand, buying new releases maximizes profits and gives AAA publishers the impression that X type of game sells, so you keep getting X. Buying DLC gives the impression you're happy to buy DLC, so they'll keep releasing DLC. If they notice that their titles sell as well or better as GOTY releases, that should give them the impression that people would rather wait and buy the "finished" product.

 

They still make a profit on games in sales BTW.

 

EDIT: I should probably clarify upon re-reading my post: I wouldn't have paid £40 for Transistor as I don't feel it's long enough to warrant that kind of money, not simply because I consider £40 too much for a game. Likewise, if a game I really want is released with a clear intent to sell DLC, I'll wait for the GOTY, even if the GOTY is the same price as the initial release, to get all the content. I'm not just being tight, though VFM is an issue with a young family. Can't justify spending £70+ on a game when I know I could save at least £30 of it by waiting and not buying DLC separately

Edited November 3, 2014 by LosOjos

[sted]

I would argue against inflation for a lot of the prices given and adjusted there, I dont think its massively relevant, were not talking a 200+ years difference on a historic product like a sack of flour, most of the products with gaming are relatively similar base prices for the unit, to me most consoles have averaged similar original prices for the system of around £200+, though it has crept up over last decade now, same for the games, I can remember top-end megadrive games being around £39 when I had mine some 20 years ago, Budget ranges only came about the PS1 from what I remember with the older games. (I personally rule out the ones that didn't make it or were always going to be ridiculous like the NeoGeo, £100 a game 16 years ago was always going to be a loser, regardless of it being an arcade game).

 

Consoles these days are what I would consider a "Serious Purchase" for a family/home because of the costs involved, whereas before they were cheaper entry points to having them. I never go for the early adopter pricing on any of these units, though I havent bothered with a console since the Xbox/PS2, I picked both of them up reasonably when they hit £150/£130 prices and bought loads of the games off ebay second hand for them for fractions of the price.

 

I also buy the GOTY editions too, rather than fork out for DLC, also humble bundle has helped out no end there recently on their "good" sales with getting games for the PC cheap.

 

not to mention a megadrive /snes game came on a costly cartridge a modern game comes on a couple of pence of blueray disc so in any terms cost of production must be orders of magnitude less even without the benefits of quantity making reproduction even cheaper

[DanTheLacky]

I do hate DLC unfortunately I was always one of the ones that would pay the extra £5-10 2 or 3 times in the games life to get the extra's. Even in call of duty when alot of the time I use to turn off the DLC maps because i couldn't get a steady game or partied up with people who didn't have the DLC I still bought it incase I wanted to play it.

Now I no longer have the internet this is not an issue

[tmcd35]

not to mention a megadrive /snes game came on a costly cartridge a modern game comes on a couple of pence of blueray disc so in any terms cost of production must be orders of magnitude less even without the benefits of quantity making reproduction even cheaper

 

Again, you're not taking in to account man hours. By far the biggest cost, more expensive than costly cartridges vs. cheap blu-ray, is labour. 16bit games had teams of around 10-20 people. Assassins Creed has a credits sequence longer than any Hollywood movie I've ever seen. Assuming the same £40-50 for a AAA title in 1992 and now, then taking inflation into account, we are paying less now for more work!

 

IMHO, the solution to the DLC problem is simple - support more indie developers.

[LiamH]

The whole "editions" way of pricing annoys me too. It used to be the case that you buy the game, or put up some extra dosh for a collectors box with a poster and a figure or something novel like that.

 

Watchdogs had 6 different editions all with extra stuff/stuff excluded, ESO was the same.

 

I don't mind paying extra for decent DLC, Dragonage is a great example with new campaigns that added hours of extra game play. I wouldn't bother buying to the CoD "5 extra maps and 3 guns for multiplayer" style DLC, maybe i was just spoiled by the fact those kinds of games used to be freely mod-able and maps could be created and shared by the community.

[Garacesh]

maybe i was just spoiled by the fact those kinds of games used to be freely mod-able and maps could be created and shared by the community.

I hate how it feels like the big-name studios are trying to force out modding and other forms of aftermarket consumer input (though it's nice to see Valve somewhat embracing this with the Steam Workshop)

 

Props to Epic Games for working on a UT99 remake. I have full faith that will be just as moddable as the original game.

[X-13]

I wouldn't bother buying to the CoD "5 extra maps and 3 guns for multiplayer" style DLC

 

I made the mistake of grabbing the Assassin's Creed multiplayer stuff... It's basically unusable.

 

You can't use the maps unless everyone else has them, so there's no point looking because so many people DON'T have them. [The extra characters are cool though... but shouldn't be a chargeable thing. They're effectively skins.]

 

 

Something I'm seeing more of, GOTY/complete editions not actually being made. Or coming with single use codes for the content.

[Theblacksheep]

Not necessarily. I buy a lot more indie games than AAA as I find there's a lot more variation in indie titles, and I'm more likely to buy a new release indie title as the price is generally much lower. Transistor for instance - fantastic game, £15 brand new. Had it been made by a AAA studio, it'd have been £40, no way would I pay that so I'd have waited for a sale when it dropped below £20 to buy it.

 

It's swings and roundabouts - on the one hand, buying new releases maximizes profits and gives AAA publishers the impression that X type of game sells, so you keep getting X. Buying DLC gives the impression you're happy to buy DLC, so they'll keep releasing DLC. If they notice that their titles sell as well or better as GOTY releases, that should give them the impression that people would rather wait and buy the "finished" product.

 

They still make a profit on games in sales BTW.

 

EDIT: I should probably clarify upon re-reading my post: I wouldn't have paid £40 for Transistor as I don't feel it's long enough to warrant that kind of money, not simply because I consider £40 too much for a game. Likewise, if a game I really want is released with a clear intent to sell DLC, I'll wait for the GOTY, even if the GOTY is the same price as the initial release, to get all the content. I'm not just being tight, though VFM is an issue with a young family. Can't justify spending £70+ on a game when I know I could save at least £30 of it by waiting and not buying DLC separately

 

Totally understandable about saving money, it's logical on the single player heavy games to do that. Multiplayer is a gamble: 5 hours of single player campaign with non existent multiplayer servers is a waste of even £10, even tho it was £40 new.

 

A note about sales tho. Many of the steam sales the devs or publishers have 'given up' in that they wont make any more from full price buyers, the core have already got their fix. There's no more manufacturing costs, just distro (which Gabe will take his 33% cut for) so everything is profit, it's just how little they are willing to let it go for to maximize revenue. It doesn't mean they aren't being short changed tho. If 90% of sales are one year after release for £1.99 then the devs still have a problem.

[LosOjos]

Totally understandable about saving money, it's logical on the single player heavy games to do that. Multiplayer is a gamble: 5 hours of single player campaign with non existent multiplayer servers is a waste of even £10, even tho it was £40 new.

 

A note about sales tho. Many of the steam sales the devs or publishers have 'given up' in that they wont make any more from full price buyers, the core have already got their fix. There's no more manufacturing costs, just distro (which Gabe will take his 33% cut for) so everything is profit, it's just how little they are willing to let it go for to maximize revenue. It doesn't mean they aren't being short changed tho. If 90% of sales are one year after release for £1.99 then the devs still have a problem.

 

Yeah totally agree and I guess this is another point in which I differ from many modern gamers*, I still value a good story mode or local multiplayer far above online mutiplayer. Again, having a young family means my gaming time is restricted to short bursts over the week with the occasional all night stint if I'm really in to a game (and have the energy) - really can't be fussed sitting wasting time in lobbys!

 

Titanfall worried me - whenever a game does as well as that did, you're bound to get imitators, I just hope the industry doesn't decide that total lack of offline play was what made it a success!

 

* at least, that's the impression you'd get from the severe lack of decent length singleplayer games and local multiplayer games (on PC at least)

[localzuk]

Yeah totally agree and I guess this is another point in which I differ from many modern gamers*, I still value a good story mode or local multiplayer far above online mutiplayer. Again, having a young family means my gaming time is restricted to short bursts over the week with the occasional all night stint if I'm really in to a game (and have the energy) - really can't be fussed sitting wasting time in lobbys!

 

Titanfall worried me - whenever a game does as well as that did, you're bound to get imitators, I just hope the industry doesn't decide that total lack of offline play was what made it a success!

 

* at least, that's the impression you'd get from the severe lack of decent length singleplayer games and local multiplayer games (on PC at least)

 

Oh, that's absolutely true. I'm sick of games being produced aimed purely at multi-player. I want to be anti-social after work. I want to settle down and kill some dumb AI bots, not have to deal with more people!

[LiamH]

Oh, that's absolutely true. I'm sick of games being produced aimed purely at multi-player. I want to be anti-social after work. I want to settle down and kill some dumb AI bots, not have to deal with more people!

 

It depends on the game, and if its stated upfront that its a "online game" i don't see any issue with neglecting/not having the single player campaign to focus on multiplayer, Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory did that way back when (although it was a free game..) and I spent ages playing that game, each multiplayer match/campaign made its own story in a way, and that's what they went for with Titanfall, a group of players playing over a multi-map campaign where their actions decided the winners and losers.