DLC and Pre-order DLC in games: Good, bad, both, or just inevitable?

[Jubal]

To move this somewhere other than the chatbox

[Glaurung]

Here is the chatbox discussion on this subject, so that we have a record of it:

Jubal	04 Dec 08:50 PM	What's happened with WHTW now?
Armadillo	04 Dec 10:35 PM	Pre order DLC.
Armadillo	04 Dec 10:35 PM	Which is absolute bullarmadillo, and if you're defending CA and Sega in this, I will not back down from the other perspective.
Armadillo	04 Dec 10:35 PM	Pre order DLC is bull.
Armadillo	04 Dec 10:36 PM	It is not even portugaling dlc.
Armadillo	04 Dec 10:36 PM	They've obviously developed it and then taken it out of the game, it comes out ON DAY. ONE
Jubal	05 Dec 12:18 PM	Oh, yeah, DLC is a silly system in most games, pre-order DLC is nuts.
Colossus	06 Dec 03:24 PM	dlc is just a distribution method bud, no point in hating that. Prefixing this by saying I'm against pre-ordering in theory but also aware that it's needed to show investors interest in a project to secure funds to produce extra content in a timely manner. The thing is a pre-order incentive, buy the game early to show support and get the 1st piece of dlc free. If you read the post on the tw forums it clearly says that they have a separate team working on the dlc and so isn't at all content that they've created and are keeping to sell as dlc because 'they' didn't create it at all.
Colossus	06 Dec 03:27 PM	Before the chaos warriors dlc was created you got the faction as a non-playable enemy faction in game similar to mongols/timurids in medieval 2. With the dlc you get an expanded roster, full quest chain and legendary lord traits, a tech tree and expanded buildings as well as chaos specific campaign mechanics.
Jubal	06 Dec 03:37 PM	Hence in most games, there's a time and a place where extra downloadable content is great, but it's pretty clear I think that a lot of modern games use DLC to either provide things that are really relatively core or to lower the cover price of a product. Like, being able to play as Chaos in Warhammer, Chaos is so central to the setting that it's a pretty core part of the game.
Colossus	06 Dec 03:56 PM	I don't think anyone's arguing that chaos aren't central to warhammer. Having 4 factions in the base game was part of the plan all along, 4 base factions all fully fleshed out and with all the detail we've seen in the trailers and in game footage. The addition of extras is part of a separate budget. Games have become hellishly more expensive to make nowadays, tomb raider selling 3.4m copies in the first week is not enough to hit sales expectations.
Colossus	06 Dec 03:59 PM	Basically, you can't sell a TW game at £40 and make any money from it. If they couldn't sell dlc, you wouldn't get a TW game.

[Glaurung]

I don't play computer games; I've never ordered or pre-ordered one, and I've never had to worry about downloadable content. I don't know what the specific situation is with WHTW.

However, I think I'd be unhappy if I did buy a game for a particular price, and then found I had to buy more stuff to make the game playable, or at least worthwhile playing. That sort of approach might be legal, but it feels like rather poor commercial practice. I'd also be unhappy about paying for a game before it's been released, unless there's a guarantee of getting my money back if it's not up to a reasonable quality.

On the other hand, I can see that pre-ordering is helpful for the manufacturer - it produces a useful stream of income while they're doing most of the spending on game development.

[Flamekebab]

I've found that lots of games are ending up rather enormous as is. The completionist in me wants all the DLC but based on experience I rarely ever get any mileage out of it.


The DLC for the first Payday: The Heist game was reasonably fun and added a fair bit to the game if memory serves. The Vietnam DLC for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was rather good too, although frankly it would have worked as a stand-alone game. The Afterbirth DLC for The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is also pretty good, although I haven't had the time to get properly into it just yet (it's been out about a month).


On the other hand I've found the DLC for Fallout 3 and New Vegas to be fairly lacklustre. By the time I've got to the stage of actually playing them I've pretty much lost interest in the game. Their self-contained nature also rather irked me (one would access them by visiting a point in the world and then being transported somewhere else - a self contained DLC world, if you will).


The DLC for Borderlands 2 is pretty tedious, in all honesty. I doubt I'll finish it.


The DLC for Batman: Arkham City wasn't too bad but even though I got all (400?) Riddler challenges/collectables/etc. I couldn't be bothered to sustain an interest to the point of completing the DLC.


The DLC for Surgeon Simulator was reasonably okay. It added more content which was nice, considering the base game was a bit short.


Generally speaking I find that DLC can make a good game outstay its welcome. It can refresh a multiplayer game though which can be handy, although it's easy to end up fragmenting the userbase if it's badly implemented.


I've yet to play a game that has DLC that feels like it was carved off the base game for the purpose of profit.

[Clockwork]

As long as you buy from steam, you can play up to 2 hours of a game and get a refund with no questions and with no reason needed so long as it's done within 2 months of purchase (or in the case of pre-orders, launch). After that you can still ask for a refund but you'll need a reason such as 'I spent 3 hours trying to get it to work and couldn't'. Can't be used for refunding DLC though.


I agree with fk a lot about how worthwhile some DLCs are. Harley Quinns revenge for Arkham City was fun I thought, it added new mechanics in the form of playing as a different character (Robin 3.0) with different skills and while I personally enjoyed the DLC for both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, I only got the GoTY edition of 3 and by the time the DLC for Vegas came out I was ready to start a new playthrough as a laser gun and katana wielding ninja girl so I generally played it all together and not on a character I'd already finished the game with.


Oblivion however, I saved the world from an evil god and then decided that the rest of my travels would be too dangerous without armour for my horse.


Props for getting all Riddler trophies and challenges btw bud

[Son of the King]

I buy games if they aren't expensive or if they look great/I'm really interested in them. I bought Rome 2 around release, even though I was expecting it (and was right) to run poorly on my old computer. I ended up buying all the DLCs for Rome 2 in various steam sales as they don't add enough (imo) to warrant paying full price. I actually think its pretty unfair to complain "I can only play as a few factions" when that has been the case (without modding) for as long as I've been playing total war, the only difference being that now the game is much more complex and the difference between playable and non-playable factions is bigger.

I bought the Skyrim DLCs when I decided I wanted them, since they add a big chunk of content rather than a set of factions I'll probably never play.

[Clockwork]

http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/DLCWorks.png


This is literally the reason why the industry needs day 1 dlc. It keeps people working.