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When do you consider DLC to be fair?

Last posted Oct 03, 2014 at 02:36AM EDT. Added Sep 30, 2014 at 12:03AM EDT
23 posts from 22 users

So I just watched a Lets Play of DLC quest. Pretty funny, but it sparked a question I have regarding DLC and I would like to see other peoples opinions on.

What is the most fair way DLC can be marketed? When it's produced? How it's distributed and divided up? How much content will give you the bang for your buck? Etc?

Also I guess it's also good to ask about games that solely focus around DLC, like Free to Play and Episodic Games. What is your opinion on those? And more specifically with Free to Play, how much money would you budget to a free to play game you actually play a fair amount?

I think DLC should be an afterthought to a complete game. The developers should have all the characters and levels/quests thought out before considering DLC as opposed to finishing the game through DLC. Skyrim and Mario Kart 8 did it perfect in my opinion, they both add new content to a complete game.

You want my opinion? I hate DLC. The games I buy should be the games I buy. I shouldn't have to be forced to buy DLC in order to get the complete experience. DLC should only be used to add something extra to a complete game and it should be for a fair price. Take this for example

Red Dead Redemption is a fun game. You buy it, play though the story once, and you feel like you got a whole game. Undead Nightmare is something extra. It adds zombies, a new story, and it only costs ten bucks.

-Not On-disc
-Something that actually changes gameplay/adds something, so no costumes/skins.

Then it depends on the pricing.
For example, the Mario Kart 8 DLC is pretty cheap. AA: Dual Destinies is priced fairly as well.

Free to Play where you have to buy the parts of the game seperate is BS.

Games that require a subscription of sorts is also BS.

DLCs are considered fair if it was made after the base game was completed and that the cost must be equal to the content it provides. The Skyrim Dragonborn DLC is a perfect example. It provides a new island to explore and loads of content that should add an extra 30 hours of gameplay. All of that for 20 bucks sounds like a good deal.

Games with ingame locked DLC (Looking at you, Crapcom) are just the worst kind of DLC.
Also, personally i enjoy costume and skin DLCs IF the price is fair enough.

I don't mind DLC that much, except day-one DLC. It also depends on the pricing.

Nintendo is great with DLC pricing: Mario Kart and Hyrule Warriors are good examples. Get all the DLC, and both games extend to like 140% of what you bought at launch. The pricing is fair as well. (Hyrule Warriors' season pass was just 15 euros for me, and it's 20 dollars in the US, so this opinion might differ.)

People tend to hate costume DLC, but I really don't see the problem with them. They add nothing to the game, so what's there to miss. Sure, it's a stupid extra it could've easily put in the game, but you really won't miss any experience without it. It's up to the player if they're willing to spend that small few bucks (hell, I spend more on coffee in a week than the average costume pack costs).

Day-one DLC is bullshit, and just a cheap way to make more money, especially when they're almost required for a full experience. A day-one season pass is a different thing, because it keeps you updated with new stuff over an extended period of time after the game's release.

Last edited Sep 30, 2014 at 09:00AM EDT

On Natsuru's questions; you start working on DLC whent he disc goes gold, that should be obvious but given the abundance of Day-one DLC and downloads that are actually key unlocks, it doesn't seem to be as straight forward as it should be.

Free-to-play games shouldn't be a case of holding your game to ransom, or risk becoming Fee-To-Pay, it should be about trying to win over good faith from your customers who'll then want to support you to their benefit.

Since people are bringing up costumes, I'll say that they on the surface seemed like a cool idea, but the fact that they're holding back things that used to be usually included in games for a fee is really dumb. It doesn't help that they're horribly overpriced usually too.

I think DLC is fair when it's not too much of it, and it's reasonably priced.

Like, say a game has a good storyline that's complete and everything, but in the store is "a hidden backstory" at 20% of the game's original price, but it's a slightly shorter version of the game with different characters and maps and stuff

If you're devoted to the game, you'd wanna see that, so it does seem fair to make it as a little "addon"

A DLC should never be either just a small extra stretch to a game, or something necessary for a game to feel complete. It should be lengthy, and something players will crave for after they finish the main game not to feel complete, but because the main game is simply that good in general. DLCs that I like that come to mind are Bethesda's, because their DLCs actually take up a lot of time despite delivering the same gameplay (which is all about exploring new places anyway, so it's all good); DLCs that can be finished in a couple of hours or so are the worst imo. I also don't think I'd pay for characters in a fighting game/that will replace the protag but keep the same environments and story flow.

Bioshock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode 1, as much as I find the gameplay fun, is a pretty disappointing DLC imo, because it hardly adds anything new to the game mechanics and it's pretty short. Bioshock Infiite's Burial at Sea Episode 2 though, adds a whole lot of things to the fray and really delivers a punch with its story, one of the best DLCs I believe, because it feels like a mini-sequel.

The best way to do dlc is basically just the way that Bethesda does it. Releasing entirely new content made after the fact to an already complete game. You see this with skyrim, fallout 3 and nv, and dishonored. All of them were already fun, complete, we'll made games long before the dlc came out. The dlc just added to an already fun experience, rather than forcing me to pay extra to get something that already should have been there.

As far as the best free to play model goes, I'd say that tf2 did that perfect. The game is perfectly fun even if you don't have a single hat or weapon unlock, but the best thing about all the cosmetics and weapons is that the random drops can give you nearly anything that you could buy in the store. In my whole time playing tf2, I have only bought 1 item in the store, but I have unlocked simply by playing the game, a multitude of weapons and cosmetics. I am not forced to pay to get anything other than a few store only items like keys, and through playing the game and being patient, I can get nearly any item I want. In addition, the trading mechanic allows me to break down extra weapon drops Into scrap metal and trade it for anything, including stranges unusuals and cosmetics of any kind, all without spending a single penny.

DLC was never really an appreciated word among the playerbase, even if it was justified. There's the Borderlands series DLC lists that comes to my mind when I think of that.
The first game had four, with a GOTY later released with all of them together with the main game, and is still for a good price now. The problem here was with the ending, which one had to look into the last DLC for that, but I won't spoil anything from it. That's a bad choice.
The second game currently has four main DLCs that tell their own tale, as the ending itself was satisfying by its own rights, and those DLCs actually add little to everything. The other DLCs of the second game are: A battle arena, two new characters with new playstyles, two level cap rises with a harder mode, and 5 miniquests. Clearly you can see that the second game did better on that topic, and you don't even have to buy them to play through the game. If you want the achievements/trophies/stackedshit, be my guest. As guessed, it also has a GOTY, with all of the above aside from the miniquests, but they are pretty cheap and don't really add anything so you can skip them if you want, but they can be fun too. The GOTY is priced like almost any new game, and with sales soon…
Speaking of that, you can challenge Raid Bosses, which are pretty much this game's Bonus Bosses. Without anything, you get one you can replay at anytime, and the second you have to be extra lucky and patient. Not every DLC adds one, and if you have a friend who has the battle arena, you can just play with them and get the rewards from there, saving you the money. The miniquests give one per each as far as I know, and one of them has the communities' favorite crab boss from the first game.

In short, if its fun to you, go get it. If it's cheap and fun, even better. I didn't put Borderlands 1.5 because… It's more of a separate minititle, like Farcry's Blood Dragon. If it follows the Borderlands current formula, think about it.

I judge it based on what I get for the money. Take Need for Speed Rivals, for instance. I like the game, and was excited when they announced Ferrari and Lamborghini add-on packs… that is, until I realized that they were going to charge $4 for 2 cars or $6 for 4 cars WITHOUT adding any new events or areas of the map. You add on the Jaguar pack and the movie pack and you wind up spending $24 dollars for 16 cars and nothing else. They did a better job with the Most Wanted DLC, where for the price you got 5 new cars, new events for every car in the game, and a new area of the map.

On the other hand you have Mario Kart 8. They offer 16 new tracks, 6 new characters, and a fuckton of new kart customization options for only $12. That's essentially doubling the size of the game for 1/5 the cost of the original, whereas NFS was giving you very little for 2/5 the cost of the original.

pretty much based on how much gameplay value you can get out of it.

DLC´s that can add even days and weeks of gameplay are pretty much the required for me to accept the DLC for a high price (there needs to be a limir, like not anymore than 15 bucks.

small dlcs that add non-required cosmetics im ok with too cause, well they are just hats i dont need to advance in the game or lock more gameplay content so for all i care it could be $60 bucks.

also 4 dollar dlc´s that add like little here and there (guns, sidequest, etc) need to be really good for me to accept and they need to be moderate, fucking 10 4 dollar dlc´s to add 1 sidequest is fucking ridiculous.

i do hate when DLC´s add alot but then i discovered those things were in previous games for free (like civ 5) that kind of leaves me more bitter but i will maybe go for it.

Last edited Sep 30, 2014 at 11:51AM EDT

Good

  • DLC that adds a substantial amount of content for a reasonable price
  • DLC that is free

Neutral

  • DLC that is cosmetic, but optional

Bad

  • Day 1 DLC
  • On-disc DLC
  • DLC that is overpriced
  • DLC that gives an advantage to whoever buys it

RandomMan wrote:

I don't mind DLC that much, except day-one DLC. It also depends on the pricing.

Nintendo is great with DLC pricing: Mario Kart and Hyrule Warriors are good examples. Get all the DLC, and both games extend to like 140% of what you bought at launch. The pricing is fair as well. (Hyrule Warriors' season pass was just 15 euros for me, and it's 20 dollars in the US, so this opinion might differ.)

People tend to hate costume DLC, but I really don't see the problem with them. They add nothing to the game, so what's there to miss. Sure, it's a stupid extra it could've easily put in the game, but you really won't miss any experience without it. It's up to the player if they're willing to spend that small few bucks (hell, I spend more on coffee in a week than the average costume pack costs).

Day-one DLC is bullshit, and just a cheap way to make more money, especially when they're almost required for a full experience. A day-one season pass is a different thing, because it keeps you updated with new stuff over an extended period of time after the game's release.

15 euro ≈ 18.94 USD
So no, not really.

Also, I think the main reason behind the derision for costume DLC (not that I would necessarily know- I don't really play these kinds of games) is that the buyer typically expects the ability to make their character look the way they want to be an essential, non-negotiable feature.

0.9999...=1 wrote:

15 euro ≈ 18.94 USD
So no, not really.

Also, I think the main reason behind the derision for costume DLC (not that I would necessarily know- I don't really play these kinds of games) is that the buyer typically expects the ability to make their character look the way they want to be an essential, non-negotiable feature.

The conversion isn't exact. It's priced $20 in the states, so they upscaled it a bit.


Well, I can't really add too much more than what everyone else already said. Mayro Kratt 8 is perfect and even though I thought Hyrule Warriors was a bad one at first, I now take that back and say it's pretty good since even though it's a day one purchase, it'll take half a year to actually be released. It also doubles the size of the game so there's that.

I don't mind DLC costumes, music packs, other cosmetic things as long as there's not metric fucktons of them. Warriors Orochi 3 was bad about that. There were probably close to 20 separate DLC costume packs, maybe more. Those in addition to music packs (really just songs from older Musou games), additional weapon packs (most of which were joke weapons like squeaky hammers, bug nets, and the like), and fucktons of levels. (Though the levels are not part of the main story and are really meant for after you complete it, plus some of them are fricking awesome.)

"Cheat" DLC is never okay. Dead Rising 2: Off the Record comes to mind, where the console versions had some DLC that let you do stupid things in sandbox mode like big heads or invincibility. You know, the things that were just button codes back in the day? Not cool. Some games have freebie "booster" DLC that gives you bonus resources or money or whatever. Those are fine, but I still prefer to avoid them if at all possible.

I take the same stance with micropayments in F2P games. Costume items and convenience things like temporary XP boosters are cool by me. Buying "keys" to random item crates, such as with TF2, not okay. Too close to gambling for my taste; in fact I'm pretty sure that's gone to court in the UK for at least one game. But I'm slightly off-topic.

If you want to see the perfect example of DLC, look at Civ 5: Brave New World and XCOM EU:Enemy Within. Both of those DLCs have a ridiculous amount of content that add hours and hours of gameplay. They enhance the game so much, I wouldn't recommend those games without their DLC.

But on the topic of DLC in general, I don't really expect much from most DLCs. I don't really buy a lot (But according to Steam I own 52 with 118 games) of DLC so I don't really get into it that much. DLC for cosmetics I'm fine with if it's a lot of shiny stuff for a small price that I could afford. "Time-saving" DLC where you can buy all the weapons like what Battlefield did I can also be fine with. If something is going to take a long time and I don't have a lot of time to play, I may as well buy it so I can enjoy the game without having to grind (I've never bought any of those, though). Any DLC that is reasonably priced and adds content though is a must buy for me. For Skullgirls they've added new characters for 5 bucks each (Which are also free for about the first 3 months), and I can't resist buying them if I didn't get it free. Overall I'm fine with it, but if it doesn't add a lot or doesn't feel like I'm getting my money's worth, I won't get it.

Also I would like to bring up Evolve (A 1v4 game with multiple classes) is being made so it can release the most amount of DLC a game has ever seen. How does everyone feel about that?

@RandomMan
My problem with costume/skin DLC is more the fact that I usally want to have a game in an as complete as possible state. I don't want to buy it, but I don't want to not have the 'full game', as stupid as that is.

It's the same with games that have stuff you have to unlock via multiplayer (for example on a portable when nobody besides you has the game) or with stuff like Dragon Quest IX, where you need to get stuff via WiFi (which isn't available on DS anymore).
It's just annoying for me personally.

Before there was DLC, there were Expansion Packs.

Remember those?

If DLC simply continues the trend of Expansion Packs then I don't have a problem. It's simply adding more worthwhile content on top of the existing complete game to fleece it out further and rejuvinate the experience, only now I don't have to buy another box

But where I do have a problem is when DLC is less an expansion of a complete game and more the second half of an unfinished game.

I.E: The game experience is broken without it.

…And then that DLC is massively overpriced

…And then that DLC comes on a disc instead of being actually downloadable

…And then that DLC doesn't fully integrate with the original game


Actually I'll just echo what Philip. J. Fry said since I pretty much fully agree on his stance:

Good

  • DLC that adds a substantial amount of content for a reasonable price
  • DLC that is free

Neutral

  • DLC that is cosmetic, but optional

Bad

  • Day 1 DLC
  • On-disc DLC
  • DLC that is overpriced
  • DLC that gives an advantage to whoever buys it
Last edited Oct 03, 2014 at 02:37AM EDT
Skeletor-sm

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