Achievment Unlocked-Paid for DLC
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that every new generation in gaming brings along more than just shiny new graphics. Genres rise and fall, consoles rise and fall, New IPs are born taking advantage of the unique offerings of the hardware of the generation, and old IPs get flashy new makeovers. And of course, there are new trends. Every innovation or idea spawns a new trend that goes along. The Nintendo Wii was a phenomenon, and the crappy titles that keep showing up to capitalize on its sales is a trend. The popularity of the cover system soared with Gears of War, and soon turned into a trend for third person shooters. Some trends, like the latter, move gaming forward by making what was once the USP a base standard.
But trends can be evil too. Look at the relatively new trend of Sony-exclusive developers claiming that their game can ‘only be done on the PS3’. Such shamelessly bullish attempts at marketing the Playstation 3 are bound to turn some of its ardent supporters off and drive fanboys into a frenzied ‘cyber-wars’. That’s because such claims (and many of the other not-so-brilliant trends) are often based on a simple illogical premise: The consumer can be fooled into believing whatever the developer says, simply because the latter has more information.
But I’m here to talk about a different trend, though it has been built on a similar premise of taking consumers for a ride. This trend known as Downloadable Content has become especially relevant in the seventh generation of console gaming. Expansions and Add-ons have been commonplace in PC gaming for a long time. However, the advances in online gaming on consoles have brought DLC to the limelight.
On paper it’s a win-win situation. The consumer gets new content for his favourite game by paying a nominal fee. And the developer will always earn a higher margin on DLC because of the fewer intermediaries involved between the developer and the consumer. But the money-mongering ways of many publishers has turned DLC into a bit of a joke in many cases. And I’m not even talking about the pricing here. That in itself is a whole new can of worms.
Let’s look at the evil deeds of Capcom first (for obvious reasons – they are the easiest to bash on this subject). While it’s not possible to conclusively prove whether the Versus mode of Resident Evil 5 was on the disc or not, the file size of the download suggests the likelihood of it being an key than actual content. And if this was the case, then Capcom pretty much killed the whole purpose of downloadable content. And Capcom aren’t the only culprits here. (SPOILERS) Did anyone else apart from me find the jump from memory block 11 to memory block 14 a bit jarring in Assassin’s Creed 2? (SPOILER ENDS) And now we have the Bonfire of the Vanities and Battle for Forli downloadable content serving as the missing chapters. In this case, the developers admitted that the content was removed from the game because of ‘shortage of time’. While their claim that no one should complain given the sheer quantity of content that has been offered through the retail release is valid, that’s not the point here. DLC is supposed to be strictly post-release support. And the fact that developers are removing content from the retail version only to offer it later as DLC is extremely disturbing. Needless to say that this is one trend which needs to go away… and fast!
But that’s not all. When developers are not cutting content to offer later as DLC, they are talking about the DLC. It’s no secret that the production cycle of video games is such that it allows for the development of post release content before the game actually releases. But do they really have to talk about it so much? It almost feels like a waiter taking an order for my next three visits to the restaurant, when all I want to know about is the special for today. Yes, it is very encouraging to know that the developer has full intent to support the gamers after the game is done, but such intricate detailing on what’s coming after the game releases for almost every game that hits the market these days can be unnerving, especially when what I really want is the false impression that all efforts of the developer are concentrated on the retail release.
Next Page – The Battle for exclusivity and a peek at the future
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