DLC has become a huge part of the gaming industry, and isn’t likely to be going away any time soon. After writing the new of the pre-announced DLC for The Bureau it got me thinking about the rationale behind DLC, if it’s good, bad or both and just how important it is for the industry itself.
I can see the rationale behind it from a publisher/developers point of view. It’s the same thought process that lead to Microsoft’s catastrophic DRM policy. To put it simply; money. But from a gamers perspective DLC can be a great thing. Some content really adds to a game, can elongate a great title that’s getting stale and others can totally provide a new experience and good value for money at the same time.
So, why DLC? Why do publishers spend time and money on smaller, cheaper updates to an existing title rather than putting those resources into sequels or new I.P’s? In the financial year 2012-2013 digital content sales, including online passes and content (but not games) came in at $2.2 billion. Yup. Billion. In 2009 EA took $575 million worth of revenue from DLC according to John Schappert, EA’s Chief Operating Officer in 2010. In the last quarter of the financial year EA made $224 million from add-on content and content in free-to-play games which was well over a third of their total digital revenue, and was over $125 million more than was made from digital distribution of full games.
DLC can also help to sell retail units, way after a game has been released. Despite Skyrim being out for over a year, it was frequently in the Top 20 charts, and not just because it was a highly rated, high profile game. By Bethesda taking an approach to DLC more similar to that it took towards Fallout than Oblivion, and by giving consumers choice to buy the content in stores it kept the game relevant and profitable long after launch.
Online passes are another fairly despised part of the digital distribution game with even EA dropping their requirement to purchase passes to access the online features of used games. I have to admit that I have some sympathy with publishers at this point. Curse me if you must, but I think they have a valid point.
The used software/hardware market is huge, $2.4 billion in the U.S last financial year, and publishers get no slice of that despite the fact that it’s their intellectual property being bought and sold. I think online passes are a fairly good way of trying to get back some of that revenue, for both the publishers and the consumers. The whole concept of online passes at least gives customers some choice in buying used and missing out on some content, or paying more out to get instant access to the whole game. I’m not particularly fussed about multiplayer-heavy games, so quite often wait a while and buy my games used.
Pre-order bonuses and Day One/On Disc DLC are by far the most controversial, and least popular forms of additional content. I understand why publishers want to give that extra incentive for consumers to shell out their hard-earned bucks before any objective reviews are published. If a game can get enough pre-orders it’s a big P.R coup for the marketing team, it’s guaranteed sales for the accounting and I’m sure it’s a massive ego boost for the guys who actually made the game. One game came with some pre-order DLC recently and it genuinely put me off buying the game new, never mind anywhere near release.
A difficulty level as DLC? No thank you Deep Silver
Metro: Last Light came with pre-order bonuses of a difficulty mode. Not a separate set of missions, just a difficulty mode. I loved Metro 2033, the book was fantastic, and the game really managed to capture the atmosphere, especially on the hardcore modes, so I was looking forward to the sequel and was relieved when it was rescued from the THQ fire sale. Then I saw that the hardcore modes were only available as a pre-order bonus, or I’d be able to pay for it at a later time, and it changed my mind instantly.
I can see the argument that developers have the right to hide things that are on the disc, it’s their product after all, and buying new means that the publisher gets it’s maximum cut. But. It’s such a sneaky thing to do, hiding content that is already finished and is already on the disc. If it’s DLC, make it downloadable only. Don’t let consumers hold it in their hands, but deny it to them.
Now the topic has changed from the reasons behind DLC to things that annoy me about it; DLC that has already been decided before the game has been released. Peter Hines, VP of Bethesda, recently said that gamers who complain about Day-One DLC “don’t … quite understand the development process” that goes into the big AAA titles. We understand, we just don’t appreciate it when additional content is advertised and explained before the game has even hit shelves. This creates the feeling that either the game isn’t finished or in a much more evil-money-grabbing-investment-banker situation, content is stripped back from the finished product to be released as paid DLC later.
Sometimes DLC can end up limiting a game for those who don’t want to, or can’t, afford to pay for it. I bought Battlefield 3 new after loving the beta. I blitzed through the single player and dove headlong into the multiplayer. Until the map packs started to arrive, I didn’t think they were value for money so didn’t invest. So, when I fire it up now I’m massively limited in the amount of servers that are available to me and as a result I don’t fire it up very often. I realise that this is through my own choice, but the concept of light-on-content but frequent, and not cheap, map packs is a disincentive for me when considering a new game.
Some DLC is great, and is fantastic value for money. I thoroughly enjoyed the DLC for Borderlands, the extra cases for L.A Noire added a few more hours to a masterpiece of a game and the Fallout 3 DLC took up an extra week of my life that I’m happy to have lost. Others are less impressive, Minerva’s Den for Bioshock 2 was a damp squib, I find map packs over-priced and there are so many frustrating pre-order bonuses. Whatever the quality, the quantity is only really set to increase. The only way that we, as gamers and consumers, will be able to get the quality to rise is by voting with our feet. In this case our hard earned cash.
[UPDATE] After publishing I was pointed towards an interview that Huw Beynon, Global Brand Manager for Koch Media (Deep Silver) gave to PC Gamer in which he explained that it was a “requirement by retail” that a pre-order bonus was included with Metro: Last Light. They chose hardcore mode as it would affect the least amount of players, and wouldn’t detract from the story. My criticism of Deep Silver is, of course, retracted, but the wider point of not buying into it, still stands.
The post The Good, The Bad and The DLC appeared first on Masonic Gamer.