The Age Of DLCs - How I Wasted USD$10, Yet Again

In ye olde days, PC games would get released, with maybe 4 to 5 subsequent patches(or more depending on just how buggy a game is) and the development studio would call it quits there. From then on, the community takes over producing new content and mods for a game. Today, publishers look forward to extend the lifespan of a title by releasing Downloadable Content for their 'products'. Not quite expansion packs and it has become a trend now that they cost money. Why? Because it sells...


It's A Money Game

Publishers make more money from their franchise, and for a much longer time. The traditional life cycle of a game release is no more as publishers compete with each other to make sure you... the gamer, plays their game for as long as possible. I suppose DLCs really are a PC thing and console have the PC to thank for the deluge of DLCs for the latest man shoot game. Updating games, patches, user made content available online are all PC centric things.

Quake III Had A Tonne Of User Made Content

The new generation consoles only introduced rather in a delayed fashion the architecture for releasing DLCs on their platforms. It was inevitable really. Production costs were sky-rocketing, triple A game development studio numbered in double digits or worse hundreds. There was way too many mediocre games on the market(something we are still facing) and game shelf life only lasted a few month after release.

All this meant the PC games market took a hit, with major publishers cutting down on development for the platform. Piracy was thrown around quite often as a way of justifying the cost to revenue ratio that was increasingly becoming wider and the hesitance to support the PC. But the answer was just around the corner with Valve’s Steam online digital distribution platform. Valve had an idea… all the other publishers quickly jumped on the digital distribution bandwagon as they realised it was a tremendous opportunity to feed in extra content for their products directly to the consumer without any middle man.

DLCs And Cost Versus Value

It is important to distinguish just what DLCs are. They are not expansion, which add a considerable amount of content and normally sells for about half the price of the full game(expansions are common for strategy and RPG games). DLCs add content to the game… that’s basically it. However, how much content is a point of contention for many consumers.

For RPG’s Bioware has been known to release DLC’s that add some 5 to 6 hours of new quests for about USD$10. For strategy games, new campaign that add considerably more hours without adding any new mechanic. For multiplayer centered first person shooters, maps are a popular choice as DLCs. The content of these DLCs will take probably 2 month(or 3) of development time and a much smaller team.

I don't even know this game anymore

If you think about it from the cost of production to revenue ratio, DLCs make more money for the publishers. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again here… it means ‘less for more’. You pay USD$10 for content that is significantly smaller and shorter than what a full blown expansion would offer. If you added DLCs together, even two DLC would not equal one proper expansion. But people lap this stuff up. I do know quite well that DLCs are NOT expansions.

We gamers, have become content to accepting this reduction of value in the games we purchase. The common argument is that, this is just extra content. So it is more than what you would get from games… awesome right! But the line between acceptable and downright milking of a franchise is blurry. How much content does a game have at release? Was the content released as DLCs could have been released as a free update? Or could it have been part of the game on launch?

Shale could have been an actual party member in Dragon Age

And then there is the question of Day one DLCs, which I've written about here. Content that gets released as a DLC on the release day of a game. Again, Bioware in particular is fond of this. To be fair though, development for their games get wrapped up a month or two before the release date and DLC development probably ramps up when most work for the main game is finished. However, this distinction between how early the development of a DLC is hard to make.

These days, with the rise of free to play games(no longer limited to the Asian market), DLC’s have taken to selling smaller less significant items. Vanity items as DLCs… weapons, costumes, skins, even units all sold for a pittance. Even if these may seem cheap, they make even more money for the publishers as the effort to produce them is so meagre that the 1 or 2 dollar price point is a big revenue maker.

The Good

I like how Valve does it though. All DLCs that add huge content are free for everyone. In game items however, thanks to Team Fortress 2, can cost quite a bit. Valve decided that DLC content should be free for everyone but as part of their micro transaction experiment, wouldn’t mind selling you the coolest hat or boxing glove. They've incorporated a similar scheme with Portal 2 and I expect them to do the same for many of their upcoming titles(even if it takes them ages to release them).

Not quite DLC, but a small expansion at the price of a DLC.
IronClad Games gets it!

Not many publishers are big fans of releasing content for free though and would love to monetize just about everything(except patches… they won’t go that far quite just yet). CD Projekt is another developer/publisher that releases free content(huge graphics/engine overhauling updates) for The Witcher and The Witcher II. They’ve released enhanced editions that are gigabytes of update that make their awesome game even better… for free for everyone who owns their games.

I’ve railed on about how DLCs reduce the value of consumers money, but despite my hesitation to jump on the DLC hype, there are definitely some good points from them. DLCs have helped out indie developers quite a bit. Case in point Arcen Games AI War: Fleet Command which was released to some critical acclaim within the hardcore strategy gaming crowd did quite well selling DLCs… basically mini expansion which added a whole new bunch of content, factions, weapons, even mechanics.

Dungeon Defenders is addictive and has a load of DLCs.
I can't complain about the main game lacking because of DLCs.

Ironclad Games, developers of Sins of A Solar Empire release micro expansion that cost you only 10 dollars but added new dynamic and mechanics into the game. Huge game changers. Or even the recently released Dungeon Defenders, a third person tower defence game which sold you DLC packs. I must admit we do have a bias towards helping out an indie as opposed to the mega publishers. If it’s indie, we don’t mind paying for vanity item DLCs, or new maps, or weapon packs.

DLCs Are Here To Stay

So despite even my vehement detestation for DLCs, I know for a fact… it’s here to stay. Whether for good or bad, DLCs will continue to be plowed out to us consumers, some offering great value, others proving to be controversial. Expect to see more in game stores for games that you bought that sell you insignificant items(this is especially true for particularly multiplayer games, it doesn't make sense if you buy a cool hat for a single player game). Some companies will make more mediocre DLCs for their RPGs, with recycled art, textures, and levels. Some will rise from the crud of bad DLCs and make their games as platforms. The good developers realise this and make good use of it. The bad ones use the phrase 'games are platforms' as press releases and fail to master it. I'll just keep skipping these DLCs unless I find a particular developer worthy of support that puts out DLCs worth the money.