DLC abuse

[Dr Namgge]

One of the best dev's for DLC was probably Criterion, the makers of Burnout Paradise. They gave away a butt tonne of stuff for free under the proviso of "it was going to be on the disk anyway, but we ran out of time". This included new vehicles, goals, game modes, and so on. They later went on to develop actual new content, and began selling that, including a new region, new cars, and more new modes for online play. That's the good kind of DLC, the kind where there's extras for people who want more, but the main game isn't completely unplayable without it, and some freebies are offered for loyal customers as an incentive to keep playing.

However they did offer the worst kind of DLC too. One of the things you could buy was "all cars unlocked". Pretty much, if you wanted to part with (I think) 400msp, the game would let you just buy all the cars that you otherwise unlock in playing the game. This sort of bribing your way to victory is the kind that I dislike. As much as I hate on disk stuff, it's the "pay money for stuff that gives you an advantage" that annoys me.

 

[Therumancer]

Which of course doesn't mean that they were right to do things that way, and your talking about things developed in the 2000s when the problems were starting to appear. A company should not be developing expansion material before the core product is released.

What's more, this isn't a situation where the DLC is being released as part of a seperate, expansion pack, when it was planned. This is content that was developed with the game, and put on the disc. Had "Burning Crusade" been on the original WoW discs we would have seen this entire issue much sooner.

... it was.

Mount Hyjal for Burning Crusade and Cataclysm was on the orginal data files off the disk. Silver moon city, the Ghostlands, gilnaes, karazhan... a lot of content which was only unlocked later in the games history can be found in the orginal data files.

Data Mining the WoW files have become a common practice and is often used to theorize what is held in the future of the World of Warcraft.

There are Data files hidden in wow refrencing the emerald dream, leading many to think that we may see an expansion dedicated to that. there are data files and map refrences of a complex beneith karazhan, which was dubbed karazhan 2.0, yet to be used.

If a company plans long term support for a game, you can be certain content for future expansions are being developed at the same time as the orginal game. Fallout 3 and New Vegas saw key development of its expansions done at the same time as the game proper.

Drawing analogies to other industries, producing physical products, is like comparing apples and oranges. Especially seeing as the gaming industry existed in a viable form before DLC even became viable, it's not like these later developments were in any way nessicary to the industry, simply a useful tool, which has moved away from it's initial intent to become a tool for cash gouging.

Like it or not I know a LOT about how the game industry works, people tend to forget but there have been people talking about the games industry and how games are produced and made, and the relationships between developers, publishers, and even independant companies for decades now. The thing is that most people don't really get it, and those that do who have been following it for a very long time (like me) and call the industry on BS, tend to get ignored by those who simply look at the most current reasons and explanations given. Things that have less to do with realities, than companies trying to justify whatever move they are making at the moment.

it is hard to say you know a lot about the industry when you can't see the parallels between the game industry and other production industries.

simple run through.
A project is split into multipule stages.
Pre-production, Production, Testing, release.

Each stage is worked on by an team of individuals whom are specialized at doing that specific task.

concept artists, designers, and planners in pre-production.
Engineers, mechanics, and workers in Production.
Analysts, scientists, and focus groups in Testing.
Representatives and publishers in release.

diffrent fields may call it diffrent things.
In magazines: Layout, Type, Edit, Print.
In Cars: Concept, Prototype, Auto Safty Testing, Manufacture.

but it is all the same.
and it comes down to the same result.

your people working Pre-production are not going to be working on the project when it enters the next stage of its development.

an Artist is not going to be a big help when your engineers are trying to prototype a design. And it is kinda problematic if you have your printer trying to edit your articles during print on a magazine.

Now in the well establish industries of printing and car making, the process of rotating a team around products is rather well established and not really questioned.

While you have your researchers and writers filling out articles for one issue you have your layout designers already working on the next one, and your editors correcting the previous one.

While you are testing a prototype of a 2 door sedan, your engineers will be making modifications to alter the car into a 4 door sedan.


This rotation hasn't existed too well in the rather infantile game design world... As one team is finished they are usually laid off or sent to do completely diffrent project with diffrent people altogether, maybe even with a diffrent studio.

So, if you start making DLC or expansions after a game is released you would be very hard pressed to get the same team together. This leads to expansions and DLC having a completely diffrent feel, or being incoherent or controdictary with the orginal content. Such as seeing the addition of imbalanced or over powered items...

with DLC the game design world is starting to hit this stride where a studio can rotate its design team on the same project so that the same look and feel is carried through out the entire process.

Once Pre-production for the core game is done, the Pre-production team starts working on DLC for that project instead of being shuffled off to who knows where.

and because a majority of this DLC is much smaller in nature, often these things are finished well in advance of the core game or the final release. This ultimatly feeds into the issue of packaging optimization as i mentioned earlier, and tends to be a reason you see on-disk DLC.


like i said.
differnce in perspective.

you don't have this point of view, so you don't see it that way.

However, the same Data-Mining has yielded a lot of false leads, and what your seeing there is differant from having ALL of the content present, so much as the potential to expand the game. WoW had an existing world/lore before it became an MMO and they designed the game with links with which they could expand it to other geographical areas. They also, unlike most other games, made the "mistake" of allowing their game to be modded, actually encouraging people to create mods and hacks, and to dig through the files, with some of the code being found intended to spark discussion. It's a bit differant than locking characters out of a fighting game until you pay to unlock them.

As far as the rest of what your saying goes, I understand entirely what your saying, and the logic, the problem is that it has no bearing on the gaming industry and digital distribution. Especially seeing as other industry involves actual, physical products, with an inherant, tangible value, which changes things on a fundemental level given what the consumer is actually buying. The potential for exploitation is no where near the same as with entirely virtual products where the industry argues the consumer never actually owns or has control over anything to begin with.

What's more the gaming industry has existed before the current technology became availible, and it is what is fueling this kind of gouging, which is occuring despite statements that this is NOT what would be happening should the technology be embraced.

In the end your basic arguement is that companies by their nature are out to screw the customer. There is some truth to that, but it does not make it right, and beins screwed, is still being screwed, no matter how it's justified in terms of their operations. What matters is the end result, not the song and dance about how they got there.

That said I do have some hopes that people are slowly catching on, and a lot of this digital exploitation is about to stop. While not directly related, I do notice that the BBB has black marked EA for false advertising, and that Apple just lost it's fight with Amazon over the right to work with publishers to work with publishers to engage in price fixing. It's a slow process, but I think we're getting to the point where we are going to wind up with some major blows being landed against exploitation via DLC before too long. No matter how people try and justify it, wrong is wrong.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

But their all "only dlc" to their respective franchise your either a hypocrite, or an idiot.

Please point out tto me where I mentioned a goddamn thing about Crysis, CoD, or any "sports games". (Hint: You won't be able to.) How can I be hypocritical about a statement I never fucking made?

PROTIP: Read the fucking thread (or in this case, literally just two posts before mine) before you start jumping in guns blazing.

Its logical extension, i apologise for applying logic to somebody who clearly doesn't understand it. If you accuse one thing of such a blatant nonsense, then the only fair way to see the rest of the industry is through those eyes, and all the things mentioned are more deserving of the random diss you hurled toward valve.

But again you probably don't understand all of this and just wanted to make a hurp durp styled insult toward them.

"I don't actually have any proof of you saying what I claim you did, but I'm just going to flail around and toss in the words "logical extension" to make it seem like you did, so ha!"

Did I miss anything there? I don't think I did. If I talk about Valve games, it means that....well, I'm fucking talking about Valve games, not Call of Duty, not Crysis. Is this difficult for you to understand? For someone who claims to be so much more smarter than me, you're acting a bit dim right now...

You're nothing more than opinionated, biased, and to be honest, pretty offensive. It's obvious to me the only reason you're trying so hard to straw-man what I'm saying is because you're deeply offended that I didn't give praise to a Valve game(s).

EDIT: Just to add to the ridiculousness of your so-called logical exntension, what you're saying is that I claim that the iPad 2 specifically was nothing more than a tiny upgrade onto the original iPad tablet, then I am (by your so-called logical extension) also claiming that every single tablet in the world only gets a "tiny upgrade" from it's original design/predecessor. Because that makes so much sense, right?

 

[LiquidSolstice]

This is why I like valve.

Dlc is free.

Not too difficult when almost your entire line of games are nothing more than DLC to Half Life or Half Life 2.

Not to mention: you also own the distribution channel.

Gasp! Logical criticism of the almighty Valve! Can it be?

This is the issue I take with Valve fans. I get that there's much to love, but say anything less than perfect about it, and you get pounced on (like the other guy who's trying to tell me that I said something about a franchise that I never mentioned or even hinted at).

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Your perfectly allowed to not like the games,

Certainly. Unfortunately, I never actually said anything about not liking the Valve games, but seeing as you're content with rewording what I say, don't let that stop you...

but hurp durping some random insult that you refuse to apply to games which are far more guilty of

It wasn't a random insult, it was an observation, much like your statement of "far more guilty of". Try to keep up, will you?

makes you a massive hypocrite.

Making an observation about a specific thing and not suddenly applying it to whatever you feel like coming up with makes me a hypocrite. Got it.

If your not capable of seeing that then not only are you a hypocrite your also not capable of rational thought.

Well fuck, here I was thinking that the words I type out are exactly what I mean. Here's the deal, homeboy, I haven't made a single fucking remark about what I think of CoD or Crysis. None. Whatsoever. All I'm saying (which you feel incredibly determined to ignore) is that when I make a remark about Valve games, I am making said remark.....about Valve games. Please get that into your head.

(and its smarter or much more intelligent at least use proper sentence structure)

This coming from someone who frequently places the word "their" instead of "there", "your" where "you're" should go, can't even spell "herp derping" right. Please don't fucking patronize me on sentence structure when you can't even spell properly...

Seriously, keep this coming. It's nice to unwind a late night by reading jokes on the interwebs. I like to laugh

 

[LiquidSolstice]

ok il break it down for you in baby steps because thats apparently what you need.

No, let me break it down for you.

Me: I made a comment about Valve games.
You: BUT WHAT ABOUT CRYSIS COD OMG HYPOCRITE.
Me. No seriously, it was about Valve games.
You: BUT WHAT ABOUT CRYSIS COD OMG HYPOCRITE.
Me: I'm fucking serious, it was about Valve games.
You: BUT WHAT ABOUT CRYSIS COD OMG HYPOCRITE.
Me: .....

If i say i don't like this dish because it has onions in, i can't then turn around and not levy that same criticism towards other dishes that contain onions.

Yes, THIS fucking dish. Not "other dishes that contain onions". THIS fucking dish. As in, the dish that's sitting the fuck in front of me. Why is why I said THIS.

Now if you need a bit more spelling out onions in this example would be games with only very minor changes to the engines.

Aside from the hilarious irony of you using the word "spelling", you're still failing to realize that my original comment had nothing to do with any other game. Holy shit.

But please do keep hurp durping away. Dislike whatever you want, just don't lie or apply different standards to suit your needs.

This is fucking pathetic. I never expressed any likes or dislikes (I'd ask you to show me where I said anything about liking or disliking Valve games, but you'd probably just make something up for that too), I never made any standards, I never said a single goddamn thing about anything else except Valve games. Get it in your goddamn head.

Hell if you wanted to say you disliked the engine (which is fine aesthetic choice and all that) that too would be fine, in fact that would be a valid complaint compared to your pre-pubescent whining.

For fuck's sake...stop reading so goddamn far into it, man! I didn't say something absolutely perfect about something you obviously like, and I'M the one whining?

Also, while we're still talking about spelling and grammar structure, it's spelled "prepubescent", with no hyphen.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Look, before you waste any more time trying to explain to me what a tool I am (or whatever insult you have lined up next), you're reading way too far into a statement I made about Valve games.

You're inserting comparison to other games, you're injecting what you think my opinion is, you're basically changing what I've said into something I did not say, and you're so adamantly convinced you know what I think you're fighting that perception you have and it's not getting you anywhere.

The statement that Valve games are pretty much DLC is not filled with any opinion, any malice, any ill intent, or anything else. It's just an observation, an observation that you are taking WAY out of context and you're making yourself look ridiculous in the process.