Is anyone else tired of buying incomplete games?

[Patathatapon]

Ar first I thought this would be a bit more sensible. [del]Bioshock Infinite was fantastic and you should go fuck yourself for thinking it wasn't perfect[/del] I'm not that dumb.

Spoiler: Daisy Fitzroy

I don't think Daisy Fitzroy was much of a character to expand on really. She just wanted to kill Comstock etc., because they were enslaving them. Okay, it was a lot more complicated than that, but you get what I mean. Not much of a backstory, aside from the usual "I was a slave now fuck you" thing..

I know, for incomplete games, lets talk about KOTOR 2! That was shit.

 

[Signa]

I'm more pissed by the pulling of content like the creature dome in Borderlands 2. The spawn point it creates is a godsend for challenge hunters like myself. But nope, you have to either buy it separately, or buy the collector's edition. Good thing I got it for 66% off last week.

 

[rob_simple]

Oh, I thought this was going to be a thread about unfinished games, not just moaning about DLC.

Actual unfinished games, like Dark Void or Shadows of the Damned, annoy me, because of the potential that was squandered; presumably due to lack of budget/trying to get the game out in time to not bankrupt the studio. Ironically, in the case of games like that I would welcome DLC just to flesh out the story, and give the developers a bit more money to put towards their next project.

So no, I don't agree that there is a problem with your definition of incomplete games, nor do I think DLC is 'teh evilz', but unfinished games are a problem in the industry, mainly due to rapidly swelling budgets which are impossible to adhere to, never mind make a return on.

 

[teebeeohh]

your examples are terrible, the Dishonored DLC is a side-story that even in the good old days of large expansion pack probably would have been sold separately. Same goes for Bioshock. There are examples, like ME2 were the start of the sequel was a complete What? moment if you didn't play the DLC(while at the same time having one of the best pieces of DLC ever) or fighting games where they have characters locked on the disc.

 

[GoaThief]

As many have stated previously, the games you cited were certainly complete. If anything in the case of Dishonored, I'd rather the DLC focus elsewhere as Daud was the low point of the game for me. Felt almost cheesy but add "cool" masks to any character and it's a guaranteed love in with certain people.

 

[Ebonrul]

When I moved from PC to consoles back in the day, it was because of this. PC games were being released in a barely functional state. This wasn't restricted to a handful of middling to low quality games either, but some of the most highly praised games of their generation. Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, the original Fallout, Acanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura are just the ones I can come up with off the top of my head that were known not to work out of the box.

Playing a PC game in the late nineties:...
Take the game out of the box
Install the game
Note when and how it crashed, then take your complaints to the official forums where they would be summarily ignored
Pirate a working version

The argument then was to simply spend the extra hundreds of dollars for the hardware that would run it effortlessly, or patch the game yourself...whenever those patches were released. The reason most PC gamers love Steam (go ahead and quote forum posts that disagree, I'll be happy to quote quarterly earnings) is because it handles this automatically and unobtrusively. Buying a classic game and knowing that it will actually run when you have it is the only reason most Steam users even bother with the service.

Now, console developers (and AAA cross-platform developers too) are starting to realize again that they can advertise the game you want (and might one day be available) while selling you the game they can manage because, if we've learned anything from history, it's only that we haven't learned anything from history.

 

[___________________]

Yup. Screw DLC. DLC should be things that developers would add to the finished product if fans wanted a little something new. They could ask for insight to see what they wanted and if it could be done.

And NOT stuff that is already inside the game but is locked or stuff that is already made but is only released as overpriced DLC after the game comes out, or stuff that was intended to be made after the game was released.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

When a game goes "Gold", for mass distribution. Thats the final cut. Stuff that didn't make it into the game is usually unfinished side-story/plot stuff, the deleted scenes of games are usually content that didn't fit or wasn't finished enough.
DLC is also stuff developers work on post-Gold, which if you can think back about a generation, usually came as a full on expansion pack or never got released at all. And console games NEVER got this until the recent generation.
Now DLC is a cheaper way of delivering expanded content. Some of it probably is developed beyond the budget. So a company charging for it is well within their rights. Some companies choose to eat the cost and release it for free. Some require a subscription (MMO's) except for full on expansions.
Either way it isn't crap that is fully developed and "held back" to be sold as DLC. Except if you're Capcom and selling extra characters locked on the disc in SF4...
Other than that, the game itself you get is finished. Where it stands in a QA point of view is a different story, and the subsequent FREE patches they release post-release are to fix whatever issues the game is showing. And they do that work to maintain the game so it is playable, out of pocket and if they're on XBL, paying extra to distribute the patch.
Nothing wrong with a company saying "When we're done with the full game, we're planning on developing more content to expand on it for additional replayability, and selling at a reasonable price." (sometimes). They're well within their right to try to get back the extra money they put out to develop more stuff, and you're well within your rights not to buy it. It doesn't make the game unplayable.
Thats what "Unfinished" or "Incomplete" means when a game is released, its BROKEN, or otherwise prevents completion.
Half-Life 2 isn't unfinished if you don't own EP1-2. It is a full game, and you don't own the EXTRA content.

 

[00slash00]

I don't find them to be incomplete games at all. They're like mini expansion packs for people who played a game and decide they want more of it. Did you play Diablo 2? Did you get pissed when you realized there was an expansion pack or did you think to yourself, "Awesome! More Diablo 2 for me to experience!"? For me it was definitely the latter

 

[Kanova]

The only game I have seen that kind of is like that, is Pacific Rim. You only get Gipsy, Cherno and Typhoon for mechs, and leatherback and knife head for Kaiju. You have to buy a bunch of DLC that costs the same as the game itself to play as a few other characters.

 

[DarthFennec]

The reason that i find this so annoying is because it seems as if its just left out of the game, so that they can finish it later as a dlc.

As the alternative is pushing back the release date a few more months to get that stuff in before release, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with it. It's not an incomplete game; it would be an incomplete game if a dlc wasn't released.

 

[The_Echo]

God dammit.

A game isn't incomplete just because there's DLC content for it. Especially not games like BioShock Infinite and Dishonored. If those games had included the Daud content, or whatever Infinite plans to do (I'm hoping for Songbird and Handyman-focused content) then the games would be less focused and actually be worse as a whole. This content isn't required in the least to enjoy the plot of these games. It's just a little something extra for those who desire it.

That's not to say there haven't been games to keep imperative plot segments behind a paywall. Classic examples are Prince of Persia '08 and Asura's Wrath. The former sold its epilogue separate, while the latter had a whole other Part as DLC, with the Part coming before it ending on a cliffhanger so it wasn't as though you could ignore it.

But the idea that a game is inherently incomplete or unfinished on the grounds that the developer plans to continue support for the game through extra downloadable content down the line is just plain bullshit. Was World of Warcraft incomplete before The Burning Crusade was released? What about Skyrim before Dragonborn? Was Tekken 6 incomplete because there was a Yoshimitsu costume released as DLC?

Learn the difference between an incomplete game and a complete game withe extra, optional content. Because there is a difference.

You might as well be saying a movie is sold to you incomplete in theaters, because the DVD release will have deleted scenes.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Those aren't incomplete games. Being sold an incomplete game is what happens when you buy Asura's Wrath or the most recent Prince of Persia and have to pay for DLC just to see the real ending.

 

[Icehearted]

First, I disagree with and flatly reject OP's suppositions.

I see a lot of people barking about how a game isn't "incomplete" because it has DLC, which is kind of funny because that's mostly bullshit, and that's the attitude companies enjoy because they know they can fleece people with incomplete games loaded with DLC. Like good little apologists drinking the kool-aid.

My thought on incomplete was that it was about games that needed patching though. Some games, like Skyrim, are so terribly buggy that it's obvious the game was incomplete (some quests aren't even finish-able....at all).

Since this is more about DLC, how about LA Noire: Complete Edition? Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition?

What about this bullshit?
http://www.destructoid.com/assassin-s-creed-2-dlc-was-part-of-the-original-game-158512.phtml
I tried to find the escapist's link to basically the same story, but I couldn't.

And then there's Saints Row the Third and it's 40 weeks of DLC, including cheat codes, which used to be fucking free.
Or Mass Effect 2 and 3 and it's "outfits", again what used to be a feature in a game is actually now a thing they charge you for. My old NES games gave me free alternate outfits and cheat codes, so did my PlayStation, my PlayStation 2, my Xbox, Dreamcast, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD (yes, I still have one of those), Game Boy Advance, PSP, PC, for fuck's sake my cell phone even does it for free, even with it's "premium" games.

Then there's the shitloads of Day-1, such as:
Dragon Age Origins
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95305-Dragon-Age-Origins-DLC-Will-Be-Available-Day-One
Dead Space 3
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122564-Visceral-Defends-Dead-Space-3-DLC

And our favorite, on disc DLC:
Street Fighter X Tekken
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118328-Street-Fighter-X-Tekken-On-Disk-DLC-Dated
Metro: Last Light
http://www.screwattack.com/news/metro-last-light-disc-dlc-causing-quite-stir
Mass Effect 3
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116234-Day-One-DLC-Files-Appear-on-Mass-Effect-3-Discs

To that last point I give you Jim Sterling:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5625-On-Disc-DLC-Cannot-Be-Justified


Not to mention Season passes, which were, once upon a time unthinkable to gamers, now an accepted reality. Again, here's Jim:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6863-Previewed-Preordered-Prescrewed

If you are tired of being ripped off or at the very least feel you aren't getting what's appropriate (ie RIPPED OFF) you shouldn't buy their games and you should continue to ***** about it, even if you never bought the game. Complaining about something doesn't require that you own it. If you choose not to buy something because you think a feature or part of it is unfair or unworthy of your money, shutting up so that only the people that do like it can spend their time playing adulation and affirmations with one another in a big circle-jerk nothing would ever change, and sometimes companies will listen and course correct (I give you Microsoft and it's Xbox One as an example). You're best bet is to hold your cash, be more selective about who you support, and remember you don't have to play everything. Being a choosy buyer is like supporting economic and creative Darwinism, and that is a very good thing for the consumer.

 

[FoolKiller]

I haven't played Bioshock: Infinite, so I can't say, but faulting Dishonored is...a bit dishonourable, I think.

I really like how well you defended Dishonored, but was more impressed that you had the different spellings for Dishonored/dishonoured based on the situation.

Personally I can see the OP's point of view but at least in the case of Dishonored I believe he was wrong.

Now something like Assassin's Creed where they built in the "missing" memory module knowing that they will sell it to you down the line is something I start to question. And I get really annoyed when it ends up in a game like Final Fantasy. I think old style RPGs should be immune to DLC for the most part as the focal point is the story.

 

[ThriKreen]

When a game goes "Gold", for mass distribution. Thats the final cut. Stuff that didn't make it into the game is usually unfinished side-story/plot stuff, the deleted scenes of games are usually content that didn't fit or wasn't finished enough.

Sorry, that's incorrect.

"Gone gold" is when the game has passed certification by the publisher and hardware first parties: MS, Sony, and Nintendo. And has been verified to be working on the platform(s) it is to be released on. Term comes from the gold master disc image used to make images to stamp out the discs in manufacturing.

However there are still the content lockdown and release candidate/certification periods that occur anywhere from 2-6 months before going gold. It's probably safe to compare content lockdown as the alpha stage ("This is what the game is, just bug fix and polish existing, no new content"), and the cert state to be the beta (mostly working, almost ready for release).

Then there's the shitloads of Day-1, such as:
Dragon Age Origins http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/95305-Dragon-Age-Origins-DLC-Will-Be-Available-Day-One

Yeah so from what I said above, all the day 1 DLC for DA:O was done in the 6 months from lockdown to release. While Shale was cut from the main game due to various incompatibilities (size, etc), the alpha/beta periods allowed Shale to be reworked on for its free release. All the other stuff was brand new.

 

[TelHybrid]

Main DLC gripe I have is on-disc DLC. That should be illegal!!

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Does anyone else think that this whole dlc craze is getting a little out of hand? Sure they are adding content but they are providing it because they don't have complete characters.

You're catching a lot of flak, but I do sympathise with your point. You could've argued it a bit better though.

It does feel like games are built with dlc in mind. And some games do feel "light" on release.

Your response as a consumer should be straightforward: stop buying full price games on release. Wait until GotY editions (or similar) are released and buy those instead. I've been doing it for a couple of years now and it just feels better. It requires a bit more self control, but AAA games that are absolutely bug-free and have no blatant holes in their content for half the cost they were on release... aaaah, that's the stuff.

 

[WeepingAngels]

The vanilla version of a game is complete until DLC become available, then the DLC is required to make it complete. That's my opinion.

Many games are made with DLC in mind, sometimes they even announce the DLC months before the game comes out or they tell you something like "we have 2 years of DLC planned".