Jimquisition: Downloadable Discontent

[Jimothy Sterling]

Downloadable Discontent

You don't have to hate downloadable content to avoid ever buying the stuff. Even heartfelt fans of the concept can be thoroughly turned off, and it's all thanks to the idiots trying to sell it.

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[LordMonty]

Have to agree on everything said. But will mention on the 'good dlc' list that Bioshock Infinate's next bit of coolness looks totally worth imvesting in. Burial at Sea looks like well thought out and planed dlc, reminds me of farcry's Blood dragon in its complete standalone nature. Much better than some skins or extra multiplayer maps.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Well it's about time, after you delayed this episode to bash your audience who didn't do anything to that Hepler woman, and the ones who did will have likely never even seen your episode.

 

[Akytalusia]

and now i'm more glad i don't have anything to do with modern AAA titles. i had no idea it was this bad. that's just terrible. i think i'll just keep living in the old days when everything but graphics were better.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Used the hitcher from The Mighty Boosh in the vid. lol.

http://youtu.be/lodxyZvLSc0

DLC in itself is awesome. But companies rip people off with the prices. When the 360 was first released i thought DLC was going to be an online thing where gamers could create and sell stuff. Like the Forza market place where you sell designs and cars. So if you liked WWE games, you could sell your character created version of Hogan to other gamers.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

What's worse is when a company releases a ton of DLC all at once with premium pricing and doesn't bother making a discounted DLC bundle. Now if you want it all, not only do you have to pay $2.50 - $5.00 for every costume/weapon skin/map/character, but you have to do so one at a time.

 

[Signa]

I remember when Oblivion came out, I was completely soured on DLC in all forms. Things that had been free user mods suddenly cost money, and I didn't even get a physical item to hold for my purchase. It took until Steam sales to warm me up even mildly to the idea of buying something and got getting a tangible product in return. Still, on the Xbox 360, I would have been even more hesitant, because once that console dies, your account with Microsoft goes with it. At least with Steam you can always log in and get your purchases as long as Valve is still around.

 

[Legion]

Preaching to the choir, but very well said.

The sad thing is if they charged $1/£1 for those aesthetic DLC packs they would still make a ridiculous profit margin compared to what it cost to actually make it. Simple things such as costumes don't take that much work once the core design is done.

Pop-ups or announcements that DLC is available while in-game is inexcusable, I am not even sure that kind of crap should be allowed to be honest, you couldn't get away with it in any other form of entertainment. Imagine a film where a little pop-up came up mentioning a sequel is out soon, or a song where a voice over announced something similar.

I am somewhat surprised you hate Season Passes though. I don't see anything wrong with the passes themselves seeing as they have (so far) always been kept around even after the DLC is released. By that point you can see what the DLC is like and if you want all of it you then get it at a discount. They don't force you to buy it before you even know what the DLC is or else it is gone forever.

Although perhaps it is the attitude behind it and what it means for the future that you dislike?

Thank God for Jim.

 

[Yopaz]

I actually said something along the same lines just before watching this video.

You even included Tales of Vesperia as an example of DLC done wrong. Buying Gald? No thank you. I want to play the game.

 

[Furioso]

The "Tales of..." series is probably one of my favorite JRPG series, and yet I will never buy DLC for it, ever. You even had some footage of the Tales of Vesperia DLC, where it wants you to pay real money for things like a one time buy of extra experience or money, and not even that much of it. 300,000 gald isn't worth any amount of real money.

 

[Elyxard]

It's really crazy how much of a premium they charge for DLC across the board; it's becoming clear that they're banking on that cash much more than the actual games themselves nowadays.

Even the announcement of games come with un-ironic promotions of day one DLC all the time now. It's apparently now a selling point that the game is divided up into pieces on release; I would gladly let the big budget industry burn to the ground for such callous business.

 

[BrownGaijin]

I agree with Jim that DLC is a good idea that has been well abused. As someone who is a fan of Rocksmith I love the fact that I can download new songs to add to my library. On the other hand they also have a package called "time saver" where if you don't want to spend time practicing the guitar to unlock certain features (hidden songs, tone pedals, guitars, etc.) you can pay a fee. In that case sorry Ubisoft but if I can get it for free by just practicing, then I'm just gonna keep practicing.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I've never been fundamentally opposed to DLC either. I've always been in the mind that if EA or CAPCOM want to try and sell me individual costumes for over a quid, let them, I just won't buy them and neither will anyone else who's got the common sense. But it's very alarming that we're now being sold the bits and pieces of games that we used to get as built-in options.

 

[CriticalMiss]

In a bizarre twist I think EA did DLC well with the Rockband franchise, rather than pushing out a 'new' title (coughguitarherocough) they supported the old one with new tracks, which could be played on future titles at no extra cost. But they are also pretty terrible at DLC for what seems like every other game.

It is truly a sad day when some games will sell cheat codes to you, it's like a little piece of a games soul is being ripped out and put in a shop window.

 

[Something Amyss]

See, Jim? Steam sales are killing the market!

....But seriously, it is a good point that they want as much for a skin as we can get a game for. I mean, not even counting sale prices, I've got quite a few solid games from Steam's "Under Five Dollars" category. No, they're not the big AAA titles and whatnot, but you know what? I don't care. They're fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun! And isn't that what gaming is supposed to be about?

I'm interested in seeing what you have to say about Season Passes, though.

Well it's about time, after you delayed this episode to bash your audience who didn't do anything to that Hepler woman, and the ones who did will have likely never even seen your episode.

Yes, how horrible you were forced to watch an episode that made you feel bad.

What's worse is when a company releases a ton of DLC all at once with premium pricing and doesn't bother making a discounted DLC bundle. Now if you want it all, not only do you have to pay $2.50 - $5.00 for every costume/weapon skin/map/character, but you have to do so one at a time.

It is kind of like punishing your fans for buying your product, isn't it?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

So we've reached the point where games are getting cheaper than ever - but that's not enough for the average publisher, who considers that a game that sells a few MILLION copies somehow qualifies as a failure. Every sale needs to be optimized. Every purchased copy needs to be considered as more of a hook that's implanted in the customer's skin, than as a complete product.

This is what sucks, honestly. Bethesda does DLC right as of Fallout 3, but we all remember the Horse Armour fiasco, don't we? The sad thing is, for most publishers, not putting in the extra effort and excessively monetizing inconsequential bits of aesthetic content is part of the norm.

I feel like I got my money's worth from the Borderlands 2 season pass, but the idea that the additional skins for each character are all gated behind a few extra bucks is just - sickening. I'd love to turn my Axton into a pus-squirting zombie abomination, but hey-o! Two dollah for this, bucko! More if you want to have access to the other skins!

Come on, Gearbox! It's a freaking skin! You could give this away for free that your profit margin wouldn't be impacted! I already gave you thirty freaking bucks - plus a discounted retail price!

I honestly miss the old days of expansions coming out years after the game's core release. Not DLC - outright disc-based expansions.

 

[Something Amyss]

In a bizarre twist I think EA did DLC well with the Rockband franchise, rather than pushing out a 'new' title (coughguitarherocough) they supported the old one with new tracks, which could be played on future titles at no extra cost. But they are also pretty terrible at DLC for what seems like every other game.

It is truly a sad day when some games will sell cheat codes to you, it's like a little piece of a games soul is being ripped out and put in a shop window.

With their model, in which they were trying to sell you hundreds of dollars of DLC, they were pretty much forced to. Previous music titles had a handful of DLC tracks. Rock Band had an entire music store.

However, keep in mind that Harmonix had almost as many titles coming out as the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero franchise, so it wasn't either/or. They were pushing out new titles, some of which were even incompatible with the franchise itself in one way or another (or completely, like The Beatles: Rock Band). They even forced the Guitar Hero franchise's hand, forcing them to experiment with compatibility. It didn't work well, but they did it.

We're also seeing the same thing done with Ubisoft's Rocksmith series. Rocksmith 2012 is compatible with DLC tracks from Rocksmith.

Hopefully, they don't kill that one.

 

[Saltyk]

Damn it, Jim. You ruined my immersion in your video with that lame self promoting of your other shows.

In all seriousness, I almost never buy DLC. The rare exception is the DLC that actually expands on the game. And even then, I am reluctant. But simple costumes, I never buy.

Yes, it was cool that I got a Batman Animated series costume with Arkham City. So cool, that I used it for all of five minutes before switching back to the regular costume. The special costumes for Cole that I got with Infamous 2 were pretty cool. And I even used some of them for a bit. Still went back to normal after using the samurai sword for a bit.

And you know what? I never would have paid for any of those if they didn't come with the game when I preordered it.

I'm also very much against DLC that I know I would get for free in games just 5 years ago. It wasn't that long ago that you got special costumes when you beat the game (and those costumes would actually have effects like infinite Magic). Or could unlock new characters by beating it. Or even alternate story lines.

But telling me that I can use Big Head Mode for a small fee of $5.99 is just too much. DLC should expand the game. Not nickle and dime me for the things you used to give me just for playing the game. If anything is going to kill the industry, it won't be used games. It will be treating customers like piggy banks.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I like DLC as a natural evolution of the Expansion Packs of PC games, like all those expansions for every Age of Empires game. The only DLC I dropped semi-hard earned Microsoft Points for are for extra missions and levels for the Assassin's Creed games, because they expand the story and reveal new stuff, like how

Spoiler

The Da Vinci Disappearance of AC: Brotherhood ends up giving the coordinates of The Grand Temple to Desmond's team before the put him in the Animus' Safe Mode

and

Spoiler

AC: Revelations had The Lost Legacy, letting you see Subject 16's memories in those trippy 1st-person puzzles like Desmond's Quest.

I know they're not essential, and the argument could be made that they could have been left in the game on-disc, but it's still way more satisfying than dropping $5 on a mere aesthetic change. Oh look! My clothes are a different color now with no change in gameplay! Useless.

 

[themilo504]

As a fan of strategy game I?m familiar to questionable dlc behavior(im looking at you paradox)but for the most part I do tend to buy dlc, steam sales tends to make the decision a lot easier.