Whats the problem with day 1 dlc

[Isan]

Given that it's just skins, how is it any different to a collectors or special edition? Except you can just get the bits you like.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do to me: as long as what I'm paying for is a complete package and worth the money then I'm happy, if someone else has paid out a few $ more to make their character look a little different then I don't care.

And hell, if some games had offered this instead of collectors editions I might well have picked up the bits I wanted and left the rest, rather than being in the position of paying for all the collectors stuff, including the bits I don't want, or missing out on the stuff I do want.



To take that pizza analogy from xPixelatedx,

it's like having the choice of getting margarita or pepperoni (or meat feast, or spicy chicken, etc etc)


##########
Edit to expand my thoughts a little:

Do you guys honestly think that if they weren't going to do this they would have still made the content and just given it to you? No, they wouldn't. They'd have had the guys who made this stuff working on something else, and these little DLC add-on things would never have gotten made.
If they'd never told you about these things would you have complained that they cut something out? No, cos your game wasn't missing anything.

And as for it being day-one content... how does that make a difference? Are you more robbed if they have some staff making this content at the same time as the main game content is being made, rather than have them make it a few weeks afterwards?


(for this next analogy I'm going to make up something called a Content Unit, it serves as a measure for the value of the product they sell. Think of it as Quality x Length)

If they're getting towards the end of a project and say right, currently we've got 4300 Content Units in this, but for retail we need 5000CU in order to justify the £27 price tag (I don't know what they charged in $).
And then when they get to 5000 they go... oh wait, lets now cut 500 of those out and sell them again for £5 more. That's exactly the frikken same as releasing the entire game for £31... more than they judged it to be worth. And they'd get bad feedback from it and it'd hurt their rep.
If that was the plan then they'd just sell it for more to begin with.

No, this is that they made the 5000CU game, and at the same time made an addition 500CU DLC package that they're then giving us the option to pay for if we want it...


It's a good thing.






########Important point########
This post here is sort of me playing Devils Advocate... except the Devil is a nice guy :S

I'm not necessarily claiming that this IS what valve have done (I havn't played the game yet so I can't judge the value of its content, nor whether those missing Altus skins are a huge damn hole in the game (yea...)).

But every other post before mine (with a couple of small exceptions) is being utterly blind and assuming its the other way around, that they're being thieving pricks.

I'm pointing out that there is an alternative scenario, and I think it's far more reasonable given valve's history, and the rave reviews coming out for this game (i've not seen anyone complain that the game wasn't worth the money)

 

[Jodah]

If its day one DLC in the form of Project 10 dollar I see nothing wrong with it (IE, if you buy a new copy you get the DLC as part of it, if you buy used you have to pay for the DLC). If its DLC that you have to pay for even with a brand new game then it should have been released as part of the game.

 

[Mister Benoit]

Isn't the Portal 2 DLC all stuff that can be unlocked by playing through the game though? Also it's like skins and stuff so they don't really affect gameplay regardless?

Dragon Age: Origins DLC made me angry though.

 

[Littaly]

It's insulting. The problem I have with it is not so much that you essentially have to pay more to get the entire game or that or that they get away with charging way more for a feature when sold separately than it does when it's included in the game (though admittedly, those are pretty major problems too), it's the insulting way in which it's presented to me as a consumer. "Hey! Look, we're so nice we're gonna give you a bonus, more of the game you love!" Bullsh*t! They're just trying to get away with squeezing more money out of the customer for minimal effort without looking like jerks for doing it.

 

[Rauten]

It's just hats and cosmetic crap like that, so I honestly don't give a shit.
DLC that's just cosmetic stuff never bothered me. It doesn't change the game, the mechanics, or adds anything really worthwhile. I'm not gonna be missing part of the game or the experience because I'm not wearing Saxton Hale's hat or whatever.

On the other hand, DLC that's actual content (missions/stages/worlds/songs/characters/etc) released on Day 1 DOES piss me off.

This, however, is not the case with Portal 2. So for now, I'm peachy with it.

 

[delanofilms]

I'm not familiar with what's going on with Portal right now. What is this DLC, and how much is it?

It's basically a store where you can buy new skins/hats for p-body and atlus. but the prices are kinda ridiculous. it was like £1.50+ for a skin.

OT: I don't really care about the store, but the principal behind it. If I buy a game full price/new, I expect to get all the content without having to pay extra on top. And it being Day-1 means they must have been developing it at the same time as the actual game. So why not include it?

Well I would think that being able to charge additional for shit that has no impact on narrative, gameplay or story, and doesn't impact the game leaves it as an option for those who care enough while leaving the full game cheaper for those who don't give a damn.

Taking this out and charging people for it doesn't make the full game cheaper, as they were developed at the same time, it just makes them more money. Which, I admit is the point of a business, but that doesn't make it suck any less.

I was talking about instances where this IS or could be applied fairly. If you're going to charge for an integral part of the game, you had fucking better charge less at retail. If you're charging full at retail, it had better be for some gimmicky tacked-on bullshit. And in ALL cases all forced/day 1 dlc had DAMN WELL BE LET KNOWN. I don't mind too much in general, but when they sneak that shit in is completely inexcusable. [EA, I'm FUCKING looking at you.]

 

[Bags159]

All the people upset about this... you do realize it's customizable fluff that doesn't actually add to the gameplay?

Now if you had to pay to unlock co-op or something like that, then you might have a valid complaint.

 

[Anah'ya]

There is no problem with day 1 DLC.

*waves her hand*

Move along now. Nothing to see here. What-so-fucking-ever.

I will gladly pay for Day 0 DLC, as long as that money goes to the poor sods who make a game and then have to listen to the unwashed masses of the Internet booing and hissing at their efforts like its their God given fucking right*.

GAH!

The nerve.

THE NERVE!


*Tell you what, it's not--you exchange money you earned by working (or existing and having parents who give you money) for something made by someone as their daily job--that is how we humans live nowadays. If you want it any other way, go back to when we traded goats and sheaves of hay.

Edit: Yes and this also applies to story missions, additional characters and anything else that might tie into the actual game on more than a superficial manner. DLC is good. I want more of it. Right now.

 

[SuperNova221]

All DLC is horrible.

I'm old and bitter, deal with it.

I remember the days when you would buy a game, and that was the game. Then for many popular games, you'd wait a while then a worthwhile expansion pack that included a lot of new content, story, maps etc etc would be released usually at around £10.

Nowadays, pretty much every game that is released has "DLC" which is, as far as I can tell, an expansion pack with less content and similar or more price. DLC is just an excuse to do little effort and get a lot more money. I've never bought any DLC that I thought was worth the price. all 5 DLC for Fallout 3 for example, should have just been in one £10 package. Not 5x £6/7 "DLC" packs.

As for DLC on day 1, did I expect it? Yes. From Valve? No. Valve is the company that released TF2. Then continued (for a great while) to provide new maps, new weapons, community maps and weapons, balance, fixes etc for free, entirely for free. All the while the CoD series was charging £10 for 3 extra maps. It was only a matter of time though, but I don't see the difference between this and any other DLC. It's just another overpriced expansion with as little content as they can get away with. the only difference is when they released it in relation to the game.

Edit: There's another game I see "DLC" for a lot on Steam which is possibly the worst I've ever seen, it's some train simulator game, which has released possibly hundreds of DLC packs. each one contains a single train and it costs £12 iirc. For a single internet train. £12.

 

[Stall]

It's nothing more than people overreaching. The Vavle cash store is incredibly benign and pointless. It isn't really downloadable content... it's cash store. Besides, it's just friggin' hats. You don't need the content to play the game, nor does it make the game more complete. Not to mention the fact that you can acquire everything on the cash store by just playing the game.

It isn't maps, or a game mode, or an extra story. It's fluff. You don't need to buy anything to fully enjoy the game, nor do you even need to buy the hats to get them. Just chill. Go pay a P2P MMO with a cash store full of pay-to-win crap. Just more people who want to jump on the "hating DLC" bandwagon.

Also, DLC has existed since the genesis of gaming. It just hasn't been called DLC. Look at the Street Fighter 2 series. If the game came out nowadays, all those turbo enhances and extra characters would be DLC. SF2 isn't the only example of this in retro-gaming. Gaming companies have always put out extra content for their games... it just so happens that nowadays they have a new way to do it. Get over it... hating DLC is just trendy.

 

[gazumped]

I dunno, I kind of see it like getting food at a chip shop...

"Ooh, chips for £/$1.50, can I have some chips please?"
"Sure! Do you want tomato ketchup?"
"Why, yes, thank you! Tomato ketchup is a lovely addition to chips!"
"Great! That's an extra 30p/¢ please."
"... oh, well, I do like tomato ketchup so, okay."/"Oh, I don't like ketchup THAT much, sorry."

EDIT: I realised once I wrote this that I'm not actually sure if I approve or not of chip shops charging for ketchup... soo... pointless analogy perhaps. >_>

 

[Catchy Slogan]

I'm not familiar with what's going on with Portal right now. What is this DLC, and how much is it?

It's basically a store where you can buy new skins/hats for p-body and atlus. but the prices are kinda ridiculous. it was like £1.50+ for a skin.

OT: I don't really care about the store, but the principal behind it. If I buy a game full price/new, I expect to get all the content without having to pay extra on top. And it being Day-1 means they must have been developing it at the same time as the actual game. So why not include it?

Well I would think that being able to charge additional for shit that has no impact on narrative, gameplay or story, and doesn't impact the game leaves it as an option for those who care enough while leaving the full game cheaper for those who don't give a damn.

Taking this out and charging people for it doesn't make the full game cheaper, as they were developed at the same time, it just makes them more money. Which, I admit is the point of a business, but that doesn't make it suck any less.

I was talking about instances where this IS or could be applied fairly. If you're going to charge for an integral part of the game, you had fucking better charge less at retail. If you're charging full at retail, it had better be for some gimmicky tacked-on bullshit. And in ALL cases all forced/day 1 dlc had DAMN WELL BE LET KNOWN. I don't mind too much in general, but when they sneak that shit in is completely inexcusable. [EA, I'm FUCKING looking at you.]

Sorry for the misunderstanding, Thought you were talking about Portal 2 before, and in that case, I totally agree! If it has less content, it should be cheaper. Common Sense!

 

[delanofilms]

Sorry for the misunderstanding, Thought you were talking about Portal 2 before, and in that case, I totally agree! If it has less content, it should be cheaper. Common Sense!

Exactly! That's why I support THQ. Whether or not the game is any good, I support what they're doing because they drastically reduced the retail price, while "not gimping" the game itself. Now to what end this means, I don't know, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. Charge less, let the consumer decide which gimmicky crap they want.

 

[LadyMint]

Day 1 DLC makes a consumer feel cheated. Although it does seem to fall under the same principle as, "Do you want fries with that?" In that what they're offering you is an optional extra to the product you've alreayd purchased. It may seem like an insult but to me, it's just trying to maximize profit by preparing side options.

I guess if game companies really wanted to cater to consumers they wouldn't mention or sell any DLC until a few weeks or a month after a game has been released. That doesn't mean they wouldn't already have it ready and waiting, though.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

Sorry for the misunderstanding, Thought you were talking about Portal 2 before, and in that case, I totally agree! If it has less content, it should be cheaper. Common Sense!

Exactly! That's why I support THQ. Whether or not the game is any good, I support what they're doing because they drastically reduced the retail price, while "not gimping" the game itself. Now to what end this means, I don't know, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. Charge less, let the consumer decide which gimmicky crap they want.

That sounds fine, as long as they don't go over-board and 'Ryan Air' that shit up.

 

[joshuaayt]

I dunno, I kind of see it like getting food at a chip shop...

"Ooh, chips for £/$1.50, can I have some chips please?"
"Sure! Do you want tomato ketchup?"
"Why, yes, thank you! Tomato ketchup is a lovely addition to chips!"
"Great! That's an extra 30p/¢ please."
"... oh, well, I do like tomato ketchup so, okay."/"Oh, I don't like ketchup THAT much, sorry."

EDIT: I realised once I wrote this that I'm not actually sure if I approve or not of chip shops charging for ketchup... soo... pointless analogy perhaps. >_>

Well, this comment would probably carry more weight were it made before your edit, but I've always thought of it more as

"Ooh, chips for £/$1.50, can I have some chips please?"
"Sure! Do you want the entire bag/box/plate of chips, or just most of them?"
"Uhm. All of them?"
"Great! That's an extra 30p/¢ please."

Mind, that's only day 1 DLC, which I disagree with. I don't hate DLC in general.

 

[Anah'ya]

Given that it's just skins, how is it any different to a collectors or special edition? Except you can just get the bits you like.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do to me: as long as what I'm paying for is a complete package and worth the money then I'm happy, if someone else has paid out a few $ more to make their character look a little different then I don't care.

And hell, if some games had offered this instead of collectors editions I might well have picked up the bits I wanted and left the rest, rather than being in the position of paying for all the collectors stuff, including the bits I don't want, or missing out on the stuff I do want.



To take that pizza analogy from xPixelatedx,

it's like having the choice of getting margarita or pepperoni (or meat feast, or spicy chicken, etc etc)


##########
Edit to expand my thoughts a little:

Do you guys honestly think that if they weren't going to do this they would have still made the content and just given it to you? No, they wouldn't. They'd have had the guys who made this stuff working on something else, and these little DLC add-on things would never have gotten made.
If they'd never told you about these things would you have complained that they cut something out? No, cos your game wasn't missing anything.

And as for it being day-one content... how does that make a difference? Are you more robbed if they have some staff making this content at the same time as the main game content is being made, rather than have them make it a few weeks afterwards?


(for this next analogy I'm going to make up something called a Content Unit, it serves as a measure for the value of the product they sell. Think of it as Quality x Length)

If they're getting towards the end of a project and say right, currently we've got 4300 Content Units in this, but for retail we need 5000CU in order to justify the £27 price tag (I don't know what they charged in $).
And then when they get to 5000 they go... oh wait, lets now cut 500 of those out and sell them again for £5 more. That's exactly the frikken same as releasing the entire game for £31... more than they judged it to be worth. And they'd get bad feedback from it and it'd hurt their rep.
If that was the plan then they'd just sell it for more to begin with.

No, this is that they made the 5000CU game, and at the same time made an addition 500CU DLC package that they're then giving us the option to pay for if we want it...


It's a good thing.






########Important point########
This post here is sort of me playing Devils Advocate... except the Devil is a nice guy :S

I'm not necessarily claiming that this IS what valve have done (I havn't played the game yet so I can't judge the value of its content, nor whether those missing Altus skins are a huge damn hole in the game (yea...)).

But every other post before mine (with a couple of small exceptions) is being utterly blind and assuming its the other way around, that they're being thieving pricks.

I'm pointing out that there is an alternative scenario, and I think it's far more reasonable given valve's history, and the rave reviews coming out for this game (i've not seen anyone complain that the game wasn't worth the money)

Since I have to head home from work (to earn money, which I can then spend on DLC, because I like DLC) I will not bother typing up a wordy reply because this good Sir (or Madam, I don't even have time to check the profile) has said everything so perfectly well that it just begs to be quoted and presented again.

Why has common sense gotten so rare on the Internet?

... Nevermind.

 

[delanofilms]

That sounds fine, as long as they don't go over-board and 'Ryan Air' that shit up.

Umm, "Ryan air"?

 

[Icehearted]

you just bought the game, but we went ahead and locked you out of certain features already finished and being released, doesn't matter if you want them or feel entitled to them, we want and feel entitled to charge you more money, and since we know this will be a AAA title, it's a safe bet that despite your protests we'll get away with it and make serious bank on your gullibility.

Honestly, OP. That's like asking why people that buy a book are upset because the covers are blank and will be unless you pay more. It's all part of the book, however minute, it's all there, just as this is part of the game (however minute). To have it ready and out with added charges is absolutely abusing the system, and is unquestionably crooked.