Why gamers should embrace on-disc DLC

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Come on guys, this is obviously either a flame bait article or satire, more likely the latter.

I can't be the only one who sees this, right?

Yeah... I thought the same thing about FOX News when I first saw them on youtube. Turns out I was wrong and creatures like those really do exist in the world.

That kinda ended my childhood.

 

[Genocidicles]

A corporate apologist acting like an idiot.

Stop the presses!

 

[Royas]

When it comes to DLC, customers have every right to be angry when disc-locked content exists, because it is not something extra, it is something they cut out and made you pay for.

To use a car analogy as they work well:

You go to buy a car that's say £2000 (just to have an example).

DLC is going into a shop and paying to upgrade your sound system to be able to play MP3's for an extra charge of £50.

Disc locked content is already having that MP3 ability already installed in the £2000 car, but it is not available to use unless you cough up some more money.

So the whole definition goes up in smoke the second you add the ability long as you add the ability to patch your product. The game is no longer defined as is what is on the disk, but defined as the functionality that you were promised.

The car analogy is quite simply wrong here.

As a matter of fact the whole analogy falls apart from a production and a functionality standpoint. Cars gets made without extras and have the extras added. That is physically impossible in your definition right here. If you download the extra afterwards or you take it from the disk shouldn't make any difference. It is just the delivery method. The product and the offer is the same.

You have actually just completely proved my point.

The car analogy is wrong, because they could never get away with doing what game developers are doing.

Some cars have a normal CD player.
Some have a CD player that can play MP3's.

If you have the former, then you need to go out and install the latter, as it doesn't come with the car that you bought.

If you have the latter then you don't need to, as it's already in the car when it was manufactured, so you have already paid for it and already own it.

The reason that it is wrong is because car manufacturers could never get away with including a piece of content in a car that comes with it what you bought, and deliberately blocking you from using it unless you paid more for it.

I was not suggesting that they did. I was suggesting that my analogy would be the equivalent of what some game companies are doing, and I was making the point to show how ridiculous it is.

But the car was manufactured with the functionality of being able to have a CD player/airconditioning. They dont jury rig it in afterwards. This was in the design from the get go, to be an extra. That is no different than the on disk DLC. The product isn't what is on the disk, but what you can play. In other words the it would be like going "Because they developed the car to have air conditioning it should be standard" and that just goes to show how the comparision doesn't work.

You analogy still doesn't fit because they get away with it. I proved no point by pointing out that you cant compare games with cars.

Furthermore games are combination of product and services. Cars are pure product. You would have better luck comparing to a cellphone and a phoneservice.

That's not what he's saying. Naturally, the car CAN have an air conditioner installed. That's a given. What he's saying is that consumers wouldn't stand for the AC actually being installed and not be able to use it due to the computer locking them out without coughing up extra money. If you buy a car without an AC, you have to get the entire system installed later, it's just not there (downloading from a server). If you buy a car with the AC (ie. on disk DLC) you'd better have access to it from the get-go.

The same parallel goes for the CD player. If my player can't play MP3 discs, and I want it to, I have to buy a new CD player and install it (download). If it already has that capability, then I shouldn't have to pay to have it activated, as I already purchased the player with all of its capabilities (on-disk DLC).

I'm also going to disagree with you on who defines what constitutes the game. I decide that. I'm the consumer, the publisher wants my money, that means I get to decide what I consider to be the complete game, not them. And I have decided that if it is on the disk, I've already paid for it when I purchased the game. Locking me out of any features already on the disk without my paying extra is theft and fraud, pure and simple. And I, as a consumer, will not tolerate it. The publisher doesn't get my money, and I get to play any one of a thousand other games made by their competitors.

Welcome to the free market.

Yes it is theft and fraud.... you go to court with that or turn down the hyperbole in order to be taken serious.

And yes you get to dictate your purchase. I never said you didn't. However you dont get to dictate their product. Trade goes both ways. Like you can go to another publisher they can go to another customer. Welcome to the free market. While the customer has a say he isn't always right.

The world doesn't decide on your basis of value. It decides on it own.

And the car analogy is still a false one. Whether the DLC is downloaded afterwards or is already on the disk is completely and utterly irrelevant. The game isn't what is on the disk. It is what you can play. It doesn't matter that the game has programmed in multiplayer functionality if they dont set up any servers to do said functionality it will still count against it. Not as "Well it is on the disk so it is not our problem".

A better way for me to say it would have been to call it tantamount to theft and fraud, I find it to be the moral equivalent to those activities, regardless of the law. Legally, it is hyperbole. Morally, it pretty much states what I feel it to be.

In this industry, it's the consumer who gets to decide on what a product should be. They need the consumer's money a lot more than the consumer needs their product. Yes, they can try to find another customer, but frankly the consumer is in the seat of power here. I paid for what is on the disk. It had better be available. I did not pay for what the publisher decides to let me have on the disk. So, if they have on disk DLC, they have decided that they do not want my money. No skin off my nose, there's a lot of alternatives to any game made.

So, in this world, when it comes to my wallet, the value of an item is decided by me. If the world disagrees, well, it's not the world's money. The world and yes, the publisher, doesn't get a vote on the matter.

 

[Lunar Templar]

lmao.

what rock did the OP find this dumb ass under?

no such thing as a 'great free to play game', HA!

if a game is good, it will sell it self, and all on disk DLC is, is a blatant rip off by greedy publishers, nothing more

indie games like Bastion have proved huge budgets aren't 100% needed to turn out great games, like this moron seems to think, it helps mind you, money = resources after all, but it hardly guarantees anything.

 

[alphamalet]

All I have to say is that I hope the nonsense I just read is a failed attempt at comedy.

 

[kasperbbs]

A load of bull. It is not my job to make publishers rich, even if people did buy more games/DLC i seriously doubt that this money would go towards making better bigger games, most likely it would fill up someones bank account and they would continue cutting shit out because obiously it seems to work. Companies like that can go bankrupt for all i care, then hopefully others will learn from their mistakes.

 

[V8 Ninja]

I was going to bring up some good counter-points, but it appears this article is a joke article. This is the bio for this "Lemming" writer;

About the author: The Lemming is a die-hard follower of the Xbox. He started gaming with the original black brick, and considers anything that isn?t M-rated and/or a sim racer to be games for children. Although Microsoft has since abandoned him as a target audience with the Xbox 360 and Kinect, he still feels satisfied playing his Halo sequels and the various multiplats that he secretly would rather get anywhere else.

Also, I think this article [http://systemwarsmagazine.com/2012/10/11/lemming-new-psn-store-showcases-whos-boss/] about the PSN store update really solidifies my claims.

To fault this newer article, I will say that it is badly-presented humor.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I guess this proves that there will always be people who will gladly bend over and let the corporations fuck them. How can any sane consumer embrace such an anti-consumer practice?

 

[teh_Canape]

and while we're at it
may as well EmbrAAAAAAAce the Darkness

on a side note, if Battlefront 3 isn't coming out, I hope at least 1313 is good, or at the very least, come out on PC =P

 

[mrhateful]

Change the title to "why victims should embrace their rapist" and it would have been more believable.

 

[Royas]

When it comes to DLC, customers have every right to be angry when disc-locked content exists, because it is not something extra, it is something they cut out and made you pay for.

To use a car analogy as they work well:

You go to buy a car that's say £2000 (just to have an example).

DLC is going into a shop and paying to upgrade your sound system to be able to play MP3's for an extra charge of £50.

Disc locked content is already having that MP3 ability already installed in the £2000 car, but it is not available to use unless you cough up some more money.

So the whole definition goes up in smoke the second you add the ability long as you add the ability to patch your product. The game is no longer defined as is what is on the disk, but defined as the functionality that you were promised.

The car analogy is quite simply wrong here.

As a matter of fact the whole analogy falls apart from a production and a functionality standpoint. Cars gets made without extras and have the extras added. That is physically impossible in your definition right here. If you download the extra afterwards or you take it from the disk shouldn't make any difference. It is just the delivery method. The product and the offer is the same.

You have actually just completely proved my point.

The car analogy is wrong, because they could never get away with doing what game developers are doing.

Some cars have a normal CD player.
Some have a CD player that can play MP3's.

If you have the former, then you need to go out and install the latter, as it doesn't come with the car that you bought.

If you have the latter then you don't need to, as it's already in the car when it was manufactured, so you have already paid for it and already own it.

The reason that it is wrong is because car manufacturers could never get away with including a piece of content in a car that comes with it what you bought, and deliberately blocking you from using it unless you paid more for it.

I was not suggesting that they did. I was suggesting that my analogy would be the equivalent of what some game companies are doing, and I was making the point to show how ridiculous it is.

But the car was manufactured with the functionality of being able to have a CD player/airconditioning. They dont jury rig it in afterwards. This was in the design from the get go, to be an extra. That is no different than the on disk DLC. The product isn't what is on the disk, but what you can play. In other words the it would be like going "Because they developed the car to have air conditioning it should be standard" and that just goes to show how the comparision doesn't work.

You analogy still doesn't fit because they get away with it. I proved no point by pointing out that you cant compare games with cars.

Furthermore games are combination of product and services. Cars are pure product. You would have better luck comparing to a cellphone and a phoneservice.

That's not what he's saying. Naturally, the car CAN have an air conditioner installed. That's a given. What he's saying is that consumers wouldn't stand for the AC actually being installed and not be able to use it due to the computer locking them out without coughing up extra money. If you buy a car without an AC, you have to get the entire system installed later, it's just not there (downloading from a server). If you buy a car with the AC (ie. on disk DLC) you'd better have access to it from the get-go.

The same parallel goes for the CD player. If my player can't play MP3 discs, and I want it to, I have to buy a new CD player and install it (download). If it already has that capability, then I shouldn't have to pay to have it activated, as I already purchased the player with all of its capabilities (on-disk DLC).

I'm also going to disagree with you on who defines what constitutes the game. I decide that. I'm the consumer, the publisher wants my money, that means I get to decide what I consider to be the complete game, not them. And I have decided that if it is on the disk, I've already paid for it when I purchased the game. Locking me out of any features already on the disk without my paying extra is theft and fraud, pure and simple. And I, as a consumer, will not tolerate it. The publisher doesn't get my money, and I get to play any one of a thousand other games made by their competitors.

Welcome to the free market.

Yes it is theft and fraud.... you go to court with that or turn down the hyperbole in order to be taken serious.

And yes you get to dictate your purchase. I never said you didn't. However you dont get to dictate their product. Trade goes both ways. Like you can go to another publisher they can go to another customer. Welcome to the free market. While the customer has a say he isn't always right.

The world doesn't decide on your basis of value. It decides on it own.

And the car analogy is still a false one. Whether the DLC is downloaded afterwards or is already on the disk is completely and utterly irrelevant. The game isn't what is on the disk. It is what you can play. It doesn't matter that the game has programmed in multiplayer functionality if they dont set up any servers to do said functionality it will still count against it. Not as "Well it is on the disk so it is not our problem".

A better way for me to say it would have been to call it tantamount to theft and fraud, I find it to be the moral equivalent to those activities, regardless of the law. Legally, it is hyperbole. Morally, it pretty much states what I feel it to be.

In this industry, it's the consumer who gets to decide on what a product should be. They need the consumer's money a lot more than the consumer needs their product. Yes, they can try to find another customer, but frankly the consumer is in the seat of power here. I paid for what is on the disk. It had better be available. I did not pay for what the publisher decides to let me have on the disk. So, if they have on disk DLC, they have decided that they do not want my money. No skin off my nose, there's a lot of alternatives to any game made.

So, in this world, when it comes to my wallet, the value of an item is decided by me. If the world disagrees, well, it's not the world's money. The world and yes, the publisher, doesn't get a vote on the matter.

In that case you get decide your own price as well?

No wait you dont.

You have to deal with trade going 2 ways. It wont happen unless both parties are happy. All you can do is keep the Status Quo. You have no more say in the matter than the publisher.

You are overvaluing your own importance quite significantly.

If you paid for what is on the disk then you give up services that follows. After all their servers arn't on the disk now are they? No apparently you are having your cake and eating it to. Defining the game as what is on the disk as well as the responsibility of the publisher to service you. Personally I find it ridicules.

Also it is not morally equivalent to fraud or theft. There is no lieing going on nor any loss of property. You do like your hypebole dont you?

Actually, yes, I do get to choose my own price. I very specifically get to choose the price at which I will buy their product. At the same time, the retailer gets to choose the price at which they are willing to sell the product. If those prices don't agree or overlap, they don't get my money. In turn, I don't get the product, but there are a lot of other alternatives to their game. It's much easier for me to find another game than it is for them to find another customer in many cases.

Yes, we have to deal with trade going both ways, but in the end, games are a luxury item, not needed for survival. There are literally millions of things competing with games for my free time and my dollar. They need the customers much more than the customers need them. It's not like any one publisher is the only game in town or that they are making gasoline or anything.

And again, I am paying for everything that is on the disk. You may feel otherwise when you buy a game, but you don't get to decide the value of my purchase any more than I get to decide for you. Servers? If every company worldwide were to take down all of their servers save that which is required to actually activate the game, I wouldn't care. Servers are for multiplayer, as I don't play multiplayer that service is of no value to me. Again, you may disagree, it may be a value to you. But again, your value and mine are different, as it should be.

The upshot is, I feel that locking things on the disk I purchased is the same as not giving me the entirety of what I purchased. Morally, I do feel that is similar to theft, like selling me a dozen donuts and only letting me have 10. You are free to disagree, it's obvious you aren't going to change your mind. But on the same note, you aren't going to change mine, and I will continue to give my custom to those publishers and retailers who I feel aren't cheating me.

I don't know why I even get into these discussions, my mind isn't going to change. Nor is anyone else's. It's like arguing gun control or politics.

 

[chadachada123]

He's a good writer, and I find his writing to be humorous.

That said, he's full of shit, or he's being satirical. If the latter, he did a great job of demonstrating Poe's Law.

For those that don't know, Poe's Law states that:

"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

Even with a blatant display of humor (as this article has), it's still hard to tell the difference between a completely stupid (but funny) asshole and someone writing as if they were a completely stupid (but funny) asshole.

 

[tellytoy]

The second he said TF2 is better on xbox was the second I realised this is just troll-bait. Moving on.

 

[crazyrabbits]

The world doesn't decide on your basis of value. It decides on it own.

And the car analogy is still a false one. Whether the DLC is downloaded afterwards or is already on the disk is completely and utterly irrelevant. The game isn't what is on the disk. It is what you can play. It doesn't matter that the game has programmed in multiplayer functionality if they dont set up any servers to do said functionality it will still count against it. Not as "Well it is on the disk so it is not our problem".

Your first point is correct. Your second...not so much.

Regardless of whether you believe that you should have access to all the data on the disc or not, it is a consumer law that when you buy a physical product, you gain a non-commercial licence to do whatever you please with the disc, short of selling or copying it for profit. That means if a customer wants to go into their data and unlock on-disc DLC for their own personal use, there is literally nothing stopping them from doing that.

There is very much a relevance to whether DLC is on-disc or downloaded afterwards. This is the situation that (as I've mentioned many times before) Bioware found themselves in with the "From Ashes" ME3 DLC.

On-disc DLC means the content invoked in said DLC was, at the very least, partially created by the time the disc went through the certification process. It even extends to cut gameplay modes - we all remember the furor when the GTA: San Andreas "Hot Coffee" mode was discovered, and that was just a cut minigame that someone found on-disc, necessitating the ESRB to put into motion a law that had them review any gamecode before it's sent out the door.

In the case of "From Ashes", the character model, skill tree and some dialogue was all on-disc prior to the game's certification. Bioware was even put in the perilous position of trying to balance their previously-liberal stance on game modification with their policies on day-one DLC.

The game is what's on the disc, and consumers can access all of that data how and when they please. I don't care if they make new content after the fact, or even if they develop DLC in or around the main game's production phase, but when they start sticking elements on-disc that I have to pay $10 to get an unlock key for, you'd better believe I won't support them. The only reason we haven't seen a greater furor is because there hasn't been an equivalent "Hot Coffee" controversy that's forced the governing bodies into outlawing locked-on-disc content.

In regards to your comment about the market dictating the stance on on-disc DLC, we've already seen a recent case with SFxTekken - the game sold 500,000+ units less than Capcom was expecting, likely due to the DLC character controversy.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

OP, just out of curiosity:

Is that you (1PMrFister) who posted the article on that site or are the names coincidentally the same?

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Thanks that was great I had a bit of a laugh reading it. Brightened up my day before my study I've better but it was still good.

 

[Baralak]

Oh come on people. This guy is clearly joking around to show us how this twisted publisher advertising logic works. Hard cash for more and better content is such a hollow promise. If this buisness model would really work we would get less and less content for the same price. To a certain degree it already works this way.
The way he wrote this article i just can`t take it serious and i don`t think it was meant to be.

Yeah, this has to be a parody. I got a good chuckle. Shame people can't take a joke.

 

[hcig]

Theres a hundred ways I rip this guy apart, bit i think the following three will do.

Money also prevents immersion-shattering glitches like these.

Tell that to bethesda

(don?t say Team Fortress 2. That game was better on Xbox, anyway).

This is not only an excuse to ignore an issue, its a stupid excuse to ignore an issue.

It?s time to give publishers the respect and cash they deserve.

Publishers DONT DESERVE RESPECT. They are a hindrance, and now that they are NOT the only means of funding, gaming can FINALLY move to a better future, free from the chains of "What sells" to explore whats GOOD.