Weekend Recovery: The March Towards Tiered Game Versions
It's Weekend Recovery, your Monday morning, 9 AM intellectual gaming discussion fix. Have a suggestion for a Weekend Recovery topic? Send your ideas to mixvio@gaygamer.net and you might see your name on the grand marquee!
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In the past I've discussed the habit game developers seem to have when it comes to releasing new titles with lots of bonuses to entice people to pre-order the game. Today I have something similar in mind: the subject of new games and downloadable content after release.
Dragon Age: Origins was rather unique in the fact that at its launch not only one but two pieces of downloadable content were available; The Stone Prisoner and Warden's Keep were two addons that added extra quests and content to the base game. While The Stone Prisoner was available to everyone who bought the game, Warden's Keep was only included with the digital deluxe version of the title. Anyone else wanting to play it has to purchase it for an additional seven dollars.
While DLCs aren't new in the least (or even unique to Dragon Age), one of the criticisms here has been that Bioware has been making content originally intended for the full game and cut last minute into cash-grabs after the fact to bilk players from real money. While this isn't a viewpoint I really agree with, DLC addons are becoming more and more prevalent and it is starting to feel like unless you buy all the addons, you're not really getting the full game. The Stone Prisoner isn't just a quest, for example, but also gives you an additional party member that can be picked up rather early if you so choose, while Warden's Keep provides a very handy base of operations from which to launch your travels through the main game. In both cases these things are optional, but without them it feels like you're not getting the whole experience.
We all remember, I'm sure, Oblivion and the complaints with the horse armor; at least here it feels like Bioware has provided some extensive and fleshed-out content that, for me, seems worthy of the cost.
Long gone are the days where the launch of a game represents the end of a company's costs towards it; now games have to sustain everything from multiplayer servers for online play or even social networks devoted to the title, so ongoing DLC releases represent not just an enticement for players to buy your game but a method for developers to get some cash even after their game is on shelves.
The biggest complaint with Dragon Age seems to rest that the two DLCs were available on day one. I'm not sure what difference it would have mattered if they came out next month, but apparently there was one! All the same, it's all but likely that future games will continue this pattern of leaving some content to be downloadable addons after release, and it's also likely that some of these DLCs will be made available on the zero hour as well.
Personally, I bought the deluxe edition of Dragon Age and I've definitely thought it was worth the cost. But what about you guys? Do you think this stuff results in a segregation between game versions, leaving you feeling like you bought something half finished if you don't cough up the dough for the collectors' edition? Or do you think it's a lot of meaningless complaining over something optional in the first place?
mixvio
Posted to Miscellany on 9 November 2009
· Comments (10)
Other stuff like this: dlc, downloads, dragon age, preorders, weekend recovery
The issue that people have with day one DLC is a sense of entitlement that, if it was already done, it should have been on the disc. Ummm... sure? And we should get games for free, that doesn't mean we will. DLC is the way of the future and day one DLC will be its harbinger. I'll admit I was a little miffed about seeing the Warden's Keep so soon, but my ultimate reaction was less "Those BASTARDS!" and more "More stuff to do in an awesome game! YAY!" It may be because of my PC background, but I've never had an issue buying add-on/expansion content if I feel the game is worth it.
I'm siding a bit more with the 'those bastards' viewpoint here. It's not the idea that they released DLC, DLC is pretty cool either way. It does extend the game a little bit, and add on some cool stuff... DOWN THE ROAD.
Having DLC offered the moment the game is out to me demonstrates a few things. 1 they want more money, 2 they just didn't get things done, or 3, the DVD can't hold everything. Which is kind of what happened in forza motorsport but they tossed in another dvd to take care of that instead of charging you a ton of money to get all of that stuff included.
Typically when stuff like this happens all it does is motivate me to go out and find it used from craigslist, half.com, amazon, ANYPLACE so even with the DLC, it'll wind up averaging out... ... plus it makes it so the company gets even less money which just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, with a dash of consumer capitalist evil :3
Hmmm, launch day DLC to me suggests that they finished the game, then after the game goes gold and has started disc production the development team was actually working hard and making extra content instead of sitting on their asses.
Though in the case of the Stone Prisoner, we already heard about why that was DLC instead of on the disc. It was meant to be on the disc, but there were some glitches involved with the Shale character fitting through some doors and other maneuverability issues, so they didn't feel comfortable including him on the disc. But they had made content for the character so they still wanted to include him, so optional DLC was the best way to go.
I actually like how Dragon Age handled the DLC. At least with the console versions, it's an incentive to buy the game new (since every new copy comes with the $15 Stone Warrior DLC code) which combating used game sales is something that developers and publishers have been trying to deal with for a long time. On the PC used games are as much of an issue, and I have a feeling that anyone who pirates the game could just as easily pirate the DLC so the bundled DLC idea might not be as effective there. But overall, I'm very much in favor of bundling DLC with a new game purchase.
The Warden's Keep DLC just doesn't seem that important to me. There's a small quest to it, but it's basically a store room, which in a game where inventory management is an important aspect seems kind of like cheating. So I don't mind that it's optional DLC. And if you're getting Dragon Age for PC, then you can buy it new (with Stone Prisoner), then get the Warden's Keep DLC, and it'll still cost less than the console version.
It's also worth mentioning that just because the DLC is released on day 1, doesn't mean that you have to buy it on day 1. If you want to wait and buy it several months later so that it's extending the game you already have, there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to play the game as it is on the disc and go through DLC later, there's nothing stopping you from just waiting to buy the DLC until a later time. That will give you the same experience as if they had delayed the DLC content.
I think Fallout 3 did it right with DLC. They released new episodes well after the game's release, released the new episodes often and they often showed new and interesting places to go or lengthened the story. As well as you get new weapons to use as well. You get a full experience for your 10 bucks that is well worth it.
They took Valve's 'Episodic Gaming' philosophy and brought it to life.
I'm really tired of all of the whining over this. It doesn't really matter whether they release a game in one shot, or as a main game with some add-ons, or as a series of episodes. Either the software is worth the price and you buy it, or it's not worth the price and you don't buy it.
I can think of plenty of $40 games I've purchased that provided more fun than two $60 games... and a number of $60 games that had like 5 hours of actual content were barely worth the price of a movie.
I actually think tiered game version could end up being a great thing for gamers. I would rather have paid $40 for a slightly less featured version of some of those $60 games and realized what crap they were so I could spend $80 getting an extended version of the $40 game I really enjoyed. I sort of suspect that as DLC becomes more profitable, we might see the prices for some "core games" with DLC pushed down a bit to get people to pick up the game (and then buy all the DLC).
I dunno. I guess I don't see how the decision to purchase the base copy of a game with DLC is significantly different than the decision to purchase a copy of a game that doesn't have DLC. Either you think the game is going to be worth the price (because of reviews, or word of mouth, or whatever) or you don't. If people put out a game that's been heavily stripped down and DLC is pretty much required, game reviewers or people who have purchased the game before you should be able to tell you that, and you can make the decision about whether the game you're expecting to play is worth it at the effective game + DLC purchase price.
One aside: I do think this is going to put more pressure on game reviewers to actually *finish* RPGs and other long games, because people are going to increasingly want to know whether the game is actually complete or whether their ending is in another castle.
I think that content could have easily been put on the disc and launching it day one was tacky, plain and simple. It's different for cosmetic things, or game-breaking features, but for actual story content to be right there? That's just kind of gross to me. Even if it was finished they could have held it off a little ways and have seemed a little less tacky, but then again they were pre-order bonuses so I guess that wouldn't work. If they think they need more money than they honestly need to charge more for the game. Slap a $70 dollar price tag on there if that's what you honestly want, stop taking advantage of people's excitement for your product. I'm all for tiered content a la Monkey Island, but this stuff is getting kind of ridiculous, and let's face it, EA is at the forefront of bad DLC decisions. (Capcom's not doing a whole lot better with it's costumes already on the disc that you have to pay to unlock)
My problem with the DLC?
It doesn't work. I still can't download it, it's stuck at 0%. I feel like I'm being punished for buying the game legit.
And meanwhile, a friend is enjoying the game and all the DLC pirated without fuss.
I'd be all for DLC...if it'd work without a fuss. I have no idea about computers. I just want games to work. And for me, they don't, due to this DRM nonsense =/
Companies should make it easy to actually get this stuff. Not do it in some stupid ingame downloading way that refuses to work for some people. Why not just let people download it the normal way?
Yesterday I had a problem where I couldn't load a save file because the content updater hadn't been started.
This made me unable to play a save where I had already downloaded and installed all extra content to. I managed to fix it, but I'll see later today if it's a temporary fix or if I'll need to go to start the bloody thing every single time.
That's something that shouldn't happen. Certainly not when it's already downloaded.
I had to start the updater just to be able to find the Warden's Keep DLC which was nowhere to be found BTW.
Bioware really dropped the ball on the DLC implementation. Maybe they should have had less dispersal of it through various media and instead looked into how it would work in the game.
And why you need to download it and then install it is another thing I don't get. The PS3 downloading service does this too. Yet when you download content on the 360 (don't know if the same is true about the 360 DA:O content) that isn't necesairy at all. So why add another step into the proces when it's not necesairy? So aggravating.
I haven't had any problems with it personally. When I start the game on the PC it logs me in to my Bioware account and the game starts up. I didn't have to install anything, it downloaded the DLC automatically when I put the codes in online.
I don't really like having to be logged into the site in order to play any saved games that utilize the DLC, similarly to how with Fallout 3 on the PC you had to be logged into Windows Live to save your game and get any progress achievements, but it's a small annoyance since my desktop machine is connected 24/7 anyway.