Widescreen Gaming Forum

It's not like they've even got to worry about physical distribution etc either - that's another of the 'digital distribution myths' that so irritate me. Prices haven't dropped, despite distribution costs having dropped by digital distribution. And if they're not saving money by digital distribution, then they spent a lot of years lying through their teeth about 'distribution costs'.

for this I will refer to information from brad wardell which was along this line
(don't remember exactly) (please remember it was at a point just before the launch of Dark Avatar)
"for Galactic Civilization 2 revenues, we got 50% of them from our digital distribution platform, with a tenth of the sales"

Again maybe I'm a little off with the numbers I don't remember exactly, however what is 100% sure is that the money they made on digital distribution was so much greater ....

On another day and information, stardock explained that they couldn't really drop digital distribution prices or else standard distribution channels won't put the game on the shelves!

I think we can all agree that if DLC is substantial (although individual opinions of that word vary) it's not so bad as, say, $10 for an extra car pack, or a couple of maps, or Horse Armour (Bethesda are going to go down in gaming history for that one... :lol:).

I also think we can all agree on the idea that forcing users to sign up to something that is beta for said DLC, whether free or not, is rather distasteful. I would be far less opposed to this free DAO DLC if I could just feed the code into a single site, and download an .exe that installs it all (like the DLC for Fallout 3 when it's released on DVD) rather than having to sign up to an EA account and a Bioware account...

"Bad" DLC. That's a difficult thing to describe. I completed Operation Anchorage in about two hours or so IIRC, and I utterly failed to enjoy it... frankly, it bored me rigid. I found The Pitt a bit better, but still wasn't really gripped by it. What I've played of Point Lookout was very good, I'll agree with that. Not tried Mothership Zeta yet. My issue is I've only really got two solid experiences of DLC - both from Bethesda - and only once they're released on DVD. Other DLC options have successfully put me off of even trying them due to the method of obtaining them (Mass Effect, Dragon Age) or hassle (Disgaea 3). I'm not signed up to XBox Live, so I can't comment there. I don't think that any of the Oblivion DLC is really worth it, save perhaps Knights of the Nine, but I bought the DLC because - and this is important - knowing that I don't have a part of the game makes the game feel incomplete. I suspect that a lot of people feel the same way (even if they won't admit it) or play with friends... when one gets the DLC, the others have to, or can't play with that friend any more. I wonder how many of the CoD:WaW DLC sales were due to friends who all bought the maps because one of them did?

For digital distribution pricing being lower than retail pricing... the retailers need to stop whining. High-street retailers here are constantly whining that e-tailers undercut them (in the case of Play.com, it can be by a ridiculous amount - games selling for less than half their street price on release day) and accept that if a system has a method of making games cheaper, it's a good thing for consumers. I'd still buy a DVD over a digital download (and it's fairly obvious that most people would also follow that route, if those figures from Stardock are correct) but if the DD was enough of a price drop, I'd consider it a lot more seriously.

I think the problem is that the console/XBox Live/microtransaction model has seduced all the devs/pubs. PC games used to get patches for free that added new units, extra maps, extra game modes, extra weapons, extra power-ups... usually multiplayer ones, the single player 'DLC' was usually a 'mission disc' or addon. With the advent of XBox Live and PSN and GfWL, the model is as follows: release tiny fragments of an addon for $5 so people don't notice that by the time they've finished, they've spent $100 on what is about $40 of actual addons. Much in the same way as episodic content, actually - by the time Half-Life 2 Episode 3 arrives, unless it provides something in the region of 20 hours of gameplay, the three combined episodes will have cost more than Half-Life 2, but provided less play-time.

Dragon Age is (I think) the first game I've actually got experience of where the devs actually admit they pulled content from the game that is in the DLC. Shale. They pulled Shale because the character broke the game... and yet he's in the DLC? So he can't have broken the game too badly, then...

Its almost the same sales model that kept people feeding quarters into arcade machines years ago - I await the day when we get to each boss fight in a game and it pauses and flashes up "Insert Credit Card" or "Pay 500 MS Points to Make Boss 25% easier. Pay 1000 MS Points to Make Boss 50% Easier. Pay 5000 MS Points to Make Boss Die In One Hit. (Does not adversely affect Gamerscore)."

Dragon Age is (I think) the first game I've actually got experience of where the devs actually admit they pulled content from the game that is in the DLC. Shale. They pulled Shale because the character broke the game... and yet he's in the DLC? So he can't have broken the game too badly, then...

From what I read Shale was pulled for various reasons, then when the delay hit they worked on those reasons to make him fit back into the game, but they kept it a seperate free DLC with new copies in order to prevent some piracy and used sales.

The Warden's Keep however was developed as DLC from the get-go.

The Warden's Keep however was developed as DLC from the get-go.

Which more than anything says they entered into DAO with the idea that they were going to milk you for stuff you got free in the old Bioware games - like extra storage space.

(70 Inventory slots gets full rather quickly - I have a tendency to hoard everything... however, because of the limited inventory, I've stopped checking every 'glowy bit' for loot, as I simply can't fit it all in. :()

You can buy larger backpacks in the game. I never run out of space, what are you hoarding? Lol.

Everything, mate, everything. 8)

Not found backpacks yet. But then, I do pretty much seem to be roaring through this.

Despite my dislike of the DLC situation, DAO is probably my most enjoyed PC game Since Deus Ex...

I refuse to buy any game that I have reason to suspect has micro-DLC in the works. In those cases, I wait until I'm confident that 100% of the game's content is available, and if possible, there's a package with everything.

And if the game has any time-sensitive content, like ingame pre-order bonuses, then I go insane.

Also, here's some more games with free add-ons, just off the top of my head:
Company of Heroes
Grand Theft Auto
Half-Life
Nox
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
SWAT 3
Tomb Raider

Also, I'd say that TF2 has gotten more substantial free add-ons than what L4D2 costs money for.

You can get fallout 3 (with all said DLC) for 40 bucks on amazon now! Saving you about 90 dollars from a year...

Personally I don't mind waiting to pay less... but that's just me.

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Well don't support the bad DLC... I don't.

Not enough. I despise the very existence of bad DLC. Even though I don't support it, enough people do to encourage devs to continue this annoying trend, and I can easily see it getting worse.

Well don't support the bad DLC... I don't.

Not enough. I despise the very existence of bad DLC. Even though I don't support it, enough people do to encourage devs to continue this annoying trend, and I can easily see it getting worse.

Well, I don't see how avoiding good DLC helps the situation any.

I can't think of a single item I would label "good" DLC in a singleplayer game. The only time it's appealing is when they sell it all in a box, like with Oblivion and Fallout 3. And there's still that lingering doubt that the complete game really is all there.