It all started with horse armor. Fanatical RPG fans had been playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to death, and they wanted more. While the developers promised more missions, more realms and more adventure, they had something in mind to hold players over in the meantime: Horse armor. Yes, now you could bling out your pony with all manner of shiny plate mail, because you aren’t rolling in style until your mount glistens in the sun. But this stuff wasn’t being given away; you had to pay for it, and not with gold from the game, with real money (well, as close as Microsoft Points come to being real money).
The fans were furious; they threw their collective hands up and declared just how stupid this move was. They decreed that anyone who would buy something like this would have to be an idiot, and there was no way microtransactions like these would ever cut it in the modern gaming world. Those fans were wrong, and now we are treading on a dangerous path, one which would force you to pay top dollar for content already on the disc, sell you gimped games for the sake of forcing you to pay more for the full experience and make you buy games for a specific console simply for the sake of exclusive DLC. Gamers the world over should be incensed that they’re being taken advantage of, and it’s time to put a stop to this money storm before every developer, publisher and console manufacturer gets swept up in the madness.
I want to make it clear right up front that I am not opposing the concept of DLC. When properly applied, extra content offered to consumers at a reasonable price has the potential to really enhance and extend the entire experience. Games like Halo, Rock Band, and Call of Duty 4 owe immense measures of their success on the fact that normally no sooner do players start getting bored of what has already been offered that something new is landing in their doorstep.
The problem is rather in the way developers and publishers are treating DLC, by either unbalancing gameplay, gimping the game, or making gamers choose up sides. We will examine each of these instances individually, and discuss the inherent problems in each.
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I don’t think the exclusivity of DLC to a particular console is a tremendous issue, as if the game is put together solid out of the box, you can’t argue that you haven’t gotten your money’s worth. The death of gaming will be the crap that EA is spewing, unlocking valuable items that are supposed to be late rewards early for cash, wholly throwing balance and design out the window, and creating an unfair advantage - despite EA’s claims to the contrary - out the window. I also fear games will be crippled at release in order to sell further DLC, holding out features originally for the relase, and I fear that that has already happened.
Great article!