I’ll get right to the point: Valve has implemented DLC into Steam. 
Downloadable Content (DLC) was up until now the curse of console owners. Created by the Microsoft war machine (Yup, them again) as a means of milking their Xbox customers, it first appeared on Xbox Live Marketplace. Game companies are creating additional content for games and are releasing it for a small fee, usually less than 10$.
The problem with DLC is that gaming companies began peddling content that is ranging from cosmetic to downright useless. Let me give you an example: There once was an epic game called: “The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion”. Oblivion is a huge game, with tons of content, amazing graphics and it even features Patrick Stewart for about five minutes.
So what type of DLC would you expect to be released for such a game? New areas to explore? New noble quests to undertake? How about a nice new shiny armor for your horse? Wait.. WHAT? 
That’s right. For just a few dollars you could get a horse armor. For your in game horse. You had to actually PAY real world money to buy a fucking horse armor.
Believe it or not, the horse armor is not the lowest gaming companies went with DLC. The beloved EA is selling unlockable content for their games. This means they included the content in the game, and are selling it to you after you have already purchased the game. Could they be any more evil? Yes! They could! The are also selling cheats for some of their games!
I don’t need to explain why all this is highly disturbing. However, up until now PC gamers were treated differently. While the console crowd was always considered to consist of new comers who don’t know any better, as well as veteran gamers, the PC crowd was a bit harder to tame. That is why if an expansion was ever released for a PC game, it was a real expansion, something that added a considerable amount of content, and therefore was usually worth paying for. 
Also, a lot of DLC from the Xbox made its way to the PC versions of those games, for free, because everyone knew that PC gamers would not pay for unlocking a part of their rightfully owned game; They would fucking hack it!
Or at least, I thought that everyone knew that… As I wrote in the beginning: Valve had incorporated DLC into Steam, their download service. Steam, being the biggest gaming digital distribution center for the PC, now supports DLC. The first game to offer DLC for sale is The Maw, which is the first game ever made by Twisted Pixel Games and was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace several months ago. The DLC includes new levels for the game, at 1.25$ a pop.
While new levels are the least evil type of DLC, the barrier has now been broken. Companies can now peddle their DLC through steam, and it won’t be long before EA starts selling us pay-per-cheat and horse armors. ‘Tis a dark day for PC gaming…
On the bright side, The Maw is actually a really fun game to play!
(Also he’s a ninja!)
Posts
"new comers who doesn’t"
ReplyDeleteShould read "new comers who don't"
Also, I don't think anyone that didn't talk to you about it yesterday would get that ninja joke.
Anybody who knows what Family Guy is know that joke...
ReplyDeleteDude, wake up and smell the coffee: you pay for cable TV but have to pay extra to watch live sports, you pay good money for a cellphone but it has a SIM lock, you buy a music CD (i.e. pay for the right to hear the songs) but when the CD is lost/broken and you want to get a new CD you have to pay full price again (you already payed for the rights!)
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean we have to put up with it?!
ReplyDeleteNo. What I meant was that the gaming industry just caught up with the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteThat's not catching up. That's slowing down.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to split hairs on this one, only because I'm rather passionate about the fact that game developers wreck their lives to put out games and then don't get any money from re-sales at GameStop (6 billion a year in revenue and rising).
ReplyDeleteDLC can't be re-sold. It's money straight to the people who deserve it. I'd even go so far as to advocate more aggressive DLC options. As in, sell the game disc for 30 dollars and let the "casual" crowd have their fun with it (only about 10 percent of gamers finish a given game--that number might be specific to a genre, I'll take a look at it). Then offer 30 dollars worth of DLC to complete the experience. That way, even if the disc is re-sold by GameStop they're only getting half the revenue.
I understand your view that the people who gain the most out of DLC are the hard working developers. However, as you said, the reason for their loses in the first place is first and foremost stores like GameStop which resale used games with no profit to the creators of the game.
ReplyDeleteI do not think "aggressive" DLC is the correct way to handle this problem, since it hurts the customers. Maybe better promotion for digital distributing is in order, better prices maybe for people buying games through digital distributing services. Maybe outlawing used game resales, although this may be a little too extreme in the real world. Any way that would have minimal impact on the gamers that buy the game. I hate buying a game while not knowing if it's complete (Prince of Persia).