Bioshock Downloadable Content to Increase Replay

Instead of expanding the story or adding additional content, Ken Levine's goal with DLC for Bioshock is to increase the replayability factor. 1up reports: "'Diablo II, to me, was a great model for an expansion, because it enhanced the original game, but also extended the game, too. I'm not a really big fan of expanding things just by linearly adding to the experience, adding a new campaign, as much as I am of enhancing the original experience and adding replayability to that experience,' said Levine in a post-release interview in the latest issue of Games for Windows Magazine. 'I think that certainly BioShock's combat experience is great, but it could be broader. I'm a little more confused as far as how to expand the narrative experience.'" He goes on to suggest some plasmids, cut during development, might see their way back into the game. Otherwise, not a lot of detail available on what 'adding replayability' might mean.

Caving to the Multiplayer crowd

[Alzheimers]

It's probably to address the one bulletpoint that Bioshock didn't aim to hit (and rightfully so): Multiplayer.

Remember, Deus Ex was originally a single player game that got MP added in as a patch. I don't see the need for it, but if it could potentially help them sell another million copies of a "GOTY" edition then I'm sure someone up in management is howling for it.

Disappointment

[Dr. Eggman]

I was disappointed in the replay value of Bioshock. I just didn't feel compelled to rerun the game with a different set of plasmids; the choices I made were almost all based on the strenght level at a particular time and my personal style, so replaying it wouldn't have changed much for me without seeing my style change significantly (one of the reasons I hated the randomized plasmids portion of the game.) I'm unsure of how much new plasmids would add to the game.

On the other hand, I've replayed Episode 2 twice (once for the commentary alone) and Portal 4 times (not including small section plays.) Partly, this might be due to the size of the games, but I also think it says something about the nature of the game design. Perhaps Bioshock is better off releasing bonus maps (with the plasmid outtakes) rather than trying to broaden the current game's combat. Perhaps they could include new, insight-filled "pda plotlines" in them as well.

Give the Bioshock community the SDK/UnrealEd

[siDDis]

So I can create a few hours of extra fun from Bioshock for myself and the whole world.

Incrumental updates:

[Kuvter]

Is anyone worried that with these incremental additions to games, that the original game will get smaller and less detailed?

Or

Do you think that it'll raise the quality of games, because if they're not good no one will buy the increments?

Re:Oh well....

[Cheesey]

He's not the only one. Bioshock didn't work for me either. But I don't have any sort of moral problem with SecuROM. In my case, it's a technical problem. SecuROM simply does not work. No error message of any sort, no helpful information. The demo just won't start. It's because the SecuROM install failed. Silently.

Game developers are the people who should care about this, because they decide whether to include extra copy protection or not. The Steam copy protection was enough for Valve and their games, but not for Bioshock. To the Bioshock developers, and others like them, I ask: is SecuROM worth it? If it is, then the total benefit ($) must be greater than the total cost ($).

The benefit of SecuROM is said to be "more sales", because fewer people can pirate the game. The costs of SecuROM are incurred in (1) customer support, (2) lost sales due to people who pirated the game because SecuROM prevented it from working, (3) lost sales due to people who didn't buy the game because of SecuROM, (4) bad publicity because of SecuROM, and (5) the SecuROM licensing fee.

Unfortunately, not all of these are quantifiable. But you can take the support costs and the licensing fee, and compare them to the sales revenue. How much piracy would SecuROM need to have prevented in order to be worthwhile? Could it actually ever be successful in doing so, given that piracy is quite easy if you are so inclined? In particular, is it worth adding an extra copy protection layer on top of the existing one in Steam?

I am sure that Sony, the makers of SecuROM, have many answers to these questions and are somehow able to quantify the piracy that SecuROM is said to prevent. I am sure that they make no mention of bad publicity and lost sales due to SecuROM: they probably say that most people don't even know what copy protection is. And that's true, but those people will still be inconvenienced by it when it doesn't work, and they'll still hassle your customer support and tell their friends. Like any snake oil vendor, Sony won't tell you that their product doesn't work. So developers keep buying it, and games don't work properly.

One day, game copy protection will be standardised by Microsoft and all the third party vendors will be forced out of business. And that'll actually be a good thing, because Microsoft simply cannot do worse than SecuROM and Starforce and all the other half-assed hackers in the copy protection business. The only nice thing I can say about SecuROM is that it was included in the demo, so at least I found out that it didn't work before I paid for the game.