Are Game Consoles Ruining DLC? 399
A round-table discussion at Gametopius looks into the state of downloadable content for games as it has evolved over the past several years, going from an occasional, welcome supplement to being a common marketing strategy for most of the industry, frequently causing irritation over pricing and availability.
"All of the map packs so far released for the Call of Duty games have been $10 each to download on consoles through closed networks, while PC gamers could download those same packs for free off of FileShack or somewhere else. Valve's own Team Fortress 2 has received a significant amount of DLC that's been completely free on the PC. Xbox owners of the same game, however, have only received perhaps half of that content, and they have had to pay for it in $5 packs. Why is this? The idea of this kind of content delivery was scarcely heard of on consoles, so console gamers see no reason not to pay for it. But on the PC, these amounts of content are usually just considered parts of patches. Furthermore, why pay for a few extra maps and costumes when modders are making and offering new ones for free all the time?"
PC = No certification by a 3rd party (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, the fact that gamers will pay for downloadable content on consoles is certainly a good reason by itself...
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes it does. The PC is an open platform. You can do whatever you want. The console is locked down tight and you can only get content by paying Microsoft.
Re:One possible reason... (Score:4, Informative)
Sllow me introduce you to Steam [steampowered.com], Valve's content delivery system that every Team Fortress 2 player has installed.
Re:You didn't buy that console (Score:5, Informative)
PC gamers purchased that PC. Often at thousands of dollars -- mine's just over $7K including the 30" LCD.
How many people pay $7,000 for a PC? I'm not even sure how you can spend $7,000 on a PC unless you get it gold-plated or insist on a terabyte of 15k SCSI disks.
Even a decent gaming PC shouldn't cost you much more than $1200 these days.
Forgetting the new type of DLC (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:4, Informative)
While you are correct for the situation where everyone wants to play the same game with or against each other, this advantage goes away when those gamers want to play on their own at the same time. In most households I know every gamer who has reached their teens already needs a computer for themselves. Upgrading that to reasonably handle games makes more sense to me than to buy an extra box. Plus then the kids do not occupy the living room TV.
Re:See my other comment (Score:3, Informative)
The Nintendo systems have always preferred local multiplayer. One of the reasons why GoldenEye was such a successful game was the local multiplayer, which I still see people play to this day.
Similarly the Smash Brothers series popularity is due almost exclusively to the local multiplayer.
How about the Mario Party series?
Hell, half the games for the Wii that are popular are popular for local multiplayer.
And that is not exclusive to Nintendo. I've seen 4 player local Halo often enough to know that.
Please keep in mind though that all of this is generally found only in college aged people or under. Older gamers tend to only do online multi-player.
Re:Grand Theft Auto 4 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:5, Informative)
For the DLC, I believe Microsoft FORCE Valve to charge. Gabe (who looks more like Peter from Family Guy by the day) has said that they want to give it away, but MS won't let them. Not sure how much truth there is in that given Valve have recently turned to the dark side and taken this DLC to its natural conclusion and are releasing what should be DLC for Left 4 Dead as a full title.
That's debateable. New engine, new art, new campaigns, new voice actors, vastly expanded team working on it. Most people arguing against L4D2 seem to be arguing because it's "too soon". It's like you guys would be happier if it were released in 2012, rather than 2009. And the irony is, the release date won't affect anything, because L4D updates are still going to come out as slow as they have been. It'll just give some extra content before the release, giving the perception that they kept their word.
Nah...no thanks. If they can churn out a quality sequel, and fix all those engine bugs in the process, I'll bite. I don't believe they're going to just ditch L4D gamers, and I don't think they should have to artificially delay release to satisfy foolish angry self-proclaimed non-customers.
Companies now realise that instead of a full expansion for, say, $20, they can now put it out in chunks and make twice that.
So what you're saying is, you're against the implementation rather than the concept? Me too. I'd be quite happy to buy extra L4D campaigns(well made ones) for say $4. That would be 5 campaigns in a $20 expansion.
$10 though is too steep.
But from Valve's point of view, it's far easier managing a unified platform, so they'd rather charge more for the game and just trickle out DLC for free forever.
Re:PC = No certification by a 3rd party (Score:3, Informative)
You're misrepresenting the facts here. Yes, they have to pay MS or Sony to certify the content, but what if Valve explicitly wants the content to be released for free? Sony and MS aren't going to go along with this, because Sony and MS want to charge money for it. Sony and MS would be fine with the updates costing a small amount, say, $5, because they'd still get a share of each sale. But a share of diddly squat is still diddly squat.
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:4, Informative)
"New engine" is a stretch, IMO. Most of the actual content--new weapons, new campaigns, new enemy types--were supposed to be free DLC for L4D, according to interviews before L4D's release.
They were also supposed to have a real, full-featured dev kit for it so the community could do what it usually does with games like this, but they've been dragging their feet on releasing it. Probably worried that the community would just clone the stuff they have slated for L4D2, which is exactly what would have happened if they'd released it months ago.
This is the first time I've seen Valve act like a greedy corporate whore, and it's troubling because they're one of the few remaining PC developers who are worth a damn.
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:3, Informative)
Fire controls should be on the shoulder buttons.
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually you make a point, console manufacturers and game companies screw their customers over the accesories and games so much that in the end nowadays a PC is cheaper, it even is cheaper if you count in that in many cases you just have to upgrade the graphics hardware and at every second console generation the pc upgrade itself is mandatory.
Over its lifetime I have dumped more money onto my wii than I have done for my aging PC which simply got a new life by adding a decent graphics card.
The price difference of the games makes up for it.
Re:Different Audiences? (Score:3, Informative)
The issue with console games isn't that the price is high on launch it is that for AAA titles the price never drops. CoD4 is still retailing for £35 even a year and a half after release. Left 4 dead is the same, still retailing for £35.
On PC Cod4 is now £20 and Left 4 dead was only £22 on launch.
The new 'Games on demand' store that has been recently added is even worse. Titles are offered for £19.99 despite brand new Xbox360 copies of the game being available for £10-15 online. So you end up paying more for a copy of the game that is ties to your Xbox so you can't lend it to friends, give it away or sell it when you are finished playing it.