Some Players Want Day-1 DLC, Says BioWare 357
An anonymous reader writes "Speaking at GDC Europe this week, BioWare Montreal's Fernando Melo spoke about how the oft-disparaged first-day downloadable content for video games is actually something a significant amount of players want. 'Melo argued that on the occasions when BioWare hasn't provided DLC from day one, those players who complete the game quickly then complained that there was nothing more to play and asked for extra content. If DLC isn't provided for these players, they may well move on to a different game and never come back to play DLC later on. As proof that day one DLC also works in terms of sales, Melo said that 53 percent of all sales for the first Dragon Age: Origins DLC pack — which was released on the same day as the full game — were made on release day."
Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well fuck. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what that really means? We're now going to "get what we want" because more companies will just leave out things that would be in the game otherwise and monetize it into "Day1 DLC" instead.
DLC? really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could, I dunno, release the whole fucking game all at once.
Re:Well fuck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and if your game takes me only a day to complete I doubt I'm going to bother to pay for your DLC.
I bet those players... (Score:2, Insightful)
...would prefer if that content was included in the game in the first place.
Still doesn't explain why... (Score:3, Insightful)
translation (Score:5, Insightful)
When he says there are players who "want" Day-1 DLC, what he means is that there are players who will buy Day-1 DLC. Therefore Bioware is going to keep doing it.
Re:DLC? really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm old and crotchety and can't stand that sort of whining either, but I think it's less "I want it now" and more to do with what publishers can get away for their boxed releases. I think the gaming audience does have some legitimate complaints about this sort of stuff.
Re:DLC? really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It's interesting that the Bioware drone mentions Dragon Age, since the DLC was advertised IN the game. You reached a quest giver, and he told you that you had to buy his quest!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DLC? really? (Score:4, Insightful)
True. And that's mostly because they are now making games too full of shiny. Lots of cutscenes, voice actors, gorgeous maps and models, a plethora of sidequests... which is great, really, but it drives the cost of the thing way up. And in the midst of all that, they often forget to make the game interesting to play. Or even finish the damn thing. Me, I'd rather have lots of 9.99 games like Braid than 59.99 + 9.99 DLC like Mass Effect 3. The first is way cheaper to make, but incredible from start to finish and never, ever, feels stale. An engrossing experience from start to finish. The latter is amazing mostly because of its magnitude, but its gameplay is quite repetitive, most of its characters feel superfluous because of the current trend towards extreme story modularization (which is The Way Of The DLC, BTW) and... let's just not speak about that sorry excuse for an ending, ok?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
What this shows is that the serving size of the base game was simply too small.
And that some people would rather order additional sides than go to a different restaurant with larger mains...
Re:Well fuck. (Score:0, Insightful)
They get paid, even before the game goes on sale, it's called a salary.
Or do you believe in some magical world where they get a percentage of the sales?
Either that or you have been exposed to way too much propaganda that you actually started to believe it.
Just wait (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait until the "game of the year" or "platinum edition" or "gold edition" or "diamond edition" or "complete edition" goes on sale for $10 and you'll have ALL the DLC on day 1. On top of that, most of the compatibility and quest bugs will have been squashed.
Problem solved.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there's a certification process required by the platform owner to ensure baseline quality. During that process only bug fixes go into the product. Once approved for physical media, there's manufacturing and logistics to get the game in the stores, etc. that also adds significant delay.
Bottom line is, for a AAA game, there's a good 2 months at the very least before launch when nothing much goes on with the game. DLC is worked on in that period, and if it doesn't hit the mark and needs 2-3 weeks more, it's not a big deal. Risk management.
I'm a game developper and I know people like to rag on DLC and how it's bad and mean (But 20$ expansion packs were totally cool back in the day, go figure), but it's extra content. Yes, there's on-disc DLC (most often tied into promotion with different stores) and stuff like that. Yes there are DLC packages that are a total rip-off. But it's just a delivery method...
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
NO, it doesn't feel like extra content! People felt expansion packs were totally cool cause THEY _ARE_ TOTALLY COOL. Day 1 and Month 1 DLCs feel like aspects that were planned for the game and then taken out during the meeting with marketing & sales, or budgeting. DLC should NOT feel like the missing parts of a game. What were "expansion packs" of yesterday feel like the of sequels today, and yes, they are still cool. DLC feels like crap.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
NO, it doesn't feel like extra content! People felt expansion packs were totally cool cause THEY _ARE_ TOTALLY COOL. Day 1 and Month 1 DLCs feel like aspects that were planned for the game and then taken out during the meeting with marketing & sales, or budgeting. DLC should NOT feel like the missing parts of a game. What were "expansion packs" of yesterday feel like the of sequels today, and yes, they are still cool. DLC feels like crap.
This person hits in on the head. In the old days expansion packs were more like sequels (or intermediate episodes until the actual sequel), they always took place after the game.
DLCs on the other hand tend to be content that didn't make it into the game, this is apparent in that they are usually set inside the timeline of the game rather than after it. It's really obvious when the game refers to the DLC content, making it apparent that it was cut out (or deliberately held behind). Fallout: New Vegas is a good example of this with the Lonesome Road DLC, right from the first hour of the game NPCs are already referencing it. Also unlike Fallout 3 which had DLCs retcon their entrances into the game world where they didn't exist before (entire buildings popping out of nowhere) in New Vegas the entrances to the DLC locations are not only already in the game world but even have quick-travel points on the map.
The developers of Fallout: New Vegas admitted that the game needed another several months to truly be finished, just about everything in the DLCs was meant to be in the game itself (and would have been much better integrated into it) and even the game world map has huge areas that you never visit (that empty space to the West is where The Divide is located). However the publishers would much rather put those parts into DLCs so they can charge more for it, then later release a new edition of the game with all the DLCs included (and the price jacked up to cover it).
Re:Well fuck. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you pirate because you were not going to buy it anyway, then that's fine.
No, it's not. Clearly you've decided you actually want the game and will derive some enjoyment from it. Therefore it has a value to you, and you're just pirating because you're cheap. This "I wasn't going to buy it anyway" line is the biggest load of bullshit ever spouted, because 90% of the people saying it are just spouting the party line to justify that they're cheapskates who don't feel they should have to pay for someone else's work.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me that the main game is what we used to get as a playable demo. A few hours of free but limited game-play to give you a taste of the full unlocked game. Now those two-to-four hours are the full game.
If over 50% of your players finish your whole AAA game on the release day, you're doing it wrong.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Back in the day" you didn't have voice acting, 1080p graphics, online play, etc. etc. etc.
You can't expect production values and features to go up and up and up while prices stay the same..
Sure I can. Know why? The user base is increasing. The effeciencies are getting better. Sure there is more production value and more complex mechanisms going into games but they sure are not getting longer by any significant amount. I certanly don't weep for the game companies. They are ruthless with firings of staff and yet they reap enourmous profits. If they are not fleecing the consumer then fine but when they start giving us the middle finger then I start getting a little frustrated.
Bioware is full of shit and why DLC is bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Bioware are blatant liars and greedy money mongers. Nothing else. Ever since they have joined with EA they have gotten worse and worse and worse. For many many years bioware made great games but ever since they joined with EA they have just been pimping dlc left and right and creating games that for the first time in their history have been garbage. All the DLC codes they were whoring in dozens of products for mass effect. Dragon age was pimping DLC before its release and it was a shit game. Even knights of the old republic is a major let down. Bioware's prestiege and pedigree has gone right down the crapper since joining EA.
Bioware before tried to say "Well the reason we had day 1 DLC for mass effect 3 was because we finished the game 6 weeks before it was released and that finished product had to have 6 weeks to be approved, then packaged and shipped to store. So in that time we decided to create the day 1 DLC to keep our teams busy blah blah blah". Bullshit. You cant tell me they suddenly at the drop of a hat decided to write, design, storyboard, create, build, code, debug, trouble shoot, beta test, bring voice actors in to record dialouge, have artists create the levels, sound guys put in effects, compile the code, submit it to sony/microsoft for approval to be uploaded and then uploaded it in less than 6 weeks? Horse shit.
Then what happens when mass effect 3 turns out to be yet another bioware turd? They blame the gamers. That bitch at bioware actually had the balls to say "gamers arent developers so dont act like them" because gamers didnt like the game. Ok sure Im not a developer, but that doesnt mean I cant know if I like something or not. Im no chef but I damn sure can tell you mcdonalds hamburgers suck, Im no director but I really hated the transformers movies, Im no author but I dont like the book atlus shruged. Just because I dont make games doesnt mean Im not able to dislike them and it doesnt mean I should automatically like everything just because the creator tells me I should because they say so.
So in short. Fuck bioware.
And now. Why DLC is bullshit.
1) When you pay for DLC you are telling developers "I want to pay more for my games. I am willing to pay you more than 60 dollars for my game". The more you buy DLC the higher the chances of games costing more instead of less because you prove youre willing to spend over msrp for a game.
2) Its all digital and you will never own it. DLC is digital content. You pay for it but you dont actually own it. You cant sell it, you cant trade it, you cant let a friend borrorow it and in 10 years from now Im willing to bet you wont even be able to download it again.
3) DLC encourages developers to split up content for the game you paid for full price for to sell you later. They design a game they say "We will take out this part and that part and sell it to them as extra" instead of saying "They paid full price for a game so they should get the full game". Developers/publishers would probablly sell more games if they would actually give their customers full games instead of selling partial games at full price and selling the rest for even more money.
4) DLC pisses off gamers when its sold as incentives at different stores. Say a game is coming out and 3 different stores has bonus DLC codes with each one being different. Now for gamers who really want that game and to play everything thats a asshole move.
Bottom line is I dont support developers that pimp DLC a lot, especially before the full game actually comes out. I buy their games used so I dont give them a single cent.
Fuck bioware and fuck every developer like them that forces DLC down our throats and then says we want it. Dont buy their games new, buy them used or pirate them.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with this excuse is this: It's becoming more and more common that the "Day 1 DLC" is actually ON the damned disc, which means it was done BEFORE "going gold" (creating the master disc).
Re:Are you serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Its a different process. I also work in the gaming industry, and on consoles.
The base game is usually a 10 week lead time from 'gold' (or final) till its on the shelves. Most of that time is certification with 1st party. There's one first party that wants 12 weeks of cert time. I've also worked on a game with an accelerated release schedule. Final, cert and ship in 3-4 weeks
Patches are usually 2 weeks, though maybe 4 weeks sometimes. Though I've had patch go through in two days before, of course that was the second submission of the patch, and the change was as stupid icon change (We put it on the left, where it fit better with the art, they demanded it on the right).
If the DLC doesn't have compiled code in it, then the DLC usually breezes through, maybe taking a week, though one 1st party likes to take 6 weeks with them.
Anyone in the industry that's had to deal with certification can tell you what a pain it is. There's no consistency to the process. One game might submit following one process and a game released three weeks later might follow a different process, it all depends on how much the 1st party wants your game on their console. Or how much they want to screw around with you.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Back in the day" you didn't have voice acting, 1080p graphics, online play, etc. etc. etc.
You can't expect production values and features to go up and up and up while prices stay the same..
The fuck?
I've played plenty of games in the late 90s and early 00s that were fully voice acted and had LAN if not online play. Hell, fucking Command and Conquer 95 (which came out in 1995) had fully acted FMVs with actors and sound stages. Jesus Christ. Ever played Half-Life (the first one), that was 1998. You're full of crap.
The problem has nothing to do with production costs, it's the business model that's changed. The gaming industry used to be made up of people who loved games and wanted to make a reasonable profit producing new awesome ones. It's now made of suits that treat their product as a line item in a spreadsheet and a check-list, there's no drive for quality or fair dealing; very few people want to make a good game nowadays, they just want to make McDonalds — something that achieves maximum revenue with a minimum of investment or artistic integrity.
"DLC feels like crap."
So don't buy it?
And if the main game isn't worth the money, don't buy that either.
Can you teach me how to see into the future as well? I don't see how else I can avoid paying for a non-refundable product that sucks even though I can't know that it sucks before I paid for it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't buy it?
The problem with DLC isn't one of money, but that it fractures the game. Instead of one well designed product that fits together, you have a dozens of products that sort of kind of fit together. Bonus DLC weapons are often out of balance, the story DLC often doesn't quite fit in, multiplayer maps just make it more troublesome to find people to play with and costumes are just useless. "Don't buy" isn't a solution, as the main game still might reference the missing content, so when you don't buy it, you still know there is a piece missing from the game that makes it feel incomplete and sometimes you don't even know you got it, as it automatically comes with your Game of the Year edition. There is also a general lack of quality in DLC, as most of it ends up being far less quality then the main game.
Sometimes there is of course DLC that takes more the form of an expansion pack and truly does tell a piece of story that is completely optional to the main game and still doesn't feel like a useless addition, but even those can be a little annoying, as DLC means they have to be short and cheap. Thus even when they are actually good, they just end up feeling short and a full blown expansion pack would have been better.
In the end DLC is nothing but a money grab and nobody can honestly tell me that it's somehow the best way to deliver a game to give the user the best experience. DLC has done nothing but make gaming more complicated and frustrating. From a business standpoint it makes sense, from an entertainment point of view it's a really shitty idea.
"Back in the day" you didn't have voice acting,
Voice acting has been a normal feature since 1993, it has been around for a while. Network play existed even earlier and plenty games on my Amiga had Modem support. 1080? Nothing all to special, a good CRT could give you 1280x1024 long before any HD-TV was around.