EA have finally pushed the post-launch DLC thing too far.

super_furry

Was reading the Kotaku review of the new Tiger Woods golf game - a guilty pleasue of mine when one paragraph struck me.

"There are six events on my first year with the PGA Tour that I'm not qualified for because I haven't bought the course off the game's very robust DLC menu. EA Sports says it was responding to community requests that DLC courses be playable within one's career."

I know people always claimed that companies were cutting out content to sell back to players as DLC later but no-one has ever been this blatant about it before. The courses and there, in the game callendar, but you can't touch them without spending more money.

The Masters has gone from a 'will probably pick-up' game to something I won't ever consider buying now.

Retr0gamer

Yea it's gotten absolutely ridiculous. Stuff that was considered unlockables or free updates is now being paid for and it's even worse when what you are paying for unlocks content already on the disk. Big companies like EA really can't be thathard pressed for cash that they do this? Unfortunately people do fork out for these.

Punishing players for not buying DLC though is a new low.

CORaven

It seems similar to what they did in Dragon Age where mid-game, a person would ask you to do something for them and it would then prompt you to buy the DLC to continue.

What you have described has obviously been poorly implemented. They should have had the game detect if you had the courses or not and worked around them.

Helix

tiger 12 is absolutely dreadful anyway

major step backwards

Overheal

I am wondering now how many Heroes in Darkspore will show up in the arsenal with a $ or a € plastered over them.

Grayditch

Words can't describe how disgusted I am at the suggestion of paying to unlock something on the disc.

al28283

Makes sense to me. I haven't bought anything but trade-in games for years now so the only money EA have gotten out of me was for whatever DLC I chose to buy.

DarkJager

I wouldn't buy it anyway, much too soon for release after Tiger Woods 11. As anyone who has played them will know, you get to a point where you are just burned out from playing it.

Outkast_IRE

it would make more sense for EA to reward buyers who get the game new from a shop and implement the DLC thing for second hand buyers .

al28283

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

it would make more sense for EA to reward buyers who get the game new from a shop and implement the DLC thing for second hand buyers .

That is what they do, for the most part

Outkast_IRE

al28283 wrote: »

That is what they do, for the most part

I wish it was, their games on the pc are becoming littered with more and more DLC content Available on the day of lauch !!! if its available on launch day it should be on the bloody game in the first place.

super_furry

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

it would make more sense for EA to reward buyers who get the game new from a shop and implement the DLC thing for second hand buyers .

I honestly wouldn't mind if they blanked out those six courses for people who bought the game second-hand. But to pay full whack for a brand new game and to be instantly told that you've only actually bought two-thirds of the game and that you'll have to spend another €20 for the DLC is a step too far.

I'm not against DLC stuff like Borderlands and GTA do it brilliantly - working on it after the release and offering you more game when you're done with a full and complete game. But EA are holding back content that should be included in the game just to rip you off.

Varik

CORaven wrote: »

It seems similar to what they did in Dragon Age where mid-game, a person would ask you to do something for them and it would then prompt you to buy the DLC to continue.

What you have described has obviously been poorly implemented. They should have had the game detect if you had the courses or not and worked around them.

gizmo

I'd regard the addition of Pre-order Exclusive/DLC fatalities to the new Mortal Kombat to be worse than that to be honest.

As for paying for content on the disk, well it's not really fair to label it all as the spawn of satan. For instance, take the Bioshock 2 DLC which was released awhile back and only contained new multiplayer character skins. People raged about it already being on the disc but the developer came out with a very simple explanation. In order to join a multiplayer game you must have the exact same content as the other people in the game. If other people buy the DLC and you don't then you wouldn't be able to join their game thus the community would be splintered. This is different from something like a map pack as the change only affects another player. Therefore it makes more sense to have the data come on the disc.

Now, there is "moral" issue of whether it was right to lock said content and then ask people to pay for it despite it already being on the disc that you own but again, it's not really clear cut. Perhaps additional development time was allotted so that said content could be included and whose inclusion could only be warranted by the fact that it would be paid DLC? In that case it's perfectly reasonable to lock it.

There are, of course, probably plenty of examples of more unscrupulous DLC-based decisions but in general I do think they need to be assessed on more of a case-by-case basis rather than grabbing the pitchfork any time it happens.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I'd regard the manner in which the DLC was advertised in Dragon Age to be completely and wholly unacceptable.

Helix

super_furry wrote: »

I honestly wouldn't mind if they blanked out those six courses for people who bought the game second-hand. But to pay full whack for a brand new game and to be instantly told that you've only actually bought two-thirds of the game and that you'll have to spend another €20 for the DLC is a step too far.

I'm not against DLC stuff like Borderlands and GTA do it brilliantly - working on it after the release and offering you more game when you're done with a full and complete game. But EA are holding back content that should be included in the game just to rip you off.

would you have had less of an issue if the courses werent hinted at in the game? i think this is the main problem here, people are seeing the extra courses but the fact that they have to pay immediately gets them angry. if ea didnt actually mention that the courses were there, and instead just let people who wanted to buy them get the dlc and have it plug in automatically, i reckon people would be fine with it

i think what theyre doing here is advertising more than anything else. theyre not "holding the courses back" theyre just advertising them. theyre not part of the game, theyre available as add on content if you like, but if you dont it doesnt stop you from playing the game in any way at all

i hate the whole dlc thing like, id never buy it and only ever bother when im given free codes, but i do think that this was more a poor choice of advertising the content than anything else

Skerries

now downloading "kick to the developers groin"
would you like to add 30% more force?
yes please!

Jazzy

dlc can suck a fat one

Healium

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I wish it was, their games on the pc are becoming littered with more and more DLC content Available on the day of lauch !!! if its available on launch day it should be on the bloody game in the first place.

A PC player, complaining about having too much choice of DLC?

it.

Sisko

****in SF4, the DLC (extra costumes) was ON THE DISC when you bought it. But you had to pay to unlock them....

Its just going to get worse and worse as people will always buy it. Eventually we'll be paying extra to play the last level of our games and see the ending, which will all be on the game in the 1st place.

ugh

Oh and monthly fees to play single player games. And people will just say 'you get what you pay for' using examples of bad single player games that don't have a monthly fee, ignoring the decades of good games with no fee so as to not feel bad about their purchase of their 800 euro xbox720.

We're doomed!

al28283

Sisko wrote: »

****in SF4, the DLC (extra costumes) was ON THE DISC when you bought it. But you had to pay to unlock them....

I think someone has already explained why that's acceptable/necessary

Penn

al28283 wrote: »

I think someone has already explained why that's acceptable/necessary

I understand their point about not being able to play against someone who got the DLC and you didn't if it wasn't included on the disk, but at the same time, they're withholding content that is already on the disk and asking you to pay more to unlock it. It would be a lot better if they made that content unlockable, even if it was really difficult to do so, or allow you to purchase it as DLC. Hell, it's not even DLC if it's on the disk already, you're just paying to unlock it.

Taking the SF4 costumes as an example, if it was on the disk already, allow people to pay to unlock it, or set a challenge mode where you have to perform certain tasks to unlock them. Adds to the replay value for offline (particularly if you make it difficult to persuade more people to just pay for it), allows everyone to play together online whether or not they've unlocked/purchased it. Job done. And even people who've purchased it might still try the challenge mode.

penev10

RE:SF4 totally agree but if your paying (€6 is it?) for 4 costumes you've more money than sense!

An extra course in Tiger Woods I can understand (although they go for €10 do they not - you could get an entire game for that price!) as it adds replay value but costumes!

Penn

But thats the problem, there are people who will pay for them, meaning that people who don't will be kicked out of games for not having it downloaded.

Having them unlockable on the disk or even just making people download a patch to allow everyone to play whether or not they downloaded or unlocked the content themselves. They're forcing people to pay more money to get the full game

penev10

If you're getting enough content for your original purchase price then I've no problem with the dlc being on the disc eg. if all the previous Tiger Woods games had 10 courses and the new one has 10 then I don't see the problem, whereas if a new one comes out with 8 and they expect you to pay for the other 2 then that's when it becomes a rip-off imo.

DLC is too expensive, that's the real problem, whether it's on the disc or not is largely irrelevant.

cherryghost

Wasn't Resi 5 the same way? The DLC was already on the disc. The whole DLC thing is a complete farce. You pay for 70% of a game, and then you pay MORE than the original price to get the other 30% of the game. Ugh.

Retr0gamer

al28283 wrote: »

I think someone has already explained why that's acceptable/necessary

I remember when you unlocked extra costumes for free and map packs were provided by the developer after launch for free and if not then provided by the community. TBH it's pure greed. I really don't mind paying for DLC when it's actually worth the price like GTA4 or Fallout 3 but paying for stuff already on the disc or ready at launch is just pure greed on the developers or publishers part.

johnny_ultimate

Paying for cheat codes took it too far IMO. Pay now to unlock everything! Whatever happened to the Konami code

penev10

cherryghost wrote: »

You pay for 70% of a game, and then you pay MORE than the original price to get the other 30% of the game. Ugh.

That's exactly it!

I understand in the current climate of ever-more expensive development costs that developers need "alternate revenue streams" as the pricing structure of games is rigid (i.e. they cant just release a game at €65 and expect to get away with it!) but they need to provide value for money with the DLC.

Paying for cheat codes took it too far IMO. Pay now to unlock everything! Whatever happened to the Konami code

We'd all like to go back to the good old days of free hidden goodies but with more and more studios struggling to keep their heads above water they need to find a way to recoup the extra costs associated with HD games development. I just wish they'd do it with a bit more consideration for their customers

Duggy747

I remember when DLC was just known as an expansion pack and you downloaded it for free or at the very least paid a small amount and got your money's worth.

Never in my life would I pay for DLC. Times may be tough for developers but there's better ways of going about it.

gizmo

Barrington wrote: »

I understand their point about not being able to play against someone who got the DLC and you didn't if it wasn't included on the disk, but at the same time, they're withholding content that is already on the disk and asking you to pay more to unlock it. It would be a lot better if they made that content unlockable, even if it was really difficult to do so, or allow you to purchase it as DLC. Hell, it's not even DLC if it's on the disk already, you're just paying to unlock it.

Yes but you didn't pay for that content though, you paid for the game that you play when you turn on the console. As one other user above said, the only reason you're really annoyed about it is because you found out it was already on the disc which technically doesn't make a difference.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I remember when you unlocked extra costumes for free and map packs were provided by the developer after launch for free and if not then provided by the community. TBH it's pure greed. I really don't mind paying for DLC when it's actually worth the price like GTA4 or Fallout 3 but paying for stuff already on the disc or ready at launch is just pure greed on the developers or publishers part.

Yes but costumes and maps are far more time consuming to make now than they were with several people involved in creating them over a longer period of time. Don't get me wrong, I used to love getting the demo discs on PC Zone and finding them stuffed with extra content but I don't begrudge a developer charging for something they've spent the time and resources to create.

NTMK

meh i dont mind the tiger woods dlc i only buy the game every 2-3 years so ill prob get the extra 17 courses for €40 (im only paying 7 for the game itself id just wish they had the same system as rockband where the dlc tranfers from one game to the next its optional after all courses were nearly double that 2 years ago

there is much worse dlc extorsion goin on i.e COD