Games and "Downloadable Content"

There is a new marketing technique taking gaming by storm. It is called "Downloadable Content", or DLC.

Consoles have been doing this since the XBox 360, but it's something that is now slowly creeping it's way into the PC sector.

First of all, I'm not against all forms of DLC. In the past there were always expansion packs for games that you could buy in a store to add new stuff. They typically added quite a bit of new gameplay or story. Fallout 3's DLC generally has a good reputation as it adds a lot of content, and the original game was well made.

What I am definitely against, however, is this new tide of "bullcrap DLC". Games developers have recently been making a game with a lot of content, cutting a lot of that original content out, and then re-selling it after release as DLC packs, often for £5 or more per purchase.

Alternatively they deliberately build the game around some kind of minor but irritating flaw (such as a poor ending or lack of weapons), and then bring out DLC almost immediately after release that "fixes" that problem.

Deliberately gimping your product, mis-selling it, and then re-selling lumps of it strikes me as a pretty unethical business practice and I'm surprised the companies in question are even allowed to do it legally.

Take Mafia II for example. In trailers for the game, several missions (complete with dialogue, fully rendered cutscenes and everything else) are totally missing. There are no "side-missions", but simply a main story that winds through the length of the game (which works well since the story is strong, but it still feels as though something was cut out.)

Then, a couple of days back, after the game has only been out about a week at most, suddenly the developers (2K) released a DLC pack, currently priced at £6.30 on Steam. Now, I only just paid £29.99 for the game, there is no way I'm dropping £6.30 less than a week later.

This pack is called Jimmy's Vendetta, and features a bald mercenary out for revenge. The pack is apparently far more "arcade" in nature, and features 30 tasks that have you racing around the city shooting enemies and blowing stuff up.

Thirty may sound a lot, but the whole extra content pack can apparently be finished in around 40 minutes, the tasks are so short.

Short missions with an arcadey feel? That sounds almost like the side-missions that seemed "cut" from the game!

2k vehemently denied this, insisting everything was new content that they'd freshly made (in a week, lolz). They dug their own grave with that one. In the (new) apartment in which Jimmy stays, screenshots clearly show the name "Vito" (the standard game character) engraved on the apartment ownership sign. Oops!

Honestly, if you paid for a delicious burger, would you expect a big bite out of the meat inside? And then you're told that you'll have to pay extra to have that chunk back, in a slightly different form?

Since Mafia II's ending is left very ambiguous (someone even joked that the next DLC will feature "The ending and an epilogue.") I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to release a crap-ton of missions for Vito for £6 a pop soon as well.

Someone even spotted a future pack named "Joe's Adventures" in the game files - Joe being a character that the ending hinges around.

It's not unique to Mafia II either.

Fallout 3, while generally regarded as having very good value DLC, also had a remarkably crappy "standard" ending that prevented you playing on with your established character. Many fans were annoyed by this.

Presumably the decision was made to deliberately make it quite a closed ending let down, because the next DLC pack suddenly changed it to an open-ended "keep-playing" ending. *Insert cash register sound*.

Meanwhile CoD:Modern Warfare 2 has been charging £10.99 for maps already in the original game, just ported over to the sequel in 5 minutes. You have to be joking.

Steam is also telling me that "Sniper: Ghost Warrior" (which admittedly I've never played) is now charging £9.99 for 5 new multiplayer maps. Call me crazy, but the whole game was £29.99 I believe.

So 5 new maps (for which only the mapping and artistic parts of a dev crew need to work on) cost 1/3 of the original price? Lol.

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I think the only way to stop this pretty cynical cash-cow esque technique of selling every last drop of a game is to stop buying the lamest of the DLC packs.

Sadly time and time again gamers have proven that they don't have the will to take such an action, and I imagine it will be several years before it becomes such a rip-off that most of the public stop buying it.

Until then, I'll bitterly enjoy watching people spend £6 for a new gun/hat/car for Vito.