@fodigg said:
It sounds like you just don't like DLC then. That's fine, but I think you're underestimating how important add-on purchases are to supporting developers considering how rampant piracy is.
My statement merely claimed that there are legitimate and illegitimate ways to implement paid DLC. And I just think selling character skins is a cash grab and not a legitimate way to produce new content.
But you are correct in your assumption that I don't like DLC of any form. No consumer should. Most of the time DLC is just in game content that has been removed from the game and held back in order to extort more money out of gamers. This is most evident in day one DLC and even more egregiously in the examples where DLC isn't even a seperate file, but rather just unlocks things already on a retail disc. Legitimate DLC has become more common lately. Legitimate DLC includes things like expansion packs like the ones for Skyrim, Fallout 3, the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption, or the Assassins Creed III alternate history missions. Also legitimate is selling new characters to a game if there move sets are completely different, as Injustice is doing. But even though legitimate DLC is not a ripoff, it takes time and resources away from the development of the main game. That's one of the reasons why games these days have more bugs than in previous console generations. It also means stalling development on their next game, which would likely see improvements in graphics, controls, and new game mechanics.
You need to know something, piracy is not rampant, at least not nearly as much as companies want you to think it is. Profits for films, games, music, comics, etc, remain very strong. When it comes to video games, particularly console games, piracy is even more rare. The average gamer does not have the skills to hack an Xbox 360 or PS3, and even those who do risk not being able to access any online functionality. The main thing hurting gaming developers and publishers is not piracy at all, but are second hand game sales through companies like Gamestop. But do game publisher try to punish Gamestop? Ofcourse not. They give them exclusive pre-order deals. Instead they punish the consumer by adding things like online passes into the box. You don't want to pay for a new copy, you don't get full use of the game, that make sense on some level, but what that really means is that the person who bought the game on the first day brand new sealed now has to sit with a controller and manually type in a sixteen digit code just to make their game work properly. That is called punishing the consumer.
DRM, DLC, online passes, they all claim to be measures to prevent piracy, when in fact all they really do is cause headaches for the people who choose to be honest. When piracy is more convenient than legal purchase, piracy becomes incentivized.
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