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[Ikuu]

There's been some really good DLC, the main Dishonored DLC was fantastic and I generally like how Payday 2 has handled it too.

How many games have only a single unit of DLC? Ideally and in the past, publishers would have bundled all of the content into an expansion pack. There is an important distinction between an expansion and DLC. It has nothing to do with the delivery method. It has to do with the quantity of content and how varied it is in one package.

Tims change. It made more sense to package everything up as a single product when you're only dealing with retail.

Of course some companies get it right and some get it wrong.

 

[iosef]

Expansion packs in Doom era is the correct answer.

However "DLC" is too broad a term. Horse armor at one end of continuum, Mario Kart 8 at the other.

 

[BeauRoger]

Because its a good idea, and people who like a game a lot get the opportunity of getting even more content if they would like. Also its a fantastic way to keep multiplayer games fresh over a longer period of time. Its simply more choice for the consumer.

 

[zulfate]

Dlc isn't bad what's bad now is how Its in Your face and most publishers think it's ok to nickel and dime you on the box.

 

[blame space]

ghost recon advanced warfighter

 

[crazyrabbits]

I've supported "DLC" since the Baldur's Gate 2 Expansion Pack. Same shit, different name.

Not really, considering that Throne of Bhaal was originally a third game that was repackaged/condensed into an expansion pack.

I'm of two minds about DLC. I enjoy the bigger mission packs and cosmetic additions, but abhor the day-one DLC garbage and material that was clearly made during the game's production and chopped out to sell at a premium.

 

[Aaron D.]

Just like everything in life, you'll find quality examples (RDR: Undead Nightmare) as well as poor representations (ES: Horse Armor).

DLC is neither good or bad. It just is.

It's up to the content provider to prove out whether it is good or bad based on the quality of their work.

 

[Mohonky]

The 80's, when expansion packs became a thing.

They were celebrated originally.

What? Expansion packs were usually at least another 50%, maybe even as much as the original release it was based on and they cost half the cost of the original game. I used to hang for expansion packs to games like Warcraft 2.

Now, DLC ranges from costumes, to in pay to win content and all manner of trivial shit. 'Some' games have had worthwhile stuff that built upon a games experience at a reasonable price, but more often then not DLC is over priced, lacking content and adds little to the game itself.

I wish they were still doing 'expension packs' and not the crap they are currently putting out.

 

[Curufinwe]

Wipeout HD Fury for $10 was the first piece of DLC I bought and it was a total steal.

If you look at reviews/forums impressions it's not hard to figure out which pieces of DLC are worth buying and which aren't.

 

[Fuz]

The 80's, when expansion packs became a thing.

They were celebrated originally.

Expansions were a lot different from today's dlcs. Not comparable in the slightest.

 

[Jito]

Because DLC adds more content to games I enjoy and that's a good thing? We got past things like DLC horse armour in Oblivion pretty fast.

 

[Seventy_X_Seven]

EDIT: There is a distinction between expansion content and DLC. The difference is an expansion is paying a single admission price for a mini-theme park and DLC is paying a singular price to ride each individual ride in that mini-theme park instead.

No, this is not true at all. DLC is downloadable content. An expansion pack is still downloadable content. What you mean is there is some good DLC and some bad and you want to talk about why the bad DLC is bad.

Honestly I want to know why so many gamers feel $60 should get you everything ever completed for that game. All $60 should get you is at least $60 with off entertainment. So even if a publisher arbitrarily cut back content on the disc to sell as DLC, if you feel the base content is at least $60 with off entertainment then why is this wrong*? Gamers in general just seem cheap and entitled.

Rarely the case, but it can happen.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

Depends what sort of DLC. Expansions are good but those crappy codes that come in the box of a new game are the worst and I always avoid using them. It always end the same. "You purchased our new game brand new? Here have a bunch of end game stuff at the get go to ruin the whole game for you!"

 

[nkarafo]

Dlc makes me paranoid. I just dont know when its new content or its just cutted content from the original game in order to pay more for the finished product. Additionally i can never be sure that a game i buy is complete and they didnt cut content just so they sell it later.

all in all i dont like it. Makes me not want to buy new games and wait for complete versions much later. Well at least i get them cheaper.

 

[Alavard]

I can't say I mind DLC.

Actually, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a standalone game, not DLC.

 

[randomengine]

No, this is not true at all. DLC is downloadable content. An expansion pack is still downloadable content. What you mean is there is some good DLC and some bad and you want to talk about why the bad DLC is bad.

Honestly I want to know why so many gamers feel $60 should get you everything ever completed for that game. All $60 should get you is at least $60 with off entertainment. So even if a publisher arbitrarily cut back content on the disc to sell as DLC, if you feel the base content is at least $60 with off entertainment then why is this wrong*? Gamers in general just seem cheap and entitled.

Rarely the case, but it can happen.

I am becoming an old man. Expansions predate DLC by decades and mean a completely different thing.

Expansions - Lots of content and varied sold in one package.
DLC - Singular levels, modes or items.

Think of expansions as an album and DLC as single tracks.

 

[balgajo]

I will buy DLC for the first time with Mario Kart 8. 50% more courses for 1/5 of the game value is DLC made right imo.

 

[Tain]

'Some' games have had worthwhile stuff that built upon a games experience at a reasonable price, but more often then not DLC is over priced, lacking content and adds little to the game itself.

The non-worthwhile DLC is a non-issue, though, because us adult game enthusiasts with access to the internet can generally make good purchasing decisions.

 

[Waylon Drums]

DLC isn't inherently bad. The business practices behind it? Sometimes deplorable. It's not really something that can be generalized easily.

 

[kaching]

How many games have only a single unit of DLC? Ideally and in the past, publishers would have bundled all of the content into an expansion pack. There is an important distinction between an expansion and DLC. It has nothing to do with the delivery method. It has to do with the quantity of content and how varied it is in one package.

That's still just a question of delivery - i.e. waiting to amass more content into a single "expansion pack" bundle or parceling content out more quickly/frequently but in smaller chunks. And there's plenty of instances where smaller "DLC" units of content later get bundled together anyway as a "pack", offering much the same quantity of content and pricing as those older expansion packs did. So all that's really changed is that the rise of digital delivery has enabled developers to feasibly consider offering new content for their games sooner, without the overhead of physical packaging costs.

 

[Jito]

I am becoming an old man. Expansions predate DLC by decades and mean a completely different thing.

Expansions - Lots of content and varied sold in one package.
DLC - Singular levels, modes or items.

Think of expansions as an album and DLC as single tracks.

You can't just make up your own defintion of DLC. Downloadable content is any content that is downloadable for the game, it's kinda in the name. Also there's plenty of DLC that is more than a singular level, mode or item. Dishonored, Bioshock, GTA, Red Dead, Borderlands, Dark Souls 1/2 etc. all have great DLC that offer lots of new content.

 

[Synth]

When Street Fighter 4 AE didn't require buying a completely new version of Street Fighter 4.

There were things worse than DLC before.

 

[LegendofLex]

If a gamer is opposed to DLC, than the fact the Wii U version has no DLC should make no difference. The idea that gamers will choose two identical versions based simply on the fact that one has DLC and the other doesn't creates the appearance that DLC has been accepted as important to the gaming community. Which is odd to me because I always thought DLC was despised. I am not talking expansion packs, which is entirely different than DLC.

I'm sure most people would be more than happy if the DLC content that isn't offered on Wii U wasn't DLC in the first place. I think you're placing the goalposts for this discussion in an unusual way, as if wanting Wii U to not miss out on content is the same thing as voicing support for the DLC business model.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Some DLC is a good value and easily compares to traditional expansion packs in terms of content per dollar, some does not. This is why people are saying DLC isn't inherently bad, it's just a method of delivering an add-on to a game.

Agreed. It really comes down to the content and the price.

I am becoming an old man. Expansions predate DLC by decades and mean a completely different thing.

Expansions - Lots of content and varied sold in one package.
DLC - Singular levels, modes or items.

Think of expansions as an album and DLC as single tracks.

The issue is that today both expansions and DLC are being referred to as DLC. Look at something like Crusader Kings 2 - a ton of their content-rich expansions are still labeled as DLC. For a lot of games, the only way to get expansions is through DLC, not through a retail/physical purchase, so it's not like DLC wouldn't be an inaccurate name.

 

[ramparter]

EDIT: There is a distinction between expansion content and DLC. The difference is an expansion is paying a single admission price for a mini-theme park and DLC is paying a singular price to ride each individual ride in that mini-theme park instead.

Nope, dlc refers to extra content that is added to the game digitally. It doesn't even has to cost money. I have never paid for the kind of content you described.

 

[SeanTSC]

What? Expansion packs were usually at least another 50%, maybe even as much as the original release it was based on and they cost half the cost of the original game. I used to hang for expansion packs to games like Warcraft 2.

Now, DLC ranges from costumes, to in pay to win content and all manner of trivial shit. 'Some' games have had worthwhile stuff that built upon a games experience at a reasonable price, but more often then not DLC is over priced, lacking content and adds little to the game itself.

I wish they were still doing 'expension packs' and not the crap they are currently putting out.

Some people still are - just look at Dark Souls 2. That is very clearly an expansion pack. DAO had Awakening. DA2 Legacy was basically a mini-expansion. Also if you pushed all the Mass Effect 1 or Mass Effect 2 DLC together they were roughly the size of an expansion for roughly the cost of one. Mass Effect 3 went a little high in price though.

Blood Dragon was an amazing Stand-Alone Expansion.

Then there's segmented expansions like Burial at Sea and imo stuff like Mario Kart 8's DLC is similar enough to be counted as such.

You just have to shift your perspective a little. There's still "normal" expansions being released and still plenty of expansion-like material being released. It's definitely not all pay-to-win crap or throwaway garbage.

 

[regenhuber88]

DLC are simply a necessary evil

1994 I saved up 129 Deutsche Mark (ca. 65&#8364 to get FIFA on SNES.

2014 I pay 59,99€ for FIFA 15

People are used to that pricepoint since forever, only way for devs and publishers to make more money is DLC and subscrition stuff.
Video games are the only thing that cost pretty much the same since forever, so I am OK with them exploring new business opportunities as long as those games give me 5 to 10 hours of entertainment with the standard edition.

.

 

[randomengine]

That's still just a question of delivery - i.e. waiting to amass more content into a single "expansion pack" bundle or parceling content out more quickly/frequently but in smaller chunks. And there's plenty of instances where smaller "DLC" units of content later get bundled together anyway as a "pack", offering much the same quantity of content and pricing as those older expansion packs did. So all that's really changed is that the rise of digital delivery has enabled developers to feasibly consider offering new content for their games sooner, without the overhead of physical packaging costs.

Not just sooner, but smaller. The distinction between expansion and DLC is a very important one. One is almost universally beloved and the other appears to be accepted by the new kids and hardcore gamers, but not by curmudgeons like myself.

 

[kaching]

Think of expansions as an album and DLC as single tracks.

And then think of a band that starts to release new tracks from their album one at a time before releasing the full album itself.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I think the Horse Armor thing scared them away from adding Horse Armor to Skyrim

 

[randomengine]

You can just make up your own defintion of DLC. Downloadable content is any content that is downloadable for the game, it's kinda in the name. Also there's plenty of DLC that is more than a singular level, mode or item. Dishonored, Bioshock, GTA, Red Dead, Borderlands etc. all have great DLC that offer lots of new content.

Expansions existed before DLC. DLC means small, singular units of content sold ala-carte. I didn't make this definition up. It is the definition. Everyone knows what an "expansion" is and what it means. There is no word to describe piecemeal post or parallel launch content other than how it was described when it was originally introduced. I know because I was there. That word is DLC. The delivery method either boxed or digital is irrelevant to this discussion other than to point out that the internet allowed DLC to exist because you cannot sell horse armor as boxed retail.

 

[Duster]

I assume that there are now a lot of members of the Gaming Community that grew up with modern DLC, to many of them it must just be normal.

 

[SeanTSC]

No, this is not true at all. DLC is downloadable content. An expansion pack is still downloadable content. What you mean is there is some good DLC and some bad and you want to talk about why the bad DLC is bad.

Honestly I want to know why so many gamers feel $60 should get you everything ever completed for that game. All $60 should get you is at least $60 with off entertainment. So even if a publisher arbitrarily cut back content on the disc to sell as DLC, if you feel the base content is at least $60 with off entertainment then why is this wrong*? Gamers in general just seem cheap and entitled.

Rarely the case, but it can happen.

It depends. Obviously there's been some shady stuff like the Day 1 Mass Effect 3 DLC. I think people were right in feeling entitled to that. Something like that actually seems pretty exceedingly rare though and I can't even think of another example of something that blatantly shady off the top of my head.

On-Disc DLC is hugely offensive though and I do believe that we're entitled to every single bit of content on there and that locking it behind DLC keys that are a few kb of data is extremely insulting.

 

[randomengine]

I think the Horse Armor thing scared them away from adding Horse Armor to Skyrim

They could have added horse armor, just you know, on the disc or give it away for free.

 

[borghe]

in terms of my Wii U LEGO thread, it's not supporting it as much as bummed that Wii U isn't getting content while it's the place I prefer to play the LEGO games.

in general I think DLC is "a technology that can be used for immense good, or tremendous evil."

even as a child of the 80s, there would be PLENTY of times where I wished "man.. when will this game get a sequel." And while DLC isn't a sequel, it IS a way to keep playing the games you truly love.

on the other hand the blatant cash grabs and monetization.. on-disc DLC is despicable. It's a way for pubs to get a certain portion of their player base to in fact pay $70, 80, or even $100 for that $60 game. Obviously things like horse armor.

At the same time, some DLC... Bioshock 2, the Elder Scrolls expansion packs, GTA IV, or "stand alone" DLC like Freedom Cry, First Light, etc.. All great DLC packs that accomplish exactly what I hoped for as a kid in the 80s.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Not just sooner, but smaller. The distinction between expansion and DLC is a very important one. One is almost universally beloved and the other appears to be accepted by the new kids and hardcore gamers, but not by curmudgeons like myself.

Crusader Kings 2 had 8 major DLC releases that would qualify as expansions (Sword of Islam, Legacy of Rome, The Republic, The Old Gods, Sons of Abraham, Rajas of India, Charlemagne). They also have a bunch of minor DLC that's primarily visual/aesthetic, i.e graphic packs and added music.

DLC is the means of delivery. Whether it's significant expansion content or a costume or a cheat code.

 

[Veeboy]

Expansions existed before DLC. DLC means small, singular units of content sold ala-carte. I didn't make this definition up. It is the definition. Everyone knows what an "expansion" is and what it means. There is no word to describe piecemeal post or parallel launch content other than how it was described when it was originally introduced. I know because I was there. That word is DLC. The delivery method either boxed or digital is irrelevant to this discussion other than to point out that the internet allowed DLC to exist because you cannot sell horse armor as boxed retail.

All I can say to this is definitions change and languages grow. DLC is the new and more widely used term. Expansions, although they came first, are now seen as a subset of DLC for most people. You're operating under a definition of DLC that is outdated and is not the same definition that is used by and large today.

 

[randomengine]

All I can say to this is definitions change and languages grow. DLC is the new and more widely used term. Expansions, although they came first, are now seen as a subset of DLC for most people. You're operating under a definition of DLC that is outdated and is not the same definition that is used by and large today.

 

[Petrae]

I assume that there are now a lot of members of the Gaming Community that grew up with modern DLC, to many of them it must just be normal.

Bingo. What used to be for some of us never was for many other consumers. DLC, preorder culture, games not working right on launch day... these are all normal things to younger players. It's how they grew up.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

All I can say to this is definitions change and languages grow. DLC is the new and more widely used term. Expansions, although they came first, are now seen as a subset of DLC for most people. You're operating under a definition of DLC that is outdated and is not the same definition that is used by and large today.

Agreed. And I'd consider myself an "old curmudgeon" who used to pick up expansion packs for PC games all the time in the 80s/90s.

 

[Santar]

I think the main reason the bad sort of dlc has become so wide spread is not because of the gaming community but because of the mainstream who just don't care. The same reason free to play is so big.

 

[kaching]

Not just sooner, but smaller. The distinction between expansion and DLC is a very important one. One is almost universally beloved and the other appears to be accepted by the new kids and hardcore gamers, but not by curmudgeons like myself.

Of course its smaller, that's the tradeoff for getting content out more quickly. This "important distinction" is only a matter of time. If your curmudgeoness prefers, you can simply wait the "expansion pack" interval of time to pass and DLC content will typically have amassed to similar amounts as expansion packs of yore and will also then be conveniently bundled as a full-fledged pack to your preference.

I think you're also looking at expansion packs almost exclusively through rose-tinted glasses right now. Plenty of those were considered ripoffs in their time, they weren't universally loved. They faced some of the same complaints that DLC does today: poor value/pricing, content that should have been included with the original game, competing with other games whose developers are giving post-release content away for free (like level editors),etc., etc., etc.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Right from the start outside of a small minority

 

[outunderthestars]

Expansions existed before DLC. DLC means small, singular units of content sold ala-carte. I didn't make this definition up. It is the definition. Everyone knows what an "expansion" is and what it means. There is no word to describe piecemeal post or parallel launch content other than how it was described when it was originally introduced. I know because I was there. That word is DLC. The delivery method either boxed or digital is irrelevant to this discussion other than to point out that the internet allowed DLC to exist because you cannot sell horse armor as boxed retail.

This is factually incorrect. Your personal definition does not qualify as what "everyone knows".

There have always been expansions that required the base game, and they have often been of varying prices and quality.


It has expanded because the costs to produce a large game has skyrockted while the retail price of games has remained stagnant for years.

 

[FunBoy]

Since horse armour.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Since forever

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I don't know. Not all DLC is bad, and it's not bad in concept, just like expansion packs aren't bad in concept. Somewhere along the lines companies started finding nasty ways of using DLC and people don't like it.

Personally, I hardly ever buy DLC anymore. Nintendo seems to do DLC well, and they're offering a lot of stuff I want at a reasonable price and it never seems like the DLC was ripped out of the game to sell it back to me later. So I don't see any problem supporting their DLC. But most of the DLC I see just doesn't seem like it's worth the price. I rarely even use the DLC that comes with preordering a game because what they give you is usually so pointless or uninteresting. And all I have to do at that point is enter a code into my system.

 

[Jito]

Expansions existed before DLC. DLC means small, singular units of content sold ala-carte. I didn't make this definition up. It is the definition. Everyone knows what an "expansion" is and what it means. There is no word to describe piecemeal post or parallel launch content other than how it was described when it was originally introduced. I know because I was there. That word is DLC. The delivery method either boxed or digital is irrelevant to this discussion other than to point out that the internet allowed DLC to exist because you cannot sell horse armor as boxed retail.

Nope you're still wrong. Read the words Downloadable Content out loud to yourself a few times. See any key words jumping out? Yes that word downloadable covers any content for a game that is downloadable. So large or small, as long as you can download it, it's DLC. That means all those tiny DLC pieces and huge "expansion pack" like DLC packs are all DLC now.

What are you chatting about with this "I know because I was there" shit as well. It was like 10 years ago DLC became a thing dude, do you think we're all kids and can't remember how things went down? You're acting like DLC is something that started with the last generation, but it didn't.

 

[Boss Doggie]

I never understood "Standalone DLC". If it's standalone, why is it DLC?

 

[Ricker]

When they had good ones for games Like Borderlands and Fallout and even Oblivion(besides the horse armor lol) and Skyrim.