The Good, The Bad, and the DLC

The Good, the Bad, and the DLC

The new Skyrim downloadable content (DLC) was just released and, if you trust Reddit and a few gaming sites, it’s being downloaded a lot – and that’s just on Xbox. It isn’t even available yet on PC or PlayStation. Eventually, though, it’ll be available to all. For the low cost of $20, new adventures, new characters, new stories and new weapons are at the ready for a player who has spent 300 hours exploring Skyrim and just wants a brand new challenge (or even a newbie who wants more Skyrim from the get-go).

If you’re looking to spend a little less money, pull out your smartphone and check out Tiny Tower. The game itself is free, but you can pay real world money for lots of in-game money and speed up your progress. The least expensive package is $0.99 for $10 in-game – or you can just keep playing and earn money as you go. The mobile game market would be an empty place without in-app purchases; some indie game companies survive on the funds generated from in-app purchases.

DLC and in-app purchases as a concept are kind of new – even though old arcade games required more than one payment for continuous play, there were no extras you could purchase. You didn’t pay to play Space Invaders; you paid for one game, hoped you’d get an extra life, and then paid for another shot. Of course, it’s a fairly new player in the world of wholly owned games. No one asked you to purchase additional maps for Zelda on the Super Nintendo, after all.

Not all in-app purchases and DLC are bad; not all are good. A few game development companies have hit the nail on the head, offering players loads of additional content for their money. Others? Not so much.

The Good

The DLC release for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was exactly what DLC should be. It was packed with new missions, new characters, new areas, new maps, and different game modes. It only cost $9.99 and gave players hours of new experiences on a game originally purchased for $60. That’s a low price for so much extra content. The DLC was well-thought-out; Ubisoft offered players value for money. Few gamers who purchased the release felt they didn’t get their money’s worth in the DLC.

Good in-app practices can also be found in simpler mobile games. Take OMGPop’s Draw Something, where players create pictures based on given words and a partner guesses what the player is trying to show. The game loads with only four colors – try drawing grass without green – but you can purchase more right off the bat in the app. What if you don’t want to spend the money? Then just play the game long enough to earn tokens you can trade for more color packs. OMGPop doesn’t require users to pay a ton of money to play the game they offer for free – and it doesn’t stop players who don’t have color packs from seeing the colors they lack in others’ drawings.

For mobile gamers, especially, in-app purchases and DLC can provide a lower barrier to entry. Mobile gamers don’t have to buy an expensive console system and don’t want to pay correspondingly high prices for games. Game development isn’t free, thought – it can be a pricey process that involves lots of developers and artists. In-app purchases and DLC can keep a game developer running, allow them to offer low prices on initial game purchases, and help finance future offerings at similarly low prices.

The Bad

Like everything else, this is a matter of personal preference, but map packs and online keys are a rip-off. It expands the functionality of the original game without really adding anything to it. Take Call of Duty: Black Ops, for example. You pay $60 for the game and another $45 for three map packs that give you a total of 12 multiplayer maps and a handful of zombie missions. That’s three-quarters the price of the game, just to be able to play with all the other people in multiplayer.

That’s right: no additional content for the main story. No additional weapons, features, characters, or anything else. It’s mostly just multiplayer maps with a hint of zombies. Sure, it’s cool – but it’s certainly not worth the money. Especially when, if you opt out, you’re suddenly not able to play the game with your friends who bought the DLC – and, if you purchased it and play with friends who don’t have it, you’re kept from using your newly downloaded content.

DLC that doesn’t change much of the game and offers little in the way of additional content, that keeps players from using the content when playing with a friend who has opted not to purchase it, is showing off the bad side of downloadable content. It’s not that new map packs aren’t fun; the Defiant Map Pack for Halo: Reach had some intricate, beautifully constructed maps that made the game more interesting. The problem is value for money.

Map packs are usually not all released at once for a low cost; instead, they trickle out and cost players more money in the long run. If all the Halo or Call of Duty map packs were released as one $15 bundle, the DLC might have more integrity than it does when players have to shell out more than half the price of the game just to access all the features. As it stands, the dark side of DLC forces players to spend far more money than they should for lackluster features that, for the most part, allow a person to fully access a game that has already been paid for.

The worst offenders are companies that force players to pay for features that come pre-installed on the disc. (For example, Bioshock 2 offered DLC that was already on the disc when people purchased it – it just cost money to unlock.) Companies should not remove content from a game with the intention of making gamers pay for it later. No one wants to arrive in gaming future to find that each gun in a shooter costs $5 and every potion in an RPG sells for $2 online.

The Issues

Is it fair to allow someone to pay for perks and achievements that other players get only after winning or earning them? It could be said that allowing people to purchase the benefits cheapens the entire game. The in-app purchase may give a player willing to spend money a better chance than one who doesn’t want to spend that money. Does that make it an unfair practice?

In the same way, if a company is using the money to fund further development and support, what happens if in-app purchases and DLC are removed? Game publishers can choose to overlay the game with distracting ads or charge more up front, which may keep players without money from accessing the game at all. Developers can choose to no longer support a game once it has been released, even if there are bugs or issues that arise on newer phones or consoles. Without additional funds, ongoing support and maintenance may not be offered.

DLC: Yes or No?

As long as companies like Bethesda, Ubisoft and OMGPop keep providing lots of quality content in available DLC that doesn’t keep players who opt-out from accessing the full experience, then DLC will continue to be a mostly positive thing. Even if it wasn’t, gamers will always play for even a little extra content for a favorite game. DLC is always going to be an easy way for game publishers to make a little extra money from games.

At the end of the day, the real question is whether the extra content is worth the price tag and if it’s a true add-on rather than something required for optimal gameplay. If the answer to both is yes, then click the button and download. If it’s no, it may be time to find a new game to play.