EA executive calls on-disc DLC complaints ‘nonsense,’ but the truth is more complex

Ask a gamer what they think of downloadable content (DLC) these days, and you’re as likely to hear a torrent of blistering language as anything positive. The process of releasing content piecemeal over time has been extremely controversial in the gaming community. Publishers have embraced the concept despite the mixed reaction of gamers. It’s now common practice for AAA games to release several follow-up areas or adventures, and access to such is often sold as a “Season Pass.”

[AtomHeart623]

DLC isn't bad in and of itself, but when the DLC contains content that should have been in the game anyway then I have a problem with that. EA is rubbish whether they want to call consumer complaints nonsense or not. Look at Witcher 3 for instance, that's how you do DLC. DLC to me, shouldn't be about cashing in, it should be about thanking the consumer for buying your product. I have no problem with paid DLC for certain customization options or cosmetics or even for quality story add ons, but EA treats their customers like idiots. Especially with all the micro transactions in their sports titles that you basically have to buy if you are a conpmletionist and want all the trophies/achievements. I personally haven't bought an EA title in years and don't plan to.

[Ashlen]

*cough* Their customers are idiots *cough*

[christian hour]

"$60 price points became the norm with the introduction of the Xbox 360, but that price hasn’t been adjusted for inflation. The adjusted cost of a $60 game in 2005 should be $73 now."

Ah feck off, this always annoys me. Inflation is a thing yes, but when you live in a country where the price of things has gone up but the minimum wage has gone DOWN since 2005, you're not making me feel any better about being sold back original pieces of the game in the guise of "expansion packs" or pre order incentives.

Video games were expencive in the 80s for several reasons, for one it was all very new stuff and also very niche.. Gaming is bigger than its ever been, there are people who used to make fun of me for playing "kids" games 10 years ago who are all about their xb1s and ps4s now (and comic books, and sci fi, thanks for making nerd culture "cool", society, now my school bullies act like they were always down with me XD)

If anything, the price of games should be going down or at least staying put as they have been.

NOTHING can excuse these practices of stripping original content out and selling it back to us. ANd numerous develoeprs have shared horror stories of publishers stepping in and asking them to chop bits out for pre-order and DLC.

Its perfectly acceptable for a developer to set their game up for future expansions, but its not okay for a publisher to step in, take shit out and call it DLC and act like you're doing gamers a favour.

Maybe, hmm MAYBE, if you idiots didn't spend more than 50% of your budgets on advertising that doesnt really do all that much anyway, you wouldnt have to resort to these tactics to make a profit. And maybe if you didnt try and release sequels to a franchise on a yearly basis, you wouldnt have to pay an army of hundreds to get the job done.

But doing that would require using your actual brains to figure out a good plan, its much easier to just rip stuff out and sell it back to us.

" When games cost hundreds of millions of dollars, even the largest companies can’t afford to publish very many, It’s also why we’ve seen a surge of indie developers these past few years"

Actually, the indie revolution mainly came about from developers who were shocked at how bad it was to work at AAA studios,how there was zero room for innovation, and how soul destroying it was to make a game with, well, no soul. So they took a big risk, left their jobs and poured everything they had into making their passion project, with a huge risk of failing and going broke (a risk the like of EA will NEVER take). it was these early pioneers that opened up the flood gates for others to follow suit and now the big AAA companies are jumping all over indies to give them the profit for making games they were too scared to risk making themselves.

[freshslicepizza]

even without marketing the price of development has gone up or do you live in some parallel universe where wages and the amount of people who work on games have not increased?

are you really trying to tell me and everyone else that gran turismo on the ps2 cost the same to make as it will on the ps4 without marketing involved?

the innovation and new ip's will mainly come from indie games. that is because it is far cheaper to make them. see the connection?

[ThunderPulse]

In Canada the price went from $60 to $80 in 2 years.

[freshslicepizza]

holy cow, you're right it is $80 for new games. but the canadian dollar is about 76 cents. which means a 60 game should be 78.50

[christian hour]

@moldybread

You just ignore the points I make and then pay attention to the ones that validate your response?

No shit games cost more to make these days, i figured that was so obvious I didn't even touch on it.

But guess what, more people are buying and playing games than ever before. Development costs have increased but so has the userbase.

Another point I figured there was no point touching on in my original post but sure might as well now in response to you, is that physical production costs are way way down, there are now less gaming stores in the world (at least in europe anyway) and people are slowly adapting to digital purcahses, manufacturing and distribution costs are not as high as they once were for publishers.

[freshslicepizza]

more people may be buying but that doesn't really reflect the aaa market. it also means more games to the consumer to choose from which also translates into a more competitive market. good for the consumer but not to the publisher who doesn't like to take risk.

gran turismo is a prime example of a series that doesn't really counter sales versus production costs. sales peaked on the ps2 while production costs have risen. the series used to sell 10-15 million copies but the last one sold under 3 million. that would mean gt7 has to sell at least 20 million to get the same type of profit margins the series used to give to sony.

[AtomHeart623]

You could put it that way lol I was trying to be diplomatic.

[-Foxtrot]

He's defending DLC and on disc DLC...really?

Prime example is the Battlefront Battle Of Jakku DLC they are doing. They are trying to look like the good guys by offering this map for free but in reality it's a level they've made along side the game and will offer it seperately to give off the illusion they've made it free because they are so kind hearted. In the end it's not, it would have been part of the game anyway.

Sad thing is developers do that and they get away with it

Mass Effect 3 Omega DLC. Instead of getting that finish after the delay they decided to add multiplayer instead.

[Relientk77]

On disc DLC is BS, plain and simple

[n4rc]

kind of agree with him..

who gets to decide what should be in the game? they do.. not us..

they weigh the content vs cost and decide what the core game is for $60.. DLC is planned from the beginning so having it ready along the base game isnt out of the question, much cheaper when it comes time to roll it out..

we get a license to play the content.. we dont own everything on the disk like some seem to think.. perhaps looking at it from a business point of view helps me see this the way i do

now.. misleading customers etc is a whole different argument.. im strictly talking on disk DLC.

[pumpactionpimp]

While you're absolutely right from both a legal, and business stand point. Do you believe this is an acceptable business model for gamers?

It's standard for business's to offer varying models of products at purchase, and varying prices for upgrades in the future. This is both in hardware and software sales for business's of all kinds.

But when you get to a game, compare it to a movie. Imagine a movie came out, in 3-5 different editions. When you purchased the edition you felt comfortable with the movie starts, 5 mins in it says a piece of story has been with held, and may prove important to the story line, or it may not. Would you like to purchase this additional story piece for $10?

That business model would not work in a theater, a book, or any other medium like this. It does work with certain software, and hardware manufacturers. But that's because they are selling an entirely different product. Games fall under the legal term of software, yet are protected by free speech as art... You can't have it both ways. And it wouldn't be allowed in any other artistic medium. I pay for a game, not licensing rights, not locked content on a disc, not bonus features. I want the book, movie, or game I paid for.

[n4rc]

i do.. its a viable option that other industries do use.

amusement parks are one, the speed pass... what people dont understand (or seem to) is that these games are way more expensive now then they used to be but still cost the same... DLC is how thats possible

the alternative is paying $100 for the full game (which you can do anyways) but then its out of reach of many.

like speed passes may piss some parents off.. they have to explain to their kids why me and my friends are skipping the line.. but us paying $120 vs their $50 is the reason they could afford to be there at all..

same with gaming... without this model, everyone would essentially be forced to pay for season passes to ensure parity.. this way they can still get into the base game for $60

nice early morning ramblings from a guy that hasnt slept yet lol.. tldr is full games would cost $100 with the DLC model. if the full game is important to you, you gotta pony up the extra cash

[_-EDMIX-_]

@pump- "Do you believe this is an acceptable business model for gamers?"

? I mean..that doesn't even make sense. The business model is up to those who are actually funding those games. If it wasn't "acceptable" in terms of a concept to consumers...they would not be buying it, clearly they are.

"s, 5 mins in it says a piece of story has been with held, and may prove important to the story line, or it may not. Would you like to purchase this additional story piece for $10?"??

Though I agree thats wrong for any game to actually do in game, you could better compare sequels or behind the scenes or deleted scenes etc in films when they go to DVD.

Your not getting that during the first run at theaters.

That wrong too?

Its their film and they very much can do anything they want with it, at the end of the day...they own it.

"I want the book, movie, or game I paid for" sooo who is to say that the content being marketed is actually what you seeked to play?

At the end of the day, they owe you nothing more then what it was marketed as.

Even in game, to say something like "closed mission, must pay DLC", unless they marketed that the game gave said mission for free, they are very much legally able to do that.

Wrong? Maybe, but could a film not hype up a battle that doesn't happen? I mean...they might have alluded to a huge epic ending, but didn't do it.

I can't really say they are lying, or its wrong etc. Did they in fine print really say the content was exactly "35 millions, 35 side quest etc"?

Did the film poster and marketing say "see how -blank- person dies"? and the film didn't do that?

Games cost more today then they did years ago and haven't even gone up price in long, long time. We are actually getting games that are longer, bigger and with much more content then in ANY time in gaming, period.

Biggest Batman, biggest AC, biggest GTA, longest GTA, largest Smash Bros, largest Mario kart, largest and most content packed Witcher etc, the list goes on and on.

Why should a company NOT make DLC? Soooo make less content over all? Not making the DLC won't just make the content free and come in game day 1...it was never made to be charged for.

Those developers still need to be paid and expect to be paid, thus...to have developers making content, then also cutting the DLC to give them LESS WORK, will result in an over all less content over all.

Why? Well you won't get a GOTY version...they didn't make the DLC, you'll just get base version and thats it.

Not doing DLC doesn't just give you a larger game or something lol

I've noticed that many have not really factored WHY DLC is being made in the first place. Its being budgeted, some even have teams that JUST do DLC content. Thus...its stuff that was never going to be in the game at all as it suggest the company and afford to pay the staff to make the base game AND more content while just charging $60....they can't even AFFORD TO JUST CHARGE THAT!

ie ZERO BF has ever launched with 40 maps, no Smash bros is as large as 4 in terms of content...thus....neither series has any history of coming out with that much stuff, its extra, its not normal, its not stripped content etc.

Though I agree having it even shown in game as "missing quest" or "buy dlc" in menu during the game is cheesy and classless, its not illegal. Tasteless...yes lol.

[pumpactionpimp]

I think both you and n4c misunderstand what I'm trying to say. I'm in no way against dlc. What I am against is the current dlc model. I remember the days when dlc, wasn't called dlc. It was called an expansion. It usually cost $20-40, and added a whole new story arc, new characters, new areas to explore etc. it often came months after the game.

Now you get day 1 nickel and dime dlc, that is sometimes found on disc. This practice IMHO is unacceptable. Give me a charcter for $2, a skin for the same, I avoid those as they don't benefit my experience. I have no issue with those, even if it's day 1. But characters bei withheld, story content etc, shouldn't be on the disc, and day 1 dlc. Especially when you buy it, it adds 10 mins to your experience, and doesn't benefit you for $20.

I guess I'm saying that the publishers need to stop giving us so much shovelware. And handling it so poorly. Quality content, and good pr will take a company further financially, rather than jamming unimportant crap dlc down a consumers throat. Look at gta v, made tons of money, lots of free dlc, micro transactions that benefit the player depending on what they wish to pay to obtain the items they want. Then look at activision, we slapped some things together, feed us $20. I hope I've clarified.

[n4rc]

its the price game again in that regard.. a $20-40 expansion may be too much for some but they'd be willing to throw down $2 or $10 or whatever.. more buying options means more revenue

but i think i follow you.. i dont think the model is the issue, just the bad examples of it..

the model can and does work imo... but some are greedy and simply didnt have enough content to warrant this model but made it happen anyways..

kinda like used game sales... selling old games to a company that will resell them sounds great for everyone.. until that company starts paying you $2 for a game they'll sell for $20 or selling used newer games for $5 less then the msrp lol

[_-EDMIX-_]

"we get a license to play the content" Agreed and agreed.

"now.. misleading customers etc is a whole different argument.. im strictly talking on disk DLC"

Agreed as well.

Unless someone was mislead, lied to etc, I see no wrong in it.

[_-EDMIX-_]

@Pump- don't disagree with you on that.

"I guess I'm saying that the publishers need to stop giving us so much shovelware. And handling it so poorly. Quality content, and good pr will take a company further financially, rather than jamming unimportant crap dlc down a consumers throat"

Agreed and agreed.

[TwoForce]

Ok , what about Mass Effect 2 ?

[SlightlyRetarted]

I understand that making games is more expensive now than 10 years ago and you have to get that money somewhere. It's simple business really. I don't know not a one other business area where product price stays the same, even if production costs rise.
And i think fixed prices in gaming should go away. IMO Games like Witcher 3, Bloodborne etc. are more valuable than that fixed 60 and games like The Order are way less. Still every one asks the same price. But i would gladly pay 10 euros more for a new game than have these DLC shitfests that some games are running these days.

I must add that EA is company who doesn't deserve that extra 10. They have bloated marketing costs for average games, and when average game don't sell millions they cut them down. Put your money into making a good game and have a moderate marketing. If the game is good, sales will follow.

[Omegasyde]

last game i got from EA was dragon age which was good....

But defending Disc Locked Content (EA's defition of dlc...) is enough to make me not want to buy a new game from them ever again.

I cant wait until they release battlefront which will have less than 10 mp maps (all smaller than bf4s maps) and still zero single player..... Yet still put game out for full price

[Darkwatchman]

People saying games are more expensive to make now and using that as an excuse--guess what? The industry is also bigger. More people play games. More people buy games. Sooo.....I'm pretty sure that should offset it. You're more likely to sell in this day and age than 10 years ago because of how mainstream the industry has become. It gets bigger and bigger with each coming year so games being more expensive to make is not an excuse

[linkenski]

Take the on-disc Day 1 DLC for ME3 for example. Same story, people moaned and complained that it had been taken out of the game and an executive explained it was because it had been in development while the main game was in certification.

It was also revealed that the DLC featured stuff that was originally supposed to be in the game but because of time constraints would've been cut had it not come out as a DLC.

But I say, delay the friggin game then, and don't ever offer me day-1 story DLC again.