Comments on: Discussion: Is paid DLC ultimately a good thing or bad thing?

By: vilin

vilin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:17:14 +0000

on an tangentially related note, let’s not completely bad mouth the banks! of course they deserve their share of the blame, but maybe people shoulda known they couldn’t afford that second million dollar house by putting up their current house as collateral even though they were still paying the mortgage on that one. Or that the ridiculous mortgage loan they were getting was too good to be true considering their credit history. anyways those banks and their employees probably pay the majority of taxes as it is, unlike anyone obama appoints to his cabinet apparently. you’re not just bailing out the banks, you’re helping out the people that work there, who are largely free of blame, as well as tons of small businesses and people that rely on those banks to survive. the media and public officials are quick to pass blame and make it seem like the bailout money just helps those banks and no one else.

By: espion4ge

espion4ge — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:15:56 +0000

Lance - I'm sure it happens all the time since Microsoft has to standardize the prices of all DLC being sold on their storefront, but the biggest example I remember of this was the original Gears of War's DLC: Microsoft Doesn't Want Free Gears of War Maps [Planet Xbox 360]

By: cmfl3x

cmfl3x — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:02:33 +0000

espion4ge might know more but I mostly have anecdotal evidence.

for example, Jonathan Blow wanted braid to be 10 dollars but complained that something about the microsoft QA process or something like that basically forced him to bump it to 15 (I’m just doing this from memory)

Also we didn’t know about L4D content (although one could argue that DLC shoulda been in the original game) being free when we wrote that (a week and a half ago). But Valve has stated in the past the reason why they couldn’t add stuff to Team Fortress is basically because on Xbox they have to charge (but on Steam they’ve been releasing new characters and weapons periodically)

By: Lance

Lance — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:21:40 +0000

i noticed you guys keep on bringing up how microsoft “forces” developers to charge for dlc. i’m curious – is this substantiated or just a rumor, and can you cite your sources?

By: eeyore

eeyore — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:15:31 +0000

i tend to agree that dlc has been relatively lame, but that’s because the practice is relatively new, and i feel that the business model needs to be refined.

i don’t think the idea is terrible, there are just a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration.

for example, the content can’t be too critical to the game, otherwise the development costs will be too high. if the content is significant enough, it might as well be an expansion pack. on the otherhand it can’t be too trivial because the floor cost imposed by the transaction system will outweigh the new content.

the costs are far out of whack with the benefit for most dlc, because no one knows how to balance it properly.

By: cmFluxCapacitor

cmFluxCapacitor — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:19:03 +0000

stand tall, LargeLobster… camoflux would buy achievement point DLC if it were available, not to mention what he paid 10 dollars for

in all seriousness, I think paid DLC is here to stay, but it’s up to us to determine what offerings are worth it to us… what if there was some way we could “sample” the DLC before deciding whether or not we really want to buy it?

By: cmfl3x

cmfl3x — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:38:36 +0000

LargeLobster, I think the fact that you paid 2 dollars for the King in Castle Crashers pretty much disqualifies you from passing any judgment. Even if you’re right

By: LargeLobster

LargeLobster — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:13:49 +0000

espion4ge wins