Leveling Down

My fond memories of Dragon Age: Origins have been dulled by the number of extra DLC that “expand” the game.

Last Friday I posted about how I felt that EA’s Project $10 initiative is working, and I’m a supporter of it. Hey, I’m all for supporting developers and publishers to make money off their own products and if it came down to it, I wouldn’t mind if the used market disappeared altogether. EA has been coming back into the spotlight in a positive way with gamers these days, while Activision has gone the other way. But there’s one thing that EA is now more guilty of than others at this point that I am annoyed with: DLC for single player games. Read on for my thoughts why.

The Premise
Game publishers have definitely hopped on board the DLC bandwagon these days, as everyone is trying to make a quick buck. The Modern Warfare 2 map pack sold over 2.5 million in its first week, bringing in nearly $40 million for Microsoft and Activision. While I don’t necessarily partake in buying multiplayer DLC, I don’t outright condone it as I do think that new maps can extend the multiplayer enjoyment for games.

What I don’t like is DLC for single player content. A lot of games are doing this nowadays, and it annoys me for several different reasons. Ever read a book or watch a movie and then be told later that there was another chapter that is a part of the book or another 10 minute scene that takes place after the movie? To me, the single player experience for a game is very similar to a book or a film – it’s creative and artistic, and presented in a finite way for it to be enjoyed. Nowadays, game publishers are sticking in some random dungeon here, a hidden island there, or even “missing levels”. When I complete the single player for a game, I like for it to stay completed. Freaking finish the game in the first place or don’t release the “extra DLC” at all! Unfortunately, the game industry is not quite abiding to my wishes. Let’s look at the list of games in EA’s recent history that are guilty of what I am starting to hate.

Dante’s Inferno
I just started playing Dante’s Inferno last night, but I read that one DLC pack has already been released containing another mission and a second DLC pack is on the way. In fact, both of these DLC packs were announced before the game was even released. Come on – couldn’t the two DLC packs for this single player game have simply been released from the get go? Is DLC really the way to prevent people from selling the game? Maybe EA should have considered free DLC – then people would be more inclined to hold onto their games and I wouldn’t have this article to blog about.

Mass Effect 2 (and even the first game)
All was fine and dandy with Mass Effect 2′s DLC until the Kasumi DLC was just released for $7 (although, I’m still annoyed with even the “free missions” that were added to a supposedly complete campaign). Come on – couldn’t this character have already been included in the game to begin with? And people that already beat the game – are they really going to want to go and buy this pack just to pick up another character? They’ve already beaten the game. What’s the point? $7 buys you the ability to play with a new character but you already beat the game. As much as I dislike this Kasumi DLC, it would have actually been better if it was released at the game’s launch, so people could use Kasumi in their initial playthrough of the game. Oh and let’s not forget Mass Effect 1′s pair of silly and stupid DLC.

Army of Two: The 40th Day
The first Army of Two game had a very short campaign, and I’m pretty sure that the second one did as well. So it irks me a great deal to hear about a $10 DLC pack for this recent sequel that contains two new missions. What the heck? Sounds like the developers couldn’t finish the game on time, so they decided to just charge us for their poor planning afterward. Thanks guys. As if your first game wasn’t short enough in the first place.

Dragon Age: Origins
I played through the original Dragon Age: Origins game earlier this year and had a great time with it. It was a lengthy game, but there’s already been enough DLC (two packs and an expansion) that when combined, equal about the cost of the game itself. The DLC packs and the expansion have all gotten bad reviews, and rightly so. For a game that’s epic and already 50 hours long, to be charged $5-$7 for another mini dungeon or $40 for an 20 hour epilogue that doesn’t even really continue the main campaign’s storyline is just a slap in the face to fans. Why not just make the sequel instead of all these minor extensions to an already great and complete game?

What About Non-EA Games?
It’s easy to hate on recent EA games doing this, but to be fair, EA is not the only company partaking in selling DLC for single player games. However, major titles that come to my mind that do have single player DLC are actually a lot more thorough and not necessarily as bad. I’ve yet to play all of the DLC for Fallout 3, but one of them raises your character’s level cap from 20 to 30, which is actually very significant and I can see it contributing a lot to the single player game. Bethesda Softworks’ other 360 game, Oblivion, had all sorts of extra DLC that was totally not worth it – except for Shivering Isles. That DLC was a lengthy and engrossing adventure, and I did enjoy it. Then there’s also games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Resident Evil 5 that have their own DLC, but these DLC packs are completely different campaigns than the main one and I can’t quite hate on those since they were truly developed afterward and did something different. Assassin’s Creed II got a bit of hate with its DLC missions, as they were missing from the original release and Ubisoft was up-front admitting that they could not fit them in before the game shipped. While that was potentially more of a good reason to hate the DLC, I found it refreshing that they were honest and I also agreed with their statement that Assassin’s Creed II already had tremendous value due to its lengthy campaign so I was more willing to forgive them for putting it out there. And finally, I’ve saved the best for last: Final Fantasy XIII. When asked if there would be any Final Fantasy XIII DLC, the producer and director of the game claimed that the final product was already 100% complete. Thank you guys – it’s good to know that some game developers out there still believe in shipping a complete single player product these days.

The Messy Line Between EA’s Two Initiatives
So while we are now all aware of EA’s Project $10 strategy, not all of us were aware of EA’s second “more secretive” initiative: Project DLC Everything. I can see the reasoning behind going with both initiatives: EA of course wants to make more money (or in a sense, reduce the amount of earnable money lost through used sales). In order to do this, it’s in EA’s best interest to have gamers hold onto the games they bought new. Project $10 is a step in the right direction to getting gamers to buying EA games new, but Project DLC Everything is not the right way to keep gamers from selling their single player games. Unlike other major publishers’ DLC, EA seems to be doing whatever they can to nickle and dime us with short DLC that could have easily been included in the game’s release. Is someone really not going to sell Mass Effect 2 now because a $7 DLC pack with an extra character gets released a month after the game comes out? Come on. Compare EA’s DLC to something like GTA4′s The Lost and the Damned and we can see the right way to do DLC and the wrong way. EA should have instead made the second initiative: Project Free DLC. That would have kept more of us inclined to hold onto our games. Of course, I personally would prefer for single player games to just be 100% complete from the get-go, but I can’t fault a game company for wanting to make more money – unless it disrespects its supporters like EA has been.

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