Similarly, I love Team Fortress 2. It is a great game. And you know what? If Valve created a new character I could play as for say $10 I'd buy it in an instant. I want more characters in TF2 to play as. But you know the reaction they'd get. They'd probably get flamed because the parasite-class would argue that they should get that for free because buying something once to them means that the developers are perpetual slaves to them after.
My mistake, this *IS* about DLC. Brad, that's a line of business ethics, and why people reject it. Same thing with EA's "cash 4 gunz" thing they were going to do with Bad Company.
As soon as you do that in a multiplayer game, you've now created the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. The 'haves' are given a distinct advantage over the 'have nots'.
A good example of comprimise was Battlefield 2142. Buying the expansion pack for it let you unlock a slew of new gizmos. Most were worthless, but a few did give you a distinct advantage. However, EA had enough sense to allow normal players to use 'Field Upgrades' to get access to these expansion-only gadgets. When you got enough team points, you earned a field upgrade, and for as long as you stayed on that server, could keep them, allowing you to use the 'expansion' stuff.
The second issue is also one of ethics. PC gaming has been a relatively open platform for games for neigh-upon twenty years now. By offering 'official' DLC, you are not providing any service whatsoever that hasn't existed in the past for free. Instead, your comprimising a pillar of PC gaming, undermining the platform as a whole. Allowing DLC and doing something like limiting the SDK (so you can maintain a monopoly on your 'mods') is extremely shady, and it doesn't help that most of this DLC is tragically overpriced.
I used to play Natural Selection. I made a mod myself that'd offer an in-game voice menu function that with a few keystrokes in certain patterns, I could spout information. "VNH" would say "I need health", whereas "VNA" would call for ammo. The menu was context-sensitive on the map, and saying "VAH1" would perhaps call to attack the Cargo Bay hive. I also had custom modeled guns, some made specifically for me. My maps used custom textures.
All of this for the grand sum of $0. How many years down the line until we see games stop allowing mods altogether? How many years until the models use unreadable formats, that developers refuse to release? Or until the game simply bans you completely for using any 'unauthorized' content whatsoever? I already see some of that last one (Crysis - adding the music from Warhead will ban you from multiplayer servers).
Were developers in charge of things, that voice menu would've cost $10. The guns about $8, the maps and textures $15.
If I can make shit for free, why should we be EXPECTED to pay for the same free stuff? Because it's 'official'? I have to eat too, don't I? Hell it's not even my JOB to make this shit, I'm not making royalties on the sales of the game here.
