I'll weigh in on this too as I've had pretty intense feelings on the matter. At first, I hated the idea. It felt like I was getting cheated somehow... But after some thought, and seeing a few examples of DLC, I've had a complete turnaround. I now thing DLC can be a great thing, CAN be. For me, it was Fallout 3 that changed my mind. I like the idea, and hope it catches on, but only under certain rules. The base game has to be complete by itself. It's cheating to design a game so that the experience isn't complete without the additional purchase of DLC. Cliffhangers are only ok in my book for full expansion packs or sequels. Also, the DLC has to be worth it's asking price. In my opinion, the very first DLC for Fallout 3, the one about Anchorage, wasn't worth it. It was too sloppy, more like a player made mod that wasn't polished. Trees floating above the ground.....come on.... I don't know enough about the second DLC to make a judgement, but the third set was definately worth it. It continues the story, increases the level limit, adds new skills, etc. It's not just a couple of quickly churned out maps and a handful of new gear.
If I'm going to shell out money for DLC, it will have to add some real value to the game, and be on par with the base game in terms of quality. If it's something that could be put together with just a modders toolset, I'm not buying. Not to say that modders contributions aren;t good, some are very good....but I'm not having to pay for them so I don't hold player made mods to the same set of standards.
Personally, I like the expansion model better than DLC as they almost allways had enough content to make it worth while. Since DLC are typically smaller, it's a crapshoot.....at least that's been my experience so far.
Well let's say for the sake argument that you purchased the 3 DLC for Fallout 3 and only one of them was worth the money involved. You've just hit a satisfaction of about 33% (I know you said you didn't buy the second so this is a rough example). Are we, those of us who are not liking what we are seeing in terms of DLC, really supposed to be convinced that it's okay since at least 33% of the DLC isn't ripoff.
Hey I know there are a lot of snobs on these boards against the Sims series, but EA has put out a prime example of what is wrong about DLC. A full priced game Sims 3 (though I rarely buy titles without some sort of discount) that comes with a lot less content then previous series so they can sell things like hair and shirts and furniture all that stuff that often the community tends to churn out in better quality at outrageous prices. I mean some of these sets are 24 dollars. It's not even an expansion pack here, just a set of furniture that is almost 50% the cost of the full priced game. The expansion pack they are putting out is 10 dollars more than most expansions packs at 39.95, so it's beyond the full price of an expansion pack and missing the kind of content they want to sell at the store, ie shirts, hair, furniture.
MMORPG are now doing DLC although in MMO world, we seem to call it microtrans for some reason. I am not talking about Free to play MMOs here, but the full priced pay to play games are selling things that range from cosmetic items, city of heroes, to extra bank space and characters slots (lotro) for 20 dollars, to pets in WoW. Now I am aware that servers and employees need to be paid, but there is no way Blizzard needs an estimated 165 million a month to keep the servers up and running for WoW. If they're not using that money to expand the game, and I won't even say for free because it's not free, it's being paid for by subcribers, what the hell are they doing with it? I don't play WoW, but I play a lot of games, MMOs and otherwise, and to see a company that is so widely popular and documented profitable as Blizzard do this money grab thing is pretty disappointing. There are plenty of other companies struggling to survive because of the crap games they could put out, but when Blizzard starts doing it, that's a problem in my book.
There is too much potential for companies to nickle and dime players to death with subpar or just outrageously priced crap. Even you said you used to hate the idea, but now you don't hate the idea but you still think its a crapshoot which to me is still not good enough. Because my gaming group is just too damn picky these days, we don't play Demigod, but I am under the impression that Demigod is going to get a couple of new demigods that companies like EA and blizzard would probably charge 10 dollars a piece for if they were to releaes added content later. I do own GalcCiV II and I know they released extra's for that without additional cost.
Like I said before, I do not yet own Dragon Age. I probably will in the future though when I am finished with my current games, but even then I still have an issue with DLC available on release day with the promise of at least 2 years of nickle and diming to go.
