I don't mind paying for DLC; as long as the price to content is fair. I payed for all the Sins content, as well as most of the other games I currently play. Its only the rare but extreme examples where I have been forced to amputate part of my upper limb; using a cutlass, and replace it with a steel hook, gouge out one of my eyes using a dirk; forcing me to wear a black eye-patch, and fetch the parrot out of its cage.

my example:

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 11 (English version). Bought it for $80 (actually form memory it was 79.95 but you get my point).  Shortly after purchasing the game Koei announces they will not be releasing the expansion (Power Up Kit as Koei called it), for the English version. "OK so no big deal", I'll just get a Chinese/Japanese version with PUK (expansion) and then use one of the English translators to translate the game to English. Price of the non-English version with PUK (on top of the $80 I've already spent), $150.  So that's a grand total of $80+150= $230 for a video game (hmm... I think not).

The price of video games has actually gone down over the last 15 -20 years. DLC is a good way to get people to spend as much as they used to.

This is because of inflation... paying $60 for a game in 1995 and $60 for a game today is an awesome deal for customers, considering that many things costs ~25% more than they did at that time. We really should be spending $80+ for brand new video games if we value them as much as we did in the past.

While I am also wary of DLC and have never bought any, I do think that if done right they could be a good thing. I think the main problem is that usually the DLC is overpriced and replaces an expansion pack which would come with more meaningful additions.

What worries me most about DLC is that it can uneven the playing field in multiplayer. Those who buy a game in 2010 should always be able to keep playing the game with others without the others gaining an in-game upgrade via DLC in 2011 or 2012.

But other than that particular circumstance, I have no problem with DLC. If it costs too much and doesn't deliver enough, then (hopefully) the smarter gamers will refuse to buy it, and the less smart will get what they deserve. But the developers are still free to put whatever they want on the market.

By this reasoning ($30 for 20 hours) shouldn't you be willing to pay $10 for 6 hours and 40 minutes worth of gameplay?  And considering that a 6 hour 40 minute DLC patch can be built in AT LEAST 3 times as fast and certainly takes less than 1/3 the time for the company to beta test, doesn't it offer some benefits?  Take it further, how about 3hours and 20 minutes for $5?  You're getting exactly the same value and without the six to twelve months of waiting for the full xpac.

It's quality that matters (and that bad DLC threatens) not quantity. 

It's easy to make up numbers.  You're using random numbers without any backing to support your argument. You can certainly point at SPECIFIC DLC that was $10 and only gave 2 or 3 hours of gameplay, but I can point at $10 DLC that was 6 hours.  Likewise you can point at plenty of $30 xpacs that were 20 hours and great and I can point at plenty of $30 xpacs that were significantly less that 20 hours or were terrible or both. 

My whole point was that if you're getting equal value based on YOUR $30 for 20 hours metric, then DLC isn't bad and in fact has some benefits in that the smaller pieces can come faster. 

There's a difference between good DLC and bad DLC just like there's a difference between a good $50 game or $30 xpac and a bad one.  Over-generalization is useless.

Sure are a lot of "my opinion is better than yours" people in these here forums. I feel like putting in my slightly derogatory comments too.

 I don't think many people have a problem with good DLC, but the unhappy campers (me included) with the newest fad is that for every good DLC, there are 2 bad ones. And to quantify what I consider as bad, they're not worth the price of admission. $10 for an actual six hour adventure isn't so bad. $10 for a six hour adventure that really only takes me 2 hours is not. $15 for 3 multiplayer maps? No. Thankyou. DLC that was taken out of the game for the sole purpose of selling it? Bad. I still savor the tears of the legion of captain bioware's who still deny that Shale was an original character, even though bioware didn't delete all of his original files from the game disc.

 Don't buy them you say? I don't. Want me to not complain about it on a public forum about gaming? Go fuck   yourself!

 I hope for every one sale it each worthless DLC has, it gets pirated 1000 times, so that we can have separate installation limits per DLC, and have to call the developers $4.99/minute hotline every time we have to install them, or that without a constant internet connection the game will force close and your saves will be unloadable... scratch that, the last one already exists.

I'm hoping that when DRM hits full swing on the consoles next generation, coupled with the economy struggling along, that all gaming platforms will huge hits and wipe out most of the playing field. Then maybe we can have some actual new innovation, tech rushing, and advancements instead of the stagnant industry we're rutting around in today.

 And in the 10 seconds that I skimmed through, I saw a lot of people mention inflation and how $60 is still a good deal for a game. That's a neat economic 101 tidbit without considering any other factors involved, so since that's cool, I'll throw some in too. Forgetting about production and distribution costs plummeting, as well as the many game companies becoming industry giants, and probably many other factors my economic 201 class didn't teach me, we'll just settle on units sold. More gamers, more systems, more sales, more profit.

I'm still undecided on my view of cosmetic DLC that adds nothing to gameplay. If people want to play Barbie Dress Up Fashion Show, but do it while playing Portal 2 or Hat-Fortress, and are willing to pay lots of money to do so, and it means that I'll get free meaningful updates, then it doesn't sound so bad. The idiots suffer and we all get the benefits. I'd still prefer the old nostalgic ways, but as long as it's not free-to-play, but pay-to-win then it's easier to stomach.

You honestly think that the Fallout DLC is the same quality as LoD was as an expansion? If you paid $50 for just the 5 DLC's from FO3, would it have been a good game? How does that $50 compare to the $50 of the vanilla game?

If you think that DLC is mostly on par with LoD, I either need some of the drugs that you use, or need directions to your state of mind, because reality isn't nearly as nice.

 Buying the GotY edition is fine with me. You got a good amount of content at a good price. The developers still only get their $30-$50 from you, and you didn't buy them all on release day. Would you have been satisfied if that GotY edition costs you $120 though? That's my argument against it. Bethesda has made some decent and some terrible DLC, but so far they've added more to the games instead of putting out more "horse armor" items. I'm not going to bat against them. I still won't buy their DLC, but it's not on the evil side of the spectrum.

A lot of DLC isn't like that however, and there aren't GotY editions to buy.

 LoD added much more than just a single campaign and a few items. I can make a very long list of all of the improvements it added to the game, but it's not quite relevant to the scope of my argument here. I'm just a bit shocked that you consider them the same, since my opinion is wildly different. And we all know that my opinion is better than everyone else's.

 And as for the crappy DLC = crappy expansion argument. It holds a little water, but not enough to sink the boat. If an expansion was terrible, ignoring the fans who will love it despite itself, they didn't hurt the game or the community, other than being disappointing. $30 expansions weren't released a month after the game was, so it wasn't necessary to stay competitive in MP or have the entire game. DLC can fracture gaming communities, especially multiplayer, where as expansions usually brought some new life to them with a group of new players buying "gold" editions, and old players coming back to play for a while longer with the new toys.

Well, that's a major part of my past points. Being responsible is as important for the consumer as it is for the producer.

If everything remained the same price and they just lumped it together, of course I wouldn't be happy with it. I just haven't run across that yet.

I haven't gone for any games that have shaped up this way yet. Keep in mind that I only PC game and am rather picky to make sure the overall game is worth the money and has tons of replayability.

Okay, I'll go with that here. It's hard for me to remember all the details since it's been years and there were quite a few patches. Keeping track of changes was not high on my list of concerns. Even still, I waited to get a cheap, used copy of LoD. Again, thrifty.

I'm not so much aiming to say I'm right and everyone else is wrong. If you find a place in a past post where I said that, let me know and I'll fess up to it. I'm just saying that of the few DLCs (more a casual gamer nowadays) I've bought, I've felt I got my money's worth. But a major part of that is being patient. If I ran out and got every one on release date, I would feel ripped off, but then I could only blame myself as we all know things go down in price along with demand.

ditto

I could argue that this is generally true. Granted, I opted out after Warcraft III. Not a fan. Assuming they have maintained the same general model, I would say that they do well.

I was a fan of Warcraft 1 and 2 and the expansion to 2. Didn't care for the RTS/RPG mix they did for 3 and I felt they back peddled a lot on the story. I know they did an expansion to it just as big as they did for the 2nd, but I wasn't going to bother.

Diablo didn't have an expansion, but the expansion to Diablo 2 was great, as was Brood Wars for Starcraft. Starcraft 2 isn't worth dishing out the cash right now, so I might pick it up well down the line when they have a nouveax battlechest.

Funny that. Once I saw the price, I didn't even bother checking the specs.

My main issue with DLC is that it gives gaming companies a solid reason to hold features back at release that otherwise would have been in the game so that they can sell it to you later. DLC also causes companies to lean away from allowing modding by the community (which is many cases produces higher quality free 'DLC').

I wasn't meaning all of my reply toward you, I was just quoting you to respond to the LoD comment. Most of what I type is to be taken in general toward everyone. The rest is just the tantrum of a sarcastic blowhard whose type is often misconstrued without tone to emphasize the meaning.

We do seem to share similar opinions of games, their DLC, and their worth.

P.S. Don't buy Starcraft 2 unless you're really into the multiplayer. I could write another dissertation on how disappointing it is.