Downloadable content in theory is a lovely idea. It means that games we love will never be static, and we can continue playing them and exploring new content and loving them for much longer than if they had remained as they were at launch. Lately, though, I wonder if that’s true anymore.
The price point of most games is around $60. What you get for that $60 varies widely, however. Some games provide 5-6 hours of solo content and unlimited multiplayer. Some games have 10-15 hours of content to beat the game, perhaps with the understanding that players can go through the game and make different choices to enhance their experience. Some games provide hundreds of hours of play. Games like Neverwinter are free, don’t require a subscription, and make money off of microtransactions used to purchase elite game content. Sure, you can play without spending money, but the number of hours it takes to earn gear and items comparable to what you can buy is daunting.
Witcher III announced pre-launch that they would have lots of free downloadable content. They also announced later that there would be at least two major paid expansions. Does Projekt RED pretend to launch a complete game just to force us to buy the pieces that should have come with it originally? Or is the game truly complete, with the expansions going further than the original ever could (without taking so long to develop that it was obsolete by the time it was ready)? RED co-founder, Marcin Iwiński, elaborates on this question:
“We remember the time when add-on disks truly expanded games by delivering meaningful content. As gamers, we’d like to bring that back. We’ve said in the past that if we ever decide to release paid content, it will be vast in size and represent real value for the money. Both our expansions offer more hours of gameplay than quite a few standalone games out there.”
As a gamer, that sounds ok to me. Witcher III has a lot of content. It feels complete while I’m playing it. Even though I haven’t finished, I can say that I will get my $60 worth out of it. If they have meaningful, deep, and interesting expansions, I will spend money happily on them.
But then there are games like The Sims who have long relied on expansion packs, sometimes substantive and sometimes dubious. Sims 4 recently released an expansion pack called Get to Work. This expansions provides you the opportunity to go to work with your sim, ostensibly getting faster promotions and getting more engagement from the game because you don’t just have to sit there and watch the maid clean your house for 7 hours a day. I purchased the expansion this week, which came in at $40. That is a lot for an expansion, and I resisted buying it for that reason. However, I finally caved.
I caved into buying the expansion because Sims 4 is boring. I have always loved the Sims games. I count them among my first game addictions, and still well into Sims 3 and expansions did I consider it one of my favorite franchises. Sims 4 was a huge step back for the franchise. All of the neat things you got to experience through Sims 3 and expansions were taken away. You got a very basic game, with nearly no new or interesting content. In previous versions, when a new base game came out, it incorporated much of the expansions from the previous versions. Sims 4 doesn’t do this. Instead, it could almost be the Sims 3. I understand that they do this to sell you expansions, but the expansions have none of the content or meaning of what Witcher III devs promise. Here are my problems with it:
- The game is not stand-alone.
There is no new or interesting content in the Sims 4, as I said above. But beyond that, it feels like an enormous step backward from the cool shit developed in the Sims 3 expansions. Where are the pets? Where are the seasons? Where is all the cool stuff I came to expect from my Sims experience? Aren’t new releases supposed to have more, not less, than the versions that came before?
- The expansion is not new content.
In the Sims 3, we were able to have careers and go to work with our sims. Admittedly, this expansion is much smoother. But it’s not a new idea or compelling at all.
- There is very little content for the money.
The Witcher III devs promise huge amounts of content for $20. In the Sims Get to Work expansion, you get 3 jobs to pick from. Sure, you can open a business (also not new to the Sims franchise), but that is a tiny amount that could potentially not change the game at all. For forty dollars!
I know, I know. Should I really be surprised tat EA is just trying to screw us out of a few more dollars? They’ve had the worst reputation for years in this category (ok, in most categories, such as worst company in the America 2012 and 2013). But are we at the point where companies purposefully hold back content, and make bad games, to squeeze out extra dollars? Sims 4 is an incomplete game. They released a game that was bad, on purpose, so we would pay more to make it playable and enjoyable. I really hope that this isn’t a trend that will be happening with all games, though I worry.
Batman: Arkham Knight is perhaps one of the biggest offenders to date of charging for DLC content– not only charging, but charging at launch. B:AK will cost you a whopping $100 at launch for the game and the season pass to get the DLC. Is this different than just charging $100 for the game? I’d say so, and as a consumer, it certainly has a different feel to it. I just don’t understand how a game can come out at launch with DLC. Isn’t that just part of the game? The spirit of DLC and expansions is that they expand on the original game. If the content is programmed and ready to go, it should just be part of the game. This is what strikes me as a violation, as screwing your user. Will I buy the game? I’m not sure. Will other people? Undoubtedly.
Honestly, despite things like #GG and the vitriol that the loudest gamers spew, I think the games community is pretty reasonable. We will pay to play. We love it. We eat that shit up. But we also are savvy enough not to be tricked and fooled. EA has fooled me too many times, and I’m sick of it. If you’re going to make us pay top dollar for a game, bring it. Bring the content. Bring the DLC. Bring the depth. Don’t bring us a game stripped of all interesting components to try and sell us what we should have gotten in the first place.
Do you readers have DLC pet peeves? Which companies are guilty of doing this?
