Don’t buy DLC, buy GOTY or nothing

This is a message for video games companies, “don’t expect me buying any DLC”, I am not a big fan of the hype of new releases, generally in all circumstances, but in video games world we know that companies release games with a very adjusted development dates, so we often see that some new releases lack some stability, or if you prefer they are plagued with bugs due to low testing time.

In this console generation, with the help of online marketplaces, has appeared the, so hated by some, DLC (Downloadable Content), some free and some of payment, which adds an extra profit for these companies and distributors (owners of marketplaces).

A decade ago there were expansion packs that added extra content, some were even developed by other companies, so the original developers only may get some income by royalties.

There has been much controversy with those DLCs, much of them are unnecessary but some, even being of low quality put a real ending to a game or saga, like Mass Effect. You can say these are “evil” practices and it’s probably true, the real problem is thatthose DLCs are probably developed at the same time as the game and probably could be in the final release.

We know that companies center their efforts in new releases not in maintaining released projects as those, even the effort you put in it, will not generate much income. So what’s the main problem? In the end it’s the cost associated to customer support.

In the side picture you can see how the DLC would be if it were applied to culture, for example the Mona Lisa, we should have to pay some more to see it completely.

What is a GOTY Edition?

With the DLC boom and also the boom of market segmentation, giving us a variety of editions of game release, from the standard to a collector’s edition with some extras, has started appearing the so called GOTY (Game of the year) editions.

These editions are late re-releases of games where they take the original game plus all the patches and all the DLCs that has been released, and, sometimes, and probably this game will have a reduced cost in comparison with new releases. In major games, you could expect a GOTY version for sure, unless the game was not successful enough.

So why not wait for the GOTY edition of this major releases? The answer is simple: the release hype. This hype that Apple executes with mastery, and Google may be trying with its Nexus 4, means that a lot of players will be online for games with online game, but if you wait a year or two for the GOTYversion the game probably won’t even be able to be played online.

Source

On the right picture we can see a survey of gamers of the reasons why they did not buy DLCs, it surprises me that the main reason is privacy, I would say that my main reasons are that they are expensive due to the low quality of most of them, and most of all that they are trick to juice a few extra bucks from us.

DLC Quest: A parody of how games could end being

Recently I played the indie game DLC Quest, the game parodies to the limit the DLC abuse, it’s a simple 2D platformer with a good doses of humor, fun enough for someone critic with this DLC problematic.

The game starts with limited options you can not even go left until you buy an “ingame DLC” to be able to move left, at least you don’t have to spend an extra penny, it works with the coins you found on the game.

The game is short as I always defend that they should be, even shorter than I expected, but a nice game to spend a small time, if I remember correctly I even not spend more than an hour playing it, but it was a good time, remember that time is money so we should know beforehand were are we investing our time.

If you think about it, there are more free-to-play games out there and many of them yet do not abuse the playing techniques but we will see how it ends in the incoming years and the next generation of consoles where free-to-play games seem to be a tendency.

In this video you can see a playthrough of the game, if you want to play you better not see it!

As you may expect I voted ‘No’ in the poll and you did you buy any DLC in the last year? Do you feel the same about DLCand GOTY? Click here and search for the best GOTY offers on the internet!