Have Your Say: DLC Culture, Has it Gone Too Far?

[Lars Rystedt]

I for most part have no issue with DLC's at least not when it is done as in Raceroom, a new car is released in GT3 and some ofc want's it. But we can still run together, them in the brand new car and me in the Nissan without a problem. Also in Raceroom I can buy that very car I wan't and disregard the rest which I will never drive.
In AC it is the other way around all together. New DLC, not that very cheap as not all of us have the same economy, and the ones who buys that also want's to race with that. Ofc.. but that also effectively takes out those for whatever reason did not get the DLC and therefor it becomes a sort of "buy or leave" business model.
Being playing mmorpg for many years I am used to a monthly fee and a yearly, resonably priced expansion. In between released new content and bugfixes are common. Iracing's model are a way off in my opinion, first there is the monthly fee then there is a fee, quite high, for each car and track you wish to use. Most often, I think, much higher than AC's DLC which in turn is more expensive, not always, than Racerooms packs.

I'd rather have a monthly fee, lower than Iracing, perhaps if not with all features but some and a reasonably priced expansion/release on a yearly basis.
I have no idea how good different business models work or which is best but in my mind a steady influx of income where trends of a inrcreasing or decreasing userbase is easy to monitor is always better than an every now and then "cash grab, hoping that loads will buy this DLC" to avoid a red marker in the column for atleast some time. Even enough to give what ever company enough to be able not only concentrate on new DLC's for more influx but in parallell bugfixes, already planned feature, customer support and such.

But as I said, I have no real idea how or what business model is the best or economy behind, but merely some thoughts on the matter.

 

[Thombike]

It's so simple , just dont' buy it. Let's say ther is 100 million gamers on this planet and all 100 million gamers say no to DLCs .You even don't have to go on the streets to protest against the DLCs , just dont buy it , it's so simple

Yeah..then You go to online server and everywhere You go is one or other DLC required to drive with other people. Yes, You can not to buy DLC but than You can play only single player too and Youre...alone. Thts what developers know and thats why DLC market grows and grows. I thin 2-3 years later devs give us onli licence, rest must You buy extra...

 

[Mr Whippy]

I'm all for fair DLC.

The profiteering type I'm not so keen on.

And limiting multi-player visibility because of DLC packs is totally unforgivable. That is basically saying you just want to shaft your customer. Anyone who does that should be boycotted.


For example, my speculative worry is that some devs might be selling DLC now, to make cars now, to fund a version 2 build of a game, which then has all those DLC cars in it too.
The potential for double paying, or triple paying, is not a nice feeling.

90% of the 'cost' of these games is likely content creation, yet the bulk of the work in these 'new' games is just converting content and up-shadering/LOD'ing it.


Forza/Horizon games for example. I bet 75% of the artwork moves over, and even if the cost is 33% of time to convert, 50% of the effort from the last game is 're-sold' in the next one.

If they didn't do that, are the 'new' games really going to have to cost 50% more?

Nope, it's just pure profit... lurvellly.


People made awesome car games years ago, when less people bought them, and they were harder to make. So what has changed today?

Yes, tracks are nicer looking, and cars etc, but I know from direct experience making them, that the actual effort to make great cars/tracks/sounds then and now are about even!

Dave

 

[Timmy UK]

You know what, this is a tale of two cities.
Or to be more to the point, a tale of different age groups.
Young people overall have no issues, simply because they know no different.
The technology is available to enable the companies to sell their extra products.
So they do.
And they sell, if they did not, it would stop.
Older people overall have no issues, yet some do.
And that is fine, I remember cigarettes being 25p for 20...
Things change.
'Clever' marketing is the thing that gets you, like it or not.
But it does get you...
Calling driving video games 'sims' is a prime example of 'clever' marketing.
May people will not agree with the above sentence.
Well, think about it, before you have a breakdown.
'Iracing'. Video game.
You are playing a video game that simulates driving a car.
'Call of Duty'. Video game.
You are playing a video game that simulates killing people.
Nobody calls 'Call of Duty' a 'immersive sim', 'VR really makes me feel like I am blowing that guys head off'.
Call it a 'sim', a marketing term, means you can drop the term 'game'.
In the traditional sense of a 'game'; a game has a 'start', 'middle' and 'end'.
A 'sim' can have no start, middle or end.
So, in some respects some developers are selling us unfinished games, that will never be finished.
And they are propping the unfinished games with DLC.
Simply because they have to generate income.
Project Cars 2.
Will sell you loads of DLC.
However the funny thing is, PC2 could be the closest product for the PC, that is actually a finished game.
Mr Bell is not a fool.
He and his team understand the market.
As does Microsoft.
Hence the forthcoming Forza, for the PC.
Another team that understand the concept of a 'game'.
With Forza and Project Cars 2 expect loads of DLC.
However you will not need it, because you will have a finished game.
Extras for a finished game.
Fine.
Extras to prop up an unfinished game?
The choice is yours..

 

[Robert R]

It depends on how they use DLCs, if they put out a sequel just a year after the original game came out, i think it is better for it, if they do some DLCs. But at example i would like it more if AC would work on something like rain then put out dozens of cars.

 

[JPL083]

DLC is ok if the price isn't just plain stupid, but thing's like. Uuuuuuuuu.... You did have chance to get this and that if you would have buyed the premium right away with 150€'s from day one, now you have never ever a chance to get them. And then half year after you can buy the premium for extra with 2.50€... Or something like that. That's the stupidest thing in my opinion. "Premium" - version's. Like in shooter's, get premium to be better that other's. Or like GTA5, get this stupid shark-card so you can beat other's with MONEY. It's basicly buying a cheat-code with money directly from developer, when same time they say that they are very tuff in name of cheating, with setting the fov you get 6-month's off. I mean, any cheating is a BIG no from me but, thing's are a bit out of hand already. So... Yes/No

 

[Will Mazeo]

With any DLC or expansion you are paying to prolong the future of the game, development wise or the studio for future products. I touched briefly on this in my first post on the thread. But I still stand firmly that AC does it wrong by locking out it's user base from interacting with the large majority because they have not paid to access it.

Yep, idk why people have this mind like DLC from big studio = stealing your money, from small studio = charity. I'd never hire people that see things like this D:
DLC helps on both cases, and sometimes your job is more on the line in a big company than at a indie group, in some game genres like simracing they are both spending a ton of money to make things happen. I remember some time ago a few posts from Tim (ISI) talking about how some studios having to spend around 20 milion in some racing sims, yikes. Tho I don't give people my money if they are doing a job I consider not good.
I also saw a post from someone (here in RD maybe), talking about how people spend $60 to watch 10 hours of movies but don't want to spend the same $60 to play hundreds of hours in a game. That was a very interesting point to me.

 

[Chris Sercombe]

This is why EA Battleffont 2 have said there will be no paid dlc, they said it will all be free, so it wont split up the online community, like it does with most other games, thats why Titanfall 2 dlc is all free also, lets hope this could be the new trend, i doubt it thou, for the money grabbers.

 

[Manwith Noname]

....sim or game...

CoD isn't a sim because the code handling bullet dynamics isn't based in any way on the real world. It's also not a sim because people carrying 100kg can jump 10 feet in the air.

A "sim" uses real world physics math to solve and determine the character of its gameplay. Is it still a game? Sure, but not all games can be sims. Using a loose definition of the word will only result in placing something in the wrong category, and there are plenty of games that use the word sim in their title loosely.

 

[Pywackett-Barchetta]

May I enquire what PC2 cars being shown are DLC? As far as I know no DLC details have been revealed.

The Japanese Car Pack is pre-order exclusive DLC (1993 Nissan Skyline R32 Group A, 1979 Nissan 280ZX GTX, Honda Civic Type R, Honda 2&4 Concept Car) and the Motorsport Pack is Season Pass exclusive content (1974 Jaguar E-Type V12 Group 44, 1997 Panoz Esperante GTR-1, 1991 Audi V8 DTM, 2016 Opel Astra TCR). They announced these in May; the game comes out in September.

 

[FeltHat]

if its ok its ok
if its bad then i dont support it (its up to individual to judge if its worth it, im happy with r3e[i would change few things] and ams season pass)
dark souls 1 and bloodborne dlcs are the best dlcs from all games ever

 

[aka2k]

DLC Torture*

Just fixed for you.

 

[tedwards26]

I think DLC has become a core part of most video game business models due to the rising cost of developing games yet the initial price we pay has been around £40 since the PS2 days. Inflation doesn't seem to be tolerated in the video game world.
There are also good and bad ways to do it. Day One DLC is horrendous as the content has been made and is being locked behind a paywall as a pure profit plan. Forza and PCars 2 seem to be guilty of this. For AC and other smaller titles you feel that they have only just had the time to create this content.
Also there is value for money. AC i feel is fair considering the quality of the product that comes out. Forza again i think is horrendous as they seem to just churn cars out and it doesn't feel like the attention is there.
Personally i prefer DLC over the free 2 play models as i can see all the costs and make the decision on that and i almost think it's a necessary evil for developers to make the required profits. The main thing i'd like to see is if the game drops in price then the older DLC should also drop to maintain the same value for money.

 

[Berniyh]

I'm fine with DLC as long as it's reasonably priced and isn't withheld content released mere days/weeks after the game hits.

As far as I'm concerned Raceroom Racing Experience has taken a fresh approach in this genre by effectively making the whole product an 'a la carte' DLC offering. I often take issue with the pricing and the way the sales model is more complicated than it needs to be (e.g. buying credits in a third-party storefront, linked discounts etc...) but the principle is a good one: buy only the content you want and leave the content you don't.

It's certainly a divisive sales model but I prefer it to Assetto Corsa's DLC packs that make me buy a pack of six cars to get the one piece of content I want (therefore I only buy AC DLC when it's on sale).

R3E also allows the player to race against unowned content as AI cars (for instance in the GT3 class) which is a nice touch.

Theoretically, yes, but actually for the money you pay for one car in R3E, you get half a pack in AC, thus 2 cars extra, usually even at higher quality.
Oh and they make you pay for liveries, which is really really idiotic.
In the end, it's only feasible if you end up buying one of the packs, which however will again get you cars/tracks that you may not want and sometimes they do you actually make you pay for them twice if you have the stuff already.

So yes, theoretically a nice model, in practice though it really really sucks.
One of the reasons why I stopped paying for content in R3E.
Oh and if you want everything, then you still pay 91€ which includes a 87% discount. Yeah, quite cheap …

The other thing is that so often I've heard people saying that they don't want car X or Y that is included in one of the AC DLCs but then they do buy it and try these cars and end up liking them a lot …
That's not excluding me, I admit that this way I did drive quite a few cars that I would've never purchased in concept like R3E, because I didn't know them, they didn't seem to be my style ore whatever.
And I fell in love with quite a few of these cars.

Edit: I do agree with just about anybody about 0-day DLC though.
If the content is available at the game launch, it should be included in the base content.
The only exceptions I would accept is e.g. a specialized series that may not suit everyone's style, like a STCC car/track pack and a legacy pack.
With the latter, I mean something like "all content from AC1 for inclusion in AC2 that wasn't/will not be polished perfectly to the new standard".

 

[Chris Sercombe]

Another thing that pisses me off also is, not really related to racing sims thou i think, is day one or pre order dlc, that gives you a advantage in said game, like power unlocks/better weapons, and like 2 x damage etc etc

 

[Timmy UK]

A "sim" uses real world physics math to solve and determine the character of its gameplay. Is it still a game? Sure, but not all games can be sims. Using a loose definition of the word will only result in placing something in the wrong category, and there are plenty of games that use the word sim in their title loosely.

See what I mean about 'sim' being a marketing term?
It works..
That is why they use it over and over again..
'Using a loose definition of the word', well you define it for me then.
As in 'sim'/'simulation'.
Sales and marketing, that is what it is all about.
If you don't get, then they have got you..

 

[Berniyh]

like power unlocks/better weapons, and like 2 x damage etc etc

Now that's a 0day DLC that I would buy for AC2, just for the fun.

 

[FeltHat]

One of the reasons why I stopped paying for content in R3E.
Oh and if you want everything, then you still pay 91€ which includes a 87% discount. Yeah, quite cheap …

65€ without any sales, thats super cheap if u ask me

 

[Will Mazeo]

Why people say paying for liveries is idiotic? You know getting a skin officially licensed is not for free, right? You are paying for the real skins in PCARS too, image rights costs money. Just because you can paint one does not mean a dev can release it without paying. People are just lucky livery owner is not going after them.
It's a ton of work to call every single sponsor to get their authorization

 

[NASCRAP]

Same concept.