In Part 1, I discussed the model in which game companies produce new DLC. A model that is effective, efficient, but easy to misunderstand by the consumer who is already more than wary about DLC and being exploited.
This has been a big issue for Capcom in the last two years. When Marvel VS. Capcom 3 was released, one of the first things people were clamoring for was more of their favorite characters via DLC. Capcom even went as far as to state that future characters would be available (Jill from RE5 and Shuma Gorath from Marvel being available to anyone who bought the collector's edition right off the bat) and even held a giant poll to find out who the people wanted the most.
Then... silence. Capcom went quiet for nearly half a year and no one heard much of anything in terms of future content for the game. People expected, though, that the longer they waited the closer they were getting to new characters being made available.
To everyone's surprise (and anger) Capcom would forgo downloadable content altogether for the game and produce an upgraded edition: Ultimate Marvel VS. Capcom 3.
It should be of note that this was not the first time the company had done something similar. Months before, Street Fighter IV had it's own expansion, Super Street Fighter IV. One of the reasons that most people were more accepting of this release was due to it's sizable increase in characters, re-balancing of all of the original characters, new endings animations, and the length of time between the game's release. Not that there weren't people who were still frustrated by this, but the level of vitriol was nothing compared to the volume received over UMvC3's release.
"The company promised us DLC!" "We're paying 40 bucks for the same game with only a few new characters!" These are legitimate concerns, at face value. Capcom had indeed gone back on their word to release these characters as DLC and the $40 price tag for what essentially felt like a shameless cash-in most likely hurt their sales and fan-relations in the long-run.
However, I personally believe there are some legitimate defenses to be made for their decision.
First off, let's take a look at the expanded character roster. Twelve new characters, on top of the original 36, unlocked at the very beginning. Let's look at that in terms of DLC, shall we? How much do you think each character would have been sold for? I honestly wouldn't consider anything less than $2 a piece, $4 dollars maximum. So let's go ahead and average it out at $3. 12 x 3 = 36. $36 for twelve new character. Can you imagine if it were $4 a character? Or, even worse, the original $5 a character people without the collector's edition had to pay for Shuma Gorath and Jill Valentine?
Secondly, every single character in the game was tweaked and rebalanced. Some to lesser extents, some to greater. There wasn't a single character who wasn't modified to account for the new roster or to fix some issue people had commonly complained about. These alterations would be necessary and ultimately would have also cost money to implement. Not to mention all the new modes and features that were added.
Not to mention consistency between people playing online. Let's consider that all these characters had been DLC. You bought Rocket Raccoon, Iron Fist, and Virgil, but the person you want to fight has a team made up entirely of Frank West, Phoenix Wright, and Strider Hiryu... characters you did -not- download. Or, consider that they have all their characters with the updated tweaks and adjustments and you do not. Exactly how is Capcom supposed to account for this?
That's where things start to get really messy, bringing us to today.
Capcom recently made yet another controversial move with their latest release, Street Fighter X Tekken. Not only were there several DLC characters announced before the game's release, these characters were also already on the disc, locked. They would required a downloaded code, which the customer would have to pay for, to gain access to these new characters.
Capcom said the main reason these characters would be available on the disc was for two reasons: To provide compatibility with those who had unlocked the characters and who hadn't, to cut down on hard-drive space the player, and to negate the necessity of a Super edition down the line.
This did not sit well at all.
"We paid $60 for the game! We deserve what's on the disc!" "Those characters were already completed, why aren't they part of the game!?" "This is a slippery slope! Soon, you'll pay $60 for single player, $10 for multiplayer, then $5 for extra characters!" I should note that last one there is a terrible fallacy.
With the way this model works, you are paying $60 for the complete game. The complete game being everything that is NOT DLC. The DLC content, as stated in part 1, was developed post production of the initial game, during it's testing and certification. Thus, again, the original budget and project scope did not account for them.
If the characters WERE included in the original game, the production budget would have been higher, development time longer, and we'd be looking at a 70-80 dollar game. The costs must be recouped somehow and people need to stop automatically assuming that companies are trying to swindle you out of your money.
Remember, you were ultimately going to have to pay for these characters sometime down the road if they'd just held off on them. Again, this is the EXACT SAME SITUATION, just at a different TIME. Earlier instead of later and done in a way that, ultimately, costs Capcom LESS money and you the exact same amount.
If you have a dissenting opinion, questions, comments or just want to bang your head against the keyboard and click "Post" then please! I'd love to talk about this with people!
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Downloadable Contempt (Part 1)
Downloadable content has become a huge part of gaming culture over the last ten years. With every major console having full access to the internet and Steam opening up the market for anyone with a PC, the way we acquire and play games has change dramatically. Multiplayer has become bigger, better, and easy to enjoy with thousands, even millions worldwide. The purchasing of games has steadily begun to eliminate the need for brick and mortar stores.
The most controversial change to come from the advent of online gaming, however, seems to be the way expansion packs have changed their form, becoming what we today know as "Downloadable Content."
Downloadable content, for those unsure of it's nature and premise, is widely considered as extra content for the game, sold at a small price. The exchange of money for these goods is commonly referred to as a "micro-transaction". The content is meant as a post-production manner of extending the life of a game and, let's face it, to continue marketing off of a game's success.
However, the reason this has become so controversial over the last few years is the way some companies have been approaching the concept. While the core concept of expanding upon a game has always been the cornerstone of DLC development, a few companies which I will refrain from naming have been, as some say, "nickle and diming" people by actually cutting core content and forcing them to pay to incorporate it back into the game.
I will go on record to say: Yes, there have been several companies which have done exactly that. I certainly do not approve of the practice and I find myself increasingly frustrated with companies who think it's OK to extort money out of their consumers. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes it's just a transparent money-grab which customers should not put up with.
However, I'm not going to necessarily talk about those practices and, instead, go out of my way to speak my piece on two companies which, of late, have come under heavy fire for their attempts to streamline their DLC distribution.
(Due to the length of these, I'll be discussing only Bioware in this first part, covering the second company in the second.)
Mass Effect 3, the third installment in the epic sci-fi action RPG series Mass Effect, recently launched. With it, a day-one DLC called "From Ashes" was released it as DLC for $10 or as part of the $80 Collector's Edition. This DLC contained a new squad member, along with a character-specific mission. It should be noted that this DLC features elements which are also relevant to the games mythos, expanding upon significant details within the games universe.
Bioware has come under heavy fire for this decision, unfortunately. It's not hard to put two and two together and realize that this content was being worked on before the release of the game. A significant amount of people felt like they were/are being exploited by this, being forced to pay for content that could have been packaged with the game or even content that WAS meant to be packaged with the game but was cut and repackaged as DLC.
Of course, Bioware was slow to act and respond and, even then, a lot of people took it as covering their asses. They essentially told everyone that "the content in “From Ashes” was developed by a separate team (after the core game was finished) and not completed until well after the main game went into certification."
As I said, many people did not respond well. "It should still be part of the game!" "You didn't charge us for Zaeed!" "It's an integral part of the game's mythos!" People were still furious that they would be forced to spend an extra $10 the same day as the game's release when the content was finished beforehand.
My personal opinion is that this is a somewhat unreasonable demand. The way a lot of companies actually work on a game consists of pre-production, actual development time, then testing and bug fixes. During the last stages of development and into the testing period, many game developers will either focus their main studio or have a separate production team focus on DLC to be released when finished.
Something VERY IMPORTANT to note here: DLC is, under this model, not considered as part of the initial budget. The content does effect the actual game, but it is produced separately FROM it. Thus, the costs are NOT covered by the $60 you are spending for the game itself, but instead covered by micro-transactions. To demand that it be included in the game at $60 is basically saying that no one should be paid for the time and work that went into the development of that extra content.
Also, consider the following: If the content had been released two months later, would you have been so upset? If you'd heard that the content had been under development after the release of the game, would you have been more understanding? If you would, then consider that both scenarios are *exactly the same*. The same amount of time, money, and resources were spent on the DLC and someone needs to be paid for it.
If, instead, you're one of the people frustrated that Bioware made such an important part of the game's story DLC, consider this: Would you rather mediocre DLC that does NOT tie into the universe at all? Or would you rather captivating, relevant content that you actually WANT TO PAY FOR?
Ultimately, Bioware is being accused of money gouging when really, anyone who understands the way that the content is produced and distributed should know better. That's the unfortunate consequence, though, of having a business that not everyone DOES understand and is usually not actively transparent.
Part 2 will follow soon!
The most controversial change to come from the advent of online gaming, however, seems to be the way expansion packs have changed their form, becoming what we today know as "Downloadable Content."
Downloadable content, for those unsure of it's nature and premise, is widely considered as extra content for the game, sold at a small price. The exchange of money for these goods is commonly referred to as a "micro-transaction". The content is meant as a post-production manner of extending the life of a game and, let's face it, to continue marketing off of a game's success.
However, the reason this has become so controversial over the last few years is the way some companies have been approaching the concept. While the core concept of expanding upon a game has always been the cornerstone of DLC development, a few companies which I will refrain from naming have been, as some say, "nickle and diming" people by actually cutting core content and forcing them to pay to incorporate it back into the game.
I will go on record to say: Yes, there have been several companies which have done exactly that. I certainly do not approve of the practice and I find myself increasingly frustrated with companies who think it's OK to extort money out of their consumers. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes it's just a transparent money-grab which customers should not put up with.
However, I'm not going to necessarily talk about those practices and, instead, go out of my way to speak my piece on two companies which, of late, have come under heavy fire for their attempts to streamline their DLC distribution.
(Due to the length of these, I'll be discussing only Bioware in this first part, covering the second company in the second.)
Mass Effect 3, the third installment in the epic sci-fi action RPG series Mass Effect, recently launched. With it, a day-one DLC called "From Ashes" was released it as DLC for $10 or as part of the $80 Collector's Edition. This DLC contained a new squad member, along with a character-specific mission. It should be noted that this DLC features elements which are also relevant to the games mythos, expanding upon significant details within the games universe.
Bioware has come under heavy fire for this decision, unfortunately. It's not hard to put two and two together and realize that this content was being worked on before the release of the game. A significant amount of people felt like they were/are being exploited by this, being forced to pay for content that could have been packaged with the game or even content that WAS meant to be packaged with the game but was cut and repackaged as DLC.
Of course, Bioware was slow to act and respond and, even then, a lot of people took it as covering their asses. They essentially told everyone that "the content in “From Ashes” was developed by a separate team (after the core game was finished) and not completed until well after the main game went into certification."
As I said, many people did not respond well. "It should still be part of the game!" "You didn't charge us for Zaeed!" "It's an integral part of the game's mythos!" People were still furious that they would be forced to spend an extra $10 the same day as the game's release when the content was finished beforehand.
My personal opinion is that this is a somewhat unreasonable demand. The way a lot of companies actually work on a game consists of pre-production, actual development time, then testing and bug fixes. During the last stages of development and into the testing period, many game developers will either focus their main studio or have a separate production team focus on DLC to be released when finished.
Something VERY IMPORTANT to note here: DLC is, under this model, not considered as part of the initial budget. The content does effect the actual game, but it is produced separately FROM it. Thus, the costs are NOT covered by the $60 you are spending for the game itself, but instead covered by micro-transactions. To demand that it be included in the game at $60 is basically saying that no one should be paid for the time and work that went into the development of that extra content.
Also, consider the following: If the content had been released two months later, would you have been so upset? If you'd heard that the content had been under development after the release of the game, would you have been more understanding? If you would, then consider that both scenarios are *exactly the same*. The same amount of time, money, and resources were spent on the DLC and someone needs to be paid for it.
If, instead, you're one of the people frustrated that Bioware made such an important part of the game's story DLC, consider this: Would you rather mediocre DLC that does NOT tie into the universe at all? Or would you rather captivating, relevant content that you actually WANT TO PAY FOR?
Ultimately, Bioware is being accused of money gouging when really, anyone who understands the way that the content is produced and distributed should know better. That's the unfortunate consequence, though, of having a business that not everyone DOES understand and is usually not actively transparent.
Part 2 will follow soon!
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