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 Digg.com Facebook Google Bookmarks N4G Gamerblips del.icio.us Reddit Slashdot.org StumbleUpon Bemoaning DLC seem to have become my raison d'être on this site and I'm thankful to finally read something that might make a few companies take note.
More value for money is key and no more of this paid content that should have come with the game in the first place please.
Discounting the already existing content would be a good start. Oblivion, for example, is old enough that a fall in DLC prices would likely drive sales as opposed to cutting profit. Most DLC is way overpriced compared to the street price of games. e.g. I bought burnout paradise from GAME for £20. Surf Island DLC is £10 and it dosen't look like there's 1/2 a game's worth of content in there. Car packs are 6 quid, almost 1/3 of the price of the game. Whilst I agree that DLC can be overpriced on occasion, you have to keep in mind that it's priced according to the publishers RRP. Boxed games sold by stores are heavily discounted because it's up to the seller to set the price once they've purchased them from the publishers. Therefore, if the publishers had their way, you wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting Burnout Paradise for £20. So far DLC has been very hit and miss. The content will always vary in quality but the way it is intergrated with certain games is awful. Just because I don't have a certain map why must CoD:WaW constantly take me to a purchase screen.
Why, because I don't have Halo 3 Maps, must i be outcast to playing only a select set of games and maps and can't access game types that were on the disc in the first place.
I payed for all the content on the disc so why should I not be allowed to access it.
This is an area that must be addressed as I don't mind paying for content that adds to my experience but I refuse to be forced just to keep playing.
Other DLC has been good and I have high hopes for what it can offer a game for long term story (GTAIV), but they do need to look at how much they charge as the money in theory should be better distributed (plus no pre-owned lost sales, no retail mark-up, no lost/damaged stock) to the advantage of all involved thus allowing the prices to come down.
Heres to the next-gen and hopefully a better DLC world. Some DLC for games seems to be a rip off imo.
However, I bought Battlefield 1943 the other week and certainly feel I got my money's worth with this. 600,000 sales so far wasn't it? There are very few DLC packs out that I am willing to pay for. Wipeout Fury, Oblivion DLC and the Valkyria Chronicles DLC and... thats it. Even when I used to play COD I never paid for the map packs, I got them free with COD4 and I never bothered with any of 5's. I would sooner spend my money on, y'know, GAMES.
As for downloadable games, those are different. I bought Wipeout HD and have several PS1 titles, and am looking at buying R&C: Quest for Booty. Those are games and you get your money's worth. To me, £7.99 for a map pack versus £7.98 for TWO PS1 games, there's no contest.
All add-on DLC should go the KOEI way and be free. I loved Fallout 3 but have thus far refused to spend more money on the DLC. When you compare what we've had for it so far with Oblivions firs DLC expansion which cost £20 we're being asked to pay a lot more now.
I've shown my distaste with this by refusing to buy, I still have lots more to do in the standard game anyway. transformative?
yea for game delays.
if i had 1 cent for every game thats been delayed this year i would put bill gates to shame. I'm glad to hear official figures suggest people are less willing to pay for DLC. Personally I never have bought any additions to a game via download, and never intend to either. I don't want to encourage developers to get into the habit of increasing their profits with overpriced map packs, etc. I would however be more willing to consider DLC if the cost was more reflective of age. If I choose to buy a six month old game, then I have the option to purchase it secondhand and far cheaper than it's original retail price. DLC needs to progressively reduce in price as the months/years pass. Some developers and publishers complain about the secondhand market. There's an easy way to ensure it's kept to a minimum... do what you can to make keeping games more attractive. Reasonably priced DLC (eventually ending up free) along with some free DLC, spread over the first year of a game's life could reduce the market being flooded with unwanted copies. Also the more popular a game, and the longer people own and play it, the more likely gamers are to consider the sequel too. DLC seems mainly to be a way of making a little extra profit. I think it would ultimately be more profitable if it's used as a means to thank and reward gamers, and ensure the longevity of a game. As someone above suggested, with the costs being so high the money is better spent purchasing a whole new game. it's not fair to say that you won't buy DLC because it should have been in the game anyway. I'm sure there are instances where blatant fleecing is going on but you'll never know whether the feature was part of the original plan or just a genuine add-on afterwards.
On the whole i think the prices are too much and i think publishers should experiment with lower prices to see if that ultimately makes them more money through increased customers. we can only hope. DLC for my current game runs to £150 quid extra.
I haven't bought much out of that....
It's a bit of a joke tbh.
Street Fighter costumes 9.99.....LOL makes u very thankfull for the pc and mods ............
if only i had one that was powerful enough to play any of the games i actually want :cry:
oh well back to unreal tourney on ps3 i guess
mario,sonic,masterchief,cloud, samus, snake and some locust all fighting in atoy story living room surrounded by hordes of raptors and a t rex cant all be bad :lol: I think that we are being fleeced by not being able to have user-generated content on consoles. Unreal showed us that it was possible, so why can't we import Oblivion or Fallout mods? So they can charge us for the official DLC, that's why. I totally agree with DrRickDaglessMD. Why should people get punished for not buying the DLC. Halo is one of my favourite games but i refuse to buy the DLC especially when ODST is coming out in a couple of weeks with all the maps included. They're all just money grabbing whores Worst DLC rip-off artists are Square Enix on WiiWare.
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. First half of game = £7. Second half of game (required to finish the game) = £7. Optional side-quests: 7 x £3. All for something that is essentially a new SNES game.
FFCC:My Life As A King for £10.50 is fine, but all the DLC combined comes to about £33. With the cost of the game on top, that's the same as a retail game, so why not just put out a disc-based version?
Capcom are next. The SF4 costumes are bad enough (especially considering the data is already on the disc), but MegaMan 9 has may add-on packs that cost way too much for what they are.
I've been enjoying the Fallout 3 DLC, but £6.80 for 2 - 3 hours of additional content is not value for money, not when you can play the retail game for 100+ hours for £30 - £40.
I think devs need to look at the cost of playtime per hour of additional gameplay, and what this adds to the game over the original release, to gauge their pricing. | 
