The Ballad of DLC and Why It's God Damn Evil!

What is it?

DLC is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet which may include but is not limited to: outfits, quests, modes, items, levels, challenges, songs for music games, or full expansion packs. Some games can be episodic  in structure with new episodes distributed exclusively through DLC channels.

Where it started?

When PC internet speeds grew and online gaming was established it was common for players to create their own mods and maps to share online for free. Games like Half-Life beget the creation of Counter-Strike for example. After a few failed attempts the Xbox was the first console to implement it successfully and distributed much of the DLC on their network for free. Then with the launch of the 360, PS3 and to a lesser extent the Wii, paid DLC has become a full partner experience to traditional store bought discs. The most successful case so far being the Guitar Hero and Rock Band's models which sold millions of songs.

What should good DLC be?

Anything that enhances or expands the default experience for a fair price relative the product. What this could be depends on the type of game in question and the type of content said game contains. For an RPG it could be new quests, areas, enemies, items and character abilities. For a fighting game it could be new characters, maps and challenges. For a shooter it could be new maps, weapons, modes and customization options. Basically, good DLC would be the things you'd expect the community to come up with or fantasize about on their own but can't create due to the closed nature of console gaming. Since the abilities of the original developers tend to surpass the community's official DLC tends to be of much higher quality and is produced much faster than User Generated Content. As long as this is the case then many criticisms for DLC go away.

Criticisms:

DLC is overpriced and creates incentive for content to be cut from releases. (Day 1 DLC)

                Any DLC available the day of release is suspicious. The time between a game being sent to production and its availability on store shelves is not long enough to create any substantial content. The most you could expect is a Day 1 patch to fix bugs from beta tests. So what are you selling in the store? Is it content that could have easily been put on the disc? Or Is it something that's already on the disc?

Paid DLC that unlocks content already on your disc is like being charged twice.

                As a general rule, if it's on the disc and functional I should be able to access it. I don't care what you put on my game disc as long as the game is good. Hell, you could hide 10 GBs of porn on there and I wouldn't care less. But don't charge me extra money to access it. You couldn't begin to pull this shit with PC games so I'm shocked they get away with it on consoles.

DLC is soul bound, it can't be resold or traded unlike the main game discs.

                If you don't like a game you can't get a refund but you can sell it back to a store or trade it to a friend or microwave it or even feed it to your dog. But with DLC if you don't like it, too bad. No refunds, no exchanges, no transfer of ownership. One advantage is that you can't lose ownership like you can with a lost disc but DLC is reliant on the existence and maintenance of the network you bought it from so it's more of an indefinite rental than a license of ownership.

Regardless of a developer's intent, merchants may require content to be priced. (Microsoft/Valve)

                A game has to be published for a console and the console publisher makes all the rules when it comes to DLC distribution. If you want to produce a bunch of content and give it away for free or at a certain price you need Microsoft or Sony's permission. In more than one instance this has led to negotiation break downs. Valve prefers to release all their content free on PC but the decision to have premium prices on 360 versions sat squarely on Microsoft. This has even led to some DLC being indefinitely postponed or scrapped altogether.

Developers are willing to whore themselves and lie to you to sell their content, buyer beware. (DLC/Pre-order exclusivity, ultimate editions)

                When you pre-order you're assured your content will be exclusive. However, more often than not the content resurfaces as DLC for a cheap price at a later date making exclusivity only temporary. In addition, games have adopted the habit of rereleasing a compilation edition a year or so after the original release which contains all the DLC. This comes at a reduced cost but a significantly inflated retail price relative to the original release. In some cases there's been multiple versions boasting exclusive perks which serve only to confuse and frustrate customers trying to get the ultimate experience. It's all about the money.

What DLC really is:

The industry is making much more money now than they've ever made in the last 40 years of commercialized gaming. However, $60 a pop isn't good enough for them. They like to blame used games and piracy for not making twice as much money. This isn't true but they develop DLC to combat them nonetheless. Whether you buy a game new, used, or pirated, they want you to buy their DLC at a very high profit margin so either way they get paid without having to develop substantial new content. It's a bit of degredation on the content of our games but as long as they're still satisfying and you see through the bullshit DLC tactics then no harm done. But then the companies said, "no, we're not making enough money offering DLC so we need to start cutting content out of our games and charge for that." This is where online passes came from which is just DLC 2.0.

Could you avoid all the DLC and just play the games as is? Sure, but PR has no shame admitting those doing that aren't getting the full package. Are you satisfied with paying full price for an incomplete package? You shouldn't. And before you object declaring 'well the developers need extra money, why do you want to see artists starving?' Not a single cent of DLC money is going to the developers working for big publishers. Besides, look at the sales numbers for the major publishers, if any developers are starving it's not because of used games I'll tell you that much but that's a topic for another day.

Video Game Narratives: Stop Wasting My Time

David Jaffe isn’t the most eloquent human being to walk the Earth. When Jaffe isn’t spending his time insulting women he’s saying things like this:

Building a game that is primarily driven by story and narrative "is a bad idea, waste of resources, of time and money, and worst, I think that it has stunted the medium of video games, to our own peril." He objects to games "With the intent purpose of expressing a story... or giving the player the designer's narrative." "If you've got something inside of you that's so powerful ... why the fuck ... would you choose the medium that has historically been the worst medium to express philosophy and story?"

I agree with Jaffe’s premise though not his reasoning or motives for it because his motives come from his inability to craft a strong story himself and his jealousy of people who can. What’re my motives? LOGIC!

Argument 1: Salary Disparity

                Starting salary for a movie writer: ~$60k for ~120 page script

                Starting salary for a video game writer: ~$60k for ~300-600 page script

The amount of work relative to compensation makes movies a far more lucrative career path and I’m sure looks better on a resume. If you're a great writer you should focused on screenplays or novels. Plus, video game writers aren't protected by the Writers Guild of America. Compared to movies, books, and tv, games are like fortune cookies, they’re dull, predictable, and the writing typically goes unnoticed because of all the sweet gameplay elements that make up most of the experience. No one really aspires to be a video game writer; they emerge from versatile game developers who’re also good at writing or hungry freelance writers. Basically, talent follows the money. There are exceptions but they’re far from the norm and besides, established writers get the fat checks, yo!

Argument 2: Games are too fucking long!

Maintaining focus on a narrative for the entire length of a video game wouldn't even be a ‘game’, it’d be an 8 hour movie. The cutscenes and dialogue like to interrupt the game so you’re not constantly focused on kicking ass and chewing bubblegum the whole time. The narrative breaks up the action sequences to pat you on the back for doing tedious stuff by showing you someone else doing bad ass stuff. Here’s an idea, skip the cutscenes and let me do the bad ass stuff, that’s why I bought a fucking video game.

For the sake of argument let’s say a game focused on the story the whole time and let’s assume it’s good. If the ideal representation of this premise is basically an interactive movie then shouldn't the story be more succinct and coherent in the form of a movie instead? For the sake of argument let’s assume your answer was ‘hell no!’  Let’s say this game has an entertaining and cohesive narrative from start to finish. Now, it’s the player’s responsibility to maintain a consistent pace of progress to experience the story properly. Aside from all the dumbed down game design mechanics and forced tutorials that treat us like idiots and make us want to rage quit, a game has to be designed from start to finish with no points for the player to get stuck while encouraging them to keep moving forward. It’s all a deception that’s exceptionally fragile. You see this all the time when you linger about in an ‘urgent’ situation and all the NPCs just sorta derp around screaming ‘common les gogh!’ until you walk forward 2 more steps. It's a precipitous concept that movies don’t have to deal with because they never linger.

This creates another problem: what if the game is too easy that players get bored, or what if a game is too hard or drags on too long and players forget major plot points. Surveys suggest a good game that has the perfect difficulty curve, engaging gameplay and encourages constant forward progression will have ~50% completion rate and that’s being optimistic. Do you routinely go to movies, good or bad, and see half the crowds leave before the ending? No, ya know why? Because movies don’t take 8 fucking hours to watch!

Argument 3: It’s called a video game for a specific fucking reason!

Just like any other game like basketball or Monopoly, before you even begin, the goal of a video game is to win and there’s only one other possible outcome, to lose.  And just like basketball and Monopoly, every time you play a game it’s usually a little bit different then the last time you played it and that’s what makes video games awesome, they don’t have to end when the credits roll, you can just go back and do it all over again with a different approach or difficulty setting. But a static video game narrative is like watching a movie, there’s only one way it can be experienced and everyone experiences it the same way. That’s fine for movies because they take that restriction and utilize its advantages with controlled pacing, showing only what needs to be shown, and emphasizing the important parts. A dynamic narrative, which suit games better, can be personalized so that each of us has our own personal experiences to appreciate and share with others. We play games because we want to be challenged or we want to assume a role and play out our own story.

Wrapping Up:

I’m not saying all video game stories are bad or that they should go away. But I am saying that the magic of video games comes from the feeling of discovering something new, the feeling of conquering an arduous obstacle, the feeling of playing how you want to play, letting you choose your own fate.  Then there’re the games that are so god damn fucking tight and addictive that no one gives a shit about the story at all. I mean, even the games with interesting stories, what do you remember most about them? Do you think about Ezio’s struggle to avenge his family and overthrow a corrupt oligarchy? Fuck no! You think about fucking cutting people’s throats open and scaling buildings like a boss! Do you think about Gorgon Freeman’s journey to cut the ties between a hostile alien race and their home dimension before our species expires? Fuck no! You think about fucking shooting a bunch of aliens and tossing shit around with a gravity gun and it was really cool and stuff! I mean, video game stories can be cool, I’m not denying that, but they’re still an accessory to the actual ‘game’. The same thing happens in sports where before a big match all the press will try to frame some sort of narrative and get people emotionally engaged with a story about the players and the teams and the cities or whatever. But it’s still just a game, and if the game is good then you don’t need a story to make it interesting.