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.