Remember when if you wanted extra content for a game you went and bought an expansion? I distinctly remember the excitement I felt when I finally managed to track down a bundle of the Total Annihilation expansions and installing them onto my computer for a few extra missions. I also have very fond memories of swapping out the disk on my treasured PlayStation so I could wreak havoc over the streets of London in GTA: London (yes, yes I was far too young to be playing it, my parents pretty much ignored age ratings).
Now things are much simpler of course. No spending hours tracking down expansion packs or swapping out disks to get your hands on a new city, you just jump onto the store of your choice and grab whatever new content you want in the form of DLC. Pft, young people these days, you don’t know how good you’ve got it.
Of course the biggest issue with DLC seems to be how much it’s worth. Is it worth less if it’s just an unlock code on the disk, even if producing that extra content was budgeted for as premium content? That’s what does seem to be forgotten about unlock codes for disk based content, it may have been produced at the same time as the rest of the content, but the development hours were paid for by expected sales of DLC.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually purchased a single item of DLC, so it’s hard for me to gauge how much we should be paying for things. What does seem a little weird is the amount of content you can get at a fixed price, say £7.99, varies so much game to game. Some games will give you just a few more characters for that, others will give you new maps or missions.
How much should we be paying though? Is a new character worth more or less than a new car or a new map? Is everything priced too high at the moment?
Aquastyle
I think it’s wrong to charge for things like new skins for example, stuff like this could easily’ve been added just to spice things up and maybe get some players to return to the game? When it adds more gameplay on the other hand, like with the GTA episodes, charging money is justified. The price should reflect the amount of new content, but personally I don’t think it should be too much, £10 at max maybe. That’s just me though.
jimmy-google
I don’t really like paying for Any DLC. Singstar song prices have always seemed fair.
I think it comes down to how many hours play it adds. The ratio of hours per £ should be the same as the original game cost.
ico
I like that theory. Someone needs to produce a calculator / formula for this.
3shirts
That is the theory I think we all roughly apply in our own head but to ACTUALLY realise that would be impossible for reasons given in this thread already. I didn’t play MW2 online that much, I got bored of it. To me the £7.99 map pack would never have taken up enough of my time to justify the price. For some, though, MW2 online is about all they ever play so they have probably spent more time on those maps than I have on Sonic 4 or Deathspank and those cost me £9.99
lukieboy1981
Great lunchtime topic! I was thinking about this the other day. I am a fan of DLC and have invested in both map packs for MW2 and all the DLC for RDR. I think the map packs were pretty overpriced but the amount of hours I have spent on MW2 more than makes up for it.
With RDR I think the price (£7.99) is just right, the amount of stuff you get with both of Rockstars chargeable DLC is amazing and you really feel as if they have made a big effort to produce it, with MW2 i felt that it had less effort put in.
At the end of the day I think that DLC is worth it if you love the game and it will enable you to get more out of it whether that’s new maps, skins or whole new levels.
Forrest_01
“the amount of stuff you get with both of Rockstars chargeable DLC”
Rockstar have actually released 3 DLC packs for RDR – Legends & Killers, Liars & Cheats & the Undead Nightmare. This is why i am considering the bundle, as you effectively get one free! :)
Grey_Ghost13
Good article Kris and good discusion going on.
Most people have hit on the head with the fact that it all has to do with the value to you. But I still feel they are all too overpriced and need to be cheaper.
MW2 map packs are the best example as mentioed before. I spent hours and hours on the online stuff so got loads of value out of the map packs, but even I thought they were overpriced. Yeah they sold well, but the game sold in it’s bucket loads so you would expect to see high volumes of DLC purchased. But how many more would have bought it if it was say just a couple of quid cheaper at £4.99. Which I think is the ideal price for the weightest content of DLC, the smaller stuff should be capped at £1.99.
Deathbrin
Why are people only discussing MW2? Has no one seen Awakening or something?
moshi
I find its all down to how many hours I will get out of the DLC for the price before I purchase any. Borderlands is a perfect example, £7ish mark and a good 5/7 hours worth of play plus the joy of playing certain areas over and over again. Then DLC seems to be more towards online play recently and not being a massive fan I keep away from Maps etc
lukieboy1981
I like this talk of value versus the amount of hours you play on it; I have always said that the best value for a game for me is spending £1 per hour on it and I know that all of the DLC I have bought I have got a much better deal than this even.
3shirts
That does seem to be a good yardstick. It’s harder to apply to things like maps, skins and cars but it’s still a decent benchmark price
citizeninsane45
I suppose you have to judge each piece of DLC seperatley. I myself don’t usually spend over £3-5
Phil_E
The DLC that should cost the least are costumes, characters or cars, that add nothing of great value to the game other than a new aesthetic to it. the next in value should be maps as they only offer extra gameplay or features to those who play online regularly to get sick of the original maps, and the highest priced content should be single player add-ons.
In other words the less features they add to the game the lower the price should be, of course this isn’t always the case, as each game is valued differently to each individual.
lewis815
I personally think that DLC should only be released when it adds something to the game. I remember I used to play games like Rollercoaster Tycoon, and they had expansions that were about £20 on release. A hefty price tag by todays DLC standards? But what you got for that £20 was brilliant, it added a hell of a lot of new items to the game (not just an extra skin for a character), added new missions, ways to play the game and enhanced the game in many aspects. Enhanced the CURRENT game.
Totally worth it.
DLC by todays standards is pretty rubbish in my opinion, I completely understand why people say that the prices for the COD map packs are too high, because they are. HOWEVER, if your willing to pay, and your going to get enough gameplay out of it, it should be worth it in the long run?
My opinion on this is so conflicting even I’m not sure where I stand with most DLC… I just wish the quality of DLC was up to scratch and not just a case of “lets squeeze a few more sales out of these idiots who paid £40 for the game already with an extra skin”.