has dlc gotten out of control ?

gizmo

Kirby wrote: »

And I can't believe people actually gobble up the spin. :P

Of course they are going to defend the practice. That's a given. Actually accepting the explanation as it seems you have, is another thing entirely. Remember, these explanations are coming from people with vested interests. "EA, people who work in the industry and in software development" as you put it. These aren't exactly impartial views.

Need I remind you that this is the same company who swore blind for months that SimCity was online only because it had to be, who swore that it wasn't an anti-piracy measure but merely how the game was built and that it couldn't be possible to run it offline due to the "vast calculations done by the cloud". This claim was of course, proved nonsense and modders had it running offline in a day or two.

PR people will do what they do. Half my family do it for a living. I know the score and how the game is played but you will forgive me if I don't take the word on how Day 1 DLC is great for gamers from people who make a living off it. Ill use my own brain on that one. It's quite simply an effective, yet shadey way to make money. If it looks like a duck......

No one here is claiming it's great for gamers nor, at least in my case, am I defending the practice, quite the contrary in fact. What I am doing is refuting this particular instance because, having looked at the evidence and having a reasonable idea how engineering production schedules work, it's blatantly obvious that this simply isn't the case.

The vested interests point doesn't hold up either as there have been numerous instances of other developers calling out poor practices in other companies, whether it's excessive DLC, handling of particular content or inaccurate/untruthful statements made in general. The latest instance being the female avatars in Assassins Creed Unity where many developers, including the former Lead Animator at Ubisoft (now at Naughty Dog), called out some of the inaccuracies in the initial statement on the subject.

Hell, that's ignoring the fact that you're basically saying you're going to ignore all of the opinions of the people who have the slightest idea of how game development works and just form your own opinions based nothing other than playing the game. I'm certainly not saying you should believe everything you're told by these companies but to dismiss it all outright? I just find it a rather bizarre position.

Anyway, long story short, if you want to talk about unacceptable DLC practices from EA/Bioware, I think it'd far more productive if the debate centred around nonsense like this instead. It's obvious, it's immersion breaking and it most certainly exists.

Kirby

gizmo wrote: »

Hell, that's ignoring the fact that you're basically saying you're going to ignore all of the opinions of the people who have the slightest idea of how game development works .

Game development works in the way the studio's want them to work.

In an era where games are made by single people, small teams of a dozen people, massive teams of 200 people, in regimented office environments, in relaxed "Pixar" style environments akin to Naughty Dog which you yourself mentioned, etc. there is most certainly not only one way game development works. To even suggest this is the height of ignorance.

I've heard the argument you are making about Day 1 DLC before and how it "has to work like that!" and to use your own parlance, it doesn't hold up. The publishers want day 1 DLC because they see it as a financial hit. Therefore a team has to be "dedicated" to doing the work a year prior to release.

So a year before the game is finished, sections that would have been in the game anyway, are being built and set aside under a pay wall. The studio's will spin this as some sort of altruistic "but instead of laying off staff when their work is done, we keep them on to do DLC!....but before the game is finished...er....yeh!" and it's as ridiculous as it sounds. They do it this way to make money to the detriment of the customers and the staff themselves. Instead of having to pay the team to do actual new content when they are done, they make them do it under their original timeframe and can pay them the same.

There are plenty of other studio's who don't work like that, who abhor what these companies are doing, and do DLC the right way. Some don't even do DLC at all.

"That's how Game development works hur durr" is making excuses for shady business practices. It works that way because that's the way some companies want it to work. It's not the only way.

gizmo

Kirby wrote: »

Game development works in the way the studio's want them to work.

In an era where games are made by single people, small teams of a dozen people, massive teams of 200 people, in regimented office environments, in relaxed "Pixar" style environments akin to Naughty Dog which you yourself mentioned, etc. there is most certainly not only one way game development works. To even suggest this is the height of ignorance.

Again, no one is suggesting this. In this case, EA tend to keep DLC in-house whereas Ubisoft, for instance, have been known to use external studios to work on additional content alongside the main team. The thing all of these studios have in common, however, is that their practices will be designed to be as efficient as possible. To focus on From Ashes so, Javik would have been designed, and had concept art developed at the start of the project, his voice actor would have been in the studio recording lines at the same time as the rest of the cast, as would have any mo-cap that would have needed to be done, etc... It wouldn't make sense to leave this kind of work to later in the project and do it separately, right?

Kirby wrote: »

I've heard the argument you are making about Day 1 DLC before and how it "has to work like that!" and to use your own parlance, it doesn't hold up. The publishers want day 1 DLC because they see it as a financial hit. Therefore a team has to be "dedicated" to doing the work a year prior to release.

Certainly agree with the bit about it being financially lucrative. The content isn't free to create but it certainly benefits from the work already done for the rest of the project, thus making it fairly high margin for what's then sold. Not only that but it can be used as part of pre-order campaigns which have further uses outside of just making money from post-release DLC.

Kirby wrote: »

So a year before the game is finished, sections that would have been in the game anyway, are being built and set aside under a pay wall. The studio's will spin this as some sort of altruistic "but instead of laying off staff when their work is done, we keep them on to do DLC!....but before the game is finished...er....yeh!" and it's as ridiculous as it sounds. They do it this way to make money to the detriment of the customers and the staff themselves. Instead of having to pay the team to do actual new content when they are done, they make them do it under their original timeframe and can pay them the same.

Disagree here. It won't be a year before it's finished, the decision will have been made at the beginning of the project. To put it another way, if someone in a suit had walked in at that point and said "right, there's not going to be any DLC and your budget is the same", I'd strongly wager that the net result would have been no Javik, not everything being included in the game anyway.

To deal with the second point, one need only look at the constant stream of layoffs from companies in recent times who are close to shipping or have just shipped titles to see what happens to a staff who are no longer needed on a project. Again, to bring it back to Javik, if all of his content was ready to go and was cordoned off for DLC, then why were only the character assets included on the disc whereas the actual mission data had to be downloaded separately? EA have never shied away from providing DLC in the form of a downloadable unlock code before, why not just do it again here?

Kirby wrote: »

There are plenty of other studio's who don't work like that, who abhor what these companies are doing, and do DLC the right way. Some don't even do DLC at all.

"That's how Game development works hur durr" is making excuses for shady business practices. It works that way because that's the way some companies want it to work. It's not the only way.

All very true, and the extremely limited pieces of DLC I've bought over the years are generally that kind of meaty, single player focused content everyone seems to generally approve of. As I said, my objection in this particular instance shouldn't be conflated with support for the practice in general, hell regardless of this I still don't agree with how they handled From Ashes as I posted above. However, I simply can't agree with the accusation that this content was "cut" from the game for DLC when it otherwise would have been included as part of the main game.

Kiith

Weren't From Ashes, Cerberus Network and other similar day 1 dlc done like online passes for Fifa and such? As in everyone who buys a new copy of the game gets a code for them, but if you buy it pre-owned, you need to buy it separate?

Kirby

Kiith wrote: »

Weren't From Ashes, Cerberus Network and other similar day 1 dlc done like online passes for Fifa and such? As in everyone who buys a new copy of the game gets a code for them, but if you buy it pre-owned, you need to buy it separate?

Sort of yes. "Season passes" are designed to get money up front for future DLC.

But the Cerberus Network and Fifa codes are 100% designed to make money off second sales. That, I can agree with. Why should gamestop make all the profit? The publisher deserves their cut.

gizmo

Kiith wrote: »

Weren't From Ashes, Cerberus Network and other similar day 1 dlc done like online passes for Fifa and such? As in everyone who buys a new copy of the game gets a code for them, but if you buy it pre-owned, you need to buy it separate?

Cerberus Network was basically a mini season pass of additional single player content in the form of the playable character Zaeed, a weapons and armor pack, a new vehicle with some missions for it and another special story related mission. It was their take on the Online Pass in a game without multiplayer really.

From Ashes, on the other hand, went in the other direction being straight up Day One DLC or an addition to the Origin-exclusive Digital Deluxe version of physical Collectors Edition.

abbir

What pisses me off most about the Mass Effect DLC is that it has still not had a sale on PC. The standard version of Mass Effect 3 is only €10 on Origin and has gone down as far as €2.50 for all its regular edition content. The addon Citadel is €15 for a whole lot less content than the main game.

Kiith

Kirby wrote: »

But the Cerberus Network and Fifa codes are 100% designed to make money off second sales. That, I can agree with. Why should gamestop make all the profit? The publisher deserves their cut.

Yeah, i've no problem with that either. Gamestop take the piss with 2nd hand sales, so it's no surprise to see publishers look for ways to limit their margins.

gizmo wrote: »

From Ashes, on the other hand, went in the other direction being straight up Day One DLC or an addition to the Origin-exclusive Digital Deluxe version of physical Collectors Edition.

Ah ok, i had forgotten that. I do remember being pretty pissed about it, as i'd consider him pretty essential for the game. I can't even really imagine playing through the game without Javik. He wasn't like Zaeed, with only a few lines of dialogue, but a fully fleshed out character.

If you don't have the DLC, does his door on the Normandy just not open?

degrassinoel

abbir wrote: »

What pisses me off most about the Mass Effect DLC is that it has still not had a sale on PC. The standard version of Mass Effect 3 is only €10 on Origin and has gone down as far as €2.50 for all its regular edition content. The addon Citadel is €15 for a whole lot less content than the main game.

Probably wont either, i can tell you this though, that DLC is worth every red cent. And the latter ones were designed by the same developers that are working on the new game, so it's a fairly good insight into that too. And a slightly different style from the rest of the game

Kiith

I'd agree with degrassinoel. Citadel is absolutely brilliant, and i'd consider it essential for any fan of the series. Definitely worth the €15 or so i spent on it (though i think it was close to €10).