This. Any DLC that comes out with or closely following the game is a blatant ripoff. At least PRETEND it couldn't have been part of the original game we bought by holding onto it for a few months, if you want to be that way.

Yea. I think we are mostly on the page. It is a matter of perception in a lot of ways. It depends on the game, and how the particular developer handles each situation. I've never played Dragon Age, so I don't know how the DLC "felt" in that situation. I played Oblivion, and I know how the Orrery door felt, and to me it was never anything of an insult, nor did it feel like anything was incomplete.

What it seemed like, instead, was here's a mysterious door. That's it. What the heck is behind it? Well, nothing, actually. Then later they come out with a DLC that puts something behind the door. To me, that's a tucked-away little spot for a teaser about more content to come. Doesn't seem like a con, or a scam, or anything other than a taste of something "sold separately."

Obviously you can go too far. If every 3rd door you come across is locked, you start to feel like the game was built from the ground up as a platform for marketing their DLC. But I get that feeling from movies sometimes too, where it seems like the whole movie is more of a Pepsi commercial than a movie. So again, it's up to the individual studio, and how they handle things.

Also, I think that if EA won their lawsuit over some program that was damaging computers, it wasn't on the grounds of their EULA. If they won at all, they may well have won on the merits. I don't want to get too far into that, though, because I haven't read the case or any discourse on it. I don't like to speculate without any real ground to stand on.

And lastly, I wasn't even referring to pirates, I was talking about used games sales. Games are one of the few things that you can literally buy and sell used and get a discount, but not a lower quality product. I meant that round 1 of gamers can buy the game new and then play it. Rounds 2 and 3 can all just buy their game used from the round 1 people, and have the exact same experience. In the eyes of a lot of software developers, that market is unfair because they are not even competitive with their own products. And to be honest, in a completely unregulated market, it's true. Gamers will buy and sell to each other a lot cheaper than the game companies can do it. So it makes sense to me to see game companies taking steps to shut that problem down. They want a piece of round 2 and round 3 gamers, and I think they deserve the chance to try and snag a piece.
Pirates are an entirely different discussion.

So the Orrery was what pushed the line in value.
Guys! This Orrery makes the game worth $62! We can't ship Oblivion with this available!

That's a silly justification.

Is it? Where do you draw the line then? The orrery? The orrery + spell tomes? Orrery + Tomes + KotN + ???
That's a pretty grey zone you are getting into, and it's really not for anyone but the developer to decide where the $60/$61 line is.

It's not about being able to afford it, it's about fair practice. Online connection for a single-player game is absurd.
You miss the point entirely.

Yeah, it is. If the Orrery was content already in the game, finished, and ready to go, there's no reason to remove it. However, if it's a quest they weren't able to finish on time, then I can see them releasing it later. However, it's more likely that they were told to pick some content to release at a later date in order to test the fairly new dlc market. I forget its initial price, but I do remember it was overpriced when it was first released. However, bethesda seemed to take the hint and released an amazing expansion well worth its price.

You are also missing the point. Why do you think they require that connectivity in the first place? Is it just a random decision, designed to make their customers mad? Of course not, they have a very good reason for it. The reason, oddly enough, is a court case that states License Agreements are more or less invalid unless the developer maintains a certain minimal amount of connection and control with their game.


Steam isn't there to protect against pirates. It's not there to make it easier for us to get patches. It's not there to offer bonus, awesome, in-game achievements or chat list. No. Steam is there because it offers developers a tool to enforce the EULA. That's it.

And it's not going to go away unless enough people are actually bothered by it to stop buying games. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you bought Skyrim? If so, you've defeated your own point.

i like DLC because i dont have to drive 40 miles to get it, which changes the calculations from $2 vs $1 to $2 vs $1+$6.58

I'm not talking about steam, you can go offline for that. There are other games that required you to be online for a single-player game. And I also didn't say I have an issue with it, I'm stating that I understand where these people are coming from and why it angers them. Furthermore, I was saying he was missing the point about it by being an obnoxious ass, saying it was about being able to afford games, but not internet. My reply to him was not missing the point.

I agree, and I think you expressed the counter-point to the 'leaving out content of the main game and selling it later' argument very well.

The hard fact is you get what you pay for.

This is most apparent in DLC, as you can either get a bunch of small installments of random content for a few bills, or you can get an entire expansion quality add-on for the appropriate price.

The only issue with any of it is peoples' opinions or philosophy regarding whether this sort of thing is ethical or not. It's my opinion that any content cut/withheld before release SHOULD NOT be finished and released later as paid DLC down the line. That sort of thing should be free to everyone, since it was intended for the original release of the game. Other stuff I have no issue with, and it comes down to whether or not people think the proposed content is worth their money.

And I disagree that expansions were only large before because they "had" to be. Developers had been releasing massive and free content patches to games that are the equivalent of today's $10 DLC for YEARS. Maps, weapons, gamemodes, characters, whatever you can think of. They released expansions as large as they were because they were true expansions.

A lot of the DLC craze is thanks in part to Bethesda, who found out people would actually pay money for similar small content. And the snowball has just gotten larger from there.

There is a reason to remove it. To sell it later. There's nothing wrong with that.
Imagine yourself doing the same thing. You have a garage sale, and decide to sell your couch and the pillows for $150. Then, later, you decide to pull the pillows and sell them separately for $20 instead. What's wrong with that? Nobody in the world would argue that you can't change your mind and decide to sell a few things separately. Why would you get upset that Bethesda did the same thing?

Sure, they have more money than we do, but that's because they sell a lot more than their couch at a garage sale. It's their choice what they do and don't sell. The only choice that belongs to you is whether or not to buy it. That's a decision nobody can take from you, and you must always bear the responsibility for making.




Ahh, ok. Fair enough then. Even those people are probably defeating their own points, but I see what you mean.

Personally, I thought the "free" DLC that came with a new copy of Mass Effect 2 (and you could pay some $$$ to unlock it if you bought a used copy) was a much more elegant approach to 1) encouraging new game sales, and 2) getting some share of the profit being generated by used sales of your intellectual property, then most of the other things that people have tried.

If you think about it, stores like Gamestop are reaping huge profits off the product of the software companies' work, without giving them a cut. If I were the software developers, I'd be right pissed about that.

With everyone talking about $60 and $10 like they're holding a gun to our head, it's amazing a rational discussion can even be emulated. $60 is less than I pay for an evening out with my wife. The cost of a DLC isn't even on the radar. You can either pay it, or not. It's your choice. But there's no getting bent out of shape by someone who is providing this type of product for our money.

Yea I agree with you, I actually read the whole thing too haha
It really irks me when people say that Bethesda purposely removed content for DLC when they clearly stated that they have no idea what their DLC will be, just that it will be bigger. I'm pretty sure Bethesda has gained a lot of experience on DLC (being one of the first companies to actually try it out) so I'm sure we'll see some very interesting things in the months to come.

But since Bethesda did say they weren't planning on making anymore console games until new consoles and they said they would make bigger Add-Ons.. I think we won't be having Horse Armor :hehe:

If they want to sell it later, that's fine. I'm not really irked about that. I am however, against the pricing for most dlc content. But this might be a moot point anyway with bethesda, since they are actually releasing (mostly) worthwhile dlc for the price. I mean they went from $5 horse armor in Oblivion, to $10 mini-expansions in Fallout, and while some of those were hit and miss, it was definitely a step in the right direction.

For your anology, I doubt most people wouldn't complain because they're getting used items cheaper than the original market value.

I'd say it's more accurate to suggest the pillows were lets say worth $5, but now they're selling them for $20

Garage sales don't adhere to a set of industry standards that have been developed over the years. Customers are also used to/expecting certain behaviors from producers.

You don't sell someone a car without a tailpipe (without telling them it's missing), and then later on decide to sell it separately to everyone who bought that car.

Fair enough.

You also can't sell a car without a tailpipe because cars need tailpipes. You could, however, sell it without the leather seats and replace those with upholstry instead, and then sell the leather seats for an extra charge later... sound familiar?

Exactly, people are acting like they removed something necessary, like textures, from the game to sell it for exorbitant sums later

The only DLC that annoys me that I've seen is for Saints Row the Third. The DLC packs available through steam (aside from the season pass) are... cheat codes. That's it. You have to buy the ability to use cheats in the game.

Having to buy access to cheat codes for a game like that is... well... lame.

They don't really though. That's the thing.

Cars will for the most part run fine without em, but they are better if they have em.

Just like games without intended content will run and play great as they are, but would be even better if they had it.

Without a tail-pipe, a car will choke you to death by spraying its own exhaust all over the undercarriage of the car, which vents into the passenger cabin. Plus, the only place you can put a muffler or a catalytic converter is along the tailpipe.

True, you can run the tailpipe in whatever direction you like. Run it to the front and exhaust will leak into the engine through the front intake, and some into the cabin through the front vents. Lousy idea. Run it to the sides and you end up with a black streak all down the side of your car. Also a bad idea.

Run it to the back? Ideal solution.

Tailpipes are not luxuries, they are necessary. Now there are a lot of things that you can try to come up with that a car would never come without. As sure as you do, I'll either find you a car without one, or show you how that piece is actually a necessity. The bottom line is simple, car makers can sell you a car with whatever features they want to include, so long as it has the necessities. That's really all there is to it.

Something that I'm having a hard time understand is this: Publishers retain control of all the game materials according to the various EULAs. If they really hate used games so much shouldn't they be able to just STOP Gamestop from selling games used? IIRC, there are resale clauses in the EULAs aren't there? Since we end users don't even own the game after we buy it, why do retailers get a pass? It all sounds really fishy to me. I don't know the law side of that business, but it's definitely something that puzzles me. The best case scenario with "new game DLC", and one I would be perfectly ok with, is if the market manages to devalue those used games by the "new game DLC" price. Then you end up paying what you would normally for a used game even with buying the "new game DLC". It may not work out that way because of simple ignorance on the part of most consumers. I know Gamestop will sell the hottest new game used at near full price. Those games need to be marked down by whatever the online pass, or DLC activation fee is.

Perhaps someone who knows can explain why the Publishers can't or won't just bring the hammer down on retailers selling used games.

Well, actually, you are right. When't the last time you bought a used PC game at a retailer? They can't sell them.