I'm curious to see how the community feels about post-launch support and mod support in games. I've noticed lately that the most played games these days are the games with either extensive post-launch support in the forms of frequent updates and patches, or good mod support.

Please, take your time to think about this and answer the poll honesty. Thank you.

Haven't really given it much thought, but it does seem like my purchasing habits are dominated by post-launch support and mods. I hate the thought of buying a full price game only to shelf it after a few months or weeks. I haven't made any such purchase for years (barring Dragon Age, I overestimated how large the modding community would be for that game).

So does "scale is 1 to 10" mean that 10 is the most important?

Yes, sorry I should have been more clear on that.

Because I play on PC, I rarely buy games that have just come out. I'll wait and do research before dropping the cash. Seems like recently a lot of games have been released with fairly bad bugs, so I'll either wait for a fix or not buy at all. If there's no way to get the game to work properly, why would I get it?

That said, I don't care much for DLC or free new things that are released later as much as I care for the game as a whole. Patches are good. Gimme patches. Lots of patches. Please more patches?

I was just thinking of something similar not too long ago. I rarely buy games that don't have good support, free additions, or, most importantly, modding communities. It seems like a waste to blow 60 dollars on a game with a 12 hour campaign and shoddy tacked on multiplayer to help the game seem "worth it". Modding adds an innumerable, free, and compelling experience that makes any purchase seem reasonable for the amount of content. Developer supported patches help a lot, although developer supported unofficial patches can be just as good, as well as free add on content (like the RDR coop "DLC") can make a game more worthy of the price tag associated with it. DLC is nice, but I find that most DLC does not seem worth the price tag associated with it (especially compared to mods of an equal or larger caliber, and for free), I much prefer the expansion pack concept, although these seem to be becoming much more rare. If I spend full price for a game it is only on established franchises with competent developers and good a community/mod scene(Elderscrolls, among others), anything else is left for varying states of "bargain bin" status depending on quality and post launch support.

Post-launch support can include DLC but is not synonymous with it. DLC (and mods) to me, are an optional portion of the post-launch support, and will help my decision to purchase a game but are not a determining factor. The mandatory portion (in my eyes) is PATCHING. I cannot abide a company that doesn't follow up their games with bug-fixes at the very least.

Post launch support is extremely important. We have the ability to fix stuff that is wrong with games once they're released. That wasn't possible with generation 1 consoles (N64, PS1) and there were many games that could have benefited from a little post-launch support.

DLC and support are difference. Support is fixing things, not necessarily adding content. In L4D's case, when they added the Mutations, that's support. It was taking something that was already in the game and tweaking it to make the game fresh again. The maps that they added are DLC (regardless of if you're on PC and it's free or if you're on console and had to pay for it).

Mod support is cool but not a big factor for me. It wasn't until Fallout 3 did I start looking at mods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(first_generation)

Haha, ok. 5th generation. I was thinking of the first consoles I played when I also knew about the internet (since that's how they patch up games).

Speaking of, do you think they would have had DLC for Pong? Like, different colored paddles?

I don't really care about post-launch support at all. Well, unless it's a very buggy game in great need of patches. But many of my favorite games never recived any patches or DLCs.

Not important to me whatsoever. I care little about modding, don't play many games that wold require constant tweaking and despise DLC. So long as they patch any glaring issues that should have been caught before release, I'm (somewhat) happy.

I think of post-launch support as, well, support for the product. To me, this means patches for bugs - both mechanical as well as, to a degree, aesthetic bugs, too. Mechanical might include not only game-crashers and progress-stoppers, but also broken mechanics (e.g. combat, spell-casting, certain character abilities, etc).

Post-release support is important to me. I research games before I buy them because I try to learn about problems I might encounter - and if those problems are the sort that would detract greatly from my enjoyment. I have also purchased games that have serious game-crashing bugs that were not fixed - in fact, no post-release patches at all - and there is nothing quite so frustrating as spending money on something that does not work. It may be that a game only needs a few patches - in which case, terrific, good on the devs for pre-release bug testing.

Mod support is nice for games that have modding tools - either released by the dev or developed by the fan community. In particular, I look for community patches, which have been fantastic for so many PC games that I play. There are many times when I play PS2 or PSP games and I wish they were for the computer and/or that there were modding tools, so that I could polish off a few rough edges and tweak things.

Post-launch support and/or modding is a nice bonus, but not necessary. a lot of my favorite games are ones that never have need of the internet. Actually, I tend to think that if a game requires a LOT of post-launch support in the form of patches, it was probably a shoddy game to begin with(not ALWAYS the case, but frequently is). Honestly, as long as a game is more then 20 hours long, I'll be happy with it.

I am an extreme supporter of games with modding capability. Mods can add so much to an already great game, or make a great game out of a previously subpar one. Mods can change a game into something new and exciting and even do things the developers never thought of or didn't get around to. Not only are mods great fun, they're also a fantastic means to tell the developers what many gamers like to have in their games. It's sort of like they're indirectly making suggestions to developers. Whether or not they take those suggestions to heart, though, is ultimately up to them.

So yes, post-launch support, especially utilities for mod making, is incredibly important, IMO. It's one of the main reasons I'm even still interested in PC gaming at all. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say that the TES series thrives on its modding community. I don't think I could stomach vanilla anything from that series anymore and would not hesitate to skip over Skyrim if it lacks mod utilities.

Post-launch support is certainly an important thing in games. Some games are buggy upon release, and that's annoying, but I can live with it as long as the developers are willing to fix said bugs, that being said, I don't usually let whether a developer has a history of offering good post-launch support or not for games, perhaps in part because I don't usually choose my games based on the developer behind them at all. However, can it increase sales? I'd imagine so, because I'm sure many gamers are more inclined to trust companies that have had a history of supporting their games well.

And modding support is nice, but not vital for me for most games, it's one of those things that usually, I'm glad to get when I can have it, but don't expect it all the time, though I make an exception for the Elder Scrolls, because mods for Morrowind and Oblivion have improved those games so much for me that I've come to EXPECT modding support from the series, for other games, though, modding tools are nice, but if the game itself is good, I don't need mods to be willing to play it.

And no, I do not consider DLC a vital part of post launch support. Downloadable content is additional content, usually costing some money, for a game that is already complete on its own. It is not something developers are, or should be, obligated to create, nor is it something I expect from all of them, for me, post launch support is releasing patches or, if the game is online, prompty fixing any problems that might arrise with the servers, it's basically just the developers ensuring that the product that customers paid for works as it should, essentially, it's just doing their job, of course, I don't usually get DLC anyway, whereas I always get patches, but that's another issue.

No, they shipped the game as a whole and not in day0 pieces, like some do today.