» Mon Mar 29, 2010 1:51 pm When people say they want everything in "The entire game.", they mean any and all official content made for it. When people like this get everything in the game except something only available through a preorder code, they feel as if the game is unfinished.
Having seen *real* "unfinished games" - ones where a patch, DLC, or expansion is needed in order for the basic functions or main storyline of the game to actually be functional (or, worse, the company goes to heck and never "finishes" the game), I really have trouble with this one.
An extra texture or two that, if it never existed in the first place no one would ever have noticed or missed, is not leaving a game "unfinished". IMHO.
Bioware - Employed the Cerberus Network for Mass Effect 2. What this means is that ou have to have gotten the game new or purchased the network service for 1200 microsoft points just to be able to get DLC. (If you rent or buy a used copy, you have to buy the network service to be able to buy the DLC.)
I found this move of theirs to be both 1) a creative, and 2) inoffensive, solution to the "problem" of publishers wanting to salvage some revenue from the used-game market. Considering the other possible approaches they could have done (lawsuits or lobbying Congress to make used game sales illegal; draconian Terms of Use/etc in support of that; or a required online registration code that makes used copies completely unusable), it's actually quite friendly.
And, it leaves all the decision making in the player's hands, with maximum choice. You can choose to 1) buy a new copy and get all the Cerberus DLC, 2) save money by buying a used copy and not bothering with the DLC, or 3) buy a used copy and buy any & all DLC that you decide are worth it (possibly cheaper in the end, if the used price was low enough). Does not strike me as a hardship there - people can do what they want, with many options.
(Personally, I bought ME2 new, and haven't bothered to download all the "free" DLC because some of them are so trivial that they don't seem worth the time or HD space. But, hey - it was my choice.)
