I was just thinking. Should game developers just make sequels as a DLC instead of a disk. Lets take everyone's favorite game series Call of Duty for example. Now let's take CoD:Ghost and let's say that instead of Activation make CoD: Ghost 2 as a disk instead its just a DLC and adds more missions to the single player campaign, more maps and weapons for the mutiplayer while taking in account the previous stuff from the first game, heck even the DLC's from the first game can work on the sequel since all it would do is just add stuff to the old game. since gaming consoles have more memory then what you can do with I think this will save money on making disk for sequels.

DLCs already cost more than the game... so I see no problem other than the people with caps and crap speeds.

They won't pass the savings on to consumers though.

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Unfortunately DLC is often being used for something else.

Completing a game that the company didn't finish.

It's easier for companies to charge more/for people to justify spending the money if the software is sold as separate media.

Besides, every CoD is a sequel to the previous one. You're assuming that any given sequel doesn't have enough content to justify marketing it as an independent product and isn't worth putting on physical media. Should Bethesda release the next Elder Scrolls game as a DLC-only title?

Additionally, not everyone has access to the kind of internet connection that would make such a system feasible. With the new console generation now on the market, games can easily go up to 30-40GB, or even more. Do you have any idea how long it would take for people to download games of that size even if they have a decent connection, not to mention the kind of strain that it would put on the download servers and the kind of maintenance these servers would require? If we're talking about saving money by not using physical media, there isn't even a point. Blu-ray disks cost pennies at wholesale due to the sheer scale on which companies buy them.

This doesn't really work in most cases because DLCs are only large enough to slightly expand games and iterate on preexisting concepts, and sequels should ideally offer a game that both stands on its own and innovates in certain ways.

Generally speaking, no.

That said, I find the idea of Bethesda making a TES game as usual and then keep releasing the rest of Tamriel as DLCs until all of Tamriel is covered rather appealing. Then again, that's not really that good either since it would take many years to complete and then the final DLC will look and play in a very outdated way compared to the new games available.

Sometimes, I think I'm of the opposite approach. There are some DLCs that could have just worked as standalone products. Having a DLC makes sense when it adds content to an existing game, like what we see in the various expansions for Bethesda games (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim) or XCOM: Enemy Within. But there are others that, while all well and good, are really just separate campaigns that don't interact with the original in any way. Take the likes of Dishonored's Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches. While both are brilliant, they add nothing to the original game. By all rights, they could have all been standalone, and it wouldn't have changed a thing about them. Why exactly should I and everyone else be obligated to buy the original game if we're potentially only interested in the expansions?

I say this because I have a passing interest in the story-based DLCs for Bioshock Infinite, like Burial at Sea. But I have no interest in buying the original Bioshock Infinite; I borrowed it from a friend, beat it, returned it, and see no point in going back to it. But if I want to play through the expansions, then I have to spend extra money on something I really don't want.

Ubisoft had the right idea when they released Farcry 3: Blood Dragon. Despite the name, it's completely separate from Farcry 3 and can be bought by itself, and goes for the price of a typical DLC.

Games like The Elder Scrolls are different since every game in the series are different from each other and don't really play off each other. Now is Bethesda made TES VI and TES VII played off the same engine and story as TES VI then maybe but since each TES game has different gameplay, story and stuff there's really no reason for sequel DLC's on games like these.

Now games like Call of Duty, Half-Life, Battlefield or games like Final Fantasy XIII then sequels for DLC would make better since IMO.

Except all of those games had new game engines and/or game mechanics made for them. Half-life and Half-life 2 ran on different code. Just like Fallout:New Vegas wasn't running on exactly the same system as Fallout 3. Etc, etc, etc.

In the end, this seems like just another end-around to the whole "I love digital distribution! Why do you people still use physical disks/retail stores, and make my digital prices higher?!?" thing.

While some people have nice internet, and can download AAA games all they want, quickly and cheaply, many people don't and can't. There's still plenty of demand for physical media out there, and limiting AAA game sequels to 1. the same engine as the previous one, and 2. digital distribution, would be nuts.

(edit: and as things stand, with companies leaning more and more on DLC to get more $ for their expensive-to-produce games, because people will yell about the base price going higher? Even if they stopped putting stuff in stores, the price on digital wouldn't magically drop to $40. You'd still be paying $60 on launch day, even with them "saving money" by not printing discs.)