What happens after you see a movie that you really enjoyed in theaters? You might be inclined to purchase it on DVD or rent it and re-watch it. Maybe you want to buy the Director’s Cut or the “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” if it was a set of movies you enjoyed. But once the credits roll, the movie is over. The gaming industry has recently found a way to extend the life of a video game long past it’s finale. They do this through downloadable content or DLC. How DLC functions is that once you finish the game and you enjoyed it so much, you want more. With a few more dollars, ranging from five to twenty dollars, you can buy more of that game to enjoy. So then what is the problem?
The problem is how developers/publishers implement downloadable content and what they are potentially removing from the retail product just to sell to you later. My “favorite” developer and publisher Capcom was rumored to have added a mode onto Resident Evil 5, released in 2009, that was on the disc. But the catch was that you had to pay five dollars to unlock that content. Kotaku broke the news on April 7th, 2009. “As anyone who has downloaded the add-on will have found, the DLC weighs in at a massive 1.8MB on 360, and an even more impressive 351KB on PS3. Leading some to suggest that, well, you're not really downloading Versus (VS) mode at all. You're just downloading a key and some extra code that unlocks content that was already on the disc.”
Fast-forward to 2011 and DLC has made its way into nearly every video game. Even games that haven’t been released have some sort of promise of downloadable content. Saint’s Row: The Third, an open-world action game that bears resemblance to Grand Theft Auto, was reported to have 40 weeks of DLC. Destructoid shares the tweet from THQ’s Brian Farrell, the publisher, with the rest of us. “We're totally changing how we keep consumers engaged for a very long time," he claimed. "We intend to create an online digital ecosystem that keeps them interested for a year or more.” The author of this article gives his opinions. “I'm all for extras, but when you're planning almost a year's worth of software before the game's even out, don't expect folks to not get a little cynical.”
It’s not all bad though. Some developers are looking out for the consumer. CD Projekt RED, developers of the highly acclaimed The Witcher 2, promote free DLC for their PC version of the game. The development director, Adam Badowski discussed DLC with gameinformer. “We don’t see the idea [of paid DLC] as wrong, but we definitely don’t like to see gamers treated like dairy cows that are primed for milking." I am going to agree with Badowski from a consumer’s standpoint. I have many pieces of DLC on my Xbox 360’s hard drive, so I’m not advocating a removal of DLC entirely, but each one was carefully researched and chosen to be worth my money. I advise my readers to do the same and sound off in the comments with your opinions of DLC below.
