Bethesda defends day-one DLC

Increasingly I care less about day-one DLC itself and more about the strength of this weaselly narrative surrounding it. Day-one DLC is about having extra content available upon release to create a viable optional product pricing strategy and encourage customers to buy a lump bunch of accessories along with their initial game purchase, racking up the total sale. Fine. However greasy and horrible it might be, particularly in the context of extra content affecting the way a game is played and won, it is in the end fairly commonplace sleazy salesmanship.

What's fucked-up is this party line in which day-one DLC is totally not the result of an obvious desire to get more money out of punters by placing a sweet rack in front of the cashier's desk, and is in fact caused by nothing other than hard-working developers scraping together the time in their schedules between completion and release and in their lunch-breaks to get as much game to you as possible as quickly as possible, YOU, THE CONSUMER. It's so utterly craven.

 

So what does everyone think of systems where all early purchasers (not just preorders) getting the first round of DLC for free before it "returns" to payed?

 

Like others said, "If the content is ready day 1, why isn't it in the game, day 1?" May these greedy cunts burn for 1000 years.

 

They must truly consider their audience moronic...

 

Despicable. "Please buy our game early, because if you don't, you'll find out it's shit and won't want to buy it anymore!"
It should be a criminal offense to sell products without a demo. It's like paying for a Ferrari that you've seen videos of and then getting this delivered to you:

"Hey, it's red like we promised, and we've even included the pimp gold handles DLC for free."

 

Day 1 DLC

I still can't brofist, but this is it. There has to be a point where you just say, "We make more money that way," and do that little palms up hands out shrug thing and we all concede that yes we are human beings in a partially adversarial situation and not giggling nymphs dancing under the publisher tree

 

And they are right.

 

Pete Hines is classic (non redneck) American Trash: Loves sports, even coaches junior high, probably has a ton of video games he never plays, probably a member of Big Brothers/Sisters of America and feels morally superior to unclean Lithuanians. Of course he's gonna defend shitty business practices, they provide him with financial security, which helps him sleep at night and keeps the unclean Lithuanian Codexers at bay.

 

OH THE IRONY

 

Boy that's a great Ferrari.

 

Actually, I read that early expansions that used to be released were the result of studios trying to occupy the time of certain people that weren't yet needed for their next project. Now it's a lot more efficient and studios have multiple games in the pipeline, but there's still periods where some people don't have a lot to do for a while.

 

He's not really wrong, despite you guys ripping him a new ass for it. Concept artists, writers and even environment artists/builders do not work during the polishing phase. It makes complete sense to put them on another project while the main game is in certification.

I would rather that project be a true expansion, however.

Skyrim actually released almost-expansions though, I have no complaints about their sales model with that game.

 

That isn't what deuxhero was talking about, however. He's talking about stuff like getting the future DLC for free as "early purchase incentives" (so you'll buy the game now instead of waiting until it's half-price), which don't necessarily exclude the possibility of having a demo later on.

 

We're in 2013, and people still play Bethesduh games.

True story.

To give you some food for thought, it's the same guy that will spend prodigious amounts of energy and time explaining before release that features (weapon types, magic styles, elven cunts, whatever, I am too lazy to google up the references atm) are to be removed because supposedly they aren't needed for the game to be enjoyed, and then magically reintroduces them after release with bells and whistles in a to-be-paid-for DLC.

It's the same people that will have nothing to object to paying full price for the game without said features, and then applaud with both their hands when they are asked to shell out the cash again for something that should (and reasonably could) have been in the game since day 1.

Head over to the Nexus, Loverslab, or whatever modding site has your preference, and you'll see that barring graphical enhancements all their games have been the same since TES3. Eventually, all them still featured spears, illusion magic, medium armor, werewolves and what have you. They're perfectly aware of that, Hines the first. Since they aren't able to make their games any better over time content-wise, they're just trying to find different ways to sell the same crap to the same crowd.

And it seems to work, at least with sheeples like you. Tomorrow, I expect people to pay full price for a "game" that leaves them with barely a DRM to connect to an online server on day 1, and then pay again for any kind of real content shipped with DLCs during the next months, with still nothing to object. It's just helpless to fight stupidity past a certain point.

 

Yeah. Unlike the DLCs for oblivion, the DLCs for skyrim, if not good, has at least by far justified the cost in terms of new content and the amount of work put into them.

 

They should have used the extra time to work on patching the damned game, my PS3 copy still doesn't work without game breaking slowdown (tho i played the game mostly on the pc).

 

Never gonna happen as long as consoles are the main focus. At least Microsoft used to make developers jump through hoops (at least so they claimed) to get a patch released. Why bother when they can just make 'Vampire Romance DLC #1' and then maybe release a patch 3 months after release.

edit: just look at TF2 on the 360 - Its pretty much in the same state as it was on Day 1 on PC

 

But won't it be cheaper to buy the game at half price, even if you buy the DLC as well, especially with GOTY deals? I thought these schemes were to get you to buy the game before opinions were formulated (around the web or otherwise), so the company doesn't lose too much money if the game is terrible. It seems to have the same effect as lack of a demo does, to promote blind sales.

Also, I have recently noticed (on Steam) the practice of "unlocking" rewards if lots of other people have preordered, and they have these progress bars to indicate what rewards have been unlocked depending on the amount of preorders. Looks like they finally managed to implement achievements before you even play the game.

 

Yes. That's why they offer extras, to try and convince you to buy at full price.

 

I don't have this weird requirement that everything the company thought of before release needs to be in the game, sorry. If the game was considered complete and moved into testing and certification then the next project is surely something different? You're the exact person he's talking about when he says people who don't understand game development.

 

Oh great master of intelligence I am sorry to offend you with my stupidity. You're right, it's not that games feel complete and massive on release that is important, no, it is that the company never be allowed to start work on anything else until the game is on the shelf, even if that means creative types sit around for three months doing nothing. Your wisdom truly shines through the darkness.

It is also imminently wise of you to notice Bethesda games' real problems are rooted in lack of content. I always thought their writing went to shit, their RPG elements were too simplified and their quest design was retarded but no, you have shown the true way, we just need more stuff in the final product.

I feel so stupid.