MEMBER BLOG

Getting the full experience
Posted on Saturday, November 19 2011 @ 03:58:17 Eastern

These days when you beat a game it’s not necessarily all over. It just might have got some DLC, maybe already on the release day.  The age of internet has brought good and bad things with it. Buggy games are being patched, more content getting added, but these things brought rushing games to be released a standard. “It’s okay, we can add it later”, is probably a common phrase within developers these days.

Technically there’s nothing wrong with that, but then they got the idea: “Hey! What if we don’t release all this for free and charge for it instead?” and so the DLC of today was born. Some companies handle their dlc well. Rockstar for example, usually adds hours of new story content to be played that not necessarily has anything to do with the main game. They are great expansions to the game and sometimes bring stuff you wouldn’t experience in the main game, Undead Nightmare for an example.

Sadly Rockstar is one of the few companies that release quality DLC worth it’s price. It’s common that even before a game is released there’s information about DLC and that DLC is available on the release date. That makes me feel like they just cut parts out of the game to be sold separately like in the days of shareware. Multiplayer DLC is usually just maps and skins, but sometimes they add gamemodes. There’s no better way to split up or even kill a community than charging for those. I’ve stopped playing many multiplayer games when these kind of DLC’s came, because I didn’t feel they were worth their price.

Console exclusivity is one thing I hate too. “Console X will have all this and more, while Console P will be left without. But don’t you worry! They’ll cost the same price!”. Another worrying thing is the rise of one console policy. In attempt of killing used game sales, they have for example made the multiplayer to be unlocked with a code and once it’s used, you have to purchase one again if you want to play it on other account/console. Capcom has done this kind of thing with its 3DS games. Off with sharing is caring I guess.

I miss the times you could just put the game in the console and without any updates or installs you could just start playing. Then when you were finished with that you could trade the games with your friends and share the experiences. I guess from now on I’ll stick to only GOTY versions, the complete game for just half the price.

Games, you used to be cool. Now you’re just trying to be cool.