The DLC Debate: "What Is Fair?"

What a crazy age we live in.We live in the age of Twitter and instant updates. Instant gratification is in and of course technology will be the first to harness and cultivate our needs. Though video games may not fall in the category of 'necessity', try convincing gaming companies to the contrary. I am sure avid WoW players and Pockemon collectors also have problems resisting new content as well. Downloadable content is here fellow gamers. As much as it proposes the argument of how strong a foothold games have on our society, it may prove just how far game developers and distributors are willing to go to juice the naive. What is fair?

What is fair? This past year we have seen some of the best games distributed only within a downloadable form. A couple weeks ago, I decided to play World of Goo for the PC. I downloaded it off of Steam for the steep price $4.99 a deal that enticed me from its original price of $20.00. Now that I am making my way through the gorgeous 48 levels of WoG, a feeling of immense guilt washes over. The developers for WoG, 2D Boy, definitely deserve every cent for the amount of effort spent for such a polished gem. This raises an interesting question for independent developers. How does a 2D Boy or a Crayon Physics justify the pricing of their product? How do indie devs make a price point that satisfies their quality of work as well as the vendor(s) [iPhone, PSN, Wii, XBLA, etc]?

What is fair for the independent vendor? It is in my humble opinion that Steam, although with its flaws of 'sometimey' download speeds and the occasional high priced new release has the best and brightest future. It has an established infrastructure on the PC. It is a service that is free to use, which still astounds me to this day. If you look at Xbox & PSN's online structure it is essentially a pale imitation of the Steam service. Unfortunately, for every stride made towards making the downloadable content available through Steam, a major ding against one of longest running would be that as of this year there are fewer and fewer games being played on the PC. Trust me, World of Warcraft players will keep the PC gaming industry afloat, so there is no 'immediate worry' for games in general for the PC. However, console games in this generation have matched the PC as far as online play features, achievements and leaderboards. This may be a negative for the PC market, but a positive for console gaming as a whole.

Edit: As far as 'indie' vendors go, I strongly implore people to use the internets and explore. There are tons of little sites out there that cater to PC gamers [example: Goozex]

What is fair for the mainstream vendors? As of late, the most potent scrutiny with possibly long-term damage has come from both the Xbox 360 service and the PSN service. WiiWare is not exactly in the clear, because of the Wii's obvious connection and interface issues. As it stands, WiiWare has endured the least amount of criticism when it comes to game updates and microtransactions, simply because this is a system that does minimal work in pushing online content to the forefront [seriously...try finding a game you want to play through WiiWare/Virtual Console it is the newest ring of hell].

XBLA & PSN appear to be the leaders in regards to offering fans a great variety in independent games on their individual services. XBLA picking up Braid and having a very active developer community in the XNA is very promising as far as games that do not involve a reticle. PSN definitely deserves the title for having the most independent and innovative content out of the consoles. Both the XBLA and PSN have succumbed to game publishers 'questionable' pricing schemes. XBL is a definitely a premium service, but it is questionable if it is worth the annual $50 price tag that is tacked to its function. PSN is free and if you have ever tried any online gaming you can definitely tell that the service is 'passable'. With more time spent on their 'microtran-heavy' hub known as Home, one wonders how long will it take until Sony is shoving ads and features down the users' throats [in the 'not-so-subtle' manner].

The big issue(s). Firstly, you could say in order for developers to fully maximize the potential for a fully fleshed-out game, you need the freedom of creativity with as little restrictions as possible. WiiWare[whether they are willing to admit it or not]. Although Sony is sticking to a more 'bite-size' strategy, PSN seems to be impervious to size caps, but downloading and/or installing a game on your PS3 seems to be the biggest time suck out of all three consoles. If the future is here Sony...damn is it a slow moving one.

Xbox Live recently made waves with their release of their Watchmen:"The End Is Nigh" title. A game that is over 1gb in size is now the largest XBLA game. Though this not the first time XBLA has played favorites, this gives hope to developers and raises concerns simultaneously. Had this been a 'no name' title with the same ambitions would Microsoft have been so courteous?

The biggest issue, is the fairness of content distribution. There is already a well documented history of paying for content that you, the consumer/gamer have already purchased [be it at a 'Gamestop'-type establishment or via download through the aforementioned services]. Street Fighter IV intends on releasing both free and pay content, most of which are already in the game. The same may be true for 'another Capcom-zombie related-game'. It has already happened in Soul Calibur IV with little fan fare.

Seeing as I am over using the word a bit, in all 'fairness', gamers have been getting juiced every since the annualization of Madden. The brilliance of this new 'DLC Age' is this:

• It [eventually] forces games that are being put on disc and sold in stores, to be cheaper or offer more [art book, limited edition packs, etc.] as a means to get you to purchase the disc copy as opposed to the downloadable version.
• Creates a closer community. Which may be a good or bad thing. It is good in the sense that you know money is being split between the publisher and the distributor. It is negative in the sense that the publisher may only offer you pieces of the whole. Developers also get to see immediate responses to their work and adjust & update accordingly.
• Maybe you, the gamer only want a piece of a certain game [example: Portal instead of the entire Orange Box collection]. Maybe you want to show your appreciation to a game company that does not have the overhead to print out 250k worth of discs and ship internationally.

How do we [gamers] determine what is fair? This is the part that is a struggle. You can't fault developers and publishers for wanting to make money. If some kid buys every piece of furniture in Home, that benefits the OCD of the user and the future development of Sony's Home [and hopefully many other experimental projects].

 

For the most part, there appears to be an unspoken rule as to what the pricing structure is for an online downloadable game [$20-max for experimental, puzzle and/or "all ages games", but high-end graphic hogs, most triple-A's like Burnout: Paradise start at $30]. The elephant in the room is add-ons and supplements. Games like, the most recent Prince of Persia offer a supplement [or epilogue] to which you may or may not disagree with. GTA IV is offering a whole new experience for $20. Both of these methods I strongly agree with. If there were a way I could play Shadow of the Colossus and download new adventures for a small fee; Sony would have me in their money grubbing paw. Furthermore, I would be supporting a solid dev studio[at least I'd like to think so].

This is where 'fairness' is questioned. Burnout: Paradise literally gave users a years worth of downloadable content and updates for free. Now the gaming community complains once Electronic Arts announces they are releasing pay content. To this, I say to gamers: "Grow a pair."

It is great to see games with dedicated developers willing to consistently update and expand a games' experience. A game like Left 4 Dead has so much replay value, with news that they are releasing free content is great, but I would also pay if the addition was quality.

How do we come together as a community and figure this out? As it stands now, the dlc community is growing and naturally evolving [for the most part] into something both gamers and publishers have or are growing to love. With a few major titles taking a less than ethical role it is very important that developers and gamers come together and etch-out what they demand from each other. Gamers should indeed support quality games by paying for them [piracy is a no-no...you know this]. Developers need to stand up to publishers and vendors [which is probably easier said than done] in order to be paid fairly, but to also get their work out to people who may be interested.

What do you guys think? How do we keep this industry honest amongst this new threshold of gaming?

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Supplements:

wikipedia downloadable content

Edge-Online: "Are Games Too Expensive?"