- 5,284
- Sick_Cylinder
GT Sport DLC
- Thread starter Tassie_tiger
- 121 comments
- 12,831 views
- 8,723
I happen to agree, but the second statement is wide open to interpretation.
So in effect it means nothing, except that Kaz doesn't consider Sport a stopgap. You know, what with the whole "paid demo" debacle on PS3...
Jawehawk
Premium
- 4,652
- Denmark
- Yohansen_92
Obviously it is silly of us consumers to expect to get the full product after paying full price. Nah, I'd much rather have to pay full price twice in order to get the last couple of missions of the campaign, or half of the multiplayer maps or cars. I mean, I just really love throwing money into the toilet. Makes me feel good. Who'd possibly want to only have to pay full price once, when they can do it twice for the same amount of content!
Other companies or industries doing it, does not make it right. A genuinely good company understands that the product cost needs to correspond with the product value. Cutting content to be sold seperately reduces value, while increasing price.
- 1,089
Guys like you and the COD players, etc are the reason we have paid DLC guarantee these days. I can't believe people waiting for Day1, month1 DLC and so on. It is simply ridiculous and get DLC 1 month before on PS4 only. I mean seriously do Sony pay Activison. for this BS
I think there will come a day where people have spent more $ on DLC than the game itself 
One of the reason I think they release DLC is because people do not sell their games. I personally buy few games and wait for price drop, ultimate edition with all DLC included and barely sell any games. I also prefer hardcopy than digital version. Probably will get both version for GTS though since I will use it more frequently and do not want disk swapping. I hope GTS we get free DLC. That is the way it is meant to be.
Neomone
(Banned)
- 133
- Australia
Who defines what the full product is? You?
I'm with you on story or mission based games that essentially don't allow you to finish the game unless you buy DLC. That's dirty and not something I support, but that's more of a bad design and marketing decision more than anything else. That's akin to the car dealer who sells you a lemon, and should not be endorsed.
On the other hand, if the base game is totally playable and the developer wishes to make more content available separately, I have no problem with that. Kunos sells DLC for Assetto Corsa, and I'm happy to buy it. CDPR sells DLC for TW3 and I'm falling over myself to fling money at them. Mazda sells upgraded versions of the MX5 and additional options, and I have no problem with that either. Aftermarket companies also sell additional parts for the car, and I think that's fine as well.
Why is it for games it's different? You can buy a base product (that should be fit for purpose), or you can pay extra and get the bells and whistles version. As I said, it's done in lots of industries and nobody has a problem. I mean, do you even blink at the price difference between a small and a large coke at McDonalds? I sort of doubt it.
Never said that was the case, although you'll have to define what "it" is in this case. I'm pretty sure you buy all sorts of products that use the same format without blinking twice.
Ah, but this is a different thing. A base game should absolutely provide value for it's cost. However, that's up to the consumer to decide when they purchase it whether the product gives ample value. I don't buy a lot of games simply because I wouldn't get enough fun out of them to justify the cost.
Whether there's more fun to be had if I pay extra over the starting price doesn't really come into my valuation of the base game. It's either worth it on it's own or it isn't.
Well, sort of. It reduces the value you're getting, but the price is the same. Still, I understand what you're getting at.
But this is the "in my day a soda cost a nickel" argument. Developers have the right to choose how much of their work they sell you for $60, or whatever the full price of the game is. They are under no obligation to give you everything that they've made, and nor should they. When you buy a meal at a restaurant, you receive a meal of a certain size that took a certain amount of labour to create. The kitchen could have given you an extra scoop of chips, or a bigger steak, but they don't because they value their work at a certain amount and this is how much you've paid for.
A game is no different. For your money, the developers will give you a certain amount of value. If you give them more money, they will sell you more. This is how commerce works. I'm totally with the argument that some games aren't worth the money without the DLC included, but that's not an argument against DLC. That's an argument against companies pricing products above their worth.
The response to which is, wait for a sale. It's part of why PC gaming is so good, because you can always pick up a game for cheap eventually. I've got a whole list of games that are not worth their current prices, but I'm waiting until they're ten bucks or less to pick up because that's the amount of entertainment I expect to get from them.
- 2,810
- Tasmania, AU
- stigsdaddy
Guys like you and the COD players, etc are the reason we have paid DLC guarantee these days. I can't believe people waiting for Day1, month1 DLC and so on. It is simply ridiculous and get DLC 1 month before on PS4 only. I mean seriously do Sony pay Activison. for this BS
One of the reason I think they release DLC is because people do not sell their games. I personally buy few games and wait for price drop, ultimate edition with all DLC included and barely sell any games. I also prefer hardcopy than digital version. Probably will get both version for GTS though since I will use it more frequently and do not want disk swapping. I hope GTS we get free DLC. That is the way it is meant to be.
I agree that DLC has become ridiculous, but just like you can always wait until a game drops in price to buy it, you can always not buy the DLC, or just wait until the "ultimate edition" types of bundles are cheap enough to justify the purchase.
DLC shouldn't be free, there's no point in working on new content for a game and not being paid for it. However, DLC also shouldn't be content that was finished in time to include it in the vanilla game, and just purposely held back in order to get more money.
Games that heavily push the DLC, season pass, and exclusive pre order content, onto people, are the games which I wait at least a year before buying. I had a friend who was obsessed with Battlefield 4, and even bought all the DLC after buying the game at full price. He paid a fortune in the end for all of that. I recently picked it up on sale on PSN for $22 with all DLC included. Now I wasn't interested enough in it to pay full price anyway, but it's not bad picking up a game with so much additional content for such a low price.
With the huge amount of good games available these days, and the limited free time I have to play them, I have no problem not buying a game on day one that I don't think is worth full price, or whose developer I believe is being greedy by holding back a lot of content for DLC.
I have over 50 games on PS4, and I paid full price for very few of them (currently 3, but Assetto Corsa, F1 2016, and No Man's Sky will likely change that)
Last edited:
- 28,470
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
Actually, "guys like me" are what you might call rational consumers. I support companies that are doing what I would call legit DLC and don't support those that don't. I bought all the GT5 DLC for example all the Assetto Corsa DLC, Project Cars etc. I've bought DLC for people on my friends list as well when I really want to support the company. But I didn't buy the upgrade packs for the last NHL game nor for my last Tiger Woods game because to me it wasn't worth it and I don't believe you should have to pay to win. They were my last NHL and Tiger Woods games as well. I vote with my wallet. You should too.Guys like you and the COD players, etc are the reason we have paid DLC guarantee these days. I can't believe people waiting for Day1, month1 DLC and so on. It is simply ridiculous and get DLC 1 month before on PS4 only. I mean seriously do Sony pay Activison. for this BS
One of the reason I think they release DLC is because people do not sell their games. I personally buy few games and wait for price drop, ultimate edition with all DLC included and barely sell any games. I also prefer hardcopy than digital version. Probably will get both version for GTS though since I will use it more frequently and do not want disk swapping. I hope GTS we get free DLC. That is the way it is meant to be.
- 24,628
- Anoka, MN
I want you to look at this list.
One thing you will notice is that of those 43 games only 5 are from the pre-gen. 6 era. During this period of rapidly inflating game budgets, the consoles and the games themselves have gotten cheaper when inflation is taken into account.
So, with budgets exploding while the cost of the actual game stays the same what is a developer to do? They could raise the price of the standard game but consumers already complain about the price at $60 so that move would be suicide. This leaves attempting to make money post release which has worked to varying degrees from failures like the online passes from a few years ago to resounding successes like map packs.
So this brings us to your "product cost needs to correspond with the product value" snippet. How much value do the developers need to provide for that $60 investment? From what I have seen from the gaming industry they have done more than enough so I don't mind them trying to earn some money via DLC.
Jawehawk
Premium
- 4,652
- Denmark
- Yohansen_92
Then it is a very good thing that the amount of consumers has also increased significantly within the last decade. Never before have they had such a large potential install base, easily off setting the cost of development. Also keep in mind that an insane amount of that budget is dedicated entirely to advertisement, which likely doesn't pay itself back, espicially not for the already well established franchises. Another thing is the popular trend of hiring expensive Hollywood actors to do voice acting for no other reason than to get a popular name in there. Frankly, a significant reason for the increase in development cost is the studios being morons.
lastly, 43 games is a tiny segment of the many hundreds of games being released on a yearly basis.
And for other people. I have nothing against DLC as a general concept. If you want to support your game with new content after the original release, then by all means. Assuming it contains actual content and that it wasn't finished before release, then I'm perfectly fine with it. The problem comes when you take content out of your game to release it as day one DLC, effectively double charging your consumers. Other industries operate after entirely different economic models and have nothing what so ever to do with the games industry.
Last edited:
- 28,470
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
Really?
PS2 units sold: 158 million
PS3 units sold: 86 million
PS4 units sold: 41 million
What were you saying?
syntex123
Staff Emeritus
- 5,062
- Tønsberg, Norway
- syntex123
- Syntex260Z
Some games need DLC though. Look at Rocksmith 2014. A great game that had a decent amount of content when it released. Now, soon three years later, a buttload of DLC has been released, all for good.Guys like you and the COD players, etc are the reason we have paid DLC guarantee these days. I can't believe people waiting for Day1, month1 DLC and so on. It is simply ridiculous and get DLC 1 month before on PS4 only. I mean seriously do Sony pay Activison. for this BS
One of the reason I think they release DLC is because people do not sell their games. I personally buy few games and wait for price drop, ultimate edition with all DLC included and barely sell any games. I also prefer hardcopy than digital version. Probably will get both version for GTS though since I will use it more frequently and do not want disk swapping. I hope GTS we get free DLC. That is the way it is meant to be.
(but yeah I will be honest and say I've payed a lot more for the DLC than the game, even though I've bought the game a few times)
- 24,628
- Anoka, MN
Does it though?
According to this article $27 of every game sold at $60 goes to the developer. I don't know how accurate that is and I'm sure it varies but it seems about right. Now that means that for each additional million spent on making the game they will have to ship an additional 37,000 copies just to break even, we'll call it 80,000 copies at $60 in order to make a decent profit (roughly $1,000,000). Even for a big AAA studio that's not an easy task.
Companies never spend money without the expectation of it having a positive RoI, it just doesn't happen (with successful companies at least). Even when they give to charity they are expecting to get something from it in the form of positive PR.
It's a crowded industry and a big name helps them stand out. Just like in the movie business, people are much more likely to buy something with Matt Damon's name on it compared to someone they've never heard of.
I know and I wish I had numbers on a much larger percentage of the industry. But usually as the most expensive games go up in price so do the cheaper ones. Especially now that we have things like 3D, 4K, VR and online play, all of which need employees that know about those things.
Which is all well and good but it doesn't change the current install base. With the way the gaming climate is now by the time it reaches PS2 numbers GTA5 will be the worlds most popular drink coaster.
Jawehawk
Premium
- 4,652
- Denmark
- Yohansen_92
Wow. let's see, the PS2 was released in 2000, the PS3 in 2006 and the PS4 in 2013. Of course there's going to more units worldwide for consoles that have been out for much longer. But I'll try to rephrase it into something that you might be able to understand...
The amount of people playing games have steadily gone up over the last many years, thus the potential revenue has also gone up. Most sources say that we currently have more than a billion people playing games worldwide. Now of course, many of those only play mobile/social games, or free to play games, but there are literally hundreds of millions of people playing across PC and console. The market has never been bigger for publishers. I don't think I can explain it any more plainly than that.
Northstar@
I'm going to use Call of Duty as an example here. Their games have been using the same old original MW engine for I don't know how long, reusing a lot of animations and models for many years, and have consistently managed to sell more than 15 million (up to nearly 30 million) units worldwide. 80% of the budget for MW2 was on advertisement. EIGHTY F'ing percent, on a franchise that was already well established and guaranteed to sell many copies. My point is that the only reason the development cost appears high, is that they threw an ungodly amount of money into marketing. So not because the actual cost of making a game suddenly increased ten fold.
Of course the effectiveness of marketing is very much up for discussion, but when you spend 200 million on marketing, you have no one but yourself to blame when it comes to increases in total development cost. It's difficult to figure out just how many units were sold as a result of marketing, but in any case, you probably don't need to spend 200 million to market one of the best known franchises around...
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
Guys like you and the COD players, etc are the reason we have paid DLC guarantee these days. I can't believe people waiting for Day1, month1 DLC and so on. It is simply ridiculous and get DLC 1 month before on PS4 only. I mean seriously do Sony pay Activison. for this BS
If the consumer believes it's worth it, then what's the problem?
The problem is blanket statements, like the one below:
Paid DLC literally means they have put on hold some content intentionally to get more $
Would you say the Spec 2.0 content in GT5 was intentionally withheld to try to squeeze players out of more money? Motegi? The later car packs?
I'll agree that in the case of a story-based game, if a section of the game were removed and made DLC, and it were impossible to complete it without that section, sure, that'd be a problem. More cars, in a racing game, being added post-release? Even tracks? It in no way impacts the completion of the title. They're optional.
If I walk into a BMW dealer and buy a base model 3-series with a 180hp 2.0L, I don't get to whine about how I'm owed the 3.0L 320hp engine. It was an option, and I chose not to buy it. I'm not owed it, and my car functions perfectly well without it. Similarly, if I've bought a car with a 300hp engine and the next year that same engine is putting out 320hp, the manufacturer is in no way required to knock my car up to that amount (though in some instances, such as McLaren with the early 12C's, they did it free of charge).
I've even warmed to the multi-tier approach of modern game releases. As ever, you vote with your wallet: if the Ultimate Edition doesn't seem worth it to you, simply stick with the regular one. The one thing I don't like is pre-order bonuses that are tied to unique retail outlets.
No it's not, and you're certainly not in a position to pretend it is.
I'd be very interested to see the numbers on how many people are playing across PC and consoles, even including the previous generation, as that's where DLC really started taking off. Source?
Let's use a more pertinent example: GT5, the racing game with the largest established budget of the genre, and it's based on a number Kaz used over a year before the game's release. A hugely expensive game that likely cost more than the first few GT games combined (unfortunately, it's quite difficult to track down numbers for those ones). Racing games, especially the sim-based ones with a focus on realism, will feel the pressure of increased demands on new generations of consoles. Laser scanning tracks, accurately modelling interiors - it adds up!
A car took a PD modeller a day or two to knock out in the PS1 days. Bump that to a 4-6 weeks during PS2's lifetime. Now, it's six man-months. That's an exponential increase, while the racing genre has seen a slow decline in its market share of the video game market.
That people then baulk at the idea that an extra car will cost them – on average, going by most of the racing games popular here at GTP – a single dollar, is just unfortunate, IMO. If PD does decide to offer paid DLC – and I sincerely hope they do – depending on content, I'll probably buy it (assuming I own GTS, of course).
- 40,838
Roughly 2 years and 6 months after the PS4 launched (November 2013-May 2016), chosen because they correlate to Sony's last released sales figures for the PS4, the PS4 was sitting at over 40 million units.
Roughly 2 years and 6 months after the PS2 launched (March 2000-October 2002), keeping in mind that 7 of those months were for the Japanese market only and the global launch still suffered from infamous supply problems throughout January anyway, according to Sony the PS2 was sitting at... 41 million units.
You adjust those numbers to 2 years and 6 months after the PS2 was more or less available everywhere (November 2000-May 2003) and subtract the cumulative Japanese sales before October of 2000, and according to Sony the PS2 was sitting at... over 48 million units.
Of course, this math is crude, estimated in places and not directly comparable because of estimated sold through numbers for the PS4 vs. shipped numbers for the PS2, but the PS4 isn't blowing every previous Sony console out of the water as much as Sony's "fastest selling Playstation in history" claims pretend; no matter how many gaming sites regurgitate the numbers provided to them without actually remembering how badly the PS2's first year on the market was hindered. The PS4 is most assuredly wrecking the PS3 (other than in Japan), but I'd certainly hope it would be with how much of a disaster Sony turned the PS3 into for the same time period.
And as it pertains to PD specifically, 30 months into the PS2's life there was already a Gran Turismo game with what were certainly much lower development costs that was well on its way to 14 million sales worldwide. 30 months into the PS3's life there was already a Gran Turismo game whose development costs were amortized as part of the ongoing development of another game but was already several million sales deep itself. 30 months into the PS4's life and the first Gran Turismo title with completely unknown sales potential is still 5 months away.
Last edited:
- 16,453
- Melbourne
- ScottPuss20
- CheetahsMeow
I haven't really had any issues with DLC. I've purchased all PCars DLC, DriveClub DLC and I think all GT5 DLC. Some have been better than others but DLC is good if it is utilised in a friendly manner and not used as a cash cow simply to turn a bigger profit. PD have been great with their previous DLC and I have no qualms about implementing it for GT Sport. Heck, I'd love it if the car list was bulked up a little bit to make the game more fun - and keep it going around the newswire.
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
Not only does DLC keep games in the news cycle for longer – acting as advertising as well as new content – but it also offers more possibilities to snag potential players. Case in point: The Crew is free this month on XBL with Games With Gold. I downloaded it, and it's... well, it's not a great game, but it's fun enough to pass the time in a less-serious, TDU2-style way.
Last week, they also slashed the price of The Summit and Season Pass in half ($12.50 each instead of $25). Do I consider the game worth full retail? Nope. Do I consider the entire package, with all DLC included, worth $25 total? Sure. They've now made money on a title largely thanks to the DLC offerings. Okay, it's mostly down to the sale price, but if DLC wasn't a part of the picture, there would be less opportunity to try to appeal to potential buyers.
As ever, YMMV: one person may deem a bunch of content as "worth it" while another does not. But that's the good thing about DLC: it's optional.
GT5's DLC was pretty good. The main issue I had with it was the one-use paint chips. The Premium replacement of the XJR-9 that cost money was on the edge for me, but overall, I think it was a decent post-release program.
- 14,436
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
There's an easy solution to that, and Forza has been doing it forever. Release a patch/update with each DLC pack that is released to implement the cars into everyones game, regardless if they have purchased the DLC. You'll be able to see the cars racing online, and even in single player I believe, but you can not purchase them from the in game garage.
Track packs have been done that way in the past in some games as well, but Forza does not do that, however.
syntex123
Staff Emeritus
- 5,062
- Tønsberg, Norway
- syntex123
- Syntex260Z
Pretty sure it would work out fine, look at pCars, I don't have all DLCs and I can still join / create lobbies with the content I have. Aaand let's talk about another game, like Battlefield or CoD, those games worked fine too, you could still play and have fun, the maps you don't have, are just removed from the map cycle.
I remember back in Forza 4. DLC cars you didn't have but raced against online showed up as stealthy black VW Boras
Jawehawk
Premium
- 4,652
- Denmark
- Yohansen_92
I can't claim to have any sources for the player base on specific platforms, but if you were to Google total amount of gamers or players in the world, you'll see the number. As I said earlier, many, if not the majority, stick to simple mobile/social games and F2P games, but most indicate a larger interest in gaming as a whole. I will concede that 10 years was a perhaps a bit low, with 15-20 years being a better number to show how much more popular gaming has become. In any case, the point is that the potential number of buyers is larger than ever.
As I said earlier, I have no problem with DLC in general. I don't have much interest in GT Sport given the sheer incompetence of the people at PD. I do agree that racing games benefit from having new cars added as DLC, and given the cost of modelling and licensing, I certainly don't expect them to be free. The problem is exclusive to companies literally taking cars or features out of the game at launch to release them as day one DLC. This is inexcusable. Project Cars is a perfect example of this, as cars that were available during early access were announced as being pre-order incentives and day one DLC. It's what kept me from buying that disaster of a game, and what makes me genuinely hate the games industry. It's greedy and it's sad that people will defend this business practice.
Developers should strive to ensure that maps/tracks will be free of charge so as to not divide the player base. That might not seem fair, but it's a matter of ensuring that new maps and tracks will actually see use.
Similar threads
- Locked
