Video game DLC now vs then

Slaps the hood of Baldur’s Gate 3 this bad boy can fit so many wildly exceeded expectations for a complete AAA-title at launch in 2023

There's a reason they changed the name from expansion to DLC.

Don’t you know? This kind of quality is impossible for poor little AAA studios to keep up! We really should just settle for tech demos. :(

Well there is Hope with games like Baldurs Gate 3 and most indie titles

That's why i don't game anymore, well that and because I keep getting fucked by young people in multiplayer games

I live, breathe, and sleep video games but this is a problem we made for ourselves. You don't have to buy the latest and greatest games from million dollar companies. Heck, you don't have to buy any games at all. Stop buying crap and they'll stop making as much of it. Go play something else or, and I say this as someone who's currently designing homebrew for a TTRPG in another tab, go touch some grass.

>Horse Armor DLC

Fuck unfinished titles that are priced at almost a hundred at launch; I'd rather wait a year or two and buy the same thing for 15 EUR.

Edit: and yes, if you buy those at launch, you are part of the problem.

My unpopular opinion is that DLC is not, in and of itself, bad. If you don't want it, don't buy it! If you do want it - great, no problem! In a world without DLC, you either have to buy the whole game, or not. If you tried it and didn't like it, you have wasted the whole price of the game. Whereas in a DLC system, you've spent the price of the base game, but that's effectively just a fraction of the total game price. You risked less.

What is a problem - and what I think most people who think they're mad about DLC are actually mad about - is charging a price that isn't commensurate with the amount of content you get. If a full game is "worth" $60, and it's split up into a $20 base game and 4 $10 DLCs - great, everyone is (or, should be!) happy. But if the publisher charges $60 for $20-worth of base game and then charges for DLC on top, you should be pissed - but you should still be pissed about that mispricing even if the DLC didn't exist. Yes, DLC is the reason why that pricing strategy is adopted - but that doesn't mean that DLC itself is inherently bad. There are possible implementations that are not flawed.

I remember the launch of mass effect 3 in 2012, when EA and Bioware removed all the prothean companion content (very relevant to the story) from the base game and sold it as 10€ day 1 DLC. They even boasted about "releasing a game for 80€" back then IIRC.

Permanently Deleted

This is one big reason why I support indie titles and piracy more than ever. The whole "we can't be financially bothered to put out a functional title on launch, but our shop with 60 DLC skins each coating $400 each works perfectly" mentality has driven me far away from ever paying for triple AAA titles again and is also why I will never play a remaster of any game outside of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

If you cannot be arsed to put out a functional title on launch, maybe you should be retired and sent to the ranch.

To each their preferences, if people want to play "AAA" games or w/e that's their choices. If you're sick of the way they sell though I suggest trying something else, there are plenty of very good games out there that don't shamelessly take their customers for piggy banks.

stop!... this hurts too much.

This kinda ignores how early access is a great tool for indie developers catering to a small audience. They don't need to bend down for some publisher that then sets them rules, but freely decide what they do. And if whatever they do turns out to attract not enough customers, they can simply stop, get a job at a company. And don't need to worry about what the publisher wants.

Things sure have changed since the old school shareware days with classics like Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Doom, etc.

You get the body free, but pay to spin a wheel to get the other parts. Also, there is a chance of getting copies of parts you already have.

I miss expansions. The command & conquer expansions were always better than the base game by far.

Last true expansion I remember is Blood and Wine from 2016.

But this baby can fit so much spaghetti! spaghetti car

This is why I am hesitant to get excited for any new games. I've been waiting for Payday 3 for a long time and I was excited but I'm concerned that the base game will be lacking and DLC will be almost necessary. I mean they're already selling three DLX packs and the games not even out. Yeah DLX kept Overkill alive while everyone was sueing everyone else over the IP rights of Payday 2, but now that it's settled and we're getting a third game, I don't expect anything else.