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
- Wasn't it also early access? At least some part of it? Or am I remembering the wrong game.
  
  I'm confused why people are upset at early access. It can be done badly to sell a game that isn't finished for full price.
  But Larian has always done early access this way: first act for testing. And it works great.
  
  It was early access for like 3 years. Which allowed them to release a fully finished game, or the closest we had from that state since no one remembers when actually.
  
  The first of three acts was in early access for nearly 3 years
  
  Yup! A couple YEARS early access even, afaik!

There's a reason they changed the name from expansion to DLC.
- Man we don't even get dlc anymore in the past you would get an expansion pack and it would only be like 75 hours of additional content then it became dlc and that was still like the ballad of gay tony undead nightmare now its micro transactions and its a car that was part of the base game that they removed so you can pay for it again
  
  GTA IV DLC was soo good. I was hyped for what theyd do with some smaller stories within GTA V but they never came :(
- Thanks Bethesda

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
- Indie is the way to go. The number of times I’ve been disappointed with “AAA” games is ludicrous.
  
  You just have to be VERY careful with buying them day 1. I mostly just wait for a "complete edition" or "goty edition" or smth and THEN wait til that is cheap.
  
  Yes, been loving BG3 but my best experiences with games in recent years have all been indie, from Outer Wilds that made me completely rethink what a game experience is meant to be, to Vampire Survivors that tickled all the right parts of my brain into making me spend hours watching pixels flash on screen in the most mind-numbingly addictive way. Indie devs really seem to be carrying forward the soul of gaming that larger gaming companies have lost, the exceptions being so rare that Baldur's Gate 3 is getting lauded for basically meeting what would have been normal expectations for a AA title in the early 2000's
- Baldur's gate 3 is a work of art.

That's why i don't game anymore, well that and because I keep getting fucked by young people in multiplayer games
- Oh, I still game, but mostly older games and GotY editions. And Indies.
  AAA titles are dead for me, I want to buy a full game, with no in-game store, no 10ish DLCs available, no always on fuckery etc.
  And if there are 1 or 2 huge expansions (like in Witcher 3) I have no problem with that. I bought expansions in the past, that's fine.
  
  I used to be fine with all the shit practices you mentioned since I just wanted to play the games, but then I played Baldurs Gate 3 and remembered how gaming used to be.
  I don't think I'll continue to buy DLC-ridden, half-finished and sometimes even outright broken games. Looking at you Diablo 4...
  In that sense the publishers were rightfully afraid of the game. I guess it reminded a lot of us what we lost over the years.
  
  From Soft is the light in the darkness.
- You know, some people pay top dollar to be fucked by young people..
  
  I know, but I don't think those "young people" are on adderall 24/7 haha
- Single player and coop in where it's at.
  PvP games ain't fun if the majority of the base doesn't have work to go to.
  
  Only single player game i enjoyed in the last 10 years was the Witcher 3, i couldn't even finish GTA V lol.
  I have always been a multiplayer gamer myself, but the state of most games right now (since few years ago) is absolutely disgusting, they're just made for you to spend points on mtx thanks to skill based matchmaking and other crap, it's really undercover pay2win unless you are bottom/top 1%.
  I'm just glad i enjoyed every game i could as a child and enjoyed the competitive scene of many FPS when it wasn't undercover pay2win.
  Now it's time for 16yo guys on adderall to win and earn millions on twitch
- ayo what games you playin
  
  None

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.
- Damn straight, the amount of times I've heard "It's probably gonna be shit, oh well. Still gonna pre order cause of this [dogshit] skin for the gun that won't be meta for longer than a week cause it's so busted."
  I saw this coming back in 2013 and have been trying to convince people that it's going to be a problem and get worse as time goes on.
  Well LOOK AT ME NOW, WENDELL!!!!
  
  Like, the enshittification of IT is basically over-engineering imo.

>Horse Armor DLC
- That's what started it all.
  Now you can preorder thier newest game and have it preload the entire game two weeks before you can play it! Because it you're dumb enough to preorder it you're probably dumb enough to not want your storage space too.
  Todd Howard is a greedy fuck.
  
  You can choose not to preload the game, can't you? So it's up to the individual. Besides, why wouldn't you want to preload the game so when it's released you can just hop in? I don't get your angry reasoning here. If you're gonna play the game then the storage is gonna be occupied either way. Lol

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.
- same. I have over a thousand games on my steam account and a humble bundle subscription.
  I can wait years to pick up the all DLC included gold game of the year edition for 5 bucks on sale.
  only time i ever get games on release anymore is if a friend gifts it to me, or if it comes as part of a bundle with new hardware (Like how I got Starfield with my new GPU)
- True story. Video games have gotten so expensive that I gave up FPS's because the virtual bullets are starting to cost more than the real ones.
  
  Is CoD making you pay for ammo packs now?
  
  Gamepass ultimate and you have no problems
- Why buy?
  
  I honestly expected a user from db0 To with this reply.

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.
- DLC isn't modular like that, you aren't buying a fraction of the product and then completing the full thing with DLC. You're still buying the base full priced game, and then DLC is typically additional content expanded upon that.
  
  OK - still, though, if every component (base game or DLC) that you buy is worth the money you pay for it, then what's the problem?
  
  Your generalization doesn’t hold. Take Cities: Skylines (a city building game; compare it to Sim City) as an example. The base game cost €30 at launch [1]. It’s a (kinda [2]) functional base game, however, it’s somewhat flat.
  If you’re interested in more challenge building industries (instead of just zoning industrial zones and that’s it), you buy the industries DLC (currently €15) where you need to juggle supply chains. If you’re bored by just plopping down some parks to make people happy, you buy the Parklife DLC (also €15), which allows you to be more creative in providing recreation opportunities. If you’re an old Transport Tycoon player and want to create the perfect public transport network, buy the Mass Transit DLC (€13).
  The base game is fully functional without all these DLCs, and each one focuses on an aspect of the game into which some players might want to dig deeper, but not others.
  [1] According to https://steampricehistory.com/app/255710 [2] I say “kinda” because it does have flaws. However, these aren’t fixed in DLCs, so my point still stands.
- I think it makes no sense for a publisher to split up a game and get less money upfront, unless they want you to pay more for all the pieces than one complete game would have cost you. Therefore DLCs are almost always bad for consumers. The only exception are full scale expansions, because they are basically full games themselves. If they want to let people get a taste before buying then they should offer a free demo, or full refund within a certain time window.
  
  Cosmetics are good examples as well, as a way to express thanks if you feel you've gotten your money's worth. It's just that it's not even about that anymore. For the rest I agree 100%
- Most AAA base games cost ~60 dollars for the base game and the DLCs add on top of that.
  I'm not gonna be mad about the price, a game is cheap in terms of hours entertained compared to a good movie which costs about 10 dollars for about 2 hours of entertainment.
  The issue is not the price. The DLCs is also not inherently bad, like you said. For instance, Borderlands 2 is known for having an excellent base game and an exceptional bunch of DLCs, one which became so loved and popular that it became its own spin off game (Tiny Tina's Wonderlands).
  The issue is that companies use DLCs as an excuse to charge money for small amounts of content. They make smaller games, still charge full price, then make DLCs that are relatively small and charge a lot for them.
  Using the above example, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands have DLCs that cost 10 dollars and feature a single dungeon (that takes ~20 minutes to complete) with a boss that was an enemy in the base game which got enlarged slightly and given more damage and HP. The community understandably was pissed - but they kept buying every single DLC they pumped out, which reinforced the behavior.
  
  They make smaller games, still charge full prices, then make DLCs that are relatively small and chare a lot for them.
  So you agree with me, then, that the problem is publishers charging a disproportionate price for the amount of content being purchased?

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.
- From what I remember, some of the content was already on the disk.
  
  I remember the first time playing Mass Effect 3 in the Legendary Edition and experiencing the story with Javik along with the Leviathan quest line. I'd missed out on a lot of depth and emotional context to the story due to being a broke high schooler when it originally launched.

- All those hit pieces that were coming out as BG3 was launching were so transparent. "Shit one company is actually putting in effort, make it seem bad somehow"

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.
- I think most of us are sick of others buying shit AAA games and then complaining about the expense of DLC and the bugs and what not. So I would modify what you said to be if you want to, go ahead, but stop complaining about the shit you should have expected.

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.
- I'm pretty sure this isn't about early access games. It looks like it's about AAA games like Cyberpunk that release in a completely broken state and take multiple rounds of post release patches to make them even close to what was promised.

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.
- Maaannnn... I got another steering wheel. Anyone willing to trade for an ignition system? I'll settle for two NPCs who will get out and push!
- Nowadays you have to subscribe to the car battlepass. Then you have drive the car for 100miles each to unlock all the rewards for 100 levels.
  It's the same reward everyone else who subscribed is getting, so I hope you don't mind your car looking like everyone else's.
  Oh, and all the rewards will be just bodies and paint. The wheels still cost extra.

Things sure have changed since the old school shareware days with classics like Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, Doom, etc.
- And Captain Keen!
  
  *Commander Keen

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.

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.
- Factorio will get a old-school expansion in the future. The base game is very complete already, so they really have to think of something else that really expands on the current gameplay , but they've been working on it since the release of the main game so it will be good.
  
  I am so hyped for that. My chores and sleep schedule are not

But this baby can fit so much spaghetti!

Victoria 3

Missing a slot machine or roulette.

Guess that a lot of game studios don't know what the V in MVP stands for.
- Not true, if people buy it the V is in there. And plenty of people throw their money at it, otherwise they'd stop doing that.
  But hey, pre-order our broken game for $70 today! Do it now, because surely the digital copies will run out otherwise.
  
  Pre order our game that is broken because the director was fired halfway through development, but we insisted on the original release date. Also the coders will get to see their family unharmed again once they've released the first patch.