The fact that the game hasn’t been fully released yet and they are including a DLC if you buy the premium version, is just asking me to pirate it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with DLC, and I’m tired of pretending that there is. If you think the base game is over-priced, then by all means complain about that - but if both the base game and the DLC are worth the price they’re asking for it, then there is no harm done (and some advantage) in having modular buying options.
Sure, if the DLC isn’t cut content from the game. That’s the problem. If they have already developed the content, then it should be released with the rest of the game, for the price of the game. DLC, should it be developed at all, should be an expansion beyond the original scope of development funded by the excess profit from the game.
If they have already developed the content, then it should be released with the rest of the game, for the price of the game.
Why? Genuine question. What does it matter to you as a consumer when the content was developed?
If the point you’re actually trying to make is “if the game is developed as a whole, but then content is carved out such that the base game then feels incomplete without it”, then this is already covered: a game which feels incomplete is inherently flawed, and so doesn’t justify the price of a full game. That’s my original point - most people are actually just pissed at inaccurate or unfair pricing, and DLC can enable that (but doesn’t have to), so they misdirect their anger to all DLC instead.
Day 1 DLC, no matter how optional it might be in practicality, is 100% a tactic to make people feel like they need to pay more to get the “complete” version of the game.
“_Every person who has ever done in the past, has done it with and it had _” does not imply “_The only reason anyone could possibly ever do is with to achieve _”. That’s a valid reason to be cautious, but not a reason to make blanket statements about an entire category of thing.
EDIT: for Day1 DLC in particular, a totally valid and non-exploitative reason for it is “we had a release date that we absolutely had to hit (because of marketing, contracts, etc.), which necessitated calling a production halt well in-advance of the release date for QA and testing - but instead of moving on to the next project, developers worked on more stuff for the same game. If that was too complex or didn’t work out, we could drop it and no-one would complain; but if we’d kept developing it in the base game, and resulted in a slipped release date, there would be hell to pay”
When a company actually exists that utilizes your view of DLC, then it might be a valid criticism of the phrasing; but zero day one DLC released for any game has been anything but carving up a complete product into an incomplete main product and several DLCs to increase the price without increasing the price. Oblivion was the first example of this. Horse Armor was already developed.
When a company actually exists that utilizes your view of DLC, then it might be a valid criticism of the phrasing
No, that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make - “every example of X that has existed so far is Y” does not imply “by definition, X is provably and definitively always Y”.
You can claim that all DLC that has ever existed is predatory and exploitative (I suspect there are counter-examples; but, fine, whatever, not relevant to my point). You can say that, because of past performance, you are disinclined to trust future examples of DLC or give them the benefit of the doubt. That is all reasonable. But you can’t conclude “because all DLC so far has been bad, the concept of DLC as a whole is bad and can never be used well”.
As a super-simple example - here are some prime numbers: 5, 11, 37. Are all prime numbers odd? I can give you a bunch more examples if you want!
8-bit DRM-removal patcher program music plays
3 command prompt windows pop up in the background and quickly disappear.
“Fuck. What were those?”
The real cost isn’t the game. It’s the new computer you’ll need to play it.
Runs on steamdeck…
PSA you can still get Gamepass Ultimate for cheap. This is your last opportunity to stock up (I think September 14th is the cutoff).
Find some cheap Xbox Gold cards (sites like cdkeys or eneba). It’s a little trickier but cdkeys usually sells the cards from the Turkey region super cheap but you have to redeem over VPN.
3 months of gold converts into 50 days of Gamepass Ultimate. Depending on the price you should be able to get 3 years for $200 or less. Careful to not go over, you can’t redeem past 3 years.
Edit
PSA #2
If you already have Gamepass take part in rewards. You can earn enough points throughout the month to self fund your gamepass subscription or other purchases for free (I cashed in my rewards points recently to get that dope Starfield controller and the Starfield early access upgrade).
Here’s my 4 main avenues for points:
Xbox mobile app: go to your profile icon and do everything in the rewards tab. I usually leave Vampire Survivors idling on my PC for the PC game task.
Edge mobile app: click the search icon on the home screen and scroll down to the news stories, click through them. Till you get your mobile & edge searches (think it’s about 20). Then go up to the top right menu and open rewards. Do everything in here. The top 3 items you usually have to actually do (quizzes and polls). The rest you can just click into and back out of.
**Bing mobile app: ** click rewards and collect the daily check-in points then click earn to read. Open a news article and scroll to the bottom, it’ll open the next article (you need 10 of these).
Xbox. Get the rewards app. Do everything in here. Mostly just clicking boxes. Go to the Xbox activities box in the bottom right, you’ll find some rewards to earn in games. There’s also a daily 50 for earning an achievement. Rare Replay gives you an achievement for every game you open and Killer Instinct has several quick achievements for every single fighter.
It sounds like a lot but the mobile app stuff only takes about 10 mins. I usually do it while I’m waking up in bed and the Xbox stuff takes another 10 minutes usually do this before work.
If you max out your points you can easily get $15-20 a month.
Fuck that service. Starfield is available for free on pc just try it there .
Hell yeah, game devs don’t deserve to be paid for their work 🤡
Lol man I generally agree with the hive mind, but on this particular point I never will. With the singular exception being a complete lack of availability, I will always view pirates as being cheapskates that are totally cool with theft. Try to justify it all you like, in the end you are receiving a product without paying for it. Just admit what you’re doing.
