The DLC Dilemma

Hopefully this comes across as being less ranty than a couple of my previous posts. It probably won't, I'm an angry young man (cue the Billy Joel.) Actually, I'm probably not that young anymore.

I can remember a time when DLC stood for Delicious Licorice Candy, ok I made that up. DLC, or downloadable content, can be had for most new games releases these days. When DLC started to become popular, I initially thought was a great idea and a way to give games extra life. New maps, new characters and new weapons added to the games I was playing. My view of these DLCs changed soon after though.

More and more games are being released unfinished. Yes, they are fully playable and still pretty fun, but why is it that we are constantly downloading these patches to fix mistakes and bugs in the game? The only real explanation is that the games are being rushed into production and they never really get the finishing touches they need. What about map and mission DLCs? How many of these DLCs are simply material that either wasn't ready or didn't make the cut? It almost seems like I'm paying for half the game and that in order to get the full experience I need to spend an extra 24.99$ four months down the road to get the whole thing.

I have never personally bought a download like this, but I have heard that some DLC is actually on the disk when you buy it. When you buy the DLC, the download takes seconds and simply unlocks it for you. I doubt that the extra money being made by doing such things does gaming companies any good given so many gamers unhappiness towards such DLCs.

In the end, the current crop of gaming systems and their ability to easily link to the inter-web is both a blessing and a curse. We get to enjoy online gaming like never before. Of course, this access enables game developers to suck our wallets dry like never before.