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Post by DamagingRob on Apr 20, 2014 6:33:46 GMT
Crap like this, is probably the biggest reason, I'll never jump on board the DLC wagon.. Not too long ago, I watched The Last of Us's (did I do that right?) Left Behind, on Youtube. Just to see what it was like. But then I saw there were only 3 parts, in the videos, and the first one was less than thirty minutes. So I ended up watching the whole hour and a half, instead of paying $15, for an hour and a half add on. Didn't seem worth it, to me.
Today, I played the DLC for Heavy Rain(should have played it first; didn't know it was a prequel..). Took me only about a half hour, to get through. And despite being so short, they couldn't even get the main game actress, to reprise her role.. Is this what it's come to? $5 per half hour of entertainment? At least I only(technically) paid $2 for it, by buying the Director's Cut version for $10 from goHasting via Amazon. Could have gotten a "mystery" version from BestBuy, for $8. But hey, there's a bunch of other stuff on the Director's Cut edition! ..That I'll probably never use. :/
I'm sure not all DLC is this overpriced(in my opinion), but the examples given make me think DLC isn't worth it, for the most part. Thoughts?
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Post by Ruinus on May 1, 2014 6:55:21 GMT
The DLC market is kinda sketchy at times, you get things like Oblivion's much reviled horse armor, or Hearthfire for Skyrim... while at the same time, in each respective game you get the Shivering Isles and Dragonborn/Dawnguard, which are all quite worth the investment.
The thing is that DLC is pretty new - the first DLC that you could consider a "modern" addition to the game (as opposed to the entire games themselves being DLC - like DOOM being freeware) is for Total Annihilation in 97, where a new unit was released every month. And after that the huge advent of DLC appearing regularly was in the Xbox. So DLC as a pricing system has been around for about less than half the age of games. So you'll be bound to get situations where it makes no sense ("I paid $15 for this?) whereas other times you feel like you made out like a bandit paying $15 for something great.
I mean, I paid what? $20 for X-COM: Enemy Within and that adds only a few extra missions, a few enemies, a few weapons/items, and two new tech trees to research... but it was totally worth it because of the huge impact those new things add to the game and how the change the game.
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Post by DamagingRob on May 1, 2014 9:20:16 GMT
I didn't even know DLC was that old. But yeah, it's not always a bad thing. The Episodes of Liberty City, for GTA IV, I felt was well worth it. Other cases can be like those above.. I usually don't pay full price for games, anyways, so.. yeah. But even if I did pay $60 for The Last of Us, for example, it took about 16 hours of playtime, to get through. So that Left Behind DLC should be roughly 4 hours long, for the price they're asking. But it isn't...
They really need to start marking down DLC, too. I mean, seriously, you can get Mass Effect 3 for <$10, now. All of the singleplayer DLC, alone, would run you almost $60. The price of the game itself, on release day. o.O If after a year or two, a game drops from $60 and goes to the $20 rack, why can't the DLC do the same? E.g. $15 DLC becomes $5. I believe they'd sell a lot more, if they did it, like that. I can't see someone buying a game cheap, and paying as much as they did, for the full game, on a short add on.
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Post by Z451 on May 1, 2014 12:52:35 GMT
DLC has generally become worthless in recent years, with crap like just alternate costumes and stuff like that. I remember that when Quake 3 came out, you could actually download the characters of Reaper and Dark Mistress from id's official website. Now? You'd be lucky if you could get even just one of them for the price you pay.
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Post by Ruinus on May 1, 2014 18:26:44 GMT
The DLC quality also really depends on the type of game involved. For a racing game DLC would be pretty easy to imagine, a race track or a new car or a new car part - in which case you'd expect the price to accurately reflect what it is you are buying - $2 for a new track? Seems reasonable.
In a fighting game you can't really have DLC beyond alternate costumes. Imagine if, for example, a new character was introduced in the most recent Street Fighter game, people would think it's lame to pay $10 for a single new character, but they'd fail to realize is that this new character probably requires an adjustment to the entire roster - he has to be balanced against the previous characters. So, in reality, you aren't paying $10 for just 1 guy, but for an entire game update.
Also, I've never been made at short DLC if the DLC is fun. I mean really, even if the DLC is only about 2 hours of game time at $15 that's lower than a price of a ticket to a movie, the point isn't the time spent, it's whether or not it was fun.
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Post by DamagingRob on May 1, 2014 19:49:15 GMT
Costumes.. I'll probably never pay for those. ^^' I don't really play fighting games, all that much, these days. But Jill and Shuma-Gorath, for UMvC3, were normally $5 each. And the PS All Star characters are all $5 each, as well. I wouldn't want to pay that much, either, considering what I paid for their respective full games, but it is less than $10.  It's hard to put a price on those, too, since if it happens to be a character you really like, you could definitely be getting your money's worth, with how much you'd use him/her. For instance, going back to PS All Stars, one of the DLC characters is Kat, from Gravity Rush. I'm very tempted to buy her, since I loved that game(and her). I haven't even played the game, yet, though. :/ So I'll continue to wait for a possible sale. I guess you've got a point, on the fun part. I've never really understood the movie comparison, though. One is something you go out to do, the other, in the privacy of your own home. I'd rather compare it to the price of DVDs, since both are physical items you're buying, to enjoy over and over. $15-20 new, eventually becoming $5-7.50. And $15?! o.O I hope that's including snacks or something. Last I checked a movie ticket was like, $6-7. But I haven't been to the show, in quite some time, so maybe it's gone up.. |
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Post by Ruinus on May 1, 2014 20:22:22 GMT
Sure, but there's my point, you didn't want to pay $5 for single characters in UMvC3... but you weren't paying $5 just for those characters. You are paying for what is essentially an entire game update because now your playing style has to change to play against those characters. I'll use an example I am familiar with, but in Guilty Gear XX for PS2 (one of my favorite, is not my favorite game of all time) I learned how to play all the characters and, most fighter games are like this, you have to learn how to play against individual characters. Playing as Chipp against Potemkin is alot different than playing Chipp against Jam. When Guilty Gear XX: Reload came out as a download for Xbox 360 they included a new character - Order Sol. You not only have to learn how to play a new character, but you have to adjust your entire strategies for previous characters. Bridget would have a different play style against Order Sol than normal Sol, there might not be a huge distance but Bridget would have to use many more long range attacks against Order Sol to interrupt his charges. Similarly, Potemkin (a close range character who can't sprint) would have to spam his only long range attack or find some way to keep the distance between him and Order Sol much much closer to prevent him from using his charges.
The price of tickets depends on where you are going, there's a theater near my home that I think is operated by some LA historical society or something, because the price of tickets on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is $4. When I go out with some friends to AMC Theaters or similar it's about $12 per ticket, more if we are watching 3D Imax versions. But even being compared to a DVD, they cost between $14 to $25 dollars (in 2012 figures), but even in the same setting as your house no one complains about spending $20+ on a passive activity - you can only watch a movie. On a $20 DLC download of similar length (2 hours) you are actively participating. Hell, $20 is sometimes the cost of eating out - something you don't even really get to do again unless you are willing to shell out another $20.
Though of course, the main argument is the fun - don't judge a DLC on the length of time it takes to complete but on how much fun you had. If you had fun you'll probably feel better about spending $20 or whatever on the DLC, if you didn't then it's an overpriced piece of shit. But if that's the case then that's not a problem with the DLC itself, but a problem with pricing - and everything can be overpriced, not just DLC.
And though I bring up the movie argument, we should judge a game on the game itself instead of by movie standards. You said you simply saw a walkthrough of The Last of Us and concluded from the passive act of watching a game that the game itself wasn't worth whatever the price of the DLC was. You'd probably think differently if you had played through the DLC and enjoyed the primary strength of video games - active participation of the game.
I'm sure everyone has probably had an experience of someone watching you playing a video game and they said "That doesn't look fun, you are just doing the same thing over and over". However, if they played it they'd figure out why you did the same things over and over, because it is fun. Example Tetris.
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Post by DamagingRob on May 1, 2014 21:11:20 GMT
I only paid $13, for that game. :/ I'm cheap, when it comes to fighters, since I don't usually spend a lot of time on them. Same with FPSes. I didn't think about all of that, I'll admit. But I was in the process of editing my previous post, since I thought it could very well be worth it, depending on how much you'll use said character. Like Jill, I'll probably use her, since I like Resident Evil. Shuma, on the other hand, probably not so much, since I'm completely unfamiliar with him/her(it?). "don't judge a DLC on the length of time it takes to complete" I can't help myself. ;w; It's the only way I can think of, to know if a $15 add on, is fairly priced: by comparing it to the full product. Which is why I think the two I listed in the OP are, in fact, overpriced. I also think I'm not that hard to please. I loved Duke Nukem Forever, after all. ^^' But when I can buy full game experiences for $15-20(new; used is even cheaper), I find it silly to spend $15 on a less than 2 hour DLC. Even some of the shortest games I've played, have taken 5 or more.. I used DVDs as an example, because they receive similar price cuts. I don't pay full price for those, either, in most cases. So, I would complain about spending $20+ on a passive activity. Eating out, as well, unless all four of us were eating, at that price. Edit: True. But having played the whole game for The Last of Us, I already knew what the gameplay was like. It'd probably be fun, but it's the length that bothered me. Not to mention, most of it was simply walking around with your "girlfriend," and there seemed to be very little reason to buy and play it, myself, after having seen what it entailed. |
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mercenaryblade
Red shirt
Mercenary Captain
How much you pay?
Posts: 223 
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Post by mercenaryblade on May 6, 2014 4:04:32 GMT
I've found that many times if a game has done well they'll release a addition that includes all of the DLC content for no extra cost except how much the game sells for. So I usually wait around till the newest versions get released and then buy it.
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Post by DamagingRob on May 7, 2014 0:42:27 GMT
Right. I've done that a few times, myself. Unfortunately, EA's too cheap to do something like that.. The "definitive" versions, of the Mass Effect games(at least 2 & 3) are on consoles, other than the one it originated on. I could rebuy ME2 cheap, now that I have a PS3, and gain access to all its DLC. But then I'd have to start the game over.. And I'd need yet another system, to get any ME3 DLC included, in the WiiU version. I held out buying it, for a long time, hoping there'd be a GOTY version, 'cause I knew I wouldn't want to buy it all, separately. My $10 purchase would turn into a $60 one. D:
And hmm.. Considering the last two Arkham games and Uncharted 2 & 3 have had GOTY versions, I wonder if Origins and The Last of Us will, as well. Both came with my PS3 bundle, so they weren't really planned purchases. And both have some single player DLC, now, that I'm probably not gonna buy. But it seemed like the better choice. The only other option, at the time, was the GTA V bundle, which was $70 more, and had a 500 GB Hard Drive. Figured I'd save $20, and get 2 games instead of 1, by buying the one I did, and getting a 500 GB Hard Drive, at a later date(they sell for only about $50, on Amazon). I dread the day that I actually do it, though, 'cause I'm not very tech savvy, and I worry I'll royally screw something up. :/
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Post by Ruinus on May 13, 2014 17:30:52 GMT
If it's an external hard drive it's installed through a USB, it's really just a giant flash drive if you want to think about it in those terms, I see my friends use them all the time. I'm not sure you can install a game into the hard drive and play it off of it though.
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Post by DamagingRob on May 13, 2014 20:50:30 GMT
I'm not sure how those work, either. I plan on replacing the internal hard drive, though. Which will require taking the old one out, and putting the new one in. Doesn't sound like the most difficult task, in the world. But the last time I took a system apart, for any reason, it didn't go so well.. Rest in peace, original PS2. :/
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Post by Ruinus on May 13, 2014 22:16:49 GMT
Well, you'll also have to install a new OS, because I think OSs come installed on the hard drives themselves. At least that's what happened when I had to replace my HDD.
Also, back up all your files somewhere, either on a USB or upload them to dropbox or Google drives or something.
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Post by DamagingRob on May 13, 2014 23:43:17 GMT
Crap.. I read about that, on Sony's website. I have a 4GB Flash Drive, that should work. It's just a matter of finding it. :/
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Post by Ruinus on May 14, 2014 0:42:45 GMT
Anyway... back on topic. I get the feeling that people hate the prices for DLC because, on one hand it is true that some DLCs are overpriced, but on the other people feel as if they "own" the game. I paid $60 for X-COM: Enemy Unknown why should I pay $30 more for the DLCs? But, not only does no one "own" the games they buy, they didn't buy X-COM license for all time and for all future content, they bought Enemy Unknown.
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It's hard to put a price on those, too, since if it happens to be a character you really like, you could definitely be getting your money's worth, with how much you'd use him/her. For instance, going back to PS All Stars, one of the DLC characters is Kat, from Gravity Rush. I'm very tempted to buy her, since I loved that game(and her). I haven't even played the game, yet, though. :/ So I'll continue to wait for a possible sale. .png)