Day one DLC done right

[Wavelength]

The problem with that argument (and where the consumer makes the wrong assumption) is that all content has to be paid for.

The base price for the program pays for a fixed amount of content, and if the developer has more content then he needs to be paid extra for that extra content, no matter whether that content was released on day 1 or day 99.

I admit that some game companies have reduced the amount of content in the base game in a way that there is more money for graphics than for playtime content, resulting in the player conception of a short game for a high price (and some publishers really short the developer on money and get short games but charge full for their own profits) - but that has been cause by player demand for high quality graphics instead of high quality games.

And even that is only an argument for not purchasing from companies that try to overcharge the consumer, but it has nothing to do with day one DLC - those exist for all types of companies and there are cases where D1DLC is very good and worth the money.

There are a couple of problems with your argument, too, though.

The biggest one is that there's no established standard for how much content is worth one dollar (nor what increase in graphics quality is worth what decrease in content, but let's leave that alone for the moment).  Maybe Atlus says "the $60 base price for the program pays for a fixed amount of content, which is 50 hours of 'new', interesting material".  Meanwhile, BioWare makes a game at the same time and says "the $60 base price for the program pays for a fixed amount of content, which is 30 hours of 'new', interesting material" and then charges you $10 for each additional 5 hours of additional content.  Surely you can see how BioWare's upcharge for the final 20 hours of content feels like (and, in this oversimplified case, is) a giant rip-off?

There are certainly niggles to be made with this black-and-white example about not being able to compare the quality of the content, and that if BioWare invested equal resources into their 30 hours as Atlus did into 50 hours, and then additional resources into the 20 hours of DLC, then it stands to reason that the quality of each hour might be higher than Atlus'.  But I think it's unlikely that this is how it usually goes with D1DLC.  In my experience as a gamer I rarely find a difference in quality between D1DLC games and games without it - all I usually find is content that was cut.

In theory it certainly doesn't need to be this way and the real argument, like you said, should be against bad value in general and not against D1DLC.  But in practice, D1DLC is such a major offender that it acts as a turnoff.  If BioWare invested lots of resources (equal to most games' 50-hour adventures) into the 30-hour game and then additional resources into making the additional 20 hours of D1DLC content, the onus is on them to get the message out there.

Furthermore, these two games (the 50-hour standalone game and 30-hour base game that has DLC) are awfully hard to compare, because this is not a commoditized market (like gasoline, where you can directly compare price and amount to determine value), or even a product with easy-to-value features (like airline tickets, where a cheaper ticket plus "bag fees" and charges for soft drinks can be compared, by an individual consumer, against an all-in ticket that includes as many bags as you need).  If it looks like the developer/publisher might be being avaricious, a rationally ignorant consumer will and should assume that the game is a rip-off, unless this developer/publisher has established a sufficiently large history of generosity (brand loyalty) or has successfully demonstrated that the "base game" is worth as much as another company's All-In product (removal of ignorance).

Add in to that the fact that some consumer behavior is simply hard-wired into our brains (like the way we value relative rather than absolute wealth, or the tendency for people to be risk-averse in gains but risk-seeking in losses... check out the Allais Paradox for one of the coolest examples of "perception is reality" I've ever seen), and it becomes pretty clear why having an NPC tell you about a quest that you're locked out of feels a lot worse than having a complete game without any DLC fragments, and adding an expansion pack onto it later.  In something like a video game where the actual utility is coming from the way that the player feels as they play the game, one approach becomes clearly worse than the other.

In fairness, my ideas have problems as well.  I don't think there's a perfect (or even great) solution to this system that's been marred by cash grabs; each game company needs to figure out a way to deliver good value to their audience and to put a lot of effort into managing expectations and perceptions the first few times that they go down the DLC route.

Hope this doesn't come off as snobby or pedantic; I spent an hour thinking and typing it up because I tend to really value your opinions, so I didn't want to say any of them were faulty without clearly being able to lay out why I think so.

TL;DR: I believe that even where the fears of being ripped off are unfounded, the consumer isn't making a "wrong assumption"; the developer is putting out a wrong perception that actually makes their game worse.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

The thing is, its about budget.

Video games are made with a projected income, and then they are budgeted accordingly. To make anything that goes beyond that budget, they have to have some form of projected income. You can't say "well they fit it in the game before release" because most of the people making that stuff wouldn't have been WORKING on the game anymore without some extra projected income to pay them with.

You should buy a game based on how its built, and what it provides you. You should buy DLC based on how its built and what it provides you. When they come out in relationship to each other is COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO EITHER OF THOSE THINGS. There have been good day 1 DLCs, and bad day 1 DLCs. Being out on day 1 had nothing to do with either.

(Also, ren Disc DLC, if its done in time to go on the Master, its better for the end user and the company to go ahead and put it on the disc and just have an unlock, as it saves both you and them bandwidth).

(Also, Also, I am 100% on board with "free with new purchase" day 1 DLCs. It encourages buying new, which is good for the developer, and not good for Gamestop, which is an abomination of a company anyway).

 

[Wavelength]

The thing is, its about budget.

Video games are made with a projected income, and then they are budgeted accordingly. To make anything that goes beyond that budget, they have to have some form of projected income. You can't say "well they fit it in the game before release" because most of the people making that stuff wouldn't have been WORKING on the game anymore without some extra projected income to pay them with.

You should buy a game based on how its built, and what it provides you. You should buy DLC based on how its built and what it provides you. When they come out in relationship to each other is COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO EITHER OF THOSE THINGS. There have been good day 1 DLCs, and bad day 1 DLCs. Being out on day 1 had nothing to do with either.

(Also, ren Disc DLC, if its done in time to go on the Master, its better for the end user and the company to go ahead and put it on the disc and just have an unlock, as it saves both you and them bandwidth).

(Also, Also, I am 100% on board with "free with new purchase" day 1 DLCs. It encourages buying new, which is good for the developer, and not good for Gamestop, which is an abomination of a company anyway).

This is a similar argument to Andar's, and it's a reasonable argument, but I think it assumes a "Vulcan World" where all information is known and people can make decisions purely on logic without letting otherwise-helpful perceptions ("instinct") color their decisions.

Is it possible that the $60 game with 50% of its "day one content" distributed via Paid DLC (for a total All-In Price of $120 or possibly more) actually had twice as much work put into it as a similar game with all of its day one included for $60?  Sure it's possible.  But as a consumer, should I assume that it's true?  I don't see any reason to.  Video games aren't a commodity; it's not like oil where if I buy an amount for $300 and an amount for $150 then I should expect the oil I bought for $300 to be twice as plentiful (or of an objectively higher quality).  The all-in $60 game may have been made more efficiently, or the company might just be much less profit-oriented.  Without a great deal of information to the contrary, I'm going to be inclined to buy the $60 All-In game and leave the $60 Base Game with Paid DLC on the shelf.

This is kind of the quandary that I think "good D1DLC" finds itself in.  How do I communicate to the consumer that it's not bad value?  How do I communicate that it's not avarice?

 

[Andar]

This is a similar argument to Andar's, and it's a reasonable argument,

It's not similiar, it's the same argument only worded differently.
And a game developer that doesn't budget its games usually goes bankrupt before being able to finish the game - that's why this is no "argument", but a neccessity. All your "arguments" are correct when seen from a pure consumer perspective, but a game company cannot follow your argumentation as it needs to pay its programmers and artists and other help.


Yes, there have been problems with communication this to the players - most because people don't understand that there are no "free" games, only games where others pay for the content (no matter how often they are advertised as "free to play", someone has to pay for the food on the table of the people working on them).


So yes, there is a need to educate the consumer on that reality - but that's it, the consumer needs to learn that the game companies have no other choice, even if some of those companies abuse the practise to overcharge the results. Because if they give their work away for free without getting money back, then they either will go bankrupt or have to stop paying the artists and workers for their work.

 

[juggernaut]

While day one DLC is generally frowned upon or so they claim, it makes wonder what is a good way to do it.

1. Soundtrack DLC.

2. Art DLC.

3. Generally any DLC that doesn't modify in-game stuff.

Of course if person is dishonest, he could start to develop in-game DLC content (new areas etc) before the game is even out and then plan ahead for their release to make it look like development time wasn't used on them while making the game. Now this is a grey area as it is hard to be proved by the customers.

Why is it that customers feel they're entitled to some sort of business practice? It's a common misconception that bells and whistles (Like alternate skins, music, or other such dlc) 'Took away from development of other aspects'. This is simply not the case. Maybe it is for a 1 man dev team, but for crying out loud.