Brian Fargo comments on DLC

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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In a series of tweets, inXile CEO Brian Fargo expresses his opinion on DLC and how the industry uses them.<blockquote>The movement against many forms of paid DLC is only going to get stronger. DLC has now become a 4 letter word with one less letter. I have no problem with things that you download that are cosmetic only and other smaller forms that are more trivial and non-essential. I used to look forward to expansion packs for games. Tons of new game play for like $20. I never had an issue with that. To get as much content in the expansion packs of yesteryear would probably cost $100 in the new DLC model today.

Of course the Red Boots DLC pack is a different story... Maybe I should Kickstart the Red Boots DLC pack and then sell the shoelaces as extra DLC. I bet my sarcastic humor is going to get me in trouble one of these days!</blockquote>
 
I can see how this can be made to work, actually:

Red boots DLC for, say, US$10.

Shoelace DLC for the above for another US$10. Without this, your new red boots will, naturally, be unlaced and will thus tend to randomly slip off and get lost.

Ability to tie shoelaces DLC for US$10, just to keep things uniform and not confuse the customer (I'm sure you can see that the target demographic for these DLC clearly cannot handle much confusion, if you know what I mean). This will require the shoelace DLC, obviously. Without this DLC (but with the shoelace DLC), the red boots will slip off less often (because of the ultra-realistic, immersive (and so on and so forth) simulation of the extra friction from having the boots laced, but the laces untied). But there will be a chance for a critical failure where you would trip on your untied laces and fall, losing the rest of your turn if in combat. This probability will increase when engaged in complex movements such as, for example, combat.

:twisted:
 
It was quite fun but very true.
Old expansion use to have much more content that even the best DLC.
I dislike and don't buy DLC. But if Brian Fargo have the bollocks to release a red boots DLC i'm ready to buy it only for the pleasure to see him brag in front of Bioware's guys :lol:
 
To be fair, Sobboth, as someone who used to think and argue very much so for this whole "ignore the entire DLC market" way of thinking, it HAS evolved, for some publishers.

As much as I don't like Bethesda's games, they do get it when it comes to DLC, and the DLC for Fallout 3 and New Vegas were pretty good price-and-content wise.

The best example to my mind is GTA IV's two DLCs, Ballad of Gay Tony and Lost & The Damned. Basically expansion-pack sized DLC, and the Ballad was the best GTA game since Vice City. Can't complain about that.

At this point the real problem is the lack of consistency industry-wide, and how many publishers still abuse it. I never buy nickel-and-dime DLC, and never will. But these good-sized DLCs? Hell yeah.
 
Brother None said:
To be fair, Sobboth, as someone who used to think and argue very much so for this whole "ignore the entire DLC market" way of thinking, it HAS evolved, for some publishers.

As much as I don't like Bethesda's games, they do get it when it comes to DLC, and the DLC for Fallout 3 and New Vegas were pretty good price-and-content wise.

The best example to my mind is GTA IV's two DLCs, Ballad of Gay Tony and Lost & The Damned. Basically expansion-pack sized DLC, and the Ballad was the best GTA game since Vice City. Can't complain about that.

At this point the real problem is the lack of consistency industry-wide, and how many publishers still abuse it. I never buy nickel-and-dime DLC, and never will. But these good-sized DLCs? Hell yeah.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. DLC itself is a nice thing.
But it should be seen as small expansion which is distributed digitally. Bethesda did a good job with that mostly (consindering Fallout, not talking about the "horse armor incident").
However other publishers/developers use DLCs to rip players off.
A good example for that is Bioware/EA with MassEffect2/ Dragon Age: First players get baited by a very high quality product and while expecting to get the same high quality gameplay/money value, players get ripped of by the following DLCs which are either horribly overpriced or got a terrible quality.

Personally the biggest problem I got with DLCs is that I am playing very intensive and lack of the motivation to look into that game again if the original game was 100h long and the DLC is just for 5-10 hours. Even if the price and quality is good I find it hard to motivate myself for looking back into the game after months just for a couple of hours of gameplay. So I'd rather wait till all DLCs are released to do the "second part of the game" in a second time-cluster.
 
there are no "good DLCs", the whole idea of DLC is just cancer of gaming industry.
 
dev said:
there are no "good DLCs", the whole idea of DLC is just cancer of gaming industry.
Click to expand...

So, what do you think about digital distribution?

And what do you think about the concept of Expansions?
 
For maximum bonus points, Red Boots needs to cover several points:

* produced by a third-party developer who doesn't understand canon and has never played any of the games all the way through
* must upset game balance
* optional: raise the level cap by 5. in this case, there is no need to provide other content (perhaps just an arena -- hello Borderlands!)
* should rip off some of the atmospheric elements (posters, graffiti) in the game, and then claim that those were really "foreshadowing"
 
dev said:
there are no "good DLCs", the whole idea of DLC is just cancer of gaming industry.
Click to expand...

*sigh* No.
Does the system get abused by some companies? Yes. But there are examples of "good DLCs". Please refer to BN's post - my same exact thoughts on the subject.
 
Can someone explain "Red Boots" to someone who really hasn't been a true gamer for many years? Was there a DLC whose sole purpose was the addition of red boots?
 
Independent George said:
Can someone explain "Red Boots" to someone who really hasn't been a true gamer for many years? Was there a DLC whose sole purpose was the addition of red boots?
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He's referring to things like item packs, that usually get horribly overpriced, and tying it up to his 'red boots' joke in the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter video presentation.
 
Wasn't there some controversy with DLC horse armor in Oblivion.

horsearmor.jpg
 
Some DLC are fine, some are less...fine... .

When it comes to horrible DLC my prime example would be that train simulator game on steam. They sell new trains for like 5 dollars a pop, and at some point they came out with like 10 trains a week. I know because they felt they had to clutter the steam "new releases" portion with the "dlc" they pumped out.

I mean COME ON, 5 dollars for what essentially is one 3D model with some parametres and maybe a couple audio files?
 
While its true that some DLC is good, I think Brian's nostalgia is speaking here, missing the good ole days with awesome expansions packs. I guess also missing awesome games too. Like how many games lately have been just pointless shooters!??!? :S
 
But don't forget that there have been shitty games 20 years ago too.
 
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