Whaat?? Pay creative content creators extra money for extra content? Ludicrous! They are merely slaves, forever chained to their keyboards for our amusement and entertainment.

*whip sounds*

This is a false strawman. People are generally happy to pay for reasonable content.

But when you get brand-new games released with $30 of cosmetic DLC? That's cut and resold content. Just sell the base product for higher, please! Or at least BUNDLE IT.

Or, worse, a brand-new (or at least "still in development roadmap period") game that's getting mechanical/play DLC? That's even more likely cut-for-reselling content.

People generally don't want this trickle-spam of DLC. Give big meaty drops, big expansions. Few-to-none complain about the DLC for RimWorld, or Grim Dawn.

And this is entirely discounting how many issues there are with DLC, including:
* Catalog/library issues.
* Authorization/authentication/DRM issues. (Often due to bad coding.)
* It being on different platforms at different rates and dates.
* Some developers implementing it because they feel they have to (or indeed are pushed to by platform policies).
* Fragmentation/different experience problems for people who have different suites of DLC.
* Sometimes DLC is poorly done or integrated into the game, too.

And of course there are the other developers (beyond the 'good examples' above, famously Stardew Valley) that add tons of things into their games as updates, even years later, without upcharging. They lengthen their long-tail by reinvigorating base game sales rather than by attempting to extract DLC sales.

However, R-Type 2? I'm avoiding that game until it's clearly done. And hopefully bundled. Because right now it's like a $120 game. Plus it now has microtransaction DLC on here...

And yesterday's Relayer Advanced release? Take a look at that hot mess. Season Pass includes some of the existing DLC, but not others. And the "premium edition" some but not others. And Extra Pack too. It's a disaster.

Your blanket dismissal of DLC concerns is not helpful

EDIT in: there's the console release of Final Fantasy 15. They sell the "ultra mega everything complete edition". But it's not all-on-disc. It's the same original disc release, with DLC-download redemption codes. AKA, I'll probably never get to experience that game because they refuse to do an all-on-disc release like many console "Collected Edition" disc releases are. [And Squenix clearly will never do a DRM-free PC release, either.]


EDIT2: I forgot to mention in issues above, Crossroads Inn is a peculiar example. Twice now it's had "season passes" with multiple DLCs (also sold separately), and then, after it's all out, etc, the whole set gets bundled in to the main game for everyone. I don't understand their rationale for doing it this way.

That was a LONG trend. Because games were episodic even in the early 90s...

"Creative"? LOL. If classic PC games were released today...

- Doom 2 = IDKFA has been replaced with "All Weapon & Key Booster Pack DLC!", M31-32 Wolfenstein Throwback DLC
- No One Lives Forever = Retro 60's Red & Silver Cosmetic Outfit DLC, "In The Lounge" Soundtrack DLC
- Torchlight 2 = Purchase the new 4th class "Engineer" DLC! Trill-Bot 4000 DLC adds additional quests!
- Old School Games with internal cheat codes -> "We removed all that. The new cheat code is your credit card number, buy now!"

Looking at half of what gets sold as DLC today, the bulk of it is far closer to above than anything "creative". In fact over half of DLC even here on GOG is basically selling the same 20 year old soundtracks of remastered games separately vs the originals that included them for free...

I'm angry at you for being right. :-(

I would suggest "No DLC" DLC, which is a DLC which prevents all other DLCs from working.

It's a DLC for those who hate DLCs.

Reminds me of a similar idea, but with achievements. The hypothetical game would have a lot of easily obtainable achievements, but would also have one achievement that requires beating the game without earning any other achievements.

Don't forget Terraria. (I hear there's another update with new content planned.)

I don't think we're in disagreement about people being not happy with unreasonable content :)

There is however a sense of entitlement from many gamers when it comes to DLC. Even seen in this very thread. Hell, even the infamous Oblivion Horse Armour took a team of graphical designers and other creative content creators weeks to make, with great effort and plenty of costs. This was then ridiculed as unworthy of any money (as if buying the DLC wasn't a choice in the first place) and calls for it to be free or included were heard everywhere. That is what I was referring to in my inflammatory opening post, so no need to start invoking logical fallacies from one possibly misconstrued short statement.

Although I do love DLC, I think it's great, and it would be a detriment to all gamers if that model ceased to exist.

Because, REASONS. (<--- from one of the best DLCs ever made)

The objection isn't that DLC doesn't cost anything to make (although some of it doesn't), but that it changes the model from selling people something they enjoy playing, to taking advantage of people who suffer from FOMO. It's not a fair exchange.

Not all DLC is equal.

Hidden Through Time has DLC which I've bought, and Megaquarium has DLC that I'll buy when I get around to purchasing the actual game. In both cases, it's the type of DLC that was:
1. Released at some point later than the game's original release.
2. Actually expands on the game.
3. Costs less than the base game.

Where I am also okay with DLCs is when it's all optional stuff that don't impact gameplay at all, such as The Caligula Effect: Overdose - which has 5 DLCs. One if a free accessory bundle. The four paid DLCs include a soundtrack, artbook, and two costume bundles. I can appreciate that the useless costumes are sold separately from the base game because I'm not a fan of having people running around dungeons in swimsuits and wouldn't use them even if they were included with the game.

What I don't like seeing is a bunch of DLCs that are available the day the game is released. Relayer Advanced is an example of this - The game has a base price of $50 (currently with a new game discount of 10% off) with a total of 13 DLCs available the same day. This includes 1 soundtrack, 1 set of audio dramas, and 11 upgraded robots.There's also the Season Pass that includes 8 of the 11 robot upgrades for an extra $15. This just looks like they wanted to sell their game for $65 but didn't think that anyone would actually purchase it at that price, so they try to be all sneaky about it like we won't notice what's going on.

My biggest DLC gripe though is not being able to purchase Soundtrack DLCs without owning the game because sometimes a game comes along where I like the music far more than I'll ever enjoy playing the game.

Oh god yes so many sountraks that i love and end up having to watch them on Youtube because i either don't want/like the game or are simply to poor to afford it.

There are a few cases though where if it goes on sale on GOG that it's still worth getting here due to the sale price of the game plus the soundtrack ends up being less than buying the soundtrack on it's own on Bandcamp.

This is why I think that the modern approach of calling everything DLC is unhelpful. I tend to mentally re-label so-called DLC as if we're still in 2004. Fundamentally, you have:

- Add-ons: these are traditional add-on packs to games that add a tonne of new content and were also sold prior to 2004. Think Scourge of Armagon for Quake or Morrowind's Bloodmoon. More recent examples would be Peril on Gorgon from the Outer Worlds. These are worth paying for, although not having them doesn't necessarily make a game incomplete.

- Horse-armour (aka DLCs): These are raw money grabbing from greedy developers and publishers, adding incremental items into the main game and expecting you to pay for them. In the old days, these would have been free mods (not linked to some terrible DRM'd workshop) or patched into a game by developers. These aren't worth paying for.

I tend to buy add-ons and avoid horse-amour/DLCs unless the compilation game is about the same price as the main game or also includes the add-ons.

Some games go overboard with it, but I'm not inherently against DLC. That said, as a fan of Paradox's games, I definitely understand the frustration. I hate the thought that I don't have the COMPLETE game experience and while I'm not at all against giving devs some money for some great, new content, I hate when a game has so many DLCs that will cost you an arm and a leg to get, even on sale.

Worth noting that Oblivion does have one piece of DLC, Shivering Isles, that clearly fits into your add-on category. It adds an entire new map to explore, along with its own main quest and side quests.

Also, Skyrim's Dragonborn could also fit this category (and perhaps the other 2 major DLCs could also fit). Dragonborn adds the same area that Bloodmoon adds, albeit in a different era and with a very different main quest.