Downloading the Future
Intriguing industry execs and riling up gamers, DLC is the burning issue of 2010
Downloadable content is, beyond a doubt, the burning issue of the year so far. On every major gaming news site, a story about DLC is bound to attract hundreds of comments, many of them brimming with outrage from consumers with strongly held views. Within the industry, conversations are (usually) more civil, but the question of what it's appropriate to release as DLC and how to integrate it into a business model is hotly debated.
This week, another log has been thrown on the fire, with EA boss John Riccitiello telling BusinessWeek that the company's inclusion of premium DLC codes in new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins were no coincidences. This is the vanguard of something EA calls "Project Ten Dollar", it seems - an attempt both to limit the appeal of the second hand market, and to claw back some revenue from those consumers who continue to buy used games.
Publisher and developer attitudes to DLC have come on a long way since the infamous "horse armour" for Oblivion back in 2006. Minor fripperies, cosmetic items for characters and the likes persist, of course - especially in the form of Xbox Live Avatar items and PlayStation Home items - but they have been joined by some genuinely impressive DLC, perhaps most notably the two extensive episodes which were released for Grand Theft Auto IV.
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