A Critique of Downloadable Content
Video game companies are really screwing up digital downloading and downloadable content.
The latest iteration of video game consoles shows a lot of promise. All of them have highly integrated online capabilities and functions that were designed to enhance the gaming experience. Offering free game demos, older game libraries, smaller indie games, and so forth, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all seemed determined to tap into a reservoir of gamers who are looking for a video game experience easily customized for them, and are willing to pay for it. The pioneering of gaming with access to online capability seemed like the perfect answer.
Nonetheless, it’s hard to determine if companies actually seem to see it this way. While I personally don’t fault any company simply looking to maximize profits (well, much), I question if they know what they’re capable of actually providing. A whole plethora of new opportunities seem to be squandered by these companies, while at the same time making them look amusingly bad in the process.
Resident Evil 5 was stripped of a “versus” mode, forcing many gamers to buy it for $5 and download it on top of the game itself. The price of RE5 wasn’t affected any, the $5 being more of a tax on those who like versus modes. This leads many to believe that companies are going to strip commonly accepted game features from the game in favor of squeezing out an extra few bucks.
MegaMan 9 is also equally guilty of this, which is saddening because Mega Man 9 seemed to be a perfect complement to digital downloads; a completely retro-style game with eight-bit graphics might not be for everyone, but certainly allowed for those gamers joshing for a retro-fix to purchase and download the game. Yet, the additional downloadable content is an amusing albeit ironic joke, with things like “play as Proto Man” and “harder difficulty”. Again, basic features that should be in games themselves are being excluded. The problem is that there’s no safeguard against a company scraping out other features in favor of more cash. Why stop there, after all? You want to enable save points? That’s three hundred points. You want to quest for your character’s ultimate weapon? That’s five hundred points. Yes, these examples are extreme and hopefully amusing, but the moment a game’s features start becoming diced up to extort a few more bucks out of a gamer, companies will find that gamers will become pretty bitter pretty quickly.
This leads nicely into the next point — episodic gaming, something which Square-Enix has unsurprisingly jumped onto. Final Fantasy IV: The After Years has been split up into eleven different episodes that will cost any gamer going from start to finish a total of 3,700 Wii points. The game itself is the same game play of Final Fantasy IV, though the story is wonderfully and amusingly mediocre, reading like bad fan fiction most of the time. These episodes aren’t optional either; you have to purchase and play through one to proceed to the next. At a cost of 3,700 Wii points, aren’t you really just buying a video game the normal way at that point? What point does dividing up the game into episodes serve, other than giving publishers another way to extort money out of a gamer?
A more regional example is Tales of Monkey Island. Previous Monkey Island installments have been complete games, but once again, another game has been divided up into episodes, or chapters, for no other reason than it becomes a method of making gamers pay more money for a game they might not otherwise pay for.
Up until this point, I’ve outlined various ways game companies are simply slicing up games in lieu of actual content. This is not to say that companies aren’t actually trying to provide unique, downloadable content with enjoyment attached. Square-Enix has decided, for a game as old as Final Fantasy XI, that it would be better to provide mini-expansions instead of another full-out expansion pack. The problem isn’t so much the content — something which I fully support — as much as the end-game item reward that comes with it – which I don’t. The consequence is that content can be extremely bad quality, but you can still get something tangible for throwing down money at the end, which is the case of Final Fantasy XI’s two mini expansions thus far.
I suppose the best example of how clumsily handled digital downloading has been is with Nintendo’s own Super Smash Brothers Brawl, a game seemingly ripe for a content-based, downloading service. Forgiving the insanely clumsy online play feature, there was still a decent – albeit mediocre – amount of content that users could generate; custom stages, game play videos, and fun screen shots which could be sent to friends privately or could be submitted to a public service provided by Nintendo for any fan to be able to download. None of this was integrated with the Wii with any sort of depth, however, and Nintendo themselves provided no bonus content.
Nintendo announced that as of June 30th 2009, they’re no longer accepting user-generated content for Smash Brothers Brawl, though they’re still providing the service for downloading it. Why this happened was unclear, but it begs gamers to wonder why only after a year and a few months after the game’s North American release that Nintendo has decided to terminate such a service. Was one of the biggest hyped games for Nintendo really planned with such little afterthought? Did Masahiro Sakurai, the game’s lead director who had previously asked the fans what characters they would have liked to see in Brawl, really have no game plan after the game’s release?
If first party companies can’t even get it right, what hope do other companies have?
Like many around me, perhaps I’m just becoming a more cynical and bitter gamer with age. I’d like to think I can recognize video game companies as companies first, whose goal is to make a profit. I’ve certainly criticized the industry using digital downloads as a means to eviscerate games and create half-products with no strategy as to how to incorporate bonus content or features to entertain gamers. If one were to ask me what I would like to see companies offer instead of what they do, however, I’m not sure I could give a reasonable answer. It varies from game to game, and I don’t know if every game is able to lend itself to specific downloadable content.
These companies, however, should.
Who is to say what “should” be in the original game itself anyway? I have nothing against providing harder difficulties in an RPG as DLC for example, but I’m sure there would be someone out there opposed to it. I think for every piece of DLC, you’ll have someone out there who says it should have been included in the original game, no matter what, with the only exception being Rock Band DLC.
I don’t necessarily agree with your statements, Matt.
First off, You’re using Nintendo – who has no idea how to handle online services, as an example. Yes, Nintendo is doing it wrong. No, they’re not indicative of what everyone is doing.
Second, lets look at the examples your talking about (I’m only going to talk about the ones I’m fimilar with so I’m going to exclude FF11)
RE5 – The argument for RE5’s multiplayer was that there wasn’t time for it in the game’s original development. Now… You might feel ripped off here. I’m not going to say if you should or not. But consider for a moment that all the other RE games have NEVER had online multiplayer and you were paying just about the same amount. Furthermore, I’d guess that if anything – Capcom did this to make a bit of money on further subsequent sales of used copies from gamestop as this content would not be transferable. Keep in mind that this content is not required to play the game is almost what amounts to a ‘bonus mode’. It’s more than likely an experiment on their part. If you like online – then you can buy it – but you don’t have to.
FF4:TAY – 100 points = $1 correct ? so 3700 points is $37 ? Now – divide $37 / 11 episodes and you’re talking around $3.50 an episode right ? If that gets you anywhere from 2-4 hours of game – I’d say that’s a pretty good deal when you consider what a TV show or movie costs you on iTunes. The advantage here is if you buy the first episode or two and don’t like it, you’re not out the whole purchase cost.
Mega Man 9 – Again – you’re paying for the base game and then there’s extra stuff you can buy – IF you want to. You don’t need to buy these things to enjoy the game – no one is putting a gun to your head. And again, consumers will vote on what they think has value with their dollars. My guess is this is clearly another experiment from Capcom.
Monkey island – This falls into the same category as FF4:TAY – $35 for all 5 episodes ? That’s a petty good deal if you’re getting 8+ decent hours of gameplay out of it.
The reason I like episodic gaming is that you can pay less and get less. You find out if you like a game or might try something you normally wouldn’t. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t. But If you can pay over time and let your voice be heard WHILE the game is being developed – you have a chance to shift the course of development. We saw this during the Sam and Max episodes as Telltale listened to the community. So, if you don’t like a game, you’ve only invested 10-15 dollars instead of 50 or 60. Doesn’t that just make more sense?
I expect you’ll see almost more games go the TV route of episodic installments as people figure out where the sweet spot to charge for it is.
Episodic gaming is very different from DLC and they really are different animals. As far as DLC goes – its a win win situation as long as you can buy a game complete and beat it without having to shell out more money. Its a way for you to extend the life of your games, and gives you a reason to hold onto them instead of trading them in – which helps the publisher/developer. Burnout Paradise, Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Gears 2 (to a bit of a lesser extent) are prime examples of DLC done right.