The Gaming Industry Needs To Stop Bleeding Players Through Endless DLC

[Destraex]

MengJiao what naval action server are you on?
I believe the only paid content planned for naval action may be a few ships they would not otherwise have done. Those plans are not concrete either.
The other day some friends and I were trying to figure out how they were going to make money on the game and keep the servers going. They have given so much for so little really. A complete and massive sailing open world with trade\economy and battle instances.  A world that is fairly realistic in terms of sailing mechanics as well. Amazing stuff for the $40 that I paid years ago really.

[Mad Russian]

DLC's are a quick way to add more content to a game that you would otherwise more than likely not get.

If you don't want that content, it's quite simple - just don't buy it.

Good Hunting.

MR

[BanzaiCat]

I've worked with a dev directly and understand how finite profits are when it comes to making games.

I don't mind DLC at all, as long as it adds something significant or interesting to the game, and isn't required to enjoy the base game at all. For example, those that followed my posts about Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 know how ga-ga I was over that game and how much I enjoyed the DLCs. I don't mind supporting a dev in that manner; I can only hope it encourages them to continue their work. I had really hoped, for example, there would be a Car Mechanic Simulator 2016 or 2017...though I'm excited to have recently learned there will be a 2018 version coming out later this year.

Anyway, my support of DLC for PC games is in direct opposition to gaming on my iPad - I absolutely hate games there, as it seems 90% of them have "in-app purchases" as a requirement. Mostly they revolve around games that require you to buy in-game currency, or gems, or whatever-the-f, and that's the kind of thing I cannot stand, though I don't think it really counts as DLC.

As MR said - if you don't want it, don't buy it. Though for games, DLC content goes on sale just as often as regular games, so it's quite easy to pick them up for a steal down the road.

[MengJiao]

MengJiao what naval action server are you on?
I believe the only paid content planned for naval action may be a few ships they would not otherwise have done. Those plans are not concrete either.
The other day some friends and I were trying to figure out how they were going to make money on the game and keep the servers going. They have given so much for so little really. A complete and massive sailing open world with trade\economy and battle instances.  A world that is fairly realistic in terms of sailing mechanics as well. Amazing stuff for the $40 that I paid years ago really.

  I'm on the Unrestricted PVP (no port battles timer) one which seems to be closer to me (pings of about 40-70 instead of pings of 120-160).  I agree it is a wonderful game, but I don't understand why it has to be an infinite grind.  I'd like to pay real money and get stuff.  As it is, I fish and sink traders brigs about 1-2 hours every other weekend.  In about 400 years I will be able to buy some 9pdrs.  The sailing and fishing and shooting is nice.  I have no idea how to get trading to work.  In the old world of the game, I got as far as 9 pdrs on a small frigate, but in the new incarnation I can buy about 1-2 6pdrs for my Pickle every week or two.  I did get a set of rigging repairs, but at the moment, I'm on a basic cutter.
   Back in the earlier world, I made most of my rank in half-a-dozen sea battles in a very nice cutter with all the extras and long 4pdrs.  Ah those were the days.  In the current game, if I can get guns on the Pickle, I'll try boarding (with a crew of 55, a Pickle ought to be able to take trading brigs without too much trouble).  Meanwhile, the fishing is good if you don't sell at Havana (I sail for Spain as Meng Arceibo y Mateo).

[Capn Darwin]

I guess the other thing to remember is that back in the early 1990s games were always around $100 complete on release, no DLC and rarely any patches. So we paid once, got a game that was complete but of limited scope. Rarely were expansions planned, I am guessing that is because the teams were broken up as soon as the title was complete. Where these days teams are kept working on a long term plan for years to come. Sometimes they were just left with whatever bugs they had, they were not well supported. Mind you most titles were simple enough back then that bugs were rare.

Some of the titles were Complex. The hardware and OS's were simple and small in scope. Today there are so many OS variants, hardware variants, screen sizes and numbers, 3rd party overlays and post processors that tic-tac-toe will crash 80% of the time. That is the issue most devs deal with and DLCs help offset the continued support costs to bug fix, tweak and add features to the core game by adding new stuff to do in the core game.

[Micha]

I never will understand why they make ww2 games againe and againe even though 10000 of them already out there. And on the the other hand , for a war like the 30 years war wich lasted 30 years and caused 8 millon deads there is always nothing. But life is like it is. But where is the problem, no one is forced to buy what he dont wants to buy.

[MengJiao]

I never will understand why they make ww2 games againe and againe even though 10000 of them already out there. And on the the other hand , for a war like the 30 years war wich lasted 30 years and caused 8 millon deads there is always nothing. But life is like it is. But where is the problem, no one is forced to buy what he dont wants to buy.

  What people make war games about is indeed a bit mysterious.  I've noticed that games tend to be more interesting for me when the level of good, relatively accessible historical analysis for a topic is high and is part of the game development.  So there was a rash of analysis for hoplite warfare and then a very good hoplite game came out that was at least informed in some ways by that analysis -- though other elements like the chit-pull craze and the traditions of the Great Battles of history system were also good for that particular game.  Bloody April was a similar result of some good analytic background (ie a book called Bloody April).
  The Burning Blue is an even more marvelous case in which the game designer went and did their own archival research on the vital but neglected topic of the exact timing of VHF radio installations and phone system to radio transmission relay systems.  Operation Dauntless had similar on-the-ground and archival analytic work to assist in its construction.  This sort of work is much easier to do for WWII than it is for the Thirty Years war so not only are games about the thirty years war rare, but they have tremendous analytic problems at all levels before they even get started, much less played.
   An interesting transitional case is Fontenoy -- a marvelous game backed up by astounding amounts of research and set in a period that is possibly even more suffering from systematic analytic neglect than the Thirty-years war.

[bbmike]

I never will understand why they make ww2 games againe and againe even though 10000 of them already out there. And on the the other hand , for a war like the 30 years war wich lasted 30 years and caused 8 millon deads there is always nothing. But life is like it is. But where is the problem, no one is forced to buy what he dont wants to buy.

I think it's just to increase potential sales. Ask most people about WWII and you might get a answer that's recognizable- they've probably at least watched a movie about it. Ask them about the Thirty Years' War and you'll get blank stares.

[Ian C]

Taking apart what we remember as being the standard of a full well-rounded and complete game and selling off the dismembered parts as DLC = BAD.

Selling content that enhances and builds on an already complete game = GOOD.

[mikeck]

I never will understand why they make ww2 games againe and againe even though 10000 of them already out there. And on the the other hand , for a war like the 30 years war wich lasted 30 years and caused 8 millon deads there is always nothing. But life is like it is. But where is the problem, no one is forced to buy what he dont wants to buy.

It's just the Free Market. The purpose of a corporation or any company really, is to produce wealth for the owner. So a gaming company will generally make the game it thinks it can sell the most of. Now, there are cases where a game is a "labor of a love" and the developers are producing a game they WANT to play; but they still need to make money on it.

WW2 sells. People know about it and frankly, it was the last major conflict between evenly matched adversaries.

I would love more games covering 1500-1800 but I just don't think the Market for that is anyhere close

[Pete Dero]

Many of the Train Simulator DLC is still on sale at Steam.

Now you can get the whole package for only 4 658,87€ !

Taking apart what we remember as being the standard of a full well-rounded and complete game and selling off the dismembered parts as DLC = BAD.

Selling content that enhances and builds on an already complete game = GOOD.

Most DLC for wargames and strategy games fall in the 'good' category.   Maybe because their target market is smaller and a bit older than the shooter public, who don't mind paying $20 for a few new maps.