Imagine reading a compelling novel. You have invested your time and energy in the book and have become completely immersed in the setting, characters and where the story is taking you. The action is rising and you are turning pages hoping that the main character can survive. You turn the page to find the answer, but instead of story you received a message that asks if you would like to pay $5 to see what happens next.
You’re struck by confusion. You paid full price for the book! Why are they asking you to pay again? Frantic, you keep turning pages and notice that throughout the book there are several of these messages prompting you to pay more to see the content. This is the plague that is wracking video game content and is ruining the medium as a whole. Microtransactions are changing how consumers interact with games and, instead of adding to the complexity of the game, they are instead robbing customers of their investment into the genre.
Downloadable content (DLC) was not originally intended to be the money sink that it is transforming into today, and only a few publishers are taking this extreme route to exploit the fans of games. DLC has a history taking gamers as far back as the Atari 2600. Older gamers might recall the GameLine, a means to download full games making use of telephone lines. This was inherently limited due to the size of memory cards at the time, but was considered one of the largest leaps in gaming history.
Jumping forward to the birth of Xbox Live (XBL), Microsoft would be the next to attempt downloadable content by offering additional bonus content that was free. Evolving into what we see as the DLC market today in XBL, it has its own section in the online service offering gamers additional services for a price for games they have purchased. Other companies have followed suit with their form of DLC and have copied Microsoft’s success.
The issue with DLC today is not that it is there, but that DLC can be REQUIRED to play games you have already purchased. The first time that “DLC” was officially being used as a means to milk more money from consumers was with Capcom’s release of “Marvel vs. Capcom 3.” Gamers were happy to pay for their game in full and play it to their heart’s content. Capcom would then release a package set of DLC for the game that would include a list of popular characters that would “expand” the roster on the disc.
That doesn’t sound that bad? Wrong.
Shortly after this announcement, it was discovered that this DLC package was already on the game consumers had already purchased. These characters were essentially locked, hidden on the gaming disc on the date of the initial purchase and was intended to force gamers to pay again for a game they had already purchased. The worst part of this situation is that it has happened before in a very similar setting with other games. Soon after it was discovered that other games had locked content on disc where gamers were paying twice to play content they had already paid for.
The creation of DLC is also taking away from the development of games. People paying attention to Electronic Art’s popular franchise “Battlefield,” might already be aware of the five additional map packs that will be released alongside the game. At first glance this does not seem to be that big of an issue but upon further analysis you have to think. Why are they spending development costs to create content that won’t be packaged with the initial game? Gamers will again pay $60 for the “full” game at launch…then pay an additional $15 for each map pack through the games play cycle. Gamers will pay $135 for the game (more than double) that should have had these additional perks already packaged within the $60 game.
On iPhone devices is where the industry has grown the most and has served as the gateway for many novice gamers. I advise everyone reading this to research the game “Super Monster Bros” that was released this year back in April. The game is a complete knock-off of the gameplay of Mario with the characters of Pokémon. The game is free and is marketed toward younger kids. Launch the game and select a level and choose a character and the game immediately prompts you to pay $99.99 to unlock all characters in the game. Gamers can also scroll to choose another characters (the art is there on screen and is already downloaded to the phone) you can select it but it blocks you from playing, immediately prompting you to spend $49.99 to play as this character. Only one character is free and loading into the game limits the number of attacks you can use, once out of ammo the game asks if you would like to buy more ammo for $0.99. This is the future of all gaming as we know it if it does not stop.
Publishers are abusing developers of games to take away from development of a game to figure out ways to take more money from consumers and instead of watching the medium grow as an art form is instead transforming to the very essence of corporate greed.
There is a way to do DLC right and that is to use it as a means to prolong how much time gamers invest into it by actually adding to the game itself and spending actual time and effort developing the content after the game’s initial release. Looking at games like “Borderlands” and the “Elder Scrolls” series easily shows that quality expansions sell well and really grow and expand the game they created. DLC does not have to be the microtransactions that nickel and dime the user, because it will eventually turn off gamers and the medium as a whole will die.
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