Stop Buying DLC

Nolan Bicknell Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 29, 2014

To really understand the vastness of the Video Games industry, you need to know some numbers. $22.2 billion annually in North America alone. Hundreds of millions of players worldwide. Million-dollar prize pools. International sales projected to double the film industry. The mainstream has grabbed ahold of Video Games and will never let go.

Consumers have all the power in this industry, but it seems like we’ve forgotten. We’ve grown complacent and allowed ourselves to be shaken down, mobster style, for every dollar The Industry Mafia can get out of us.

Far too often lately, we’re allowing developers and publishers to extract every last penny from our coffers via DLC, season passes, add-ons, characters, expansions, sequels, prequels, pre-sequels, skins, karts, maps, guns, and even god damn hats.

It has to stop. Please.

Pardon my old-man-in-a-rocking-chair-brandishing-a-shotgun-on-his-porch-esque rant here, but “back in my day”, some classic games were $49.99 for 100+ hours of gameplay and content. Fifty Bucks. All-in.

Imagine if you had to pay $15.99 for the third disc of Final Fantasy 7. Picture a world where Frog was a “Bonus Pre-order Character” in Chrono Trigger. What would we have said if Rainbow Road was only an additional $1.99 in the original Mario Kart?

This shit has got to stop.

I purchased Destiny for $69.99CAD.

According to Destiny’s stat’s tracker over at Bungie.net, I’ve played Destiny for exactly 90 hours.

Very respectable amount of time. I’ve enjoyed the game and I’m happy with my purchase. I believe ~$70 of my hard-earned cash was well-spent on this pleasant gaming experience.

But I find it difficult to justify paying even more for the DLC.

As of right now, I’m not going to buy it, and neither should you.

Some of you have already pre-ordered the DLC. To you, well, I’m not mad. Just disappointed.

Maybe I should rewrite that, so you can reread it, to let the absurdity sink in.

You pre-ordered DLC.

Is anyone else seeing a problem here?

Setting a precedent that we’re willing and able to allow a game to be broken down, compartmentalized, and then resold to us at a premium lays the foundation for a very damning future for the AAA Gaming Industry. We’re already living it.

Destiny was a colossal sales success. However, the general sentiment online is that it’s a phenomenal shooter with a story that feels unfinished.

Yet Destiny’s business model will become the norm if we don’t make a stand. We need to make a statement that releasing incomplete products and then demanding that we pay more to complete them is bad business, and should be punished as such.

Stop Buying DLC. The only reason this is becoming the norm is because we’re letting it.

Join me in making a stand.

Stop. Buying. DLC.

…That is… Unless Bungie announces new subclasses for Hunters, Warlocks, and Titans. Or if there’s a new endgame raid. Or if they release some sort of fancy hat feature.

If that’s the case… well…

<shut_up_and_take_my_money_meme.jpeg>