How'd You Like Your Game Ending to Be DLC?

[wraggster]

Downloadable content as a weapon against second-hand resales is, nothing new, but Epic's Mike Capps has heard other ideas for how it can be used with devastating effect. If you hated the idea of DLC weapons in Bad Company, well, you're really going to hate this.

“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”

That would reduce everything but a retail sale to a demo, in my view. This doesn't sound like Capps specifically advocating such a bastard-ass move. But these two sides — developers and retailer/resellers — need to arrive at some sort of truce or else the only ones who'll get screwed are the gamers.

I can't imagine the Amazon and Metacritic reviews for such a game. It would make the Spore DRM backlash look like a polite disagreement. Seriously, games industry, you want to start spewing douchewater like the RIAA, go for it. They can tell you what it's done for their sales.

http://kotaku.com/5082290/howd-you-like-your-game-ending-to-be-dlc

[havoc_012]

I can see the RIAA and MPAA following suite. This is so evil, they're embarrassed they didn't think about it themselves.

You own anything you purchase (regardless of what the entertainment industries try to tell you) and it is yours to do what you want with it. Never let any company try to take that right away from you.

[mcdougall57]

Gears of war have just done it, it needs to be a full retail bought copy in order to get the five free maps but nothing as evil as that.

[Veskgar]

Greed sure has a good way of blinding common sense. Why is there even talk of changes like this? The Video Game industry has been and is still doing good despite the economy. In fact its on its way to surpass the movie industry if it hasn't already.

What's next then? Movie renters can't get the ending unless they pay extra? LOL...

[shadowriffe]

Maybe an alternate ending or something haha, but not the ending ending. That's gay.

[osgeld]

We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”


um, you made money when some suit that couldnt give a crap about video games bought thousands of copies for their rental chain

and you made money when someone bought it new, used means someone else already paid for it and sold it

im sorry your not making your billion dollar mark, but maybe if you cut back on the cut scenes, licensed some cheaper music and laid off the tv ads every commercial break your game, might not cost XX million to produce and you wouldnt be whining about only making 10% profit

and who is going to babysit this content, people keep their games for decades...

greed and suits is a couple of the major factors of the first video game crash, in the age of 400-600$ consoles, mostly crap games and "we want more money" attitude i smell another one coming up to shake out the market

[gutbub]

Wow, I never even thought of that. What a horrible idea. What happens to the endings when the DLC is no longer available? Also, doesn't Blockbuster and any other game rental store have to pay these guys more than once? I thought they have to pay yearly to be allowed to make profit off game rentals.

[royvedas]

My prophecy (and many other people's prophecies) have come true. DLC will be the end of the gaming world as we know and love it.

I want to be able to sell my games. I want my game to be "the full game" when I buy it. I want retailers to be able to compete with each other to give me better prices. I f***ing hate DLC.

[Aryn]

Eh, such a move will just lead to an increase in piracy.

Gamers who never pirate anything will find themselves searching for the code or DLC to unlock the ending for the games they purchased online and in doing so be sucked into the wonderful world of piracy. And it is a slippery slope, a good percentage of them will start pirating the games themselves. And we will all be back to where we started, only with more pissed off gamers choosing to purchase fewer games from companies who do things like this.

At any rate, this is not a good idea, I hope nobody was really serious about this.

[mike_jmg]

this is the stupidest thing i've ever heard

"We don't make money when someone rents it", give me a break, someone paid for the game already, IT'S NOT YOURS ANYMORE!!! what do you care?

Oh! I sold my ps2 to some dude, then he sold it to another person... he should give me money cause it was mine in the first place.
How stupid does that sound?

I suppose I shouldn't let my friends borrow my games cause developers aren't making profit out of it.

I hope nobody takes this crap seriously cause it is simply outrageus.

[Mr. Shizzy]

And big companies wonder what motivates people to hack their software... :rolleyes:

[Shadowblind]

Dangit, I was hoping this was referring to Fable 2. That freakin' middle card definitely needs some DLC to accompany it.

[RV2006]

I think this is going against the traditional ideals which built this perfectly functioning industry in the first place.
Innovation is good, but what this 'change' is bringing to the consumer is a great step back as far as I'm concerned.
In other industries and this one in the past, the business tailored the product to suit the customers needs over their own to stay competative, and like the banks, this recent huge uprise of greed from the fatcats up top could cripple this industry for a long time.

[Man]

Dangit, I was hoping this was referring to Fable 2. That freakin' middle card definitely needs some DLC to accompany it.

that whole f**king game needs DLC, it was the most anit-climatic game, EVER !!

if they start pulling shit like that, ill personally throw my xbox through my nearest game developer studios window.

[hodey]

Lackluster and all of the other rental chains pay more per copy to rent a game than an end-user consumer does. they bitch and moan about development costs, but it they didn't make wads of cash, there wouldn't be a gaming industry ....