Continual DLC ‘only works with massive games’

Jason Avent, game director at Split/Second studio Black Rock believes that the majority of games will fail to profit from continual DLC.
Speaking to Develop, Black Rock Studio game director Jason Avent offered the view that “only the most successful games of each year will break out of just being finite products.”
Avent cited games such as Fallout 3, Halo and Modern Warfare as good platforms for adding numerous DLC packages onto. However, he added that this is primarily due to those games' high user-base numbers.
“Although it's difficult to get sales data on DLC, intuitively I'd say that the really massive games sell disproportionately more DLC than the merely good games,” he said.
“To put a number on it, probably games that shift 3-5 million boxes or more and ideally have a committed online gaming platform could be converted into profitable services.”

Despite the success of titles such as GTAIV, Fallout 3 and Burnout Paradise, the DLC for these games are emerging at retail as physical products.
This in itself brings the suggestion that add-ons for big-budget games may need a wider audience than digital consumers.

Elsewhere in Develop’s interview, Avent says that ‘games as a service’ is a new name for an old phenomenon.
He also states that Black Rock Studio is currently circulating ideas for Split/Second’s future DLC.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...-massive-games