Gota's Blogs: Can We Talk About Season Passes and Day One DLC?

[Gotakibono]

Note: I wrote this in late November but only got around to posting it now. 

 

I feel like there's been an elephant in the room of the games industry for a few years now. An elephant that has been continuously shitting in the corner whatever chance it can get, causing a raucous at every turn, and generally just pissing everyone off in its vicinity. However, despite its obvious untoward characteristics, the elephant remains. We're all acutely aware of its existence, and even mention it from time to time, but it still feels like we're being groomed to just accept its presence, the fact that it's now a part of our lives, and that it'll seemingly be in the corner shitting for the foreseeable future.

 

 

Okay, maybe this metaphor is running away from me a little bit, so I'll just cut to the point I'm trying to make: Day one DLC. It's the true elephant in the room of today's games industry, and one that I've decided not to write about until today. It's not that I haven't wanted to confront the topic - it's been something that I've contemplated talking about for a while - it's just I haven't sat down to put my thoughts together. Whenever there have been major dialogues and debates amongst gamers about this very subject, I've tended to just keep my opinions to myself.  

 

However, with increasing prices of season passes and the ever-decreasing content in AAA-titles at launch, I feel compelled to finally address that damn elephant in the room. 

 

What started as a trend has grown into a default setting for the industry; day one DLC packs and season passes are part and parcel of every major AAA release these days. Season passes are advertised as soon as the game is announced, and even though there is growing disdain surrounding the content and pricing of such passes, it appears that games companies have taken to largely ignoring the growing displeasure among their consumer base and continue to issue ever more expensive day one DLC and season passes with their releases. 

 

Some day one DLC packages are entire multiplayer maps or single-player missions, and some are something as minuscule as a new skin for a weapon. As for season passes, you're slamming down between $20-40 on promised additional content that you usually have no idea what'll actually consist of. There's no general level of quality or quantity when it comes to DLC, but with day one DLC in particular, most gamers find themselves asking one simple question: Why couldn't it simply be included with the base game? 

 

 

And really, could you blame them? 

 

It's difficult to accept that any DLC that's available on the day of a game's release couldn't have been included with the base game. It just feels wrong, and that's primarily because you've recently parted with $60 and are already being asked for more money for content that by all rights should've been contained within that $60. But what's even worse is that lately AAA-games have been released in a seemingly unfinished state, or with content ostensibly cut and sold as DLC. You're essentially paying for less with the promise of more down the line, but you'll have to pay extra for it. 

 

On the flip side of the argument, there are games that come with day one DLC but that also have more than enough content on the retail version of the game. Whenever a game is brimming with content and a sense of polish from the get-go, the inclusion of day one DLC or a season pass doesn't seem like too much of a middle finger to customers who've just spent $60; it doesn't feel like developers have excluded content that could've been put on the retail version for free just to squeeze a few more dollars out of the consumers. 

 

We're navigating through murky waters at the moment, but I do think that by bookmarking the best and worst of day one DLC and season passes we can perhaps find that middle ground that suits both consumer and developer in the long-term. And I believe that there are two contrasting day one DLC and season pass policies in recent memory that are perfect examples for a case study of sorts on this topic: The Witcher 3 and Star Wars: Battlefront. 

 

The Witcher 3's benchmark of what day one DLC (and DLC in general) should be:

If anything should become the perfect model of how a season pass and day one DLC should work, it would most certainly be The Witcher 3. Not only was the main game overflowing with polish and content upon its initial release, but the DLC and season pass seemed like a natural extension to the game; not like the lackluster or blatant money-grabbing DLC gamers have been exposed to over the past few years. 

 

 

Since The Witcher 3 came out in May, developer CD Projekt Red has released 16 pieces of free post-release downloadable content, ranging from missions to outfits to gear. Now, that isn't to say that every piece of DLC was fantastic: some of it was superb, some was less superb. But that isn't even important, as the most salient thing to bear in mind is that it was free for everyone who'd shelled out money on the game. 

 

Hearts of Stone is the only paid DLC for The Witcher 3 released thus far, and it was received incredibly well upon its released. For $12 players were treated to a wealth of new content, and an expansion that could take anywhere between 15-20 hours to complete. There's further expansions and DLC planned right into next year, and the season pass will cover you for all of it. However, The Witcher 3 has proven to be the exception in the field of DLC content, not the rule. 

 

Star Wars: Battlefront's debacle and everything day one DLC shouldn't be: 

If The Witcher 3 is the exception, then Star Wars: Battlefront is surely the polar opposite. The game was highly anticipated before its release, as its aesthetics were absolutely breathtaking and Battlefront has been a massively popular franchise for years. It's been a long wait for a Battlefront sequel, so naturally gamers were salivating at the prospect of a new entry in the series. Unfortunately, whenever players finally loaded up the game they realised that the game was truly style over substance. There is only four maps for you to play on, no single-player campaign, select few weapons for you to choose from and a glaring lack variety in the game modes. 

 

 

Moreover, the game's season pass was loaded with a ridiculous price of $50. So, if you purchase the game at release and want to experience everything the game will eventually offer , you've to stomach a bill of $110. That's a large amount of money for anyone to spend, never mind on a single game. And when the core game is lacking in so much content or substance, it becomes ever tougher to stomach; you get the feeling that the core game isn't even worth the $60 admission price, let alone a further $50 investment. 

 

Star Wars: Battlefront is the epitome of what gamers feared when day one DLC and season passes first made their way into the games industry. It's also a prime example of a product being released before it's the best, most polished version of itself it could be, with incremental improvements over time at a cost being the alternative to a highly polished, content-filled game at release.  

 

With all that said, what is my stance on day one DLC and season passes? Well, I see day one DLC much in the same vain as when I go to a restaurant and order food. Don't worry, I'll try not to let this metaphor run away from me. Anyway, say if I order steak and chips, I don't want to only receive chips and be told that the steak is available but I'll have to pay extra. I want to know that my main course will be enough to satisfy my hunger without the need to pay for something that I feel should've been innately included with my order. 

 

 

However, if I ordered steak and chips and received both as expected, and it was a delicious meal, then I would at the very least be satisfied. But, say if I were still hungry, being asked if I'd like to order an extra side dish for an extra cost would be a perfect solution. My main dish was all I expected it to be, however I still desire more. And since I have the desire for more but know my main dish was delicious in its own right, paying extra on top of my main course doesn't seem like such a push. 

 

We as gamers want to know that when we pay for a retail game that the developers have done their all to ensure that we're getting the best possible experience right out the gate. Drip-feeding us increments of improvements and new modes over the course of a season pass' lifespan is a good business model, sure, but it's not necessarily a great model to craft a fantastic video game. If a game costs $60 at its release, it should be worth $60 - not in the future, but in the present. If a $20 expansion pack is available on the same day as a game worth its price of admission, then even better. 

 

I find it impossible to ignore the fact that the time is coming when the season pass model that studios are currently developing will not be sustainable - and the tipping point is coming soon. The model doesn't suit the consumers, and it doesn't suit the developers either. Sure, they're making money on the system, but turn they're slowly chipping away at the good will of their customers, and potentially destroying their brand in the long run. The moment is coming when some studios will have to own up to their games being a work in progress upon release, and in turn reduce the price of their retail games to mirror that. In the months following their game's release, they can make their money in the form of season passes and DLC.

 

Not every developer will follow The Witcher 3's lead in terms of DLC content, and it is difficult to even expect them to. However, if Star Wars: Battlefront's DLC model is to become the default setting in terms of video game content at launch, then surely there has to be a point in which we gamers have to fully address the elephant and ask it: Is this what we want for the future of the industry? Are we going to accept full-priced games with half the content? Are we really okay with season passes that have a price tag on par with the games themselves? And are we getting slowly screwed out of having fully realised games from the onset as developers hold back content, only to charge for it later? 

 

 

The elephant in the room is growing, and sooner rather than later it's going to be impossible for gamers and developers to ignore much further. When it boils down to it, people will vote with their wallet. And with less content for an ever-increasing higher price becoming the trend, it's only  a matter of time before an impasse within the games industry occurs. 

[Happy]

Looking at the whole story from a publishers perspective, to them not having Day One DLC is just leaving money on the table. As for DLC in general, i'll go with the classic "good when done well" response. Season Passes are nothing but preordering DLC and preorder culture is one of the biggest problems with the industry right now.

[StrickenBiged]

Interesting points. I think there are a few points to be made:

 

1. Around launch is the best time for publishers to sell DLC. Interest in most games that aren't CoD, Fifa or Minecraft drops off significantly a few weeks after release. Pubs can make the most sales if they launch DLC shortly after release, which is why they do so these days and have planned DLC development into the pre-launch part of the development cycle.
2. To an extent, you're preaching to the choir. Those of us gamers that visit and engage in forums are the "hardcore". We're the ones who are interested in the industry trends, and argue about which publisher has been the shittiest this week. The reason we are continually ignored (and will continue to be ignored for the forseeable future by the big third party publishers) is that we are also the vast minority. The market is vast compared to us. Joe Blogs who just wants to shoot things on the weekend will pay anyway. Moms and Dads who don't know any better are targeted in the game stores (I've seen it) with phrases like "You'll need the season pass", and they buy it for their kids because they don't know any better. (The same cashier will take one look at me, younger-guy, no kids in tow, no empty display box in hand, and know that I've come in for something specific and will tell them what I want.) It's the "less-hardcore" market who are being gouged by pre-orders, season passes and day 1 DLC. 
3. Even though us "hardcore" bitch about it, we still do the things we know we're not supposed to. Anecdotally, I still pre-order (because I can save £ with Amazon's pre-order guarantee, and I do cancel if a game starts to look shit in previews), so I'll hold my hand up to that one. I have refrained from buying Season Passes until all the content has been released and reviewed in the last few years though. If you asked the other "hardcore" what they actually do, I'd bet that a significant proportion still pre-order, buy the season pass, and buy the DLC despite our better judgment.

[madbuk]

Looking at the whole story from a publishers perspective, to them not having Day One DLC is just leaving money on the table. As for DLC in general, i'll go with the classic "good when done well" response. Season Passes are nothing but preordering DLC and preorder culture is one of the biggest problems with the industry right now.

Unless your company name happens to be Naughty Dog (fuck their DLC policies), season passes usually stay around after DLC has been released, so it's not just pre-orders. I've often bought games late, and being able to get all the DLC at a discounted price is nice.

[Hemiak]

As always, a great read. I don't pre-order games anymore, and have never shelled out for a season pass before I know I love the game. I see people complain about this stuff all the time, but then they go and purchase it anyway. What do you expect companies to think?  

[DaivRules]

As the number of gamers increase, the percentage of them who are either new or have disposable income grows. In an industry as cut-throat as game developing, it's known that not making back investment money means no new work. For some developers, they take the "right" stance and make sure their product is awesome and polished so they're proud and people reward them by giving high praise, spurring further sales. These developers know that they can build a fanbase that will follow them to their next project. They also know putting out crap would have wiped out studios 15-20 years ago. 

 

The other route taken is to grab as much cash as quickly as possible at the beginning, mainly by releasing as much purchasable content as possible as soon as a game is released. The growing number of gamers make this second group able to rinse and repeat this process in perpetuity.

 

It's never been more important to be an informed consumer/gamer and to support companies that put out good product and not give money to crappy companies that are just grabbing cash. 

[Beyondthegrave07]

Completely agree 100% Gota.

The only exception I have are episodic games. Many of them have the first episode for free or at least a demo so you know what you are paying for.

But that B.S. with Battlefront was absolutely disgraceful. It should be a crime to charge $50 for DLC pass esp. when the base game wasn't even worth the original price of $60.

[Lonemankane]

well I can say one think the biggest problem in gaming is not just day one dlc but games are being half made and then sent out for us to be the play testers for them and it takes the piss

[Happy]

Unless your company name happens to be Naughty Dog (fuck their DLC policies), season passes usually stay around after DLC has been released, so it's not just pre-orders. I've often bought games late, and being able to get all the DLC at a discounted price is nice.

 

I'm ok with season passes sticking around. Giving people who want to buy all the DLC a cheaper option to do so is only fair. This way you're not forced to pay before the DLC is actually out if you want the refund.

[Daniel_Shadow170]

Day one dlc is always bs look at mortal kombat press X for goro is the first thing i seen when i put the game in. Season passes are ok if done right witcher 3 nailed it while battlefront did not it all just comes down to the devs and publisher ether way you have the casual market who will gladly eat it up.At the end of the day all you can do is laugh at the person who bought horse-armor.

[Bullstomp]

Fantastic read, I was thoroughly immersed from the first sentence. And yes, EAs handling of Battlefront (or Battlefield: Star Wars as I like to call it) is a travesty. Personally, I refuse to buy into the season pass crap, look how Destiny players got fisted. You could have bought the game and season pass last year for $94.95 or waited a year and paid $60 for all that and The Taken King.

My philosophy is let time bring the price down and concentrate on backlog in the meantime.

[DaivRules]

 look how Destiny players got fisted. You could have bought the game and season pass last year for $94.95 or waited a year and paid $60 for all that and The Taken King.

My philosophy is let time bring the price down and concentrate on backlog in the meantime.

 

Practically all Day 1 players of most games get fisted. If you wait a year after release, the price tends to go from $49.99/59.99 to $29.99/39.99. Those people are paying more for the experience of playing the game first. I don't get it either, but it's the way it's been for video games for as long as I remember and I bought my first video games in the mid 80's.

[Zenpai]

Hit the nail right in the head, Gota.

 

I've actually been thinking about DLC and season passes a lot lately due to currently being on a 6th generation frenzy. I look at all those great games with tons of content and in-game unlockables and I can't help but long for those simpler times, when you just bought a game and that was it. Period. No content withheld for whatever reason, it's all in the disc from the get-go.

 

But now, I look at the newer games and at least half of them are filled with DLC. For example, I got into the (fantastic) Persona games lately, and bought almost every game in the franchise that's come out since FES, but when I take a look at Arena Ultimax and Dancing All Night, with their insane amounts of DLC... my face loses its color a little bit. Ultimax has 33 different DLC packs and and all of Dancing All Night's DLC packs will send you back 33€. Even Persona Q on the 3DS has some Personas that you can only get by shelling out extra. Would something like this have ever happened back in the 6th generation? Hell, no. Every thing was on the disc from the start, just waiting for you to unlock it. And that's how it should have always been.

 

And day one DLC? No. Just no. I know that DLC sales drop significantly after the game's initial launch period, but still. If you have time to release something with the base game at launch, then you might as well put it in the base game. I know there's certification and all of that, but companies must always have a certain amount of goodwill, and realize that day one DLC is just a blatant insult to the consumer.

 

I know that many of the DLC in the Persona games (and many others) are optional and you don't need to buy it if you don't want to, but... it goes back to your steak and chips metaphor. When I buy a complete game, I expect to get a complete game, not being constantly reminded that there is content being withheld from me. You want to make expansion pack-type DLC a few months after the game launched? I'm all for it. Just don't take stuff from the base game, charge us for it and call it "extra".

 

The policies of many gaming companies have gotten so much worse lately that it's making me wonder if I'll ever get fed up and just stick to older games (probably not, but I'm getting really disappointed). I'll be the first to admit that I get a lot of DLC because I hate missing out on stuff (and hence why I hate DLC so much), but I'll very likely eventually get fed up with all this and do what I should already be doing and just not get any DLC at all.

 

DLC is one of the major reasons I believe Internet connection capabilities were one of the worst things to have happened to console gaming. I know a lot of you will disagree, but personally, as an exclusively single-player gamer, I wouldn't miss online gaming at all and we wouldn't have all these exploitative DLC practices without it. Whenever I play 6th generation games, I don't require an Internet connection at all - the game works just fine without it and it's just as good. Sure, maybe I'd miss patching and firmware updates, but back then, at least developers put a lot more effort on proper quality control to ensure as few bugs as possible. Now, some games are so buggy they're just fundamentally unplayable at launch because developers know they can just patch the game afterwards.

 

All of these reasons are why the 6th generation is still my all-time favorite. No shitty practices, just great gaming.

[Not_like_therest]

I pre-order some games and very rarely do I buy season passes. Most of this is because of ps plus sales for them because for some reason- dlc NEVER goes on sale for NA, but EU gets screwed on core games...wtf. Dlc should never cost 9.99 or more (or less) several years after release. Black ops 2 maps, even Cod 4 maps still cost as much now as they did then. Fuck that nonsense, I won't buy- I'll quit playing that game and look at every other game released through extreme prejudice! The price should drop on that just as it does with the core game. Also the season pass sales for those, makes their excuse for not releasing the AAA titles plus members used to get in favor of indies for "expanding horizons". Not every indie is worth expanding your horizons for, its a smoke screen. 

 

Last season pass I bought was Lego Batman 3 for like 8 bucks and the full game separately when it was on sale and saved like 5-8 bucks over buying the all in one game that was also on sale. Still sitting on my ps4 because I haven't gotten around to it but I know theres a ton of content waiting for me when I do. 

 

I feel like the next step to screwing their customers will be with-holding the major single player content until the "season pass" runs out. It doesn't "have to" include everything because that wouldn't make them as much money. This- Destiny, Battlefront, Mortal Kombat X....its a prelude. 

[Gotakibono]

As always, a great read. I don't pre-order games anymore, and have never shelled out for a season pass before I know I love the game. I see people complain about this stuff all the time, but then they go and purchase it anyway. What do you expect companies to think?  

 

 

I haven't pre-ordered a game since GTA: San Andreas' original release all the way back in 2004. As for season passes, I only buy them whenever they're on sale nowadays; been burnt way too many times purchasing them at ful price only for them to be on sale a week later.

[Raxnar100]

Great read as always. Good responses too.

I've never bought into the whole Dlc thing. It cocked up my new profile 100% plan on game one! Sorry but Assassins Creed Syndicate didn't inspire me to shell out more cash for more content.

Not sure why anyone would pay for day one season passes. Either you dont know what it will contain and are basically gambling with high hopes or you do know what it will contain and as most of you say, wonder why it wasn't part of the game to start with.

[ViperLance34]

I agree, the DLC thing is getting way out of hand. I don't want to be spending a lot of cosh to get the full experience from a game. Usually I buy my games used and buy the season passes when they're discounted. I only buy games day-one from developers I actually want to support. I know I'm not solving the problem this way, i'm just going around it. The business model seams to be profitable since we see more and more of it so that means a lot of players actually don't mind paying extra for stuff that should've been in the game in the first place.around it.

 

They say we should vote with our wallets but many don't seam to vote for the right cause.

[Pumpkin Head Cthulhu]

this is part of the reason i usually wait a year for a Complete edition of a game. Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age Inquisition & Origins, Resident Evil 5 have all been released in completed editions the drawback is you have to wait 1 year for that release. However a lot of games do not get that, i pretty much stopped pre-ordering unless i KNOW the game will be complete on Day 1.

 

Day 1 "dlc" and pre-order bonuses are almost always cut content to get people to spend more money and yes company's will not listen to "hardcore" gamers as we are the minority.

 

While just one person not buying is not a huge difference, I speak with my wallet and do not buy these "season passes" or day 1 content.

[ragnarok2887]

Great post and interesting topic, however I do think you are wrong on this one bit...

 

 

I find it impossible to ignore the fact that the time is coming when the season pass model that studios are currently developing will not be sustainable - and the tipping point is coming soon. The model doesn't suit the consumers, and it doesn't suit the developers either. Sure, they're making money on the system, but turn they're slowly chipping away at the good will of their customers, and potentially destroying their brand in the long run. The moment is coming when some studios will have to own up to their games being a work in progress upon release, and in turn reduce the price of their retail games to mirror that. In the months following their game's release, they can make their money in the form of season passes and DLC.

 

Not every developer will follow The Witcher 3's lead in terms of DLC content, and it is difficult to even expect them to. However, if Star Wars: Battlefront's DLC model is to become the default setting in terms of video game content at launch, then surely there has to be a point in which we gamers have to fully address the elephant and ask it: Is this what we want for the future of the industry? Are we going to accept full-priced games with half the content? Are we really okay with season passes that have a price tag on par with the games themselves? And are we getting slowly screwed out of having fully realised games from the onset as developers hold back content, only to charge for it later? 

 

The only reason why more and more games/publishers are going with the season pass model is because it works!  Yes, whilst many of us moan about it and say it is ruining the gaming industry (which I would agree with), season passes are making HUGE amounts of money.  Public opinion may suggest that season passes are unpopular but the numbers speak for themselves.  More and more people each year are pre-ordering games based on pure hype and buying season passes before even playing the base game itself.  We are far from this being an unsustainable model, season passes (unfortunately) work. $£$£$£$£

 

The only way to truly change the gaming landscape would be for the vast majority of gamers to not buy the season passes or pre-order games before they are released.  That isn't going to happen though.  I wish it would, but it isn't.  It's infuriating, annoying and just shows that gamers "on the whole" are just like spoilt kids in a sweet shop - they want everything and they want it now.  Publishers/marketers know this very well and are just exploiting that.  If you don't want to be exploited yourself, just wait and buy the FULL game a few months after release for half the price and all content included. 

 

...nothing will change though.  If anything I think this will get a LOT worse.

[DrBloodmoney]

So dont buy them if you don't want to, no one is forcing you to - but the market has spoken, and the market accepts them. Hence, they continue.

[Paige-ID]

Day 1 DLC is often also content that a different team is making the moment the game goes into beta. That way it's too late to be adding things to restart the progress, but at least the game can go out for certification to Sony or Microsoft. From a business perspective it makes sense that a different team is working on DLC while the main team is doing their best to iron out the main game and get it to the public. Of course, it's also a great way to make money, but I simply can't blame a business for doing that. The gripe with it already being on the disc is grasping for straws, because either you download it on day 1, or you already have it downloaded. It literally makes no difference to you at all apart from saving some bandwidth. The data being there didn't have to be specially tested for certification, but at least they could've added it already to speed up the process later.

 

A lot of people also say that back in the day, there was no DLC and games were complete/without glitches. This is a myth fueled by hardcore gamer's dissatisfaction with the industry. If they had the opportunity to release DLC back in the day they would've. Games back in the NES/SNES/PSX days also had TONS of glitches. There was just no way to fix them. Final Fantasy 3 had a game breaking glitch that involved one of the main characters (Relm) "sketching" certain enemies at certain times, causing the entire save file to go corrupt making you start the entire game over. We like to think there's companies out there who "understand" us, who are there for us gamers, but there are none. They're there to make money. They will not do things just to make us happy at their expense. It would be financial suicide.

 

One of the first instances of an incomplete game being released with "DLC" later on, in my recollection, was Sonic 3. The game was incomplete at launch, but later on you could also buy "Sonic & Knuckles", which attached to Sonic 3 unlocked the full game. This is mainly why people now simply say Sonic 3 & Knuckles when referring to it. It wasn't downloadable, obviously, but the same principle. (it did end up being the best 2D Sonic game ever made, imo, but still).

 

I hate DLC as a completionist, especially multiplayer DLC, but if I didn't care about trophies at all I'd welcome DLC with open arms, especially considering how optional it is. I only wish my old games had DLC back when I was a kid. Extra characters in Tekken 3, more items/materia in FF7, extra stages in Turtles 4, anything.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Paige-ID