One of the biggest complaints about the gaming scene I see most of all is all this "DLC" stuff publishers keep pushing to customers. Gamers nowadays are making claims that games are "half finished" and in order to experience everything the game has to offer you need to purchase more and more content from those evil publishers. Now, Ubisoft of all people, have heard those complaints and are deciding to do something about it. Anne Blondel-Jouin, the Vice President of "live operations", has announced that from now on, Ubisoft games will feature support for up to 5-10 years, and to keep players engaged they're going to be "very careful with monetization", removing compulsory DLC from their future games.

"Monetisation is something we have to be very careful about, and my team is in charge of that and making sure we find a right balance," Blondel-Jouin says.

"The key is if it's not adding something on-top of the actual experience of the game, then it is no good. Because you'll be asking for more money for the wrong reasons. Also, if the content is compulsory for the gamers, it's no good as well. It is a way to deliver more fun to gamers, but they have a choice to go for that extra fun or not. If I take an analogy of an amusement park, you can go through all the rides, but then you can also go to the shop to buy some food or merchandise or whatever... regardless of whether you spend in the shop, you're still part of the whole experience. Nobody is making you buy if you don't want to, but it is another way to have a different entertainment experience. If you're with your kids, and there's a toy you want to get, we will make sure it is an extra experience. It won't be the case if you don't buy it then you can't do anything else.

"It wouldn't work if it was about making it compulsory for gamers. No more DLC that you have to buy if you want to have the full experience. You have the game, and if you want to expand it - depending on how you want to experience the game - you're free to buy it, or not."

So what does this mean, exactly? Rainbow Six Siege already uses this practice for it's content; maps and additional things like game modes are given out to players in free updates, whereas things like character customization and new characters themselves are optional DLC. All optional DLC in the game is cosmetic and changes nothing gameplay wise, as Blondel-Jouin put it "everyone gets the same full experience".

In my opinion, this is the perfect way to monetize your content while keeping players happy. While some people may agree, any DLC is bad DLC, things like character customization and simple visual additions that have no impact on gameplay are much preferred over "pay-to-win" and "exclusive maps" that games like Call of Duty boast. I, for one, hope to see publishers adopt this same policy when it comes to DLC.

Source

 

[DKB]

Too bad it ain't Capcom saying this.

 

[Chary]

Not my precious horse armor!

This seems like a step in the right direction for Ubisoft, I'm glad to hear it.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Not my precious horse armor!

This seems like a step in the right direction for Ubisoft, I'm glad to hear it.

Don't worry, your horse armor will still cost money, it just won't do anything but make it pretty ;O;

 

[Joe88]

This is the same company that decided to cut parts from in the middle of ac2 to resell as dlc...

 

[huma_dawii]

OMG that's awesome! I wish all DLC was exterminated.. but if it's free.. I think I'm ok as long as it's not a big missing part of the whole game..

 

[migles]

OMG that's awesome! I wish all DLC was exterminated.. but if it's free.. I think I'm ok as long as it's not a big missing part of the whole game..

I actually like Dlc, PLANNED AFTER THE GAME
What I mean is, after a game is finished in like 6 months later they decide to make it better, sure..
But while making the game and think what they skip to sell as dlc no...
I remember Sims.. We got the finished game and they come up with expansions, added stuff not originally planned.. It was cool, but then Sims 2 and 3 happened with bullshit..

 

[Heran Bago]

Rainbow Six Siege already uses this practice for it's content; maps and additional things like game modes are given out to players in free updates, whereas things like character customization and new characters themselves are optional DLC. All optional DLC in the game is cosmetic and changes nothing gameplay wise, as Blondel-Jouin put it "everyone gets the same full experience".​

Bolding mine. The new characters have new abilities and straight up change the gameplay.

This is a clear contradiction in your post.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Bolding mine. The new characters have new abilities and straight up change the gameplay.

This is a clear contradiction in your post.

All characters can be unlocked for free in-game, giving everyone the same experience. Purchasing them with actual money is optional...like buying character customizations.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I imagine that like most things, this is motivated by money.

While this is good news for consumers, the motive was most likely that Ubisoft noticed that people would not buy a game that was required to be bought in installments with no clearly defined end.

I skipped buying StarCraft 2 for this exact reason, it felt wrong to me that the game would be broke up into 3 parts and sold for 60 dollars a pop, so I voted with my wallet.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I miss the good old days when we had to earn our right to use special stuff and unlockables instead of paying for them. Wanna play with shin akuma in street fighter alpha 3? Better beat world tour mode on level 32. Wanna unlock all characters, colors, and stages in marvel vs capcom 2? Better play the game, earn those points and buy them in secret factory, want the strongest weapon in the game for your Main rpg character? Better finish that side quest.

You know, i always felt like dlc should have just been the alternative to unlocking content. Find the requirements of beating survival mode in a fighting game too hard to unlock something, then you can just buy it with real money. I never liked the idea of DLC in general as the industry has displayed, i appreciate adding additional content simply to support the game and people still playing it for so long or sales doing well in market, but constructing content that should just be part of the game to begin with (remember street fighter x tekken power gems fiasco?) Or cutting some crucial part of a story and adding it to dlc (Bioshock, ashura's wrath) I don't like it. Is fine if you want a bunch of dlc costumes for the characters (DEAD OR ALIVE 5) but PLEASE just don't make stuff like additional characters part of dlc, I wouldn't mind having a update to just have a goal to complete to unlock them, it adds more to do for casual players than just be like "$8 for the new character" When you could have just add condition to unlock them if you prefer to play that way.

The worst part is games have a nasty habbit of trying to sell more dlc than the game cost itself. Daad or alive 5 last round is not a expensive game and is simply a updated version of a 4 year old game from 2012, and the dlc if counted total is more than the game itself, 3 season passes for $96 each? is 3 times the game cost! Is just costumes that comes out every month like a sweatshop shoe factory. And only 2 additional characters since feburary.

I don't really care for costumes as much as some others do, but i do admit i like them, they are nice to have in any game, change up the look of things, but is reasons like this having so many dlc simply be costumes and asthethic changes is probably why console hacking and mods were invented or why people play on pc with it being easier to change to player liking. Some games had the color pallet editor where you could change the colors of characters, not bad but when ALL of the dlc for one game that is more expensive especially over $400 and is not some limited edition deluxe director cut edition purchase with some over the top one time print purchase, is just disappointing. They should just make a new game by now.

 

[osaka35]

All characters can be unlocked for free in-game, giving everyone the same experience. Purchasing them with actual money is optional...like buying character customizations.

So it would be the same as paying money to unlock all smash characters right away, as opposed to playing the game and unlocking them yourselves, yes? I see zero problem with that.

 

[Heran Bago]

All characters can be unlocked for free in-game, giving everyone the same experience. Purchasing them with actual money is optional...like buying character customizations.

It takes a ludicrous amount of gold/renown to do this but it is technically possible, I'll give you that.

 

[HaloEliteLegend]

I feel optimistic. I think they're trying to change a lot of deep-seated bad practices, but it seems they do something else stupid for everything they fix.

 

[Arras]

I actually like Dlc, PLANNED AFTER THE GAME
What I mean is, after a game is finished in like 6 months later they decide to make it better, sure..
But while making the game and think what they skip to sell as dlc no...
I remember Sims.. We got the finished game and they come up with expansions, added stuff not originally planned.. It was cool, but then Sims 2 and 3 happened with bullshit..

I don't disagree, but there is one thing. Let's say you're making a game, and while you're deciding what features the game will or will not have, you come up with something that would be nice to have. Now, you don't just come up with one of these, you come up with a LOT of these. You can't include all of them - there's too much, it would take too long, be too expensive, so you need to ditch some of them. Now after you finish making the main game and release it, you look back at these old ditched ideas and turn one/some of them into DLC. It may look like these are things that have been skipped or "cut out", but it was never going to be included in the first place. Is that okay?

 

[xBleedingSoulx]

The way I see it, DLC isn't always a bad thing. If they want to add a big content update after the initial release and it wasn't something they had always planned for the game, then it's fine to release as paid DLC. If it's something they planned all along to have in the game but held off to release it as paid DLC, then it's ridiculous and should have been in the game to begin with.

 

[Armadillo]

Now after you finish making the main game and release it, you look back at these old ditched ideas and turn one/some of them into DLC. It may look like these are things that have been skipped or "cut out", but it was never going to be included in the first place. Is that okay?

It should be ok, but in todays world, it's not. DLC is poison due to publisher greed. Something like would be ok, if DLC hadn't been abused, & had been used more like old pc expansion packs. Publishers got greedy and abused it with stuff like horse armour and removing stuff to sell as DLC, so there is no trust anymore. So while something like that should be ok, it's not as there is no trust, so people will just think it was held back.

 

[darklordrs]

DLC is alright when executed properly (look at things like Smash in terms of money-only characters, or SF in terms of ones not so permanently money-locked), I can say that much. It's kind of disappointing when people decry any DLC that makes someone's life easier for money, though - apparently someone paying to unlock a character that would otherwise take hours of work is a direct punch in the face to the people who didn't. TIL.

Seriously though, things like that are kind of silly to me. If selling an unlock that would otherwise be difficult will make a company more money, get more people to play how they want or remain playing how they want, and deficit basically nothing else otherwise, then they should do it. Selling an unlock for something made entirely after the development of the game is similarly okay; it's only stuff made during the initial development solely to sell later that ends up being a problem.

 

[Deleted User]

[[sniffles, wipes tear from eye]]
'Proud of you, Ubisoft... 'Proud of you...
[[claps]]

 

[Arras]

DLC is alright when executed properly (look at things like Smash in terms of money-only characters, or SF in terms of ones not so permanently money-locked), I can say that much. It's kind of disappointing when people decry any DLC that makes someone's life easier for money, though - apparently someone paying to unlock a character that would otherwise take hours of work is a direct punch in the face to the people who didn't. TIL.

Seriously though, things like that are kind of silly to me. If selling an unlock that would otherwise be difficult will make a company more money, get more people to play how they want or remain playing how they want, and deficit basically nothing else otherwise, then they should do it. Selling an unlock for something made entirely after the development of the game is similarly okay; it's only stuff made during the initial development solely to sell later that ends up being a problem.

I think the main problem with paying money to instantly unlock things is that it leads people to think that unlocking the content the "normal way" was intentionally made boring/grindy/slow to encourage purchasing the DLC, similar to how many pay2win games operate - they just annoy you with bad RNG, slow leveling, long wait times etc until people cave in and start shoving money at it. Of course, not all "pay to unlock" games are like this, but it's easy to think that.