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

 

[boodaliboo]

thanks ubisoft hopefully other companys follow

 

[netovsk]

Cant say I'm all against DLC

This business model allows sometimes for a cheaper base game, in an attempt to lure players into purchasing additional content, or allowing better games to be thrown in into deals with Microsoft and Sony for GWG and PS+.

It's a pretty good phenomenom for those who are not interested in content outside core experiences but want cheaper games at some point and even for those who are, allows later after release for fully packed editions or stuff like borderlands handsome jack collection, which is sold for 20 usd but has 200 usd of content.

 

[Patxinco]

I'm not buying a launch game of this industry that's not coming from nintendo since a long time, always waiting for GOTY edition, seriously, it's like the companies want to let us dry...

Spoiler

^This everytime, lol

 

[foob]

Loyal early-adopters always get screwed while the laggards pick up a heavily-discounted game with DLC included. The life of a cheap laggard: that's the life for me.

 

[Raylight]

Too bad it ain't Capcom saying this.

one step at a time friend. Capcom has been doing good im sure they will do this eventualy

 

[hbound713]

it's about time something like this happens
there has been way too many cases of greedy developers cutting out content of games only to release them as DLC shortly after release
having said that i don't really care if a developer chooses to create and release DLC for $$$ after the games release
and for cosmetic items it's not really that big of a deal although i do believe that people should be able to unlock the cosmetics for free by grinding or whatever

 

[flame1234]

Any DLC is bad DLC, but if you have to do it, this is the way to go.
I can't really come up with any arguments against cosmetic DLC, so maybe it's not so bad.
Content DLC encourages "carving up" and is a revenue-raising strategy...to raise the price of the game so it's bad.
DLC that enables cheating, such as money or exp, encourages poor game balancing and/or an uneven play field, so it's bad.

 

[buckfush]

As long as they can stand to this... Why not? But Ubisoft promises so much things that they, at the end, can't handle due to industry-standard.