DDLC: 02 Adding Value in DLC

There was a time when you knew the value of what you paid for. There was an unspoken agreement between developers and gamers on the value of IPs sold in stores and later online. A $50 dollar game in the past gave you a solid game. If a game was $30, it was a portable title with less graphics but still a solid beginning, middle and end. When the price for titles increased we collectively sighed but understood that with enhanced graphics comes more dev money. Did that change the end result? No.

The introduction of DLC to the always connected stream of consoles was, at first, a welcomed change to prolong the shelf life of expiring titles. For Halo and CoD, these DLCs came in the form of multiplayer maps and new skins. Over time DLC would expand to include new side missions, epilogue quests and even stories of other characters altogether. But there was always a balance of price to the hours of additional game play. $5 would offer content in clothes and weapons, $10 would add 1-2 hours of addition story or 3 maps, $20 would have you playing a story mission for 3-6 hours.

A few in on the development side have given more than what we’ve expected. Rockstar North have wowed us in the past with their DLCs for GTA 4 entitled ‘The Lost and the Damned’ and ‘Ballad of Gay Tony.’ These interconnecting plots added 20+ hours of game play for just $20. It’s resent GTA5 has opted out of charging for DLC by giving it away for free. And ‘The Witcher 3: the Wild Hunt’, the open-world RPG slated for next year, is asking for… nothing in return for the 16 piece DLC.

CD Projekt Red’s CEO Marcin Iwinski has always taken a stance in free DLC. As he states,

“As gamers, we nowadays have to hold on tight to our wallets, as surprisingly right after release, lots of tiny pieces of tempting content materialize with a steep price tag attached. Haven’t we just paid a lot of cash for a brand new game?

There’s a reason why I love CD Projekt Red.

So Bungie, when did YOU think it was fine to charge $20 for ‘the Dark Below’ DLC. On what many would say should be a $10 DLC (3 Story missions totaling 20mins each, 1 30min Strike mission and a Raid)?