DLC (Down Loadable Content). The cash cow of a generation. I’ve already posted my thoughts on DLC in previous entries (I accept it as the way of the future, but its creators should be burned as witches).
But this entry has been inspired by this post on the patch update for BFBC2:
June 7, 2010 05:33 AM CobaltYash wrote:
ea and dice we really want new weapons! most of us would pay 10$ without hesitating for a new weapons dlc. dont make the new guns better, just make them different.
new gadgets, m1garand bayonet and m1903 spring field, p90 ak47 and xm8 marksman please!
also PLEASE fix the lag!
cool an update! i love updates 😀
Hmmm, CobaltYash….? Nope, never heard of him/her. Can’t remember voting for them to be the spokesperson for the community. Don’t actually remember there being some sort of poll asking who would pay $10 without hesitation. But there we are. Maybe he/she has multi-personality disorder when they’re referring to “most of us”…..
I’m not a DLC fan. I don’t buy DLC as it’s a one way deal. If you download something and it’s utter crap you have no recourse – you can’t go to the vendor and say “Hey buddy, this puppy you sold me is actually a rat in a wig! I need a refund, or a replacement” – you just have to suck it up that you’ve bought something that you’re never going to use….. and you can’t even sell it on. “Hooray” for the vendor, “up yours” to the consumer.
But regardless of that there is one thing that I will NEVER buy – aesthetic DLC. Playstaion@Home, LBP, Assassins Creed, ModRacers, whatever – unless what I’m buying gives some sort of benefit or stats boost then I’m not interested. If those fancy pants don’t give an armour boost, are flame retardant, or make me run faster then they can stay on the hanger.
I sure as hell won’t pay $10 or £10 or even 10p for some weapon skins that do nothing. “Hey, look at me, I’ve got a P90!” Big deal…. and pointless if it is has the same stats as some other gun – just use that one and save yourself some cash.
Isn’t it about time that we got something for loyalty? When all these map packs and associated DLC come out we are made to feel like they are doing us a favour. I’m not saying that the publishers should just give stuff away willy nilly, but those people who buy every game in a series should get something for their investment in the company, not be bled dry by the drip drip drip of DLC. It would be something if the publishers were actually honest about DLC, but then I guess in the cynical world of marketing, honesty is not a quality that is highly valued.
Paying for weapon skins….. CobaltYash, shame on you!
Peas and loaves.
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Great post
Ahhh, I forgot to mention paying for backgrounds and themes. Of all the ridiculous things that people will chuck money at….
And welcome back (did you get my message on YouTube?)
There’s an EU directive, the 7 day cool off period for online purchases. If you buy *anything* online and are not happy with it you can return it and be refunded within 7 days, for any reason. That’s even better than when you buy something in a shop. You can only return goods there if it proves to be defective or missold or doesn’t do the job it was supposed to do.
I would be very surprised if the sellers of DLC have even considered this.
On the Xbox Marketplace there is a “no refund” notice but, if you’ve bought the MS points within 7 days you should be allowed return them. The unfortunate thing with MS points is you might buy something with them long after buying the actual points. Then you’re not covered.
I’d *love* to know if anyone has returned a DLC and demanded a refund within the 7 days. I’m tempted to ring up the European Consumer Center to ask their opinion.
Oh yeah, I won’t buy a cosmetic DLC either.
I hadn’t actually considered that in regard to the DLC. However, there’s probably something in the T&Cs that nullify it (or appear to). One issue with XBL is that you’re not paying with money, you’re paying with MSPoints (another marketing ploy to disassociate money with….money) – so you could probably get refunded for MSPoints, but not for products or services you buy using those MSPoints.
PSN on the other hand deals in cold, hard currency, so invoking the Distance Selling Regulations would probably be easier to do.
I think some looking into this needs to be done…
T&C can’t go against the law of the land, it’d be an illegal contract then.
Unfortunately as we’re buying a virtual service (and that’s what it is really) online, the seller could be registered outside of the EU. EA are a US company but they do have offices on this side of the pond. I might fire off a few emails tomorrow to some consumer groups here in Ireland asking about this.
I know there’s a joke to be made with the fancy pants needing to be flame retardant and “liar, liar, pants on fire”, I’m just too tired to think it through.
I had the same concerns when iTunes became prevalent. The threat of lawsuit hung over you if you “sampled” music from shareware, but they expect you to decide if you want to buy non-refundable/re-sellable content based on a preview of fifteen seconds from a random part of the song. You could burn a CD from your downloaded songs and hope to sell it to somebody before you delete the album, but that would be piracy -oooo.
Also, the way the VG DLC is being presented to us, the map packs for MW2 specifically, is like they were always intended when it seems to me that they’re just trying to recoup their losses from the time spent building maps for the next game that they are now NOT making. I could be wrong there, but that’s my impression -that they’re selling us their graveyard.
The MW2 map packs in particular are a bone of contention. Especially as Infinity Ward essentially does not exist any more. If I hadn’t started playing Battlefield then I would probably have bought the Stimulus Pack, but definitely would not shell out for the Resurgence Pack.
They included the CoD4 maps in the first map pack because they were “fan favourites”, which makes the inclusion of the other CoD4 maps in the Resurgence map pack to be “not universally liked” but recycled anyway.
Some companies (although they don’t say it outright) are releasing content that didn’t make it into the games originally at deadline, but making it seem like “added value” by offering only to first purchasers. Two games that immediately spring to mind are Assassin’s Creed II and BFBC2 who do/did this.
To me, that is much more acceptable than the likes of the MW2 map packs, and infinitely more appealing to me as a consumer than fancy pants, background images and themes (do people really buy them?).
I don’t know who does, but, like CobaltYash, they must have no sense of value.
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