Here's my Money, Now Where's the Rest of my Game?

In a recent interview Witcher 2 developer Adam Badowski told Rock, Paper, Shotgun that he didn't like to see "gamers treated like dairy cows."  What he's talking about is DLC, and to an extent, I kind of agree with him.

I'm not against DLC at all.  I think it's a great way to add something new to a game and get people back into it.  But Badowski is talking about studios that are, to keep with the cow metaphor, milking every dollar out of their fans to the point where sometimes players are having to pay around $80 to get the full game.

Not always a bad thing. For example, Fallout 3 released four new missions after the game had been on shelves for a while, allowing characters to reach higher levels, explore new areas on and above the Capital Wastelands, and giving players a reason to jump back on a game they probably already devoted way too many hours too.  But the added material was new, something developed after the release of the initial game, the genuine article.

On the other hand there's L.A.Noire.  I loved L.A. Noire, but before the game even came out it was common knowledge that some cases, for whatever reason, had been cut from initial release and would not be on any of the three disks that came with the game.  That was in May.  Not long after that I checked on Live and there were 4 new missions to do, none of which, of course, were free to download.  Now there is a "Complete" version of L.A. Noire coming out this November.  That's six months later.  See, this is where we have a problem...cutting material out of a game so you can sell it to me later is just grimy.

Don't even get me started on Marvel v. Capcom 3 vs. Ultimate Marvel v. Capcom 3.  While I didn't purchase MvC3, I would be pretty upset if I had.

But I guess what it comes down too is DLC, at least in my eyes, was supposed to be a way to add a new aspect of a game that may have already been played out otherwise.  More and more, however, it seems DLC is being used by studios as a way to drain you of your hard earned cash, holding back on giving you what should be included in the initial release in order to drain you of more of your hard earned cash later.  To me, that's a misuse of DLC.