It became painfully apparent recently that I’m in the minority in the modern game forum communities when it comes to DLC, or downloadable content as it’s known to non-fags. Downloadable content is honestly nothing new as it’s been a perk of PC gaming for at least a decade now. Here’s a rough idea of how this works:

1. Game comes out
2. Somebody decides said game could have used more little side quests, characters, options, etc.
3. Said side quests, characters, options, etc. are created and released at a later date in the form of a downloadable package
4. Game experience enhances with downloaded extras added on to it

Like I said, this is nothing new. In fact, Capcom more or less did the same thing on an arcade cabinet level with the Street Fighter II games. Capcom ever-so-slightly added little tweaks to SFII’s gameplay, with different and added moves, characters, stages, and even endings. Of course, if we knew then what we know now, we would have realized they spent years just selling us glorified ROM hacks and then seemed surprised when people became interested in Mortal Kombat and its sequels for offering vastly improved graphics and gameplay with each installment (albeit to a rather basic concept). Meanwhile Capcom just sort of... changed some colors and sound effects.

Even worse, Capcom released them as "new" games for the SNES and Sega Genesis in the 16-bit era for $50-$60 each. Then somebody in the PC gaming world saw that and figured out you could maintain and increase interest in a game franchise through the same idea for little to no cost to the consumer, showing not only loyalty to a fan base, but also how to increase demand for a true, revamped sequel.

So, of course, once the bigwigs got a stranglehold on the market, they figured out a little trick.

CORPORATE GAME STOOGE: ”Sir, you might be interested in this. It seems there are some developers who cater to their fans by creating additional content to their already-existing games and releasing it for free as an enhancement you can download off that newfangled “information superhighway” the kids are always talking about.”

EVIL GAME COMPANY BOSS: “Ah shit. You mean they’re spitting in our faces! Those independent fuckers, they think they’ll stay in business doing that? Shit, remember what we did with Street Fighter II? THAT’S how you make a profit. But now, those noble-hearted fools will fuck it all up! Unless... wait. Yeeeeeeees. Of course. That gives me an idea. Two can play at this game! Nothing’s for free, Chad. Remember that.”

CORPORATE GAME STOOGE: “Yes, sir.”

See, now that we’ve got consoles that are essentially just PCs, the game companies decided to do what every good corporatist would do: take what exists for free and charge money for it.

A lot of times, if you’re looking at buying a given game’s downloadable content, it’s EXACTLY the same material as a good developer would release for free years ago and up to today—only instead of being free, it’s $20. It’s like going to a grocery store and noticing how, last week, peanuts were $2 a bag with no special sale stickers, then the next week you see "SALE! SPECIAL PRICE! PEANUTS ONLY $6!"

Now, let me quickly give an argument of what some people perceive when looking at this travesty.

1. You get the "vanilla" game and that’s it.
2. You get the "vanilla" game and then we release other content later.

A lot of these "on release" things are being released on launch because the game is already in the bag. They use the downtime between finishing the game and releasing the game to make this extra content. If they tried to put the content in the game, the game would be delayed and it’d have to go through testing ALL OVER again, get rated by the ESRB again, etc. and so the game would be delayed for an extra month or two to get a last minute addition/feature.

I’d much rather pay 5 bucks for an extra 2 or 3 hours of gameplay.

None of this holds water. This is not how it’s done. When Grand Theft Auto III came out, nobody bitched about there not being enough to do in it. Anything else would be overkill, honestly. By contrast, Street Fighter II, as much of a classic as I think it is, should have been Super Street Fighter II Turbo the next time they decided to release it, and even then could have been something more different. Why on earth would you release something that you don’t consider "complete" when you think the finished game will sell better? Here’s the answer: because stupid people will buy both.

This sets a dangerous precedent. What if, when they released The Lion King in theaters, Disney decided to remove the entire musical score and only add it back in for the "special edition" video release? What if they sold the added content on a DVD as a separate disc for $20? Shit, I’d better hope one of those types of guys doesn’t read this.