DLC the loss of the gaming community

Gamers as always I salute you! We as a gaming community have a distinct togetherness and probably a common ground that we don’t share our other halves enthusiasm for reality “TV” such as Kim not so talented Kardashian being my permanent stigma in my household or as a lady gamer your other halves passion and need to swear at the ref during a football match!

That being said moving onto a subject which down right annoys me when DLC cost the same in most cases as much as the game cost in the first place. Destiny a personal favorite of mine is such a game which empathises this problem unless we are getting the similar amount of content for the DLC as much as the original game cost then this needs to fall back into balance with what is actually being sold. Destinys base game was terrible when you look back on it. I mean I wouldn’t go and buy a BMW and then buy another BMW for the same/similar price but this time without an engine?! I think you catch my drift.

Now I’m not in the slightest saying that DLC is a bad thing, I think it’s awesome especially as I can download it straight to my Xbox and start smashing out content as soon as it’s downloaded without the hassle of going to a shop and hoping they have it in stock etc. What I am saying is that it doesn’t have to be a super expensive endeavor which spanks the wrong side of my bank balance. Now around 2012 the gaming business changed forever with games such as Black ops 2, Assassin’s Creed 3 to name a couple with the emergence of the “season pass.”

A new era has been set in virtual stone, now let me explain those of you who are a little fuzzy on the whole season rip off uh um pass I mean pass situation. You basically pay for up and coming DLC pre-paid with some games touching the £110-£120 region once you get into the whole deluxe/legendary categories without actually experiencing the game itself FIRST. Now if all games had demos which you could play before you part company with such a redonkulous amount of wonga then I’d understand people (myself included) who take the risk of such an expense.

We are basically paying a huge amount of our hard-earned cash for a product we haven’t played and will be happy when/hopefully the added extra content is up to scratch and meets our expectations? A risk we all seem to take but a risk in gaming for me is bad for the health of the gaming industry. What about those who can’t afford the added content or extra gizmos promised when pre-ordering games? They miss out because they don’t want to pay an extra £50 for a season pass and a new “unique” (lol) weapon skin? Unique meaning one of a kind except in this instance 100,000 people pre-ordering the same game getting the same unique skin! Mmmm ok real special COD! Anyway, it seems unfair to segregate customers into separate packs, when did gaming start to reward the rich? How does that work? Games like the clash of clans on ios, fine if people want to spend £10,000 on a virtual village and green gems go ahead good luck to you as you have more money than sense and probably won’t be reading this rant! But once it affects mainstream games then i start to worry, call of duty seems to exploit in game purchases with the whole black market rubbish which seem to reward you with the same waffle unless you start to buy virtual coins again leading to my point that these games are starting to reward high paying gamers, who buy super prepaid packages…

“A risk we all seem to take but a risk in gaming for me is bad for the health of the gaming industry.”

How does this help hard working parents who work all hours for the happiness of the spawn or themselves to continue their legacy of taking part in our enormous gaming community or a kid getting paid £10 a week paper round having to work 11 weeks to pay for the super battlefield package? Madness I tell you madness, and slightly unfair.

For example pre-ordering Battlefield 1’s newest game, me yes I did play the early access and really enjoyed it to the point of yes, I will buy it. But their most expensive package is £109.99! Which again will heavily rely on an internet connection for online epic battles which they are, epic agreed hands up good job DICE but why are games having to beat the drum and follow the horde with everything nowadays being aimed at online play and these astronomical gaming packages, we use our own internet which we pay for, some being like for example £50 a month subscription which is £600 a year plus £40 odd for Xbox live to play a game which requires another £50 on top of the £50 to play the game online?! So we are paying to be online, online to play…online? So close to £800 all in all to play a single game, that’s just one when you start to add up all the cost it’s scary! When I was a kid £30 a game with no online play but a mega game with a real amount of content that had so much replayability. Maybe that’s me but I’m old fashioned.

I remember I used to pull my hair out when I was younger trying to figure out where to place C4 in metal gear solid haha damn that was a good game, but games nowadays feel empty and unfinished when first purchased, almost like a big beta/demo to send the feelers to the crowd and see where they F no sorry screwed up and what they can do to repair it… Charge double at the beginning to counter charge us the paying public to re-fix their mistakes and send out a complete game 6 months later with a couple of added maps? Time to wake up and see the hidden agenda people it’s an effective productive look on it when told like that, send the game out without actually having to finish it, charge double and worry about it later…    

If you read between the lines deluxe, legendary, collector packages are a very clever marketing tool. Sorry battlefield but I will have to use you as an example again, but it seems to be broken up into three categories, too cheap to buy, middle not too expensive not too cheap and then absolute ridiculous.

Are the gaming heavyweights separating the gaming community into a rich man’s hobby while offering initially 50% but charging full price? Unfortunately, it seems this way… But thanks for reading and would love to hear back from you guys in the comments to see how you guys feel about it, after all, gaming is LIFE PERIOD and I’m here to bang the drum for all the hard working people out there.

Adios