No. Bioshock Infinite was an award winning game. But I never bought DLC for it because I was done on release and had no interest in replaying it. Dues Ex HR was an award winning game. But I never really felt like I wanted to replay it, so I never bought any DLC for it.
The DLC could be great. The game could be great. But if I'm done with the game and don't want to replay it, then the DLC is quality is meaningless, as is the quality of the game.
I really liked Skyrim, but I never bought a DLC for it because I didn't care for more "Skyrim" content by the time it came out. Would I have goten it at Day 1? Maybe - it would have been a tempting offer, and I would have asked myself whether the DLC content would be more fun than other base-game content.
I guess my difference is that I place VERY HIGH value on replay value. Perhaps more emphasis on that than anything else, even story and gameplay in many cases.
To me, having a great base game means I'll want to got though three or four more playthroughs as soon as I get done with my first. Bioshock Infinite and DE:HR are exceptionally linear and lack replay value to me. Skyrim has a ton of content, but has a minimal amount of divergence based on choices or character build.
DA:O, on the other hand, had very different intros based on your Origins, as well as multiple choices that resulted in different outcomes in the main quests, and endings that have lots of variability based on decisions and how smaller decisions, like companion approval or side quests, paint a very intriguing picture.
That level of difference that can be seen and felt from one playthrough to the next is what I mean when talking about a good RPG.
But do these things exist? Is this grumbling actually going to translate into losses on the base game? Will people refuse to purcahse a game in substantial numbers if it has Day 1 DLC they will never purchase? We don't have the empirical market data to actually put a price on something as amorphous as "consumer dissent".
I'd say it is completely impossible to truly track the amount of sales lost. It would require EA knowing who to ask "why didn't you buy this game" and successfully identifying someone who would have bought, say, DA:I but didn't because of ME3's D1DLC. That would be an exceptionally difficult task... but it would only take less than half a million more new sales copies to fall into this category for it to completely eclipse that of D1DLC revenue. Even less than that still saves money in battling brand value loss. And let's not forget that even if it doesn't translate to half a million for DA:I, it certainly could reach that total between DA:I and MENext (where the failure of ME3 are certain to take a toll more heavily).
Point being - it would be incredibly hard to track this loss of brand value. But that doesn't mean it can or should be ignored. Brand value is one of the most powerful and valuable intangible assets a company can have. And gaining it back after losing it is one of the hardest tasks a company can do.
People talk a lot about being willing to pay more than $60 for a game they really love, which has the features they want vs. the market popular MP FPS, and Day 1 DLC is exactly that: a way to pay more for a product to stay the same.
My problem with this is twofold.
One, as I discussed earlier, a higher sticker price would result in a higher bad being set for the entire game. An extra $10 for more content would not be the case with a $70 game... it would be expected that the game as a whole to be raised. Yes, this is unfair and possibly even a little counter-effective, but it is the industry's fault for not steadily increasing costs while their costs increased. Now a (much) higher price tag is needed but the market will resist not only big jumps in price, but ANY jumps in price, because the price has been kept the same for so long.
But my second, real problem is not just that D1DLC (or even microtransactions) becomes the norm, but that D1DLC
S become the norm.
One companion being released on Day 1 is controversial. Yet what if there were two? Kasumi and Zaeed appeared to both have at least had some work done during the base game development of ME2, so what if they both had been released and sold separately on Day 1? What if there were three? Or if Omega, From Ashes and Leviathan were all put out on ME3's Day One?
Point being - the industry escalates everything. Back when DLC was first introduced, "doomsday" sayers were called crazy for saying "today, it is just a weapo pack or costume change... yet how long before them start selling story content? How long before they cut parts of the main game out and selling the unlock codes as separate?" Those people were called crazy just five years ago, yet the industry is doing these things right now. How long before a fifth of the game has to be bought separately on Day One? A fourth? A third?
The only obstacles for developers to do this is complaints. Otherwise, developers like Capcom have shown they have no qualms in doing this as much as possible to increase their revenues. So why would the practice not progress to the next logical steps for companies to make more than what is offered today?
Yet... free D1DLC? That will never be profitable to include more than one. Even if you could create two or three sets of this content, it wouldn't benefit you to have it all ready on Day 1, since it would just be more to give away if that was the industry norm.
Having free D1DLC be the expected practice puts a limit and cap on the practice from becoming anything more than a driver to more New sales, where developers take it on the chin the worst with losses to Used and pirated copies. Opening D1DLC to a revenue stream where the only limits are how obligated a player feels to buy it to make them feel they are getting the "complete" experience as well as how many pieces of DLC you can have ready to sell on the first day opens the floodgates for lots of nasty, dangerous situations.
Also... if costs for producing the DLC are LESS than 50%, then developers should be charging less, pure and simple. If it costs them under $5 to generate the DLC, then it shouldn't be more then $7.50. Charging $10 because it is a round number when it results in the price tag being over a 25% higher is an incorrigible practice for a product that never goes on sale.
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