Well, here's everything Gaider had to say about DLC on Tumblr:
Thank you for making such a fun game! I was wondering - did you guys make DA:I with DLC ideas already in mind? Or does work on that kind of thing only start now?
We have plans for what comes next — we always have plans — though usually, once we reach that point, things have changed sufficiently that we need to adjust course. The Big Picture generally stays the same, but the details change a lot…the overall story of Inquisition doesn’t much resemble how it first started out, for instance, even though the major beats of it (and how they lead into the future) stayed consistent.
What do you think about the mentality of people who complain that DLC X or Y "should have been in the game, how dare they charge us for this". Or people who think that its "unethical" that DLC is developed BEFORE the game was finished, henceforth it should have been part of the main game and not sold as DLC.
I get asked this question every now and then, and I’ve written something pretty comprehensive about it RIGHT HERE back in January if you want something more in-depth. It’s a pretty decent read, if I do say so myself. If you have some time to read it, I’d suggest doing so.
The bullet point summary is this:
- Developers are professionals who deserve to be paid for their work. We are also humans with a mighty need to eat, take care of families, pay bills, etc.
- Games have a budget, and we developers always strive to give you the best game we can for the budget we have allotted. We wouldn’t crunch 60+ hours a week at the office for months to ship a game otherwise.
- Anything that would push the game over budget gets cut. All content has to be paid for somehow.
- All DLC, even Day 1 DLC, has its own separate budget from the project itself.
- Therefore, given the above points, it means that there are no circumstances in which the player would ever get the DLC content for “free” unless the publisher eats the cost, no matter how much the customers really really want it. The choice for players is between “Day 1 DLC” and “Nothing”, not “Day 1 DLC” or “Free Content”.
It’s up to you all whether you believe these points or not. I’ve had quite a few people tell me they disbelieve them and go on about how “greedy” the publishers/developers are, but this is why it happens. Without profits, publishers die. It’s why THQ, 3DO, Acclaim, Atari, Midway, and LucasArts are no longer in business. Or as Unikitty would summarize:
Further Reading:
All I have to add is: yes.
The counter-argument to this, of course, is that if you can imagine a scenario where that content would have come out with the main game at the same price, then that’s what should have happened—and what would have happened back in the old days, back when nothing was apparently ever cut from games, back before greedy bastards started milking money from consumers. Back when games cost the same amount they do today, despite inflation and increased complexity. Ah, the good old days.
A question from your fans on nuts and bolts of game writing: so, if you have to simply cut out some really good plot just because of word budgets or line budgets, is there a possibiblity that it will return in some DLC? — fan question
Sort of. We cut an entire plot chain in DA2 (about the Coterie thieves guild, tied mostly to Varric) and always thought we might one day bring it back as DLC. The problem is one of context—PRC (post-release content) is either add-on (it is designed to be playable after the game is completed, even though it might optionally also be accessible during the game) or add-in (it adds to the content of the game itself, meaning you have to play through the normal game to get to it).
With add-in DLC, such plots would be easy to preserve, but most of our story DLC has been add-on. That means we’d need to re-write a bunch of the plot anyhow for it to make sense, which makes the savings of doing so questionable. You start to wonder if it just wouldn’t be better to start over from scratch.
Mind you, there was a big plot which was our third DLC for DA2 which was then cut and added into the DA2 expansion. Then, when the expansion was cancelled, was put into DAI. Completely re-written both times, of course, but the idea of it was preserved. So it does happen.
Shale is probably the best example of something which was cut for budget reasons and then returned as DLC. There were too many lingering issues for us to complete it in the main development timeline, but those issues were few enough that they could be resolved in the period during DAO’s certification (which is a shell game as far as most people are concerned, I know, but it makes sense if you understand how such timelines work).
Some people might complain at cutting something only to bring it back as DLC, I suppose. Lacking that option, of course, the content would simply be cut and never see the light of day at all. That’s what happened in the days before DLC, though I suppose some people are simply happier being ignorant it ever existed (as opposed to facing the spectre of a “complete game” requiring additional purchase). I get it, though I’m unsympathetic so long as the original game is full and fun and completable as-purchased.
My only complaint about content cut from the main release, is when it’s cut *on purpose* to be made as paid-for day-one DLC.
That doesn’t happen.
Not that I’m certain why it would be a big deal if it did happen. As I said, so long as the main game is full and fun and completable, what difference would it make? It’s on us to ensure that the base game we put out there is worth the money that someone spends on it.
Probably what you’re mistaking for “cut on purpose” is something which was planned as DLC early on. We know we’re going to make DLC at some point, so we sit down and figure out what it’ll be. If making that DLC was never an option, that content would simply have never been made—regardless of when it was made. The assumption that, had it not become DLC, the base game would have been made that much bigger is false. Budgets do not work like that.
Things that are cut, meanwhile, are only ever cut because they could not be completed in the original timeline—and DLC is a possible means of salvage. We never start the game off planning to cut things.
I imagine that some fans are as unsympathetic to the shell games we play with development timelines as we are to their perception of what constitutes a “complete” game and what they think that should cost. And that’s fine. Considering videogames are immune to inflation, yet the costs of making them keep rising, game publishers are going to do what they must to monetize—and that’s an ugly word for fans who prefer to think of game-makers as starving artists working out of their basements—but that’s simply how it will be.
I’m not a big fan of the need for DLC myself. I’d much rather have it all wrapped up in one go and be done with it, yet I do recognize the need for it and can see DLC as a way to provide extra content (or content which would otherwise have been lost) for those who want it…not a malicious way to deprive fans of stuff they believe they deserve.
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). With crafting (which I am also highly addicted to), you can make some fun builds.
