You know that sour feeling in the pit of your stomach whenever any sort of "Pre order now!", "Day One DLC" or "Buy the Season Pass!"-type language gets bandied about? It's thoroughly justified, and something that proves just how far gaming has come as an entertainment medium - one that although there's always propensity for immense amounts of creativity, tends to abuse the consumer more than ever in 2015. Take Batman: Arkham Knight for example. Rocksteady used to be one hell of a dependable developer (and they still are, to some degree), but as soon as Warner Bros. decided to go all-in on insultingly paltry Season Pass options, that's meant rushing the game out the door, failing to fix the PC version and gutting a host of features, maps and characters for the sake of selling them back to you later down the line. Right now, fans who had faith in the developer (or who just unabashedly love the Batman license through and through) coughed up the £32.99 at launch in good faith, the assumption being that's the only way to get the 'full Arkham experience'. However, pre-orderers were rewarded with a couple of 10 minute (literally) add-on mission packs, before the Season Pass has rolled out a half-hour Batgirl mission, the future being full of such tantalising things as character skins and challenge rooms; the latter being included in Arkham's Asylum and City. I highlight Arkham Knight as a high profile tipping point, but you'll already be aware of everything from Assassin's Creed to Driveclub, Evolve to Battlefield - even The Witcher 3 has had to have eight sizeable patches to get it up to speed, consecutive ones breaking things the former initially put right. Culturally it's a farce how unreliable the average game release schedule and everything that goes alongside it has become - and all I've mentioned is only the tip of the rant-filled iceberg...
