9 Crippling Problems With The Gaming Industry’s Future

8. Cynical DLC

The idea of adding extra portions onto a game has been in play since modding communities around the world got their hands on DOOM's original source code and went to work creating new levels and new worlds to merrily shoot your way through. Over the years, PC gamers had expansion packs which could add new stories, new maps, new multiplayer components and really, anything a modder could put together. It wasn't until the Xbox 360 came out that downloadable add-on packs actually took off as a viable option for console gamers. In the beginning it was innocent enough; maps, skins, dashboard themes - all reasonably cheap and all fairly inconsequential. Eventually though, publishers started getting greedy and ended up cutting out chunks of games to be sold off later for a premium. There is nothing inherently wrong with downloadable content - in most cases it can enhance a game or increase the longevity of multi-player focused title - however it starts creating a sour feeling when single player games are missing important parts of their story because they are earmarked for sale later on. Or they get labelled as 'Day One DLC' which is much, much worse. Think back to Mass Effect 3; the game starts with Commander Shepard being hauled up in front of an Alliance court martial to determine his punishment for actions before the Reapers land on Earth and cause all manner of chaos. This is the first scene in the game and you certainly aren't in trouble for your heroic actions at the end of Mass Effect 2, so what did you do? Well, you could only find out if you paid for the DAY ONE downloadable story pack 'From Ashes' which filled in the blanks on the sci-fi melodrama's epic story arc. For those who paid £45 for the game on the first day only to then be expected to fork out either £9.99 on PSN (or 800MS points on Xbox Live) to get the complete story, is nigh-on reprehensible. There is a risk that developers will be strong-armed by publishers or investors into leaving finished chunks of triple-A games out of the released package in order to sell them later on - either individually or as part of a season pass - and there is a definite worry that games in the future could be released with chunks missing that would require you to pay up before you can actually finish the game.