10 Most Insulting Kinds Of Video Game DLC
The worst ways to ask for more money.
Saying I’ve got a list of the most insulting kinds of DLC for you kind of makes me feel like I’m about to tell you I wrote a list of all the ways that water is wet. To be fair, there are loads of great video game DLCs out there, but we’re not talking about those today, we’re talking about the crap ones.
Not the specifics mind you, though I’m certain plenty of games will come to mind as we wind our way down this list of consumer unfriendly business practices and publisher penny-pinching.
Instead, we’re talking about the ten kinds of video game DLC that we often come across which we wish we didn’t. We’re talking about the DLC that doesn’t feel like a valuable, totally-worth-the-money collection of new narrative elements and mechanics, but rather the DLC that made it very clear somebody in the publishing team didn’t think asking you to buy the base game was getting enough money out of you.
While there has been a lot of backpedalling from developers and publishers of late to reign DLC back into a more consumer-friendly place, we can still grumble about the times they absolutely tried to take us for a ride.
--
10. Pay-To-Play Side Quests And Chests
This is an especially painful one as many kinds of microtransactions and DLC add-ons can be ignored if you don’t want to engage with them. Well, not in this case.
For our first spot of shame we’re putting the spotlight on what seem to be perfectly normal side quests and chests scattered throughout the game world, only for players to discover they’re pay-to-play or pay-to open. One particularly gnarly offender in this instance is Dragon Age: Origins which included an NPC who would beg you to complete a side quest in Redcliffe Village, as NPCs tend to do.
No harm done there, except this particular NPC’s quest requires you to spend real world money to take it on.
Along these lines are chests that can only be opened with currency and in-game items acquired by spending your money. We’re looking at you, Middle-earth: Shadow of War. This is even worse in the instances of these two games and those like them because you’ve already paid for a full-price game before being asked to part with even more money for extra content and gear.