Remember back in the 90s, when people spoke exclusively via Friends quotes, and Google was still just a search engine? They were simpler times. Better times. Especially regarding video games. For a while, your precious playthings were still physical entities, encased in plastic cartridges, and the notion of downloading extras for them was the stuff of science fiction. Like Velcro.
And now? They’re all “gigabytes” and “update required” and “bullshit.” There’s two problems with this. Firstly, that publishers put the screws on developers to release games before they’re properly finished – because they can just send an update down the pipes a bit later – resulting in some of the most broken games ever going on sale. The second problem is that this new found ability to glue bits of games together means that publishers can also decide how much of a game they actually want to give you, and how much they want to charge you to get the rest of it later.
It may be that I’m being slightly unfair. Certainly some game DLC is well thought-out, fairly priced, and really brings something new to the core experience (I’m looking at you, Far Cry: Blood Dragon). Let’s be honest though, most of the time it’s not that. It’s a twisted attempt by publishers to bend captive, fan-blind players over a barrel in order to rinse them of everything they’re worth before throwing the rotting corpse of their once-favourite franchise out the window of a moving car, once it’s no longer “viable.” Or an incentive to stop people buying used games.
Either way, here’s a countdown of the seven worst offenders. Of DLC so unscrupulous that had it taken a human form, it could be cast as a Bond villain.
Click on and see if you don’t agree.