"Op-ed: Why on-disc downloadable content isn't the crime it's made out to be"

[kane_magus]

Needless to say, I do not agree with a single word of this inane article (except for the "Don't like it? Don't buy it!" bit at the end, because "Don't buy it!" is definitely my stance on the issue).

I don't feel physically capable of going into the gigantic, long-winded, point-by-point rant that this deserves right now, so I'll just let Jeff Goldblum say everything that needs to be said about this article and the skeevy business it's trying to defend.

"That is One Big Pile of Shit" (Watch on YouTube)

That said, though, I'm not really sure why people seem so surprised and shocked about this. Capcom has been quite clear on their stance regarding on-disc DLC for a while now. This is why I still have no intention of buying any future Capcom games. If more people would take the same stance, rather than buying the games and then being appalled by this after the fact, then they wouldn't be able to keep on doing it. And if douchebag "journalists" would quit defending abhorrent shit like this, and quit implying that anyone who complains about it are just whiny, self-entitled little children, that would help out a whole lot, too. (And I'm not just talking about this Kyle Orland guy here, either. He's not the first asshat to write industry asskissing op-ed pieces.)

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I never trust any of the so called video game journalists out there that do this more than as a random part time hobby. How many times have I heard such a person on Kotaku raving about the latest video game - and more specifically, the special gift the producer of said video game had shipped to his home to basically give them free publicity.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, whenever I read an article similar to the ones I mentioned above, I can't help but wonder what sort of kickback the author may have gotten in exchange for it. Oh, sure, they'll probably deny that they got anything for it. Well, I don't know which would be worse, someone who would write something like that just for the goodies they get in exchange for all their brown-nosing, or someone who actually believes that sort of bullshit. Though I guess it's possible they could be both of those things, which would be worst of all.

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

If the game was actually sold below standard retail price with on-disc DLC that would be fine to me, but of course that won't happen. It would be a good way to allow consumers to try a game before they pay full price, which of course isn't something the companies want to happen. (Although I can't really summon up the moral rage against it, I just take the DLC into account when I'm considering buying the game.)

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

It would be one thing if they were actually upfront about it being there, and you really could know about it before hand and adjust your purchases accordingly. I still wouldn't like it and still wouldn't buy their games because of it, but that would be better than what they're actually doing, i.e. trying to sneak it in under the radar with the only way for people to find out about it being someone who bought the game sniffing out the files on the disc after the fact. At this point, given Capcom's previous stance on the issue as I linked to above, I'm just going to have to assume that all Capcom games will have DLC files on the disc, and will act accordingly by not buying any more Capcom games (and I haven't bought any since MvC3, which also had DLC files on the disc).

With this RE6 stuff in particular, there are some saying that, well, Capcom said this DLC is going to be free*, so what's the big deal? That's one of my big problems with this specific instance, all the people rushing to Capcom's defense over the whole thing, simply because it happens to be free in this one instance, as though it meant Capcom had suddenly come to their senses on the issue or something. My response is, well, if it's supposedly free, and it's already on the disc, then why even bother making it DLC? Just release it with the game at launch.

* - Though I'm not sure that was their original intent, before they were found out, or if they're just trying to scramble to save face by making something that would have cost money had it not been discovered now available for free. The cynic in me says it's probably the latter. That's one of the things that bugs me so much about it, the fact that these companies are so underhanded with how they go about this whole business in general. They try to sneak it past and then try to come up with excuses for why it's not as bad as everyone thinks it is when they get caught doing it. If it really isn't as bad as a whole lot of people say it is, then why not just be candid about it? It's because they know that they will lose a lot of sales because of it, so it's apparently better to be sneaky with it. Until they inevitably get caught, of course, but at that point, a bunch of people have already paid for the game and most likely aren't going to go so far as to return the game over the whole thing, so who cares? They already got theirs.