How do you feel about DLC and Patches?

This is a big thing that can make or break a game for me. Honestly I'm really neutral about both, if you'd like me to be honest. If a patch is completely necessary I say go for it, but at the same time, I'm obsessed with glitches. I love performing them, I love reading about them, I love glitches in general, and it's really something that isn't as common. Of course if the glitch is gamebreaking then I'd be a little concerned for there to be a fix.

DLC is...Hit or miss. If I'm buying an already complete game(Mario Kart 8 for example) and over time, they develop new content to either update the game with or sell, then it's fine. Same if it's just an added little bonus that's cheap. But if it's an entire chunk of a game that I'm missing just because some company wants to rip all the money out of my wallet, I have an issue. Either way I think it was better when a game was a complete thing that you just buy and you get everything already. That just feels like you're getting more of a bang for your buck. Final Fantasy X is a great example of a game that's well worth the cash. It's a huge, full adventure that you can access all of right out of the box. Games like Mario Sunshine and Galaxy are a good example of this too.

But let me know what you guys think! I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter.

I love when a game has DLC that supplements the story. The DLC for Fallout: New Vegas is a good example. You aren't missing out on anything essential to the plot if you don't play them, but if you do, you get more context for certain characters and events. Each add-on has its own self-contained story, too, and they all weave together into a subplot that serves as a nice complement to the main game. I could talk for hours about how how Dead Money establishes the phrases "let go" and "begin again" as arc words for said subplot, and how it relates to the plot of the main game and the choices the player can make.

The opposite end of the spectrum is the Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Releasing the actual ending of a game as DLC is a crappy thing to do, and people who haven't played it will be missing important information when they play the next game. The same thing happened with DA2's Legacy DLC. When Inquisition came out, a bunch of people (myself included) who hadn't played it were like "who the heck is this Corypheus guy? Why is Hawke here? What is going on?" Putting critical plot details behind a paywall is not cool, and Bioware (under EA, at least) seems to have made it their signature business tactic, between the DLCs, the novels, and the comics.

I'm pretty neutral, or at least my opinion depends on a case by case basis.


In terms of patches my opinion isn't that complicated: if the game isn't working as intended, why wouldn't I want it to be 'fixed'?

But certain publishers, as expected, have really abused a great benefit of modern gaming and have somehow made it seem like a negative. Being able to easily patch things these days has resulted in games getting shipped that are simply in no state for sale, presumably because it's cheaper to get your customers to test your crap than pay people to do it. Many times, paying for a game on release now is essentially the same as paying ?50 to be a beta tester.

Being able to continue polishing a game after its released is great, but trashbag publishers like Ubisoft who will remain nameless have just used it as an excuse to shovel turds and polish them later.

Ash Q. Scrumfleton said:

Final Fantasy X is a great example of a game that's well worth the cash. It's a huge, full adventure that you can access all of right out of the box.

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Well, Final Fantasy is kind of a game that had DLC before it was called DLC, so join me on a semi historical journey about DLC!


I only have an issue with DLC when games like Evolve happen which are essentially foundations built solely to house DLC, when you have 'augment your pre-order' to milk as much out of customers before the game is even released, gating off content unless you buy a certain DLC, cutting out finished content and selling it as a separate product, cramming microtransactions in to full priced retail releases, announcing season passes and future DLC plans before your game is even out on the shelf. The list of anti consumer ways DLC has been used is pretty massive.

DLC as a thing I have no issue with, it's actually a great concept in my opinion, "getting more of that thing that I liked", but unsurprisingly certain publishers have really tarnished the image of what is otherwise a great concept. I tend to approach DLC with caution now wondering in what shady way a publisher is trying to con money out of me rather than with excitement that I'm getting more 'game'.

fenris said:

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I'm not entirely sure on the details here since I don't like Dragon Age, but I remember a pretty infamous bit of douchebaggery with the first game where a pop up came up telling you that you had to buy DLC to continue doing something.

I'm obviously not 100% on the details, but that's the exact kind of thing I hate.

Ash Q. Scrumfleton said:

DLC is...Hit or miss. If I'm buying an already complete game(Mario Kart 8 for example) and over time, they develop new content to either update the game with or sell, then it's fine. Same if it's just an added little bonus that's cheap. But if it's an entire chunk of a game that I'm missing just because some company wants to rip all the money out of my wallet, I have an issue.

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This is my issue with DLC too. It's such a freaking ripoff when companies do this crap.

Patches are good if they fix things that could otherwise break a game or corrupt files. Otherwise, I find downloading them annoying.

I enjoy DLC (as long as it's not incredibly costly... it should be free, for some of them) and I like the new spin Welcome Amiibo gave to ACNL. I don't know if they could implement more dialogue options in DLC, but I'd definitely buy that.

Patches are necessary. There's always going to be a patch to fix things and if not, that bodes the end of an era.

for the most part, i prefer a game to be buggy than perfect - cause where's the fun in not being able to break something?

I like DLC when it's not a complete ripoff. I hate it when companies force you to shell out extra money just to enjoy something that should already be in the game. If it's simply extra content that can improve your gaming experience, but isn't totally necessary, that's one thing, but cheapening a game's story or gameplay deliberately and forcing people to pay more if they want to get the full experience is just plain greedy. If I'm forking over the equivalent of an entire day's pay for a game, I don't want to have to pay out even more to get the full experience.

DLC is only acceptable if it doesn't rob players who don't have it from the core content of the game. Destiny was horrible with this. If you didn't have the DLC you missed out on essentially getting to a higher level in the game, playing daily/weekly quests, and raising your armor/weapons levels. Now a game like Fallout 4 where DLC adds new story and areas to explore without interfering with the rest of the game is perfectly acceptable. I don't like season passes. I bought one for Injustice in the past and for some reason it didn't include like 2 of the DLC characters which peeved me.

Patches are essential to Overwatch because it's constantly a war of balance with characters and leaving characters in the same state being broken would drive away players. Game breaking glitches should also be patched if they interfere with online multiplayer. I do think patches are necessary for a variety of things. I do get sad when they patch a harmless, fun glitch though.

Patches are important to fix bugs, glitches or balancing issues in games, especially in MOBA/Shooters/Anything online. Bigger patches can even be critical for the enjoyment of the game (e.g, exploit where a character can buffstack 'til they're effectively immortal, used every match, impossible for enemy to win.)

DLC is fine unless your game is AAA-?40 and you add content created during the game's production, and just lock it away because you're ****ing Stingy from LazyTown. Making post-game DLC is perfectly fine as long as it doesn't give a massive advantage. As previously mentioned in this thread, Destiny was a bad example of DLC. Good DLC is stuff like Dragonborn and The Old Hunters.

DLC is way overpriced and in some cases just unlocks content that is already on the disc in the first place. It's even worse if you pick up a used game for a fiver then get pushed to spend a good ?40 or so.

I think the ability to update games works great in some cases such as Minecraft, but often just allows for a sloppy release and then to fix it up later, taking up storage.

There is a reason why I enjoy games from the mid-'90s to mid-'00s.