On Disc DLC - A fast(food) example

[owsf2000]

Against my better judgement, I was reading Kotaku comments today.

Yes, I know.

The comments of course were under the article about the whole finding of entire levels (unpopulated of course, except for 3 ghost objects you can apparently pick up) on the disc of Destiny. And the whole DLC shitstorm started again.

My bitching won't be about that in particular, I'm sure I've already bitched about it before and will do so again at a later date. I'm already formulating a way to describe all the DLC methods used with games I end up reviewing in the future. :P It's taking a long time to compile.

Anyway, one commenter made this very stupid remark. "Here's a shocker for people who hate On-Disc DLC: When you go to McDonalds and you buy french fries, there's actually a whole cooker full of fries that they AREN'T giving you. it's RIGHT THERE and they are deliberately not giving all of it to you."

I mean.... what? This isn't just off the mark, it's completely irrelevant to the situation. That cooker full of fries behind them are extra copies of the game that other people will be buying. Unless of course you actually ordered a cooker's worth of fries.

So instead, I'll give you the real comparison. Let's say you order a Big Mac. Inside a small plastic box you receive a 3-piece bun with 2 burger patties. Next to that, you are also given a locked glass jar that contains a few pickles, some lettuce, a cheese slice, and a small cup of sauce. You are not given a key to this jar. But you may purchase one for a few extra dollars. Have a nice day.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I saw another comment on another article (http://kotaku.com/bungie-sorta-explains-why-some-of-destinys-dlc-is-on-1652925300/all) (which might or might not be the same one you read) in which someone used the following example to try to "explain" why on-disc DLC occurs:

"Think the Marvel movies. The Infinity Gauntlet showed up briefly in Thor. The Collector also showed up in Thor in a post-credits. Loki's Staff has the Mind Gem in it in The Avengers and they haven't even gotten into the whole Infinity Gem thing at that point. We're already setting up for Civil War. Apparently Marvel's planning on bringing back Howard the Duck for some reason. Blah blah blah, you get the idea. None of these movies exist yet, but they're dropping seeds and hints for them in current films because they know these movies are coming down the line. Plans are already in place, and they're laying the groundwork for them. In movies it's easter eggs for viewers to find; in games it's rough content for planned expansions that exist in the game data to be built off of later. The idea is the same, though. They're laying down information now to be utilized down the road by content that isn't finished yet."

No, those things are teasers or, as he even said himself, easter eggs. Easter eggs like this also exist in video games. Easter eggs are not the same thing as on-disc DLC. If I'd paid for Thor explicitly to see the Infinity Gauntlet, but then had to pay an extra amount to unscramble the scene that has the Infinity Gauntlet in it, even though that scene is already on the DVD for the movie, then that would be the equivalent to on-disc DLC. The very fact that the Infinity Gauntlet showed up in Thor without you having to pay to see it is kind of the exact opposite of what DLC is (on-disc or otherwise). Why is this concept apparently so incredibly difficult for people to understand? Why are people trying so hard to come up with erroneous "examples" for why it is supposedly a good thing, or at least a tolerable thing, when it clearly is not?

(EDIT) Actually, no, that's not even the best analogy. The better analogy would be if I'd bought Thor, not even expecting to see the Infinity Gauntlet at all in the first place, but then Marvel Studios said "Hey, you want to see the Infinity Gauntlet in Thor? Well, pay us a couple more dollars and we'll let you see the Infinity Gauntlet in Thor!" And then, when I pay the extra money to see the Infinity Gauntlet in Thor, they just unlock the scene that was already on the disc that I already bought. That is what on-disc DLC is and why it is so reviled. (/EDIT)

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

The reason why people have such a hard time understanding the basic concepts here is because for the last half decade at least, the developers and publishers have been doing everything in their power to distort, confuse, and muddy the meanings.

They know DLC is a curse word when it's hacking out content, and on-disc DLC is the prime example of this. There's no way for them to defend themselves if it's completely on the disc but locked out. It's like the movie/music industry's laughable attempt to declare they weren't infesting their media with the hated DRM (Digital Rights Management) that everyone so hated - instead they were using the much more enlightened DCE! (Digital Content Enablement)

Anyone with even 2 braincells to rub together knew the two were one and the same.

Japanese companies still do on-disc DLC fairly regularly - just look at most of the DLC for various JRPGs. You'll find most of them are simple 100kb-200kb files. Yet in that 1/10 of a megabyte there could be anything from a few items to full 3d meshes of "new characters" or entire levels! Yeah, or it could just be the required bytes for the unlock code.

American companies seem to be realizing how hated it is to have either Day 1 DLC, or on-disc content so they've "adapted". And what you see is what's happening in Destiny. They throw as much as they can on the disc, and deliberately leave scripts/enemies/etc so they can hide behind the excuse "oh it's locked out because it isn't done!" The reason it isn't done is because they deliberately did not give themselves enough time to finish their product. And why should they? When they can simply ship it unfinished (And I hear a lot of people seem to be displeased with what's in Destiny, calling it unpolished/unfinished/barren/etc) for full price, then charge even more to finish it afterwards.

Oh, naturally I didn't post my reply on kotaku. That'd require posting on kotaku, which sickens me as much as it sickens you. ^_^

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

It's funny because "it wasn't finished yet" was the lame excuse they were giving when this shit first started as to why it was Day 1 DLC. E.g., shit at least as far back as Dragon Age: Origins such as the "Stone Prisoner" DLC was claimed to "need some tweaking" before release because Shale apparently couldn't fit through doors or some stupid shit (which they "fixed" by simply shrinking the character model, iirc), and so, they "had to" cut it out to be sold extra on the day the game launched.

And now it's "not done" simply because they've gotten smart enough not to include everything, just most of it. E.g. that Prothean ally shit (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/567624.html) from Mass Effect 3 (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/562339.html). The character itself was already in the game and fully playable via a simple twoone line change in the script files. But BioWare claimed that it wasn't really on-disc DLC because you still had to download the shit for the story and whatever. This here with Destiny is the same sort of shit, too. Except that is for the "convenience" of players, so that they don't have to download so much when they buy the DLC. No shit they don't have to download so much if it's already on the fucking disc (and thus should be included in the base game and not be fucking sold separately as "DLC").

It's only going to get even more egregious as time goes on, and people like the dumbasses we've been talking about here are still going to stupidly eat it up and defend it.