David Cecil-

 

Downloadable content: the basic mainstay for anything game related nowadays. If it’s an AAA title (Destiny, Mass Effect, COD), more than likely it’s going to have some extra content down the road that will have you running back to the game to unfortunately sink in another five or six hours towards that sucker.

 

But what happens when companies begin to purposefully leave out content in order to push this downloadable front?  Are we, as a community of hardcore FPS connoisseurs and platforming fanatics, supposed to roll with the punches and accept the changing industry?

 

Take for example Bungie’s “Destiny.” When “Destiny” came out, everyone was riding the hype train and claimed they didn’t care what the content held, or how the gameplay felt. Bungie, the father of the infamous “Halo” titles, had presumably brought another Holy Grail to the common folk.

 

Around 10-15 hours within “Destiny,” you’re basically done with the campaign mode. Though this may sadly be true, it’s obvious “Destiny” is meant to be a game for multiplayer content. That being said, “Destiny” could also be seen as a game that psychologically makes you think you’re progressing when you’re actually farming uselessly for hours, but that’s a story for another day.

 

After beating “Destiny” myself, I felt something was amiss. A few months later, I finally understood what that was when I got The Dark Below DLC, a piece of work that inevitably had me crawling back to my controller like a hungry wolf, licking up every scrap of meat I could find as I continued to shoot down countless enemies once again. And to think, it only cost $20.

 

Wait a minute. $20? The price of the original game was $60. Yet I’m paying for a DLC that brings only one additional raid, two strikes (one of which is only PS4 exclusive), a few new missions and a different mechanic for buying the new gear and weapons released?

 

Let’s flashback to November 2014. Developer Ubisoft had just released one of their more anticipated games, “Far Cry 4.” After their mishaps on “Assassin’s Creed Unity,” many could agree they needed all the help they could get for some positive feedback at the company.

 

What do they do instead? Release a DLC on the exact same day as the release of the game. Ubisoft, you just had an extreme case of screw up with “AC Unity,” why are you digging yourself into more deeper hole? By delivering your audience content separate from the game on day one, you’re basically handing them two opinions of thought. Either you as a company believe the game is not good enough and decided that it needed a boost, or you just want to scam your customers by passively persuading them to purchase this content that by all means should’ve been in the game from the release, and then go on your merry way.

 

Ubisoft has recently released the DLC for “AC Unity:” Dead Kings, which was allegedly free after the onslaught of glitches the game had since release. Funny enough, this was originally going to cost you, but the folks at Ubisoft decided a broken fan base ultimately trumps dollar signs.

 

Basically the company was trying to have you forget about all the mind numbing frustration that was the game on launch by handing out a freebie. Did I mention this was two months after that entire fiasco originally occurred? I’m sorry Ubisoft, but no polishing and hiding can keep that eyesore of an issue out of public eye. You may have gave us free content, but you gave us that content after giving us an unfinished game two months prior.

 

Does this all mean we’ll be spending our cash on a $60 project, only to hand out another lump sum on DLC’s for what will be a full game? For a now skeptic and injured gamer from the woes of DLC’s like myself, it might just be time to take a step back before completely buying into this yet again.