http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20046148-17.html?tag=cnetRiver

But nickel and dime-ing customers with DLC and micro-payments that adds up to far more than $60 is apparently okay.

I suppose there is nothing new here, but seriously have they forgotten what game demos and review sites (w/ pro & user reviews) are for? I guess I'd rather pay $60 for a complete game with an option to pay for mods/pack that really change the basic game experience (like a full expansion pack or high-quality user-made mod), but which clearly aren't things that should've been included at launch and were withheld so they could charge you later. I realize that sometimes this is a matter of degree the amount of content where it becomes worth paying for it or is clearly not stuff they just withheld. But the extremes are pretty obvious - like that terrible MS video promoting buying a virtual gun for a fps as though this is a good thing. Ah well ... sorry for the small rant, I'm probably preaching mostly to the choir here. :/

EDIT: BTW I actually have nothing really against casual gaming or even DLC really in general, I suppose it's just acting as though "free-to-play" with huge amounts of DLC that you continually spend money on is somehow a more fair, honest, or consumer-friendly approach to gaming is ... hypocrisy at its finest.

very,very few games that come out right now are worth 60 bucks brand new

and you can be certain that none of the ones that do, come from EA

True, but I think it has more to do with the price model than the particular price point - and review sites and demos are for helping to determine if the game's cost is worth it. So while I agree that the $60 price point is excessive for most games, which is why I buy mostly good old games, especially recently :), I'd still take that model of buying over low initial cost/free game but excessive pay-DLC that you could conceivably pay without limit in order to get the game-experience you should've gotten in the first place.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do dlc, problem is that the ratio between developers doing it right and developers doing it wrong is really bad. I'd say 80/20.

I'd rather pay up front and "own" my software in a way that means I can play it in 20 years than be nickel and dimed and never own anything.

Coming from EA, this is disgustingly hypocritical as they are obviously champions of exploitive pricing schemes, what with their online passes and excessive DLC. They probably think (correctly?) that people are too stupid to realize how expensive games can get when you buy expansions, DLC etc.

Some of the worst examples that come to mind in terms of exploitive pricing are EA games, of course. For instance, if you buy The Sims 3 from Steam in Europe, the total for the game with all expansions comes out to about $300. For Tiger Woods 11, there are eight or so DLC golf courses that cost $10 a pop. In some of their sports games, you can't play competitively anymore unless you keep buying attribute boosts or Ultimate Team packages for a couple of dollars at a time. It's disgusting...

So 80% do it right and 20% do it wrong? I think you mean the opposite there.

Cousins couldn't be more right about $60 prices on games being exploitative, but he also couldn't be more wrong about the "free to play, pay to win" model being non-exploitative. What the rest of the video gaming industry need to figure out is frankly what GOG has already figured out: if you give your customers the best value for their dollar and charge them a fair price, they will buy your games, lots of 'em.

Sorry I did I mean 80% bad and 20% good. sorry I wasn't really clear in my last post.

Bioware Mass Effect team and Bethesda seem to be the only ones who do DLC right and crucially at the right price.

Squeenix, Bioware Dragon Age Team and Activision (natch) are perfect examples of how not to do DLC.

When they just released that browser Dragon Age monetized bullshit? Fucking hell.

Rockstar Games have also made some very good DLC for GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, but I'm not so sure about the various launch-day DLC packs they have announced for LA Noire as pre-order bonuses (yuck).

I disagree, I feel that they're just milking their franchises. Ok they need a way of earning money, but it's really just to add more to the money they already earn, BioWare already rake in millions on their two main game-series, namely DragonAge and MassEffect.

So it's basically just milking for extra income, which is ok, but kinda exploitive in my eyes.

Did you actually play any of the Mass Effect 2 DLC? Each one was more than worth the price. They were well written self contained stories and i'm expecting Arrival to be just as good. Same goes for the Fallout 3 DLC and it seems New Vegas is continuing the trend. If you don't play any DLC in your life everyone should at least play Fallout 3's Point Lookout.

The only Bioware dlc I've ever bought are the Mass Effect dlc Lair of the Shadowbroker and the Overlord ones, and was pretty happy with them, particularly Lair, so I agree totally with you there and will be buying Arrival I reckon though I'll probably wait to see what people say about it first though. However, they seem to have felt the need to balance this out with what I consider to be the exploitative costume packs, almost like balancing out giving a candy bar to a baby by spitting in your face imho.

I know I don't have to buy them, but I just find it so insulting and considering how little investment it must take to produce those piddly little packs the returns on them must be astronomical, which makes me worried for their focus later on (why make decent dlc that sells well when you can make tons of piddly little things that have a higher net profit?).

Didn't intend for this to turn into a rant, basically what I'm saying is that Bioware ME seems to be both the prime example for good dlc and bad dlc simultaneously. I'm gonna go and scowl some more at those filthy costume packs now.