You cannot really prove 1) and anyway it is kind of philosophic. 5) I cannot verify from my own experience, my DLCs were kind of integrated smoothly. 6) I also cannot verify.

So what remains is 2-4), aka new content or new gaming modes. I think that's largely okay.

My definition of current DLCs:

1) not available on disc
2) not standalone
3) extends in some way the game
4) often too expensive for what it's worth
5) in bundles with other DLC and the main game quite a fair package

One more thing I dislike about the "DLC culture" is that it also promotes selling stuff that was earlier considered free of charge. Like cheats. Heck, we might just as well be heading to where patches/updates will cost extra. I'm sure that can be argued to be ok too, after all you bought the original game as-is, and if the developer keeps churning out updates and fixes to the game, it costs them money, so you should pay extra too for that continued after-sales support. Right?

CDPR offering _all_ the extra content for The Witcher 1-2 free of charge seems pretty rare nowadays. If I recall right, they already announced that this will be true also for The Witcher 3 (or was it Cyberpunk 2077, or both?), which would make me like them even more.

Another developer that gets my love for doing that is Mojang. I think there has been lots of extra content coming to Minecraft for a long time, with no extra fee. He seems to do it just to keep his current customers happy, and lure new customers.

(I have no idea though if Minecraft is still being actively developed, or is it in the hands of modders now. Well. I think at least the 1.7.x update brought new content, if I read the version history right? I haven't played the game myself, I just bought two copies of it as presents.)

What? I THINK you are agreeing with me.

One thought. If you say a difference is arbitrary is there then a real difference? It implies that the definition of something is up to every person and if you doesn't have a definition of something that everyone or at least most people agree on then I'd argue that you cannot say it is different from a similar thing.

For some reason, I anticipate/dread of an era where something as basic in PC video games as Visual Settings ends up becoming DLC. I know, it seems like it belongs in the realm of science fiction. But if you told me 16 years ago that there would be a developer in the future who would charge for the cheats in GoldenEye, I would have laughed at your face and called you an idiot. Now, I look at a game like Dead Rising 2: Off the Record and I feel like the idiot.

Anecdotal evidence, but my old old copy of Test Drive was asking for a Data Disk to display EGA graphics. Not sure if the copy my father had installed didn't have the Data Disk or if it was sold separately.
Also, Origin did love to sell speech packs for its games.

If that is your meaning you should have made yourself clearer. This is what Dictionary.com say about the meaning of Arbitrary. "subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision."

Granted it have more meanings so that is why the confusion methinks.

Imho, we already had cases that could be seen as "pay for the patch that will make the game playable". Ageod's world war one gold update , or the vae victis expansion for Europa Universalis : Rome. Admittedly, these superpatches included some additional content as well, but without that expansion the game was about as fun to play with as a pre alpha release of windows millenium.

I didn't know that dictgionary.com defined it as such until I have googled it halfway through writing the post where I give the KG example.

I have never, ever seen arbitrary used in the manner as some online dictionaries claim.

That's the meaning I learned at school too. Odd thing this is.

The developers are of course free to do that, and I am free to wait until they release a GOTY version with all the little stuff included.

Like that Magicka game that they seem to be pushing on different bundles, but missing some/most DLCs? Thanks, I'll wait for the complete set (that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg, like buying them all separately does).

Or EA offering Mass Effect trilogy which also is quite lacking even with pretty important DLCs (from what I've heard), so I guess I'll be waiting for the Complete Trilogy instead.

Sword of the stars had that problem. Game was unplayably buggy until expansion 2.
Engine updates were not made available for people with older expansion. So if you bought base game and expansion one the game was unplayable, had to buy at least X2 to get the proper patches.
They ended up making 4 expansions total IIRC

Sad thing is that later expansions ruined the game with bad mechanics like their horribly tedious micromanagement of trade system