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DLCs: Rip Off or Good Value ?

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Category: Guild News

Last Updated on Friday, 04 January 2013 21:35

Written by Giskard

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Here at the guild we are known speaking our minds about gaming topics and are not forced in to silence by the threat of no support from developers who prefer yes men to actual honest opinions about their products from their own customers.

Certain companies have stepped on customers often and tend to always be on our shit list, but in the case of DLCs, one company in particular comes out smelling rather good for change.

I'll get to who that is in a moment, but first ask your self this question.

Are DLCs good value for money ?

Lets find our shall we... Read On!

Many dlcs are simply a new suit of clothing or something small and they charge between £1 and £30 for the item. You can often buy a suit of clothing for 1 game for £5 and buy a similar suit in another for £20. So there is no agreement on value here, its basically an excuse to print money that some companies exploit heavily. 

Take Electronic Arts for example.

The Sim packs you get for the Sims 3 often cost 2500pts which is about £25, with that £25 you get a model for 1 table, some wall units, a cooker and a fridge. You can buy brand new games like Fallen Enchantress, Mount and Blade Warbands, Sins of a Solar Empire for that price and some of those games provide a 100+ hours of gameplay.

Even buying hat in the Sims cost 100 points which is £1 or £2 roughly. Clearly this is not good value for money.

In Tropico 4, you now get a lot of DLCs for £4 and they contain a suit, a mission and the odd building. In real terms most folk will play sandbox so only the suit and the odd building is ever getting used. But at least you have a quest that if played may last for 4 hours and this become good value for money according to my £1 per hour rule.

City games like the Sims benefit from extra stuff greatly but the stuff in it self does not make extra gameplay, it just enhances the existing gameplay you would have enjoyed anyway.

Anno 2070 also has a lot of DLCs, most of them are about 80p each but their are a lot of them and they often simply unlock stuff that already exists in the game for players that do not play online. Some stuff is new and one DLC in particular is £13. Thas DLC adds a whole heap of cool stuff so UBIsoft actually do not do too bad in the DLC value for money stakes based on my experiences with Anno 2070. Their pricing is just about right.

But the best value for money comes from a company we know around here as Bugsada, a company we often complain about due to the bugs in their games. Yet when it comes to value for money from DLCs, Bethesda are way a head of everybody else.

If you look at the DLCs made for Fallout 3 and Skyrim, and think about the cost for each, Bethesda DLCs actually provide a great deal of extra game play compared to the DLCs mentioned above and many of the DLCs are huge affairs compared to the typical DLC we have talked about above.

Even Hearthfire which is buggy and small can provide many hours of extra play because it adds to the game and generates unique game and that I believe only costs £5.

Any of the DLCs for Fallout would provide between 10 and 15 hours extra on their own and would cost about £10 to £15 each brand new. Same for the Skyrim DLCs.

You may fall short of getting your moneys worth the first time you play those DLCs but most fans will play them more than once, so that 10 to 15 hours becomes 20 to 30 hours and that translates in to an actual value of £20 to £30 according to my £1 per hour rule.

Which makes Bethesda DLCs the best value for money DLCs we have talked about today.

So DLCs range from clearly over priced products from EA, to not so hot pricing for Tropico 4, all the way too good value for Anno 2070 and great value for Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

You could pay more for a kitchen set for the Sims 3 from Electronic Arts, than you pay for an entire world from Bethesda.

It is also worth mentioning that Bethesada DLCs tend to drop in price to about £3 after a year or so, but Sims 3 stuff never does. So a great value DLC becomes better value over time. Where as rip off DLCs stay rip offs.

So the answer to question "Are DLCs good value for money ?" really depends on who made the DLC. Clearly there are companies who make DLCs that are best avoided, and their are other companies that make DLCs that actually produce something worth having.

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