Arkham City controversy

[trashcanman]

So yeah, of course I got it at launch. The game is amazing. better than the original. This is a universally accepted fact. However, there is this thing. Now, you may recall the trailer I posted here months ago announcing Catwoman as a playable character and showing some seriously sweet gameplay as her. Then there's the fact that the box art and promos look like this:





So let us rest assured that Catwoman is a co-star in this game. But here's the catch. Catwoman is not on-disc. Catwoman is downloadable content.
www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/10/arkham-city-catwoman/

D, L, and C are quickly becoming the most hated three letters amongst gamers, and shit like this is the reason why. Sure, the code is included free with NEW copies of Arkham City, but there are problems. Anyone buying used, renting, or borrowing the game will be missing a chunk of the story that was well-advertised to the extent of having it all over the box. That by itself wouldn't be so bad being that I'm not a huge fan of the current used game scene, but there are other problems. For instance, I still have an old-model 360 with limited space and DLC takes up a lot of space to the point where I've had to delete most of my old saved games. But here's the real kicker:

zoknowsgaming.com/2011/10/20/warner-bros-responds-batman-arkham-city-catwoman-dlc-issues/

Now, I actually got a message early on that I had corrupted DLC in my game. I ignored it, and played on, and even did another level as Catwoman (who opens the game, btw). But now I've gone through a really large chunk of game without returning to Selina's story and I'm starting to get worried. I've run across some random chatter by NPC's that implies that I've missed some story. So I went back and re-downloaded the Catwoman content as I was instructed just before reading that doing so could corrupt your save and erase your game progress. Now I'm kind of scared to log back on. I've already put a lot of hours into that game and I would hate to go back to square one at this point. Bad luck, if it happens, but my point is this: if those bastards had been more worried about just making a great game and less worried about making sure a game that was going to sell millions regardless was designed to spite retailers and gamers who rent and buy/sell used games, we wouldn't even be talking about this. Now a significant number of paying customers are being punished by being locked out of part of the story or having their saves wiped. Basically, what I'm trying to say is FUCK YOU, game developers, for being greedy assholes and putting that greed ahead of the customers who make you rich and successful enough to even be that greedy. I want my Catwoman!

[Quillford]

Trashman I couldn't agree with you more. DLC - DRM. Online abbreviated nonsense. The age of cartridges is over and in comes paying money for pixels. Games that are downloaded fully from clients like steam. Making out with the game boxes and content.
Not ONLY that but are you getting DLC with these DRM games. You can buy the boxed version of Arkham City - cool. Same price as the DRM by the way (DRM just in case peoples don't know is a game that needs the internet to even play. Plus it is 100 percent DOWNLOADED of the web).
Take a look at games as of late - WWE Smackdown VS Raw 2011. WWE games, may not be your thing, it might be. But last year this bitch had more DLC than ever before. Awesome DLC as well. Legends you adored growing up who you can wrestle with. Extra entrances, arenas, atires - I can live without them. You are going to MAKE me download the undertaker - FUCK YOU! For the love of christ you could even download a patch of XBL that unlocked everything for you in case you were too fucking lazy to go through the story line and do it yourself. Cost for all the DLC around 40 - 50 GBP.
If you bought into most of that shit, you have just gave the go ahead to Microsoft and WWE to charge you a fiver for a fucking bunch of pixels that look a purple cena hat. You are a complete idiot and don't deserve my attention!
Moving on, you have games like Little big planet whose DLC is either one of two things. Extra level packs that come with new tools and stuff (that's ok, it makes the game better) - or - CLOTHES! Your sackboy character is about the size of your thumb who gives a flying chicken what you look like! FYI I created my own costume that made me look like Link the hero of time using in game stickers - Yeah, i'm obviously cool.
My point stands that this on going phenomenon is going to lead to the collapse (the third one by my count) of the video game industry. Sure there will always be people to buy this horse feces but it could end at any moment. Money is tight at the moment anyway - for most people.
But I remember when Atari were big and they crashed so hard when I was small because people released so many games that were bad to quickly make money because the owner and creator of Atari sold on his company and because he didn't like the way it was run afterwards got locked out of the company. The new people brought it down. Atari were the forefront of video games at the time and it took Nintendo previously HAL to suck it back out of the black hole parents, gamers and corporate slugs had banished it to for all the right reasons. We are going to end back there if we don't be careful. Don't buy these things. speak out about them on forums like this. Don't let the bastards win or you may as well be ass fucking your creative games with a chainsaw.
Most recently Gears of War 3 appeared. I got a really decent version of it - for how much it cost, most certainly a bargain. But after that 100 pounds, you log in and see about 70 GBP of DLC? Are you for REAL!? Fuck you microsoft! Fuck YOU! Most of it was colour meshes for weapons - say you wanted a shiny weapon. This was how to get it. But there were characters and even entire game modes that were up for grabs things that had been fucking advertised with the game at E3. What is going on people?! When is it ok to show adverts and snippets for a game then to find out it's DLC?
This is verging on illegal. The people in marketing who dream this shit up are become the very thing I hate the most at the moment. Now that is sad, murderers, muggers and politicians should be firmly at top. Your shaking that list with you monumental shagging fuck ups. It will never be ok to chastise someone or indeed build someone up in a VIRTUAL environment because they have money. The whole fucking point of video games is to escape reality. Is this helping - I don't think so. A strongly worded letter or two needs to be published to these bastards - there wrecking the industry I want to work in!

[trashcanman]

For the record, it turned out there was nothing wrong with my Catwoman DLC, so lucky me on that one. But the point still remains. I should not have to worry about shit like that in a segment of the game that was heavily advertised and promoted in every way as part of the game. Nightwing as DLC? Fine. If I had time, I'd probably rock the new Dragon Age 2 DLC (with Felicia Day!). I'm not against adding things to expand the game digitally after the fact. But designing this stuff for release day DLC is horrible. I've laughed long and hard at Gears 3 over those gun skins. They can take their "season pass" and go fuck themselves with it. I will never, ever, ever pay real money to make my gun pink or glowey green or any stupid crap like that. Useless stuff like that needs to be unlockable IN-GAME. It's insulting. No more overpriced map packs, either. Oh, you're going to charge me nearly a third of the cost of the entire game for a few multiplayer maps, most of which are actually from the other games in the series? Not. Fucking. Likely. Oh and you know the Silverback mechs from the Gears campaign? You know how they shoot rockets? Well, if you want to use those rockets in Horde mode, you have to pay for the upcoming DLC. Wow. Just wow. The day will come when you buy a shooter and you'll be dropped into the game with no bullets, just a message that you need to purhcase them as DLC.

[The Curmudgeon]

When I first read Trashy's opening thread, I was disappointed but not surprised.

There's been very little DLC in any games I've bought that's ever made me want to buy it. Different costumes and new maps etc just don't interest me enough. There are full new costume packs available on Street Fighter IV - what's the point? That shit should be unlockable content, not stuff I actually have to pay for. New characters, like on the WWE games, that are new additions to the roster or "Legends" - that's fair enough. I don't mind paying for that.

Like Trashy says - playing as another member of the DCU - that's a nice little extra I wouldn't mind paying for (although it really should be unlockable as well).

It's a slippery slope, and something that's going to get worse as we move more and more into a Digital Age. I get that game companies have to squeeze every penny they can out of their games in today's climate of buying second hand etc and through ebay and the like, but they're probably the only medium that aren't getting utterly shafted by illegal downloads. Sure, gaming piracy is a problem, but surely nowhere near the level that music and movies is suffering? You don't see music companies pulling this shit. If anything, CDs are cheaper than they've ever been, and Blu-Rays and DVDs often have more bonus content than any sane human could ever sit through. Yet gaming seems to be saying "you want it? Pay for it. And then pay some more when you've got it."

[trashcanman]

Exactly. Stuff like alternate costumes or weapon skins should be unlockable in-game. If they create a few new ones after the game is released, throw them onto some more meaningful DLC as a bonus, but do not fucking charge me $5 just to play as Captain America sans mask in MVC3. Fuck that shit.

[The Curmudgeon]

Have you ever played the Megadrive Collection, or whatever it's called in the States? I don't know if they have it for the 360 (don't know why they wouldn't) but they had bundles of unlockable stuff on there - entire fucking GAMES could be unlocked (the Game Gear Golden Axe RPG was unlocked if you got to level 3 on Golden Axe III without dying or something). Interviews, making of videos.. all that shit, along with full length games. Superb.

Game makers need to sit up and take note on that.

[trashcanman]

No, I don't own any of those old school game collections. It'd be nice if I had time to go back in time, but there's constantly so much new stuff coming out I can't even keep up with that flow.

[Quillford]

I actually brought up THIS topic in my lecture today folks. That's right the fortress was on a screen in a theatre filled with 350 sweaty hungover students. We debated over this DLC issue. Curmudgeon was praised for his love of the retro - golden axe is THE shit.
Anyway - we all decided as the game makers of tomorrow - we would take a stand and THIS would be where we start. Here's hoping? Right?

[trashcanman]

Wait, what kind of theater has lectures about the evils of DLC? I wanna go! Golden Axe was awesome back in the arcade days, but the sequel really kicked it's ass. I'd love to go back and play that 4 player co-op again. What other game let you ride a giant praying mantis and gnaw on the bad guys' heads? Freakin' sweet.

[trashcanman]

I'm resurrecting this thread since Cracked recently weighed in on the DLC issue and thought it helps puts this practice into perspective.

www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-most-insulting-things-video-games-charged-money-for/

[The Curmudgeon]

Well, that IS weird - I was going to resurrect the very same thread because I now own Arkham City (an early Christmas present from Mrs C... to think I never used to accept Christmas presents from anyone. What WAS I thinking?)

So, yeah - the game is awesome. Batman moves so much more fluidly now, like a real person, the graphics are just stunning and.. yeah. Brilliant.

Now, in the UK (or at least the version I have) Catwoman IS DLC, but included in a code behind the instruction manual. Works fine for me, and certainly increases the need to get the game NOW instead of waiting to buy it second hand. Nightwing is, however, DLC only - something I may look into later.

Anyway, I read the Cracked article and usually Cracked makes me laugh, and, apologies for sounding like Holden Caulfield, but this just depressed the hell out of me. I haven't played any of the games mentioned except SFII, and I remember thinking the exact same thing. We're paying for different coloured costumes? Wasn't that something that was unlocked when you completed the game? Didn't you just press a different button at one time? And that "Snookie" thing is fucking disgraceful. I.. I just can't imagine anyone actually spending money on that. We surely haven't reached THAT level yet.

So Quillguy, I'm pleased to think that the discussions contained in the Fortress are now part of some higher level of education. About damned time.

Back on topic - has anyone paid for any DLC? And what was it?

[trashcanman]

I paid for a character pack in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and it was worth ever penny to get Magneto, Hulk, Nightcrawler, Venom, Hawkeye, and several others playable complete with dialogue and easter eggs. I've also bought most of the Mass Effect 2 DLC. They actually gave out a ton of it for free in the month or two after the game's release, and then they charged for the last few. That is fair. Two of the paid packs were meh. One was a new character and gun that were both awesome, but the actual mission contained in the DLC was uninspiring, and the other was a bunch of vehicle-based missions (there was no vehicular gameplay in the game previous) along with a rogue AI story that was decent, but not exceptional. The last one I bought was actually really amazing, though. It fleshed out a story that began in a comic miniseries they released and was left unresolved in the game and had a great mission, a returning fan favorite character from the first game, a possibility of continuing a romance with said character, a great boss battle, and an earth-shattering finale that opens up a lot of possibilities for the next game. Definitely worth it. But by and large, I seldom download new game content because the price seldom reflects the value of that you receive. When they do it right, I have no problem downloading it, but that seldom ever happens.