by Andre Sapp

Video game developers need a system of checks and balances, because the use of downloadable content (DLC) is being abused and exploited. This blatant exploitation is ruining the spirit of buying a full game at its initial price.

Today, consumers are paying $60 for a demo and, on average, another $25 to play the full game. The $25 figure stems from the cost of a season pass to have full access to future downloadable content. On a very basic level, it seems like the buyer is only paying extra money to get extra features for a game. Like most things, it’s not that simple.

The major problem with DLC, especially season passes, is that it divides the consumer base of the game. First person shooters are notorious for this. Some people cannot afford a season pass for every game, or even just one game, that they purchase. Other people refuse to buy any DLC because they feel like a game should only be priced as advertised. Then there are individuals who only purchase a portion of the DLC that a game offers. This forces customers to match-make with other customers who have the same amount of content, leaving large groups of customers alienated in the process. This is especially concerning because games with DLC tend to cater only to those who purchased every single piece of DLC.

For example, in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (COD:AW), a season pass or a monetary fee is required to play Exo Zombies mode. In order to get Exo Zombies, you must purchase the Havoc DLC for three new maps. Of course Call of Duty has other instances of alienating its base-game-only players, but this is the most egregious. $60 is good enough to purchase thirteen maps, a six-hour story mode, and three playable game modes. In order to get the zombie expansion pack, it costs $15, a fourth of the original price. This fee can be “avoided” by paying the extra $50 for the season pass, totaling $110 for the intended full game. A large section of COD:AW’s fanbase are broke high school and college kids. Most are not ready to drop that kind of money on just one game. Consequently, a significant amount of customers are stuck with an incomplete game and are unable to enjoy its full capabilities.

It has become a trend recently for games to announce DLC before they’re even available. That sounds wrong and unethical or, even worse, greedy and evil. Why is it acceptable for an unfinished product to be sold, and then to charge the original consumers more to get the full experience? It would not be beyond the scope of developers to divide the finished product into many marketable pieces to create DLC and increase profits. There’s no way to prove that’s a video game company’s intention, but it’s not hard to make that correlation.

Evolve is the biggest, most recent abuser of this business model. Evolve is a disgrace, a game with potential ruined by the promise of complicated DLC plans and DLC pricing. Evolve has three different season passes with three different prices containing more content the more expensive the season pass is. Most people will pay for the most expensive pass to make sure they get as much content possible. Many games follow this model, but Evolve is different. Instead of paying for maps (which is actually good), customers must pay for new characters (which is horrible). The $15 Monster Expansion Pack includes one new monster character and a behemoth skin. Essentially, you pay $15 for one new character. $25 gets you the Hunter expansion pack, which contains four new hunters and three monster skins. According to the Evolve website, purchasing the hunting season pass saves you $5, if you opted to not buy each piece of the DLC individually. Evolve has the nerve to tout this as a favor to the consumer. No customer should be forced to pay more than 25% of the full price to receive the full game. Together, both passes total $40, yet the Evolve digital deluxe pass is twice as much. This entails that more content for individual purchases is in the works. If the game requires that much DLC to be purchased, the game is nowhere near finished, and it shouldn’t be priced at $60.

Unfortunately, it seems like more future releases plan to be just as aggressive with DLC offerings. In order to fix this, consumers have to speak out against overpriced DLC packages, boycott them, and let the industry know it’s not okay. But there is a demand, and video game companies will be happy to supply it as long as we do nothing about it.