"... E3 last night was not representative of the gaming industry of which I’m a part.

[Scumbag]

What if it were not food or music and just, as people said, DLC, as DLC is DLC.
Like selling games as DLC for DLC.

[Nalano]

So all we have to do to make sense of abusive DLC is to replace the notion of games as art with the notion of games as fast food. Nice.

If you want, we can replace "fast food restaurant" with "fine dining establishment" and "value meal" with "prix fixe."

[Dr.Nick]

I don't think E3 is unsalvagable. I agree it doesn't reflect the current gaming industry but some changes like showing actual gameplay, talking about game design out in the open, and respecting gamer culture and the consumer would go a long way.

[mittortz]

So all we have to do to make sense of abusive DLC is to replace the notion of games as art with the notion of games as fast food. Nice.

How about games as a salable product? Whether or not you prefer the superficial aspect of the analogy doesn't make it any less accurate. Though games involve art in their creation, they are, for nearly all intents and purposes and especially in the context of this discussion, entertainment products. A single game (at least one that would have DLC) has multiple teams of programmers, artists, marketers, and a billion different business executives that incur massive production costs with the incentive that at the end of the whole process they will make that money back and then some. However, because of the way free markets work, if the resulting product isn't worth the price, that money will not be made back. Even if Company X manages to scrape by financially on Super Game 1 despite poor reception, you can make a solid bet that Super Game 2 will be what sinks them.

My point is that all this shit has value. Value that is determined by a vague negotiation between the masses of consumers and the companies that produce the shit. So what makes a burger and fries different from a game and some DLC? If people are willing to buy a burger for the price of a burger, then the fries are going to cost more.

The whole concept of *DLC* in gaming is something that is new, but as has been said before, expansion packs have been around forever, and they are essentially the exact same thing. Day-one or not. Whether the development occurs before, during, or after, if the company determines that there is a cutoff to what development time has a reasonable return on it from the base price of the original product, then all the rest is going to be extra. Allow me to present a very early example that really wraps all this into one, from Wikipedia:

With Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally to be released as one game,^[4]but due to time and financial constraints, it was later split into two separate games. However, Sonic & Knuckles contained "Lock-on Technology", where the Sonic & Knucklescartridge would be put in the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis system, and then another game could be placed onto the top of the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge itself.^[4] When Sonic 3 is used in this manner, it enables the player to play through both games as one, titled in-game as Sonic 3 & Knuckles. This features several additions to the games not available otherwise, such as small alterations to the levels, and being able to play through Sonic 3 levels as Knuckles, or Sonic & Knuckles levels as Tails, and the ability to save progress in all of the game's levels.
Additionally, this was the only way to collect Super Emeralds, which are earned by accessing Special Stages in the Sonic & Knuckles levels after collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds from Sonic 3. When all Super Emeralds have been collected, Sonic, Knuckles and Tails can transform into Hyper Sonic, Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails respectively, each with unique abilities.

If you'd like to read more about the extra content that Sonic 2 and Sonic 1 enjoyed, here is the article itself.

To speak in terms of games today, I think it's nice that we have the choice. I do believe companies are creating more than they normally would with the advent of DLC, but instead of it necessarily costing us (consumers) more by increasing original product price, we can choose whether or not we want the fries and soda. For instance, paying $60 for both Starcraft 2 and Battlefield 3 was fine for me. I've enjoyed both games fully (in fact, Starcraft has reallllly stretched its value. After all this time, I'd say if I had paid $125 I would not regret it. But I don't represent the rest of the market), I bought the BF3 Premium pass, and I'm completely ready for the SC2 expansion. Blizzard's constant support for patching and perfecting Starcraft is really impressive to me, but they are paid well for it by every huge tournament that is held for the game.

On the other hand, I haven't bought a damn thing that Bioware has put out for Mass Effect 3, and I don't plan on it unless it is VERY well-reviewed single player content. I didn't buy the game for multiplayer, I didn't enjoy the bit of multiplayer that I tried, and I was actually pissed about it entirely because I thought it would take away from the single player. Little did I know that they would make an excellent single-player campaign anyway and continue to appease their fan base by providing extra content for free, while supporting the multiplayer by releasing paid DLC for the people who do enjoy that sort of thing. In the end, I got the burger I wanted, the people who like multiplayer/fries got what they wanted, and Bioware/EA is getting their money. Who is getting the shit end of the stick here?

EDIT: Just realized that Hypernetic, original poster of the fast food analogy, is also a Philadelphia resident. Small world. I mean really, the underused forums of a British PC gaming blog... and I agree with this person, of all things. Let's get naughty.