XBL Arcade games need DLC too
The arcade games on Xbox Live are typically pretty cheap, usually under the $20 price point, which makes them very appealing for cheap gamers like myself. But in the age of downloadable content (DLC), gamers expect a longer shelf life for games…even the cheap ones. Too bad developers are seemingly overlooking the DLC for arcade games.
I have more Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) games than I do retail box games. I can get two or three XBLA games for the price of one new box game. Plus I can download them easily from the comfort of my couch. There’s no disc to swap in and out…the benefits are plentiful. But one benefit that seems to be lacking is DLC support. As the XBLA games are cheaper, they instantly have more appeal to the gaming masses. In theory, that means there will be more people playing XBLA games than box games…so why wouldn’t you want to keep those gamers happy?
Battlefield 1943 is one of the more recent, awesome XBLA games. It’s a shooter that looks good, plays good, and only took $15 out of my wallet. The game itself is pretty small, only three maps and a limited character set. This isn’t a bad place to start. The game even had a dog fight stage that became unlocked when the gaming community at large reached a certain number of kills. It didn’t take long for the hundreds of thousands of gamers to reach that goal. The game is now all unlocked for everyone…so how do they plan to keep the game alive?
Apparently they don’t.
A post at Joystiq cites that game makers, DICE, have no plans on offering DLC for Battlefield any time soon. This is a big mistake. When you have over a million people playing your game, you want to keep them happy. We want more content for the game - and we’ll pay for it. New maps, new weapons, additional characters…anything…slap up there for $5 or less and we’ll buy it. The DLC model works. Look at Rock Band and even games like Burnout Paradise.
I’m not a game developer so I don’t know how much effort and resources it takes to expand a game, but I’m thinking that an additional map or additional class type isn’t much of a chore. The framework is already there. You’re not writing a new game, you extending it. And lets say that half of all the gamers that bought the game buy the DLC. That’s 500,000 people paying (lets say) $5 for an additional map. You do the math. (And that’s on top of the million people that already paid $15 for the base game)
Seems like a no-brainer if you ask me.
Granted, some games don’t lend themselves to DLC, which is fine. But not every game gets millions of players either. If you have a huge base you need to step up and do so, otherwise we won’t come back. Even newer games like Shadow Complex need to think about DLC too. While I haven’t purchased the game yet, reviewers have the overall game as a pretty quick action-packed romp. This is fine as long as they plan on keeping the game alive with DLC and other add-ons.
Arcade games should not be treated as disposable.
I’m not apt to buy games with a limited shelf life. I want my gaming experience to be worth the price I pay. Yes, the arcade games are cheaper, but is $15 a good value for a game that only lasts one weekend? Not to mention you can’t trade/sell downloaded games, so unless the game has some replay live or DLC options, that’s a dead purchase and much less enticing.
Whole point being, game expansions are not a new concept. We’ve been duped into buying game add-ons for years, only now they’re even easier to acquire and purchase. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that game DLC will pay for itself quickly assuming your player base is big enough (or loyal enough).
Needless to say, “full sized” box games MUST have DLC these days. If I’m not willing to pay $20 for a game that doesn’t expand I’m certainly not going to buy a $60 game that won’t get add-ons either. I’m hoping this whole DLC thing is something game makers are still trying to figure out. I’m sure it has messed up their game life cycle theories. It just goes to show that if you put a lot of thought and effort into a base game, you can rake in the dollars through DLC for a long, long time.
I saw today on Cnet that some company did a study and found that Xbox 360 has a 35% failure rate. That is pretty shitty. Cnet also commented that it is pretty sad that they are as well known for the red ring of death as they are of there most popular game titles, and now that the PS3 is down to $299 it would seem that there may be a shift in the tide of system purchases, especially when you consider PS3 has one of the best blue ray players on the market!
The 360 has nothing to worry about. PS3 may have a Blu-ray in it but they don’t have anywhere near the library of (good) games that Xbox does. If you’re buying the PS3 for the Blu-ray then you’re not a gamer and you don’t count.
If you look at the PS3 and go “well, I’ll get a Blu-ray player too,” then you’re really saying, “I’m buying a Blu-ray player and getting video games extra!”
Bottom line, hardware doesn’t sell consoles, games do. No games, no point to buy, even with blu-ray.
And yes, my Xbox did go bad on me (not a RRoD) but the replacement process was quick, easy, and free. That doesn’t excuse the fact that it shouldn’t have happened but at least it got dealt with well.
Plus if you look at the number of 360s out there compared to the number of PS3s the 35% means less and less.
Bottom line two, there’s a reason Xbox has out-sold PS3 since the beginning. It took PS3 two years or more to bring down their price and by this point in time all the gamers have made their choice. Any gamer that gets a PS3 after already owning an Xbox is buying it for the DVD, not the games. For shame.