The Money Grab

In my last two blog entries, I touched on the topics of the Season Pass ( http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... ) and Dying Light's pre-order bonuses, which were really just early unlocks of poor quality, future content
( http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... ). For any returning readers, you'll recall some highlights of my Season Pass entry, where I spoke about companies releasing lackluster downloadable content and hiding it behind the anonymity of a season pass. Ironically enough, about twenty six days later, Techland has done exactly that with its downloadable content for Dying Light.

Don't get me wrong, Dying Light is an absolutely great experience, in my opinion. It was well presented, polished (aside from some minor bugs, again, in my opinion), offered great gameplay and nearly endless fun. With Metacritic, it averaged an 8 out of 10 which is classified as a good game. Everyone I know personally loves the experience. So why isn't it being shown proper respect from its developers? It's a process we've seen before and while it isn't new, it's certainly getting old.

It's the science of the money grab.

With games of times past, developers often asked this question halfway through development - while today, they usually ask the question before the development even starts - "How can we continue to make money on the game after it's been released?" If you guessed downloadable content, you'd be halfway correct. Utilizing the concept of downloadable content, developers will either take a piece out of the game and release it at a later date, or develop an afterthought that could have easily made it into the base experience and instead, release it as downloadable content. I'm willing to bet that even some of the basic of gamers can name a title or two whose developers participated in the post-release money grab.

Nowadays, developers are trying to get sneaky and we as both gamers and consumers have to be on our toes. The operative word there is 'try' because anyone with half a brain can identify their attempts a mile away. However, it's the consumers who have faith or hope place in a particular company or title that are screwed over in the end. Today, with the concept of the season pass, developers are easily getting away with charging for and releasing afterthought downloadable content by hiding the details about the content until release day, but making it sound just promising enough to whet the appetite of gamers with an extra $20 to spend.

Today, Techland has released the first piece of downloadable content for Dying Light, titled 'Cuisine & Cargo.' Originally, the description for the content was, "Cuisine & Cargo will feature additional weaponry as well as new story content that will feature new characters Antoine Merpe (David Belle), Christof Merpe (Elias Toufexis), Bernard Smith (Nolan North), and Ronald "Razor" Tomasino (Michael Hollick). The story features a new member of the Tower, Antoine Merpe on his quest to deliver a cuisine along with weapons cargo, however, the cargo's delivery is interrupted by a rival runner, Razor." In the coming days when Techland detailed the content of the Season Pass, the original description was discredited as fan made and revealed that the "new" characters were in fact the pre-production names for some of the main characters.

The official description for Cuisine & Cargo is: "Available first for Season Pass holders, these two hardcore missions let players put their skills to the ultimate test. Investigate buildings sealed off in the very first days of the outbreak--with the infected inside. Explore ominous corridors of once the most famous restaurant in Harran, and employ both stealth and combat to ransack a zombie-filled loading bay at an abandoned railroad yard."

The advertising for the downloadable content is completely inaccurate and false. In reality, neither of the missions are "hardcore," as myself and other players have completed both missions together in about 15 minutes or less. Cuisine & Cargo is essentially an $8 add-on that should have been in the game to start with or should have been free, not part of a $20 season pass, as the experience was hardly worth $1 and I could have gone my entire life without ever having experienced it. It was a really negative introduction to Dying Light's downloadable content, but at the same time, the terrible truth is that Techland isn't the true villain here. It's the hope and faith that gamers put into companies, trusting that with the early purchase of a season pass, the content will be worth it. Dying Light has two more content releases coming in March and in May, the former adding four new weapons (three of which were GameStop preorder bonuses) and three new outfits (two of which were Best Buy preorder bonuses) while the latter release will add some sort of arena-style combat.

As I stated in my Season Pass blog entry: it's complete and utter nonsense. Development companies are getting ridiculous with their lackluster content and even worse attempts at justification. It's not content that had days of thought and development poured into it. It was content that was most likely already in the game, cut out and rereleased as an add-on. How quickly the first piece was released after the game's launch is enough evidence of the fact. As for the second release, why bother waiting until March? One percentage of gamers already have three out of four weapons while another percentage already has two out of three outfits; it's not like the content isn't already on the bloody disc anyway.

It was the second and last season pass I will ever purchase, regardless of the situation, company or game. It's basically the developer saying, "Well, we know the content isn't going to be worth the money whatsoever, so let's hide it behind the season pass, wait until enough fools buy one and then we'll detail each component, when it will be too late for a refund."

The real crime here is substantial video game titles not being given the proper respect and dedication they deserve and at the same time, its fan base is being treated like idiotic sheep, and that is unacceptable.