Poll of the Week - What's Your Take on DLC

Last week's poll asked "Will Pulling Killzone 2 Bus Shelter Ads Reduce Violence in Your Community?", and while this poll had the lowest number of votes yet, here are the results:

Yes, our community is now safer. 0 Votes, 0%
No, ads don't make people violent. 0 Votes, 0%
There are better measures to reduce violence, and this was a waste of time. 5 Votes, 100%

Total Votes: 5


A total victory on how silly that situation was, so you can all guess what I voted for, and you can read my post here for a pretty good idea as to why. What I find ironic is that most of the Killzone 2 ads that were removed appear to have been replaced with Resistance Retribution ads, and yet no one's complained!

Now, for this week's poll. Fallout 3: The Pitt launches this coming Tuesday, and I have yet to see the Microsoft Point cost, but I'm guessing it'll be around 800 Microsoft Points. As an old school gamer, I'm used to developers and publishers releasing full fledged expansion packs for their games, generally a year after launch. Think of The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles or Halo 3: ODST as recent examples of what I mean.

An expansion set, a good one anyway, has completely new Missions or Quests, characters, enemies, weapons, it's essentially half a sequel, from a certain point of view, and they tend to run you about half the cost to maybe two thirds the cost of a retail game.

In today's market, however, expansion sets are significantly rarer, and publishers today have their developers cranking out DLC, simple little add-ons that might only add in the odd item, Quest, or maps, but can run you anywhere between $5.00 to $15.00. The irony is, DLC has existed since the '90's, though it wasn't called Downloadable Content, and it was always released for free.

Blizzard Entertainment, for example, released hundreds of free Multiplayer maps, they released various free Campaigns, sound tracks, etc. Other developers as well would released free maps and content, but now the norm is to charge for this kind of content, and of course, the younger generation gobbles it up.

So this week, I want to know: "What's Your Take on DLC?" You can vote at the top of the left hand side bar.