DLC: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

DLC has been a controversial topic in the last few years as gamers try to decide whether DLC is a good thing or a bad thing. Gamers are tantalized by the possibility of extending their favorite game experiences, but they're also frustrated at DLC like Bethesda's infamous "Horse Armor." I argue that DLC is a great thing for gaming, but it must be done in a way that adds to a game experience rather than just extending it.

The Good

If DLC is really done well, then you should want to play the DLC even more than you want to play the original content. A great example of this is Call of Duty: World at War. I thought that WaW was a mediocre game that fell short of the expectations created by Infinity Ward's CoD games, but the game did have one thing going for it and that was the co-op modes. Realizing that the Nazi Zombie mode was most players' favorite feature, Treyarch made DLC that not only extended the game with more maps for that mode, but also added onto the complexity of Nazi Zombies allowing hardcore players to get a more satisfying experience.

Rhythm games have also done a good job of using DLC to both add to and extend a gaming experience. Rock Band players start with a good number of tracks that appeal to a wide audience, but players can use the music store to tailor their set list to their own unique tastes. If you're a fan of metal music then you can take your copy of Rock Band and turn it into Metal Band by buying fifty metal tracks. Or you can turn your copy into Classic Rock Band by buying music from The Who and Boston. Rock Band DLC allows people to add their favorite kind of music and therefore add their favorite gaming experiences.

The Bad

Mass Effect was a great game because it which allowed you to make decisions throughout the game that impacted the story. The gameplay was fun, but I have better shooter games sitting in my closet than Mass Effect. The reason that people played Mass Effect was for the involving story, so it would stand to reason that any DLC that Bioware released would play off the strength of the story and add an interesting little side quest.

The "Bring Down the Sky" DLC for Mass Effect failed to add to the game and instead only extended it. It's easy to spot BDtS as filler when you look at some elements of the mission. In BDtS you are repeatedly asked to do several of a simple task, which is almost the definition of filler. The game wants you to go to three survey stations, then activate a few fusion torches, then you go to the main facility and fight a horde of enemies before facing the final boss. There are only two interesting conversations in the entirety of BDtS even though conversations are what makes Mass Effect interesting to begin with.

BDtS demonstrates the danger in developers doing DLC when they don't understand what made their game good to begin with. Mass Effect had a strong narrative with interesting characters and conversations throughout the game. Bioware has shown that it doesn't mind using classic game theory (e.g. Prisoner's Dilemma) in Knights of the Old Republic and it used a game theory type of situation in BDtS, but they had only one such situation in the entire hour or two of the DLC. Developers need to insist that their DLC is of the same quality as the original game otherwise it will be short on ideas and not add to the original game.

The Ugly

Mass Effect's DLC is bad because it added filler and very little of what was good in the game to begin with. Ugly DLC is ugly, because rather than improve the game or just make it longer, it makes the game worse. Making a game worse with DLC is not as difficult a task you might imagine, though it's really only possible in multiplayer games. There are a couple of examples of this, but one of the easiest examples is also one of the oldest.

Battlefield 2 was a very popular PC game that sold millions of copies, so the developer (DICE) decided to sell expansion packs and DLC. One of the DLC (and the expansion pack) added new weapons that only players who had bought those packs would have. DICE then allowed players of the expansion packs to use these weapons in games with players who didn't have these packs. The result was a slight unbalance in gameplay. It wasn't a huge deal, so there wasn't a whole lot of backlash, but it was poor decision on DICE's part. It's great when DLC adds on to the experience of players, but it should never subtract from the experience of other players. Players should never feel compelled to purchase DLC to be competitive in a game.