Bhruic wrote on Oct 11, 2012, 17:21:
Flatline wrote on Oct 11, 2012, 16:58:
Wow. Talk about no-win scenario. Usually people bitch that a game is out for six months and they're not interested in new DLC. They actually get DLC out in a reasonable time period and they get shit.
In general, yes, DLC is a no-win scenario. Having it come out immediately is a good indication that they withheld from the game, having it come out later means a vastly decreased market. But companies used to combat that well by putting out actual expansion packs. Take Civ IV for example - the expansion packs for that vastly changed the game to such a degree that it doesn't matter how long they took, they made the game worth playing again. Same with something like Brood Wars for Starcraft. Nowadays we have stuff like Dawnguard or this, which are basically just mission packs. They don't change the game in any real way, so they aren't sufficient to make you want to replay.
The solution is to take your time and put out something that's sufficiently compelling to ensure people take a second look at your game. Unfortunately few companies take that route, prefering the quick buck.
DLC isn't always withheld content. In some cases, it is (like with ME3's From Ashes DLC) but in many cases, the DLC has a completely separate budget and dev cycle from the main game. Once a game reaches beta, the artists and designers aren't really generating any new content for the main game. They're just fixing bugs and doing general polish tasks. As such, it makes sense for them to start working on DLC during this period. That's how they can release DLC so soon after the main game's release.