In a recent interview with Rebellion developer David Brickley, currently working on the upcoming Alien Vs. Predator, support was added to gamers’ outcry against game developers charging for DLC that effectively just unlocks content already included on the game disc, like in the case of Capcom’s Resident Evil 5 versus mode. Here’s what Brickley had to say.
"It’s quite simple to explain, but I do think players are entirely right – if the content is on the disc already there’s absolutely no justification for studios to offer DLC which is essentially an unlock key or something. But I guess what doesn’t come across to some people is that when a game hits the shelves, it’s probably been wrapped up for four or five months in any true sense."
"The time between finishing the game and retail is usually spent on debugging – you can spend months and months just fixing errors and glitches to ensure the product is finished and ready for release. Then when you factor in the console approval and the manufacturing process, you’re talking about a substantial part of the game’s overall development time."
"While all of that stuff is going on, it tends to free up resources at the studio, so they can make items that can be added on as DLC afterwards. I think people outside of that process assume that the development of a game and its DLC are executed in parallel, and that’s really not the case."
As expected, gamers everywhere are patting Brickley on the back for being one of few developers to take their side on the issue. However, as Brickley aludes, there is little that gamers can do if developers decide to charge for content, aside from not buying it (which is clearly not going to happen). But at least now there’s hope.
