The game director for Aliens vs Predator is with consumers on the overuse of DLC as a form of extra profit in today’s videogame industry.
Rebellion’s David Brickley, director for the new Aliens vs Predator game coming to next-gen platforms and the PC this year, told Spong in an interview that he feels DLC which ships on a game’s disc just isn’t cool. He also offered an explanation for DLC that might come out on the same day or soon after a game hits shelves. With DLC a huge component of the videogame market today, it might be worth listening to his words to allay some of that pent-up anger on the matter.
“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,” Brickley said. He continues: “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.”
It’s in this debugging phase that resources, meaning members of the development team, are freed up to do other things. Rather than sit around twiddling their big toes, many teams will now create DLC. Brickley understands how this looks to the consumer, as he relates: “I can understand why that’s hard to appreciate though, and people are right to question when they see things like that.”
In regards to Rebellion’s own Aliens vs Predator DLC, the company “saw an opportunity in-between finishing the game and actually putting it on the shelves to build on what [they’ve] already completed, so hopefully players can enjoy it more.” See, development studios just want to make us enjoy their games more, they could care less about the money lining their pockets that is associated with this enjoyment. It must be accepted that at least part of the time, Brickley is right, DLC isn’t another quick money grab.
