I can remember right after the 360 launched I got LIVE. I was still new to the whole ‘Marketplace’ aspect of my new console. The first thing I ever downloaded off of the Marketplace was the free add on cars for Burnout Revenge. I remember hearing people in online games say “I wish all games would use the Marketplace like this.” At this time there was only gamerpics, videos, maybe and arcade game or two. Four years later….
DLC, Marketplace, Playstation Store, Add-on. All of these words are now common and familiar language among gamers. Now we are having multiple DLC packs per game. Some DLC comes out a matter of hours after the game comes out. Then they keep coming. It’s like a never ending game experience. Some people hate it. Some people love it. I’m one of those who love it. The question I ask is: When did it all start? I would like to think it started January 22, 2008. The release of Burnout: Paradise.
I know you’re all thinking “Oh here he goes again about that damn racing game.” Well, yeah I’ll always talk that game and Criterion Games up. That’s another post. My point is this. Criterion Games set out on Burnout: Paradise to support the game for a full year after the games release. This had not been done at this time. To support a game with new DLC frequently for a whole year! It was great news and as an added bonus the game is on an EPIC scale of it’s own. Even though Criterion did get a slow start to their promise they did come through.
Now it seems that every game that comes out has gigantic DLC support and it has almost became the new standard for all games. DLC has become so massive that now and for a good while DLC even comes as a pre-order bonus. Sure it seems that it might have been the direction that gaming was headed anyway. I think that Criterion is responsible for ‘rushing’ the process if you will. For those of you who hate DLC, I’m not sure why you do. DLC seems to give a game new life. Now we just have to wait for someone to have enough balls to throw DLC out for a game that should have had some if not more DLC before the trend began. For the time being all we can do is wait and buy.
