DLC was meant to be a great thing, one that would ensure that our games grew and evolved over time, one that ensured that they would stay alive after they had been shipped, allowing developers to expand on their original vision with new content. But then it grew into an abusive, exploitative practice that consumers have largely negative associations with.
Thankfully, there are still some companies that do DLC right. On consoles, Bethesda, Rockstar, and Nintendo in particular stand out as the shining standards of good DLC. And now, DriveClub developer Evolution Studios wants to join those ranks.
Speaking about their unusual DLC schedule for the game, here is what they had to say:
“We had a vision for the game and we have a vision for how we want to extend that, but we’ve left gaps in the schedule next year because we want to work with the community on this. We want to leave enough space to respond to feedback from the community and to try and deliver features or even remove features that aren’t quite working.
“I like DLC in games. I like that it extends the experience for me, but I feel like I’m just getting what I’m expected to be getting – there’s nothing that surprises me. We were quite keen to move beyond that as a developer.
“Instead of just giving players more of the game, it was to try and open a dialogue with the community, be much more transparent and much more open and let the players know that it’s a shared experience, just as much for us as it is them. We’re all shaping what it’ll be a year from now together.”
That… honestly sounds good to me. If more companies approached DLC like this, instead of a scheme to continuously extract every last dollar from their customer’s pocket, it would be much better received and perceived.
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