Gears of War 3's on-disc DLC

Posted by S3xySeele on Nov. 5, 2011, 12:19 a.m.

So… Gears of War 3's Horde Command Pack DLC is actually on the game disc.

DLC being present on a game's disc isn't unheard of, but Epic hasn't tried to be sneaky and hide this fact. Why? Because they've got a cute little justificatation for why their DLC is on the game's disc.

Their argument goes that Gears of War 3 was meant to be released earlier in the year, but due to it getting pushed back, what was intended to be post-launch downloaded DLC could now be put on the game disc. And why not? After all, doing so will greatly reduce the size of the download needed to enable the content.

I've got two problems with that argument.

First off, if the content is meant to be released as DLC post-launch, maybe you should wait to start working on it until you've got a finished game. Perhaps not yet on store shelves, but at least wait until the game's gone gold or extremely close to it.

Second, if the content happens to be finished before the game goes gold, it shouldn't be DLC anymore even if it was originally intended to be. Throw it into the game, and make some more damn content for post-launch DLC if you wanna shake us down for more of our cash, you cheap and lazy bastards.

/rant

Glad I'm not a Gears of War fan to begin with. And after this lame excuse for on-disc DLC, I'm not about to give it (or any other Epic games) a try any time soon.

Comments

JID 13 years, 1 month ago

The thing that bothers me about the on-disc dlc, is the fact that they hid content that they promised us to begin with. I find it a bit rediculous to have to buy gun skins that are already on disc.

I think it was really shady what they did as a Gears fan, because they've never done that type of shit before, but almost every AAA game does that nowadays, some examples, Mass Effect, Batman Arkham City, and many more titles.

I kind of understand why they had to do this though, they've said recently that they've gambled the studio trying to make all the Gears games, because Gears games cost so much money to make.

Also, Gears 3 definately was the one that costed the most to make out of the series, because they have dedicated servers now, which cost a fortune to keep up and running.

They've said that they'll no longer make any AAA games this gen, after Gears 3, because they need to recover financially from it. They are only going to make xbl arcade games for the rest of this gen to recover.

Praying Mantis 13 years, 1 month ago

I heard about this sort of thing from Extra Credits.

Storing DLC on disk isn't such a bad thing. The purpose of it is to reduce the time it takes to download the DLC (which on the Xbox is absolutely ridiculous, and you can't do anything else while you wait).

Don't think of it as being charged for something you already have in your possesion.

Rob 13 years, 1 month ago

Quote:
I heard about this sort of thing from Extra Credits.

Storing DLC on disk isn't such a bad thing. The purpose of it is to reduce the time it takes to download the DLC (which on the Xbox is absolutely ridiculous, and you can't do anything else while you wait).

Don't think of it as being charged for something you already have in your possesion.

Yes. But why isn't it in the game to begin with?

ND4SPD 13 years, 1 month ago

" Yes. But why isn't it in the game to begin with? "

Because the developers are like "heeyyyy!!!!! :) :) GIMME ALL YOUR MONIES"

(arby n the chief reference)

Juju 13 years, 1 month ago

I suspect most DLC is created before release anyway.

If there's space on the disk, use it.

Toast 13 years, 1 month ago

It's not like they've committed some kind of evil. We already know that just because you have something in your possession, that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it. Some helpful examples might be "a gun" or "your peepee".

The other argument - that they should have added it to the main game - is a question of whether or not you think you're getting value for money. Once again, if you don't like it, don't buy it. If you buy it anyway, they don't have any motivation to do shit.

Unaligned 13 years, 1 month ago

Possibly unoriginal comment, but still valid:

Before:

1-Make full/complete game, charge full price

2-If popular, take real time and resources to make DLC/expansion pack(s)

Now:

1-Make half-assed game, charge full price

2-Make DLC before release, give pre-orders/buying in certain stores/digital deluxe versions special content/skins/missions that are already on the damn disc/downloaded game files

Alternatively, pirate game, get all content sans DRM bullshit.

Cesar 13 years, 1 month ago

Just because it's on-disk doesn't mean that it's something meant to be in the original game. As juju said, if there's space on the disk why not use it?

It isn't like the fucking Assassin's Creed DLC where they intentionally put time skips in the fucking story for the DLC to go into. That made me mad, but I'm indifferent about this one.

Taizen Chisou 13 years, 1 month ago

all yo yens yip yip yap

JID 13 years, 1 month ago

Quote:
The purpose of it is to reduce the time it takes to download the DLC (which on the Xbox is absolutely ridiculous, and you can't do anything else while you wait).
wait wat. it usually takes me 2-3 minutes to download most DLC, unless it's like 1 GB or something, then it'll take about 15 minutes. and I can usually still play my games while I wait. Just can't play anything over xbl.

It can't be any worse than PSN, though. It takes me like 10 minutes just to download something that's 20 mb and then after that, it'll have to install which takes about an additional 10 minutes.

for srs