DLC Content: Worth Buying or Better Free?

Lately I have watched videos and read articles that go on about DLC these days. Some consider it a pointless addition to the cost of gaming, where the content was already on the disc but gamers have to pay to unlock it. Others have been showing off some of the free DLC; for instance the Yoshi’s Island DLC for Sonic Lost Worlds on Wii U. While it looks great, is it worth the space to download it and save it on your console?

These are many thoughts that have come up when I look into more and more DLC opinions. I always wonder about popular opinion in situations like these, but lately I’ve been questioning my own.

So what do I think?

Well, I, Prodigious Jay, of sound body and mind must attest that my opinion of DLC downloads for popular (and not so popular) game is simple: I believe that some of the DLC out there is fantastic. As mentioned above, Yoshi’s Island DLC looks well put together and flashes back to a nostalgic age, showing me just how far the games have come over the years.

However, yes, there is more to this story, the DLC out there that exists for simple things–new weapons, extra multiplayer maps, and color skin upgrades–all of these things irritate the living hell out of me. Why would I want to spend $5-10 for something that barely adds any value to the game itself?

The horror of the low-end of DLC, though, is that there are people out there that are more than willing to spend the cash to get the tiniest upgrade to their gameplay, or a one-up on their friends who can’t afford it. Sure, bragging rights are all fine and dandy, but to keep doing it while encouraging the game companies to keep pumping it out and holding back some simple things from us–I don’t feel that’s fair to the rest of us.

I’m not a coder, I can’t crack into game disc code to see if this content actually exists there, but if it truly does, it really gets on my nerves. I already paid $65 (including tax) for a full game experience, then come to find out I paid for a part of a product that will need to be unlocked later for more of my hard-earned cash.

Maybe this is a message to game developers, maybe it’s one for those who are proponents of this horrible cycle by buying new content every time it comes out. Either way, I want to get out the fact that I’m not fully on the boat with all the DLC shenanigans; while some content looks beautiful, I can’t justify spending money on it as it stands.

Hopefully one day we won’t need to pay for this content, but then again I suppose that is just one gamer’s pipe dream.