DLC's and Micro-transactions in gaming: How far is too far?

The video game industry has a massive problem on its hands: The players of the product are sick and tired of being nickle and dimed after the initial 40 to 60 dollar purchase.  This is something you'll read in countless comments sections on gaming websites, or articles on the internet, about any new game that announces it will have DLC or Micro-transactions. (or both)  

For those that aren't gamers:   DLC is an acronym for Downloadable Content which is just that.  It's content of the video game not found in the main product that you download to add to it.  The content varies from a continuation of the story of the game, to different levels for the player to play on (more commonly seen in first person shooters), extra missions and playable characters etc etc...  Micro-transactions are something that smart phone users are probably more aware of but this way of making extra cash is slipping quickly into the mainstream of triple a video game titles.  MT's are generally something that gives the player an advantage in the game.  For smart phone users:  You need extra lives in Candy Crush? It's a dollar.  Do you need extra boosts? It's a dollar.  Do you want that special farm that produces four times the amount of resource then the free one in Farmville? It's a dollar.   That is a micro-transaction. (and is despised heavily by the majority of the console/pc gaming community.)  

It's only a dollar... c'mon... buy it... You know you want to.

This day and age, it's almost a given that EVERY new game that comes out will have one of these extra cost add-ons but is the product that the production company provides worth the extra cash?  How many extra hours of playable content is the player going to receive and is this all part of the game that could have (should have) made it into the final product when it was released?  When do gamers start saying, "No, I won't pay 30 dollars for a two hour campaign." (Looking at you, Metal Gear)

In a previous blog, I pointed out a player who commented that they were genuinely unhappy about the direction the gaming industry was headed.  His/her reasoning behind this was that production companies // development teams of a video game have in mind at the start a way to make "extra" money.  The way they do this is by setting up DLC, or in lesser cases micro-transactions, that will keep the player dipping into their pockets to see the "rest of the game".   Tin foil hat theory aside, their discomfort with paying extra for a product is understandable and is a shared feeling in the gaming community (myself included).

Do you feel this way about DLC purchases?

But where is the line drawn by a player?  What DLC out there is a "justifiable" purchase and what exactly makes it that way? This is generally determined by the genre of the game, the type of content you're going to receive and how much gratification you will get for the purchase.   Typically speaking, a developer will announce what will come with the price tag attached to the DLC, but a player still has no real clue what they are going to receive if they purchase it early in the form of "Season DLC Passes".  The player might also pick up the DLC package after their first impressions and general excitement to see what the developer has kept up its sleeve to show later on.

Oh Elizabeth...

As a person who rarely buys into DLC, I found myself immediately grabbing the Bioshock Infinite season pass within hours of starting the game. Why did I do this? Simple.  The story was compelling enough to warrant the purchase of seeing more of that story content. (It was announced that there would be playable episodes in the season DLC pass).  The same thing happened with The Last of Us, however I only picked up the story content and not the multi-player DLC map packs/game mode.  Was the 5 hour side story worth the 15 dollar purchase to see more story of TLoU?  Absolutely.  Did I agree with the price? Not necessarily, but since I loved the game so much I felt that I needed to see "untold" story and paid for it.

But what price would've been fair and was I the type of customer that Naughty Dog was aiming that price tag at? The person that loved the game THAT much that they would spend 15 dollars to see more of it? That's where gamers start to feel the disconnect (or distaste/discomfort) between the developer and themselves and start to wonder if they really needed to buy that DLC instead of just watching it on Youtube.

One set of DLC that is most popular (and somewhat disliked about its price) in games is multi-player map pack season passes found primarily for first person shooters.  Both Call of Duty and Battlefield charge 40 dollars for multiple sets of new DLC maps to do battle on which come out every few months.

"Back in my day" moment:  When Counter Strike first hit the FPS scene of the PC, the mod took off among the gaming community so quickly that players themselves started to create their own maps to play on to freshen up the map cycle.  When you joined a new server, you sometimes had to download the maps that were currently running there and it was all for free.  When the map downloads were complete, they were yours for life... or for however long that particular server stayed up and running.

So later on when FPS's started to explode in popularity and developers started to hear the demands for more death match and capture the flag maps to be created, a light bulb must have went off and shined dollar signs.  Players would pay for new maps as long as they were well designed! Go figure.

Myself?  I was disgusted by what developers were doing. I remember being genuinely excited about playing on a map that someone took the time to develop themselves and now that was replaced by a developer looking to make some extra cash.  To me, map packs aren't something that people should pay 40 dollars for but to a hardcore FPS gamer it might be, I don't know.  At the end of the day, you're paying 100 dollars (or more if you ended up getting a collectors edition) for the game.  Is that cost too high just for 16 extra maps to play on when the developer could've just released the game with more multi-player maps from the beginning?  I guess that depends on the person.

In the case of Micro-transactions, most gamers feel that developers are just putting price tags on cheat codes.  If you think about it, a gamer is offered the opportunity to buy certain items or boosts that used to be able to be attained by pressing a series of controller buttons. The infamous "Contra Code" gave you 30 lives but in today's day and age, you can purchase that for a buck through a menu on the "extras" screen.  Gamers are extremely testy and vocal about anything being purchased to give someone an unfair advantage to those that have to play the game "normally".

The Contra, or Konami, code:  The Jesus of Video Game Codes.

When it comes to MMO's // MOBA's, Micro-transactions are often called Pay to Win items because that's exactly what happens.  A player can purchase as many power ups as they can afford in order to give them a major advantage over everyone else.  (Kind of like the Yankees do in baseball...  only you do actually win.  ZING)  Is this a developer crossing a line or morality? I'd say so... But as long as people keep giving the developers money for the advantages and perks, they will never go away.
  
Just remember:  It's your money.  You decide if you want to support the developer and if you feel that you're being taken advantage of, you don't have to give them anything.  If developers start seeing trends that players are refusing to pay 15 dollars for 5 hour campaigns, it just might force them to lower the price to 10 dollars.