What downloadable content do you buy for games?

[Nimrod]

With both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 having online marketplaces and game creators now releasing downloadable addon packs for games, Its made me wonder if people buy it and what DLC content interests them.

I only have an Xbox 360, but I have bought a fair amount of DLC (Downloadable Content) for a few games.

I bought the Getting Busy pack for Crackdown because I loved the game, and the new vechiles and weapons for 800 points made it quite interesting. It also added the gamemode street racing which is great fun for multiplayer.

I've also bought the Big Surf Island DLC content for Burnout Paradise because it adds a great deal of content to the original game with a whole new island and a new set of cars. For 1,000 points its a bargain for the sheer amount of content added, when you compare it to the 800 points wanted for police skins for cars as well as 1,000 for toy cars.
Though due to my sudden increase in Microsoft Points thanks to the £7 for 2100 coupon code for Game I ended up buying all the addon packs for Burnout, because they are good, just rather expensive for just some new cars.

I however have not wasted a point on the cheat DLC content like in Need for Speed where you can exchange Microsoft Points for ingame credit which you earn from just doing the races, so paying to be able to buy any car early in the game.

To me, downloadable content needs to be priced correctly, if you look at the GTA4 Expansion at 1600 points is just stupid, thats almost £15($23) for a small single player expansion using the same maps and content already in the game when you can pick the whole game up brand new for £10 now! Developers that make good downloadable content which will provide hours of entertainment for a good price interests me!

So what DLC have you bought and what makes you want to buy it or not buy it?

 

[xzKinGzxBuRnzx]

My Downloadable Content Purchases

I believe Downloadable Content is a great way to get interesting new stuff for your most played games. I've purchased quiet alot of DLC, themes, gamer picture packs all off Xbox Live in the past and here are my views and purchases.

Themes and gamer pictures I believe is something that shouldn't be sold on Xbox Live. As you can just download a good wallpaper to you PC and link your 360 to it and use that as your background. Of course it won't be nothing like the other premium themes but its a great way to do it if you like to use family photos, vacation photos and other such things as a wallpaper. In my opinion all themes and gamer pictures should be provided free as a feature to all Xbox Live Gold Members. As it stands now, many people who aren't pirates switch over to the PS3. Even though this is a higher console it kinda pays for itself over the years when your not having to purchase a Xbox Live Gold Subscription.

If I'm not mistaken there was even something mentioned at E3 (I Could be wrong now) about a Avatar Marketplace. If this does actually come out, I may make a few worthless purchases in the future but my views on the subject stand exactly the same as the themes and gamer pictures.

In the past I've made several Download Content purchases. My most prized DLC (Downloadable Content) is all the Fallout 3 ones. Thats, The Pitt, Operation: Ancorge, Broken Steel, and Point Lookout. I've still yet to play Point Lookout even after purchasing this because my brother overwritten my Fallout 3 saved game with his, resulting in a once again level 1 character. Though all other three DLC I've played and successfully completed. I really enjoyed them all. Operation: Ancorage I honestly forgot I was still playing Fallout 3.

I purchased the Broken Steel DLC because to me it was a major must have addon. I had already played and beat the Fallout 3 game plus the other two DLC that was currently out at the time. So being able to continue past the events of project purity on that game was a major plus. Also the level cap increase, new missions, weapons. It just seemed like a must have. I was actually up all night waiting for the DLC to be added to Xbox Live.

I've even purchased a few DLC's for Gears of War 2. I so far have them all. Though the free map pack (Flashback) I do believe to be the best. As it contains some of the best maps in Gears of War 1. Which was a legendary game. That better than what I can say for GoW2 (Gears of War 2) Which has a screwed up matchmaking system now. Which my brother says that a way to become host all the time is to begin a party and if you have a lag switch continuously turn it off and on till when searching for a game. Which I saw my brother do this and it made him the host every time. So the matchmaking system doesn't even search for the best connection to avoid lags but the worst, I wasn't impressed at all.

After having a few Microsoft Points left over my brother and I did spend a few on some Tiger Woods 10 content. Which is like costumes. This could of easily been unlocked but my brother decided he wanted it now.

Overall I could continue to go on and on (as I have made alot of purchases on so much stuff) about what all I've purchased and why I did. Though those two seem to be my best top purchases as of now. Nimrod does seem to be tempting me to acquire the Burnout Paradise City DLC. Which I will probably purchase in the coming days.

 

[Nimrod]

Big Surf City is a must purchase. Putting the entire Burnout game aside, Curlysteve, Trebor, and myself have spent over 15+ hours messing around on Big Surf Island in the past couple of days. The entire island (and the rest of the game) is totally open on multiplayer to do whatever you want with friends, we have had some awesome games of Marked Man (Where one person is marked and everyone else has to try and take him down) and Stunt Run, where you have to perform the highest stunt score in 2 minutes. Not forgetting the Freeburn Challenges like where you have to meet at the top of building and jump off a ramp togeather and perform barrel rolls and other great challenges. Exploring the island and racing around it and doing the jumps has been a truly awesome experience and put the game right into the top 3 Xbox Games I own. Its a mix of Midtown Madness (free roaming) that I loved, and Racing as well as stunts (like Pure). It truly is amazing, this trailer sums it up perfectly:

[video=youtube;7yohXHM5CCk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yohXHM5CCk[/video]

If you have the game and have 1000 points spare I would honestly recommend the purchase to anyone.

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

Just bought the Island today Nimrod. It was well worth the 1000 points. I have to really love a game to buy DLC for it. So far I have bought DLC for Crackdown, CoD 4, CoD World at War, GTA IV, Rock Band, Skate 2, and of course Fallout 3.

 

[Safinn]

I have only bought Ultimate Team for Fifa 09 and the maps for COD 4. I really liked Burnout Paridise but I never got round to purchasing it.

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

You must get it Safinn. You can join me, Nimrod, Trebor, CurlySteve, and KingzBurnz in our online sessions.

 

[Safinn]

Fight night round 4 or Burnout Paridise? Hard choice.

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

That is kind of a hard choice. Burnout is certainly cheaper that's for sure.

 

[InsaneNutter]

The only DLC I have ever purchased is the stuff for Crackdown, it added so much to an already amazing game it was hard not to buy it.

I don’t believe in buying map packs for games like Halo / Gears of War, having been a PC gamer for so many years before getting a 360 its always annoyed me how Microsoft insist most DLC must be charged for when PC games have 1000’s of great maps created by the community for free! (the maps on the Digiex UT server are a great example)

DLC is also very expensive and rarely ever gets a price drop, stuff like maps should be free in the end like they were for Gears of War and the first Halo 3 map pack.

After playing Halo 3 yesterday I found it quite annoying how im locked out of most of the play lists now as I haven’t spent 1200ms points on the two new map packs... Even if I had the friend I was playing split screen with would be expected to buy the maps as well if he wanted to use his profile on my console and not be a guest (who carnt talk in halo 3). Let’s be honest if you convert the cost of Halo 3 DLC to £ it’s about as much if not more than Halo 3 costs new these days, The maps are going to be bundled with Halo 3 ODST anyway.

That’s why DLC has to be really special for me to even think about it, I won’t even go in to games that sell you DLC that’s already on the game disc.

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

Like Resident Evil 5 eh Nutter? Don't even get me started. I can't help but wonder if some of the Burnout Paradise DLC was already on the disc. I mean Big Surf Island was only a 180 KB download so it makes me wonder...

 

[Nimrod]

Burnout is different, when you first went online with it, you had a 1.2gb Burnout Paradise 1.9 patch to download, which included all the cars + big surf island.

The reason for this is even if you dont have the DLC, people your playing online with may (like the toy cars I use which you dont have), so the graphics for the cars and island need to be downloaded on to the console. Once you have the 1.9 patch, all you need is a key to unlock the content. So while the downloads are only 180kb, theres just the license to unlock the cars and island which you already downloaded in the last update.

Put the original burnout in without the patch and your see how different it is, no big surf island and no cars or additional online game modes. So the content is not on the disc already!


Also with Resident Evil 5 I do understand why they did that. When you bought Resident Evil 5 there was no mention of online play on the disc, so you werent buying it for online play and the code for it wasnt in place on the disc. Usually the code for a game is done months before its released, (due to testing etc) so during this time they worked on multiplayer and released it soon after release. It's still a addon, and its still an extra which you didnt expect when buying the original game, a welcome addition infact! (If many single player games I have released online game mode as DLC i would buy it!). Also its low file size can be explained by the fact that all the graphics and stuff is reused from the disc, its just some multiplayer code.

 

[KillerWhiteMan]

The words of a true genious right there (see above).

 

[Dark Scyth]

With Burnout that definitely makes since. I still don't like what they did with Resident Evil though. I DID buy it for online play, of course this Co-op online play. They could of made it free but that isn't something they can do because they need to make a few extra bucks even though they honestly don't need all the extra money. I don't even like the multiplayer Versus mode. In my opinion it wasn't worth the $5 (400MS). If you could move while shooting it might be a bit better but I really don't see why they didn't think to add the ability to strafe if they were going to make it have Versus.