Kotaku's Jason Schreier: A lot of devs have said singleplayer story DLC often doesn't sell very well

DaleCooper said:

My main issue with SP DLC is the timing. It always comes out months after I'm done with the main game. And then I have moved on to other games and will wait for a discount.

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bingo. I can't recall buying any story DLC besides Spider-Man because it was always like a year later when I've moved on which is why I don't know why people are crying about Spider-Man's dropping so soon after release *shrug*.

EDIT: I did buy TLOU DLC also, but that's it

Remember said:

Old hunters is the worst example anyone can bring up. Regardless of the cool enemies and bosses it brought, it was cut content that was re-inserted back into the game and the levels felt glued together in the oddest, most incoherent of ways. Even then, there was still content cut from the DLC and certain characters had potentially larger roles and dialogue that were cut, and the dialogue that was cut also made it seem like there would be more areas to explore. That DLC, while still good, is a frankenstein's monster mess that just happened to work out for them. If it were any other game they would have been criticized up and down for what it was.

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I can't agree with you here for the most part. Almost all games have cut content and some game devs don't have the luxury of working on a single game for 10 years so sacrifices has to be made. I'm not saying every cut asset is due to time constraints, some are design choices etc. If u dissect any game as extensively as the souls community have done to the souls games you probably would find a lot of dirt in those games as well. If Old Hunters is just glued together, then that's some pretty good glue they've used and more companies should probably buy the same type of glue.

Mr.Deadshot said:

Just conenctrate your resources on sequels and don't waste time with DLC. I am glad God of War doesn't get any DLC (hopefully it stays that way). Just give me God of War 2 ASAP.

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Except what if there's little to no chance of a sequel at all?

SheriffMcDuck said:

It's this x1000!

I buy a SP game at launch and play through it all the way, getting the platinum if I love it, and then the next game I want is out. If DLC releases that isn't a large expansion I usually can't be bothered to go back to a game I've finished already unless it's one of my favorite games ever.

Witcher 3 won me back, Wolfenstein won me back, and in recent memory that's about it.

SP GaaS doesn't make much sense to me, and honestly it turns me off of a lot of games. See FFXV for the best example(granted that game had a lot of issues and is almost unanimously much better now).

Also add in that nothing usually remarkable happens in SP DLC that isn't an expansion and I think you have your answer.

I consider The Old Hunters, Hearts of Stone, Blood and Wine, Lost Legacy, Left Behind, etc. To be expansions.

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That just doesn't make sense to me if you would buy the sequel.

Plus, many, many story DLCs will often try something new and more risky than a full blown sequel would. They can afford to since they are smaller. Dark Souls 2's story DLCs all went and did something new and were some of the best content in that game because they all focused on really strong unique mechanics. They were focused and really tight experiences. It's not the best example of what I'm thinking of but idk. Forza Horizon has always done things it probably wouldn't make a full game out of, but make great expansions, but that's not story driven.

Kind of driving me nuts because I can't think of a better example right now. But that's a problem with me in general.

DoubleTake said:

The levels fit together perfectly fine if you pay attention to thw game's themes. So I dont know what youre talking about there. Also, your only saying its a Frankenstein mess of a DLC because tou have people digging through the game files finding out what was cut or repurposed. If people did that for literally any other game you could levie that same "problem" against it. Do you know how game dev works?

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It fits together 'perfectly' because they wrote it that way and set it up that way in lore bits. Compare the full package to the other levels in the game and their cohesiveness, even compare it to some of the end game stuff that goes out there and the DLC levels feel stapled together. The levels themselves fit the Bloodborne theme but they way they were put together does not. You don't even need to go into the game files to know that something is missing because the narrative with Simon and Maria was off to begin with. They got away with this because most of Bloodborne's narrative is about piecing things together and everyone thought this was another instance of it, but from a storytelling standpoint one character had a sudden shift in dialogue delivery and intent and the other brought up a continuation of a story that was never there.

Like I said before, this DLC was fun to play and was cool to go through but everything else about it just felt off compared to the main game.

Edit: Let me bold this part for those who think I'm bashing the DLC. I still enjoyed it and thought it was fun.

When i finish a game i uninstall it and move on. Not gonna be waiting on DLC. That or i just get the complete edition to start with.

Plum said:

I agree with them, actually. It didn't really offer much that we hadn't seen in the main game and the bosses, whilst excellent in their design, were just way too difficult that I found them completely unsatisfying to fight. I had the same issue with DaS3's DLC as well, and I didn't with Artorias of the Abyss. I've yet to play DaS2's DLC so I can't comment on that.

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Plum said:

I agree with them, actually. It didn't really offer much that we hadn't seen in the main game and the bosses, whilst excellent in their design, were just way too difficult that I found them completely unsatisfying to fight. I had the same issue with DaS3's DLC as well, and I didn't with Artorias of the Abyss. I've yet to play DaS2's DLC so I can't comment on that.

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It's one thing to say you didn't like.

But to claim it's a Frankenstein mess that was clearly cut from then reinserted into the main game sure is something.

(Disclaimer - personal knowledge, not the opinion of employer or a position of anything they are up to) Not something I touch or am concerned with much at where I'm at now, but one thing often people don't consider is that Single Player DLC is often valued as a marketing tactic, as well as the obvious revenue & sustained MAU considerations.

Sometimes it has value solely as a incentive to preorder (which matters far less for most AAA titles than previous), sometimes it allows developers/publishers to address a feature not in the core game that they realize has huge affinity within the reveal to launch of the campaign, sometimes it helps anchor attempts to sell the base game (not that "DLC is out now, buy the full thing", but "We have an update for this popular game! Check this out!" in messaging post-launch), and sometimes it's just something that market research indicates helps build affinity for the product or the publisher. It also makes "Game of the Year" or definitive collections more appealing in sales.

It's kind of fascinating because with a few outlier cases aside, the low sales have been a known subject for most big publishers, and that's why you've seen live service titles like Destiny move to an expansion model as opposed to a side story micro transaction. As games move more and more into having live-service capabilities, my guess is you'll see far less paid story content, but wayyyyyy more free story updates to facilitate sustained MAU (and often microtransactions).

It really isn't about quality though - there's a TON of incredibly well reviewed/received SP content updates for sale that barely covered dev costs. From what I understand from my industry peeps, the most agreed upon challenge is that it's super hard for SP DLC to get significant word of mouth and/or awareness, largely because those expansion packs have to compete with actual new games (and popular live service games). I think there are exceptions to the rule (Witcher 3's DLC did really well tmk, and I would be surprised if Cyberpunk changed up their content plan significantly from that), but the challenge of marketing SP DLC makes it a challenge for larger traditional AAA publishers to justify vs just putting those resources on a new thing.

Nose Master said:

It comes out too late. AAA games have about a month-ish shelf life, and then they're forgotten entirely. No one wants to re-install 60gb to play another hour or two of content in a game they've finished already. They've moved on.

There are exceptions like XB2, but that wasn't really traditional DLC.

+1 for Old Hunters being shit. 2/5 bosses were good, and one area was good (I forget how many total). I still enjoyed it because I'm a slut for bloodborne/souls, but objectively it wasn't that great.

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And you don't know what objectively means.

All you "ditch a game completely when done with it" people are so alien to me. Same with those demonizing the control learning curve.

I haven't touched Mario Odyssey in months but I'd be down immediately for a world pack.

I've bought SP DLC for Deus Ex, Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The early ME and DA DLC was quite unsatisfying.

I'd rather SP devs just go on to make more SP games.

I'm hoping the push towards Netflix-style subscription model of offering games will allow for this.

saenima said:

When i finish a game i uninstall it and move on. Not gonna be waiting on DLC. That or i just get the complete edition to start with.

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Same. Thats why i often wait for months get the complete edition.

Regiruler said:

All you "ditch a game completely when done with it" people are so alien to me. Same with those demonizing the control learning curve.

I haven't touched Mario Odyssey in months but I'd be down immediately for a world pack.

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You would maybe be more shocked to find out how many people don't complete games.

That's a stat devs should really be sharing. They should know internally and even by trophy/achievement unlocks.

Large numbers of players burn out and/or can't stay with SP games long enough till completion. You've got to ask questions about why that is at times. What chance does post-game DLC have if your completion numbers are beyond poor?

The issue for me is that I don't want to return to a game after 6 months or whatever and have to relearn controls/mechanics etc for a few measly hours that probably don't add much different to the base game. It's just not worth the effort.

More meaty standalone expansions (Xenoblade 2: Torna, Uncharted: TLL) are a much better way to reuse an engine and assets imo.

Regiruler said:

All you "ditch a game completely when done with it" people are so alien to me.

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It's like watching a movie and then keep it around just to watch the extras 6 months later. Not to mention that most DLC is vastly inferior to the main game.

Plum said:

I agree with them, actually. It didn't really offer much that we hadn't seen in the main game and the bosses, whilst excellent in their design, were just way too difficult that I found them completely unsatisfying to fight. That the base game already had it's own self-connected "DLC" areas in Cainhurst Manor and the Upper Catherdral Wrad didn't help much either. I had the same issue with DaS3's DLC as well, and I didn't with Artorias of the Abyss. I've yet to play DaS2's DLC so I can't comment on that.

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Thank you. Artorias DLC fit like a fucking glove with DS1. Most of it was well paced, the environment designs and how they were pieced together makes sense in that story and it felt fully told. Compare that directly with Bloodborne and you can somewhat see the 'staples and glue' in an attempt to have it all be one package. That's my problem with the DLC. Otherwise, it was just as fun as DS1's dlc.

Good. Less DLC, more sequels.

With a backlog it is hard to go back. I see the credits and I have 2-3 other recent games waiting on my attention.

The Lust Behind is the greatest pieces of DLC I've played since the creation of sliced bread.

Nirolak said:

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I don't know why people say this so often as if there aren't plenty of great games/movies/TV shows/albums/products that don't do well. Being a quality product obviously gives you a leg up but it's not like that's the only factor you need to make it a success.

Audioboxer said:

You would maybe be more shocked to find out how many people don't complete games.

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All the more reason I don't understand a series like Assassin's Creed adding RPG leveling, gating and associated XP side activity padding, only to then release premium story DLC with minimum level requirements.

Isn't that just asking for even fewer players to pick up that DLC?

Yeah, that's something I very much noticed whenever I look at the achievment percentages.

I don't come back to Single Player games usually by the time DLC rolls out for them. If you are dropping a 1-2 hour story thing for your game 6-7 months after its launched you've lost me.

If you're launching story DLC the pipeline better be having those roll out quickly after launch. Its why I actually like Day 1 DLC. I'll buy DLC if I'm still hot on the game and engaged with it but I've got a month or so with most games before its on to the new thing.

I'm glad that Spider-Man is rolling its story stuff out so quickly. I might actually get around to getting that when all 3 drop.

Punished Snaku said:

Should have been in the game to begin with.

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This is the most ignorant shit and shows your complete lack of understanding about how games are made.

saenima said:

It's like watching a movie and then keep it around just to watch the extras 6 months later. Not to mention that most DLC is vastly inferior to the main game.

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You're basically describing a digital director's cut.

I'm not surprised. I've lost count of the number of times I've bought season passes and not gone back because I've moved onto other games. I just stopped buying them altogether.

Not really surprised as in most cases DLC are stand alone and are unconnected to the base game or get ignored in the sequel. Plus asking the player to pay more money on top what they brought and naturally some would opt to skip it if they feel that it doesn't add any value.

Yea true, I've spent over 2K on loot boxes in OW but have never spent a dime on any SP DLC saved for stuff included in with a GOTY edition/re-release.

If your game has DLC there's a good chance I'll just wait for the inevitable "GOTY edition" to become ridiculously cheap a few years down the line, or just buy the base game and be done with it. With some exceptions where I can feel the price is justified for the amount of content. Like some Nintendo games (definitely not Smash DLC though, that shit is ridiculous; never bought any for S4 and won't buy fot SU either)
Just because the practice has become a standard doesn't mean it's acceptable and I'm kind of glad to know it sells bad.

I'm not surprised to hear this at all.

I mean I'm basically the target market hardcore gamer who plays primarily single player games and I almost never buy single-player DLC.

I've never been particularly interested in returning to a game months later for a 2-4 hour chunk of gameplay when there is always something new to play. The exception being more traditional expansion sized content like the excellent Witcher 3 DLC.

Even without SP DLC, it's been said for years citing feedback metrics (and yes trophy completion percentages) that players are done with a game when they are done with a game - not when they reach the end, or do x percent of the gameplay, or whatever. When they're done, they're done. It must be frustrating for developers to witness this with their own games.

But DLC doesn't have a reputation by accident. LA Noire's season pass (the first to be actually called "season pass", I believe) was ripped out of the main game. So was Assassin's Creed II's DLC. Players were tipped off by dialogue oddities and sequencing when woven into the main story path. And other content has been partitioned for DLC purposes, particularly whole characters in Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age II, and Mass Effect 3. People still remember this, and vestigially the feedback surrounding the RDR2 "people missing from camp" bug is a reminder that a cohesive-feeling experience is still important to people who play games.

As for such feel, Shadow Broker definitely "felt" ripped out of the main game, as it had such a crucial character arc and story plot point. As did Mass Effect 3 Leviathan, and AC Brotherhood's DLC. And I'm not saying things were ripped out or partitioned on purpose like the above, but the feeling you get playing it is that its inclusion in the game makes the experience cohesively very much more complete, and in hindsight is less so without it. People don't want to risk getting into something that will give them the experience of low cohesion, or feel they have to pay extra just to experience a sufficient amount of cohesion at that.

But Frozen Wilds and Witcher 3 DLC didn't feel ripped out of the main game, at all. Neither did Left Behind. And other Assassins Creed DLC really is extra, since the content is separate enough from the main games' offerings. DLC that went solo like Gay Tony, Freedom Cry, Lost Legacy, Death of the Outsider, etc. earned their worthiness as standalone titles, which has brought some goodwill and reputation increases from early in this decade.

God of War 2018 seems to have avoided this whole debate, and even offered some QOL updates that some titles offer as part of extra DLC (BOTW is one recent example of QOL features being offered in an expansion). But overall it seems that like players, when THEY were done, they really were done. People may be left wanting more, but they also understand what it means to be done with a game.

Spider-Man DLC I'll be getting soon, so I'll find out then.

Last gen for a good while there it seemed like map packs and multiplayer skins were the only DLC publishers were willing to fund. And it's not like there were tons of examples of attempts that failed, hardly anyone was even trying. The early reluctance probably caused long term harm. If more devs took the risk 10-12 years ago, there would probably be a more viable market for it now.

Video games almost never finishing on time probably doesn't help either. DLC being delayed probably has a disastrous effect on sales.

I can count the number of single player DLC's I've bought ever on one hand after having an accident with a table saw. The number of single player games I've bought, loved, and would have bought single player DLC for over that time if it existed is in the dozens.

I skip the vast majority of DLC simply because it's not worth the cost and/or because it comes out after too much time has past from the base game. Quality wise, for me this generation - it's Blood & Wine (9/10), Hearts of Stone (9/10), The Curse of the Pharaohs (8.5/10), The Hidden Ones (8.0/10) and The Frozen Wilds (8.0/10) in that order.

Spider Man DLC is one that im very interested in but not until after all three DLC packs are released so I can play them completely instead of one a month. AC Odyssey expansions look good but I hate the episodic shit so I'll wait until both are completed and then play through them which in a way is good because the first quarter of 2019 is stacked for me so having to wait until May or June is actually a good thing for me.

-looks at Witcher 3's Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine-
-frowns-

hmm.

The only single player DLC I've really cared about was the stuff for the Mass Effect trilogy. I don't buy season passes for single player games and don't usually come back to games I've beaten unless it's revisiting something that got a significant update and I wanted to see how much of a difference it made.

Carn said:

-looks at Witcher 3's Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine-
-frowns-

hmm.

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Just because something was well made as post launch DLC doesn't mean it does well and there are always outliers in data.

Definitely not the case for Witcher 3's DLCs, they sold extremely well. Which means that if you actually do an outstanding job with the DLC and provide heaps of great content for a fair price, it just might sell very well. Unfortunately, most publishers are too greedy to make this right.

I like additional substantial content DLC, but most times I feel like the content/price ratio for DLC is out of sync of the content/price ratio for the base game, mostly leaning towards the price scale.

So what ends up happening is that I either wait for a re-release of the game with all the DLC included or a sale that drops the content/price ratio of DLC to either equal or more leaning towards the content scale. Unfortunately, DLC sales are rare compared to the base game sales, which is not helping.

jstevenson said:

none of that was chopped out of the game, it was all built separately.

*shrug*

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And I really enjoyed it. Can't wait for more to drop.

I'm not a fan of bite sized DLC and thus only buy them at deep discounts, which usually doesn't take too long. It makes me sour when I take a step back and compare how much I paid for 3 hours vs how much I paid at launch for the base game.

Sometimes revisiting a game months after is great, like the 2 major fallout DLCs. I snagged it when it was 25 dollars and it was more than worth it. I would be pissed if I paid 10 dollars for the machinist however or 50 for the whole thing.

2 hour DLC is worthless. Not going to be assessed installing a game for that - or even keeping in on my super fast SSD.

Once the game is done it is done unless a real Expansion Pack is coming.

DustyVonErich said:

And you don't know what objectively means.

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"in a way that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions."

The first area was a recycled area filled with trash and superpowerful trash mobs that could effectively one shot you. Ludwig is an okay fight, but difficulty balance was super off in NG+. He's one of the good ones. The library is an okay area, but is a rehashed idea. The magic whatevers boss was an even shittier version of the alien boss from the main game. Maria was cool in concept, but you could literally stunlock her with weapon switch spam. Her lack of poise makes that entire fight a joke. Orphan was an amazing fight, best of the DLC. The other boss fight is a shitty remix of a boss that wasn't great to begin with.

Old Hunters was more bad than good.

TheUnsungHero26 said:

Explains why GTA V focused on GTA online instead of single player DLC.

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Exactly. People come up with 100 reasons why but the reality is SP DLC doesn't do as well as MP DLC and the reason doesn't matter.

Well by the point the DLC comes out, you are long finished with the game and most people just move on. I never get DLC for single player games, unless I buy a GOTY or it's available when I start to play the game way after its release. For multiplayer games, you keep on playing them and they offer fresh content and revitalize often stale gameplay-loops. So "d'uh".

Derrick01 said:

That's because most single player DLC is no good. People don't want to spend $10-15 for 3 hour content with most of it being repetitive activities copied from the main game and maybe an hour or less of actual story content. People are finally realizing the full sized expansion model we used to have is far more preferable to the DLC model that started last gen.

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The DLC story packs for Deus Ex HR and MD were all really good and well worth the money.

Come to think of it - let us kill DLC altogether.

DLC was a mistake.

Expansion Packs were fine just the way they were.

I think the biggest problem is convience and substantiality. I buy meaty dlc like expansions no problem because its often a similiar experience to just playing a new game and as such don't mind going through the whole process of downloading the game, readjusting to controls, etc.

Where as the smaller, spread out dlcs, often aren't really worth going back too. The only way they usually are is if you just wait until they're all out and discounted. Resulting the same issue episodic game have. Bioware is the only dev that released dlc in the spread out manor, that I actually kept with and that's soley because they were of decently high quality despite the short length.

Nose Master said:

"in a way that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions."

The first area was a recycled area filled with trash and superpowerful trash mobs that could effectively one shot you. Ludwig is an okay fight, but difficulty balance was super off in NG+. He's one of the good ones. The library is an okay area, but is a rehashed idea. The magic whatevers boss was an even shittier version of the alien boss from the main game. Maria was cool in concept, but you could literally stunlock her with weapon switch spam. Her lack of poise makes that entire fight a joke. Orphan was an amazing fight, best of the DLC. The other boss fight is a shitty remix of a boss that wasn't great to begin with.

Old Hunters was more bad than good.

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No else one agrees with your personal feelings.

bsigg said:

Just because something was well made as post launch DLC doesn't mean it does well and there are always outliers in data.

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What are the examples of that from this gen?

Last time I'll ask the thread this question, promise. Double pinky swear and knock on wood.

Derrick01 said:

That's because most single player DLC is no good. People don't want to spend $10-15 for 3 hour content with most of it being repetitive activities copied from the main game and maybe an hour or less of actual story content. People are finally realizing the full sized expansion model we used to have is far more preferable to the DLC model that started last gen.

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Exactly this. I don't care about spending $10 for a couple hours of content. Especially when it rarely offers anything new from the main game. It's why I have no desire to play the Spider-Man DLC. Maybe after all of it is out it will be substantial enough.

Also whether or not it was, a lot of the time it just feels like content that got ripped out of the game. FFXV is mentioned in the OP, and that game's DLC definitely felt like that. When Gladio comes back after leaving the party I expected a screen to pop up and say "To see what happened to Gladio buy the season pass!"

Dennis8K said:

Come to think of it - let us kill DLC altogether.

DLC was a mistake.

Expansion Packs were fine just the way they were.

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Yeah, no thanks. Some of the best content I've played this gen and last has been DLC.