Why You Need to Shut Up About PDLC For RE5 Multiplayer.
Ok, I admit, I’m not a Resident Evil fan. If you listen to NGCast (which you all should, go on, go listen. I’ll wait) you know exactly why I don’t like it. So take this article with a grain of salt, knowing I have no vested interest on whether the DLC is free, or paid. Hey, if anything, I’m the most un-biased person that could possibly write this article, because I honestly don’t care! I’m the Anti-Wardox, our fearless leader who is so filled with bias, it’s almost as bad as the racism in RE5!
I’m sick and tired of hearing people complain about the PDLC for Resident Evil 5. I like to compare Resident Evils to Bioshock. It’s the type of game where you don’t need a multiplayer to feel like you bought a complete game.
I would buy Bioshock a million times over, knowing full well there was NO multiplayer of any kind. It’s the kind of game that’s about the single player experience. And that experience, my friends, was glorious. Now there were people who cried and whined about the lack of multiplayer, but in reality I’m happy they didn’t have it. That would have taken away resources from the team and the single player would most likely have suffered because of it. Resident Evil fans are being particularly idiotic, because YOU GET CO-OP WITH THE GAME. That’s a form of *gasp* multiplayer.
Christian Svensson has replied to these complaints saying
Whenever we do PDLC, that content exists with its own budgets, its own profit and loss analysis with its own forecasts. If it didn’t, that extra content wouldn’t have been put into production, because it did not fit within the production budget of the base product,
Now, to most people, that would seem like a reasonable defense and an adequate answer. But not you, Internet, you’re way too smart to fall for that kind of bullshit answer. Everyone knows video game companies have unlimited resources! They grow money on trees! You’ve seen those articles in the tabloids! They also assassinated JFK, ride unicorns through bubblegum fields and rainbows made of hay to work everyday, partake from the fountain of youth, captured Bigfoot, and breed Chupacabras. Did I miss something? Oh, right, the Loch Ness Monster is in their swimming pool. Let me know when you folks take a break from D&D and writing Dragonball Hentai Fanfic to leave your mothers house, get a job, and understand how a business actually works.
Capcom decided to form a separate budget, to create a multiplayer, total fan service, and what do the fans do? Complain that Capcom wanted to be PAID for their extra work. Why shouldn’t they be? It’s ridiculous to assume that you’re entitled to things that are actually extra content. This isn’t the horse armor from Oblivion. It’s not like the good people at Capcom volunteered their time to make this. Money was spent creating it, so they need to recoup expenses where they can. A typical business model. So if you’re still complaining about paying for the PDLC, you’re an idiot and may god have mercy on your soul.
Editorial, Rant Tags: Capcom, DLC, PDLC
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Is it really extra work?
or was it planned during the development cycle?
From what’s been said, it was not an original part of the game, and I’m honestly inclined to believe them. Games like this have never had a multiplayer before, so it’s natural when they first started setting things up, it wasn’t included.
I agree. For all we know, it could have been in development the entire time RE5 was planned for a release. You should know by now that bigwigs can say just about anything they want. That doesn’t necessarily make what they say true, and it certainly doesn’t mean we should all just shut up and roll with whatever nonsense they spew. The Versus DLC seems like a perfectly viable addition that could have been tossed in with the retail release. Like it or not, there are gamers these days who will only purchase a game based on its multiplayer options. Like you, I happen to believe that there are a myriad of titles out there that would in fact be better without multiplayer, but you forget businesses are primarily in it for the money these days. If it sells, they’ll go with it. Now it’s all about how much they can nickel-and-dime fans to offer what they want. There is no “new” content being added, per se; only new scripting. No new costumes, stages, or anything. So how much more “work” was it? Would you have paid for the shitty Versus mode in L4D? Not everyone wants to play cooperatively, and some of us don’t have 20 bucks to drop every time some new DLC is announced.
If they planned it from the start, why not include it in the game? This is blatantly them taking something out of the game, knowing they can charge more for it.
Hell, I’m going to buy it twice just to prove you wrong!
Same here. People are complaining about it not being free, but then at the same time they say they don’t find it interesting or fun to them in the least. It’s pretty cheap, and if it doesn’t interest you, don’t buy it.
@Rampancy: That same argument works against you though. For all we know, it could NOT have been planned the entire time. There’s no way to get a 100% definitive answer on this. I just happen to sit on the other side of the fence.
We don’t know for SURE what will be in the DLC. I mean, we KNOW, but it hasn’t been released yet. And what if Capcom then introduces new DLC for the multiplayer free of charge after you bought the verus mode? Then would it be worth it?
And the L4D argument is a bad choice. They’re way too different. L4D was MADE to be played with people. Co-Op and Versus. Everyone knew that from the start, and everyone was ok with it.
I also understand the money issue, I’m not exactly Daddy Warbucks over here, but I also appreciate that game development is expensive, and it needs to recoup that money.
This is all assuming it WASN’T planned from the start, and there WASN’T a separate team, budget, etc set for the multiplayer. Regardless of what you, or I, or anyone says, you can’t prove them right, or wrong.
@wardrox:
Uh, what? Who are you talking to?
My argument was that they DIDN’T plan it from the start?
And buy it twice to prove me wrong…. how?
@Pyroph: Thanks =)
Great article, saying pretty much what I’ve been thinking. I mean it’s 400 points, it’s not exactly breaking the bank, I’ll be picking it up at launch and I guarentee that if it turns out to be great, everybody who’s moaned about it and said they aren’t going to pick it up, will go out and buy it just to see what all the fuss is about.
Resident Evil online for ps2.
:|
If it turns out that the DLC is simply unlocking DRM (which I don’t think it will be based on Capcom’s statements) then I would fully agree with and support the complaints. However, if it is proper DLC and has been developed completely seperately from the actual game then yes, you should pay. Whilst we don’t know fully how versus mode will operate, how much will actually mirror the rest of the game other than character models and texturing? I believe a lot of additional work will have been put into this DLC simply to satisfy the fans who are not content with a game designed primarily for a co-op experience rather than competition.
Resouces within a game and the programming code behind making something work are two completely different things. While the DLC (which has yet to be seen) could only contain content that already exists on the disk (ala GTAIV Lost and Damned Map being mainly taken off the disk), the code that makes multiplayer run, allows for more than 2 human players to co-exist in an environment together and the linking of multiple (more than 2) players over the internet at once would require more work on the programmers side.
Those that have sat through the scrolling credits of the game will have seen just how many people needed to get paid by Capcom for RE5′s creation. To create a multiplayer with extra content (audio, video, textures, models etc) would require a lot more than $5 worth of DLC points. So simply using the content already on disk would make sense when that $5 can be used to pay for programmers and server space on Live and Bandwidth usage (depending on the hosting structure of RE5 Multiplayer).
In a rocky climate with many gaming companies falling by the road side it would make very bad business practice for Capcom to not charge for something that wasn’t part of the original scope of RE5. As a longtime RE5 fan I won’t be buying the mulitplayer but thats more down to my RE beliefs than there being anything fishy about Capcom’s actions.
Time will tell and hopefully put people at ease (or make them madder)!
N4G comment: “Did the author of that article come across as a total d1ck to anyone else. ”
Mission accomplished. =)
My whole problem with the new DLC for RE5 is not that it was released so close to the game, making it somewhat suspicious; but rather that the Resident Evil style controls are utter bullshit for games like Team Deathmatch which is included in the DLC.
People need to stop bitching because you get Mercenaries free. The only good online RE game outside the story. If you want TDM or Horde for RE5, go play Gears 2 or Left 4 Dead because they are designed for this kind of gameplay.
@Rampancy:
With the whole L4D arguement, it would be more like taking a game like Dead Space, and then adding multiplayer to that, or taking silent hill and adding death match to it. Its not normal, and its completely seperate to this genre of game. You dont need the multiplayer to make this a fantastic game, but i know ill probaly end up getting the multiplayer and enjoying it.
it irks me more that Capcom keeps pulling this “lets charge extra for stuff on the disc” crap. it was the same thing for Beautiful Katamari and everyone threw a shit-fit then too (and you know it’s already on the disc).
on a side note, playing through Dead Space a few times completely turned me off RE5 because the game mechanics are better. gameplay is streamlined and the controls are infinitely easier to grasp. when a well-established franchise would rather make you pay for a game mode that is completely unnecessary rather than streamlining controls, inventory, and gameplay, then I have a problem with it. “traditional controls” is an excuse and a cop-out.
frank is right!