Category Archives: Argument Against

Argument Against, Opinion, Video Game Argument

Is it Okay to Put DLC on the Main Menu?

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The recent release of Destiny kicks off a busy Fall for exciting new releases.  Tons of triple-A games are coming out in the next few weeks and months.  But up till now, there hasn’t been that much to play on PS4 and Xbox One.  As a result, the game I’ve played most on these consoles recently is a small shooter for the PS4 called Resogun.  For those who don’t know, it plays like a simplified twin-stick shooter.  I say “simplified” because part of the premise is that you can only shoot horizontally, left or right, as you move your Galaga-like craft around the stage.  As an aside, the game is excellent though short, technically only having 5 levels.  Being excellent but short, the player might be expected to finish the game wanting more.  This brings me to my topic for today, which has to do with the placement of DLC in Resogun, an issue that started to peeve me with the release of Mario Kart 8, the recent racing game from Nintendo, but has now annoyed me enough to warrant a good venting.

The main menus of Resogun and Mario Kart 8 are actually very similar considering the disparity of genres.  Both contain the following options: Single Player, Local Multi-player, Online Multiplayer, Options, and Shop.  The Shop option takes the player to a place that lets the player purchase and download add-on content.  In the case of Resogun, it directs you to the Playstation Network Store, where you can buy the “Heroes” expansion for Resogun, containing two new modes and a bunch of unlockable trophies.  In Mario Kart 8, it takes you to the Nintendo e-Shop where you can buy 2 packs of additional characters to play as and two sets of Courses to race on.  This is fine with me.  While it is true that both the PS4 and Wii U have buttons on their controllers that let you instantly go to their respective online stores to purchase DLC add-ons without quitting the game, I can understand the desire to put a place in the game were players would see it and think to check the store.  Otherwise, I might not know there was any Resogun DLC at all unless I happened to check the store on my own just on a hunch.  Having a place for DLC seems reasonable.  But both games go a step further, which is where we get into the meat of today’s topic.

One menu deeper from the main menu in Resogun, there is a curious thing.  If I select “Single Player” from the main menu in the game, it gives me another menu with four options: Arcade Mode, Single Level, Survival, and Demolition Mode.  However, the latter two of these options are greyed out, so the player can only choose Arcade and Single Level.  At first, you might think the other two must be unlocked.  After all, the “Master” option on the difficulty select screen is greyed out in the exact same way.  But if you try to select Survival or Demolition Mode, the game give you the message that these modes are part of the “Heroes” DLC for Resogun, which can be purchased for $5.99 from the Playstation Store.  Mario Kart 8 does something very similar.  When go to the character select screen, the bottom row of characters has a colored band on them.  If you try to select any of those characters, the game will inform you that they are part of the upcoming DLC packs and asks if you want to pre-order the DLC for $11.99.  The same situation exists for the last two sets of courses on the Course select screen.

Downloadable Content is by definition an add-on to an existing game.  So, seeing these options, it would be fair to wonder how options exist in the menus for game modes, characters, ext. that didn’t exist when the original game was finished (I can’t confirm for Resogun, but Nintendo expressly stated that they did not begin work on the DLC characters and courses until after the original game had shipped).  Well the answer is that in both cases, mandatory software updates to both games added the menu items after their original release.  As you might be able to tell from my tone thus far, I have an objection to SONY and Nintendo automatically placing these menu item into the games of consumers who have not chosen to buy the content that these menu items are for.

Essentially, this tactic amounts to a dirty marketing strategy.  And in the end, it offends the same sense that many gamers today have when they hear, for example, about Activision developing the DLC content for Call of Duty concurrently with the regular game, but choosing to hold those muti-player maps and bonus items back to be sold piecemeal to the consumer at a premium after we have already purchased the main game.  Gamers feel, perhaps rightfully so (though that is an argument for another day) that they are being tricked into buying an incomplete product and resent paying more to experience everything a game has to offer.  This is a feeling that SONY and Nintendo are using in reverse to drive sales and advertise their DLC in Resogun and Mario Kart 8.  Even though they didn’t actually hold back content, by putting the DLC menus in front of gamers that have’t purchased DLC in this way, they are making us feel that our games are incomplete and temping us to pay to complete them.  Whether that is fair from a logical supply/demand ethics standpoint is debatable, but I can testify that when I select “Single Player” in Resogun and fully half of the Modes that are displayed are inaccessible, I certainly feel like my game is missing something, and I fully feel myself being manipulated by SONY.

SONY and Nintendo are essentially going the extra step to dangle a product in front of you and deny you access unless you pay.  This is the equivalent of the grocery store finding a way to make it so that you don’t need to choose to shop for food to see their products, but instead they come uninvited into your home and put a bunch of delicious looking food on your shelves that you can’t touch unless you pay a premium.  It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? It’s actually just like the mini-bars in Hotels.  And we all know how reasonably priced those items are, right?  $5.00 seems reasonable for a bottle of water (sarcasm)!  Temptation is powerful, which also raises an ethical question for children, especially considering that both company’s digital stores allow you to store credit card information and then are dangling products in front of children that are just a few clicks from purchase.  Just last year, Consumer rights groups in the European Union got a new set of laws passed restricting just this sort of tactic in downloadable games for phones because too many children were being tricked into spending large sums of money on micro-transactions in games while playing on their (or their parent’s) phones.  Maybe we are not yet at the point of legislation with home consoles, but we seem to be heading in that direction.  I for one have concluded that I would prefer all parts of a product, including its menus, to stay in the store until I choose to go to the store myself purchase it.

-Doug

Sorry for such a lengthy article this week, but this one really got my goat (so to speak).  What do you think about DLC and micro-transactions being forced in front of consumers?  Let us know at thedailydpad@gmail.com or by leaving a comment.  Also, check out Daily D Pad on YouTube!

 

Argument Against, Video Game Argument

Is It Okay to Complain About Free DLC?

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I don’t know how many of you out there have ever played this little cult title I love known as Mario Kart, but the eighth game in the series, (the aptly named) Mario Kart 8 for Wii U recently got some free Downloadable Content in the form of marketing for Mercedes-Benz. For over twenty years, Mario and friends have been zipping around in, well, Karts, with some cartoony motorcycles thrown in for Mario Kart Wii. But now, for the first time in the series, cars from the real world are in Mario Kart and fans seem to be split down the middle on it. Some are thrilled to have three new cars and a set of wheels, while others think that some sacrosanct rule has been transgressed by allowing a real-world brand into the game? In the end, whether you mind or not may come down to whether or not you like Mercedes cars or not, but I’m not not here to settle that for you. I’m here to settle the most common rebuttal to the opposition. They say, “How can you be upset about it when it’s FREE?” So I’d like to think about that for a moment. Can you be opposed to something when it’s free?

So maybe this argument is over before it starts. After all, I can think of a couple hundred things off the top of my head that I wouldn’t want even if they were free: a bucket of vomit, polio, a tiger… you get the idea. Though perhaps the more fair way to go about it is to ask only about games. Is there a game you would wouldn’t want even if it was free (not counting Russian Roulette)? Really, for any video game, board game, card game, anything, the worst case scenario is that you don’t like the game and throw it away. The insinuation with the argument that you can’t be mad at free things is that in the worst case, it’s only a zero sum game. You’re not out any money, so you’re not losing something. Unfortunately, this is a fallacy.

The problem is that if you don’t like having Mercedes-Benz in your Mario Kart, there ISN’T any way to throw it away or get rid of it. Sure, you can delete the entire game from your Wii U and start from scratch if you don’t mind losing all of your progress, but you can’t get rid of only the DLC. On top of that, the automatic update that adds the shop link to the main menu means that every time you turn on Mario Kart, you’re going to see the bar if the bright red exclamation point and a picture of a Mercedes on the main menu. Not to mention that you’ll still see other players using them if you play online. My point is that it isn’t feasible to completely ignore the DLC. So if you prefer to only play with real-life cars in Need for Speed, you’re out of luck. If the magic is ruined for you, it’s now irreversibly ruined, so you definitely have a legitimate beef with the promotion, free or not. Fortunately for me I don’t mind it, but if you do my sympathies. And feel free to explain to anyone who tells it doesn’t matter because it’s free that they’re missing the point.

-Doug H

Have you played the new Mario Kart DLC?  Let us know what you think in the comments or send us an e-mail at thedailydpad@gmail.com.  And be sure to check out our Video content on Youtube at Daily D Pad!

 

Argument Against, Video Game Argument

HD ports and Definitive Editions

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So, I must confess that the console I’ve been playing the most the past couple weeks is my old Gamecube. I’m a bit OCD and I enjoy going back to polish off games that I never 100% completed. This time around, I took on the task of replaying The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker with the goal of collecting all collectables, including completing the figurine collection. For those who don’t know, there was an item in Wind Waker called the picto-box, that was essentially and in-game camera. by taking a picture of any character or enemy in the game and bringing it to an NPC near the second dungeon, you could get figurines with descriptions to put in an in-game gallery, similar to the trophies that you collect in Super Smash Bros. There are over 100 figures, so it’s a time consuming task to say the least.

All of this is a long-winded (pardon the pun) way of saying that I’ve been looking at old gamecube graphics for a lot of hours. So when I put in my copy of Wind Waker HD, last year’s rerelease for the Wii U, it was something of a shock to the system. Nostalgia might make you remember Wind Waker like Wind Waker HD, but when you put them side by side, it’s a stark difference. As much as I enjoy the collector’s pleasure of owning the original gamecube disc (I never have been able to bring myself to sell games I’ve beaten), there is no way I would ever play through the Gamecube version if I decided to beat Wind Waker a fourth time. Between the graphics and the elimination of some fetch-questing, I’ll stick with the HD version from now on. All in all, the upgrade was worth buying the game again at full price. At least to me.

Why then did I make the opposite decision on another game that many consider classic?  Just recently, Naughty Dog rereleased their critically acclaimed PS3 title, The Last of Us, on PS4.  Being a fan of the original game, I considered upgrading, but eventually decided against it.  Tomarris, my friend and counterpart over on the YouTube side of The Daily D Pad, came to a different conclusion, as you might know if you came here from the link in his Last of Us tips and tricks video.  But for me there wasn’t enough value in the “Definitive Edition” for me to pay up a second time.

First of all, like Wind Waker and its HD counterpart, I have looked at the PS3 and PS4 versions of The Last of Us Side by side in the same room.  To my own eye (and agreeing with the anecdotal evidence), you can tell the difference, but it is slight.  When you use the right stick to swing the camera quickly, the difference is most apparent.  The higher frame rate on the PS4 version is easily seen under these circumstances.  Also, in low light in-game environments, the PS4 version seems to show less shadow because of upgrades to the engine.  Most  of the time, though the graphical differences weren’t glaring to me.  If you have ever been to an eye doctor to have your eyeglasses prescription changed, the difference from 720p on the PS3 and 1080p on the PS4 is like that very last set of choices on that lens device that you look at the eye chart with.  “Is the line of letters clearer with choice A … or B.  A … or B.  You usually need to  go back and forth a few times until you’re sure which lens makes the image clearer.  The subtle upgrade in resolution with the Definitive Edition is like that.  Side by side with the old version, you need to look back and forth a few times to be sure.  It wasn’t like Wind Waker HD, where it was obvious as hell which was which.

In the end, I almost upgraded anyway when Gamestop offered 50% if you traded in your PS3 version, but I balked for two reasons that very likely don’t apply to you, dear reader.  The first is that I mostly play single player, so free multiplayer DLC is not a draw for me.  The second is that the total Hard Drive install on PS3 is about 5.5 GB between the main game and the Left Behind DLC.  On PS4, the mandatory install is 50 GB.  Killzone: Shadow Fall was the same, and at that pace, I can only put 9 games (remember that with firmware, the actually PS4 memory is quite a bit less than 500GB) on my PS4 at a time.  So in the interest of putting off buying a bigger Hard Drive for as long as possible, I’ll stick with my PS3 copy.

-Doug H

Have you played either version of The Last of Us?  Sound off in the comments or email us at thedailydpad@gmail.com.  And be sure to check out our Last of Us content at Daily D Pad on Youtube.