Gamers Getting Ripped Off

Today I logged into Reddit.com and was greeted by this post here. A single post from a forum that got me instantly ticked off. For those of you terrified of the Link Monster, (it's more afraid of you than you are of it, I swear) I'll spell it out here. It shows a link to a hacked save file from the PC version of Dead Space 2 that "not only has all that stuff (some previously bugged 'elite suits'), but all the console-only DLC items as well. About to test this myself, and will confirm once I reach the store. EDIT: Confirmed. Enjoy."

This means that everything they're asking you to pay to unlock on consoles is already on the disc you bought. If you gave them a single penny for a new suit or weapon, then you've been ripped off. You shelled out money to downloaded an unlock code for something you'd already paid for. This is completely unacceptable. It's related a bit to my post a couple weeks ago about the recent emergence of a dependency on patches to fix known problems post release instead of fixing them before shipping. Only here you're not getting a broken product (that I'm aware of; any DS2 owners feel free to chime in in the comments), you're getting charged multiple times for a finished one.

I understand the need to make money. The lousy state of the economy has raised the sale of used games, which means that fewer new copies are being sold, and that translates to less money for the game's devs and producers. That's a problem for them and I get that. But this isn't the way to fix it. I loved the first Dead Space, and am still interested in playing the sequel because from all I've heard it's a quality title. Before hearing this I would gladly have dropped the money on a new copy of this game. Not now though. They've assured I get my copy used. I have no problem paying full price for everything that's on the disc, so I'll make certain to get it for a low enough price to compensate for all those additional charges.

Now, I think DLC is a great idea. The premise is that the developers spent extra time and money creating something in addition to the normal game. For a truly excellent example of DLC done right, look no further that the game Borderlands put out by the company Gearbox. They listened to feedback from fans and decided that there was something more to be done with the game. They put in time and effort to make a quality piece of work that made me want to pay them more just to get more time with their game. And look how much more money they made because of this. Initial game cost $50 USD. DLCs were $9.99 each for the four of them. All told, Gearbox and its publishers made nearly $90 from me alone off that one game and its DLC, not to mention that coinciding with the release of the last DLC they also put out a Game of the Year edition that contained all $90 worth of game and DLC for $50. Compare that with the amounts that the Dead Space 2 guys (I can't say for certain if it was the devs or EA who was responsible for this debacle) will be getting trying to nickel and dime their customers. Borderlands kept putting out quality work and asking their customers to pay them for it. Dead Space 2 put out quality work, then asked their customers to keep paying for it. Tell me, which do you think is going to make more in the long run?

These locked away suits and guns in Dead Space 2 are also an example of so-called Day One DLC, which may or may not be a ripoff depending on how its done. Day One DLC is downloadable content that's available from the time the game hits shelves. Whether or not it's a ripoff depends on two things.
1. Is the content included on the disc the consumer bought, (as is the case here)?
2. Is the content actually additional content and not content that was held back intentionally so that consumers could be charged more for it?
If it meets either of those requirements, then the consumers are most definitely being taken advantage of by someone.

It's especially sad when good games do this. It's hard to be angry at them and yell "No one buy this!" because the game itself is good and you want others to enjoy it too. All I can say again is to vote with your wallet. Support the game, but don't support this type of business model! Give the game rave reviews (if it deserves them) and great praise. But don't spend a cent on their DLC, and maybe this this type of thinking will eventually disappear. Might be a slim hope, but it's the only one we've got.