Or, in more frightening cases, we actively defend these things.

I think people could make a bigger impact if retail laws were on our side more.

As it is we can't return a game if the seal is broken, we can't return a downloaded game full stop.

We are in a situation where we pay our money so have to make the most of it. Many consumers would rather sit in denial thinking they have made a good purchase than admit they have wasted 40 quid .

In the case of MCC and Destiny, neither 343 or Bungie have ever been good at netcode but these games have gone to another level of bad.


Personally I downloaded MCC, I can't do anything but wait and hope that they sort it out.
Ok the terms state that the title is not eligible for refund but how is that not a breach of my consumer rights?
I have proof of purchase and the product is not currently as advertised. I should be able to claim a refund.

I reject bungie never being good with netcode.

Their p2p from 3 to reach was better than cod. And fuck gears host advantage.

(can't speak on gears 3, granted.)

This is your weekly reminder that there's nothing actually wrong with on-disk DLC and any complaints about it just result in it being taken off the disk so we have to download it. The deciding factor in something being a separate purchase or included in the price of the game isn't it being finished before the disks get printed.

The whole update/patch/failed to connect shit has to go. The Alienware Alpha is now looking like my next console.

Just come off the MCC, perfect thread for me to vent.

Ignoring the fact that match making and parties etc. still don't work, when we got a custom game going the lag was unbelievable. They've got some good code going on that hides it, no rubber banding or anything, but the difference between what I'm seeing on my screen and what happens in the kill cam is massive.

I just played a game with Webbo and Frantic, in the first half I was cursing them as no matter how many shots I put into them they just wouldn't die. All of a sudden it switches and then I'm invincible, going on a nine kill streak even though they're coming at me from all angles and getting the drop on me.

Fucking rotten stuff. If you lose to lag you feel massively hard done by, win with it and it's a hollow victory which leaves a sour taste in your mouth. All I want is a level playing field for everyone and let skill decide who comes out on top.

There were  times in the past where I thought "I don't want to spend £40 on a new game. I'd like to spend £10 on more of that game I liked." and now that's an option. Whether or not there's going to be DLC, the scale and price of that DLC, is decided early on in development. If that DLC is ready to go at the same time as the disk, that doesn't mean they should, or even could, give it away.

I guarantee that finished DLC has been withheld from disks, forcing a day-long download, to avoid complaints.

The Skylanders/Infinity/Amiibo model seems to get past the on-disk complaints by selling you an NFC tag in a cheap toy to unlock the tiniest bit of in-game tat.

I don't get the logic in that. Why would you rather use your net and keep your machine on and wait?

With regard to the content on disc as payable dlc later issue, I realise it seems wholly greedy, but if you think about it in terms of content paid for by publisher to developer in terms of head count and overheads, it's perfectly fine business economics.  It takes x amount of days to make the base content, then x amount of days to make the extra stuff, to make it easier to deliver and avoid going through costly submission processes on consoles it's better to chuck it on the disc if possible.

IMO there's 2 problems with this at the moment -

1 some publishers/developers have taken the piss, deliberately removing material clearly designed for the game.  While it's ok to offer follow up or add on stories for purchase just like other media have done for decades, there should be minimum levels of quality for the basic item in the first place.  As Monkey posted you should be able to fully enjoy your purchase without feeling like something was removed from the experience deliberately to compel you to make another purchase, a dark mechanic.

2 we are halfway to transitioning towards completely digital media delivery, and we still hold on to the view that what is one the disc is ours because we paid for it.  You aren't buying a record or a cd when you buy a game, you buy some content that publisher wants you to have.  I would guess that most who have an issue with on disc dlc would not bat an eyelid if the dlc was a download, providing that point 1 was not already an issue! But the problem is that the content is already scheduled to be built in time for manufacturing so why not save all sorts of costs and other issues and distribute it on the disc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very old school and I prefer vinyl to mp3 and I don't buy digital games, so the method of delivery still bothers me and I'm certainly concerned that some publishers have exploited the issue for gains.  Funnily enough I think that the iTunes App Store has been simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to media delivery in a long time, in just a few years we've seen people really take the piss with constant paywalls and unethical mechanics, but also brilliant games almost given away for peanuts, we've learnt about the extremes and that we can't charge for horse armor anymore.

Liveinadive wrote:

In fact if I use a credit card rather than debit does that not counter any non-refund clauses? Some of these games are verging on fraud.

Some? Pretty much every Bethesda and EA game counts as fraud. Many recent Ubisoft titles do. Halo MCC and Driveclub as well.

Someone try that and report back here and tell us how you got on.

Blue Swirl wrote:

... In video game terms, we keep going back. Micro-transactions, on-the-disc "DLC", season passes, day one updates... .

You lot might do, but I don't. 
I've made it a point of principle not to buy later games in a series or from a dev once I've been burned. Battlefield 3 was the end of DICE games for me, but even before then it was a given that the first few weeks/months of release their netcode and servers would be fucked, so I wouldn't bother with a pre-order. When Atari were circling the drain, wouldn't touch their stuff with a bargepole - same now for anything from Ubisoft that requires that Ubiplay or whatever their broken online auth method is.

Vote with your wallets, because it's the only thing scalpers will pay any attention to.

I have two issues with DLC. One has been covered already - incomplete games that require further purchase. This would be fine if the game was cheap to begin with as that makes it a variation on "try before you buy".

The other is that DLC is a scourge to people like me who collect. It may be a quaint idea to many but I like having games complete with the manual in a box. That now seems to be somewhat anachronistic.

Extra DLC I can tolerate (although for the collector it is still a disappointment). Mushihimesama Futari's Black Label Mode is a case in point. I would rather it actually was on the disc but it is a download.

No doubt the retro community will empower the likes to me to keep on playing DLC like that in the future should I get another 360 but I'd rather not have to rely on that.

Blue Swirl wrote:

Before internet connections became a normal thing on consoles, this underhanded tactic would have been unimaginable, akin to buying a book and finding out that random chapters have been stripped out and replaced with "Wanna know how the hero escapes? Send a cheque for £1.99 to...". On-the-disc "DLC" is bullshit, pure and simple.

No it's not, that analogy doesn't work at all!  A game's a single story, in most situations.  If they randomly cut huge chunks out of the story; like you had to pay £1.99 to access the final battle in Mass Effect or something like that; then your analogy stands up.  

To me, though, most DLC is akin to a separate novella that amplifies or expands on a story but isn't part of the main arc.  The closest analogy I can think of to on-disc DLC is finishing a book, then finding a locked bit at the back where the author's included a note saying "I've written a short story about what the character did before this book/after this book/when he was at home in chapter 12, which doesn't fit the main story, but I thought you might like it.  Send me £1 and I'll send you the key."

The Assassin's Creed 2 bits were removed because they didn't fit the pacing of the story, it appears; they decided to cut them entirely.  Then they thought some people might want to play them so offered them up separately.  They couldn't have included them in the main story flow because they spoiled it; that's the whole reason they were cut out.  

We have a thread here where people are moaning about download times, and other threads here where a 250MB patch is like the end of the world.  Yet when they try to package some DLC into the empty 20GB on a Blu-Ray, which isn't part of the main game, we start complaining that we've got an automatic right to it?  If we have some sort of semi-libertarian attitude that we have to own what's encoded on the physical disc we bought, then they'd just switch straight back to making us download 10GB story add-ons.  I'd rather have it the current way.

Elmlea wrote:

Before internet connections became a normal thing on consoles, this underhanded tactic would have been unimaginable, akin to buying a book and finding out that random chapters have been stripped out and replaced with "Wanna know how the hero escapes? Send a cheque for £1.99 to...". On-the-disc "DLC" is bullshit, pure and simple.

No it's not, that analogy doesn't work at all!  A game's a single story, in most situations.  If they randomly cut huge chunks out of the story; like you had to pay £1.99 to access the final battle in Mass Effect or something like that; then your analogy stands up.   To me, though, most DLC is akin to a separate novella that amplifies or expands on a story but isn't part of the main arc.  The closest analogy I can think of to on-disc DLC is finishing a book, then finding a locked bit at the back where the author's included a note saying "I've written a short story about what the character did before this book/after this book/when he was at home in chapter 12, which doesn't fit the main story, but I thought you might like it.  Send me £1 and I'll send you the key." The Assassin's Creed 2 bits were removed because they didn't fit the pacing of the story, it appears; they decided to cut them entirely.  Then they thought some people might want to play them so offered them up separately.  They couldn't have included them in the main story flow because they spoiled it; that's the whole reason they were cut out.   We have a thread here where people are moaning about download times, and other threads here where a 250MB patch is like the end of the world.  Yet when they try to package some DLC into the empty 20GB on a Blu-Ray, which isn't part of the main game, we start complaining that we've got an automatic right to it?  If we have some sort of semi-libertarian attitude that we have to own what's encoded on the physical disc we bought, then they'd just switch straight back to making us download 10GB story add-ons.  I'd rather have it the current way.

Assuming the Ass Creed stuff was cut for editorial reasons, then they oh so benevolently thought they didn't want to deprive people of the opportunity of playing it is an extremely generous interpretation of what might have caused there to be a whopping great hole, slap bang in the middle of the game. But yeah if they stick it somewhere out of the way, then fine. But putting it in the main game is deliberately designed to make people feel the game is incomplete so Swirl's analogy is much more accurate than your 'quick note at the end'.

And the Mass Effect thing you mention did happen sort of. A Day 1 DLC pack added a new character and a new mission. That character was one of the best things about ME3, and the game wasn't that good that it could withstand chopping out loads of good stuff. He had the best dialogue out of all of them. I think not buying it amounted to a room on the Normandy you could never fill and a silhouette of the character on squad selection screen. Not massively obtrusive but you're still not getting the best experience of that game without the DLC add on. Admittedly you're not going to know that unless you go looking for it.

stonechalice wrote:

I'd rather we got finished games when they were released. That includes a working online portion.

Yup. A beta test would have goes a long way to ensuring that happens. I'm not sure why the MCC didn't have one but I'd guess it was a financial decision.

I'm also not sure why we're all on about DLC now either, what does that have to do with net code?