What’s up with EA’s DLC plans?

Gamers can sometimes be a fickle bunch. When something comes along that they don’t quite yet understand, because it’s a new thing that someone wants to try out, they can jump to conclusions and see the worst possible outcome, without giving it the benefit of the doubt and seeing how it all plays out. That rings particularly true when it comes from a large industry player, who is viewed skeptically and presumed to be looking for another way to nickel and dime them. And so it happened again on Monday, when Gamastutra cited industry analyst Michael Pachter with the news that Electronic Arts was considering a new form of paid DLC to appear prior to the release of a game:

Pachter wrote, “The PDLC [premium downloadable content] would be sold for $10 or $15 through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and would essentially be a very long game demo, along the lines of 2009’s Battlefield 1943.”

He added, “A full-blown packaged game would follow shortly after the release of the PDLC, bearing a full retail price. Mr. Earl believes that the release of the PDLC first limits the risk of completing and marketing the full packaged version, and serves as a low-cost marketing tool.”

The mood of course quickly turned to outrage, at the prospect of paying for a game demo, which have traditionally been a way to sample an upcoming game for free before plopping down your hard earned $60 (or that agonizing wait on GameFly before it surfaces from low availability).

The response from EA was swift. Later that day, the publisher’s Jeff Brown responded back to Kotaku, denying that ‘traditionally free game demos’ would be charged for:

“EA SPORTS, EA Games and EA Play are each experimenting with download strategies that deliver fresh game content in formats players want to experience,” he writes. “To date, there is no set pricing strategy for the entire EA portfolio. And many of the proposals include free-to-play content on models similar to Madden Ultimate Team, Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield 1943.”

To me both statements still seem somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, there’s talk of pre-release content, and on the other hand, there’s talk of freemium games like Battlefield Heroes, or affordable titles like Battlefield 1943 with its four levels. There’s nothing ‘pre’ about either of those models. There’s the release of the game, and then there’s a way to customize and buy some goodies through micro-transactions or some major new DLC pieces like extra maps.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would think EA’s comments are closer to the truth than Pachter’s, because the latter is simply repeating what he heard about that day and EA is… you know… doing the thing?

We’ll have to see what EA have in store, but I’m going to think out loud a little and come up with my own ideas:

• A smaller game: Typically a demo is 30-60 minute’s worth of content, and it’s free. The full game may be 10-20 hours of gameplay, and it costs $60. Suppose you got 4-5 hours of gameplay for $15? That’s the same amount of gameplay per buck. Don’t think of it as paying for a larger demo. Think of it as being able to buy a smaller, more affordable game. How often have you slugged through a game that felt too long? How many times did you curse the fact that there’s not enough gaming hours in the week because too many cool new games came out. I’d rather pay $60 for 4 games that I finish all the way than $240 for the same amount of games that I give up half way through.
• Build your own game: Not everyone likes everything about a particular game. There’s that one mission you hate, that one fighter or car you can’t stand, or that one map you always skip out on when it comes up in multi-player. Ship with some base content, and allow gamers to pick and chose the additional content they want, based on their preferences. Give them the feeling that they got to choose the coolest parts of the game, and didn’t have to pay for any of the crappy bits.
• Multi-player costs extra: Some people just aren’t into the whole multiplayer thing. They’re tired of getting their butts kicked online against people who play the game way more than they can, and just like to watch the story unfold in single player. Why should they pay for the multi-player content? Charge an extra $20 or $30 for the ability to play the whole thing online with all the fixings, or piece meal out the individual map and mod types a la carte. And if multiplayer turns out to be a flop, at least you didn’t have to delay the release until it was done. This could leave time to avoid the typical rush job to check off that multiplayer box on the packaging.
• The Bundle: Eventually, when enough content has amassed, release one big package that includes all the DLC and costs the usual retail pricing. Don’t charge extra and make it look like late comers are being penalized, but don’t make it cheaper either, or you’ll discourage future early adopters of similarly modeled game releases. Some games may luck out and never get to the point where there’s enough content to do this, but at least they saw the light of day for gamers to vote with their dollars.

Some of these models are bound to mean less revenue per player and game. Maybe in other cases, the pricing can be skewed in favor of the publisher if hardcore players want to buy all the additional content available for a particular game, but I think this is just as much about customer loyalty to a franchise or publisher and repeat business of different games, than it is about the per game revenue made from a specific title. Once you get the gamer interested in paying a more manageable $15 a pop for something new, they’ll come back more often and give more new stuff a chance. Attract the kind of player that wants to play games, but doesn’t have the same amount of time as someone trying to complete all of GTA IV or Fallout 3, and you’ve opened up a huge new demographic.

Another big advantage for the publisher and developer is that smaller games can be brought to the market much more rapidly. Embedded game metric tracking can be used to identify what’s popular and what’s not, they can let the market decide the direction of the title after release. A small development team that will spend a year or less making a smaller title will be much more inclined to take risks and come up with something fun and different, rather than a big budget team working for two years with 60 people on a cookie cutter sequel. That’s when we get groundbreaking games like Portal or Braid or Splosion Man. EA would do good to foster 5-10 8-10 person teams that are thinking outside the box.

This would also avoid potential large scale layoffs after a game is released that didn’t turn out to be a hit. The games would pay for themselves as new content is released, and teams would grow and shrink organically as games make it or don’t. No publisher wants to look like a dick in the press when they have to can an entire team when a costly project doesn’t sell at all.

Game sales models have long been overdue for a change. We’ve seeing new business models thrive in Asia for years now, and the same is happening in web based and even iPhone games already. It’s about time console gaming got the same treatment.

I also think consumer opinion about these new experiments isn’t going to change until gamers have concrete examples in their hands and can see the benefits for them. Case in point, Battlefield 1943 shattered download records and sold over 600,000 copies in 2 weeks on Xbox Live and the PSN when it shipped. In the mean time, we’re going to have to deal with bursts of gamer rage when stories like this hit the press.