Why is DLC announced even before a game's release?

[Pristine20]

alpha_dk said:
1) increased costs of development lead to increasing the need to make more money outside of direct sales, through microtransactions, subscriptions, advertisements, etc. (if you want more expensive gaming, this is just something you'll have to live with).

2) At some point, no matter how many features you have in your game, you need to stop adding them and start working the last ones in fluidly, making sure they are balanced, working well, working efficiently, etc.

Adding cruft to games is not always a good thing; if it adds to the game, makes it more fun, etc. then I agree, it should probably be added before release (if they have time, money, etc). But for added bonuses, extra gameplay modes, etc., the added time to develop allows them to take their time and get it perfect. Additionally, aas in the case of burnout's latest DLC, huge new swaths of content can be added at no cost to the consumer, bringing people back into the game and making them more likely to purchase the sequel.

The thing is , no one can really decide whats an "added bonus" or not. Some people were more invested in playing through DOA: Ultimate on xbox multiple times due to the numerous costumes to unlock. Its a given that if these "extra" costumes weren't there, these guys won't have played the game through as many times as they did. The "extra" costumes seem like they don't add to the game but to some they do. It is also obvious that the devs had the costumes in mind (and there were a whole lot of them) from the start and thus added them before the game's launch but if that game had released this gen, I'm pretty sure the costumes would have come in small batches to maximize the profit for the devs.

Its getting late into the 7th gen of consoles. Dev costs can only go one way now. That way is down but I highly doubt the unwarranted microtransactions will stop. In terms of free "content", its highly unlikely except it was user created or accompanied a patch to fix problems with the game.

Since The Last Remnant is a JRPG, I'm guessing the DLC is probably some side dungeon with special bosses to fight and side quests to complete. If you've been a fan of these kinds of games for a long time, you'll know that these kinds of things are available with the default package.