Do songs in games like Rock Band/Guitar Hero count as Microtransactions?

[Shiken]

Mnementh said:

Shiken said:

I do not really look at expansion packs and micro transactions in the same light TBH.  In the case of Skyrim and Fallout, these are bulky additions to the game made AFTER the release of the project to prolong the life of said title.  In most cases, they can be seen as their own game.  This is why a lot of DLC expansion packs these days get their own separate release without the need of the base game, such as Xenoblade Torna and Uncharted Lost Legacy.  Now it is possible for expansion packs to be abused as well, in the form of cut content being sold after the fact...but that is another topic entirely.

Micro transactions are often cheap cash grabs, often things thay used to be unlockables.  Things like skins, voices, boosters, etc fall under this category.  Some are harmless to the game itself, but addictive to certain players.  Others are toxic and can affect how the game is designed, such as boosters where the player is made to feel like they need them to lessen a grind.

To me proper DLC packs are far more forgiving than micro transactions in general.  They take a lot more work and offer mucb more meaningful content in most cases.  In regards to they topic however, yes they are micro transactions...but the acceptable kind.  Songs in Rockband or Guitar Hero are often tied to extra licensing that is beyond the developer's control.  If you buy these, it can be viewed as no different than buying songs from your favorite artists and downloading them.  Or packs of songs would be no different than buying a CD except you are using them in a video game rather than just putting it into a CD player.

That's the point though. Microtransaction aren't any different from DLC, except maybe they are mini-DLC. That is not inherently bad. But in an industry that is greedy and want to squeeze the last dollar from customers, stuff like this gets horribly misused. That's why people tend to use the name DLC for 'good stuff' and the name MTX for 'bad stuff'. But even here that line is blurry, as good and bad is objective. It boils down to: is the additional content worth the price. And that may be different for who you're asking. The Mii-costumes in Smash are less than a dollar each and very much qualify as micro and hence MTX. Are they worth it? That seems to be a question everyone is answering differently.

For the original question: sure the songs if sold separately are MTX. But they are in this type of games are also practically a new level, so can easily be seen as 'good' DLC.

One final thought: stuff like the character change voucher in MH Rise is bad, because Capcom can generate an endless amount of them at no cost. Selling them is therefore morally questionable (it would be different if they were locked not behind money, but game progress, still limited but not a cheap profit). At least the songs in music games need licensing fees and the Mii costumes in Smash work to implement them, so they are not free for the dev either.

By literal definition alone, yes they are all DLC.  That is why I refer to them as their sub groups, expansion packs vs microtransactions rather than DLC vs microtransactions.

My point was that they are very different types of DLC, which is what the OP was aiming at.