When the topic of downloadable content in video games is brought up, there are a few issues that annoy many gamers in the way the publishers choose to deliver this DLC. One delivery technique that has been on a spiral as of late, is the practice of including DLC content on the retail release of the game disc, and then forcing consumers to pay for content that is already on the disc to be unlocked.

The recently released title that has become the poster child of this practice is that of Street Fighter X Tekken. This title was released with a great number of downloadable content that had been stored on the retail disc. This content was then locked, forcing the user to pay a fee to unlock content that was already stored on the disc that they bought the retailer.

This is a subject that was brought into the attention of the videogame analyst, Michael Pachter, in his show Pach-Attack. When this subject was brought up, this is what Pachter had to say about it:

Yeah, it’s just plain greed. The answer is that simple. I think that DLC has been so successful that publishers are trying to get a jumpstart and if you put it on the disc it allows them to unlock it when they feel like it.

A few years ago, we didn’t see DLC for typically six months after a game launch and I think it was Red Dead Redemption, but Take-Two kind of pioneered and launched DLC like a month after the original title and it was super successful, now you’re seeing a lot more guys do it.

Some guys get it right, some guys take a long time to get it out, putting it on the disc allows the publisher to determine the optimal moment to launch it. All DLC is great, games are getting shorter, DLC is keeping people engaged, it’s a profit deal. I don’t think it makes much difference how it’s delivered.”

Finally, he goes on to comment that “the stuff on the disc, some gamers feel entitled to because they bought the disc, so they should have a right to anything that’s on the disc,” he said. “And that’s a dicey one, you actually do own the disc and I think, theoretically, if you could crack the code on the DLC you probably would be allowed to access it without paying. And I’m not even sure that’s stealing because you did, in fact, buy the disc. That’s about as close as you can get to legal piracy.”

It seems that he clearly backs the same response that many gamers have announced that they represent. It is simply bad business for a publisher to develop and place DLC on a retail disc and lock it from consumers use, until they purchase that content.

http://www.examiner.com/article/pachter-on-disc-dlc-is-plain-greed-it-s-a-profit-deal