Launch-day DLC is no new thing. Personalization packs such as character and weapon skins are par for the course with many games today. But while some games offer just a few extra options at launch, expanding later, Turtle Rock's new title Evolve gives players a veritable feast of add-on content to consume.

If you wanted to buy all of the Evolve DLC available right now it would cost you $136, on top of the $60 game or the $25 DLC pass. There are 44 pieces of Evolve add-on content listed on the game's Xbox Marketplace product page, available in the $2-$7 range.

The DLC is cosmetic in nature, however, limited to weapon and Monster skins. Some options include the Kraken Wendigo Skin ($3), the Assault Ragnarok Skin Pack ($5), and the Goliath Bog Skin ($3), among many others.

On top of the Monster and weapon skin packs, Turtle Rock offers the Evolve Hunting Season Pass ($25), which will eventually unlock four new Hunters and more. All new maps and modes, however, will be free, so as to not segregate the community.

That Evolve offers a smorgasbord of extra paid content is not all that surprising. After all, we've known for a while now that Turtle Rock had extensive DLC plans for the game, which some fans raised concerns about. Responding to these issues, key developers spoke out to make clear that Evolve's DLC scheme is not meant to "leech" money out of players.

Despite Turtle Rock attempting to lay those concerns to rest, the controversy over Evolve's DLC plans made it all the way to the top of 2K Games parent company Take-Two Interactive. Earlier this month, Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick defended Evolve's DLC plans, saying that in fact controversy can be a positive.

"I guess controversy, generally speaking, is a good thing," Zelnick said at the time. "People can argue about the business model [but] I think we're delivering a fantastic title that's well worth what consumers will pay for it."

Evolve's extensive DLC plans also give the game an opportunity to continue to drive revenue long after release, something Zelnick sees as being paramount to Take-Two's success. In previous earnings calls, Zelnick has talked about applying "recurrent consumer spending" strategies to most of its major franchises, Evolve being no exception. The idea of recurrent consumer spending is that major releases are complemented by an array of microtransactions that ideally yield further revenue for a game up until--and possibly beyond--the release of the next installment in the series.

In the case of Grand Theft Auto V, this is already paying off. While Take-Two has not yet announced specific numbers, Zelnick has said that GTA Online, the multiplayer mode for GTA V, has been "the gift that keeps on giving" as it relates to players continuing to spend money on the game long after its initial release. GTA Online allows players to buy in-game currency for real money, or they can always earn it through regular gameplay.

So not only does Take-Two make money from the 45 million copies of GTA V sold so far, but the company also banks incremental revenue from GTA Online. This is seen as a way to establish GTA as a "permanent" franchise, one that can be a meaningful revenue contributor even in years when no new GTA title is released. It's not hard to see Take-Two applying the same vision to Evolve and its other franchises, and the proof is in the numbers.

For Take-Two's latest quarter, revenue from digital items was big business for the company. Sales of things like virtual currency and DLC jumped 64 percent to $217 million during the period, the company reported last week. In all, recurrent consumer spending made up 36 percent of net revenue from digitally delivered content, representing a 23 percent year-over-year increase.

All of this is to say DLC is here to stay. While virtual items may be just that--virtual--the money to be made from them is definitely real.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/evolve-launches-with-136-worth-of-dlc/1100-6425237/

The only difference is that with GTA V $60 will get you the full-game experience.
With Evolve, they sell you the game for $60, but not before they ripped out half the content from it so that they can sell it to you separately.

EDIT:

The Behemoth will be available for purchase this spring for $14.99

The four playable Hunter characters will be available for purchase individually for $7.49 each.

That's only an example of $45 of content cut out from the base game to be sold separately.

As long as they think it's worth the money.

I read a thread on neogaf talking about inflation and how $60 in 1992 =/= $60 in 2015 that made me wonder... it's really fair to AAA games be locked at $60 price point? i mean, i don't want games to be more expensive, don't get me wrong but..looking from the devs perspective:

-AAA Games are becoming way more expensive:
-Software price drops really fast these days(6 month old games for less than half of the price)
-It's not like devs are not charging more than $60 already(see: OP).

If you think about two of the biggest reasons why Video game market crashed back in the 80's were #1 huge amount of shovelwere/bad games and #2 lower price point for softwares.

These two things are happening right now! We have a lot of shovelwares(indies AND AAA) and the Software price point fall too fast.

Of course,back then devs didn't have DLC,microtransactions,DRM,etc... but still....

I get more annoyed with some of the DLC I see for games like Battlefield. The shortcut or unlocks everything packs.

I bet if this game was F2P and all this stuff you could buy through mincro transactions, the game would do really well. I think it won't though based on a £50 price.

I'd say those are fine. They aren't you missing out on content, just paying to progress quicker. You can still get all the content by playing the game, no?

Of course this is in the knowledge that they are essentially what used to be cheats back in the day. Skins are what use to be unlockables. :P

DLC sucks, might be a reason why I never buy any.

Remember when everyone made a giant fuss about Horse Armor? Look where we're at now.

Goodness, 136 plus USDs worth of DLC? That's just ridiculous. Sure, they may think it's worth it for consumers, but wallets sure don't think so... Well, cept maybe those with plenty of income. This DLC is just beyond ridiculous.

I just don't like the fact they aren't really earning their progression in the game and that the game dev/pub is selling that to players. I buy some DLC like expansion packs or sometimes cosmetic stuff.