Japan, This Is Your DLC Intervention Letter

Dear Japanese Gaming Industry,

As a child raised in the 90s I loved many of the products you put out as well as so many more that you've released since then.  From Final Fantasy to Resident Evil, from Mega Man to Katamari, you have developed and published some of the best titles seen across every generation of video games.  You are, without a doubt, the primary influence on interactive entertainment as you have consistently shaped the way we play our games decade after decade.  Your continued dedication to providing intriguing stories, innovative gameplay and titles whose uniquely Japan-oriented nature makes us Westerners tilt our heads in confusion keeps us coming back for more year after year after year.

Within the realm of downloadable content and mobile gaming, however, you are screwing the pooch.  Now, I don't say this to be mean.  You have more than earned your place in the industry and we love you for it.  That being said though, downloadable content was introduced to consoles at the beginning of the last decade and, for the past seven years, has been a fact of life when gaming on a modern console.  And yet, for nearly an entire generation, you have yet to actually do DLC right.

We love you, Japan, but this is your intervention.  I grant you the fact that a few of your development and publishing houses are doing alright on the DLC scene but, for three of the four biggest industry outfits over there, they're doing it just plain wrong.

The Reluctant Offender: Konami

Konami has been struggling for quite a while now.  Though it is home to some of the most famous franchises of all time like Metal Gear and Castlevania, it has found itself not able to deliver a strong, vibrant message to its consumers about the strength of their products.  This is especially present when a major trade event like E3 comes along and the company does an embarrassing press conference filled to the brim with unflattering demonstrations and long engrish presentations.  Save for Hideo Kojima's development studio, Konami is behind the curve on many fronts and DLC is a major problem for them.

The problem for Konami with downloadable content isn't a question of price or regional availability so much as it is actually finding content for the franchises that need it the most.  Looking at the publisher, it seems that Konami is very reluctant, if not outright afraid, to release new content for existing games.  Looking at their 2011 catalog of titles, of which there are only two major international releases on disc that year, only one of them featured downloadable content.  Having only two AAA releases in a year for a large publisher is worrying for anyone whose name isn't Rockstar.  When half of your international release list doesn't allow for the possibility for DLC though you know you have a problem.

What was that one major title though?  It is perhaps Konami's biggest franchise, a series that transformed the arcade scene in the 1990s and spawned a whole new genre on its own: Dance Dance Revolution.  DDR saw two major home releases last year, one a port to the Xbox 360 while the other was a numerated iteration released for the Wii in October.  The Wii version obviously didn't include any DLC but the Xbox 360 version, a port from the PS3 that focused on Move support and was released in 2010, did.  Despite this, Dance Dance Revolution (this title didn't have any subtitles or numerations attached to it) only featured a handful of songs to dance to, most of them taken from previous entries in the series.

The problem I have with DDR isn't that I'm terrible at it (the only dance move I can do is The Shepard from Mass Effect) or that I never got into the series.  The issue simply is the fact that Dance Dance Revolution, as a franchise, is one of the biggest lost opportunities for downloadable content this generation.  DDR, THE franchise that started dancing games, has been surpassed by offerings such as Harmonix's Dance Central franchise and Ubisoft's Just Dance series.  Apart from adapting properly to the current motion-based technologies like the Move and the Kinect, Konami has allowed the series to begin its transition into obscurity by not keeping the series current with new gameplay opportunities through downloadable content.  With a catalog of what must be nearly a thousand songs in its inventory, DDR has the possibility of creating a Rockband Network-like system that allows for the downloading and playing of hundreds of songs for modest prices.  Yet, Konami has yet to capitalize on this established, successful concept.  They are shooting themselves in the foot by not exploring this as a foundation for the franchise going forward and, for that, it may cost them the entire dance game genre.

Other than their primarily Japan-centric focus of game releases, this is one of Konami's biggest issues but that doesn't mean that they can't come out of it strongly.  Recent XBLA and PSN arcade releases of games such as the Castlevania (particularly Harmony of Despair) and Contra titles have offered up post-launch content in a very satisfying amount of variety at compelling prices.  For right now though they are not reflecting this nearly as well as they should on their major disc releases and, if they don't do so in the future, it'll be hard to argue for players to keep coming back to a game, let along a franchise, days, months even years after its launch.  Come on, Konami, the Metal Gear franchise deserves some DLC.  We'll buy it, promise.

 The Price Gouger: Namco Bandai

Konami may still be trying to find its footing when it comes to DLC but Namco Bandai is well versed in bringing it to disc-based releases.  Though the publishers' repertoire tends to emphasize RPGs over any other genre they have found success overseas in two series: Soul Calibur and Ace Combat.  The amount of content, while not nearly as prolific as some publishing houses, is in a far better state than that of Konami and is but a minor, arguable issue.  The big problem arises when you try to factor in cost of the post-launch content.  Upon examing their catalog of content you'll find an unacceptable, nigh atrocious hindrance: the prices simply do not match the content provided.

Whereas Konami doesn't realize the potential of DLC, Namco Bandai suffers from thinking far too much of it.  It's two primary sources for DLC the aforementioned Ace Combat and Soul Calibur series, are the victims of what can only be described in my eyes as price gouging.  Let's start by examining Soul Calibur, a series you're probably more familiar with than Ace Combat.

Soul Calibur IV, released in 2008, is a large violation of the content equals price rule.  Weapon content and character customization packs range in price from $1.25 to $3.75 a piece, rounding out to forcing the player to spend $12.50 to have all the main DLC.  This does not include the Darth Vader/Yoda console-exclusive characters, each coming to $5.  This may not seem so bad but the real issue appears in the form of a surprising piece of downloadable content: music.  Each music track costs $1 a piece but, given that there are seventeen pieces of music to download you have to spend a substantial amount in order to get them all.  Namco Bandai "graciously" offers all the music in a single pack for $15 but even that is an atrocious price to pay for in-game music that can't be listened to outside of Soul Calibur IV.  All totaled you are looking at having to spend $32.50 to have everything in the game.  This is half the price of the game itself at launch and doesn't even match a quarter of what it should provide at that price.

What's even more mindboggling is that this practice is repeated in Soul Calibur V which was just recently released.  Worse yet, it is expounded upon thanks to the game's enhanced character creation system.  The entirety of the character creation packs released to date will set you back a whopping $16.  The additional character, Dampierre, costs you another five bucks.  The music is even worse though, setting you back an amazing $26 separately or $15 through five packs.  Totaled, the damage is between $36-47.  That's amazing, and not in a good way.

If you thought Soul Calibur was bad though you have yet to examine the crimes done to the Ace Combat series.  Let's take Ace Combat 6: Skies of Liberation, for example.  This title, released in 2007 exclusively on the Xbox 360, was the first in the series to feature online multiplayer.  It was also the first victim of Namco Bandai's extreme pricing.  Rather than having character customization you instead had a choice of entirely new planes, re-skinned ones or new maps and modes.  Now, while many pieces are available for free to the community much of the more meaty, interesting content costs an arm and a leg.  Most of the reskinned and new aircraft begins at $2.50 and goes up to $5.  The total cost of buying all the new and reskinned planes comes out to an astounding $130.  ONE.  HUNDRED.  THIRTY.  DOLLARS.  This does not include the additional missions and modes that cost $35 together, again, provided you are not an Xbox Live Gold member.  Factoring this in, you end up spending close to $165 total in downloadable content.  That's over two and half times the cost of the game at launch whose value probably only adds about 20% extra in content to the game.  If you aren't appalled then you need to reread this paragraph.

Sadly this deplorable approach to DLC is carrying over to its sequel, Assault Horizon.  This new Ace Combat, at the time of print, contains nine unique aircraft to download and over two dozen different skins for to purchase post-launch.  A few of these will most likely never be made available for download publicly as Namco Bandai had a few exclusive preorder bonuses going on at the time, a terrible practice that some companies are gladly growing out of.  Some of the new planes are only available in packs so, in order to get all of them, you have to spend a grand total of $53.  The skins are an even worse case however as they amount to a minimum of $97 so long as you purchase all the packs you can rather than all of them individually.  I don't know about you but, even as an Ace Combat fan, I simply can't justify paying $150 for all the game's main content.  But wait, that's not all!  Namco Bandai also decided to offer in-game earned skills as paid unlocks for $3 a piece, adding an additional $24 to the price if you don't buy the packs they come can come in.  What a bargain!

Namco Bandai, I love the games that you put out.  Really, I do.  Your downloadable content policies are baffling though.  Why you would charge such egregious amounts for such small, miniscule content is beyond me.  If anything your most expensive content, the skins for the Idolm@ster games, appeal to a Japan-centric demographic and offer little appeal outside of your country because you've never officially released one of them over here.  What makes you think that the majority of your Western audience would even be willing to spend $5 a piece on skins for an aircraft that promotes a series the vast majority of which has never even heard of?  To top it off, you offend your audience even more by selling the ASF-X Shinden II, designed by legendary mecha designer Shōji Kawamori, at a far higher price than the other planes on sale.  Furthermore, you refuse to sell skins based on the VF-1J and VF-1S, the Valkyries of Mr. Kawamori's prized Macross anime series, outside of Japan.

Namco Bandai, you may be offering quite a bit of content but, in doing so at those prices, you are screwing over your customer base.  Please get your act together.

The Badly Confused Company: Capcom

Of all the Japanese publishers on the market today few have the experience appealing to Western consumers and the rest of the world quite like Capcom.  Its legacy of creating legendary series like Mega Man, Resident Evil and so many more  has crowned it as a risk taker of new IPs and a bringer of some of the best of what Japan has to offer on the gaming scene.  And yet, despite having some of the best games on the market the company doesn't understand why its fans have been so upset with them for the past several years.  If this isn't true then I retract my statement but Capcom's attitude toward consumer and community relations is a decidedly one-way street.

For all the Mega Man Legends debacles and single save controversies though there has been no more omnipresent company/community relations problem that Capcom's interpretation of what exactly constitutes downloadable content.  Now, call me crazy but my interpretation of the term "downloadable content" implies that the content, regardless of its cost, is released via an internet connection and is not located on the disc you spent $60+ on at the store.  Is this your opinion too?  Please let me know in the comments.

Capcom's perception of what constitutes DLC doesn't seem to follow this train of thought.  The first major offense came shortly after the launch of Resident Evil 5 in 2009 in which announced that players could download a competitive versus mode for the game's multiplayer, something that you'd figure would be on the disc at launch.  Well, it in fact was on the disc as players soon discovered that the $5 "download" was in fact a 2mb file that actually unlocked and reconstructed the data already present on the disc, thus creating the mode.  The outcry by fans was strong but Capcom refused to budge, claiming that the 2mb file was new code not already on the disc that used existing assets.

Capcom's most recent success is also an unfortunate repeat of 2009's incident except, this time, the cries of foul play were justified.  For this past month's Street Fighter X Tekken Capcom decided to make 12 characters paid-for DLC.  Here's the kicker though: the characters were designed and finished prior to the game's release and are actually on the disc.  Capcom will unlock this content at an unspecified date in the near future but they want $20 from the consumer to do so.

Like many people I find this an outrageous practice to get behind.  Capcom claims that the decision to put this finished content on the disc was to save hard drive space and ensure game compatibility.  Now, I can understand a little bit of their argument for compatibility as game updates and patches can cost quite a bit to produce but that discussion goes right out the window when the content is already finished, on the disc and costs the consumer $20 to access.  If it were free and not unlocked yet due to contractual obligations of some sort then I could probably get behind them but, as it stands, this is unacceptable.  If it's on the disc then the price you paid for the game in the first place should cover it.

Going beyond this issue however, Capcom seems to think that they are still in the 90s when it comes to updating their existing games.  This practice is evident in their continued production of "enhanced" titles like Super Street Fighter IV or Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 within 18 months of the original version of the game's release.  With Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Capcom didn't even give the game a year on its own, releasing UMVC3 nine months later.  Capcom, you're completely missing the point of downloadable content!  You shouldn't expect consumers to spend an additional $40 to get all the content on a disc when you'll probably get a much higher rate of purchase at a reduced price via downloads.  You certainly understand the concept of a "game of the year edition" of a title but you don't understand what really constitutes GOTY material for release.  The generally accepted definition of a GOTY title involves additional content that was released post-launch being put on a disc and released some time later.  Many other great publishers and developers like Bethesda and Take Two understand this concept.  Why don't you?

One final point of contention that simply isn't getting nearly the amount of press it deserves is Capcom's latest DLC debacle with Asura's Wrath.  AW, already a fine game with a decent pair of endings, is the recipient of a surprising amount of downloadable content with guest characters Ryu and Akuma from Street Fighter IV appearing as well as interim levels that take the player deeper into the story.  I am very interested in what they have to offer with this content, especially so that it is fairly priced at roughly $2 per episode.  What I have a problem with though is the content they plan to put on in just a few weeks, a concept that many fans have feared happening to story-based titles for years: true ending DLC.

Yes, you read that right: on April 24th, Capcom will be releasing four additional episodes which provide what they call the true ending to the game.  Coming in at $7, you get four new episodes that take place immediately after the ending contained on the disc. If there was ever a prime example of a company chopping a game up and releasing it to the public as paid-for content this would be it.  The idea that any developer or publisher would have the nerve to do such a thing is astounding but when they actually go forward with it you have to wonder just what kind of euphoric hallucinogen they could be taking to make them think this is a good idea.  You are robbing your customers, Capcom!  Why don't you see this?!

Capcom, not only are you doing it wrong, you are setting a terrible precedent.  Going forward, reworking your plans for post-launch content should be a priority for you.

We're Here For You

Japan, we understand just how valuable you are to the industry as a whole.  In fact, I dread the day in which the Japanese gaming market crashes and you have to completely organize.  I fear this is an inevitability at this point as the creative, exciting titles you release internationally are the exception in design in comparison to the majority of what you produce.  That is a topic for another time but it's clear to me that your widespread misinterpretation of the proper usage of downloadable content is a definite factor toward that fateful day.

We love you, Japan, and we are here for you.  I look forward to your next wave of titles in 2012, 2013 and beyond but your current attitude towards DLC simply doesn't make me want to spend money on your games post-launch.  I ask, nay, beg of you: like so many have asked of you before, look to the West as your inspiration.  Western developers may never be able to properly grasp what makes a Japanese title so different from their own but they have all but solidified the DLC formula.  Well, don't look at Activision, but still!  There's nothing to be ashamed of in seeing what your industry colleagues are doing.

Japan, if you can provide us with compelling, interesting content for a fair price we will certainly purchase it.  We both know that games experience a severe drop-off in sales within four to six weeks of launch and one great way to ensure that people continue to buy your products is to produce this additional content.  Your fate is in our hands so unless you get with the times we may not be willing to support your products the way you want them to if you aren't willing to work with your fans.

Think about this.  In the meantime many of us are going to enjoy our Skyrim patches, our new shooter maps and our free Mass Effect 3 multiplayer DLC.

With hope,
Chris Davis
4PlayerPodcast.com