The Potato Chip School of Game Development

DLC: 1 (acronym) Downloadable Content – additions to an existing game not available at the time of purchase. 2 (geek acronym) Developers Love Cash

When was the last time you bought potato chips? Before you opened the bag, it was filled to the brim with the promise of starchy, potato-y goodness, then you opened the bag expecting the fulfillment of your purchase price, only to find that a $2.00 bag of chips has $.75 of empty space and failed expectations. Now imagine that bag of chips costs $60 and you’ve been looking forward to it for 6 months to a year. Welcome to the world of modern game development.

A disturbing new trend in the gaming industry is for publishers to push developers to create games with great plot and story, rich heritage and mythos, and then chop it in half and sell one half as a completed product while dicing up the other half to be sold piece by piece as DLC. The only thing they don’t cut in half is the price. Yup, you pay full price for half a game and then are forced to pay up to full price AGAIN just to get the full game experience.

Games like “Evolve,” “Titanfall,” and “Destiny” had this great build up with awards and accolades even before they launched only to finally drop and deliver a half-baked game that has the gall to demand you pay for the game’s “Season Pass” (another $40) just so you get the new levels and gear all your friends will have.

But we can’t blame an industry for making money the best way it can, and until we are no longer eager to fork out the cash for these half-filled bags of gaming goodness, why should they stop?

Class dismissed.