I decided to ask a game designer. This is the answer I recieved:
Most DLC is completed before the game is released. It is not usually done by a separate team, and it does not have its own funding. Publishers include DLC as part of the normal development package, and development time for the DLC is included in the original release schedule (so the DLC should be finished by the time the game is released). Often the DLC is developed during the time that the devs are waiting for bug fixes and game certification. Post-launch DLC development does happen, but not nearly as often as the public is led to believe. The locked SFxT characters were probably not arbitrary picks. They were likely decided to be the DLC characters during the planning stages of the game.
So, I guess I was wrong. Still, it had nothing to do with that picture. I hadn’t seen it before. Capcom was just trying to save some money by putting the characters on the disc instead of making it a patch (which is the norm, because companies don’t want consumers to know that the DLC was already finished).
EDIT: The designer said that he/she can not confirm what Capcom did in this instance, because he/she does not know anything about the situation. The information given was based on the common development cycle of DLC.
Well, any decent proyect involving software development has this stuff planned from the beginning. Asking capcom to make brand new characters as DLC after the game is sold is not realistic.
However as a costumer I don’t give a shit about how a game is made , I care about how it is being sold to me and It’s being sold with a substantial part of content locked.
The OP barely mentions DLC… and yet this entire thread has been raging over that.
To hear that a much touted feature was left out (the local co op) because of ‘time constraints’ and to know alot of time and money was instead put into developing DLC that we aren’t going to care about for months to come is my issue with this whole thing.
The Xbox version feels like a sad port of the PS3 version, but they still ask for the same money for it… the response from capcom saying that it was never advertised is just putting spin on the entire thing, the co op was hyped about for months on end.
During the last 4~ish months of a console game development cycle, most of your art assets need to be finished, this includes all primary art assets. This is so that the implementation and tuning of these assets doesn’t go awry. About 2 months to release, you need to be done with the game. As in, hands off. No touchies. This is because there’s about a 1 month process where Microsoft/Playstation make sure your game works and is suitable for their console and doesn’t make them look terrible/break a pile of things somehow. After that, you need ANOTHER month after that to make physical copies and distribute the game. So with that 2 month period, your polish work comes in the last 2 months, most of your artists will be done with your work, because in game development, design/programming stuff at the end is just making tons of bug fixes, tweaking and such, almost everything needs to be finalized around now so that your tweaking doesn’t go awry and you ship with gamebreaking/awful looking bugs. So during those 2 months, most of your artsts are doing jack. They either move onto another team, or make DLC. The level of overall work during this period of the game also decreases, since you’re doing changes to existing stuff, a lot of your design/engineering team are sitting on their butts too. They can implement the stuff the artists make. If there’s no new tech needed for this, designers can pretty much do this alone (usually you need some new tech for though).
So generally, during your last 4 months of development, you can make brand new stuff without any of that cutting into anything else. 3 of those months, you can ship whatever work you have done on the disc and if it’s not part of the game you promised consumers, then it doesn’t count as stuff Microsoft/Playstation have to cert, and it can have plenty of bugs. HOWEVER, this content needs to be approved by the ESRB, since it can be accessed through datamining. Since you legally cannot distribute pornography etc on a T-rated game, they just gotta poke their nose in it and give it a thumbs up and you’re golden. (as sort of a warning, the ESRB rating was decided right around this lull in development STARTS, so they clearly had this DLC planned earlier, and worked on it at least a little bit before this period).
Now, you could theoretically give this content on the disc away for free, you don’t have to.
Basically: Capcom is technically in the right here, but VISIBLY it makes them look AWFUL and the psychology behind your monetization is SUPER important. You can phrase how something costs a million different ways, and how you phrase it makes you more money. Period. Capcom is phrasing it horribly.
Game developers are trying to act like consumers can see eye to eye with how these practices work, but it’s not elegant or easy to tell every consumer. It just isn’t. So something that is a perceptual ripoff is going to fuck you.
I can’t wait until next gen when EVERY game developer Does this to save money. Also I can’t wait until developers won’t allow you to play used game anymore
The fact this, if all 12 of those characters were complete. Complete with costumes, trials, endings, intros and whatever. Why did capcom not include those unlocked with the game?
Why not include those 12 that were finished and then develop more characters afterward?
A piece of the game locked that’s right there in the disc. The disc itself you paid for. But if the content on that disc is locked and you had to pay even more to view that content. Then yes, the game is incomplete until you pay more money to buy what you already have.
Except the game is complete the second they send it off to cert. It’s done, they cannot touch the content that you get when you pay 60 dollars after that. Like, that’s what people have to get as per what Microsoft and Sony approved. The DLC that is developed during that ~4 month period can’t be released as the “base game”. The people that finished working on the game? They’d probably move onto another project and no DLC would be made. Because the game IS DONE.
The DLC on disc does not abide by the same rules. You want to blame someone? Blame Sony and Microsoft for making dev teams either make that DLC (generally considered a good thing), or you could get nothing at all. Or they could release it later and spend more money and make it harder for people to get that content.
Like either way in this situation, pretty much everyone loses except Microsoft/Sony. And I think the cert process is pretty needed IMO.
I don’t think the problem is with the fact that Capcom has the DLC characters on the disc and you have to pay for it, Its the fact that the Vita version is going to have all the DLC the console has as one cartridge for a cheaper price than the console game when its the exact same game. The Vita version probably tops will be $50 while if you want everything on the console its over $100
And the second problem with this is, its fine to have the DLC on the disc by why must Capcom hold it back why can’t people who want to buy just buy it now.
And the final problem with this is if the DLC was already planned after the Vita version is out does that mean there is no more characters, no more content, when the fall season comes is SFxT dead?
Harmonix has been continuously making DLC for that game throughout the entirety of its lifespan. Hell, they even made a way for the community to create DLC so that there could be even MORE DLC (this is not feasible for most games but you get the point).
Rock Band uses DLC to make a very good and very big game even bigger. You can’t tell me that all of those several thousand songs that are available for purchase were planned before the game came out.
The thing is that most devs pre-make all their DLC. It isn’t just Capcom. The extended time that it takes them to release the DLC is just for Marketing reasons. Obviously, this is not true of all devs (I would say that some of the Rock Band DLC is made before release, but not all), but from the information I was given…it is true of most.
So, Capcom was right. There really is no distinction between on-disc locked content and DLC.
Honestly, not only is Capcom acting extremely shady because they’re straightforward about NOTHING, but the general infrastructure for consoles is overpriced garbage riddled with needless beauracracy.
If it weren’t so restrictive and expensive, we wouldn’t have any controversy over this at all because it wouldn’t happen.
i’m sorry if i’m beating a dead horse, but the game was made, and it was complete in a sense that the roster is huge and everyone that’s going to be in the game is already on the disc, right? and then they CUT BACK the roster in order to nickel and dime us? then they tell us that the raping through the pants that we’re receiving is called DLC, and is therefor justified?
here’s the thing…i get that they’re trying to extend the life of the game, i really do. i get that they’re a business and that they’re trying to get the most from their product…but damn, they limited access to a complete game and intentionally made it incomplete by limiting our initial access.
by the time the game went to print and mass production, and by the time all the testing was done by both MS and sony, the game was done. the “DLC” characters were done, and they didn’t fuck anything up. the game, in it’s entirety, were done.
and then someone had the great idea to charge us $20 more down the road for stuff that was already there, just hidden away in a file that should never have been found. i find that to be extremely greedy, and i also plan on filling a complaint with the BBB. all i want is a full refund for a game that technically hasn’t been used to it’s full potential.
Something I was thinking about: The 12 characters are already on the Vita version. Were they budgeted as DLC or as part of the Vita version?
Also, I’m wondering how long it takes to design a character. Assuming they just worked in that four months to design and balance twelve characters (Including a character with five stances), that seems like quite a bit of work.
EDITED POST BECAUSE IT WAS STUPID. ~ UnshapedOrkRandomNumber
Did you read what I said in post #121? They most likely did not cut back the characters after everything was finished. The DLC characters were always planned as DLC characters from the beginning. From what I was told, most companies finish all their DLC before the game is released, just like what happened here. The difference is that Capcom tried to save themselves some money by putting it all on the disk instead of having a patch. Most DLC coming after Day 1 is marketing trickery because the DLC was already finished way before its release.
Several posts invalidate this train of thought in this very thread. It kinda blows my mind that someone is still somehow on square one.
Putting something on disc does not mean it is done or rightfully available if it was done. It’s not yours nor did you buy it with your $60. You got what was advertised, not what is actually on the disc.
Think of cable: You getting cable does not mean you actually purchased the channels. HBO is not yours. You cannot tell it what to do or even distribute yourself without getting a sternly worded letter from HBO. What you purchased was the ability to view what they choose to let you see.
My conspiracy theory here is that $ony paid them off to do the exclusive characters, extra characters, and Vita version release window of the DLC characters.
edit: Post above me gets it. Everyone else keeps comparing SFxT to buying a house with locked keys and basement… it’s not the same. It’s like renting an apartment and having optional bills to pay for utilities along the way.
There’s a big difference in how things work when you compare tangibles and intangibles.
