Downloadable Content: Another Way to Eat Money?

Before I start off with this post, let me first say that I do understand that companies make downloadable content after the release of a game to prolong the life of that game. It's a great idea in theory, and sometimes in practice. I like the fact that you can download content that extends the game beyond its originally intended life cycle, and truly enjoy a lot of the DLC that's available.


The problem comes with the price of DLC.

I do understand that companies have to make money from the time and effort they expend on downloadable content. The problem that I have is the fact that the DLC is ofttimes so expensive that I wonder why they didn't give us the full game in the first place when they're just going to charge us the price of another game afterwards.


Bethesda is probably the most notorious that I've seen for this. With Fallout 3, they posted five downloadable content packs on XBox Live's Marketplace, PlayStation Store, Games for Windows Live Marketplace and Steam. All of them were selling the DLC for $9.99 apiece. That's a total of $49.95. In Bethesda's credit, all of the packs were pretty excellent, but I don't think the time and effort I spent on them equated to the price of a new game.


The only exception that I've seen (and please correct me if I'm wrong in the comments) is Valve. With their Left 4 Dead series they've thrown out a good amount of downloadable content in the form of extended campaigns. They've given out a few of them for free on the PC, and for as low a cost as possible on the XBox 360. 


This is where Microsoft comes in with a small amount of irritation. If my information (or supposition in this case) is correct, Microsoft takes a cut of every sale on the Marketplace, and they force you to charge a bare minimum price for each and every piece of content that's put up on their Marketplace.


Bottom Line: I don't begrudge companies for trying to make a profit. I just think that there should be an option to not have to charge at all for some of the items that are put up there, and to not have to pay the price for a full game... twice.