What if Destiny was $60 with 2 FREE expansions? (Destiny)

by kidtsunami , Atlanta, GA, Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 08:11 (3794 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I prefer to look at DLC in a cost / benefit context. Did I get my money's worth of enjoyment out of x or y DLC? If yes, what does it matter when it was released or when it was worked on?

In a sense yes, because it's not just a matter of money, but a matter of design philosophy. If the content is significant enough that it greatly changes the experience, then it is either an expansion pack, where large amounts of content that is properly integrated are delivered, whereas DLC sold in chunks tends not to be integrated, but rather a piecemeal kind of thing. If you can piecemeal things, then they aren;t really that integrated.

Let's use Brood War as an example. Can you imagine if instead of buying the Brood War expansion, you could instead buy new units as DLC individually? It wouldn't work. The moment a Zerg player buys Lurkers, and faces a Terran opponent who did not buy medics, the game becomes incredibly imbalanced.

Rather, all the units are delivered in one chunk to everybody, so they can be balanced around each other and create a new set of rules and a new metagame. This is what I mean when I say DLC does not promote cohesion in game design.

As Claude said, it's POSSIBLE that the 2 'expansions' will be proper expansions in that they deeply change the rules of the game, but I have doubts given the current partnership, and what Bungie has said about their content creation tools.

If they ARE, I'd be more than happy to pony up.

I don't agree with your logic because it is dependent on the game being so monolithic in it's meaning and design that adding piecemeal content couldn't possibly be "well integrated".