Well put Michael.

Bad, the scenario you describe is much closer to the Alan Wake expansion American Nightmare, in the situation you describe both the novel and the short stories are completely self-contained pieces of writing neither sold together nor implicitly contingent upon each other to be read. While the enjoyment of any is likely to be enhanced by partaking of all each remains an independent work. What many of the 'major' dlc pushers... er, publishers, do now is (to jump analogies) like all the 'extra content' in directors cuts of movies being solid separately as "micro transactions" 7 minutes here, 15 minutes there with multiple purchases being required for the whole story to be present (note this analogy has to be bound to the DVD releases not in theater because the functionality of cinema and gaming differs too greatly to compare properly otherwise). It's one thing to offer the Star Wars extended edition years after the fact as a single expanded package, it's another to say "pre-order the Star Wars experience now and receive the 'imperial perspective pack' free! These scenes expand the base movie with a newer deeper experience allowing you the full richness of sitting in on conversations among key players of the empire. Learn the answers to compelling questions like 'is Jabba after Han?', "What is the relationship between the Emperor and Darth Vader?" and what dose Darth Vader find the lack of "disturbing"? All this and more can be yours with the 'Imperial Scenes' pack! So buy the DVD now before it hits theaters and get this extra $14.99 worth of footage free as our way of saying thank you."

The two have some passing similarities I grant, but they are in the final analysis quite different.

My description of Steam.

I use the term "glorified game rental service" when I should say "non-transferable term license service", with the "term" of the license being tied to the length of time that Valve is in business or is operating Steam in its current form (which I concede could be an indefinite period, but then again, maybe not).

Anyway, acquiring a non-transferable license to play said game using Steam is something less than ownership, which is why I will not be acquiring the game at the original stated offering price.

If you like Steam and value the benefits that come along with playing a game on that service, than you should a pay a licensing fee that matches that value. If that is the stated offering price for said game, then that is what you should pay.

I see a lot more value in games such as ME2 or Dragon Age that work out of the box without online activation. I know when I pay for those games I have the option to (i) play the game in the future (which for Steam games is only guaranteed for length of time that Steam is around and in its current form, rather than the amount of time I maintain the game disk in playable condition), and (ii) sell the game in the future (which can not be done on Steam).

Since I see diminished value in acquiring a license to play said game on Steam (or GFWL, BattleNet, or any other similar "service" being used for games these days), my price is going to be a lot lower. I know the trade-off is that I have to wait a while longer to play said game, but I have a backlog of games I need to play anyway. The market will meet my price eventually.

I think of myself as a very reasonable gamer.

I am willing to pay full retail to "own" a game, but if the publisher wants to sell me a license linked to my Steam account or something similer the terms of which can be modified at any time, I am going to pay a lot less.

What I resent is a product that is required to be linked to Steam. I don't see why publishers can't offer something similar to to the way they sold Dragon Age. You like Steam and you bought the game on Steam. I prefer owning physical media or the Ability to save a working game on a disc like here at GoG.com (for the time being that is), and bought or download complete games or the ability to burn a disc with said game. It appears we are both happy with the purchase. It just doesn't seem that difficult because GoG.com does it with many games now.

I don't hate Steam completely, I just don't trust that the terms of use won't change. I think it is useful for what it is. I have a Steam account with both major releases and indie games. Where I see trouble for the industry is that the games I have bought on Steam, Borderlands ($10), Red Faction Guerilla ($5), I would have paid full retail for if they had reasonable DRM or they had not been linked to Steam.

You may joke about my enjoying waiting for "eventually". What publishers need to understand is that I (and I am assuming a lot of other gamers) have such a backlog of games that I can wait out "eventually" very easily. Any game purchase I make is a discretionary purchase, because I have literally dozens of games that I need to play that are probably every bit as much fun as said game.

I would be willing to meet publishers half way. I would be willing to pay more to own a physical copy of a game or as GoG.com has it now with many games just download and burn it to a disc to save it for future use. I also don't have a problem with a publisher doing DRM first, and then following that up with no DRM later (as I said, I can wait). For example, I don't understand why the Borderlands Game of the Year edition that was released had DRM. I would have thought it would have been a great opportunity by the publisher to pick up sales they may have lost because of the original DRM scheme.

It just seems to me that any situation where a customer is willing to pay $40 or $50 for a product, but is instead paying $5 or $10 for the same product because of a lesser means of distribution (at least in my opinion) is flawed.

You have a customer who was ready to buy your product at retail price who instead will buy it for $5 due to the means by which you chose to distribute the game (having a Steam requirement or other DRM that is). I guess any time you can frustrate your customers so that they are only willing to pay a small % of your original retail price, you have to do it.

The result about non-MMO persistently online games should be interpreted in context of the popular perception of such games. Namely, more often than not, it's just a sorry excuse for DRM, which is contrary to the first stated principle of GOG.com. The recent example of SimCity sticks out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, few would begrudge LoL or Battlefield for being always on. You need a champion game that you can point to as a positive example, like The Walking Dead for episodic games.

I understand the dilemma GOG.com faces, or I think it faces. More than a few businesses have floundered because they lost focus on their core business, but there are only so many old games that you can dig up and DRM-free is a challenging position in today's marketplace. I don't know the best way moving forward, but I feel your core values remain true. If you ever add any offerings more complicated than flatout DRM-free, I'd like a second shelf in My Games so I can keep them separately.

I completely agree that "DLC" is a bad term. It is far to vague to be clearly assessed or actionable. "Downloadable Content" hum, does that include patches and fixes? Does that include modding tools? Is it somehow exclusive to add-ons ,and if so are they still "DLC" if obtained via a physical medium?

"DLC" is often used by publishers as a term to avoid having to answer unfortunate questions much as some things are in 'extended open beta' essentially live release without the name to avoid PR and legal implications of a finished product (one example is PS Home).

In essence my point is that "DLC" isn't a thing because it's too vague. Your mention of Skyrim actually illustrates this perfectly because sandbox style games such as Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 don't suffer from the same poor business model due to the nature of the game they're offering. In a sandbox game content is largely non-contingent and modular so creating the Shivering Isles works because the nature of the game means that content can come before, after, or during any point of the main plot line and doesn't alter the main arc. The same sandbox style expanded content applies to things like CCPs EVE: Online despite it's more multplayer heavy nature.
What makes the Bethesda business model bad when it comes to ongoing development is their fixation with adding content while not fixing any of the game breaking bugs, have a look at the Skyrim and Oblivion wikis for an illustration of all the workaround and effort players have to employ to keep those games playable. It's not a question of the content in the DLC being good or bad, nor in it's downloadable delivery method it's how bad business practices use "DLC" as a way to obfuscate their more money grubbing aspects.

But see this is your problem (to borrow your phrase) you focus on the matter of taste regarding which games or "DLC" to enjoy and chalk that up to player preference. My entire point and prior post are regarding aspects that come into play before we reach the point of player preference. "Do I like sci fi" is a subjective matter of taste, just like "did I enjoy the content in this 'DLC' ", but I'm not talking content I'm talking context and presentation. It's not the game play or story in ME3 Leviathan that makes it part of a bad business model. What makes it (and so much of the other "DLC" out there) bad is that it takes parts of the primary game and parses them out for sale separately and while doing so is also used to deflect questions about fixing core game mechanics/functions because they're "not altering the base client". The Stone Prisoner "DLC" for DA:O is closer to viable because it's closer to stand alone, where as pieces like Arrival, Lair of the Shadow Broker et al are not because they directly effect the core of the game clearly leaving gaps if you don't have them (to the point where the game contains default flags for the actions in those modules in case the player does not have them because even at a mechanical level they are intrinsic to the play through of that title.

If people want to buy content that I don't personally enjoy, I could care less more power too them.
If companies want to hack apart a gaming experience to con people into making several purchases for a single game while side-stepping taking responsibility for fully and properly supporting their offerings? Well that I'll continue to object too and will unequivocally state that such business practices are greedy, deplorable and should not be supported via purchases.

Legion

EDIT: An example of "DLC" for Skyrim that would be bad in the same way that the ME "DLC" is bad and that defines the bad business model I'm talking about would be if they'd made Thu'um "DLC" packs which added new dungeon locations and dragon walls. In other words if they'd taken the shouts that are part of the Skyrim base game, cut them out, and made you pay extra for each 1-3 you wanted to have "added" to your game. Could you still play the game without having access to the Thu'um? Sure you could, you could even max level your character on side quests but if you had to pay extra several times for the ability to play Skyrim in a form where being the dragonborn actually mattered then that would be the same bad business model that I've been talking about. Because that's not ongoing development that's just a premeditated money grab.

But what "Season passes" are?

There are 2 kind of "Season Pass" things.

1) DLC Season Pass. Pay a set fee (usually 3 times the big DLC price) for a collection of DLCs, that should be released in a year (or two). It should contain 4 DLCs, thus it's cheaper to get the season pass than the individual DLCs.

2) Episodic Season Pass. Pay for the full set of games, and get them as the episodes are released. So for The Walking Dead, you'd buy the Season Pass and get Episodes 1 and 2 which are released, and you will get the rest of the episodes as they are released.

Both cases are basically preordering the rest of the content.

I'm assuming it's pre-paying for a number of DLCs before they're written/released.

It sounds like a terrible idea/massive confidence trick (delete as appropriate).

It seems like most of the issue here with DLC is people not being able to agree on what "good" DLC is.

Total War: Shogun 2, is what I would class as bad DLC. A 60 dollar game at release, with only a couple playable factions, even though all (or most) of the factions were present. Then a couple bucks to unlock each faction one at a time, a couple bucks to unlock a few units at a time, a couple bucks to see blood in the game, a couple bucks for a few maps - it was absolutely ridiculous. Playing the base game without any of the DLC had almost no replay value, it was more like the most expensive demo I've ever bought.

They also came out with some DLC I would consider good, as it was basically an expansion pack, giving an entirely new campaign (even though they were able to offer different time periods as far back as the original Shogun without the need for DLC). Could they have bundled it with the original release? Sure, but at least it was substantial enough to warrant buying, and I knew full well that that content wouldn't be in the original game.

I think that's probably how most people feel. There's no need to be intentionally petty and cling to an absolutist attitude of "how can you say you only want some DLC when all DLC is DLC!?" We're all rational people, and it's pretty obvious to us all when DLC is a legit substitution for an expansion pack, and when it's just a money grab. I feel fairly confident in saying that all any of us want is to have GOG be as reasonable as we are and make sure we're not nickeled and dimed needlessly.

Then again, maybe not~

Obligatory client is the reason I avoid Steam (but I don't hate it - I just like my games as .exe installers and somebody else might like them any other way - I'm OK with it). Still, I voted "yes" in most cases.
- I'm not going to buy any multiplayer focused games, because I don't care about multiplayer and don't enjoy it - but why should I deprive other GOG users of their MP fun? Why should I deny GOG that money?
- I am not goin to create any additional accounts but if someone wants it for some additional features, why would I have a problem with it?
- I don't mind alpha funding here. Sure, give me Moebius from Jane Jansen and I'm buying it today.
- Episodic games - Why not? Bought some from TellTale as they were coming out and I was very happy with them. And my Cognition would please me much more if it was on GOG.
- DLCs are good or bad, as somebody else said. I don't mind neither. I'll buy good DLCs for games I care about and ignore bad DLCs \ DLCs for games I don't care about. Somebody else can enjoy them - why should I care?

Thanks for help guys.

And what is the difference between expansion pack and DLC?

Depends who you ask. In my opinion, none.

Usually, expansion packs are larger, though I can find you quite a few examples that show the opposite. A DLC can vary from a single map (see the smaller Civ V DLCs) to game altering changes (see Gods & Kings DLC for Civ V).

Main reason for the expansion packs being larger though was logistics. If you had to go through the pain and trouble of printing CDs, boxes and manuals for your additions, you made sure that you had to do as little CD printing as possible. So instead of releasing the first addition now, and the second addition in 2 months, you released both of them at the later date, thus printing 1 cd instead of 2.

The delivery method. DLC is something you download, an expansion pack is something you buy from a physical store. It gets really confusing since you can buy some expansion packs digitally (so they're DLC) and buy some DLC in physical stores (so they're expansion packs). Anyway, the general consensus is that DLC is bad and expansion packs are great, and you should always put the cheese on the lettuce and not the other way around.

Expansion pack used to be a larger content add-on to the core game. Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal is a typical example. Gameplay usually lasted for 10-20 hours. The pack can be stand-alone.
DLC is smaller version of expansion pack. Story content adds to the core game additional 1-4 hours and sometimes it can offer only new weapons, outfits or map.

That's a very good question. :)

For my full on wall of text see a couple posts above yours but the simple answer is in two parts.
1) DLC is so vague that it's hard to use.
2) If framed specifically as "DLC vs expansion pack" then an expansion pack extends the game adding new unique game play and content. While "DLC" repairs a game filling the intentionally created holes in the base client as a way for money grubbing publishers to make a cash grab.

Cheers,
Legion

Thanks again guys. Now it is a little more clear.

Personally I am not much in lexicon, if the DLC has a price reasonable for what is adds it is fine.

For example, while the pure size is not a good indicator, it is somewhat weird that for a 40$ game of 1000GB a 7mb expansion/DLC costs 5$...