The problem is it's not entirely clear what you are being promised when you buy a game. One of the core premises of capitalism is an informed consumer, and unless you go into great detail with previews, reviews and videos before purchase you don't know exactly what you're paying for.
The thing about that is the people bitching about DLC know what they're buying. If I sell you a fighting game with 18 characters and 4 "secret" ones, you're gonna know who they are. If I say, "There's three more on the disc, I'll let you have 'em for $5" that's separate consideration.
No. You are entitled to what you were sold. If I promise to give you X in exchange for $$ and I end up giving you X+Y in exchange for $$, I have fulfilled the terms of our agreement. I have not lied to you or deceived you in anyway. If later on, I decided to give you access to Y for a price, that's fair game.
It depends on what the definition of "X" and "Y" is. Is "Y" a completely separate, distinct, and original item? Or is "Y" just something the game company decided to break off of "X" and then bundle along with X, but require you to pay extra in order to use?
Let's say "X" is a car , and "Y" is a component of that car, like let's say the transmission or something. So let's say you buy "X" and the car dealer throws in "Y" but "Y" is locked and you have to spend another $1,000 to unlock it. Do you see what I'm saying? Its not a very honest way of doing business, even if it is legal.
Let's not do that since the transmission is an essential part of a car, and DLC is not an essential part of a game. I made a reference to satellite radio and OnStar earlier that I think are more applicable.
As Insanolord said, there's no way to know the full extent of what you are getting with a game unless you do a huge amount of research into it, but that would mean you would know all the spoilers and that might ruin the experience for you. So its not reasonable for anyone to fully know what they are getting into when they are buying a game.
A "huge amount"? That's not accurate as you pretty much have to actively avoid spoilers on the internet. And it's really not hard to find websites where people review games and actively talk about game content, though I can't think of one right now. . .
And if you're worried about not getting spoilers, you can only finding out that you're paying for disc locked content by going online, a place you'd avoid to not receive spoilers. And if you didn't know the difference then why would it matter?
That makes it the game company's responsibility to not rip them off or take advantage of them by chiseling off pieces and selling them separately. But how do you draw the line? Who gets to decide where the line is drawn? The problem is its the game companies who get to make that decision, and of course they have a profit motive. So there's way too much potential for abuse.
It depends on if people actually feel genuinely ripped off or just entitled to something they were never promised. That's the line. Is there potential for abuse? Yeah, but that's the thing about everything.
It's dishonest marketing though, unless it distinctly says "DLC already included for extra fee" right on the box.
Not really. If the box says "X charcters" and you get "X characters" no body lied to you. If they say, "Get Y more character for $5," no one lied to you whether it was on the disc or not.
Obviously you guys have no problem with partially owning something. I do. If it's on the disc, and I own the disc, I should be able to access the entire disc. The foresight for a company to pull that off is down right insulting. At least make us think you aren't trying to nickel and dime us.
Again, you guys may see this as no different than selling the package online, but it is! It's shipping out with an incomplete game and only later can you buy what the developer would call the "Full Experience". That's bullshit and you know it.
The purpose of DLC
IS to nickle and dime you. Whether the developer legitimately continued making new **** for the game after release or not. They would only keep working because they can get another big pay off for incremental work done, instead of having to come out with another full sized project.
Also, the idea of ownership when it comes to software has come up time and time again as to exactly what you "own." Ultimately, it's a license. Not a list of 1s and 0s.
And then there's the idea of a developer shipping out an "incomplete game." What exactly makes a game incomplete? There are obvious lines we could draw, like not having a last level, incomplete story, etc. But no one would buy those games anyway. So, where is the incomplete game line?