Bethesda on downloadable content

360 News | Learning how to strike the right balance.

In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Bethesda bigwig Pete Hines spoke of the importance of striking the right balance with downloadable content, mentioning experimentation with Oblivion led to the substantive structure for Fallout 3 'sDLC.

With Fallout 3 providing smaller, consumable expansions taking 4-5 hours to play through, this DLC system is, according to Hines, tuned correctly for length and value.

"We did the entire spectrum for the most part," said Hines. "We did small things and then we did the really huge thing [with The Shivering Isles for Oblivion]. We did what I think was the first ever full expansion on a console for download. We looked at what we liked and what we didn't, and what the people liked.

"What we discovered was that we want to be able to do stuff that doesn't take a year to come out. That instantly ruled out doing a big expansion because those things just take so damn long to do."

With this in mind Hines concluded that using the smaller model type for DLC allows Bethesda to get it done without making players wait forever. This allows for multiple hours of gameplay in digestible chunks, which is why it’s being used for Fallout 3, and presumably will be again in the future.

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17 Comments

Jarrod

2 years ago

Yeah, because charging for horse armor, and a mod that raises the level cap and lets you continue the game, is how you handle DLC well.

Eh. Bethesda are my prime example of a company that should just stop with DLC. I don't think they handle it very well at all (one or two exceptions aside).

ittekimasu

2 years ago

While horse armor was laughable, i'd like to direct your attention to capcom who like to explain that 1.8 MB isn't a key, it's code..

bobboblaw

2 years ago

Doing DLC right is not leaving us poor lowly PS3 owners without, ya big bullies.

sEiFeR

2 years ago

bobboblaw wrote

Doing DLC right is not leaving us poor lowly PS3 owners without, ya big bullies.

Welcome to the same conversation 6 months ago.

Pilliy

2 years ago

Again ragging on horse armor. If that's the sort of stuff that doesn't take 1 year to come out, I want a minimum wait of 5 on Bethesda's DLC.

Jarrod

2 years ago

Pilliy wrote

Again ragging on horse armor. If that's the sort of stuff that doesn't take 1 year to come out, I want a minimum wait of 5 on Bethesda's DLC.

Horse armor sucked. Their Oblivion house mods were mostly crap and a waste of money. Knights of the Nine was the only real great one, and Shivering Isle was a retail expansion pack.

For Fallout 3, Operation: Anchorage was crap and revolved around the weakest element of the game, and while I haven't played The Pitt I'm really not interested. Broken Steel will be interesting but its pathetic you need to buy it in order to twist the end of the game and continue your character.

Bethesda were great handling DLC during the Morrowind days, but their stuff now days sucks balls in my opinion.

Lord Haart

2 years ago

Yup, after enjoying Valve's free update model, Bethesda has dropped to #2 in my books. Though Valve are dragging their heels with L4D. Ultimately, I think the issue is that it takes ages to develop this stuff because the teams are small and the pay-offs are smaller.

I'd like to see a return to the expansion model, or a new trend towards episodic sequels, but priced much less. Something like $2.50 x the average playthrough time in hours (for single-player games).

These days, it's hard to justify buying a single player game. In fact, Fallout 3 is just about the only one I have in the last 2 months.

Jellyfish

2 years ago

Lord Haart wrote

Yup, after enjoying Valve's free update model, Bethesda has dropped to #2 in my books.

I've only played TF2 that has benefited from Valve's free updates and to be honest if they charged for class updates they should of been lynched, that stuff should of been included at launch. But hey it's keeping the game alive so I won't kick up so much of a fuss now.

IISpacebreakII

2 years ago

I don't like the new minor updates that comes with games these days, Horse Armour, Weapons, Characters, Stages, etc. I think all this crap should be bundled and released with an expansion pack, Blizzard do an alright job at this.

And has anyone seen the downloads for Sonic (PS3+360)? A prime example of stupidity, right there.

Jarrod

2 years ago

nikack wrote

I think it's more a statement of how kind Valve are to the gaming community. When you put it into comparison with other developers, the various Counter-Strike Source and Team Fortress 2 updates are massive, and they never charge a cent.

New maps, features, and class updates all for free, where other developers charge for trivial novelty items.

The developers of The Witcher also stand out as one of the nicest. If you already owned the original game you didn't need to go out and buy the 'Enhanced Edition'. You could download a patch that contained all the new dialogue, animations, character and item models, effects, world builder, documentaries, and levels for free.

Ka-Pom

2 years ago

EatChildren wrote

Eh. Bethesda are my prime example of a company that should just stop with DLC. I don't think they handle it very well at all (one or two exceptions aside).

Stop making DLC? Don't you mean stop making games?

They haven't released decent DLC since the Morrowind days. Although I don't think the plugins could be classed as DLC.

JD-Ferel

2 years ago

To be honest; I think Bethesda are doing a better job regarding DLC then some of the companies out there. Yeah fine they've made mistakes (Like everyone keeps ragging about, the hourse armor)
Take capcom and Street Fighter 4 for example. 320MS points for 5 costumes; that are already on the disc!
That does not constitute as DLC.
800 points for another few hours may seem a little steep but again; Bethesda have been doing a better job then most.
Seriously if you wanna rag on something first look at what is considered bad DLC before ganging up on a single company.
A couple examples -
Fable II - Knothole Island
Resident Evil 5 - Multiplayer Modes.
Sonic '06 - Hard modes
(I could go on but theses are just a couple of the ones I know of from exp)

drinniol

2 years ago

Jesus people, horse armour was one of the -first- pieces of DLC for this generation of consoles. It was released effin years ago. Get over it already.

rufati

2 years ago

At least Bethesda are supporting their game as they said they would. It was a year between the release of GTAIV and the first piece of episodic DLC that MS paid through the nose to get exclusive rights to. Then Mass Effect gets all of one new DLC mission.

I'm not a big enough fan of Fallout 3 to get any of the DLC. I can only assume that people who are big fans and want to extend the game appreciate the fact that Bethesda has made good on the promise of new content.

ittekimasu wrote

i'd like to direct your attention to capcom who like to explain that 1.8 MB isn't a key, it's code..

Ever looked at an executable file on your computer? My OpenOffice installation comes in at about 300mb, yet each of the executables are no more than 300kb. My WoW folder is about 12.4gb, with a 12mb executable. Not to mention that any 'unlock key' DLC on the XBLM is exactly 108kb whether it unlocks one thing or five (just take a look at the recent Burnout Paradise DLC).

An executable that introduces the Versus mode and makes use of on-disc assets wouldn't be big at all. I wonder how people get to the conclusion that it's just an unlock key. =/

Mullet87

2 years ago

Well the "DLC" is like 351kb on the PS3.. of course it's just a key.

Cyph

2 years ago

I'm confused; do they think that their DLC is the first ever DLC expansion? I would say that Rockstar's offering for GTA4 is more fitting of that; I wouldn't call Knights of the Nine an expansion...

Ka-Pom

2 years ago

Cyph wrote

I'm confused; do they think that their DLC is the first ever DLC expansion? I would say that Rockstar's offering for GTA4 is more fitting of that; I wouldn't call Knights of the Nine an expansion...

For some reason unknown to me KOTN was called a 'Plugin' while SI was called 'Expansion' so your right, KOTN isn't an expansion.

We may never understand Bethesda logic.

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Fallout 3

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Australian Release Date:
  31/10/2008 (Confirmed)
Standard Retail Price:
  $109.95 AU
Publisher:
  Red Ant
Genre:
  RPG
Year Made:
  2008

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