In disc-based games though, this whole DLC/pay-to-win ethos just riles me up so much. Like the ENTIRE Cat woman segment of Batman Arkham City, that wasn’t an after-thought for some extra play time like Skyrim’s Hearthfire DLC; it was INTENTIONALLY LEFT OUT so those buying the game at full price on day one didnt realise Rocksteady had their fingers in their back pockets even as they paid for the game at the till in the shop. And the bugs that are allowed to ship with games are also crazy, never mind if they can actually, y’know, PLAY the game they’ve just bought, as long as Mr.Suit And Tie gets his precious monies the rest of us can go spin -- I’m looking at you SimCity. That’s just ONE decent example of what I mean.

Same thing with Darksiders 2. I actually have a friend on my list that’ssuch a big fan of the game he’s used the name of a power-up in it as his PSN name -- but he still warned me not to spend any good money on the sequel until it was fixed when it was first released. “Unplayable” he called it, and was a very disappointed man, as was I.

I heard an apple metaphor here the other day that made me smile, so I’mma borrow that here: If the games industry can get away with selling us rotten apples now with the promise of someone giving them a polish “some time later in the future”, then why spend the time taking them out at all? If we continue to buy them, they’ll continue to sell them to us.

Great read Ted, as ever, and thanks for the brain-taffy to chew on!