Are you freaking kidding me? I’ve been keeping up with Watch Dogs for quite a little while now, way back from the time when that first E3 trailer wowed us all last year up through the big delay and finally to the mediocre reviews post-launch. Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up Steam and saw an ad for DLC for the game that I’ve never heard anything about, a week after it launched.
You’ll have to excuse me if you’re here for actual news, because I’m afraid that this is going to turn into more of a long-winded rant, but this is unbelievable. Watch Dogs is seen by many as one of hte first true “next gen” experiences. This was supposed to be a flagship title for the PS4 and Xbox One, a game that would help show off what the next generation of gaming was meant to represent. Instead it’s turned into a pile of problems and a metaphor for all the issues plaguing the game industry.
First the game was delayed by several months, missing the console launch window. Then there was an uproar about how the game doesn’t actually run at 1080p/60fps. Of course, there was also plenty of rage over the ridiculous amount of pre-order/deluxe edition exclusive content, resulting in it being nearly impossible for gamers to actually own all the content the game offers.
But now, even after all that, Ubisoft is already asking us to buy DLC , only a week after the game came out. If Watch Dogs truly is a representation of what we can expect from the next generation of gaming, call me mad. I don’t know when these kinds of obvious money-grabbing practices became so common that we almost completely ignore them, but they need to stop now.
The frustrating part is that I can complain all I want, but as long as players continue to pay top dollar for games that don’t meet their expectations, and offer ridiculous pre-order incentives, and push DLC on consumers a week after launch, then companies are going to continue these practices.
I’m frankly sickened by the current state of the AAA game industry, and you should be too. Ubisoft has proven that it doesn’t have it’s consumers interest at heart, it’s not interested in making groundbreaking games or pushing the envelope. The only thing Ubisoft is interested in is getting as much money as it can out of the players, regardless of whether it deserves it or not.
When companies are only interested in money, the consumer is going to get screwed over. Let’s say you were really excited for Watch Dogs, and you wanted to consume every piece of the game that you could. You’d have to spend over $1000 to get all the pre-order bonus, but that’s not enough for them, no, you’d also have to start dropping cash on DLC before you could even reasonably play through the entire game.
And why? Because they can. Because they know that there are people out there who will put up with this. Hell, I’ve been putting up with it this long, too, I’m just as guilty. But no more. We, as consumers, have the power to stop this bullshit, and we need to take that power into our hands and refuse to buy games when they decide to pull this “give me all your money” routine that’s become so common.
