The reception

Examining user comments on popular gaming sites, such asJoystiq.com and EA’s ownSkate forums, reveals a wide spectrum of opinions and attitudes concerning Skate 3 and DLC. The possibility of add-on content is widely acknowledged by the players and many were vocal about the things they would like to see. New brands, equipment, and skate culture characters are not only warmly welcomed but expected additions. Even before the launch of Skate 3, would-be-players were suggesting which locations and skaters should be released as DLC. “[Y]ou should have the Berrics as a DLC and have Koston there just like u did with Rob and his Fantasy factory”, proclaimed one user on ea.skate.com comments (referring to the DLC released forSkate 2).

Here the DLC model presents conversational possibilities: players are vocal about what they want (on discussion forums, etc.), and DLC is indeed a very fitting tool for the developer to address these wishes. User ‘Occolla’

on ea.skate.com comments: “I would throw easily throw [sic] down big money for EA to release entire Classic San Van and New San Van maps. Like seriously, if I could do underflips and darkslides in all of New San Van I would gladly pay $30.” Later, the ‘San Van Party Pack’ DLC added large parts from the original Skate game to Skate 3. User ‘PhishBones JV91’ as well as user ‘RoathGhetto’ hoped for a day/night cycle for the game:

“Game looks awesome, would love day / night cycle in the future though

(DLC?)... hitting up downtown in the night would be a blast, I'm sure.”

Following this, the ‘After Dark’ DLC pack added two night stages to the game.

Analysing gaming site rhetoric, Nieborg (2006) shows how sequels and the continuation of the franchise are now seen as inevitable. As described, fans were wishing features from the inevitable DLC packs and further sequels even before Skate 3 was released; the notion of including that material into Skate 3 apparently did not enter their minds. This “certainty” of future instalments is precisely one of the things many gamers love. The problems, however, seem to arise with single instalments, as players may feel that content will be held back because of a forthcoming instalment.

Additionally, some seem to be unsure what to do with the continuous flow of game content. While some players wish for DLC instead of sequels, others want sequels instead of DLC. Before the release of Skate 3, many commentators on the gametrailers.com forums felt negatively about another instalment in Skate series. "[S]ame copy every year....the name should be SKATE 2010 like FIFA....", one entry lamented. Here, EA was accused of releasing franchise instalments too often, and a clear advocacy on the forums trumpeted for releasing the new material as a DLC pack for Skate 2, instead of a full sequel.

Product clashing with service?

The overwhelming popularity of various app stores has started to slowly change the consumer habits, and paying through online transactions has become more and more common. One of the emerging problems, however, is that the immaterial nature of virtual commodities such as DLC combined with the new service models makes it sometimes hard to see what is actually being bought. An analysis of the discourse among gamers and on popular gaming sites reveals that DLC is a constant target of sometimes-heated conversation. It seems as if there exists a discrepancy between the traditional gaming culture and the more modern notion of turning a product into a profitable service.

One of the most usual concerns about DLC is that the game the players once bought is already being sold to them again. As one user put it: “I am so sick of this new trend in every game now to put or rather remove stuff from the full game and sell it for another $30-$40. They are ripping us off[.]” Here, the DLC model is accused of removing pieces from a complete game and selling those pieces to players when they should have been a part of the game to begin with. This feeling is not helped by the fact that increasingly often games have DLC packs on sale already on the launch day.

Similarly, based on a yearly skate event, the Skate 3 DLC ‘Maloof Money Cup’ appeared already in Skate 2. This lead to protests, as some players felt that they should not be charged the “entry fee” twice, but instead receive the DLC for free since they bought it the first time around.

Dividing story content across multiple releases is also frowned upon. User

‘smit90’ frowned on the Skate 3 pre-order bonus DLC ‘Black Box Distribution’ prior to the game’s release: “Wow, a lot of games are pushing pre-ordering down our throats. Pre-order now and get THIS, THIS and THAT! Also, you need THIS and THAT to get a full comprehensive storyline...”. WhileSkate 3 is not exactly a story driven game, for example EA’s popularMass Effect series openly uses DLC packs to bridge the story between main instalments. Perhaps familiar to many from TV, this kind of a serialisation practice clearly seems to clash with the sensibilities that some players traditionally connect with game development. Here DLC shows itself, not as an endless pool of possibilities, but as a disruptive annoyance, dividing what used to be whole. Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010) have written about how in the context of virtual good sales marketing should be unobtrusively integrated with game design. With DLC the situation is the same. Rather than blatantly chopping games into pieces and selling them in parts for greater profit, DLC should be better tied to a fitting context the same way that many free-to-play games are doing.

Another way in which the modern game service clashes with traditional players is offering options for casual gamers. The ‘Time is Money’ DLC unlocks all locations, skaters and gear, and Skate.Park objects that could otherwise be earned by playing throughSkate 3's career and online modes.

While convenient to casual gamers with little time to spare, the function of this DLC can also be seen very differently: “So, basically, you're paying for access to content that's already in the game. Or, to put it another way, you're paying five bucks for a cheat code”, a journalist on Joystiq.com sarcastically remarked (Nelson 2009). For him, evidently, buying a cheat code seemed like buying nothing at all.

Furthermore, criticism has risen over the fact that some of the items sold on online marketplaces are not downloadable content at all, but rather content keys, used to unlock content already on the game disk. This has made some players to feel as if they are paying to unlock content they already purchased when they bought the game itself. Toivonen and Sotamaa (2010) have described how it is surprisingly important for many gamers to feel concrete ownership over their games. It seems that this feeling of ownership, already diminished by the absence of a physical game copy, is in danger of vanishing completely if the player cannot actuallysee the DLC pack being downloaded from a server.

It seems that increasingly often, instead of buying a product, we are in fact being sold a service. Not limited to MMOs and free-to-play games anymore, some console games are now implementing a form of constant service, where the user has to check in to a game server before or even during a single player game. For example, in EA’s Dragon Age 2 the DLC that the user buys is linked to the mandatory EA account. In order to play the DLC, the user must sign in to a dedicated EA account. When one user was banned from the EA forums, his EA account was made unavailable, which in turn resulted in him being incapable of playing the single player campaign of the game in the privacy of his home. The user outcry that ensued after

the incident seemed to stem from the fact that users dominantly see games as products — not as services, for which the physical copy is only the access key to.

As with virtual goods, DLC can be seen as an area lacking established ground rules. Sometimes it seems almost as if DLC is introduced because

“well, you are supposed to also have DLC”. It is clear that developers need to carefully consider user sentiments when implementing, for example, launch day DLC or regularly re-introduced add-on packs such as Skate 3’s

‘Maloof Money Cup’.

Towards understanding the player perspective

It seems that the games industry is still in the process of defining how DLC should be used. It might be that the players are more annoyed with how DLC is used, rather than lamenting the actual add-on content, but it seems clear that there is much untapped potential in how the player could be serviced with DLC. If the role of DLC and its direct benefits to the player were more pronounced, as a service the model could rise to a new level.

One way to improve the situation might be that the developers would acknowledge better what the players want. Previous research has shown that players have different motivations for playing computer games (Bartle 1996, 2004; Kim 1998; Yee 2002). Like play preferences, there are varied and sometimes conflicting reasons to buy DLC as well. One way of conceptualizing the DLC player perspective is to map out the functions that DLC could have for the players. Although there is no research on the subject of DLC customer preferences, a loose taxonomy inspired by the player motivation research can be made. Sidestepping play motivation, the categories here are a first attempt to map some of the different reasons for choosing to download additional game content. The main proposition is that the two obvious reasons to add content on a game are to either extend it, or to somehow change it:

Continue: The player wants more of the same. The player likes the game as it is and wants DLC to extend the existing game. This could mean new stories, stages, maps, or anything else that continues the game within the same formula. Episodic games are based solely on incentivizing the player to repeatedly continue the game.

Add:The player likes the game as it is, but wishes that new elements were added on the side of the existing ones. This could mean adding a completely new game mode that expands the options the player has, or a new character for another playthrough. Most ordinary DLC packs are based on this philosophy.

Customize:The player likes the game, but would appreciate it if it could be customized more to her liking. From the business standpoint, DLC can be used to relatively quickly attune the main game to different audiences, and to personalise the product for individual customers. As the player may

play the game differently from the play styles that the game is designed for, DLC should be recognized as a possibility to accommodate a wider spectrum of players. This could mean incorporating microtransactions into the game design, but the whole game would need to be designed from this standpoint.

Reform: The player wants something new. The player used to like the game, but now wants some kind of change. This could mean retaining the game system, but changing the game world in a fundamental way. For example, Red Dead Redemption, a realistic western game, used its

‘Undead Nightmare’ DLC to turn its setting into a zombie splatter. In the same way, the party mode of ‘San Van Party Pack’ with its big-head characters changes Skate 3 from a realistic skate career game to wacky amusement.

Creating this kind of taxonomy for DLC functions is very difficult, as the very idea ofad hoc additional content is that it can be anything, based on whichever craving needs to be fulfilled. Besides these more general categories, supporting different play motivation categories should translate at least partly to establishing distinct DLC customer segments. However, depriving the player of the community modes, and then selling them to her in a DLC pack seems just the thing to aggravate players.

Most major DLC packs fulfil two or more of these functions, Skate 3 included. Clarifying what is being sold with DLC could in some cases improve the service for the player. Creating this kind of a more pronounced categorization could help in improving the rhetoric surrounding DLC.

Framing the content better by creating some kind of standardised segments could create a more sustainable eco-system for DLC sales. Distinct DLC could be better matched with distinct target audiences, and categories like

‘Continue’, ‘Add, ‘Augment’ etc. should then be better framed in the digital marketplace and advertised to a particular audience.