What do you guys think is better? DLC, or the all-encompassing "Deluxe" package that includes the original game plus some extra tweaks that the creators wanted to add in (sorta like the Final Mixes found throughout the KH series, Persona 3 FES, etc.)?
I think both are pretty shoddy, though there are some instances where I'm ok with DLC. DLC - if it's something frivolous like costumes which won't affect the game in any way, then that's fine. You can choose to buy them or not, either way it's purely cosmetic. Now, if it's something like making fans pay for things like 'true' endings (FF XIII-2 & Asura's Wrath), then I think that's pretty sucky. Finish your god damn games. Complete editions - on one hand, you usually get these cheaper than the original game and with all/most of the DLC included, on the other, what about fans that forked out hundreds of $$$ to support the DLC of the original? Seems like a bit of a slap in the face. At this stage, when games like Dead or Alive or Blazblue are released, I'll hold off buying since I know there'll be some sort of "EXTEND CONTINUUM ULTIMATE EVERYTHING EVER" edition, without the huge payout for extra characters or whatever.
Ironically, I think Capcom did this the right way when it came to a DLC/Expansion pack when it came to a certain game. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. Came with all the DLC and a huge load of improvements and new content that could only be found in Dark Arisen. The price was a good deal cheaper than the original when it first came out so even if you did buy all the DLC I felt that it was still worth it to buy Dark Arisen. Unfortunately, Capcom's way of handling DLC in their other games is well-known for being...less than pleasant. DLC is fine as long as it's worth it, filled with cheap aesthetics, or free when it's required to understand the story(in the case of "true endings").
I am okay with Expansions but in the many cases that video game companies have cut parts out of their final product and turned that into DLC, that is just total BS in my eyes.
Game of the Year/Complete/Ultimate/Whatever-the-****-the-publisher-wants-to-call-it editions exist purely to make some extra money from people that didn't buy the game the first time around. Usually, however, they're a better value than the original edition because you get a crap load of content for far less than buying the same content piecemeal. It's the best way to get stuff like Borderlands, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls and so on and so forth, but do you know what those three franchises have that the vast majority of games don't have? GOOD DLC. Hell, I'm adverse to using the term DLC to describe those expansions, because they have far more in common with expansion packs than they do with what is typically associated with DLC. They're generally worth grabbing if you enjoyed the main game and, while they are usually far smaller than the main game, they are usually fully featured campaigns with new stories, characters, items, etc. However, these kinds of expansions are far less common than I'd like. For every Assault on Dragon Keep, we get two Tyranny of King Washingtons. Most DLC just isn't worth buying. It's not to punish early adopters. Hell, I usually don't care if I get a GOTY edition over the regular edition because it's rare for me to care enough to get DLC in the first place. If it's there, cool, I might mess around with it if it's worth my time, but I'm not going to hold out for a GOTY edition. Hell, looking at my shelf, I've got three, maybe four GOTY editions, Borderlands (bought it a second time because it was cheaper than downloading the expansions), Oblivion (way late to the party having bought my 360 in 2008) and Arkham Asylum (again, late to the party). The only time I went out of my way to get a GOTY edition was Borderlands and that's purely because it was literally cheaper to buy a second time than to buy the expansions as DLC. My point is, the vast majority of the time, it's not even worth getting the GOTY editions unless you didn't buy the original edition or you can find it cheap enough that it saves you money.
Not to nitpick but if I could offer a correction: BlazBlue CS Extend was actually an entirely new version of the game, which included a lot of original content and balance changes that couldn't be bought anywhere else, in addition to DLC characters from the previous version of Continuum Shift. CS itself actually received a handful of (free) changes that may have warranted an entirely new game in another series, eventually leading to the nickname CS2. As for the actual topic... I really don't care either way, as long as it's reasonably priced. Cosmetics DLC really shouldn't go for more than a dollar imo, and deluxe packages should be worth at most the same as the original game's current value, to account for the fact that you're getting all the extra stuff late. Even then, I tend to spend more than I should on stuff I know I could get in a complete edition later, such as the Disgaea 4 DLC packages. Basically if your sales angle rubs me the wrong way, that's really pushing it, 'cause I'll buy anything if I like it.
The issue with DLC is now characters like Jill in UMvC3 are forever lost. I definitely prefer physical expansions, tweaks or not. But I'm also from a different era.
I think it's silly to dislike any one system of monetization for a game, I just want something that offers me good value
