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Mass Effect designer defends day one DLC, says game developers 'are not evil'
by Andrew Yoon, Mar 09, 2012 3:00pm PSTWhen BioWare revealed day-one single player DLC for Mass Effect 3, players were up-in-arms about how content had been cut for the sole purpose of making more money. But is that really true? Christina Norman, former designer and programmer of the Mass Effect franchise (currently at Riot Games), presented a one minute rant at Game Developers Conference, asking consumers to simply "judge our games based on what they are."
"There's no point in releasing DLC a year after your game has come out when most people have already sold your game back to GameStop three times," she told the audience. "That means getting it out early; that means even day-one DLC. That is a terrible thing to some players. Players rant--they know nothing about this DLC that's coming out except its name. But then it's 'oh this game must be incomplete, the game must be ruined.' Game developers are not evil. (Some are evil.) But most are not evil."
"We just want to release awesome stuff. Players please, give us a chance. Judge our games based on what they are. Judge the DLC based on what it is. Stop thinking you're a producer and telling us when and where we should be building our content."
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Christina Norman, former designer and programmer of the Mass Effect franchise, discussed day-one DLC and why it is not "evil" to do it.
Christina Norman, former designer and programmer of the Mass Effect franchise, discussed day-one DLC and why it is not "evil" to do it. : Shacknews
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Bioware would never had made this type of move in the pc game developing days when they were free of EA games. There generousity along with the quality of their games is part of what made them legendary. EA, the money hungry game developer / publisher swallower and destroyer of countless game studios told them to do so. EA basically ruins and destroys every game studio they buy and we are witnessing Bioware resorting to cheap moves as imposed on by EA. I will probably buy Mass Effect 3 and eventually get dlc when it hits dirt cheap but not before. This type of crap would never fly with PC games because developers actually create free content for their users on a regular basis as a "thank you". This is not so with EA games. EA is accustomed to monetizing and diluting their brands and properties because like any huge corporation they focus on profits and investors and ultimately the quality of their product becomes irrelevant. They suffer from "we have too many asshole executives that need to get paid because they sit on their ass and do nothing all day syndrome" while all creative artists and techical programmers do a majority of the hard work and get paid secondary wages. This creates a company culture that alienates the employees and creates a tone of resentment among the fans and the creative force at the company. This is happening in comics. Focus on the money and hitting profit margins while paying your artists and writers slave wages and firing them if they complain. Am I the only one who sees the problem in this logic when the creative people at your company are creating and visualizing the worlds that are allowing you to make money and eat? Artists, writers, designers, production people and programers should be making a lions share of the profits not the other way around. Selling day 1 DLC sends us, the customer the message that you deliberately held content back from the game and are now trying to charge us for said content REGARDLESS of whatever pointlessly flawed or idiotic statement you make. It looks cheap and money hungry despite claims to the contrary.
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