So, self-entitlement in the industry....

[Misery]

So, the recent lunacy surrounding Isaac's Afterbirth+ expansion has gotten me thinking about this.   And note: This post isnt ABOUT Isaac.  That bit simply caused me to start thinking about this more.

To sum up the issue though, alot of players, for that, are basically going "We shouldnt even have to pay for this, this is stupid!" over something that is about major engine changes and mod support.  It adds content, yes, but it's not "enough" because some mod that some guys made (which is JUST about content) adds more.

Again though, Isaac isnt the point here.  I can think of so very, very many examples of this sort of thing lately.   A major one is mobile games.  Often, these games will cost like, $2.  Just 2.  And yet you get people feeling like they shouldnt have to pay, 2 dollars is SUCH A RIPOFF, how is it worth that, it doesnt have mind-blowing graphics so it cant be worth anything!  Or alot of indie games getting basically the same treatment.  I've seen it for EVERY shmup I play, for instance, or things like Gungeon, Nuclear Throne, and I've heard it from people I know when it comes to Arcen's games as well.   Lines like "But it's just a silly LITTLE game, I mean, look at those graphics.  I'm not paying that much for that" when its the sort of game that you could get hundreds of hours out of, the sort that's stuffed with depth and content.  This being the Arcen forums, you all know exactly the sort of game I'm talking about.

Not to mention the seriously irritating assumption that if it's not big graphics or HUGE NEW WORLDS, it DEFINITELY doesnt take time or money to create.  And really, anyone that's done ANY programming knows that idea is a big load of nonsense.  Hell, for something like Starward, right, I add new stuff, and it takes bloody forever in some cases.  There's design issues to work out, it must be coded in, there's ALWAYS bugs, it needs lots of testing,then tweaking, then testing... it takes quite awhile, and this is in freaking XML!   Considering how hard THAT is, I cant even imagine doing the sorts of stuff that Chris and Keith do.  Or any other developer.  All that engine work and such.... so much of it.  Or doing art of any sort, like Blue does... that stuff takes a long time too, as doing GOOD art isnt a quick process.  It takes time, and I'd bet, lots of revisions.  And tons of effort.

Honestly, that stuff is the sort of thing that just seems super obvious to me.  I seriously just cant understand why people think that things of this level arent even worth 5 freaking dollars.  Or 2, or even 1, when it comes to mobile (which presents the same challenges as any other form of development).

And yeah, I've heard the "but modders do it FOR FREE", but nobody seems to stop and think that modders are effectively volunteers:  it's not their JOB to create that stuff. Like myself, they decide to contribute their free time.  For the devs though, it's how they make a living.  Yet people think they shouldnt get paid for what they do.

Really, I could go on and on about this... there's so very, very many examples of it out there... but I doubt I need to.   Chances are, you've all seen this before.


Why am I posting this?  I'm just curious as to what some thoughts from any of you about this might be.   I've seen this brought up in various other forums (I sure aint the only one bothered by it) but it normally leads to shrieking arguements.  HERE though, it's possible to get sane responses that arent on fire.

[Wingflier]

So there's some entitlement in the industry, but I think a lot of that has to do with the overwhelming number of quality games and entertainment available today.

I genuinely do not envy game developers these days, especially indie ones, because of the steep competition they have to face.

As with anything in a Capitalist society, supply and demand. When there's so many amazing games to choose from, people can be a hell of a lot more picky about the things they will buy.

Honestly this is why the Free to Play model is so ingenuous. People don't have to pay a dollar, and rationally speaking, they probably wouldn't pay a dollar for the game, but the model has such a seductive power which overcomes the impulses and has people spending hundreds of dollars on games that quite frankly, they don't need to in order to have fun, where games with traditional models are struggling to get people to pay $5.

But to address the new Binding of Isaac "expansion" specifically, Afterbirth+, from everything I've read it is deserving of its negative reviews. It's not that the content is bad per say, but from what I've read, it's that it feels rushed and uninspired. People say that if there are difficulty increases, it's primarily due to the fact that the game screws you over with bad luck, not because it's become more challenging to play skillwise.

And I don't think people are being unfair in this regard, because Afterbirth (the original) got GLOWING reviews, it was essentially universal praise for that one, and from everything I've heard was well-deserved. So I honestly don't think that much has changed in 9 months, I think the new expansion is just shit.

This is especially considering that merely a few days before that, there was a FREE, COMMUNITY-MADE expansion called Antibirth that is supposedly as good or even better than the original Afterbirth. It has even more content than the Afterbirth+ expansion that just came out, and it's absolutely free...

So no, in this case I don't think you can call it entitlement. I think the developers messed up, and people are absolutely right to call them out on it. This is how we keep developers honest.

[TheVampire100]

I will talk on the behalf of mobile gaming. Mobile gaming has changed the most drastically over the past 10-20 years. While PC gamign and console gamign has changed as well, they haven't changed that much. The only big difference is that games got bigger, more expensive and have (most of the time) better graphics. It's also allot easier to get access to new games than before (digital market).

Mobile games on the other hand have changed a lot since then. When I was still akid mobile games were mostly a gimick for mibile phones. You could play simple minigames back then, not more than that, it was very rare to get a fully fledged game and if you got one, it was mostly not really good. Snake was the most overused game back then, but even other games were simply "Flappy Bird"-like type of games.
Back then you didn't except to pay more than a single buck for them, if any at all. Most phones came with a set of one to three games already anyway.

Mobile phones had a major change over the past years, they moved from black-and-white to colored screens, the screens got bigger, first touch screens got introduced and so on.
Mobile phones nowadays are full fledged small computers. Most of these can anything that a full pc can as well. But the midnset of the people who owns these is the same when it comes to gaming: It's just a gimick. But it actually isn't anymore. There are now even developers that make crossplatform game releases on PC and mobile phones. You can play every Final fantasy title that is aviable on PC also on a typical iOS phone. These are games that are already 10 years old and were on consoles. Stuff that weren't possible at that time but is now.
And even more modern games are poissble. Terraria is aviable on any platform, PC, Console and mobile. Heck, not even the old pc of my dad could play Terraria! And the mobile version even costs less than the pc version (5$) even if it's technically the same game! Well, not 100% the same, the newest updates aren't there like Moon Lord and such but I've read they are working on these for 2017.
Even then, it is what Terraria was a year ago and because of that you could say it should cost the same. It doesn't because it's a mobile game. it took the same work process but it costs less, simply because people still have their midn set of "Mobile games aren't full games".

People have to get rid of this thinking. And the tide of Freemium games (F2P games with a long waiting process after doing stuff unless you pay for premium stuff) out there doesn't help this type of thinking at all. people see these games and think eevry mobile game is like this and should behave for this.
"God forgive me, a mobile game that costs money! How dare you, eevryone know that mobile games are no real games!"
Even if this would be true, they still take amounts of development time, time that you need to compensate with money (because people cannot work on somethign endlessy for free, they need money to live). Even all these horrible Freemium games need moeny to run, more so because people except them to update regulary and keep the servers running, all without ever paying a dime.

Recently (aroudn christmas) I bought a lot of new mobile games. I freakign LOVE mobile games.

I'm a commuter (that's the word that leo.org gave me, don't hate me if I said somethign wrong), that means I live at one place and work at another place. I have no car, so I use the public traffic services (train/bus). Because fo this I'm spending a long time at moving between two places on a train car. And because of this I have a lot of time at my hand to use my mobile phone. Mobile games are amazing to overcome these waiting times and I don't care if I pay 5$ or 10$ for a game if it can entertain me long enough. I also have a couple of Freemium games but the problem with them is, they only work until you spent all your actions, after that you have to wait. which is good while you are working but bad if you are 15 minutes on a train but only need 2 minutes to spend your actions.
So full fledged games are the way to go, especially if you can jump in and out at any given time. Stuff for short rounds.
terraria is nice because I can explore some caves, dig some ores or kill monsters until I reach my station.
TD games are even better because their levels aren't longer than 15 minutes most of the time. Puzzle games are nice, short rounds to play with no negative effect if I simply stop in the mid. I can just start a new round next time. I even have some big RPGs on my phone, basically for every situation and whenever I like to play something different, I have a matchign game for it. Strategy, RPG, TD, card games, adventure games, I have them all. It's amazing what you can play nowadays on your phone.

And I pay for most of this stuff. Because they are worth the money.

Some good examples of games I bought recently:

Terraria: Classic, don't have to say much about this one, although the mobile controls are a little weird at first if you have played Junk Jack before (which has way better controls over the character and the surroundings).

Severed: This. This is one of the best games I've ever seen for mobile phone. It is a kind of "Legend of zelda" game but in first person. You play as girl that has lost one of her arms towards some monsters that also captured her family. her goal is now to find and rescue the family members. You travel through different dungeons. That dungeons consist of hallways and connected rooms, you walk by simply tapping ont he screen towards the next room. Enemies may appear and you defeat them by slashing across the screen. Different enemies have different attack patterns and defenses and if you defeat them in a good way, you can sever their body parts and collect them to enhance yourself. You also can find items in specific rooms that help you to progress, like keys in stuff, just like in Zelda. Game costs 4 or 5, cannot rmemeber but it was worth this.  This is a good example why mobile games aren't that much different than pc games anymore.

The Room 3: By now everyone should have heard of this series, it's basically a puzzle box game. You get a locked box with puzzles, solving a puzzle opens a part of the box that contains even more puzzles. It's puzzles inside of puzzles, puzzleception. It's, as far as puzzle games/adventures go, one of the best things. And it works perfectly fine on both mobile and PC. I got the third part now to complete my collection and I think paying 2 or less for such amazing designed puzzles is a rip-off towards the developers of the game. Just think about how HARD is has to be to come up with these kind of mechanics.

Kingdom Rush Origins: Simple TD game, the first two were good enough to support the third one. The mobile versions of these games always come with lots and lots of in-app purchases in the form of gems that can buy you "cheats" to make levels easier but also some of the more interesting heroes. You don't need these however to finish everything in the game and for 1$ this game gives you more than you deserve. The pc versions, that cost more, give you these heroes for free, so you pay either way for the full experience the full price.


I have a lot more games than these but I got these recently.


about the thing with mod tools and all that: Mod tools are mostly given because the developers design them when they design the game. They design the game around suporting mods, this is not a given task, they design the game in that way that it is later easy to change stuff, even if you have little to no programming experience. However, bending the programming language in that way that even a noob can understand it is NOT a simple task. It is simpler if you design the game around it from the scratch but hard, if you decide to add it later. So I can understand to some extent if an indie developer wants a compensation for that process.

On the other hand, let's be honest. this is already the remake version of this game. He simply could have created Isaac Rebirth with the intent to be modable later. I'm very sure fans thought of mods long before, so this would be the best chance to do it. Adding it later as paid DLC seems to me like unreasonable thinking.

[Cyborg]

Mobile games are not really games, in the way I think of games. There needs to be another word for it. I have never spent one single penny on any mobile game.

I'm one of those people who is bored by Isaac, so I don't know what they are raging about.

So the rest of this is about, raging over paying for DLC? I have done that. But I think here's what the issue is, from my point of view.

There is good DLC, and then there is exploitative DLC.

Let's look at Blood Bowl, the Warhammer football game where they sell races for $7 a pop. Mind you, these include races that you already got included in the last Blood Bowl game (which they also released multiple versions of). I refuse to spend a single penny on this game until they are done making DLC for it. A new race is basically new statistics and character models. I see this as exploiting the leagues built around the game who are compelled to spend outrageous sums of money.

Fun fact, for 6 DLC races, it costs almost as much as the base game. $41.04 versus $44.09.

So, as a player, you have to know when you are being taken advantage of by DLC. And I think that the blood bowl community knows they are getting taken advantage of, but they are willing to put up with it for the sake of the leagues.

Or how about, the infamous horse armor for the elder scrolls? Honestly, I know this thread is supposed to be about the outrage over people being too cheap to pay for DLC, but I want to bring this back to, are you bringing value as a company that people want to pay for? Are you fundamentally cheating people? That's an individual case by case basis, as I've shown above. Sometimes, the player is being cheap by complaining over some DLC. And sometimes, I think that the companies need to hear a little bit of noise if they are trying to take advantage.

When I was younger, $45-$60 used to buy you a cardboard box with a CD and a manual. The games were complete, usually. I can't remember the expansions nonsense starting until Blizzard sold the rights to that Diablo expansion thing. And Starcraft Brood War (was worth the price), etc. Other companies, when they did "expansions," they labeled them as sequels (like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale). Anyway, as a player, that's what I'm using for a benchmark when I talk about value.

I'll spend money for DLC, if it's good.
I am actually more likely to purchase an expansion than I am to purchase DLC, because I perceive greater value and less exploitation, usually.

That was all a bit rambling, but I hope it provides perspective from a cheap gaming connoisseur.

[Misery]

Mobile games are not really games, in the way I think of games. There needs to be another word for it. I have never spent one single penny on any mobile game.

This one is actually an issue with perception, not game design.  And also the nature of the stores that sell these.

There's a bizarre idea that things like Angry Birds... AKA, the sorts of games you are thinking of... are the only things on there.  This is entirely untrue.  I've been into mobile gaming for a long time now... with the iPad being my preferred handheld device for gaming... and I dont even play games like that.  I've bought some 150+ games on there.  Nearly all of them are exactly the very sorts of games I play on the PC here.  Things like full roguelikes, bullet-hell shmups (there are ALOT of those), survival games, and various others.  These things all exist in very high numbers.  However.... they arent Angry Birds, you see.  So the App Store never shows them, and in general, players never hear of them.  You have to know where to look, in advance, to find games like these.  The "big guys", the heavy publishers, are WAY too good at drowning things out so that only their stupid non-games are shown anywhere.  Things like Candy Crush and whatever damn things there are.  So everyone thinks that's all there is.

The "entitlement" bit, though, when I speak of it in relation to mobile, is NOT about the "non-games".  I dont really get into those, so I dont follow what happens around them.  No, I'm speaking of the sorts I play, where there is alot of ACTUAL content, and actual depth of gameplay.  A really good roguelite can go for 10-15 on PC.  A game of the same type, same quality, and same size, will go for like, 2 to 5... and will get people whining and whining, because OMG IT COSTS MORE THAN 50 CENTS.   This is where the problem appears.  The braindead "major" games may be free (though even THAT isnt actually true, when you look at their MTX schemes), but that doesnt mean that everything should be.  When you're getting games like the ones I'm thinking of.. yeah, expect to freaking pay for them.

But to address the new Binding of Isaac "expansion" specifically, Afterbirth+, from everything I've read it is deserving of its negative reviews. It's not that the content is bad per say, but from what I've read, it's that it feels rushed and uninspired. People say that if there are difficulty increases, it's primarily due to the fact that the game screws you over with bad luck, not because it's become more challenging to play skillwise.

One BIG issue:  People jumped into "reviewing" this RIGHT after it released.  Even Edmund has already stated that they're aware of a number of the balance issues, though, even then, I think people are very dramatically overreacting.  As usual, many gamers cant handle jumps in difficulty.   If there was genuinely anything unfair or broken, I'd spot it.   The only problems I've seen: Portals spawn things a bit too fast.  Stone Fatties appear a bit too often.  Vis boss is a little busted.  Final boss is TOTALLY busted.   Greedier mode needs longer timers and Stone Fatties shouldnt appear in it.   But other than those things?  Skillful play will indeed bypass ALL of this.  The game seemed pretty darned tough to me at first, but... a day later, not so much.   And I'm not even all that good at Isaac, honestly, yet still, ONE day is all it took.  And yes, I"m aware that difficulty tends to warp around me, but I've had people I know tell me similar things; even if they're taking a bit longer to do this, it's still happening for them too. 

But alot of players... with LOTS of games... go in and, if they get clobbered, give up immediately, whine, and leave. As opposed to, you know, fighting to get genuinely better.  It doesnt help that Isaac was WAY too easy before as it was; there was no need to be good at it to start with, and most people just plain arent.  Frankly, it's still easy-ish, though it's a nice step up.

The main problem though was that, as I've repeated often, this expansion was never about content to begin with.  The content is just a bonus:  The ACTUAL point is the mod tools and support.  Lots of players though are going into it COMPLETELY expecting Antibirth, an "expansion" that's PURE content.  These are very, very different things, and the comparison honestly doesnt make any sense.  And it's not like Antibirth isnt without it's issues (frankly, I had a very "meh" reaction to it... I see it as having alot of problems).  But yeah, the point of AB+ is, as Edmund put it, them effectively handing the game off to the community, ending the project for the devs, but letting the community then take the reins.  Of course, one issue is that the game JUST came out: nobody has had time to make "big" mods yet.

....Also Antibirth is going to be merged with AB+ anyway.  (EDIT:  Oooookay.  After reading the written intentions of the dev that made Antibirth, as it relates to this, well.... Let's just say I facedesked, broke the table, and will simply pretend from here on out that I've never heard of Antibirth.  Dont even ask, just smile and nod.  If anyone I know mentions it, I'm going to throw stuff at them until they leave)

As for the original Afterbirth, that release didn't actually go all that well.  It was a bloody mess when it initially came out; I was there for all of it.  Which honestly is why I expected the current situation.  Heck, the Azazel Incident alone, as I call it, was a nasty thing.  Lots of flames flying everywhere.


Not that there's anything wrong with criticism on content as a rule... stuff like the Void area is a little bleh.  But still, there's alot of good there.  Yet still, people losing at first will then decide "THIS AINT WORTH ANYTHING, I didn't GET INSTANT GRATIFICATION".  Which is a form of entitlement as far as I'm concerned.  Of course the whole instant gratification thing is a whole other topic, yessir...

overwhelming number of quality games

Wait, what?



There's more to say here but I was interrupted halfway through by a dog, and have now forgotten it.  I'll add more later.

[Wingflier]

One BIG issue:  People jumped into "reviewing" this RIGHT after it released.  Even Edmund has already stated that they're aware of a number of the balance issues, though, even then, I think people are very dramatically overreacting.

If there were that many balance issues and problems, quite frankly, he shouldn't have released it.

....Also Antibirth is going to be merged with AB+ anyway.  (EDIT:  Oooookay.  After reading the written intentions of the dev that made Antibirth, as it relates to this, well.... Let's just say I facedesked, broke the table, and will simply pretend from here on out that I've never heard of Antibirth.  Dont even ask, just smile and nod.  If anyone I know mentions it, I'm going to throw stuff at them until they leave)

Given that I'm not privy to that information, I can't know what has made you so upset about Antibirth. All I have is the information provided by the Antibirth website, which makes it seem like a team of developers simply loved the game and wanted to create a free expansion for the hell of it.

Personally I can't possibly imagine what issues you would have with a free expansion to any game made by the community (which the developer openly supports). If you don't like it you don't have to play it, but for the people who do like it, it's free content.

As for the original release of Afterbirth, I will simply say that while I know it had some problems when it first came out (missing some promised content if I remember correctly, among other things), it was still rated highly by most of the people who bought it in spite of that, which unlike Afterbirth+, has been disliked by the majority of the community, and not because of missing content.

Quality games

Something we'll simply have to agree upon is that so many of these topics are simply subjective. I think the market is absolutely flooded with quality games of almost every genre. You may disagree, but in the end it is the competition of all these games which creates the "entitlement" you're seeing.

The preference for Antibirth over Afterbirth+ is once again subjective, but whatever you may think about either, most people seem to agree that Antibirth was significantly more polished on release, had undeniably more content, and was of course, absolutely free, meaning it pretty much creamed AB+, even if you personally liked AB+ more. So when free expansions are releasing around the same time as paid expansions, and the free expansions have significantly higher release quality, you can expect this to cause some havoc.

edit: On a final note, many of the Steam reviews say that the included modding tools are just "a joke" (their words, not mine), and that they've actually caused more harm than good by breaking previous mods than by genuinely allowing new mods to be created. So the one saving grace of this expansion, which was supposed to pass the torch to the community (who apparently didn't even need the modding tools in the first place) seems to have been just as broken as the rest of the content.

[zespri]

Honestly, that stuff is the sort of thing that just seems super obvious to me.  I seriously just cant understand why people think that things of this level arent even worth 5 freaking dollars.  Or 2, or even 1, when it comes to mobile (which presents the same challenges as any other form of development).

People are entitle to their opinion. If they don't think it worth their money they vote with their wallet and simply do not spend these money. It's as simple as that.
Even if someone spent a lot of time and energy and put their heart and soul into something, it does not meant that their product worth 5 dollars for me (it's not that I'm starved for choice) and this is fine. I'm sure it worth this or different amount of money to someone else. Or it was a bad judgement call from the developers and it is indeed worthless, and from business perspective was a wasted effort. Happens all the time too.

[Misery]

(who apparently didn't even need the modding tools in the first place)

Actually, they did need them: People had been clamoring for this very thing for ages, as mods up until this point had been mostly awful.  The supposedly amazing tools before actually had huge restrictions, as they were incapable of doing.... most things.  Wanted to add a totally new attack pattern to an enemy or boss? Well, you couldnt.  You could only do things like make timing changes to old ones.   Add a totally new item that did something that hadnt been done before?  Nope.  Change stats or use already existing behaviors, and that's it. In the interest of making mods of my own, I researched this stuff extensively.   There's a reason why 95% of "mods" for the game are purely cosmetic.  In fact, the ONLY one other than Antibirth I can think of is God Mode, which was... a mess.  If you want an unbalanced disaster, that's the one to go to.   There are also room packs, but the process for making those was VERY cumbersome and buggy. 

Antibirth wasnt created with any of those tools, it was made by diving into the game's source code (part of why it took two years to make), because that was the only way to do it.  This is why the mod tools were created by the actual devs.  ALL of the new bosses in Antibirth, for instance, were utterly impossible with previously existing tools; thus, source code.   That's why these new tools exist in the first place.  The community had been requesting this since forever, so they could have more than just cosmetic mods.  Even now, just looking in the workshop, I've never seen so many "technical" mods before.   It's already eclipsed what was available previously, and that's DESPITE some bugs and a couple of extremely specific missing bits (item pools, number one on the "needs fixing" list).

And then they come out, and OMG THEY'RE NOT FREE, WHAT A RIPOFF.  I facepalmed.  There was a shockwave.  When a developer makes something totally new using paid time.... yes, they will not be free.  That everyone expected something else is utterly baffling.  Or just greedy.

Though, again, this isnt just about Isaac.  It's about this general trend of reacting to this for basically everything now.  "It's not free!" or "It costs a WHOLE DOLLAR, OMG", that sort of thing.   Or even people whining about optional cosmetic MTX in games (like PoE) because they think THOSE should be free, which is getting downright ridiculous (but it's possibly the best example of what I'm talking about).  It doesnt even matter if the thing in question is wonky, or of utmost quality:  People genuinely believe they should get it for next to nothing, whatever "it" happens to be.  That's what I'm talking about in an overall, non-Isaac way here.

[Wingflier]

Generally speaking, modding tools, if a game has them, are given for free. I don't think I've ever heard of or played a game where the modding tools weren't given for free.

There may be some few exceptions that I don't know about, but I will say that the percentage of the playerbase that would pay for modding tools, for ANY GAME, are extraordinarily low. Most people are more interested in playing a game than modding it.

So yes, including modding tools as "part" of an expansion that is otherwise low on content for the price is an extremely bad move by the developer.

[Misery]

This isnt exactly a big developer, though.  Usually, the ones releasing mod tools are the big guys.  And often when they DONT, it's because of the cost of developing new tools.  Some devs dont want to do this... some outright cant.

In THIS case, it was requested SO much that they eventually gave in... but considering the need to restructure the freaking game around this, they *have* to charge because, well, this IS their source of income.  The things (and the restructuring) just take so much time that it's not even remotely close to feasible for them to release it for free.  And THAT is the part that baffles me:  That nobody can see this. 

Hell, even Arcen has resisted the idea of offering moddability for some of their games for that exact reason:  It'd cost too much to create the capability to do this.  They cannot be just throwing away that many hours to make such a thing.  Starward is the exception, but that was designed from the ground up for modding.  Isaac was not. 

One way or another, you want a useful product, in most cases... you bloody well pay for it.   Hell, I remember when things like this were sold BY THEMSELVES.  As in, no gameplay addons.   Like the old "construction kit" for Simcity.  That... did nothing in the way of adding to the game.  NOTHING.  It was not only sold totally seperate, it was a big box release in stores. It was JUST tools to create/alter stuff for the game.  That's IT.  And for people back then?  It made sense:  These things cost money to make.  Of COURSE you paid for them.   There were actually quite alot of examples of this.   I was really into that sort of thing, way back when.

And that's what I'm getting at.  Nobody, nowadays, thinks that yeah, MAYBE you should pay someone for the product or services they provide.  They now think they should get EVERYTHING for free, or for next to nothing.  Remember, I did say this is not just about Isaac.  This is about the tendancy for people to act like this ALL THE TIME.   Hell, I dont think I know even one person IRL that doesnt do this.  Pay a whole freaking dollar for something?  BLASPHEMY!!!  And so on.

In the case of Isaac though, it's not just about the tools themselves.  It's about the ability to USE the endless mods people come up with.  And eventually (probably sooner rather than later), I absolutely guarantee you:  Someone is going to outdo Antibirth, bigtime.  Because that's the capability given to the community now.  Antibirth was made under TONS of restrictions.  Afterbirth+ though?  Those are gone. Think of what happens when people like the guys that made the God Mode mod really get going with this.    Even I can make stuff now, and I mean QUALITY stuff. It's no longer stupidly difficult to get at even the deepest parts of the game.   As always though, nobody thinks of THIS either (even despite it being touted as the whole bloody point from the start).

[TheVampire100]

About the whole topic of self-entitlement: Gamers have become snobish. This is a fact and this applies to every gamer, there are NO exceptions. You might think "But I'm not like this" but everyone has this kind of phase at some point.
It just affects different people differently heavy but in general, the gaming community got so much spoon fed that they now think they have to get everything this way (or their way).

Let's have a look at gaming about 20 years in the past. Since there was only a retail market for serious gaming, there was not much you could do with a finished game. "Updates" were mostly patches for only the most stressful bugs of a game that you could download to fix your problems. Content updates were sold as expansions and only as such. No one even asked for free content because this was normal. Expansions back then was also big extensions of the main game, mostly adding not only new content to play with but new core concepts, more story, a new campaign, depends on the genre.
When a new patch came out, I didn't even download it, I could simply install it froma  CD that I got from CBS (a computer gaming magazine). They don't do this nowadays anymore because today everyone has free access to fast internet but back then this wasn't always the case. And internet back then was different to today. Hell, Facebook wasn't even a thing (good times indeed).

Today almost everyone has access to fast internet and access to multiple online market places to buy and download games. Why go to a store if you can shop from your home? These platforms (like Steam) also offer free Update services whenever a new patch is ready. No need more to look it up yourself, Steam has you automatically covered. People get lazy because of this. People want to do the most minimal effort and get the biggest benefit from it.
Games like Terraria, Minecraft and many other introduced free updates, content updates, to their games. I don't now when exactly this trend started but Miencraft was basically THE game that kicked it all off and after that this mechanic snowballed hard. This was so popular that people now DEMAND that they get free conent. Because, well, they paid for it, so they have the right to get more of it. 20 years ago people would have called you insane if you went to a store and would demand a new CD of your game with new conent. But people think this is normal today. They don't think that a game shoudl ever be called finished. There should always come more. For free. I see this a lot in Fortresscraft evolved. The game came out in an aweful way, probably the most awreful way I've ever seen. And I don't mean the state of the game, I mean the way how the developer decided why the game has to be released now. However, he admitted, it came out too early, so he worked on it to add and fix everything he missed. For free. For months. Each month he released a new patch. The game is content-wise now complete. So he adds DLC to keep the game running. Not for free. People get mad because they think it SHOULD be free.
This is the stuff that drives me crazy. It's the same entitlement as with Isaac. or as with any new game that comes out in this age. People except it should be always free because popular games did this. Do they even consider that, if these games didn't do this, no one would bat an eye?

Anyway, the gaming community is really fucked up right now and you HAVE to add free content patches after release, even if it ruins you, because you have to stay competetive int he scene and if you are the only one who doesn't do it, no one will buy your agme. Simple as that. Sad times indeed.

[Misery]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much all of that.

Heck, even for Starward that's one reason for so many updates.  Granted it's also partly just because we genuinely WANT to, but there's definitely a "we're expected to" aspect to it now. 

Some developers seem to have really warmed to the concept, like Grinding Gear with Path of Exile (which is seriously amazing about it), or Terraria, where an update can literally add 800+ items.  It keeps people buying and talking about the game though, so that's pretty good.  Which then also keeps them interested in a possible sequel or even huge paid expansions depending on the game.  So that is a useful thing:  it does keep some extra focus on the developer. Fans dont just forget about you, because you're showing them more and more.

Of course for other devs this is much harder, or sometimes not feasible at all.  Not always because of money issues, but sometimes their entire business model just doesnt work for it.  Which is another thing that's just very hard for people to grasp:  The devs of such and such game do it, why cant these guys? 

And for the ones tha just genuinely dont have the funds to keep going with non-paid content, well... that's gotta be frustrating.

And then there's the fact that the market has also changed sooooooo much just in a couple of years.  Now it's even more complicated.


Also you get some games where they are a huge exception to the rules, like Minecraft:  They make updates simply because they can, it seems.  They made a totally ridiculous amount of money, and they clearly have a passion for the game.  Even without making anything else, they can just keep updating, and since the game just never really gets old for many fans (myself certainly included) they just eat it up, and it leads to even more sales.  Hell, there's always a few people wondering when a sequel will come for that, but in reality, it pretty much IS a sequel to itself at this point, because there's been so many additions and improvements.  So that game just breaks ALL of the usual rules, and gets people thinking that everyone can do that.  And then mods allow you to turn it into anything you want, so the focus is even bigger. 


One thing i'm going to be very curious to see is how Arcen's games go from here. Starward not counting (since we're volunteers, and Chris/Keith are only needed occaisionally, so they're not using up valuable time).  Like, AI War 2.  The first game was supported with expansions, which varied wildly in terms of size.  All of them were paid content.  And at the time, that worked. But what'll happen now?  How is this sequel going to work in terms of how they deal with the market?  Selling expansions is harder now.  Not totally unviable, definitely not, but a bit harder.   Granted, Arcen games typically give you a huge amount of content, but still.  Are they going to put out additional free content with this one?  Or is their situation not going to support that?  No bloody clue. 

[Mánagarmr]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to disagree. Not everyone expects free updates. If a game is released and it's reasonably bug free and feature complete on release, I don't give a flying fart if the game gets "free content" or not. Sure, I appreciate if it does, but I'm sure as heck not going to spite the dev if it isn't. That's ridiculously petty.

Sidenote: I'm 35 and grew up with Paratrooper and Pango.

[Cyborg]

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Some of us middle-aged folks grew up with games you buy in a ridiculously oversized box that included manuals, notepads, maps, and the joy of Christmas morning. Not really worried about DLC.

I remember saving up enough money to go to the game store. Before even having a drivers license, just earning enough money here and there from odd jobs and holiday gifts. Sometimes, it would take months to just purchase one game. And that moment of having enough, traveling to the mall by sidewalk to purchase that glorious boxed game, it was triumphant.

Steam doesn't capture that glory, not even a little bit.

[Wingflier]

Unfortunately I'm also going to have to be in the disagree camp as well.

The wealthiest Triple A companies such as EA, Betheseda, Activision, etc. would probably shit a golden brick before they gave out free DLC to their customers. In fact, most of these games do not have expansions, they have tired sequels made every year pandering to their idiotic audiences who don't realize they're getting conned by a game that is barely different from the last version.

The wealthy companies that do provide "free DLC" usually do so with free-to-play games like MOBAs and card games, or even with games like Counter-Strike with all the "free" content they add with cosmetic updates that you could technically unlock for free, but usually you end up having to pay for. So this "free" content is not really free at all, even if it's advertised that way. Sure, in MOBAs and card games you can usually play to unlock all of it, but very few people have that kind of time or motivation. So in many cases "free" is just a scam to get people to pay microtransactions.

The only developers that provide free DLC to their playerbase are some indie companies, and they do that I think because they are passionate about the game and because they love it. They love their games just as much (or more) than the players, and they want to keep developing it, even if it's not directly making them any money. Yes, this has become very common in the indie scene. However, there are some benefits to doing this as huge patches revitalize interest in the game, and sometimes get people excited enough to buy a copy or buy the next expansion (which these big patches often come out around).

So yes, there are some cases where players expect indie developers to patch the game for free, but in the end, if the indie company already got their money, it doesn't matter anymore what the players expect. It is still the case that when indie companies release fairly priced DLC content or expansions, players will buy it.

When they release giant trash heaps of unfinished, buggy, and/or balanced content and "features" that nobody asked for, as with Afterbirth+, well then you're going to create a lot of angry fans.

ESPECIALLY when a superior community-made DLC came out in the same week that's vastly better in almost every way (according to the consensus of the players) and is absolutely FREE. And that this content was significantly harder to create because it had to come into creation through the hacking of the game's infrastructure instead of through the tools that the actual developers used to create the game.

That's just fails all around.