Capcom's on disk "DLCs" didn't help to build up any goodwill in the past, also even today things like DoA6 season passes for $90 don't help either.
Thankfully Project Soul mostly deliver DLCs in the right fair way, Tira debacle and occasional questionable CaS Pack selections aside.
Well, I'm half on the same page as you there: without question, there are some industry practices from certain market players about ten years ago that go a long way to explaining why consumers got their backs up and became reluctant or outright intractable about new content delivery models. In more recent years, I've often described the more entitled, irrational behaviours of consumers when it comes to this sort of thing as a Frankenstein's monster of the industry's own creation: certain companies (
cough EA,
cough Activision) pushed the limits on how they charged for content so much in such a short period (and with a type of consumer who knew how to organize and push back online, no less) that they created an immense overcorrection in the other direction, where even the vast majority of reasonable companies employing reasonable practices got opposed by consumers--even where said practices would have given them more of what they asked for at a price that was more feasible for the developers and publishers.
Multiple season passes for a fighter is the perfect example of exactly this sort of thing: it would have been great (for producers and consumers alike) if this had become more the standard ten years ago, but up until just recently, the average fighting genre gamer was still bitching about it. And this is where our opinions may well diverge based on your previous post, because I personally have absolutely zero
per se opposition to on-disc DLC. By which I mean that in many (probably most) cases, the opposition to day one DLC is irrational and unfair. In order to be absolutely clear as to why I think these complaints are typically whiny and entitled (as opposed to legitimate gripes), and where I think the exact line between fair and exploitative business practices is, consider how most sales transactions work as both a legal and practical matter, with the following example:
Suppose I hire an expert artisan to craft me a chess board, and let's say for the sake of symmetry he is carving each piece to look like Soulcalibur characters. Now, he and I both agree that I will get 32 pieces in addition to the board, plus four extra replacements pawns, and the total price I agree to pay is £200. Now let's say that when I show up, I notice that there are actually ten extra pawns and they've all been set together, and the craftsman says "Yeah, I was really enjoying carving those guys and had the extra material, so I made half a dozen extra, and I'll sell them to you for any extra $25." Now, if I started objecting "Wait, what? You want me to pay more for the extra product?! But, but--you made them at the same time! They are already finished! They're mine, you OWE those extra pieces to me without extra charge!" then any rational person who is used to buying and selling goods of any sort in the modern world would immediately recognize how unreasonable this behaviour is under normal marketplace standards. I'm still getting something that I already agreed was a fair deal, and just because the seller had more of a similar and related product at the same time I am about to complete the initial purchase does not mean I am instantly entitled to that extra product.
And yet somehow, gamers (as consumers of digital media) have convinced themselves that the default position is that they are entitled to all content that was finished for a given game at the time the game drops. But why? That's not remotely rational or reasonable. Just because that work was done by a certain point in time does not mean the company is required to give it to us on our terms. The only question the consumer ought to be asking themselves is "At the moment in time that I am buying this base product, does it represent reasonable value for what I am paying?" If the answer is yes, then said consumer should buy it and shut up about being asked to pay something for anything else that is also made available (whenever it was made and regardless of whether or not it is already on the disc/in the day-one data pack). And if they decide that the base product is not a good deal...then just shouldn't buy it.
So, for a more concrete example, when SCVI launched with 21 characters in the base game and Tira on the disc but available as paid DLC just a few days later, then every potential Soulcalibur consumer could easily research what was included in the base product and decide if those 21 characters (plus all of the rest of the core game's content) is worth the purchase price of £60 (or whatever they paid). And then they can do the same analysis for Tira and/or any other DLC content. What is not reasonable, in my opinion, is to pitch a fit because the Tira DLC happened to be done at that moment in time and is related to the core product. Day-one DLC is really only a problem if and when the publisher starts to hold back so much content that the core product becomes no longer worth the asking price. And even in that case, the consumer is free to walk away and just refuse to pay that price, or wait to see what people say about the value, or wait for a sale, ect.--all of the same rights and opportunities they normally have as someone who buys a content license.
When the work on the DLC/extra charge content was finished should only ever be a point of interest for the producer, provided that the consumer has decided the rest f the day-one package is worth buying at the asking price. And in fact, in most situations, it is immensely stupid for us as consumers to bitch about it too much, since the only thing companies will start to do differently is that they will hide the fact that the content is done on launch day, and wait a couple of months to avoid the entitled whining by releasing the content then. In other words, if we don't start to discourage these attitudes and foster a more reasonable transactional analysis, the only thing we will get out of allowing unreasonable complatins is that companies will sit on content that we otherwise would have had the option of buying on day one. In other words, very much the kind of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot attitude I was referring to in my previous post.
