Disc-Locked DLC Is a Greedy Practice, Analyst Says

Games industry analyst Michael Pachter has chimed in on the issue regarding downloadable content that’s already present on a game’s disc, saying that it’s just a greedy practice and that customers should be allowed to hack the encryption and get the content that’s present on the disc they already own.

Street Fighter X Tekken was at the center of a huge controversy earlier this year when owners of its Xbox 360 or PS3 versions saw that quite a few extra characters have files present on the disc, despite the fact that the publisher, Capcom, recently told them that they’d only appear as a downloadable expansion which they had to buy.

This sparked an ongoing debate about DLC that’s already present on a game’s disc, with Capcom backing down after making some controversial statements about the issue.

Now, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter talked about the problem in his latest Pach-Attack video, saying that publishers are becoming too greedy.

“It's just plain greed," he said about the reasoning behind such a decision. "The answer is that simple. I think that DLC has been so successful that publishers are trying to get a jumpstart and if you put it on the disc it allows them to unlock it when they feel like it.”

Pachter then talked about the practice of DLC and how putting it on a disc allows a company to release it at just the right time in order to keep players interested.

"A few years ago, we didn't see DLC for typically six months after a game launch and I think it was Red Dead Redemption, but Take-Two kind of pioneered and launched DLC like a month after the original title and it was super successful, now you're seeing a lot more guys do it.”

"Some guys get it right, some guys take a long time to get it out, putting it on the disc allows the publisher to determine the optimal moment to launch it. All DLC is great, games are getting shorter, DLC is keeping people engaged, it's a profit deal. I don't think it makes much difference how it's delivered."

From a consumer perspective, Pachter even believes that owners of a game should be allowed to unlock the content by themselves and then legally use it, as they already paid for the actual disc and all of its content.

"The stuff on the disc, some gamers feel entitled to because they bought the disc, so they should have a right to anything that's on the disc," he said. "And that's a dicey one, you actually do own the disc and I think, theoretically, if you could crack the code on the DLC you probably would be allowed to access it without paying. And I'm not even sure that's stealing because you did, in fact, buy the disc. That's about as close as you can get to legal piracy.”

However, Pachter believes that this practice will end, as gamers are fighting back and have already made it clear that they don’t enjoy paying for something they already own.