14 DAY TRIAL // While some developers have stared using this method, mostly to secure sales and cut back on the numbers of games that change hands for money, Rebellion for one doesn't approve at all of the DLCs that make players pay to unlock content that is already on the disc. Talking to SPOnG, David Brickley, the director of the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator, sided with the gamers on the matter and said that there was "absolutely no justification" for this DLC policy. He sees DLC as a useful adjunct that gets in additional components that just can't be fit into a game's finite production schedule, not in-game features that are unlocked for a fee.
"It's quite simple to explain, but I do think players are entirely right," he said. "If the content is on the disc already there's absolutely no justification for studios to offer DLC which is essentially an unlock key or something. But I guess what doesn't come across to some people is that when a game hits the shelves, it's probably been wrapped up for four or five months in any true sense."
And to help make things clear, Brickley decided that the best way to get through to us was to pen down a clear description of a game's development process. "The time between finishing the game and retail is usually spent on debugging – you can spend months and months just fixing errors and glitches to ensure the product is finished and ready for release," he explained. "While all of that stuff is going on, it tends to free up resources at the studio, so they can make items that can be added on as DLC afterwards. I think people outside of that process assume that the development of a game and its DLC are executed in parallel, and that's really not the case."
But that doesn't mean that AvP won't have any DLC. After meeting the development deadline for the game, the rest of the time that, as he already explained, was spent in quality assurance and also in marketing and advertising, the studio didn't just lay down and go to sleep. Rebellion started working on additional content that it'd get ready sometime after the game would have been out on the shelves. "In that sense, it's great that modern consoles actually have an ability to add to the original game," he said.