14 DAY TRIAL // Downloadable content seems to be the latest big trend sweeping the videogames industry. It's no longer enough to release a few maps for a shooter or some fresh game modes for a survival horror title.
Now, developers are planning ahead and BioWare is even thinking about offering DLC for its upcoming Dragon Age for no less than two years after the initial release of the game.
Greg Zeschuk, founder of BioWare, told MTV Multiplayer that “This is the reason that with Dragon Age, our DLC strategy is doing it in maybe a year and-a-half or two years - planning exactly when you're going to do it and how you're going to do it. Some of our fans would really like us to extend the world, so it's going to be something that will make the world even bigger and more interesting. It's not going to wreck it or break it.”
He seems to be very aware of the fact that players can no longer be fooled with a small amount of new content that is hyped up as being an “expansion” of the game.
In order for DLC to be interesting and to generate sales, it needs to really add something to the experience that the original game offered. So, BioWare took the unprecedented step of putting together a separate team that is working on the downloadable content, even as development on Dragon Age: Origins is not yet completed. By doing this, the company is making sure that a short time after the game debuts, it can put out the DLC and show gamers how the title can be expanded.
Dragon Age: Origins is set to arrive on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 in autumn. Initially, the PC version was set to arrive earlier, but the company decided to push it back so it could benefit from a unitary marketing campaign, and presumably the DLC that Zeschuk is talking about.