The general consensus seemed to be that you guys would enjoy the occasional discussion journal, so here we are!
For people who don't have time to peruse the document and just want to skim over, you can read the bold words.

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DLC (Downloadable Content) refers to additional packets of data that can be added to your game. These can range from:
cosmetics (World of Warcraft's vanity pets and mounts),
gear and accessories (Dragon Age 2's weapon/armour packs),
added tools and places, perhaps with an unlocking quest (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's Thieves Den) or even
full-blown story-driven questlines and content (Mass Effect 2's Lair of the Shadow Broker).

These items are not with the original game (or, depending on game, are locked away and inaccessible) and if players wish to have/use these extra items, they pay a small sum for the packets (often around $5 to $15, depending on size), downloading and adding them to the game.

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Not all players have access to internet.
Despite those talking about moving to the Cloud may believe, we don't all have access to the internet. The only areas that really have any connectivity able to support online gaming are the UK, Northern America, and Europe. (Possibly also Japan, as the technology capital of the world.) I'd guess at least half of computer users across the world don't have access to reliable internet - either not having it at all, or having to go into public internet cafe or friend's house. And what about people that live in areas where internet is spotty or non-existent (for example, rural areas)?

Of those that do have internet as a relatively common feature of their household, there are other limits: data caps (limited amount of GB of data to can download a month), and cripplingly limited speeds. Couple that with distance from servers (which tend to be in the main body of the United States) for those in distant countries and it takes a long time to download anything (also poor ping for competitive play but that's not relevant for most DLC).

Not all players can buy online.
Then you have online purchasing - previously you needed a credit card for online purchases as few companies support direct deposits. Fortunately we now have Visa Debit, which we (NZ at least) got a couple years ago. Credit cards not only have a minimum age on ownership but carry with them a host of other factors - yearly charges, payments, or perhaps temptation for impulse purchases one can't afford. What about people playing games like The Sims 3 wanting store items but unable to purchase the points of them?

Content stored on disk that requires paid-unlocking is seen as greed-driven.
Players bought the game. (Actually they bought a license to play it that can be revoked at any time because that's how the world works these days, dammit, but let's keep this simple.) They installed what they bought... but part of the game they legitimately just BOUGHT his hidden from them until they buy part of the game AGAIN. Why should they have to purchase parts of the game twice over? Sounds like an opportunity for producers to gouge as much as they can - after all, you probably can't get a return on this game now that you've opened the packaging, so you want to make full use of it.

Functional items make a player feel obligations to 'buy their way' if they want to compete.
This is a cheap thing for producers to do, but they do it. The best gear - weapons, armour, accessories - are available only for purchase. If a player wishes to be competitive in a multiplayer game they feel obligated to buy the most powerful gear because what does their skill matter if a nub's Ep1c Sw0rd can bring them down before they finish their rotation? The argument "don't like DLC, don't buy it" doesn't really work when you suffer the consequences for not keeping up with the gear inventory. If you don't have all expansions, you wouldn't want to play World of Warcraft on a PvP server because you'll constantly be obliterated by lv85s no amount of skill can take down. Imagine if all the best PvP/raid gear must be purchased online - only to have that updated gear score be the requirement for joining any guilds/parties/events?

Content may seem deliberately removed for the sole purchase of selling later.
compare fully (or even partially) expanded The Sims 2 with brand new The Sims 3. [Yatzee] points it out well - a lot of gear that would be expected to be contained is suspiciously absent. Even how the gear already in there is used - invite a friend out to town! Go ahead. ...okay, now choose where you're going to go. Restaurant? Diner? Yep! Movie? Nope! The hell? One of the few entertainment venues in the game you'd be expected to take friends (and are often considered a sad bastard if you don't) is restricted to ForeverAlone.jpg. No, you cannot take your dates there. Take your date to the library instead. Whoo!

Pulling out 'base' items and interactions for the sole purpose of selling them later in an overpriced expansion pack is easily viewed as a move driven out of greed. Which brings me to my next point:

DLC's price is often disproportionate to its value.
Keeping on the concept of The Sims 3, the base game tended to be around $70NZ (closer to $100NZ if you went to EBgames though - the EB stands for Edacious Bastards). The expansion packs tend to be around $60-70NZ (more again at Edacious Bastards games), and the Stuff packs around $40NZ (EB again).
Wait, what? The expansions cost as much as the base game! Do they contain the base game's worth of content? It bad enough that many basic elements are torn out of games (inviting your date to the movies instead of the local gym, gorrammit), let alone selling them back to us at the same price as a brand new game!

But if you want to look at the poster child for poor market value, look no further than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's infamous Horse Armour DLC. What did it do? Put armour on your horse. The horse which tends to freak out and run in combat. The horse that easily dies anyway. And the armour looks a little ridiculous. In a game where one of its main selling points it the player-base modding community, where such a thing could be done better for free, the horse armour DLC has become the codifier for all thing Revenue Enhancing.


It's fair to pay designers with their hard work on additional content.
Do you know how much game designers, animators, programmers, etc get paid for their work? Not f***ing much. So they're doing it for the fun job right? Haha, hell no. Just look at the anecdotes at [trenchescomic.com] - those testers and programmers and QA staff members are miserable as hell. Presumably they're in the job for the satisfaction of knowing they played a part in furthering the game industry, feeling the player base's gratitude and apprec-- "YOU GUISE SUCK DID YOU EVEN TEST THIS, SO AMNY BUGS, SWERING OFF YOU GUYS, RUENED FUREEEVVVVVAARRRR". Heh. It's no wonder all members of the industry have to be proficient in several areas - it's just too expensive to find people that can specialise. Bioware, for example, known for its great writing, does not have dedicated writers. Those that do writing also work in cinematography, animating, models, programming, quest design, so on.

After literally years of their life are spent on sleepless nights, spending potentially weeks at a time never even going home but sleeping at desks or on the break room couches, living on energy drinks to meet the crunch - their entitled 'fans' start claiming that their work has no value and should be given away free if they want their customers to stay loyal. The hell, guys! I don't walk into the supermarket and start demanding free mince because it is noticeably absent from my fridge and I want it for my chilli dish, I have shopped here before that makes me a customer and you have an OBLIGATION to keep me HAPPY! I AM NEVER SHOPPING HERE AGAAAAAAIN.

Developers can work outside of time constraints.
Don't get me wrong, their DLC has a deadline, too. But much of the DLC we see these days (especially that which is released a couple weeks after release) were intended to be in the base game but had to be removed (or 'dummied out') because they couldn't be finished on time and other thing (bug-testing, final epilogue, models/textures etc) had to take priority. Designers can see some of their favourite characters, scenes, and stories get inserted into the game while still having the time to make sure that they're done right. Why get upset that Shale wasn't in Dragon Age: Origins to start? Would you have been that much happier if she was dumped into your party, buggy and unbalanced, unable to pass through doors (her model used to be much larger) with only half of the dialogue, no personal quests, no in-game commentary, ignored by all other NPCs as though she were invisible or absent? You may have been leading the charge on the forums with your "DID THEY TEST THES GAME AT AAAALLLL".

New content keeps the game fresh and prevents it becoming static.
Humans crave novelty. The reason we're never happy with what we have is that our very biology constantly drives us to obtain more. It's easy to say "if I made X more dollars a week, I'd be happy". Well, when you reach that goal, suddenly it seems to be sucked into new places and you feel your lifestyle hasn't changed - you get the same drive again: "if I made Y more dollars a week, maybe THEN I'd be happy". In fact, one of the key ways of getting out of a depressive slump is to start doing something new and constructive - because it's the same-same that's encouraging it, throwing it into relief.

Adding new DLC to a game helps keep the game new and interesting. Fallout: New Vegas is a great game, but my favourite part is the DLC Old World Blues. Hands down. ("You guys should try this intercom thing, it makes you feel like some sort of.... SKY GOOOOD!") Even with F:NV's faction system there are only so many times you can play a game before it becomes wearily predictable and just feels like the same thing looped ad infinitum. Adding DLC to a game lets a player continue to enjoy a particular setting or character(s) while still providing them with new opportunities to learn and explore, new gear to collect and horde, and new characters to meet.

New DLC items can encourage new styles of play.
A small point, but an existent one. For example an armour set that boosts damage in melee damage can encourage a player to try out a hand-to-hand or fencing attack style instead of archery or gunfire. In Mass Effet 3, armour that increases damage from power will help people who want to try out 'caster' classes. Some classes can be either supported by their powers, or primarily dependant on them - one class, two different play styles. How about World of Warcraft sets that come with big bonuses to certain moves, varying by specs?

Story-based DLC can encourage players to experience areas of Lore or characters previously unexplored.
Story-based DLC is, in my opinion, the best DLC. That afore-mentioned Old World Blues? Story. HILARIOUS story. By expanding on Lore and characters players have a passing familiarity with, the DLC is stitched neatly into the experience without feeling like a separate tacked on unit. Like... putting jam in a doughnut instead of just serving it alongside, so it can actually be a part of the overall experience.

If you really enjoy a game - characters, premise, especially its setting - shouldn't you be pleased to see a setting and medium you love having its life lengthened with additional content? DLC makes me happy, even if I can't afford to get all of it. I'll often pass over cosmetics and gear DLC but will make a point to get story DLC. The world and its potential experiences are infinite. A game's is not. If you want to keep exploring a game anew, you need DLC to do so!

It can provide something to do while waiting for the next game.
Again I tell you: humans crave novelty and change, even as (especially as they get older) they tend to be wary, frightened, or resistant to it. If games don't update regularly to have sate that appetite, people who look towards games to fill that need to novelty could be buying new games. To meet up with the demand of having completely new games out for these people - especially people that already go through a half-dozen games a year or more(!), game developers are pressured to make big games in less time. We all saw what happened to Dragon Age II (previously titled Dragon Age: Exodus) don't we? The main reason they dropped the subtitle was to make it clear it was a different game and a DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE to Dragon Age: Origins, and boy ever was it. With little time before the deadline, areas were endlessly reused, combat was cheap with multiple waves falling through ceilings and parachuting from skies, with the infamous ACTION BUTTON. And the harder modes? They don't have TIME to give them better AI! Just give them a crapload of health so the game just takes looooooooooongerrrr. They needed that time elsewhere, dammit! Which brings me to the final point for this side:

Post-release means player feedback can be imputed for game improvement!
Look at DLC's story DLC however (as opposed to their $TUFF! DLC): namely Legacy and Mark of the Assassin - and it's clear that with player feedback, requests, and suggestions, Bioware was able to make a saving throw for DA:Exodus. The main campaign still has its flaws, certainly, but the DLC has care taken in stunning and/or mood-appropriate environments, combat is much more tactical instead of mook-spam, and they have added achievements for completing them on higher difficulties because the AI is robust enough to make it a challenge rather than a lesson in endurance. Without DLC these improvements could, at best, be added into the next game - assuming the producer wanted to pick the sequel up, and the market would support it, and wait Genre X is dying out in favour of Genre Y... let's make our Genre X game an XY-cross to bring Genre Y fans in. X is a little too complicated/confusing for some of them, so let's dumb it down and strip some features, just in case. Also TIGHT DEADLINES, BETCH.

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"Release Day DLC" is, as the name implies, DLC that is available for purchase, download, and installation even as the game is being shipped out for release! If the DLC was already made, why not put it in the base game?

This is an issue that people are pinning on the developers and producers. Well, they shouldn't be. The reason they feel the 'need' to do this is because of retailers, especially the infamous GameStop (and its babby EBgames). Assuming you've been reading the expansion on all these points, you've already seen the remark about how little producers make despite the years of work and sleepless nights (and office-bound weeks) put into each project. Despite massive sales, and massive gross earnings, individuals in the company earn little as games are so very expensive to make. As a result (and to help 'make up for lost revenue' from digital piracy - more on that [here]) games have a fairly high purchase cost.

Here's where things get nasty: in lieu of borrowing games, retailers use trade-ins. They buy a game back for perhaps, 10-15% of its RRP (recommended retail price) and sell it for about 85-90% RRP. As far as producers are concerned, they buy the game once and sell it twice. Buying trade-ins low, selling high, and pocketing the difference - producers see none of that. Even though the difference is minimal, the slightly cheaper option naturally encourages buyers on a budget - especially if games don't have demos available and people don't want to risk losing to much on what could be a product they don't personally enjoy (I, for example, didn't really enjoy Arkham Asylum and rather regret buying it - but couldn't sell it if I wanted to, due to registration, DRM, and being for the PC, which often can't be traded in). Let me make this clear: producers get nothing from this second sale.

Producers can't tell retailers what their business model should be - it's their business. The best they can do is work around them. Enter in Day One DLC. By separating content, producers guarantee they get at least a portion of expected earnings, even if not everyone buys that DLC for their second-hand game. In fact, many such producers will actually give the DLC to a consumer free if they register their original copy of a game.

Problem is, if games are going to have portions removed (multiplayer maps, side missions, gear/content, etc) for sell through a different method, the base price should reflect that. And I can't say if it does, because the prices I see are generally filtered through retailers first! Yep - even if the producers are making base products cheaper, those same retailers have no reason not to keep their prices the same and pocket the different. Hey, you were willing to pay them before, and they have targets to reach!

And what if producers aren't dropping prices? What if people who get the original copy still have to purchase them, regardless of registering? Then removing content that should be included simply so it can be sold separately does sound greedy.

Content division can work in favour of the consumer, too, if you're not being used by retailers' second-hand schemes. For example, let's consider Mass Effect 3. What if they separated their multiplayer? (To save downloading the DLC, maybe locking it away rather than separating the files). Assuming the base game is dropped in price to match the price of the multiplayer unlocker, you can get a game with full functionality - in the main campaign at least - at a price you can more easily afford. Like it? Love it? There's a whole lot more just waiting for you, if you're willing to 'finish' paying for the producer's work!

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Here's your chance to get your say and add your views. Don't just leave your comment either - this is a discussion journal, so feel free to respond to each other (not just me). Any interesting or poignant remarks made by comments will be added at the end of this section!

What is your opinion of DLC?
Do you ever buy DLC?
Are you in fact ABLE to buy DLC?
Do you approve of release-day DLC?
If not, what alternatives would you suggest instead?
Does the DLC of a game affect whether you buy/borrow/pirate a game?
Do you normally purchase your games first-hand or second-hand?