To charge or not to charge

Unreal Championship 2

Epic Games prez, Mike Capps, is on record. He thinks charging for downloadable content is "lame". He writes on the Epic boards:

"As Joe said, there will be alts — available via Xbox Live as downloadables. And no, we're not charging you for downloads, that's lame."

My read is that he doesn't mean charging for ALL downloads is lame. He's just saying that charging for the kind of downloads they're offering would be lame. New characters, levels, weapons, etc. are par for the course in the PC world. It would probably feel odd for Epic to suddenly start charging.

This does pose an interesting question, though. If a PC developer is making a game for the 360, how does MS convince them that the microtransaction tools are worth using? Will a PC developer assume they'd have to make something more "valuable" than a new character, level or weapon to charge money? What exactly IS more valuable than a new character, level or weapon in a game?

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