VGA 2009: Bungie explains lack of Halo 3: ODST DLC

by Kevin Kelly on Dec 17th 2009 11:15PM

This past Saturday brought us the Spike TV Video Game Awards and – before experiencing the litany of world exclusives that awaited us inside – we spent some time outside cruising the red carpet and talking (briefly!) to many of the game developers and talent. We squeezed them for information as fast as we could while simultaneously wishing them holiday cheer and good tidings. Yes, it was as awkward as it sounds. HHere's what we learned from Bungie's Curtis Creamer about Halo 3: ODST.

Was there a decision made to have no DLC for Halo 3: ODST?

Well, that was something that we didn't really think we could do for ODST because traditionally all of our DLC has been about competitive multiplayer. That's something that we had the systems in place for. But, since Firefight is more based on the co-operative campaign mode, that was a technology that we hadn't built up to a point where we could add DLC to the game. It would have been too much of an investment to make that happen.

Tags: Bungie, Curtis-Creamer, DLC, Firefight, Halo, Halo-3-ODST, interview, Microsoft, red-carpet, Spike-VGA-2009, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (104)

I thought it was the DLC

A $60 DLC by that.

DLC with its own mini DLC. Don't give developers ideas...

you downloaded ODST?

Too much of an investment? Even Bungie has a little Activision in them...

It was probably due to using the old engine. They would have had to likely recode a lot of it, which would have conflicted with Reach development. This was done by a pretty small team.

It was probably due to no one playing the game anymore.

I think they used poor choice of words. They are just being honest I guess. It is very strange seeing how every other 60 dollar video game on the market gets DLC. I'm sure they invested a lot more than what Bungie used from their starship of money.

hey darkwayne lost n damned and ballad of gay tony were 20$...

And whats with people defending ODST!?!?! wasn't everybody else severely underwhelmed by the that ripoff!?... Im only keeping it for REACH beta... otherwise i would have sold it like a week after I bought it. No matchmaking for firefight WTF!... oh and you can only play 2 players on it on splitscreen, what a joke. The damn game costs as much as any other on the market and it doesnt come with matchmaking... what a POS

And THIS is why the game shouldn't have been full price. The developer's not willing to put an investment into their game? Neither am I.

*Bullshit alarm goes off*

Thanks Bungie. Way to support the fanbase. I haven't played ODST or Mythic in a month or two, and the only reason I still have it is to play the Reach beta.

And this is coming from a hardcore Halo fan who started with the original, has read every book and added fiction there is, and has spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours playing Halo online. Aka: I'm not some anti-Halo troll, I'm just a pissed off fan.

Well, you could say that giving us a major expansion to Halo 3 is pretty supportive of the fanbase...

I won't be sour over Firefight's lack of matchmaking if they include it with Reach since the game is being built ground up.

Therefore they shouldn't have any "incompatibility" matchmaking issues with online coop campaign and firefight (if they include it).

Bethesda selling a huge 20 hour+ whole new world for $20 is supportive of the fanbase.

Bungie selling DLC for $60 is not very supportive.

what the hell DLC was that tmac? Shivering isles was nowhere near 20 hrs for me. Unless you count all those crappy dungeons and caves

Like any western rpg, if you blow through the main story yeah it's gonna be kinda short. There was at least 20 hours of content in Shivering Isles, and not just random dungeons either. There was a good 3-4 sidequests on each side of the land.

yeah i did the main quest and all the sidequests, and that was still nowhere near 20 hours, and i certainly didnt blow through the main quest. I actually fucked up with my saves at one point so i was pretty much doomed and had to load one from before i even started the isles

And to think we have been crucifying Nintendo lately for not putting more effort into their releases...

Blah bLah Blah we just made odst so we can make a couple of quick bucks blah blah blah no one plays blah blah blah, were not making any dlc :p

I think they said it was due to lack of time. And if it's built off of the campaign system, that would explain why they couldn't put Matchmaking in very easily.

I sure could use some dlc for firefight maybe a phantom map??

you mean a map that takes place on a phantom or one with pilot-able phantoms? Neither make much sense

Well, I didn't expect any DLC for it. But the lack of Matchmaking for Firefight was disappointing, though it looks like they had decent reasons for not including it.

Still, I liked having a Halo game to tide me off until Reach.

I find it really funny how you'll defend Bungie to the death for not including basic (and frankly at this point in the generation: standard) gameplay features, then charging full price even though it's realistically only an expansion pack. But IW takes giant sloppy dumps on their fans all the time, in your eyes.

Not a thing you say makes sense, and it's largely because of these absurd fanboy goggles you have strapped around your beady little eyes. I see you out there, scamperin'-and-a-scatterin'!

Firefight is a basic feature? Really?

It was included as something fun to play. The explanation is right there. If it's built into the campaign engine (which would explain why it is on the ODST disc and not the Mythic disc), then matchmaking was never built for that purpose. Campaigns generally don't have a matchmaking option.

If you had a clue, you'd know that publishers set the game prices, not developers.

Banning people for bitching about the game, not bothering to fix glitches, and being arrogant assholes (especially that douche, Bowling) is taking a dump on your community. Bungie is one of the most actively involved companies as far as the community goes.

Let me list some 'features' MW2 doesn't have.

Saved Films.
Forge.
Campaign Scoring
BASIC Campaign Co-Op.
Stat tracking and high degree integration with developer website.
Any kind of mode such as Firefight, Horde, Nazi Zombies...

You don't need Matchmaking in Firefight. Matchmaking is for pairing evenly-skilled players for competing against each other. Since you're only teaming up with other players in Firefight, there's no need to be matched with anyone; you all have the same goal, to survive. You're fighting the computer.

I know that I'm late to the party, but firefight is not a basic feature, and generally, yes, I do think that Bungie is better toward their fans than IW. I love ODST for the campaign, it doesn't all have to revolve around multiplayer.

So they did this for a cash in?
Go figure

DLC for an "expansion" that was supposed to be DLC to begin with? *insert overused xzibit meme here*

that meme is severely underused imo. I love it

Really? Ugh, fine.

YO DAWG, I HERD U LIKE DLC, SO TRANSFER ME $1.00 TO REVEAL WHAT WE PUT IN YOUR CAR

It doesn't really work that well in this case though. What, "Yo dawg, I heard you like dlc, so we didn't put dlc in your dlc..."?

So wait a minute wait a minute...

When DLC comes out for a game that has only been around for a short time, people cry foul claiming that the company "Should have just released it with the disc because the game just came out!" and "This is just a cash grab I bet this was done when the game was released!".

But when a game company DOESN'T release new DLC and makes "excuses" as to why they won't be, everyone complains they are lazy and expects new DLC.

Just make up your mind already people.

I want the developers to have everything on the disc when it launches!

Then I want them to make more stuff exactly when I feel like playing more of it later!

And I want it to be free!

Then I want a blowjob from the lead programmer!

When does all DLC have a price tag?
Some free mission packs or some warthog armor would have been fine.

I wonder how long they've ACTUALLY been working on Reach..

All DLC has a price tag on Microsoft's console.

Reach started pre-production late 2007-early 2008.

Yeah, who wouldn't want a blow job from a lead programmer?

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/ihs/alex/Halloween06_007.jpg

"Too much of an investment" huh? That's what I thought about the $60 price...

Seriously, don't they have enough money from the Halo franchise to buy the moon? Sooo of all the piles of money they couldn't make the investment?

@The Burning Sensation

By "too much of an investment" they didn't literally mean "we don't have the money". What they meant was that the cost of having the devs do all the work to make DLC work with it would have been more than or similar to the money the DLC actually brought in.

I swear, that's the worst part about reading a gaming blog. It's gotta be the single largest group of people out there that have absolutely no clue about how even basic business is run, or how software development lifecycles work.

Wait, after bitching about how ODST was priced ridiculously high, you guys are pissed that you can't spend more money on a small amount of extra content?

so...NOW can we have some dlc?...or at least an update that enables online matchmaking for firefight...that is something that should be easy and fast, right?...come on, BUNGIE...

if its so fast and easy, why didn't you do it already?

SO glad I got ODST for 30$ on Amazon. 30$ is the PERFECT price for that game. Why did Bungie raise it?

Unfortunately, the publisher sets the price, not the developer.

Man, Bradwart has this shit covered. Just as I'm fixing to click reply and get to dropping some knowledge on fools, one of his posts pop up basically saying exactly what I would have. That's what's up.

The publisher is the developer in this case. Microsoft is both.

LS2LS7

That's not true at all, Bungie is the developer. Microsoft is the publisher, and they own the IP, but Bungie is a separate company and they developed the game. Bungie =/= Microsoft.

microsoft is not the developer of ODST

This is the most hilarious thing ever. I love how whiney Bungie gets about including content of any sort in ODST because "it's really super haaaard".

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VGA 2009: Bungie explains lack of Halo 3: ODST DLC

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Posted: Dec 17th 2009 11:18PM (Unverified) said

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