BioShock 2 DLC plans are 'aggressive' and under way

Random, the thing is that more often the DLC feels like stuff that should have been in the game in the first place. The games companies are just taking the piss sometimes. I'm more than happy to pay for expansion packs, but not stuff that should be mine by rights in the first place.
Games used to be 40-60 hours long, nowadays it feels like they're barely 10 hours with maybe an extra 10 hours in DLC you have to pay for. How is this a good thing?

I don't know about you guys, but I have yet to download any dlc that double's a game's length. More like 10 hour game with an hour and a half of dlc content.

@Bill

Games didn't used to be 40-60 hours long. RPGs used to be 40-60 hours long, and they still are nowadays.

FPS games were never 40-60 hours long. Doom was shorter than modern shooters. Hack and slash games were never 40-60 hours long, they were the same length they are now.

What you're seeing is that different genres (that lend to shorter games) are now more popular than they were before. The games are still the same length, there are just more shooters and slashers than there were back then.

And for god's sake, who the hell wants a 60 hour shooter? Talk about mundane, 10 hours should be the absolute max for that type of game and even that's pushing it before it starts getting stale. That's just the nature of the genre.

Yeah, I can say that I've never played anything not RPG related outside of 40 hours. Well, the Dynasty Warriors games, but that's because I get a lot of replayability out of hacking and slashing. So cathartic after work.

I see Bill's frustration on SOME DLC being there JUST to milk the consumer. But certainly not all of it. And I'm not going to be the one to decide what should and shouldn't be in the game.

Fallout 3 FTW

The problem is that to be a game developer you have to be a smart person. And it's hard for someone like that to imagine that there are people that stupid out there that have no concept of the software development life cycle and think that every mention of DLC just means they're with-holding stuff from the game to sell later.

@ Vcize

I don't think a word of that holds true or is relevant to this situation or the DLC situation at large. If developers are planning anything even remotely specific on downloadable content before a game comes out, it looks like development time and money that's supposed to be paid for with your $60 purchase is being used on DLC that you're going to need to pay for later if you want to enjoy it. That's the problem with this, and that's the problem with every game that does this.

What developers should be doing is going "here's how much time we have, here's how much money we have, let's make this game, and when we're done, we'll start working on DLC if people are asking for it and we think it'll be profitable." Period.