Well the thing is as people we’re shortsighted and egotistical.
We were pissed that people had access to this content because we feel entitled and annoyed that others get to “leech” off of the content that we paid for.
I’d say that with a more objective mindset you can see that people have this opinion because the DLC they paid for was sub-optimal.
If FS had released the maps as free content for everyone, and then made a 10$ package that included:
- A full on “glowing runes to whatever colour you want” system, as well as the 15 “new” cosmetics, the other 69 being recolours and the majority (haven’t counted the exact number) of the 15 “new” cosmetics just being rehashes of existing cosmetics with either copied, stripped or transferred components.
There are a few good ones in there. About 7% of these 84 “new” cosmetics are pretty good, even if most of them are mostly copy paste with some added doodads.
- A dlc pack for every character (5 total), including the above stuff, but restricted to the one character at a reasonable cost (like 2-4 dollars per pack.)
- that’s still a 25-50% saving on the buy everything, and that “save 25-50%” rings really well in consumer ears.
This would create a lot more goodwill in the community. For the more casual players that don’t have time to put in the effort to max out every character, or the people who simply “main” or have a favourite, they have a cheaper option. For the rest there’s the big pack, which they feel good about buying because they save 50%.
Another benefit to this model is that there’s not the same point of reference. VT2 started out at 30$. That included 5 characters, 15 careers, 50+ weapons and 150+ illusions (skins), 13 maps, x cosmetics and so on.
People will inevitably compare the DLC price to the starting point. Bogushafen had 2 maps, 84 what was marketed as “new” cosmetics (which the consumers disagreed with), and some 50 odd purple rune skins. For a third of the price of the original game, and especially considering most was made from existing assets, with very little work involved to make them - people were pissed and needed to justify their purchase to themselves.
With the DLC including a completely new “recolour runes” feature you can’t match that against the value of the original package sold, hence less need to justify your purchase as a consumer, especially if you find it a little lackluster post-purchase.
I explained a little bit more along these lines in another post, specifically regarding how players are content and splitting the community, even a little is a bad business practice: