A small correction here: Add on packs, under the formerly common name "expansion packs," or "expansion sets" have been around since at least the early 90s. I believe they were around in Japan since the 80s. This concept was around since EA was publishing games by four man teams.
In the case of the game industry, those add-ons save jobs. You won't hear me say CEOs and shareholders shouldn't just flat out keep more of the money at the bottom, but it's an unavoidable truth that the kind of games people consider "fair" are actually difficult for developers to live on.
When you're developing a game that you sell for a set price with no DLC, subscriptions, supporter packs, or what-have-you, that game gets you one large, backloaded payout after 3-6 years of work. You'll pick up more from later sales and promotions, naturally, but nothing remotely comparing to the initial launch. So now, after one game, you have that income in your warchest, and you want to make another. Here's the problem: what do you do with everyone who worked on the first?
For six months to a year, you're not going to need the full art team, any of the sound folks, QA, or even most of your programmers. Historically, this has been responsible for the game industry's nasty cycle of staff up then lay off. That cycle's been in place for as long as game development has been more than four or five man teams; it's not new and not the fault of megacorps. The reality is that when you start and wrap up development, you don't need nearly as many as you do in the middle, and you can't pay the full team without REALLY endangering your studio's existence if the game does poorly. I've worked on games where we started with 5 QA in alpha, and ramped to 70+ before shipping. That is a LOT of money for people you don't need for the whole duration, and it extends to all disciplines--even programmers and designers.
Releasing DLC evens this out. When you would lay people off, you instead move them onto DLC. In the 90s, the same model was used for expansion sets. This is why I have problems with people accusing DLC broadly of being a cash grab. We can all agree that any product sold ought to provide decent value to its purchaser, but what constitutes "value" is highly subjective. Most people prefer major campaign DLC around here, I think--stuff that meaningfully expands the game narratively and mechanically, without the original game feeling incomplete. Thing is, these are a lot less work for the artists, since you don't (usually) need as many assets. QA teams are smaller because there's less content to test, programming teams are usually smaller since this sort of DLC doesn't generally make massive engine changes, etc. Elsewhere on these forums, it's been argued that ALL cosmetic DLC is a cash grab and the skins and things should've been in the base game. In principle, it would keep the artists busy for the same amount of time, so sure, why not?
Because those skins aren't required mechanically for the base game, or for its narrative--what was included filled those roles, so continuing to pay the artists is gambling that having a wide selection of skins will actually sell more copies. It's not a good gamble for the developer, but it can be hedged with collector's editions that come with extra skins. That puts the gamble on the player though, which also sucks. If you don't like the game, then the skins were a waste of your money. Disconnect the cosmetics from the game, though, and the work is smaller, so it's easier to split the artists between multiple items, and you can release based on feedback and demand, not over invest in DLC no one wants.
None of this is to say you should buy DLC you don't want, only that full product, no post-sale game development has a real problem with keeping staff paid, and DLC helps alleviate it. Bad DLC is still bad. Pay $30 for an "expansion" and get 3 hours of play? You've got every right to be mad. But the more that's packed into a single, packaged game without any post-sale income, the more likely the studio is to have REAL reasons to downsize, as opposed to execs wanting to make the line go up. It also makes it harder to finance new projects, which can put smaller studios at the mercy of bigger publishers.
If no one's burying their head in the distractions my company releases, I join the starving, so to some extent, yes! That said, I do understand your intent and there's a difference between having enough fun for good mental health and allowing one to be distracted by bread and circuses.
My personal take is that DLC is ethical funding if:
- The base game provides a complete experience. Continuing a story is not the same as not finishing the story.
- The content was not cut from the base game. This does happen, but is much less common than gamers believe. In my 20 years, I'm aware of one case. Obviously, different companies may be worse about it.
- The DLC is not necessary to be viable in multiplayer.
- The DLC provides what it promised. Even if it's a bad deal financially, if it says it gives you one skin and you get one skin, it doesn't matter to me if it's $2 or $2000. Charging $2000 for something not worth it and not required makes it a bad DLC, not an unethical one, as long as the proposition was truthful.
- The publisher or developer isn't reaping the profit while still laying off or severely underpaying those who worked on it. The most ethical game in the world ceases to be if a developer gets shuttered while the publisher continues to sell it.
