Saturday Soapbox: The (first) DLC generation

[Administrator]

Kameo: Elements of Power didn't just help kick off the current console generation, it played a role in the early days of one of its more interesting - and divisive - trends, too. Shortly after the Xbox 360 came out in December 2005, I went over to my friend - and handy early adopter - Stu's house to see what the new hardware could do. Stu was playing Kameo, which looked colourful and pleasant and busy with particle effects, but there was something else taking place on the screen that seemed completely weird. As Christmas inched closer in the real world, Christmas was inching closer in Kameo, as well: all the elves and pixies, grunts and lumbering yeti-type things the protagonist could transform into were decked out in scarlet pom-pom hats and little red and white ruffs. Santa Claus had come to toy town.
Rare's Winter Warrior Pack (yours today for a peppy 80 MSP) will hardly go down in history as one of the truly great pieces of DLC, but it served its purpose well enough, convincing me that here was something new and powerful and a little bit nutty. Taking a leaf from PC titles, console games could now change over time if you wanted them to, and in a way that went beyond simple patching (which was itself quite novel for the console crowd). The world stored on the disk could react to seasonal traditions or bend to the will of well-off loot fiends who wanted to microtransaction their way to glory. It could be meddled with, updated, and ultimately expanded. The future was bright - and it was filled with hats!
It's been a bit of a bumpy journey since then. We've learned the strange sting of that tiny, expensive DLC download that informs you that the stuff you just bought was already on the disk that you, y'know, had also already bought. We've been nickle-and-dimed as publishers carve add-ons up into tiny, rather pricy lumps, and we've been sold mishandled campaign additions, endless limp horde modes, naff challenge rooms and horse armour. We've been encouraged to get into the habit of referring to games - magical, mesmerising, transporting games - as content.
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