It didn’t go over super-well when Paradox revealed yesterday that two of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’s six playable clans will be available via some rather pricey DLC. Especially after the game’s infamously rough development, you might think that Paradox and developer The Chinese Room would want to engender goodwill among existing and potential Bloodlines fans, and yet bizarrely they went the opposite way—and people reacted precisely as any reasonable person would have predicted. But why?
Speaking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Bloodlines 2 narrative director Ian Thomas explained that the game has changed significantly over its development, based on playtesting and feedback from the Bloodlines community, “including a massive amount of story content and features and all the rest of it.”
“So we have been expanding it from where we originally planned to land it, I think, constantly, and Paradox have been really good when we go, or when the clients go, or when Paradox go, ‘We should add a bit more here. Let’s push the date back’,” Thomas said. “As you know, the date has pushed back, but that has been to fatten it out into something that we feel does land where the players want it.”
The studio has been adding new content “even over the past few weeks,” Thomas said, and design director Jey Hicks added that it’s not all “just fluff that we’re chucking in. It’s all got that same quality there.” That presumably includes the Toreador and Lasombra clans locked inside the Shadows and Silk DLC, which promises “unique abilities and playstyles” for each. A lot more effort goes into making a whole vampire clan than, say, new hairdo or outfit.
But, to be blunt: So what? A lot of unhappiness over the Bloodlines 2 clan DLC arises from the fact that it will be available on launch day, so it’s not as though The Chinese Room is continuing development (on this, at least) beyond the game’s release: It could have gone out with the base game, Paradox and TCR simply chose to hive it off and charge more money. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with that: Run your biz, and deal with what follows, as you see fit.
I do find the decision to go this way truly baffling, though. I knew the moment I read about it that there’d be a tremendous backlash to the pay extra clans, and surely Paradox must have as well. People have been getting mad about day one DLC for roughly as long as it’s existed—here’s people getting mad about Mass Effect 3 day-one DLC in 2012—and meandering justifications from developers—like this one, about Mass Effect 3 day-one DLC in 2012—have never done much to soothe foul moods.
Paradox in particular should be aware of this: Gamers have been howling about its enthusiastic DLC practices literally for years. It really does make me wonder why the company would voluntarily shoot itself in yet another foot like this: Especially given that Paradox wants to wash its hands of the whole thing anyway, why not throw the Bloodlines community a bone, take a small financial hit (the DLC is expensive but I doubt very much that sales are going to have a meaningful impact on Paradox’s quarterly financials), and come out of it looking good? I’m not an overpriced CEO so maybe I’m missing the big picture here, but if I was in charge that’s 100% what we’d be doing.
There’s also the very real possibility that all the negative attention generated by the controversy will hurt sales enough to offset any potential revenues by the DLC. I really just don’t see an upside here at all.
Anyway, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 comes out on October 21. Despite everything, I have high hopes: The Chinese Room isn’t an RPG studio but it is a great storyteller, and that’s what I’m here for.
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