DLC Has Always Existed In Other Forms, Capcom Says

Yoshinori Ono discussed Capcom’s stance on DLC and compares it to packaged updates.

It’s increasingly common for video games to now receive updates and additional content through downloadable content. Yoshinori Ono, Capcom’s corporate officer and deputy head of consumer games development, argued in an internally-conducted interview at Capcom that DLC is something the industry has always been doing – it was just called something different.

“DLC is essentially a form of paid service that enables users to continuously get the most out of their games,” Ono said. “In the past we didn’t offer DLC, but instead sold sequels or updates as packaged versions. With a game like Street Fighter, we ended up releasing new packaged updates about three times a year. Reflecting back now, that sounds like a lot of updates for a packaged title, but basically that’s the idea behind DLC.”

Capcom develops DLC both as the title comes together and after the release of a game, depending on the game and current trends. When DLC is to be released after the title has launched, the company monitors trends immediately following the game’s release within the first few days in order to put out DLC within the month to reflect those trends.

The company believes DLC offers an advantage in giving consumers what they want. “Problems occur when something we develop completely from scratch fails to match what people need,” Ono said. He went on to say that DLC gives Capcom the chance to monitor trends before making a decision on what to develop for the consumer.

“I don’t think the emergence of DLC was something that came about suddenly, it’s just merely become easier to distribute additional elements and content on the computer system level,” Ono said. “Basically we’re seeing the new form of something that has existed all along.”

Source: Capcom via Siliconera