Lengthy, costly development cycles have become the norm for the video game industry. Huge financial investments mean that selling a million copies of Fighting Fighters and Terminal Brouhaha just isn't enough. Publishers need something more -- that extra prompted button-push towards profit. Downloadable content is that push. But figuring out how to get more than the standard $60 entry fee is a tricky task.
We've compiled the methods and tactics behind creating downloadable content for a public more than eager to lap it up. Developers and publishers interested in asking gamers to spend an extra $10 a week after a game's release, take note: This is how to build and market downloadable content.
Developing DLC
You can go about crafting post-release content to maximize profit in two ways: 1) pull together a small group within the development team to create the "new" material once the game is ready to ship, and 2) hold back finished content to sell at a later date. Now, some gamers will always believe DLC was cut from the retail release -- even when it's released months later and contains sizable new content. They'll likely buy it anyway, so don't let that stop you from actually removing finished stuff to sell down the line.
If, however, you're eager to develop something legitimately new for players, start working on it before the game itself has been completed. Millions of gamers will buy a bug-ridden, nearly unplayable product despite the fact it would have benefited from the additional development manpower that the creation of DLC superseded. And then they'll buy the DLC, too -- win/win.
What Are You Selling?
If gamers have proven anything over the past few years, it's that they're fine with paying for whatever downloadable content gets thrown their way, be it meager or mammoth: Costumes, maps, missions, dungeons, extra characters, avatar clothing, virtual pets, dashboard themes, profile pictures, weapons, horse armor, songs, etc. Downloadable content has become a field of dreams for publishers, even if no game industry CEO is half as strapping as Kevin Costner. If you sell it, they will buy it. But that doesn't mean you should hock just anything.
DLC should be genre-specific. If you're releasing a first-person online shooter, stick to something simple -- like new maps. Multiplayer maps can be culled from existing single-player levels, making them relatively simple to design by a small portion of the team. This is beneficial, since the bulk of your staff will be busy fixing all the inherent game balance issues, glitches, and server-side screw-ups the game shipped with. Fighting games should offer both new characters (let's say $5 a pop) and new costumes. Sports games should avoid DLC altogether; the combination of yearly entries and DLC would be redundant. Consult the following chart for apt suggestions on myriad genres.