Publisher defends Street Fighter X Tekken's locked content
Capcom has responded to a wave of consumer complaints about its practice of charging for content shipped with the disc, but locked until that content is purchased as DLC.
When hackers found twelve finished characters hidden on the disc, Capcom announced that these would be made available later for 1600 Microsoft points, valued at $20 dollars.
Customers have since filed several compaints with the Better Business Bureau, citing "false advertising", and "dissatisfaction".
Cinemablend reports that Capcom has responded to these complaints by claiming there is no difference between DLC and disc-locked content.
"While Capcom is sorry that some of its fans are not happy about the chosen method of delivery for the DLC, we believe that this method will provide more flexible and efficient gameplay throughout the game's lifecycle," Capcom told the BBB.
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"There is effectively no distinction between the DLC being ''locked'' behind the disc and available for unlocking at a later date, or being available through a full download at a later date, other than delivery mechanism."
When your defense includes the phrase "There is effectively no distinction... other than...", you imply there IS a distinction. Sounds like Capcom is wrong.
If something is advertised as "downloadable" content, and you do not, in fact, download the content, then it is NOT downloadable content.
That sounds like false advertisement to me.
If the irritation is that the content is already on the disc, then is seems consumers would be happier to download 400mb than 400kb for the same content at the same price.
'On disc DLC no different than download' is a false quote.
That IS NOt the point they are making here. They say there's "EFFECTIVELY no distinction" This is bad journalism.
Sure thing Capcom, give me a turd and all my money is yours.
DLC is the biggest fleece job on the planet.
Astute observation from Ben: the complainers don't really care about disc locking. It's just an angle to demand additional content be provided at no additional cost.
Capcom has done things worthy of criticism, but this isn't one of them.
From a fleecing your customers perspective, "there is no difference between DLC and disc-locked content", actually does mean the same thing. The same can also be said for content which was intentionally removed from the disc to be sold as downloadable content at a later date (eg. the *9* pieces of day-one content for ME2, accidentally posted on XBLM).
My Problem with disc locked DLC is that I bought the disc, it's my disc, so I should own all thats on it.
It's like buying a new house, but one of the rooms is locked and you can't open or get into it unless you buy a key from the estate agent. No one would have that!
I like the idea of free time based locked content, like Return to Castle Wolfenstien would release a new map every month, I liked that, but charging you for something you physically own is wrong.
