In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Ubisoft's VP of Digital Publishing, Chris Early, stated that the climate for digital downloads has changed.
"I think there are some models that are accepted now," Early said. "DLC is pretty much accepted. Season pass is pretty much accepted. Now it's interesting when you start to think of Season Pass as a Service Pass. For our Season Pass holders, I know we hold events for them specifically, so it's little bit more than just DLC content. So there's an evolution going on there."
Early pointed to the $1 and $2 time saver packs that were available for last year's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag that would unlock the location of items early, to make finding and getting collectibles easier and quicker.
"There was no resistance. Maybe there were 12 guys somewhere who said something, but whatever. As a whole, there wasn't a problem," Early told Games Industry.
If one looks at the history of downloadable content for consoles, a lot has changed since the Xbox 360 launched in 2005. At that time, prices higher than $10 for a game were unheard of. Now some download games routinely launch at $15 or even $20.
It was much the same with DLC, downloadable content that adds to an existing game. Routinely, there would be an uproar about overpriced items as the gaming public grew used to the idea of owning digital items -- just Google "Horse Armor" for an example.
In the years since, after hundreds of games and DLC have been published, and after years of buying downloads for smartphones, the purchasing of digital items and downloadable short cuts is no longer a big deal.
Even the Season Pass, where a player buys DLC content ahead of time at a discount before it is published, has become the norm. Almost every major AAA console release that has upcoming downloadable content will have a Season Pass associated with it.
"I don't know whether it wasn't as easy before or wasn't as clearly messaged on previous generations, but there is definitely a lot more digital [demand], to the order of two to five times as much digital activity on some titles than there was on the same title on old-gen machines," Early said in the interview. "It's not just that they might have made it easier. To me, that means that people want it. I probably wouldn't have guessed there was that much pent-up digital demand."
Whether or not gamers will continue to pay for more expensive DLC in the future remains to be seen. But as of right now, this looks to be where the video game industry is heading until the consumer decides differently.
