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It definitely will add up. But the companies will point out that dlc is optional. So the base game is still the same price. This is beneficial to the degree that those revenue streams are only going to accrue to the company to the degree they have a big enough installed base willing to shell out the cash. So they have to make the games good enough for you to want to buy dlc. But the attach rate is still quite low.
20 mm dlc packs have been bought over all Cod games. There have been about 40mm units sold of mw, waw, and mw2. So the average is 1 map pack per 2 cod units sold. When you figure that most people have 2 or 3 cod games and there was 1 pack for mw1, 2 (?) packs for waw (I think?), and 2 packs for mw2, the number of gamers buying dlc is not high. Most people on xbox don't have gold--I think it is around 13-14mm people for about 32mm machines sold, and Sony still only has about 20 mm online for 30mm ps3s--and many people have more than one account. So the number of people online is lower than you'd think. It's surprising. That's why stuff that seems like it should be dlc is often packaged as a new game. Gta4 dlc sold so poorly they put it out on disc that didn't require the orig game. The biggest selling game ever to that point suffered from too many people selling the game to gamestop or on Cl/eBay.
So developers need to create games that people love and will play a long time to maximize. However, until more people are online and keeping their games, costs look likely to stay high. They need to hit a point where the installed base of customers is big enough to offset lower prices--and the number of people willing to shell out the cash needs to drop enough so volume declines outweigh price increases.
20 mm dlc packs have been bought over all Cod games. There have been about 40mm units sold of mw, waw, and mw2. So the average is 1 map pack per 2 cod units sold. When you figure that most people have 2 or 3 cod games and there was 1 pack for mw1, 2 (?) packs for waw (I think?), and 2 packs for mw2, the number of gamers buying dlc is not high. Most people on xbox don't have gold--I think it is around 13-14mm people for about 32mm machines sold, and Sony still only has about 20 mm online for 30mm ps3s--and many people have more than one account. So the number of people online is lower than you'd think. It's surprising. That's why stuff that seems like it should be dlc is often packaged as a new game. Gta4 dlc sold so poorly they put it out on disc that didn't require the orig game. The biggest selling game ever to that point suffered from too many people selling the game to gamestop or on Cl/eBay.
So developers need to create games that people love and will play a long time to maximize. However, until more people are online and keeping their games, costs look likely to stay high. They need to hit a point where the installed base of customers is big enough to offset lower prices--and the number of people willing to shell out the cash needs to drop enough so volume declines outweigh price increases.
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