EA exec says complaints about “on-disc DLC” are “nonsense” | Tech Industry

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Every few months, it seems, certain gamers get up in arms when it’s discovered that a brand new game disc contains content that is to be sold in the future as “downloadable content.” In a new interview, EA Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore said this kind of controversy comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that DLC is made.

“A lot of that resistance comes from the erroneous belief that somehow companies will ship a game incomplete, and then try to sell you stuff they have already made and held back,” Moore told Gamespot in a Gamescom interview. “Nonsense. You come and stand where I am, next to Visceral’s studio, and you see the work that is being done right now. And it’s not just DLC, this is free updates and ongoing balance changes.”

Moore compared the bits of DLC that are found on some game discs to scaffolding put in place to support the actual downloadable product when it’s ready. “Think of them as APIs,” he said. “Knowing down the road that something needs to sit on what you’ve already made, means you have to put some foundations down. What people are confused about is they think DLC is secretly on the disc, and that it’s somehow unlocked when we say.”