Video Game Design: Distribution: An Open Learning Guide

With the advent of full digital distribution, allied to the pay-to-play meme born in the WEB and extended into a art form in Massively multi-player on-line games, the concepts fast overtook mobile platforms in a never ending offering of apps and extensions to those portable system. The need to reinvent the failed and controversial system of control (Digital Rights Management, DRM) seemed to came together in a repackaging of not only the content distribution but on the control over the digital content in a way that would not only enforce a link between the licensor and the licensee even addressing the increased issue of concurrency with the second hand market.

In 2012 in GDC Europe, BioWare acknowledged that 53% of all sales for Dragon Age: Origins DLC pack were made in the same day the game was released (Dragon Age was released in November 3, 2009). It seems that DLC demand is closely related with not only first adopters but fast losses relevance over the time, as the platform intended to make use of it is replaced by something new.

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Text adapted from Video Game Design/Distribution by Wikibooks contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. This adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.