Something to start off with, which has been bothering me recently:

Copious amounts of DLC/additional paid for content that adds to or expands the main game mode or campaign, that may or may not affect the gameplay or progression significantly, and that becomes available piecemeal over time after the initial release of a game.

There are a few problems with this, mainly I just find it really annoying. I'll go to play something I bought a while ago, Stellaris for example, and see that there's a whole bunch of extra DLC that I don't have, things that seem to expand and enrich a typical playthrough. I'll spend some time looking through them all, trying to figure out what seems really essential or possibly transformative to the gameplay, and what seems to be just cosmetic additions. Then if they are all on sale I'll try to weigh up what I can afford, what really matters and whether the GotY super deluxe bundle is better value.

And this is before I even know that the game is something I'll feel like playing for very long. Of course I can just play the base game for a bit to see how things go, it will likely still be the same fun experience that existed at launch, but knowing all that extra stuff exists that should be there kind of weighs on my mind and irritates a little. Something like a big strategy or city building game is a big time investment too, even just to find out if you will continue to play for a good while, and in many cases you might need to restart a playthrough to get the benefit of new content. It's always a nicer feel to be able to play the full up to date experience as intended, so this stuff is a real pain in the ass and a drain on the wallet.

Many games are doing this kind of thing now, very often the strategy/management type games on PC, but also in some cross platform titles I guess. It makes a lot of sense from perspective of milking the customer as much as possible, I'm sure the psychological aspect of missing out on the full experience is deliberate in many cases too. It can be a double edged sword though, when I see a swathe of extra stuff available for a game it tends to put me off buying it, unless there's a reasonably priced bundle version that makes it simple. Season passes are similar in that when I see them for games it really puts me off, a seperate but related discussion, also total bullshit though.

There are some games that deal with this somewhat gracefully, by including a lot of the new stuff somehow in updates for the base game. An example might be Total War: Warhammer 2, which has a lot of DLCs for addtional playable races and heroes and such. They are added to the campaign map as AI players, so that even if you haven't paid for them you still get to enjoy fighting against them. In order to actually play as them you need to pay for it, which usually seems somewhat reasonable considering the art, animation and design work that went into developing it.

Ideally anything really base-game changing should be included in a free update, separate campaigns or missions, things like that can be ok to split off into seperate purchases. As it is I just get massively put off by how many games are doing it right now. Just give me the full complete experience and don't dick me about with reams of expensive extras.

Good thread and posts. I would say regarding big DLC influencing the shape and tone of a game, that it is indeed a worry I have sometimes, though often for *negatively* impacting a game, especially the game's story. Bioshock Infinite was my favourite game for a fairly long time and even though I enjoyed the Burial At Sea stuff on its own terms, I *really* didn't like how it impacted Infinite's ending, completely changing a somber but uplifting ending into something really depressing and sad. That uplifting nature of the game was what gave me hope when I had very little, and I still don't like the way that Burial At Sea changes the whole tone of the thing.

Yeah I really hate that. I'm not sure I've ever bought a season pass actually, preordering is generally dumb enough without doing it with bloody DLC.

As a close future trend I have my worries about where the gaming sub model will take us. I doubt it’s gonna be to the land of nectar that Netflix provided to tv drama development and may end up being another nail to bang home the homogenisation of mainstream game development. I know most on here don’t follow me with that though and just see it as insane value free games. It’s the gateway though.

I guess conversely, there have been a few outlets who have fully elevated DLC to next level status over the past couple of years, perhaps buoyed or challenged by concepts like Seasons in free to play games like Apex, Fortnite and so forth. Rabbids and Torna DLC were great.

2D roguelikes and lites have been flavour of quite a few months now. As a rule of thumb I'm not someone who enjoys spending upwards of twenty hours on one game, so I find it quite irritating to see devs churning out all these roguelikes all the time. Esoecially as they often look right up my alley in terms of arcade/platform/run & gun mechanics, but require what strikes me as ridiculous levels of dedication to tame.

It's easier than it's ever been for people to start making games and get involved in the process, same with other media. Things like the really big ambitious productions still take a huge number of people and resources however, that's unlikely to change. New software and techniques have made incredible results possible for small teams or even solo developers though.