Even if you’re not a fan of Burnout Paradise or the direction Criterion Games took with the open-world template, you simply cannot deny the fact that their model for DLC is leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else in the industry. If you take a look back at the major DLC released for games this year for the Xbox 360 or PS3, it’s mostly been an attempt to nickel and dime the existing fans. Sadly, a $10 map pack isn’t very likely to bring back those gamers who traded the game in or sent it back to Gamefly.
What is likely to bring fans back into your game? Criterion answered that, and you can find it after the break.
When Burnout Paradise was unleashed onto the world in early 2008, it was a mere shadow of its true self, a husk of a game. Of course, it was one of the most enjoyable games for me personally, but when I think back to how much they added, it’s suprising how little we actually started with. Now I’ve thought long and hard about how I’m going to condense all of the awesomeness that is the Burnout Paradise DLC into one page, and in the end it seems like the simplest way to show just how much there is would be to list it all off, so here I go.
- Road Rage, Marked Man, and Stunt Run added to Online Freeburn
- 70 New Freeburn Challenges
- 2 New Cars with some new paint jobs for older ones
- 4 Motorcycles to play around with
- Day and Night Cycle
- Another 70 new Freeburn Challenges
- Dynamic Weather Conditions
- PS3 Trophies and Sountrack Support
- Brand new News page to keep you updated
So, there you go, and also while releasing content, they’ve also been fixing bugs and tweaking their ranking system on a regular basis to keep their game balanced and fun. The best part is, each and every item on that list is FREE. You’re not going to have to toss down $10 to get the content that most people are using online, nor will you have to pay out of your pocket for the newest and most enjoyable vehicles in the game. If there was ever a model for DLC, Criterion hit the ball out of the park and set quite a standard down that I wish other developers would follow. While the free DLC train is coming to a stop, they spent a whole year updating and tweaking their game to make their fans want to pay for the upcoming DLC.
Plus, if their free DLC is any indication, the stuff we’ll have to pay for will blow our minds.
From motorcycles to sweet online modes, awesome and free DLC is the reason why Burnout Paradise is #100 on our list of Top Gaming Moments of 2008.
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What a great game this is. I bought it back in January and have played close to 100 hours. Everytime this game gets put down they releasae something new that makes me come back for more. Now with 4 more updates by Summer of 09 I will gladly pay for those updates. Just to show Criterion how much I appreciate all the free stuff. Lets hope other developers will see this and try the same thing.
Here’s a question: How did Criterion manage to get away with releasing all this DLC when, according to Valve, they’re strictly limited by MS in how much content they can release for free? Are we not getting the whole truth here, are there different contract for different developers? Hmmmm….
Yep, I’m gonna second Granite’s question. Something seems amiss…
Nope. Because all this stuff isn’t released as DLC but as an UPDATE to the game itself, Criterion are basically exploiting a loophole in their contract (or whatever) with Microsoft.
Pretty sure there’s no limit to how many UPDATES they can put out.