> but I think it should be obvious to anyone that development of new content needs to be paid for somehow. I think decades of free player created mods, patche

> but I think it should be obvious to anyone that development of new content needs to be paid for somehow. I think decades of free player created mods, patches, skins, textures, and maps should make it obvious to anyone that the development of new content doesn't need to be paid for with credit cards and in-game currency. Providing players with tools to generate their own new content increases the longevity of your game, increases the number of players, gets your bugs fixed at no cost, and can even give companies a way to spot amazing talent. There are still people making content for UT99! Some companies don't just make it harder for people to create new content, some file lawsuits against players creating content. Although modding communities have done amazing things, that doesn't mean developers shouldn't continue to create cool things too and I haven't really heard any complaints about expansions as long as they are seen as worthwhile and are genuinely new additions to a game and not just large parts of the story paywalled off for a quick buck (still looking at you, mass effect). DLC isn't something that really needs to exist to fund games or to make sure that there is amazing new content for gamers. It's generally just a scam used to bleed whales and make gamers feel bad thanks to FOMO and their increasingly strained budgets. Why is it that I can still buy DRM for skyrim, but I also need to install a free community written patch to fix a massive number of major bugs?