I Hate it When Games Call Their DLC A, "Season Pass," and Am Going to Share Why

You all say, "Season Pass,"but I don't think you understand what it means.

When you buy a, "Season," of a television show digitally on Blu-Ray/DVD you get that whole show, with all the special features. Imagine if you bought a television show but were told to get the full, "Season," you had to pay more money, then you could download the commentaries from creators, extra scenes, etc. all piecemeal or as part of a, "Season pass." Wouldn't you say, "Season pass? I just bought the damn season!" You would be pretty pissed, right? This is why I hate when games call their downloadable content something that can be totally bought with a, "Season Pass," as we keep seeing constantly with upcoming titles like, "Watch Dogs 2," and other games.

Think about this: A game is in a way a, "Season," of entertainment. It should have a full story (or at least give you the kind of game-play where you create your own fun stories to share), provide you with a good amount of entertainment, etc. Therefore, saying someone can buy downloadable content (DLC) in a, "Season Pass," is stupid. I already bought the season, you're just trying to get more money from me for extra stuff you didn't put in the season. Now, this rule doesn't apply to game that actually come out in episodes and which offer a, "Season pass," to play the whole game. It is different if you can buy episodes of the game in downloadable chunks of the whole season of the title--that is exactly like television shows where you can download some episodes or buy a whole season when the show itself actually wraps. Hence, the adventure games Telltale releases in bits ("Walking Dead," "Batman," and so forth) or the most recent way the Hitman game came out are excused as they are actually following the way I think a, "Season," should play-out for a game. It ain't a, "Season," if you give me a whole game and then try to tack on a whole bunch of stuff though. No way, no how.

Again, you say, "Game of the Year," as if you understand what that means.

Now, I am by no means saying I am against paid DLC. If you want to release your game and then have a bunch of extra stuff people can pay to download, go for it! I mean, I probably am not going to buy the DLC and instead of purchasing the initial release of the game will wait for the later-version that collects everything (often called, "Game of the Year Editions," even if the title never won such an award from any publication), but feel free to do that. I will continue to admire when people do what the creators of, "Overwatch," and, "Titanfall 2," have done however, where all the actual good stuff you can play with is free and they just charge for fun little cosmetic things that don't impact the game. I'm really impressed when there isn't DLC and the whole game actually comes when you buy the actual game (or any and all DLC is free)--but these days that sounds crazy!

This sounds almost as whiny as my recent post about the upcoming, "Switch," from Nintendo, but I believe I actually am standing on some firm ground here. Plenty of people hate DLC and while I'm not quite as hardcore anti-DLC as some folk, I clearly despise companies trying to sell it to us as some kind of, "Season Pass," when the way they are doing  it (earlier-mentioned exceptions aside) is in no way what I think of when I hear I can buy a, "Season," of something. I feel better now that I got all this irritation off my chest--metaphorically speaking--I don't actually have any irritation on my chest (if I did, I would go to the doctor ASAP). Do you agree, or am I in fact just yelling into the void of consumer indifference? At this point considering how much money companies make off DLC I'm really not sure.