: I mean, the issue of DLC fragmentation being a non issue by free maps is a
: HUGE plus, but I can't help but feel that it could have been accomplished
: in other ways. They are not free either. SOMEONE is paying for them. And
: if you aren't that means someone is paying more than they otherwise would.

: I'm beginning to think that simply raising the base price of the game is the
: best solution moving forward. It's amazing we have had the $60 price point
: for as long as we have. Bumping it up to $70 could probably solve so much,
: and have little negative effect in the long run as people get used to the
: price. We're essentially already paying more than $60 bucks for our games
: when we buy special editions and DLC anyway.

It wouldn't be a popular solution, but considering that game prices have been on the decline in inflation-adjusted terms (in the U.S., at least), it is a reasonable one. I mean, look at how much game prices have dropped since the early 90s:

Even with DLC added on you're only talking about reaching the lower to mid-tier price range of 16-bit era games. And before anyone mentions the higher costs of cartridges, let's not forget that the sticker prices on Sega-CD, TurboGrafx-CD, and early PS1 games usually retailed for $50-60 unadjusted. And of course game development costs have increased by several orders of magnitude since the early 90s. An early SNES game may have cost less than $100k to develop, but a modern game can run $20-40M, not including advertising costs.

Honestly, I think DLC is the only thing that's keeping retail costs for games down over time. It's also a low-cost, high-margin product. Finally, it's optional, and I think publishers might stick with the $60 retail cost plus an optional $20-30 of DLC instead of simply bumping the retail cost of the game and then releasing the DLC for free. Many gamers already forget the basic economic reality of inflation and think $60 is "too much" even though games have gotten incredibly more complex and have far more content and longer playthrough lengths than old NES & SNES games did. Best to do what 343i is doing and have the major DLC (map packs and the like) for free and compensate with microtransactions (say, $1 for a weapon or armor skin or $2 for an armor permutation, but nothing that would affect gameplay, however slight). It would ruffle the fewest feathers.

Of course, the above chart may not hold for other countries/regions (I know there's been negligible effective inflation in Japan over the past 15 years or so).