Just Cause 2 dev questions the value of DLC

Avalanche Studios boss Christofer Sundberg said that publishers and developers have "run around as headless chickens" trying to make money through DLC.

"DLC is not needed to keep players engaged if the game is well executed," he told Eurogamer.

Sundberg said that few developers have been truly successful with DLC.

"I like DLC, but the DLC we released for Just Cause 2 was standard stuff, and they haven't helped keep the players motivated to keep on playing," he said. "It was the game itself. The big thing now is to force multiplayer into games that are really single-player games just to combat second-hand sales, and that makes absolutely no sense, as it just consumes budget and does not add any value except on the back of the box."

Sundberg added that most DLC is "crap" — content that developers cut and marketed at DLC because they couldn't fit it into the game.

He defended Just Cause 2, calling it "a full-out playground for the players who want to explore and have fun for 15 minutes or 15 hours. It doesn't really matter." The numbers speak for themselves: In March, two years after launch, JC2 reached over 100,000 unique players each week, with some clocking more than 200 hours.

Avalanche is working on several current and next-gen console projects, including an open-world game for JC2 publisher Square Enix.

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