There's a growing problem with online multiplayer games — particularly first-person shooters — when it comes to downloadable content (DLC). That is, most games these days, particularly first-person shooters, ship with a Season Pass that promises future content in exchange for additional money beyond the cost of the base game. For first-person shooters, like Call of Duty and Battlefield, the Season Pass includes things like new maps.
New maps are great and all, but there's just one problem: they fracture the playerbase. Once you start introducing new maps through DLC the community starts to split between players who have purchased the DLC and those who have not. Over time, the more DLC that's released, the more the community splits, resulting in long wait times in between matches, poor connection quality, and an overall poorer experience.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 developer Treyarch is aware of the problem, which is "particularly evil on PC," and they are looking into solutions. Responding to concerned fans on Reddit, Treyarch Studio Design Director David Vonderhaar assured the studio has some ideas to address the problem.
"It's particularly evil problem on PC. I can tell you that we know exactly what you are talking about. I've personally spoken to Cesar about that. Both of us have ideas to help mitigate it, none of which is done, announced or official. I generally avoid "I'll have to give a vague answer" style questions, but I am making an exception here.
More generally, people often ask for a "disable DLC" button. The problem with that approach is that it amplifies the problem. We generally aren't fans of a disable DLC button.
"Nobody" likes to hear that. I'm sure some people will jump on board and tell me I am wrong and cite other games in the franchise that did just that and call that successful. However, other games had this problem amplified because you got DLC in tiny chunks at a time. Every chunk resulted in an exponentially growing list of matchmaking pools."
Vonderhaar admitted that suggestions involving a change in business model is "far above my paygrade," but also said "those solutions don't get ignored and do get discussed."
"Perhaps ironically, it's sometimes more efficient to change the game design than it is to change the game's business model when working on established franchises," he concluded.
With Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 only releasing on Xbox One, PS4, and PC, it will already have a much smaller playerbase than we're used to having on last-gen systems, so this is clearly a concern for Treyarch and Activision. The question is, will Treyarch actually break from the mold and change Call of Duty's now-antiquated game design with Black Ops 3?
