Dying Light is community at its finest

It’s not every day that a game developer unironically tells you to “keep drinking.” Were it not for the days of Mountain Dew partnerships, the immediate assumption might be that they’re simply promoting an alcoholism simulator. Instead, the notion brings to mind breathtakingly stupid cross-product marketing campaigns. Surprisingly, the opposite is true: the proposition comes from Dying Light developer Techland’s #DrinkForDLC campaign, which is handing out free content in exchange for tweeted pictures of players drinking water.

Funnily enough though, #DrinkForDLC did start with a breathtakingly stupid idea, or at least a response to one. In yet another effort to recoup costs from Destiny’s absurd $500 million budget, Activision put the game in bed with Red Bull and stapled a timed-exclusive Strike to special cans of the drink. In response, Techland, eager to jump on “the latest trend in game marketing,” invited players to post pictures of them drinking any sort of water in order to claim a free weapon. And did you know that water is not only natural, vegan and delicious, but also “basically free?”

What started as a parody quickly spiraled into a full-blown movement: #DrinkForDLC garnered thousands of participants and pictures in a matter of hours. So Techland took it further. After handing out the free weapon—with the code “TH1RST-1S-R34L,” fittingly enough—the studio announced four pieces of free DLC, which would be awarded to all Dying Light players as the #DrinkForDLC hashtag broke tweet thresholds. In the most recent update, near the end of June, Techland confirmed that the trend had hit 10,000 tweets, netting players their first freebie. Fans have scarcely slowed their posts, so it’s a safe bet that the 20,000 mark is approaching fast.

I say all this not to gush over Dying Light—which I thoroughly enjoyed but also had a few problems with—but because the games industry is in dire need of role models. There are plenty of creative inspirations to put on pedestals, but there’s far more negativity than anything in the nuts and bolts of games, the inextricable red tape of bureaucracy and business. And in the vacuum of Dying Light—because Dead Island was a mess—Techland provides an excellent example of community management and consumer interaction.

The social media manager in me makes goo-goo eyes at Dying Light’s feeds, but there’s much more to Techland’s success. Theirs is a philosophy supportive of its users and confident in its product—concepts that all games stand to benefit from incorporating. And it all started with user-made content.

Dying Light is an emphatic supporter of player-made mods, rightly viewing them as meaningful interaction with PC players and a source of free content to keep the game relevant. Sanctioned mod tools have done wonders for creators, and underscore Dying Light’s prevailing tactic: longevity.

It isn’t a particularly huge or lengthy game, but there’s still oodles to do in Dying Light. Even on consoles, without the luxury of modding the game silly, players have the Summer with Dying Light, a two-month affair of weekend events. The fan-favorite Bad Batch of Antizin event gives players the strength to drop kick zombies into the next district and cleave their top-halves away with a teaspoon, while Spider-Crane grants infinite grappling hooks and greatly reduced fall damage, incentivizing some otherwise suicidal climbing shenanigans.

Small events like these give existing players reason to keep playing and newcomers reason to pick the game up. Longer campaigns like the game's newly announced "180 Days of Content" are only more enticing. What’s most impressive is that this has all occurred within a profoundly linear game.

Dying Light has multiplayer, sure, but it’s no Diablo 3 or Final Fantasy 14, multiplayer-focused games you would expect to be supported with frequent content updates. Map packs and Season Passes aside, even the best shooters and survival games are usually one-and-done. But thanks to mods, events and the game-overhauling addition of hard mode, even solo players can find new ways to play Dying Light.

Beyond keeping current owners happy, Techland has also done a fine job of expanding its audience, an endeavor in which publicity magnets like #DrinkForDLC are invaluable. It’s an open invitation to everyone, whether you own the game or not, to have some fun with a simple idea and get free DLC in the process. And thanks to its origins, the trend came to be viewed as defiant of the rampant over-expansion and price-gouging which has ravaged games like Destiny and Evolve.

DLC does not sell games; games sell DLC. Techland knows this, and with Dying Light they’ve embraced the marketability of free content and the power of new users. Rather than attempt to wring every last cent out of its existing audience, the studio has prioritized earning new consumers through continued support.

No game is perfect, and I won’t pretend that Dying Light is spotless. It was a wreck on PC at launch and remained that way on AMD systems for some time after. The game saw paid DLC of its own within weeks of its release, well before the base game was properly patched and optimized. Its Season Pass was hardly worth $20, and then there’s that whole Dead Island thing. But I will still shout from the rooftops and put up in lights that every game should seek to emulate the transparent, amicable and pro-consumer persona that Dying Light has developed.