Ubisoft to Stop Selling "Full Game Experience" through DLC

While everyone else celebrates Thanksgiving, spending the day with friends and family to eat and slowly hate each other, over here in Europe, it's just another Thursday. So instead of getting the day off, I get to keep working, which means, of course, reporting even more gaming news that has cropped up even with everyone's stomachs bulging from turkey. And if you're looking for some good news, well... I already reported some. But if you're looking for even MORE good news, then I've got just the ticket: Ubisoft is apparently going to start being less greedy.
 
Talking with Gamesindustry.biz, Ubisoft VP of live operations Anne Blondel-Jouin reported that Ubisoft was going to start approaching paid DLC differently, in a way that would be more consumer friendly that wouldn't affect the "full game experience." She says:

"The key is if it's not adding something on-top of the actual experience of the game, then it is no good. Because you'll be asking for more money for the wrong reasons. Also, if the content is compulsory for the gamers, it's no good as well. It is a way to deliver more fun to gamers, but they have a choice to go for that extra fun or not... It wouldn't work if it was about making it compulsory for gamers. No more DLC that you have to buy if you want to have the full experience. You have the game, and if you want to expand it - depending on how you want to experience the game - you're free to buy it, or not."

This, of course, is a great thing. While it's far from a guarantee, nor a promise they won't lock gameplay-related content behind DLC, it at least acknowledges that there's a problem with the way DLC can be used, and that they want to do something that's fair to their players.

I think we can all agree there's nothing wrong with DLC, but implementation often messes up an otherwise good idea: so Ubisoft, traditionally one of the less-good companies on the market, saying they'll make steps to remedy that is encouraging. The fact that the latest Rainbow Six game only lets you buy customization stuff and extra character slots seems to add clout to her claim, which is all the more heartening.

So we have ourselves a little extra bit of good news.  And we need more good news in times like these.