DLC Is “New Form Of Something That Has Existed All Along” Says Capcom’s Ono

In an internally-conducted interview at Capcom, Corporate Officer and Deputy Head of Consumer Games Development Yoshinori Ono discusses the company’s stance on the development and release of downloadable content.

“DLC is essentially a form of paid service that enables users to continuously get the most out of their games,” Ono says, following a brief discussion about deep down, Capcom’s free-to-play game on PS4.

“In the past we didn’t offer DLC, but instead sold sequels or updates as packaged versions. With a game like Street Fighter, we ended up releasing new packaged updates about three times a year.”

“Reflecting back now, that sounds like a lot of updates for a packaged title, but basically that’s the idea behind DLC,” Ono continues. “I don’t think the emergence of DLC was something that came about suddenly, it’s just merely become easier to distribute additional elements and content on the computer system level. Basically, we’re seeing the new form of something that has existed all along.”

Ono goes on to talk about how Capcom develop DLC—whether it’s created during the development of the game or post-release.

“There are some things we develop at the same time, and there’s other stuff we create after the release of the full title,” says Ono. “The best thing to do is monitor trends in the days immediately following a game’s release, and then put out DLC which reflects these trends within a month.”

“Problems occur when something we develop completely from scratch fails to match what people need. That’s the advantage of DLC. It gives us an opportunity to monitor trends before we make a decision.”