The pricing of games and their various content has been a hot topic recently, and for good reason. Some claim that certain AAA titles will be priced WAY above what is the “industry standard” right now, making many fans nervous. Plus, you have all the microtransactions and DLC prices that have caused numerous controversies in 2024 and beyond. That brings us to Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. While the game does have a Season Pass that you can get all its main content in, you can also choose to buy the DLC separately. For those who want the “Hero of Justice” pack that just released, that’ll cost you $17.99.
As you can imagine, fans weren’t exactly thrilled with that, so they went to places like Twitter to discuss if the cost of the DLC was worth it.
More than likely, you can guess that many of them definitely did NOT think that this DLC pack was worth that price. For many, they didn’t like how there were basically “slight differences” between some of the characters, including multiple versions of Gohan and Piccolo that weren’t too much different from the ones already in the game, and then there was the fact that the “Hero of Justice” pack doesn’t add many stages, costumes, accessories, etc.
Many feel that if this were to be worth that much, it would need extra content beyond just the characters. For example, some extra story content or new challenges specific to the characters for players to try out. For all intents and purposes, this content is just about the new characters and then seeing how various characters “react” to them when in faceoffs.
That’s nice for diehard fans, but not those who have restrictions on money and want to ensure they’re actually getting their money’s worth.
Of course, while Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has its controversy with this, fans of certain Bandai Namco games know that this isn’t something new for the publisher. Last year, a certain fighting game got serious controversy when Bandai Namco brought in Heihachi Mishima via the title’s season pass but then made gamers have to buy the stage that came with him separately! The stage was $5, and that was the “last straw” for many players, as it was ridiculous to them how Bandai Namco was trying to milk the microtransactions for all they were worth.
If things don’t change with future DLC content, this trend could absolutely continue.