What's your most expensive DLC/Txn?

Just watched a Gameranx video—teaser below in spoiler—which lowered the location of my jaw by a few meters, since I don't keep up with the goings-on in the wallet-stripping part of our industry.

I knew it was pretty grotty, $5 here, $10 there for very little return. But heck, that seems downright charitable compared to what the video lists—with this one taking the cake:
hRhanRE.png
At least, I hope that's the dearest…

What was your guess?

If you wish to reveal most you've spent on a game in total, now's your chance…

Back when DLC was known as periodic Expansions, I happily spent £30-$40 on major expansions for games like Command & Conquer, Far Cry and Civilization.

Most I've spent in total on a franchise would be on C&C, because I've bought 'em all at least 3 times—the originals from '95 on, the 10-year Anniversary pack in '05, later the 17-game all-in pack from EA so I could have the digital versions, and most recently the 2020 Remaster. All-in somewhere around $750 I guess.
 
Star Citizen is madness.

One of the reasons I dislike coming late, or back to Paradox games like EU IV or Stellaris. The DLC's are way more that the base game and it gives me the feeling you arent getting the full experience unless you buy it all. I suppose maybe people who are buying all of it maybe dont play much else. Either that or they are considerably richer than me.

My own biggest spend on a series is on Total War Warhammer, €200 across the first two games and DLC's. No regrets, played a lot of those games. Never spent anything close to that on anything else.

Other than that, I dont tend to buy DLC's for action games unless its a GOTY edition or whatever that includes it or its on sale very cheap at the same time I get the base game. Never yet bought a loot box or XP booster or anything cosmetic.
 
I haven't stopped to do the math for that on a lot of games. I suspect I've spent too much on Planet Coaster, but I have no idea how much. And if we're talking expansions, my wife and I spent a fortune on various MMO expansions back in the day, Everquest, World of Warcraft, and to a lesser but more recent degree, Lord Of The Rings Online. (Spent a little on Elder Scrolls Online, but it's nothing compared to those others, which I'm sure reached well into the $300+ region, at least, and those were 1998-2006 dollars.)

Then there's the various Civ expansions/DLC! God, when I think of what I've spent on just that series alone over the years... this can be an expensive hobby if you let it! =D
 
My most expensive DLC purchases to date is Destiny 2. Id say that this is the only franchise ive ever spent money like this on when it comes to DLC.

So theres been 7 DLC's released in total so far since its release. Up until the 3rd DLC bungie would just release the DLC and whatever came with it, came with it. From DLC #3 (Forsaken) and on, Bungie introduced "seasons" that either were purchased as a bundle ("ultimate" editions of whatever expansion) or separately for 10 bucks. There has been 3 seasons between each expansion too so it was cheaper to buy the ultimate editions than spending the 10 dollars separately at each new season, imo.

So ive pretty much just bought each of the ultimate versions. So the first 2 DLCs and the game itself is when i jumped in. I did not pre-order and pay all the extra money then. For that i paid 30 bucks (was on sale etc.). Ive paid pretty much full price for every expansion after that, x2 because i play with my wife. The recent expansion was more for me simply because i bought the "collectors edition". (the last 4 expansions of Destiny have included collectors editions in which i didnt buy)

This isnt including the amount of money ive spent on in-game (real life money) currency called Silver and for the most part, ALMOST everything that costs silver eventually costs Bright Dust (earned in-game currency). So this game def. bit at my "i need it now" impulse buys more than once lol.

I can easily say ive spent 700-1000 on this game since i started playing back in 2017 mainly due to buying almost everything twice and its cosmetics. Its this amount of money being 1 of the reasons i still play. Its nice to have a lot of stuff you cant get anymore to show it off, but then you start thinking of the money you spent.

Thing is, these are ROOKIE numbers compared to people i know lol.

I am also not one of these gamers that spends hundreds more on stuff outside of the one game like clothes, books, multiple figures, funko pops, musical soundtrack albums etc... I have some things (a ghost shell i got as a gift with my gamertag on it, a pin that supported charity) but my living space isnt a Destiny 2 shrine more so a video-games-in-general shrine lol.

I dont regret it though, ive had fun with Destiny.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
My most expensive DLC? Most of the time I get DLC bundled with the game, so that's not easy to pick out. I'm guessing the Battletech Season Pass, which I bought for full price at $40. That could be beaten out by paying $100 for the Galactic Civilization 3 Founders edition, depending on how much the game is supposed to cost in that bundle. BattleTech has 3 extensive DLCs in that package and Gal Civ 3 had... well, a lot more.

I've never gone over $140 in a single transaction on Steam.
 
I went through my purchase history on Steam (there's surprisingly little on there). I paid €48 for Total War: Warhammer II DLC (with Rise of the Tomb King being €19 of that because I bought it outside of a sale) and €42 on Crusader Kings II DLC, all on sale for a few euros a piece.

My largest single transaction was €50 for the Borderlands 2 pre-order, the rest is all less than €25.

In total, I've spent €302.58 on Steam.

I don't remember ever buying a physical expansion pack and I'm pretty sure I haven't bought any DLC on other platforms, nor spend money on microtransactions.
 
Back when DLC was known as periodic Expansions, I happily spent £30-$40 on major expansions for games
That's how I remember them also, expansions, usually story based for RPGs and/or a new area to explore, and to me well worth the cost if I loved the original game.

There was Tribunal & Bloodmoon for Morrowind, Shivering Isles for Oblivion, and Dragonborn, Hearthfire, & Dawnguard forSkyrim; all well worth the cost and contained hundreds of hours (for me) that added to those created worlds.

I've also purchased all the DLC for Mass Effect 2 & 3 and enjoyed those as well, though I can't recall all the names of those DLCs or the cost. Dragon Age Origins had a bunch of smaller story based DLC, as well as the major expansion Awakening. Probably the most expensive (I think) would be the DLCs for Dragon Age Inquisition (Dragonslayer, Black Emporium, The Descent, Jaws of Hakkon, & Trespasser) and some of those had a massive amount of content. There's also Hearts of Stone & Blood and Wine for Wticher 3.

So yeah, I've probably spent hundreds of dollars over the years on expansions/DLCs, I'm just not patient enough to wait on those Game of the Year editions that include everything. Not a cost effective habit, but I'm happier for it.

One type of DLC that I have little or no interest in is the cosmetic type, armor/weapon packs, or horse amour either.
 

Sarafan

Community Contributor
I have to admit that I buy DLCs, especially if they add something to the story, new locations etc. I like to enjoy the complete versions. The most expensive DLC that I've bought? It's hard to tell. I usually don't buy them right after the release. I have a tendency to wait for sale, so the price numbers aren't huge. The thing that annoys me is that Season Passes are frequently more expensive than the GOTY versions of games.
 
My most expensive DLCs are probably one of the Cities Skylines DLCs or one of the Witcher 3 DLCs. Those are the only ones I've gotten at release. I usually wait for a sale when it comes to DLCs.

My kids play Sims 4, and those expansions are pretty expensive, especially for what they get. And there is a ton of them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Krud and Zloth
As far as literal "Downloadable Content" (vs. the hardcopy expansion CD's I used to buy, as recently as Oblivion), it feels not so long ago that I absolutely refused to pay for my game experience piecemeal, and was mildly offended back when Dragon Age Origins put an injured NPC in front of me and was like "Wanna help him? It's gonna cost ya..."

I can't even remember what game changed that mentality for me. Probably one of the Civ games.
 

TRENDING THREADS