I think that the entire concept of on-disc "DLC" is that is INHERENTLY offensive. Of course it's more efficient if they're done with that content to not pay bandwidth fees (on either end), and it makes logical sense. And even if they produced it during the main game development, it's quite possible it was using people whose part in the main game would otherwise be finished. But:

Those facts are irrelevant. It does NOT have to be objectively worse than the other option to be insulting to consumers.

Let's say you buy a Fluttershy pony toy (for your daughter). You get it home, open the packaging, and inside you find a locked box with a combination code on it. A few days later, you hear the announcement: for a few extra dollars, Hasbro will sell you the combination to your locked box and you can get Fluttershy's pet, Angel Bunny. Sure, one of you saves shipping cost, and it's not like they were going to give you that content for free, and they make so many toys it doesn't divert any notable resources from their modeling and creation of the Fluttershy pony that you knew you were buying.

Independent of these logical facts, they've created a product and "given" it to you when you purchased something else, but not quite: they literally locked it away and held it hostage until you give them a dollar figure.

In other words, the action itself is what is offensive, even if you can prove that the alternatives make more sense.

@abcdefgabcdefgz: In the used car market, your local Toyota dealer is in on the used Toyota market. Dealers also have service departments to make money after the used sale. But they also know that when you sell your old used car, you might come back in to spend more money on a new one. I don't know why, but for some reason game publishers still seem to completely ignore the fact that being able to trade in used games is what allows many to purchase the new ones at full price. (Though as Brendan points out, this is not a complete offset, but the effect isn't negligible.) For my part, I'd rather the money not go to Gamestop; I'd rather find more efficient ways of trading games and let consumers and developers both get the benefit. Brendan: great article. I generally buy new (albeit some months after release when the price drops to an appropriate level), but from now on I'll follow your lead and buy used when the publishers pull this kind of crap.