Capcom just announced the characters it will be offering as additional downloads for Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. The trouble is that the game isn’t even out until tomorrow.

I get that DLC is a part of gaming life now. But as a consumer, it sticks in my craw that publishers are hyping up more things that they can sell to me before they’ve even released the thing I’m meant to buy them for.

I understand that during the development process, there’s likely to be a plan – however vague – for possible downloadable content further down the line. But, and perhaps I’m being naive, the thing I want as a consumer is to believe that the publisher and developer are putting their heart and soul into making the base game as good and feature-filled as it can be before it finally rolls off the production line and onto shop shelves. If you start telling me about add-on extras before the game is even released, I get the suspicion that you might just be holding back on game assets that you’ve already developed but deliberately didn’t put into the game, just so you could make an extra buck or two on them down the line.

No one wants to be taken for a fool. And bragging about DLC before a game is even out makes fools of us all.

UPDATE (3rd Oct 2017): I’ve had a bit more time to think about this and digest the comments on this post – check out my response here.