Happy 2012 to you good looking Playstationer.net readers. I hope Christmas was full of the gaming goodness you hoped for. As we enter January the working folks of the world will always tighten their belts when it comes to spending money. The cost of Christmas is just too much to bare thinking of. You can already here your finance manager (AKA, Wife, Husband, Girlfriend, Boyfriend or Mum) “Don’t even mention spending another penny before Valentines Day” (I don’t know, Something about shooting someone in the knee with an arrow whilst wearing wings???)

The odds are you didn’t listen. . .

I am willing to bet that many of you got games like ‘Arkham City’ or ‘Battlefield 3’ for Christmas. After playing them for a while, you get bored and want to expand your game, especially in the case of ‘Battlefield’, Thank the developers for the downloadable content (DLC). Suddenly you turn into an accountant and are running numbers and breaking Piggy Banks to find the £11.99 needed to keep up with the rest of the on-line community. I have been there, searching for the last penny behind the couch for the minimum £5 transaction value on the PS store just so I could add some more songs to my rock band library.

I have spent over £200 on Rock Band DLC alone and there are still a plethora of tracks I have yet to buy because I have to weigh up the cost of food versus DLC. Food one that battle, Eating is such an inconvenience to a gamer on a budget. What’s even worse is that I can’t get one of my all time favourite bands, Straw, on the game. I have a £200 cheque waiting for a one off version of ‘Shoplifting’, Straw’ only album. Sorry I went off on a tangent there.

Why isn’t this available on Rock Band Harmonix?

Like many of you I know somebody that plays Modern Warfare 3. He has to face shelling out for a suggested 20 DLC packs this year. That’s potentially £200 over 12 months. It has taken me nearly 3 years to spend £200 on my Rock Band DLC. The thing is, like me, he is a full time student. Where is he going to find the funds for that? Have Activision forgotten a lot of their revenue comes from Students? What sacrifices will he make? Will he be running down to a ‘Game’ or ‘Gamestation’ to trade his games in for points cards?

And that there is the point of it. Is DLC really beneficial to us? I was in full time employment before going back into education 2 years ago and I struggled with the cost of DLC then. Do you get irritated by the sheer volume? What if there were pre-payment schemes like THQ’s WWE ’12’ excellent ‘All Axxess Pass’ where you pay for all the DLC upfront and at a discount, would this make it easier? Sure Modern Warfare 3 has the Elite service (Is it working yet?) but, that only discounts the packs it doesn’t pay for them up front and at £40 I would wonder what it is your saving.

Let us know what you think? Does DLC make you pine for the days of the Cartridge where no DLC was on offer or do you love throwing your money at the PlayStation Store? Has the pricing of Day-One DLC put you off from buying games such as Tiger Woods and Madden?