Cliff Bleszinski defends on-disc DLC

Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski has spoken up in defense of on-disc DLC, insisting that it's often a necessary evil of the game development process.

Speaking in a GameSpot interview, the Gears of War mastermind explained that it is often imperative that a dev team works on new content between a game's completion and its ship date, and that some of that content is included on the disc.

"When you're making a game, and you're getting into a ship cycle, there's often three or four months where the game is basically done. And you have an idle team that needs to be working on things," he said.

"And often for compatibility issues, [on] day one, some of that content does need to be on-disc. It's an ugly truth of the gaming industry. I'm not the biggest fan of having to do it, but it is one of the unfortunate realities."

He went on to suggest that the practice should become a thing of the past as the digital revolution picks up pace.

"If we can get to fully downloadable games, then you can just buy a $30 horror game and just have it, and that stuff will thankfully go away," he said.

Capcom recently caught fan flak for hiding paid Street Fighter X Tekken extras on the retail disc.