Do we even buy “a game” anymore—or have we long since been buying a platform for DLCs?

You buy a game for €29.99—and a year later, you realize you’ve already spent three or four times that amount. New routes, vehicles, maps, add-ons, expansions. Especially with simulations, this raises an increasingly intriguing question: Are we even buying a single game anymore—or rather a platform that lives on for years through DLCs?

If you look at the simulation market in a sober, analytical way, one thing becomes clear very quickly: the real economic strength today often no longer lies in the base game alone, but in everything that comes after it.

The base game is often just the entry point. The actual revenue is generated over years through routes, vehicles, maps, expansions, and add-ons. This model is particularly pronounced in the simulation genre.

A perfect example is Euro Truck Simulator 2. The game was released back in 2012—and remains economically relevant to this day. Why? Not primarily because of the one-time purchase price, but because of continuous expansions: new countries, map packs, trailer DLCs, tuning packs, and special transport content.

The same applies to American Truck Simulator. Here too, the model thrives on regularly released states and vehicle expansions. Many players enter through the base game, but continue investing for years afterward.

This model becomes even clearer in the rail sector. Train Sim World 6 is practically a textbook example of how a game turns into a platform. The base game forms the technical foundation—the actual content grows through route and vehicle DLCs.

From a market perspective, this fits exactly with the genre’s growth. According to Kings Research, the global simulation games market was already valued at USD 9.63 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to USD 28.24 billion by 2031.

This shows that recurring content is not just optional side business—it is a central growth driver.

And this is where the most analytically interesting point comes in:

Without DLCs, many major simulation games would hardly be economically sustainable in the long term.

Simulations have high development and maintenance costs. Map creation, vehicle models, sounds, physics systems, and long-term support all generate ongoing costs. The base game finances the launch—the DLC structure often finances the future.

This is neither automatically good nor bad. Above all, it is a business model built on long-term retention instead of a one-time purchase.

So perhaps the real question is no longer whether DLCs are annoying—but whether they are exactly the reason why many simulation games can continue to be developed for more than ten years.

Do you usually buy just the base game, or do you invest heavily in DLCs? Roughly how much money have you already spent on DLCs? Does that still feel fair to you—or too much? Can a simulation game today even feel complete without DLCs?