We’ve seen a bit of everything when it comes to post-release DLC for sports games in the last year or so. There have been games that have maintained the status quo — boosts, Ultimate Team, etc. There have also been games that have doubled down on unpopular free-to-play concepts, such as NBA 2K’s VC system. And further still, there have been games that have tried to innovate in the DLC space by building a dialogue with the community and by releasing free content updates, such as The Golf Club and EA Sports UFC.

What’s aggravating about some of the more blatant free-to-play (F2P) strategies that some companies are using, as well as some of the status quo stuff like Ultimate Team, is that it has a knock-on effect to other products. Games that don’t ordinarily feature DLC hooks and F2P-style microtransactions suddenly become very predatory places for those companies willing to exploit every available dollar that could fill their coffers.

At the same time, this drags along casual and mid-level users who don’t normally engage with these systems. A lot of people enjoy Ultimate Team and the like, but a lot of people want no part of it. For those that don’t, they have to deal with the constant homogenizing of their games that now try and force these virtual trading card systems down their throat. Similarly, stuff like the VC system in NBA 2K becomes this insidious thing that creeps into single-player content, when many users just want to throw down and play some ball.

I’ve written before about my feelings on DLC, especially when it concerns specific titles that infringe upon the unspoken compact between consumer and company. One of my more contentious e-mail exchanges took place after I said some things about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13. Some of the PR people took issue with my characterizing of half of the DLC courses as being “locked” at the outset. In my view, games like that set a dangerous precedent, where over half of the courses (many of which had been free in previous iterations) were being sold behind a paywall or locked behind an arduous mastery process. What made this even more galling was that all of these courses were portioned off on day 1. They only hosted them on a server to avoid the ire of people realizing they only needed an “unlock key” to get them — you know, one of those several kilobyte files that unlock on-disc content.

It’s my feeling that we’ve actually gotten lucky in the last year or so, as a few different situations — some intentional, some not — have led to a cooling in some of the more aggressive DLC panhandling. For starters, the digital future of the console space has allowed for some level of sales on games and DLC. I still don’t think the console makers have moved fast enough on these initiatives to equal that of Steam sales (as they are clearly still afraid of brick and mortar stores), but it gives consumers some level of choice as to when they jump in for a certain game.

The server outages that various games have experienced, either from random issues or from calculated hacks on XBL and PSN, have also shown companies and consumers the fallibility of these always-online situations. When people are losing access to created content, DLC and even basic single player because of a server outage, it serves as a stark reminder that the digital future isn’t quite a reality yet. At the end of the day, users should not be losing content they’ve purchased or unlocked. Just the same, they shouldn’t be held hostage by poor servers and inconsistent syncing.

NBA 2K15’s server issues and VC problems are almost the perfect microcosm of how one of these “freemium” models can go awry. You’ve got a completely arbitrary currency system that the developer has chosen to weave into the entire game, and then users are punished by this currency being flushed or by servers going down. When people can’t enjoy basic things like a career mode because of some silly currency system or unstable servers, that’s a problem.

What I’ve often said about EA’s DLC practices (Ultimate Team, boosts, unlockable courses, etc.) is that they can get away with brute force. What do I mean by that? Well, if you have a pond as big as the 10 to 15 million people that buy FIFA each year, you can kind of charge what you want for fake trading cards. It’s a completely false economy. Even though 90 percent of your player base is absolutely repudiating the business practice of that sort of DLC, you can say: “Well, look at how many people bought it. Look at our bottom line.” And when FIFA routinely makes $100 million off FUT alone, who am I to argue? But what I said before matters here: the casual and mid-level users are pulled along for the ride, whether they like it or not.

The EA Access system is actually kind of a reasonable olive branch from EA in terms of DLC and content, but it has a few caveats. I think the annual price is relatively decent, but I’d say the discount on DLC needs to be 15 or 20 percent to be something truly meaningful. If you’re going to ask people to commit to your brand for many of their games, the DLC and full-game downloads need to be slightly more appealing in terms of price. This is especially true when the Vault aspect of the service looks to become less enticing since EA has very few games on the horizon. It’s been great so far, but it could get lean this year. Also, the preview period for games needs to be more than six hours, especially for sports games. In fact, if a user buys a game before its release, they should really just get to play the full game a few days in advance. That would make the service enticing to quite a few users, I’d expect.

EA Sports UFC has also been another interesting experiment in content delivery and iteration from EA. Then again, this has only happened because that franchise didn’t really blow the doors off in terms of sales. Maybe EA knew that would be the case; maybe they didn’t. Either way, it’s likely going to be a numbered sequel to that franchise that will arrive two years after the first one, and that gives the dev team some time to experiment. To the benefit of users of the game, it has been augmented with a dozen new DLC fighters — all for free — as well as meaningful gameplay updates that have added a new combo system for striking, tweaked stamina levels, new animations for kick catching and takedowns, as well as other wrinkles to the ground and clinch game. It’s really cool to see developers actively work on their product in such a transparent way, and the new fighters (including recent additions like Rampage Jackson and Brock Lesnar) have kept the game fresh for the online crowd.

But the shining example of post-release support this year has been The Golf Club. At the outset, the game’s course creator and community creations have drastically shifted the paradigm for how a game can grow and change after its initial release. With the transparency of developer HB Studios, the game has almost been a joint effort between creator and consumer. HB Studios previously worked as a port house, making “other” versions of NHL for EA, but now they’re doing their own thing (who needs an official license?), and they’re likely changing the way sports games will be made going forward. Not only have they added new “official” courses and gameplay tweaks, but they’ve provided new content for the course creator, a handicap system, and even updates to the game’s simple yet charming commentary.

The price of The Golf Club initially put some people off, but I look at it as an experiment in what sports could be in the future. Sure, there are certain limits to what the game can do with a price point that’s in the middle and a dev team that’s smaller, but it allows for a proper compact between developer and consumer. The initial money upfront is a sign to the developer that the consumer is paying for more of a service. That’s really what The Golf Club is in a way. Whether the bigger developers learn from it remains to be seen.

I’m hopeful that the server outages and missteps that certain franchises have taken, both in overall game quality and in DLC models, will serve as a reminder that there are better ways out there. It doesn’t mean that DLC is inherently bad. On the contrary, as companies can get their fair share while treating the consumer’s dollar with some level of respect. The service model is an interesting alternative to the commodity-based DLC of today, and we’ll see if there’s a blend that brings us to a better spot in the coming year.