Fire Emblem's shameless grab for more of my money

Pre-order on Amazon.

I'm counting the days until February 19th because that's when the next Fire Emblem game (Fire Emblem: Fates) comes out. Or, to be more accurate, games. 

See, the next installment has pulled a Pokemon and will have two different "versions". From what I've gathered on TVTropes, there are two royal families involved. One raised you, the other is your biological family, and the storyline branches depending on which family you side with in some kind of medieval conflict (I would choose the family that raised me, unless they're awful, but I digress).

And then! And then. It looks like there might be a third part that will be released as DLC, so I estimate that I'll be shelling out around $70 dollars to play this thing in full. And I'll be paying for it because, videogame gods help me, I love these games. I'm currently trying to harass my brother into playing Awakening so I'll have someone IRL to talk about this with.

I'm trying to be a little less bitter about this since I know that this videogame-making business must be getting rough. Immense numbers of hours go into making a polished game, yet the market is flooded by easily-cranked out "casual" stuff like Candy Crush, which are completely free for the vast majority of players. As it is, I don't know if it's possible for anyone to make the kinds of games I enjoy if the audience will only pay for a copy once, as it used to be in the days before DLC. The only other revenue source I can conceive is advertisements, and I'm pretty sure I'd hurl my DS across the room if my gameplay was interrupted by someone trying to sell me make-up. Or a car.

The more I think about it, the more I accept that DLC is pretty much the future. It might not even be a bad thing since it's probably easier to augment an existing game than it is to start a new game from scratch. I can only hope that videogame companies take care to deliver quality content via DLC. But considering the manure companies have been known to release (I'm looking at you Ubisoft), I'm not holding my breath.

For example, FE creators have been adamant that this new splitting in Fates is not as transparent as the Pokemon nonsense (Pokemon essentially releases two versions of the exact same game with a few different critters in each, then a third game a couple of years later that combines both versions; I have a friend who buys all three copies religiously). It seems that Birthright and Conquest will both have enough unique content to justify having to pay for Fire Emblem: Fates twice. Which begs the question, did they just release two incomplete games rather than focus their attention on making one complete, good game?

That's my biggest concern right now; that instead of getting one awesome game, I'll be getting three unfinished, crappy ones.

ETA 1/3/16: The special edition that comes with the full game is, of course, "unavailable" for pre-order.