Are we getting scammed by too much DLC?

After many remarks from consumers regarding an increasing amount of extra DLC (downloadable content), I start to wonder if we are witnessing a strong trend in the game industry for additional content served up in smaller portions.

The question is whether this released DLC most of time is based on a marketing strategy where the DLC actually could’ve been content that could’ve shipped with the game in the first place. This seems to have become a common practice, to earning some more money by simply separating some game content to different times of purchase, adding something that perhaps should’ve been there in the first place.

In a way the geek in me like new stuff to a game I like. At the same time I know that I am practically getting scammed most of the time. By an extra map or an upgrade for a particular player unit in the game.

The PC market is used to this practice through expansion packs. Although these expansions were usually a little bit bigger and usually gave enough new content to constitute the practice.

The question becomes – where do we draw the line? What DLC is acceptable, what DLC is not? Should developers try and market bigger expansion packs for games or is it enough with cheaper DLC with less content?
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