Essentially, you're buying the base game on XBox and trying to get the DLC on PC. Two different platforms, even if they're both on PC. GOG is doing a thing where you can see and launch all your games from one place (Still in closed BETA) but that is all it really does on the games front. It doesn't magically merge versions of the game between platforms (Epic, Steam, Uplay, Origin and GOG are all still separate entities and the games you have on multiple platforms show up multiple times). The DLC made for Steam probably won't work for a game released on EGS, and the same for Origin or GOG. So to get the DLC, you have to own the game on the same platform you purchase the DLC on for compatibility as much as anything. DRM Free doesn't mean all encompassing compatibility of the parts with other released versions of the game.

I hope this helps you with pertinent information. I'm not a mod, but a mod may or may not answer you on the weekends, and I fear any more posting you do may tank your rep even further.

That would be VERY much against being DRM-free. A DRM-free DLC should work with any other DRM-free release.

But GOG can't guarantee that their DLCs work with, say, Steam releases or any other release with some shenanigans in them. So I guess it's more of a legal reason why they won't sell DLCs alone.

But they could make a big disclaimer page when buying a DLC without owning the base game here: "This is not a stand-alone game. You don't own the base game here. Buy at your own risk. No guarantees. No refunds. Do you accept the risk [Yes] [No]"

Yes, and increase the number of support requests many times over, because how many of their users actually read error messages rather than just click "yes" to everything?

That's not the case at all. Different stores require different versions of the game; DRM-free doesn't have anything to do with it. You own the DLC (as much as you legally "own" any commercial software), you can do what you want with it, but it doesn't work with games from other stores simply because the programming is different.

And yeah, a disclaimer won't work. I doubt GOG can legally sell stuff they know for a fact can't work, regardless of how many disclaimers they put up. Also see my posts above for how different games handle DLC; e.g. selling the Sunless Sea DLC by itself would mean giving away the base game.

No, I think you said it right. I think there was a brief moment where physical copies of 'complete editions' sold at stores were shipping with DLCs already part of the installation on the DVD. Oblivion was one - while Shivering Isles was an expansion, Knights of the Nine was considered a DLC. But the very name DLC means DownLoadable Content, so their release has always been intended to be done online, and are thus released this way initially at least.

Like others have said, some gamers still haven't understood the dynamics of the different releases that different stores have, or the financial agreements that surround DLC sales. To put it simply, a DLC is additional content to a game. To expect a DLC package from GOG to work out-of-the-box on Steam is naive. I wouldn't even expect a GOG DLC to work on a retail installation! Versioning/integration/packaging differs from store to store, even when the DLC is just one file that the game auto-recognises on launch (small Oblivion DLCs for instance were just one esp file).

On the financial front, consider yet again what a DLC is: additional content. When Steam/GOG has already got some money for the base game, you are paying them "a little bit more" to have that (usually tiny) addition added to the game. Now consider what would happen if you could purchase a platform-independent installation package. Price rise, that's what. And while I'd love to buy a soundtrack separately from a game on occasion, there could be a financial arrangement which makes this difficult again without raising the price of the package e.g. "we pay the music artist for every game sold, and a tiny bonus for every soundtrack DLC on top of that". In this case, the artist loses out if a soundtrack DLC is sold without the main game. It's not GOG's decision in that case to have the DLC sold to base game customers only. If the gaming company truly wants to release just the soundtrack to anyone not playing the game, they would negotiate this with GOG to get added to the library as a separate entity. Chances are, they don't.

It is an annoyance. Extras like the 'complete edition upgrades' of games which includes art, music and extra tidbits you also require the entire game here.

While you can 'buy' the DLC without the game as a gift, you can't redeem it. Making it an annoyance. I recall being given a DLC for Drox, but couldn't do anything with it until i bought the game on discount.

And if you happen to have say the physical discs of say 'The Witcher 3' but not the code, you may have the game but you can't get the expansions without repurchasing it...

quite the number of annoyances....

If you buy keys it's either Steam or GOG or something else.

You can buy DLC from stores selling the key, but it has to be for the platform you bought the main game on, and not some other. Say if you bought a key on eBay, it would specifically say the platform, whether it's Steam or one of the others.

It's just the way digital keys & games work.

As for complete editions, they are "Game of The Year" editions, as they became known, which came complete with the majority if not all the DLC.

Elder Scrolls; Oblivion was probably when i saw Game Of The Year editions as complete editions, I have Skyrim With all the DLC too, but i got the Elder Scrolls Anthology: //elderscrolls.bethesda.net/en/anthology


Now it's mostly an online thing.

With 90% of "not Steam" stores basically just selling Steam keys, it's not hard at all to understand why people new to GOG assume they can do the same here.

You need the base game version GOG sells to buy the dlc here.....GOG's versions are sometimes not compatible with the ones sold elsewhere so they have to limit DLC purchases to those who own the base game here.
Someone SOMEWHERE would still complain that was unfair, most likely. :\