Please allow me to entertain you all with my own "theory". It is just as valid as this one, because it does not contain a single bit of substantive proof. Imagine, if you will, that you are looking to promote a video game that you are creating. You will, invariably, want to get the word out about it, well before release. You have substantial amounts of concept art that outlines the entire lifespan of the game; more than will every be released in the entire lifespan of that game. Some of it will be used for sequels, perhaps. Maybe some of it will be content to be delivered at a later date. So far, nothing out of the ordinary. As you progress in the development cycles of that game, you have a combination of live gameplay and cinematics that you then use to "show off" the game. Some of the cinematics are based off of the concept art, because it is a part of the larger vision. How do you actually get those cinematics into the trailer, then? Considering that it is quite common to allow the console to render cutscenes now (and I have an [u]opinion[/u] that Bungie is doing this for a fair amount of them), it only makes sense that you use the game engine to render them. You alter a few of the dynamics of the game engine, such as altering the focal length of the virtual camera, changing its positioning, and using different lighting modes. That is how your Guardian appears in cutscenes, complete with your current equipment. But, alas. There are these areas that the marketing and production teams really want to show off, but they are not done, yet. What is a company to do? Perhaps they can create the basic maps, and then script exactly what they need into them to get the directorial vision of what that cinematic should contain. Since it is using the game engine already, let us just throw away those assets and do them over again when we need to. Wait? No? That costs extra money in the form of time for the content designers? You mean they will use 90% of that map, as it is, and just complete it when that content is closer to being delivered? Maybe they can just do something absolutely crazy like, I don't know... Ship it so that you do not have to download it all when you get your DLC! This is actually a common practice. No, I am not talking about the gaming industry. I am talking about the software industry, as a whole. And, guess what? We've done this for years, and years, and years. Assets take time and money to create. You simply don't throw them away - they exist in various stages of completeness throughout the lifecycle of a product. Whether it is maps, textures, dead code that has yet to be activated, or just about anything that takes time and money to produce, if it can be shipped, it usually is. Why, you ask? Simple. It is partially due to the amount of time that you would have to spend waiting for an update to download. It is also partially due to the amount of load that puts on the servers. If you are paying a co-lo to host your servers, which I imagine that Bungie is, chances are you are paying for used bandwidth, as well. Keeps costs down, and those costs add up when you are looking at the magnitude of millions of potential downloads. As to the size of download for the DLC, who knows? I can tell you that if it is accurate, it is not out of line. Compiled code is generally smaller than updates, when what you are talking about is really just a patch. But I can fit thousands upon thousands of lines of code in six to ten megabytes. It definitely is not some sort of "unlock key". That is just an absolutely massive file for something that trivial, that you could accomplish in a couple of hundred bytes, complete with a hefty amount of encryption, to boot. If that is the final size of the patch, it likely contains a combination of additional map data, code, raw geometry, and data files that feed the engine that you already physically installed on your console. Do I work in the gaming sector? Nope. But I've been slinging code for my supper for a very long time, and across multiple sectors in the industry. The practices that this community are up in arms over is considered standard practice in every other sector I've worked in, and representative of a fair amount of the industry. No two shops are the same, that is a given, but the industry is built on delivering products within a repeatable and established set of standards, that is defined by experience and the current state of technology. Had my chance to move to this industry, about ten years ago. Weighing my options, I passed. Part of the reason? The community, at large, that consisted of people who considered themselves so much more educated on how the industry worked than those who worked within it. Everyone I know who has worked in the sector says the same exact thing. The job is thankless, and it is due to the demographic of the target audience. Considering that, it made the other part of the equation for passing an obvious choice - mainly being that the compensation is generally well under the industry averages. The developers that everyone are so quick to crucify, generally have as much a love for gaming as anyone in the community. It is really the only thing they have to help them put up with this stuff.