“We are building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way; to get to a higher level. *And consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of business.*”
*I would love to see how they did this research. I'd say the publishers are enjoying this way of business, while the consumers are remembering the old days where you paid for a game and its content, and that was it. Ever since DLCs became common, the gaming industry has been sliding down a very slippery slope. Soon all games might not be MMOs, but they will be "pay-to-play".
It's funny how those slippery slope arguments turn out to be spot-on more often than not. As with all the previous steps in this direction, this one won't spur much reaction from gamers either; the majority of those that buy games (especially from EA) will never care enough to protest with their wallets.
@jaysl659: Sadly I gotta agree with you. Some people just keep on blindly buying every DLC of a game that falls into their lap. DLC are actually a sneaky way to increase the price of your game. Many gamers think that they pay just the standard 60 bucks for a game. Wrong. For the 'full experience' (this phrase usually and unfortunately flips the 'hamster' switch in most people, as in, 'must-collect-everything-about-my-favourite-game') you end up paying twice the base price of the game. Just look at Mass Effect 3. Bioware is already going to release the 5th single-player DLC for that game. DLC, with the inclusion of various map and outfit packs, cause the end price of the game to quickly become around 180 bucks instead. 180 dollars. For one (1) game. Honestly. Is this still normal to you people? Doesn't it at least wake up a tiny, a slight notion of 'Wait...What's this?'. I honestly find it baffling and mind-boggling how some people are still blindly buying the DLC for this game after all of the outright PR lies, the roll-in-the-bed with IGN (Chobot), the whole ending drama and Bioware's donkey-like stubborn silence after all of this crap. They're pretty much done for. They, like many other big businesses in the entertainment industry, have chosen money over TRUE integrity, over REAL soul. Passion. Dedication. I could go on and on. It makes me as a critical consumer so depressed. If only they'd still care about quality. If only... I could go on and stereotypically blame EA for everything, but I think the blame's on both parties. I wish the current Bioware would go back to its former glory, but that is just my childish idealistic nostalgia acting up. But I'm telling you, capitalism is making this world sicks, ruining societies in its wake everywhere it goes. But then other systems have proven not to work well either. It's an eternal human flaw, I guess.
At the end of the day, game companies are in the business of making money. If they can get most customers to pay a bit more money then that's likely to outweigh the customers they lose who dislike DLC.
More and more games are becoming online only for a similar reason - the reduction in piracy means the additional sales outweigh the customers lost who reject online only play.
Personally, I don't really have a problem with it. If a game is good and I enjoy playing it then I don't have a particular problem paying for most DLC. It lets me choose what I want to spend extra money on. If I don't like a game then I won't be buying DLC - but hopefully I'll have spent a bit less on the original game than I otherwise would have in the first place.
I do think companies need to be careful how they do it. If DLC/microtransactions are too intrusive or too blatant then this can be a turn off for a lot of people. But this is a pretty subjective measure and will vary from person to person.
I stopped playing games that were accessible only through Steam due to constantly having to download large patches upon installation (where you can only set the update settings once a game is actually installed). Having games online is great, in any sense of the word, but it should never be mandatory. MMOs should be left as a separate genre rather than trying to smash everything together. And this micro-transaction nonsense, it really doesn't surprise me.
At the current rate, I have... the original Baldur's Gate series and games like Age of Empires. Most other games require activation or downloading large patches either on installation or after. Modern games will start embracing the micro-transaction ideal. Call me cynical, but it almost makes me not want to play games at all anymore.
My sister used to play on Neopets.com. What started out as a site created by two college students has now also grown into another money whore capitalist greed factory. It's sad to grow up with the knowledge that my future children will grow up in a generation full of pay-to-play and microtransactions-riddled games.
Those games are quite fun however, although not pearls. I play them with my GF too. Just read that AC4 is already announced. The DLC for 3 isn't even completely out yet and that game is riddled with absolutely unacceptable bugs. I'm pissed off about it and I only payed around 10-15 for it (sites with cheap keys). I don't game that much anymore anyway, so I'll only buy stuff I can really endorse from now on.
@Vnavekul: Yeah, it seems releasing unfinished games is the newest trend in fashion this season. *wry smile* Capitalism will ruin the whole entertainment industry, I tell you.
While the word "microtransactions" makes me feel dirty, I can't bring myself to predict doom and gloom for the industry because of it.
There have been annoying exceptions, but mostly in the attempts to discourage buying used games, like Arkham City making a decent chunk of the game unplayable if you bought it used. That still puts me in a bad mood. :P
I think some people are forgetting about expansion packs. They were pretty par for the course for any successful game (some games even had multiple expansions), and IIRC could easily cost $30 (maybe more?). Sure, most of them included a lot more than DLCs, but they also cost significantly more. I don't remember anyone complaining about them (or at least not to nearly same degree). I'm not saying that I'm pro-DLC (and I'm certainly not pro-microtransaction), but trying to get more money out of a title by releasing additional content after the fact isn't new.
It's a good thing baldur's gate has such a high replay value. This micro-transaction scheme is nonsense (in my wallet's opinion and mine too sort of.) And now PS4 is scheduled to come out this year (I think.) I appreciate a lot that has been going on with video games over the last few years and the dedication involved by developers, writers, programmers, etc. to give consumers a 'new experience' to video gaming but now it's starting to get all kinds of ridonculous. I can't not forget though that a lot (but not all) of these companies started off as small fry and got to where they are today by creating games that appeal to us. We wanted story, we got BG and PST. We wanted action, we got CoD and Halo. Apparently we want bonus content to enhance our gaming experience for certain games we enjoy (i.e borderlands, assassin's creed) and that's what they're giving us. It's a sneaky way to milk a cash cow/sneak an extra dollar out of everyone but that's what's 'in' right now. And at the end of the day business is business. Video games are no excepton to this. Who knows, maybe FTP and Kickstarter games will be the next trend. Oh well, at least the next generation of gamers have something to look forward to. With that said this quote from Discworld author Terry Pratchett sums up how I feel about this (and a lot about life in general) "There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do."
@TJ_Hooker: The difference between expansion packs and DLC is that 1) the former offers a lot of content spanning over more hours and 2) the former usually doesn't feature any main story-relevant information. I'll give an example. We all know Tales of the Sword Coast (TotSC) as an expansion on the first Baldur's Gate game. It featured a couple of new locations and quests that were completely irrelevant to the main story. Then there's the various DLCs for Mass Effect 3, some of which DID feature in a way story-relevant information, such as the Prothean Javik. Now you can say he's just an optional character. Yet he's still essential for the LORE of Mass Effect in general. With this I mean to refer to the fact that the Protheans play quite an important role in the Mass Effect universe, specifically in Shepard's story. That makes him in a way relevant for the main plot of the game. On a more personal level, I think that expansion packs offer far more content than a DLC does. That is why I consider Dawnguard in fact as a semi-expansion pack, because it added quite a lot to Skyrim. Haven't checked out Dragonborn, though.
@State_Lemming: I can't say as I haven't played the DLC myself. I have just read about it and seen videos featuring Javik. When re-reading my previous post, I realised the second statement (DLC daring to be more story-relevant) is actually faulty and something typical for the recent Bioware games. DLC don't have to have such an impact on the main story. I still think DLC offer way less content than an actual expansion pack, though. Let's take Bioware as an example again. Most of their DLC feature only 4 to 5 hours of content. Let's compare this to Dawnguard for Skyrim. I personally needed more time than that to complete this so-called DLC. Dawnguard also offered new locations, new NPCs, new quests (mainly related to the main story line involving the vampires and the Elder scrolls, or the vampire hunters, depending on your own choice) and new weapons (for example crossbows). To me, it felt more than just the average DLC. Some people might still consider Dawnguard as a DLC, though. I think it's got more to do with personal opinion. I at least felt I got my money's worth out of Dawnguard. Dunno whether it's the same for other people.
EA customers evidently don´t mind EA´s policies. Games with EA logo on it are simply bad or uninteresting to me in the first place, that´s why I don´t play them, so I don´t really care about their business changes. And I don´t need to worry about smaller, independent companies, I don´t see any of them going this way.
Javik offered a lot of background about the last time the Reapers came. You also learn a lot about who the Proteans actually were. The way he's discovered is a sci fi cliche of course.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud I feel the same way about the majority of DLC, the good examples are few and far between. I've heard good things about Lair of the Shadow Broker, and the most recent Omega DLC for ME3, but since I will likely not do a playthrough for awhile I figured I'll until they are included in some deal pack.
While DLC sometimes contains story relevant info, so far in my (limited) experience the story info has never struck my as critical to the story
@mlnevese while some of that does sound interesting, it's nothing I wouldn't just read on a wiki page.
@State_Lemming: The Omega DLC has thus far received mixed reviews. The main cons are that 1) it's just Shepard teaming up with Aria and the female Turian, so there's no possible banter with your original party members or banter between them and the new characters (shame, it would've been interesting to see Garrus' reaction) 2) There's no main 'hub' presented in this DLC and 3) The DLC is completely stand-alone. Aria nor the female Turian become available party members after the DLC, nor do Aria's banters change when you meet her again in the main game after completing the DLC. Also, the DLC is one of the most expensive yet, 1200 MS points, equalling about 15 dollars, from what I've read. I personally wouldn't think it's worth it, but then I'm not that much into the Mass Effect universe in general. I just know this because I am an ex-member of the Bioware Social Network. It's hard to avoid spoilers there. Left the damn place because of all the friggin' immaturity and heaps of teenager drama around Miranda's ass and Tali's hips.
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud the BSN is a horrifying place, wretched hive and all that.
Well that sounds like crap DLC then, too bad. Again probably something I'll ignore until I can get it for free, or really cheap. Bioware DLC seems to pretty heinous in general, it was for DA:O when I played through it in a GOTY edition I had. Which leads make to me not caring about EA and microtransactions, they have yet to be worth anything.
Hmm, I think the crusader Kings 2 dlcs have been pretty good. Otherwise, I agree @Kitteh_On_A_Cloud (also on capitalism, though I still firmly believe that we can create a better system somehow along the road ^^)
Is there no low to which EA will not sink? Alongside Activision, Steam and Apple, it seems home computing and videogames are heading for a 'dark age', where the brand is law, and every purchase is actually a rental, for which you are compelled to pay indefinitely.
There's already another line of business like this... I believe it's called drug-dealing.
I remember a time when the game you bought a copy of was YOUR COPY. And as long as you didn't try to do anything shady with it like modifying the code to make your own knock-off and sell it for profit, that was the end of the story. Then, along came people like Bobby Kotick and Gabe Newell. They saw this perfectly reasonable and fair system and thought "gee, we don't like this. All these people are enjoying themselves, and for a low price. What can we do to change this?" Then it hit them. "I know! We'll buy out all these great developers who are making good games, and we'll run them into the ground to make incomplete and mediocre games, and we'll sell them at horribly expensive prices! And when they finish the other bits of the game they were working on, we'll sell those to the people at half the price of the main game. And if anyone tries to weasel out of our maze, we'll hit them with DRM and huge court cases! We'll make a fortune!" And so, software house after software house went out of business, being crushed under the iron treads of the profiteers. Their names becoming mere footnotes to any teen gamers who were too young to remember anything better, and whose idea of gaming was forever twisted along the lines these corporate tyrants wanted.
@Magnus_Grelich: That's the basic gist of it, yes. I mean, what you say is about true. Companies like EA will keep on pushing the borders of what they can and can't do to charge customers. You can already feel it as a customer. Reading articles like in the OP made me sigh. It just shows how people at EA only see their games as pure products and nothing more. They don't see the result of creativity, they just see a product they can milk till the last drop. Yet again I refer to the Mass Effect franchise. The amount of DLC greatly outmatches the amount of actual games.think about it. If you want a complete Mass Effect experience, you not only have to pay 60 dollars for the base game, but yet another 50-60 dollars for all of the DLC, which makes the game cost 120 dollars in total. Man, I wish I had that much money I could waste on ONE (1!!!) single game. At least Skyrim had a reasonable price (50 euros), but with the DLC it also rapidly amounts to about 80 euros... The price of games is baffling nowadays. I understand the technology has been improved over the decades, but still... 'nd to think I got all of the Angry Birds games for the price of Skyrim... Well, you can't compare the two, of course, hehe, but still. Meh, maybe I'm just a cheapskate. XD
@Kitteh_On_A_Cloud: Cheapskate? Not at all! I loved Mass Effect, but was always wary of EA's involvement with the series. After what I saw them do to the Command and Conquer series (Especially Red Alert 2 and 3), I lost any respect I might have had for them. Over the years, they have bought studios like Westwood and essentially eaten them after purchase. They run their subsidiaries along a punishing and unrealistic schedule to pump out games that should be much better than they end up. I don't know at what point EA went from being a company that made good sports games to the white whale of the games industry, but they've left a lot of Ahabs out there.
Micro transactions are acceptable if done properly IMO.
As long as the core game does not change, then I'll let people purchase whatever they want.
An example. NHL 2013 has an mode called "NHL Moments Live." It takes real life feats in the NHL and challenges the player to duplicate them. This doesn't interest me, however, I can see how this feature can appeal to other players to give a pretty standard game a little extra oomph.
I can also see them charging money for "unlocking" 5th jerseys, older rinks and the like. A die hard Montreal Canadien fan would probably purchase all of these jerseys and more power to them. As long as they still offer the 3 or 4 (home, away, 3rd and classic) I am not complaining.
I will start to complain if I have to start "buying" my scouting in GM mode or having to pay to unlock one of the 30 teams in the league in order to play.
Comments
*I would love to see how they did this research. I'd say the publishers are enjoying this way of business, while the consumers are remembering the old days where you paid for a game and its content, and that was it.
Ever since DLCs became common, the gaming industry has been sliding down a very slippery slope. Soon all games might not be MMOs, but they will be "pay-to-play".
More and more games are becoming online only for a similar reason - the reduction in piracy means the additional sales outweigh the customers lost who reject online only play.
Personally, I don't really have a problem with it. If a game is good and I enjoy playing it then I don't have a particular problem paying for most DLC. It lets me choose what I want to spend extra money on. If I don't like a game then I won't be buying DLC - but hopefully I'll have spent a bit less on the original game than I otherwise would have in the first place.
I do think companies need to be careful how they do it. If DLC/microtransactions are too intrusive or too blatant then this can be a turn off for a lot of people. But this is a pretty subjective measure and will vary from person to person.
I stopped playing games that were accessible only through Steam due to constantly having to download large patches upon installation (where you can only set the update settings once a game is actually installed). Having games online is great, in any sense of the word, but it should never be mandatory. MMOs should be left as a separate genre rather than trying to smash everything together. And this micro-transaction nonsense, it really doesn't surprise me.
At the current rate, I have... the original Baldur's Gate series and games like Age of Empires. Most other games require activation or downloading large patches either on installation or after. Modern games will start embracing the micro-transaction ideal. Call me cynical, but it almost makes me not want to play games at all anymore.
There have been annoying exceptions, but mostly in the attempts to discourage buying used games, like Arkham City making a decent chunk of the game unplayable if you bought it used. That still puts me in a bad mood. :P
With that said this quote from Discworld author Terry Pratchett sums up how I feel about this (and a lot about life in general) "There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do."
I haven't played the prothean DLC, and I have no interest in it, was anything of actual value I missed by not playing it?
I was less appalled with the suspicious timing of the DLC and more annoyed with the idea of a living prothean, that just struck me as dumb.
While DLC sometimes contains story relevant info, so far in my (limited) experience the story info has never struck my as critical to the story
@mlnevese while some of that does sound interesting, it's nothing I wouldn't just read on a wiki page.
Well that sounds like crap DLC then, too bad. Again probably something I'll ignore until I can get it for free, or really cheap. Bioware DLC seems to pretty heinous in general, it was for DA:O when I played through it in a GOTY edition I had. Which leads make to me not caring about EA and microtransactions, they have yet to be worth anything.
There's already another line of business like this... I believe it's called drug-dealing.
Then, along came people like Bobby Kotick and Gabe Newell. They saw this perfectly reasonable and fair system and thought "gee, we don't like this. All these people are enjoying themselves, and for a low price. What can we do to change this?"
Then it hit them.
"I know! We'll buy out all these great developers who are making good games, and we'll run them into the ground to make incomplete and mediocre games, and we'll sell them at horribly expensive prices! And when they finish the other bits of the game they were working on, we'll sell those to the people at half the price of the main game. And if anyone tries to weasel out of our maze, we'll hit them with DRM and huge court cases! We'll make a fortune!"
And so, software house after software house went out of business, being crushed under the iron treads of the profiteers. Their names becoming mere footnotes to any teen gamers who were too young to remember anything better, and whose idea of gaming was forever twisted along the lines these corporate tyrants wanted.
I loved Mass Effect, but was always wary of EA's involvement with the series. After what I saw them do to the Command and Conquer series (Especially Red Alert 2 and 3), I lost any respect I might have had for them. Over the years, they have bought studios like Westwood and essentially eaten them after purchase. They run their subsidiaries along a punishing and unrealistic schedule to pump out games that should be much better than they end up. I don't know at what point EA went from being a company that made good sports games to the white whale of the games industry, but they've left a lot of Ahabs out there.
As long as the core game does not change, then I'll let people purchase whatever they want.
An example. NHL 2013 has an mode called "NHL Moments Live." It takes real life feats in the NHL and challenges the player to duplicate them. This doesn't interest me, however, I can see how this feature can appeal to other players to give a pretty standard game a little extra oomph.
I can also see them charging money for "unlocking" 5th jerseys, older rinks and the like. A die hard Montreal Canadien fan would probably purchase all of these jerseys and more power to them. As long as they still offer the 3 or 4 (home, away, 3rd and classic) I am not complaining.
I will start to complain if I have to start "buying" my scouting in GM mode or having to pay to unlock one of the 30 teams in the league in order to play.