WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 2.0

[Chest Rockwell]

Well at least it's shit developers whose games I have no interest in anyway that are leading the charge...

[Guest]

5 hours ago, FelatioLips said:

EA remove the refund button from their site to try and control the damage so now you have to ring them to get one.

...as if dozens of call centre staff suddenly cried out in terror...

[FLips]

1 hour ago, SpursRiot2012 said:

2K need to take note. I read they're planning to ramp up the microtransactions and put them in every release going forward. 

WWE 2K18 is like this but you can't buy points. You can however buy a £20 season pass.

Traded it back in and I'm done with them.

[Cousin Jim Bob]

4 hours ago, PunkStep said:

Is it fair to say that the Japanese developers/distributors tend to avoid this sort of thing? Nintendo, Sony, Konami etc. I mean Nintendo don't normally do DLC either.

Capcom have been pretty shitty with Street fighter. Charging for DLC costume packs that are on the disc. That sort of stuff.

[Chest Rockwell]

Hmm. I don't really care so much when either the base game is free, or it's just cosmetic stuff that they're flogging (as in this case). The star wars shit is blatant pay to win on a premium title, so it's much much worse.

[Really Big Shoe]

The whole concept of DLC is flawed. You buy a game for like £50 then to progress in the game you have to buy "upgrades" and such. Why don't developers include everything within the game itself like they used to and just make things unlockable. DLC IMO is having a detrimental affect on gaming because it is just milking as much money as they can. Push too far and gamers will abandon DLC altogether. Same logic applies with free games on mobiles and in-app purchases. 

[PunkStep]

10 minutes ago, Really Big Shoe said:

The whole concept of DLC is flawed. You buy a game for like £50 then to progress in the game you have to buy "upgrades" and such. Why don't developers include everything within the game itself like they used to and just make things unlockable. 

That's not necessarily DLC to be fair. I have no problem with DLC if it's in the form of an expansion or something in addition to an already decent and good sized base game. If I really like a game and there is DLC available to extend my gaming experience, then I'm happy to fork out for it. For example Fallout 3 & 4, Skyrim, Witcher 3, GTA 4 and the Lego games are excellent when it comes to DLC. In those examples I think DLC is a wonderful idea.

But the issue we're discussing really isn't DLC, it's basically micro transactions needed to progress within the base game, that kind of shit you expect from a FREE mobile game.

Edited November 15, 2017 by PunkStep

[Your Fight Site]

Unfortunately I don’t think micro transactions are going anywhere. The only thing this PR disaster for EA will do is show other game developers how not to announce and introduce it into their games.

There was one game developer (I forget which one) that has actually put research and then applied for a patent on how to maximise spend by players, by strategically matching them with other players that they’d need to buy particular upgrades in order to be competitive. I doubt they’re going to can all that effort just because EA’s rightfully getting ripped at the moment.

We’re at the point now where console technology means AAA titles are just so expensive to develop, but gamers are conditioned to pay ~£50 for a new game. However, unless it’s a hit (like GTA V) that no longer translates to covering costs let alone a profit. So the micro-transactions are to make up that margin and (as they are businesses) make a profit. You just have to look at the number of games studios that close each year to see how much of walking on a knife edge it is developing games.

[Chest Rockwell]

It's Activision that you're talking about - https://kotaku.com/activision-patents-matchmaking-that-encourages-players-1819630937

 

 

[Your Fight Site]

12 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

It's Activision that you're talking about - https://kotaku.com/activision-patents-matchmaking-that-encourages-players-1819630937

 

 

That’s the one. Cheers!

[Jazzy G]

DLC I don't mind, unless it's stuff they've carved out of an already completed game or hidden behind a paywall at launch to try and get you to pre-order the super-mega-deluxe gold edition. Stick some extra missions, multiplayer maps or characters out a few months down the line to keep people playing by all means, but don't sell us an incomplete game just to try and make a few more quid.

Microtransactions for purely cosmetic things that people might want to buy? Fill your boots, lads. If some people want to fire a few more dollars in the direction of the publishers to make their in-game avatar look unique, then by all means. I don't mean for CAWs and the likes in wrestling games, although I'm not surprised 2K stuck those things in loot boxes this year. That shit where they make it a horrible grind to level your character up unless you buy the accelerator or even pay for extra XP in game is pretty much saying to me that they don't want me to play their game. I uninstalled 2K16 because it was trying to make me crawl through the career mode. There are only so many times I can job to Tyler Breeze on NXT for 3XP before I start calling bullshit on the whole thing.

Unfortunately it still seems to be a vocal minority speaking out against this kind of stuff. Yes, that post on Reddit might have 681,000+ downvotes on it, but how many millions of people will play Battlefront 2 and buy into their pay to win, give us $240 dollars or spend 80 hours grinding to unlock Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker nonsense? AAA publishers couldn't give two tosses about a few hundred thousand people bitching about microtransactions and loot boxes, because that's no longer their target demographic. They market towards the "whales" that they know will just plough hundreds and hundreds of dollars into their already pricey game.

Anyway, on an entirely more pleasant note who's excited for the Okami HD re-release on PC, XBone and PS4 next month? I love that game. Used to stick every free hour I had into it on PS2. Picked it up for a tenner in Asda just because I'd heard good things about it, then when I finally sat down to play it I was genuinely blown away by what a wonderful experience it is. The localisation was absolutely butchered, but it was just so much fun to play. The visuals were a feast, the music was beautiful and the story (albeit a bit mangled from the original) was compelling again. It's getting a physical release on December 12th if memory serves. Just in time for Christmas/birthday. It's only about £15 as well, which is a bargain. If you like the 3D Zelda games and haven't played this, I heartily recommend it. Okamiden on the Nintendo DS is a psuedo/spiritual sequel, which is entirely enjoyable and makes great use of the touchscreen as well. Just don't play the Wii version, as even though the motion controls are brilliantly suited to the style of gameplay, whoever did the conversion did a horrible job of it, and they didn't even bother putting in the option to use a classic controller. I'll try to stop sounding like a press release now, sorry. I just loves that game.

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by jazzygeofferz

[BomberPat]

DLC is fine in principle - it's no different to being able to buy expansion packs for PC games back in the '90s/'00s.

Microtransactions? Whatever. I'm not going to spend money to get a new costume for Chun-Li, but if you want to, knock yourself out.

Forcing players to spend money to progress in a game is bullshit, though - it's understandable bullshit for a £2 mobile game that needs to turn a profit somewhere, but it's inexcusable in a £50-£60 game from a major developer, just money-grubbing, greedy bullshit. It also undermines quality game design, and is the developers sending the message that their game actually isn't fun enough to put the hours in, so you may as well pay a tenner to skip past the slog of actually playing the thing and get straight to the reward.

Loot boxes are doubly bullshit. Loot boxes play on all the same emotional triggers as gambling, encouraging you to spend more and more money in the hope of getting the rarer, bigger prize. I'm sure the only reason it doesn't fall under the same legal remit as gambling would be either because the law doesn't recognise digital content as having any inherent value, or because there's no lose condition - you might get a shitty prize in a loot box, but you'll never get nothing.

I'm hoping the backlash against EA keeps up, that it's a PR shitshow and they're forced to sort themselves out - but I'm always concerned with this sort of thing that the majority of people complaining will continue to buy games that do the exact same thing, and just complain all over again, rather than not buying the sodding thing in the first place, and unless something triggers the need for external regulation (if loot boxes could be legally classed as gambling, developers wouldn't be able to include them in a game without it getting an 18 rating, and that would kill the whole practice overnight), nothing will change until consumers start voting with their wallet.

 

It's good to see this getting some mainstream press traction, though, and the fact that it has a property as massive as Star Wars attached to it is only going to make things worse for EA, as it's giving the non-gaming press an angle they can understand.

Edited November 15, 2017 by BomberPat

[Guest]

Some disappointing coverage of this on the Metro website yesterday. Yeah, I know, Metro - but the video game pages are generally held in higher regard than the rest of it, having hired the GameCentral team that had a following on Teletext.

Here's their headline:

 

And then buried further down the article:

 

So that's a 75% reduction in the credits you earn, wholly cancelling out the same reduction in the cost of rewards. So why give EA the positive headline they were cynically aiming for with their transparent non-concession?

I used to champion these particular writers in gaming circles, but I've been losing confidence in them for a while now.

[chokeout]

Quote

According to this post, there are a total of 324 star cards currently available in the game, and to upgrade those you’d need 155,520 crafting parts. Those cards unlock things like soldier classes, vehicles, and iconic Star Wars heroes, but according to some (fairly generous) maths, unlocking everything would require the opening of 3,111 loot crates, which you’d earn through 4,528 hours of gameplay.

If, for some reason, you don’t have six solid months to spend in the game, then feel free to turn to a more financial route to success. Opening those 3,000 loot crates would need 248,880 crystals (Battlefront II’s in-game currency). If you purchase those crystals in $100 bundles, your total cost would be $2,100 (plus whatever you spent on the game itself, obviously).

If those numbers seem high, bear in mind that they don’t paint the whole picture. This maths assumes that you already own all the game’s star cards and have upgraded them to level three, ignoring the time or cost of getting them to that level. It also assumes you’re getting the average reward out of every loot crate, and that you’re buying everything in the most efficient way possible.

These numbers come after EA scaled back the cost of Star Wars Battlefront II’s heroes by 75% over the weekend, following significant online backlash, which means that the initial grind could have been as much as four times higher than it currently is. However, when the DLC inevitably drops, that figure is set to rise yet again.

$2000! and that's after the reduction

[PunkStep]

3 hours ago, Your Fight Site said:

We’re at the point now where console technology means AAA titles are just so expensive to develop, but gamers are conditioned to pay ~£50 for a new game. However, unless it’s a hit (like GTA V) that no longer translates to covering costs let alone a profit. So the micro-transactions are to make up that margin and (as they are businesses) make a profit. You just have to look at the number of games studios that close each year to see how much of walking on a knife edge it is developing games.

Nah, I'm not buying that from the big studios at all- not the likes of EA etc. I appreciate that they are more expensive games to develop, but the AAA titles still sell by the shitload. It's not like a free-to-download Candy Crush. Furthermore, surely their biggest overhead (distribution costs) for an ever-growing % of their sales is no longer applicable due to games being downloaded instead.