What is Digg?89 Comments
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28Just wait for it. I guarantee you a time will come when you get to the end of the level and up pops "Please Insert Visa Card To Progress To The Next Level"
Laugh if you want, but just remember that I said this. In ten years when 'the beauty of a natural free market' has had its say you'll be laughing out the other side of your face on your sock on the other foot. - KnightMareInc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Console gamers are idiots for paying for maps, single player gear that does nothing and the glorified MSN gaming zone.
- lonewolf707, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21EA ruin gaming
- RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Don't forget the in-game ads. Publishers are trying to increase their profit margins as games become more expensive to produce and market. They'll keep up with ads and microtransactions until we stop buying their products. But these might become such an accepted practice that people just take it and stop fighting.
I'm not against microtransactions (or episodic content) IN THEORY; I'm against games being designed to short-change us. As in developers will intentionally cut up their storyline or leave out horse armor (or whatever) just so they can resell it to us later. Or the publisher will say, "I really like these tanks you included in your game, but you need to take them out so we can offer them on Xbox Marketplace next month."
Also keep in mind that within 10 years, most games will probably be digitally distributed (read: no shipping and packaging overhead), yet they'll still give us in-game ads and microtransactions, thereby increasing their margins even more... - Nick22, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19Hey, dont put the blame soley on console gamers, PC gamers are just as idiotic, they pay for WoW gold.
- estvir, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17As long as EA (And similar companies) is either banned from using them or someone gives them a clue we'll be fine.
- ErinIsADrunk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11not to be a jackass but people need to stop saying "microtranscations are going to ruin the industry", there is a really easy solution to the problem STOP paying for them. The minute companies start seeing that the microtransaction business model is not profitable they will stop doing it.
- unununium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Can putting articles on two pages to drive up ad views ruin the internet?
- PotatoSalad, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13In a free market economy, capitalism also has the potential to fix everything, too. Unfortunately, we don't live in that kind of utopia and there will always be some aspects of capitalism that "just plain suck."
- BuddyDoQ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8When I see a game for $60 on the shelf; it better be the greatest game in the whole world. After all, just down the isle is another game just as pretty that only cost $30, even if it ain't exactly new. You might as well forget selling MT to me, just like those service packs from best buy, I won't even blink at you.
It's very hard to shake the "scam" feeling MT gives. IMHO it lowers the standard of you as a publisher. I mean, if you're game was so great, it'd already have all that extra stuff in it. Right? Right? - grgt1994, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@gerz1219: You have GOT to be kidding. Your economic analogy forgets contemporary reality. The mid to late 80's video game was sold in a market so small that barely any company (spare a few quirky companies like Atari and Commodore) could even care about. Today the game industry rivals the FREEKING movie industry. So per unit sales are completely meaningless. Total revenue is now obnoxious.
The cure for the game industry is not higher but LOWER game prices. Once games cost $5 a pop, then we will have a mature industry with rock star game developers slurping down Crystal on a nightly basis. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Seconded. I'll stick with my more powerful and versatile PC, thank you very much.
- computerdude33, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Digg parent up, he speaks the truth.
Every single publisher except for EA has been using microtransactions extremely well. Even the horse armor skirmish was more of a test- Bethesda has been using MTs well otherwise.
But, then you get EA and their ***** "pay for stuff you can unlock!!!" attitude. We wouldn't be having this problem if it wasn't for EA. - scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8"The arcade experience in your living room" PLEASE INSERT COIN
It sucks, but it's not quite as bad as MEGATRANSACTIONS like upgrading that copy of Vista Home Basic - MatttK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I want to digg this article because I totally agree with the general idea.. but the article itself is very poorly written, IMO.
- BabyBrumak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7As long as I can still unlock everything in-game just by playing, I really don't care about micro-transactions.
I like how Bungie did things with Halo 2. When new maps were released, you could either purchase them or wait a couple of months to be free. The purchase was NOT mandatory. This is how all of these purchases should be structured. - orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6A guy further down the thread suggested that he would rather pay for the cheats in a game rather than spend the monumental energies required to use Google and then press a button combination. That does not bode well.
- KnightMareInc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The problem is there is enough idiots paying for this *****.Not much people who arent dumb enough to pay to do about it.
- doskir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6about 2 years ago there was a pretty good article about the microtransaction game it was like this: pay full retail price for the game, pay 10cents for each bullet, pay 10cents for each enemy kill or skip directly to the ending for 100$
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5GTA IV will have microtransactions sadly...
- akira117, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Not really capitalism if only the game developer can sell stuff for their game.
That is not capitalism that is a closed economy. (thats way we have rules against monopolies) - orientis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I hope I'm misunderstanding you.. Are you really suggesting that it's better and easier to pay for cheats than it is to spend five minutes on a search engine?
- MrFlesh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Oh yeah....and micro transactions on consoles basicly make you pay for what the mod community does for free on PCs.
- jdaniel284, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Here is why I do not like the idea of Micro-transactions.
Gaming is an fantastic art. And it is escapism. I want to pay the upfront costs and forget about the real world, my problems, my finances. I do not want to be tethered to the real world. I do not want to have to think what is on the game disc and what is unlockable. I want to forget that there *is* a gamedisc! I certainly don't want to think about having to work real-life hours at a job in order to continue the fantasy.
What if movies tried this same approach. You paid for your ticket, and every now and then some little guy came and shook you on the shoulder while the movie was paused. "Want to see that jiffy new special effect or do you want to skip it? 10 cents to see it? Enjoying the movie? Want to see the nude scene? 25 cents, please."
It just constantly pulls you out of the fantasy. If these companies have to charge $100 for the game upfront to be profittable, then fine. I'm wealthy and don't give a damn. But after I pay then LMTFA. - jake8689, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4it won't take off if we don't buy it so i say we use the digg effect to stop before it gets any further
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"If you pirate music, musicians won't make money, so there won't be as much good new music (so they say)."
They lie. I'd go so far as to suggest that if the music industry was based purely on talent rather than profits we'd see a hell of a lot more good music coming out.
Your other points are ludicrous. You think you can make a realistic comparison between arcade pac-man and, say, Oblivion on the PC? Even if you could, that doesn't justify your argument. In fact your entire comment is so blatantly false and hopefully optimistic that I think you work for EA. - MrFlesh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Microtransactions wouldn't be half bad if it wasn't for the fact that the data is already on the disc. Which goes to show that the purpose of the microtransaction wasn't to keep people intrested in the game like what Microsoft touted. It was so publishers could carve a little bit off the finished product to sell to you at a later date.
@Orientis you do have to pay to go to the next level it's called episodic content ala Half Life 2
@Skweeky Wheel yes capitalism does ruin everything when it is not in a free market environment. - NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How long before game developers *cough*EA*cough* start making games impossibly difficult at the outset for even the most experienced and skilled gamers, making the micro-transaction "downloads" (most are just unlocks for things already on the game disc) basically a necessity?
Add to that next-gen HD content - How long before your blu-ray or HD-DVD player requires an extra payment for some content that would've normally come for free on the disc? We could see movie prices for discs stay relatively level, around $25-$30, but these unlocks for extra features could pile on top of that. Don't think that either side hasn't already thought of this. - john2kx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You're forgetting about the whole Lumines XBLA scandal. I'm not defending EA by any means, but they're far from the only guilty party here.
- grumbel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Microtransactions can of course ruin the gaming world when done wrong, when implemented right on the other side they provide a huge chance for independent developers to make some money with their own creations, which especially in this day and age where almost every game is a sequel is needed.
I don't know how microtransaction will turn out in the end, but the potential benefit it well worth the risk of a few useless horse-armor add-ons. - Gerz1219, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Markup? There was an article on here a while back that broke down the costs associated with a title. Development and marketing costs make up something like 60% of the game's retail price. Then they have to pay out royalty fees to the console manufacturer, the distributor gets another chunk, Gamestop has their markup, and so on. The developer doesn't start making a profit until the game sells over a million copies, which obviously most games never do. The state of the industry right now is that a few blockbuster titles cover the massive losses incurred by the vast majority of games released -- it's quite similar to the current state of the film and music industries.
Don't kid yourself into thinking that because it costs $0.05 to press a DVD and package it, that game developers are somehow making a $59.95 profit on all of these games. In most cases, they're taking a loss. So yes, games have gotten too cheap. This microtransaction scam is a clever way to make the consumer pay more -- which they should be doing -- while appearing to charge the same base price for the game. It's only "greedy" if you define "greed" as the desire to stay in business. Again, I don't like the practice, because I don't like hidden costs. If it's a choice between the two, I'd rather have $80 games and no microtransactions. Most parents handing out the allowance money would disagree, so I get voted down.
Now I really don't see how anyone could argue that games aren't too cheap. Load up Super Mario Bros. What are there, like 10 different character sprites and a dozen texture blocks? Now load up Gears of War. Think about how much time and money went into creating all those detailed character models, capturing the animations, designing and rendering those maps. It's mind-boggling. And yet, in real dollars, the developers of Gears of War are forced to charge $20 LESS a copy than the guys who slapped together Super Mario Bros. - Fhwqhgads, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Just what we need: The gaming world to be just like the real world - all the spoiled rich kids get all the cool stuff. Imagine being in a game like Warcraft and getting owned by some noob who bought all the best stuff. Not cool.
- john2kx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There's no need to defend it, it's a prime example of microtransaction rape.. Even if it didn't personally bother you that much, surely you remember the uproar and all the general anti-microtransaction sentiment it generated.
- gharding, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It depends on what you have to buy. It'd be nice if companies threw out free downloads, as well. I don't see it as a bad thing, overall. I mean, think about the games you're playing. The original Doom cost about the same as Doom 3. And I'm pretty sure more man-hours were put into the latter.
- apothekari, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree and I must say that I play games to escape the fact that I'm poor and probably will never get to fly a plane or drive a ferrari or own a castle in real life!
You elitist ***** who say "nobody's forcing you" usually have the extra coin to spare!
I do not wish to buy a game get it home go online and because some spoiled 10 year old has a visa card he can buy enough upgrades to slay my ass without even trying!
I have been a gamer since I was a little kid in the 70's playing asteroids in the arcade, and I have had every system from Ralph Baer's Odyssey to the newest consoles out now.
I have always managed to squirrel enough pay away to get what I want,But so help me god If the industry travels too far down this "Man on the hill in real life= Man on the hill in fantasy" ***** I WILL find a NEW hobby.
And trust me I WON"T be alone.
I remember 1982 well and if game manufacturers insist on this course they will find themselves in the Nevada desert in E.T.'s unmarked grave. - orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If it's not hard it's not rock.
- shutz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Microtransactions don't ruin gaming, stupid and greedy game publishers ruin gaming.
Microtransactions by themselves are neither a good thing nor a bad thing. As they say, it's all about how you use it.
EA doesn't seem to understand what microtransactions mean. Instead of selling a full game, then selling extra content through microtransactions (which is how the system should be used) they build the full game, then remove half the content and features and sell those through microtransactions.
If good games start to ask you to pay to proceed through the normal game, let me tell you, those games won't be considered good anymore. It won't be the end of good games, just the end of stupid publishers. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Rock that isn't hard isn't worthy to be called rock.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Right but it's happening for PC too, in game ads in BF, also in BF2, to get that awesome sniper rifle you have to buy the expansion.
I HATE EA, their greed matches that of the music/movie industry, I hope they all burn.(I don't mean artists and talanted people, I mean those fat assed, do nothing, greedy publishing *****) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6WoW sickens me. Those kids let it consume their lives, then lie about it and try to convince people that playing casually 10 hours a day hasn't ruined their social lives.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some market place upgrades are actually unlockable features in the game. Notably, you could purchase the Dodge Viper, but you could also earn it just as easily by going through career mode. I think this is a great way to nickel and dime stupid people to death. I only wish I could get a piece of the action.
- hambro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sneaky journalist explains own calamity via fictional girlfriend.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The free-market can ruin things just fine by itself - it hardly even needs the input of humans.
Half Life 2 Ep 1 was a good four hours of gameplay, for what, $30 ? It was basically half a game for a third of the price. Episodic content is NOT microtransactions. There are similarities, in that they are both transactions, but episodic != micro. - akira117, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Another reason PC gaming will never die.....
- lacronicus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2really, oblivion is proof of this. user made mods ftw. in any case, i am against mt's simply because it means those with more money have an advantage. that negates the idea of equality in video games. noone should have a different competetive ability based on anything other than skill. a rich person should not own face in CS simply because they are rich, a poor person should be on an equal playing field.
- john2kx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"plus it would be awsome to see 'this load brought to you by Coke"
Awesome? You seem to be very easy to please.... either that or your standards are a bit low..
In any case, no one is forcing us to buy games loaded with microtransactions.. If publishers want their games to actually sell, they'll probably hold back on the extreme microtransaction nightmare scenario. - frozen1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5@gerz1219
The game industry did it to THEMSELVES, the release hardware, THEY release the games... the consumers don't choose when Nintendo, sony, et, al release new hardware.
Game devleopers, being the pussy whooped bunch they are let the hardware make their development costs skyrocket, NOT the consumer, I'm not going to cry a river over the industries stupidity, consumers have NO control over the industry, what it believes, and what decisions it makes. $60 IS too expensive for a game when the quality of most games is utter CRAP. The whole business model for the game industry USED to work because graphics (the most expensive part of the game) were much cheaper.
Gamers did not force the advent of 3D from 2D, higher horsepower, etc, etc. Game companies did that. If game companies would just focus on their core: Gameplay, the would not have gotten themselves into this mess. But no... they THOUGHT they had to have "super graphics" with no gameplay what-so-ever, I hope the game industry tanks, serves the ***** right for going after joe consumer and his reflex retarded children. - orientis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Jew is a verb now?
- fani, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2babybrumak -
Gears of War was far superior to Halo in that the additional maps were free to begin with.
Halo was an ok shooter, overhyped really. Sadly, the micro-transactions are here to stay. - erwanl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It's funny, it looks like Magic the Gathering, or any other collectible card games. It's fun at the beginning when you get strong cards, but when you realize that the guy who is willing to throw the more money in the game wins, it's no longer so fun. I stopped Magic because of that (it's a scam) and now I'll stay away for games proposing that kind of micropayment.
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