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EA Building Microtransactions Into All of Its Future Games
An anonymous reader writes "Develop reports on comments from Blake Jorgensen, Electronic Arts' Chief Financial Officer, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference. As you may have guessed from the name of the conference, the business aspect of EA was the topic. Jorgensen said, 'The next and much bigger piece [of the business] is microtransactions within games. ... We're building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be, and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business.' This is particularly distressing given EA's recent implementation of microtransations in Dead Space 3, where you can spend money to improve your weaponry."
As long you you didn't pay for the "retail" version (a.k.a. DVD / Blueray delivered ones), I don't see a problem. The developers has to be paid somehow, and if some people wants to pay for their games this way, no problem.
But if I pay the full retail price, I expect to be able to enjoy the game in full experience. Paying twice for the privilege of playing an already paid game is not an option for me. It shouldn't even be allowed, at first place.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
I refuse to play games with microtrasactions. Erased my favorite game that I had paid for from my phone when the develop implemented them. This will make decisions in the future easier, EA logo = Bad.
I personally like how ps2 does this. Weapons can be purchased or cert points can be used. Most default guns are great with some certs put into them, but the other guns are more situational sidegrades. I played a month before spending a dime and didnt feel abused, now I subscribe because I decided I enjoy the game and decided I want to support it. The developers are highly accessible yet firm on decisions. I have seen a few plqyer ideas directly impact the development course of action.
Now, microtransactions in a full retail game? Fuck that. I wont buy it even to give it a chance.
Course not.
Oh and in 6 months time they will add advertising to their games as well.
No the retail price won't change with that either.
"Moving forward we will balance and tune all our releases towards deliberately-engineered artificial resource scarcity. This will in turn incentivise you opening your wallet to get your game back towards a playable state.
"Please form an orderly queue at the money pit."
Why is it bad? Is this another one of those things where everyone assumes it's a competitive multiplayer shootemup and you're worried about not keeping up? The issue in single players is irrelevant unless the base game without microtransactions is not fun.
Why? I can see how this would be disastrous in multiplayer, but in single player, being able to buy things to avoid having to grind for them isn't bad, assuming:
1) The cost is reasonable.
2) They don't screw with the game mechanics to make people more likely to want to purchase things.
3) The same content can be unlocked with effort/talent rather than money.
I can think of several games (JRPGs are notoriously bad with this) where to get a certain item or to get to a certain boss, the process was basically "spend 10 hours doing mindless tasks". Currently, there are two choices: don't see the content, or spend valuable time on meaningless tasks unlocking it. Microtransactions provide a third choice.
Again, I want to reiterate that this should always be OPTIONAL, and that the mechanics of the game shouldn't be changed to force people into it. Traditional games should not be turned into Zynga abusefests.
Buying your way to victory very often isn't the case. Take DOTA 2, for example. It's riddled with microtransactions for the F2P title. They don't actually *do* anything. it's still kind of gross, though. Not so much in a F2P game as in everything else, though. Nothing like having a giant "BUY DLC HERE!" or "YOU CAN GET MORE GOLD TO BUY WEAPONS IF YOU PAY REAL MONEY!" buttons in the middle of the game you paid $65 for.
Video games are, increasingly, becoming a demonstration of what happens when a form of art and creativity is taken over completely and absolutely by business. Buy guys who don't refer to things as "games" or "movies" but as "intellectual property". That isn't to say there's anything wrong with treating it like a business, but it's a business whose product is compelling creative content and unique experiences for their customers. Instead, they're finding ways to simultaneously devalue the experience while putting a value on every single thing. It's gross.
You forgot: People don't allocate finite amounts of money to specifically spend on games. If you spend more time playing games, you may spend less money on other forms of entertainment. Spending a little more on a game to get a little more entertainment out of it doesn't mean you will spend less on games in the future. It may mean you spend less on DVD's or something EA/Activision/Blizzard/GameCompanyVendorHere doesn't sell.
Also, if you don't release a few new games every year, you want your customers to keep spending their disposable income on your games, not your competitors.
One word... Zynga!!!
Take a good look at that company and how it fared. What EA is proposing is a social game a'la Zynga. The problem is that such a business is showing that it does not work. People get excited about things, but then quickly move away because they are being nickled and dimed to death. People are lazy and the moment you have to keep ponying up money is the moment you say, "is this worth it?" And the moment a player takes a step back and makes that thought you the game producer have lost.
Here is how it goes:
1) Awesome game and I will tell my friends.
2) My friends are into this game
3) Friends have bought feature X and they are playing much faster than I
4) Many I need feature X as well
5) Feature X is awesome!!!
6) Oh wait cool Feature Y is out and I will tell my friends to get it!
7) Now I have Feature X, and Y! Awesome game play
8) Feature Z is out and it is way more awesome.
9) Wait, will there be a feature AA? What is Feature Z going to cost me? How much money am I burning through playing this game?
Step 9 is the brutal step and once your company is associated with this, its game OVER for your company. Hence why I say, look at Zynga. So how is Zynga trying to get out of the maliase? Simple online gambling! Yes the company that tried to make legal and legit games has to look at gambling and addictions that cause you to loose your money.
When will EA, and Activision hit gambling? Earlier than you think IMO.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
You also described the very method which would prettymuch force people to make those micropayments: by inserting tedious, good-for-nothing and not the slightest bit amusing, hours (if not days or weeks) costing time-sinks.
So in the future what you refer to as "crappy game design" will than be "a corporate strategy", nothing more than "an incentive" to pay up, and used liberally thru-out the game ...
Oh well, more power to the people who make "trainers" and the like. Maybe the name "hacker" or "pirate" will one day evolve into something like "game cleaner". :-)
Reminds me of DLC Quest, a game which parodies this. You have to pay (with in-game coins) to unlock "features" like moving to the left, sound or animations. I got it a few days ago in the latest Indie Royale Bundle, but that offer has expired now.