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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
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.
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.