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."

Comments

And in a nod to Xzibit

[Anonymous Coward]

They will soon be building microtransactions into their microtransactions, so you can pay money while you're paying money.

Microtransactions that modify gameplay is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Any time you can buy your way to victory is a quick way to lose any hardcore fan base, and most likely the audience that will keep playing your game after release-hype

Re:Microtransactions that modify gameplay is bad

[sesshomaru]

Game Tester: Wow, you know the single player mode in this game is a lot of fun even without having made even a single microtransaction.

EA Executive: Programmer, make it not fun unless the player pays for microtransactions.

Programmer: By your command.

Re:Microtransactions that modify gameplay is bad

[JMJimmy]

Here's why it's bad:

They're trying to maximize revenue from every game, which on the surface seems like a good thing for them as a company. Unfortunately it's incredibly shortsighted.

Given these assumptions
  - People only have so much money to spend on entertainment.
  - Given finite resources, if you spend more money on one title you have less to spend on another.

There are two real possibilities that I see

1) In a market with little/no competition where gamers spend their money in fewer games because they are concentrating their resources on the games they play most. This means that there will be fewer titles produced because fewer will succeed - the blockbusters will dominate. Fewer games = bored gamers or danger of a massive investment in a blockbuster flopping (see Too Human, Kingdoms of Amulur, etc)

2) In a market with lots of competition they will make themselves less relevant. Smaller publishers do and will offer better deals on games that are just as entertaining. The big publishers are really backing themselves into a corner by rehashing the same game over and over.

3) The free to play trap. Certain games do very well with offering a solid game with optional purchases, but then greedy companies like EA and Microsoft twist that to offer as little as possible to get a person interested and then try to gouge them on "optional" purchases. So called micro transactions running as high as $20 when full retail games can be purchased for less.

By doing any one of these things they alienate their customers, shrink their market (not to be confused with their revenue), and the end result is fewer people playing fewer games. This has already happened to the movie industry where prices are too high to bother, sequels dominate, big budget movies are the name of the game and there are fewer and fewer every year. End result: The demise of the rental industry, fewer people in theatres, and rampant piracy.

Study after study has shown: the more people do something, the more they talk about it with their social circles, the more people become involved. While you may not get as much out of each person, by keeping prices as accessible as possible and a diverse product line you safeguard against major losses and increase the chances of major successes.

Re:Microtransactions that modify gameplay is bad

[Charliemopps]

That's not the problem. The problem is simple: Microtransactions give the game designer a monetary incentive to make the game grindy and unfun, with paid keys that unlock the grind. This is very clear in most modern games as the biggest selling items are XP boost items. Without them it can take 2 to 4 times as long to advance. What exactly is the publisher selling when they sell XP boost items?

Re:Microtransactions that modify gameplay is bad

[Seumas]

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.

And..

[Anonymous Coward]

All their games will be free now right?

Re:And..

[cheater512]

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.

Re:And..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Actually I like the way ads are added ingame to titles like Battlefield 2142 with the real billboards and posters.

Because all those vintage 2013 products, services, and brands add so much to the realism of the frozen battlefields of the 22nd century?

RIP

[zlives]

Alas, poor EA! we knew thee well

Re:RIP

[Omestes]

Just give it up and accept that you're no longer a part of the lucrative video game market you once were when you were a kid.

Despite the fact that I now have a disposable income? When I was a kid I had to beg for game cartridges, and I might have, if I was lucky, gotten one for Xmas and one on my birthday. For the PC I generally only got them from the bargain bin, or used from places like EB (before they were bought by Gamestop). I remember saving like hell for Blizzard and Interplay titles, then beg the remainder from my parents.

Now I might buy a $60 game a month (I generally don't, since there isn't that many good games coming out each month), it isn't that big of a deal. I don't even want to know what I spend on cheap games at GoG and Steam. I can spend money now, I couldn't as a kid. I don't have as much time for bullshit, but I have more money to reward good developers and publishers with. I'm not alone in this, most of the people I know in my age group still play games, tons of them, and now have money. Further, they control the purchases of their children now.

I'd say I'm still very much part of the market.

$60 for the game

[Anonymous Coward]

$5 to unlock the start menu

Class system in games

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty soon you will be able to tell if a person is rich by the gun they have in a game. The poor will walk around with pistole's the rich will drive tanks.

Including retail games?

[Lisias]

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.

Re:Including retail games?

[SydShamino]

More likely, EA would let community developers create an Empire State Building, then sell it via EA's microtransaction site for $6.99, with EA taking a $2 cut.

Then, with huge records showing what items sell best, EA can create their own version of the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building and Lolcat Statue, etc., ban the third-party "copies" from the marketplace, and take all the money then on for themselves for those items, all while letting the community developers make pennies on the rarer stuff to keep the "marketplace thriving".

Facebook Gold Account

[cosm]

You must be a Battlefield 3 Premium Player to see this comment.

Re:Where are you going to go?

[Anonymous Coward]

The stuff you buy from Blizzard is cosmetic, it doesn't affect gameplay.

I guess you haven't played Diablo 3.

Games so bad you will pay cash not to play them.

[Belial6]

You just described how people can pay to overcome crappy game design. Letting people pay to skip part of your game is openly acknowledging that your game is so crappy that people will literally pay to not play it. Even if that is just part of your game, that isn't a good thing.

Re:Where are you going to go?

[r0xtarninja]

Diablo 3 is built around the assumption of an auction house. Whether you pay in time via the gold auction house, or in cash with the real money one, if you want to play the game to any appreciable level you WILL use that damn auction house. Drop rates in the game are abysmal to the point where you really cannot properly outfit a character with only items you acquire yourself. THAT is what ruined the game for me. I know people can argue that you are buying items from other players and not Blizzard under this arrangement, but even if you only use the gold AH or just don't participate at all, your gameplay experience is affected.

I think that those are already built-in...

[denzacar]

Taxes?