Microtransactions have gone wildly past financing devs
The entirety of the Starcraft wings of liberty campaign made less money than a single mount cosmetic in WoW. That money definitely didn’t to to the developers
The problem is what follows from microtransactions. When the managers see line go up because they released a paid element to the game, all the incentives push toward more paid elements. This means any dev hours that can be redirected away from work on the core game to the paid elements will be redirected.
Regarding the first point, if they can hire someone to make a feature happen, and maybe get an unpredictable increase in revenue, or hire someone to crank out cosmetics, which are much easier to make, and for which they often have metrics to show how much they expect to get, which do you think they’ll pick?
As for the second, I’m not sure if I’m understanding you.
I’m not talking about firings, or even other specific examples. The talk of hiring A vs B is just an example, not the whole concept. I’m talking about the inputs that influence internal decisions. Microtransactions incentivise decisions that put the focus on generating microtransactions, often to the detriment of other objectives.
And, okay, I get you now. DLC is kind of a case by case thing, but still not great to me. Some devs put out incredible DLCs that actually add something to an already complete game. However, some companies put things into DLC that should just be in the base game. (playable characters, etc.) The practice of having paid DLCs incentivises that approach, so I’m not a huge fan, even if some of them are good. It’s kind of like political donations. I can like the effect some of them have, but I recognize the problems that come from a system that uses them.
I have to say that the customer holds some of the blame. If people are obsessively buying cosmetics that do nothing and that’s the only way the game is being sustained…either the game is that good already, or the players are the reason the game sucks.
When players need to spend money to be competitive, I think it’s fair to place the blame jointly on both the devs/publisher and the players. When spending money doesn’t change the game OR provides new content, it generally indicates that the player base is happy with what they’re spending money on. I don’t think that’s a problem.
Enh… iffy hand wiggle
I tend to put blame more at the point of informed decision-making.
In the same way I wouldn’t blame a person from the 1930s for their lung cancer after their doctor sold them cigarettes, I wouldn’t blame gamers for the DLC. A huge percentage of gamers are kids, legally incapable of giving informed consent. Many others are people who have never had the chance to learn the implications of their buying habits. It’s hard to blame people who aren’t making an informed decision.
The people at dev companies on the other hand, are immersed in the gaming world. It’s effectively a form of incompetence or negligence to not pay attention to the industry if that’s your job. They are either knowingly engaging in the practice, or failing to pay attention to the effect they are having on the world.
Part of it is the question of where you assign fault in a bad system. These days, and I’d hope you can agree, slavery is bad. But where should the blame lie if you lived in ~1800s America? Should it be on the producers, who choose to use slave labour, on the providers, who capture the slaves, on the legislators, who make/keep it legal, or on the customers, who choose to buy the fruits of slave labour? They all could be said to play a part but I’m inclined to find the customers, who have the least power in the system, have the least blame as well.
I think cosmetics can be fine, but they aren’t always. I remember spending a lot of time and effort unlocking all the armor in Halo 3, and it made it feel rewarding. Now, skins can be interesting customization, but they’re never rewarding.
I like MTX to an extent, because it let’s other people pay for continued development of games I like. However, even cosmetics only absolutely still has an opportunity cost to the feel of the game that’s being payed. I think we should all be aware of this. I know at this point most people probably don’t remember when cosmetics were opportunities to make the game feel more fun, not just products to sell, but that is how it used to be.
Oh, definitely. The one issue with cosmetic DLC is that they used to be unlockable. Sometimes paid cosmetics are more development work than the kinds of things that were unlocked in-game back in the day, but not always.
Sometimes cosmetic DLC is a way to support the developers. Sometimes cosmetic DLC is a cashgrab. But if the game stands on its own, players generally aren’t missing much if cosmetics are paid DLC. Smash Bros. Ultimate comes to mind – there’s plenty of stuff to unlock in the game even with lots of costumes and such being behind paywalls.
I hate in-game purchases, they ruined gaming for everyone.
IMO, it’s fine as long as it’s not PTW… Let them have their $50 virtual clothes… They finance the devs, so I have to spend less on that…
Microtransactions have gone wildly past financing devs
The entirety of the Starcraft wings of liberty campaign made less money than a single mount cosmetic in WoW. That money definitely didn’t to to the developers
Something can be not Pay to Win and still use tactics to trick people into spending money
The tactics every single business on earth uses?
I hate more how people are okay with it.
imho, cosmetics are fine, as are sizeable expansion packs on games that were worth the money without them.
But generally, yes. In-game purchases usually suck.
The problem is what follows from microtransactions. When the managers see line go up because they released a paid element to the game, all the incentives push toward more paid elements. This means any dev hours that can be redirected away from work on the core game to the paid elements will be redirected.
I don’t see these as a problem with what I’d said for two reasons:
Regarding the first point, if they can hire someone to make a feature happen, and maybe get an unpredictable increase in revenue, or hire someone to crank out cosmetics, which are much easier to make, and for which they often have metrics to show how much they expect to get, which do you think they’ll pick?
As for the second, I’m not sure if I’m understanding you.
If game companies are firing their developers upon launching a game and not doing the same to their design team, there are probably bigger problems.
My point about expansion packs was related to my original comment – I gave an example besides cosmetics of DLC I thought was ok
I’m not talking about firings, or even other specific examples. The talk of hiring A vs B is just an example, not the whole concept. I’m talking about the inputs that influence internal decisions. Microtransactions incentivise decisions that put the focus on generating microtransactions, often to the detriment of other objectives.
And, okay, I get you now. DLC is kind of a case by case thing, but still not great to me. Some devs put out incredible DLCs that actually add something to an already complete game. However, some companies put things into DLC that should just be in the base game. (playable characters, etc.) The practice of having paid DLCs incentivises that approach, so I’m not a huge fan, even if some of them are good. It’s kind of like political donations. I can like the effect some of them have, but I recognize the problems that come from a system that uses them.
I have to say that the customer holds some of the blame. If people are obsessively buying cosmetics that do nothing and that’s the only way the game is being sustained…either the game is that good already, or the players are the reason the game sucks.
When players need to spend money to be competitive, I think it’s fair to place the blame jointly on both the devs/publisher and the players. When spending money doesn’t change the game OR provides new content, it generally indicates that the player base is happy with what they’re spending money on. I don’t think that’s a problem.
Enh… iffy hand wiggle I tend to put blame more at the point of informed decision-making.
In the same way I wouldn’t blame a person from the 1930s for their lung cancer after their doctor sold them cigarettes, I wouldn’t blame gamers for the DLC. A huge percentage of gamers are kids, legally incapable of giving informed consent. Many others are people who have never had the chance to learn the implications of their buying habits. It’s hard to blame people who aren’t making an informed decision.
The people at dev companies on the other hand, are immersed in the gaming world. It’s effectively a form of incompetence or negligence to not pay attention to the industry if that’s your job. They are either knowingly engaging in the practice, or failing to pay attention to the effect they are having on the world.
Part of it is the question of where you assign fault in a bad system. These days, and I’d hope you can agree, slavery is bad. But where should the blame lie if you lived in ~1800s America? Should it be on the producers, who choose to use slave labour, on the providers, who capture the slaves, on the legislators, who make/keep it legal, or on the customers, who choose to buy the fruits of slave labour? They all could be said to play a part but I’m inclined to find the customers, who have the least power in the system, have the least blame as well.
I think cosmetics can be fine, but they aren’t always. I remember spending a lot of time and effort unlocking all the armor in Halo 3, and it made it feel rewarding. Now, skins can be interesting customization, but they’re never rewarding.
I like MTX to an extent, because it let’s other people pay for continued development of games I like. However, even cosmetics only absolutely still has an opportunity cost to the feel of the game that’s being payed. I think we should all be aware of this. I know at this point most people probably don’t remember when cosmetics were opportunities to make the game feel more fun, not just products to sell, but that is how it used to be.
Oh, definitely. The one issue with cosmetic DLC is that they used to be unlockable. Sometimes paid cosmetics are more development work than the kinds of things that were unlocked in-game back in the day, but not always.
Sometimes cosmetic DLC is a way to support the developers. Sometimes cosmetic DLC is a cashgrab. But if the game stands on its own, players generally aren’t missing much if cosmetics are paid DLC. Smash Bros. Ultimate comes to mind – there’s plenty of stuff to unlock in the game even with lots of costumes and such being behind paywalls.