News EA bringing micro-transactions to all future games

I dunno, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Gearbox, Bethesda, all of these guys make 60-80% of their revenue from full games like CoD, BF3, Skyrim. 30% from DLC and expansions, esp. Gearbox with Borderlands. Maybe 10% from Microtransactions. You're not really going to put a dent in them are you.

Take a day off microtransactions and you'll bust the balls of small indies on mobile and facebook. They're the guys who make 90% of revenue from microtransactions.

 

I personally think this is quite intelligent of EA! The thing is, micro-transactions isn't new - If you look at FIFA with the ultimate team expansion, it worked! Even I ended up buying gold packs for the online.

As other people as said though, people does the same with TF2 and people accept it. Can't be okay for company A to do it but its wrong for company B to do the exact same thing.

 

The difference is in the way it's implemented. Turning around and going "Give me £5 for some cosmetic items that change gameplay in no functional way" is fine, that's just extra fun, and that's also why I appreciate things like Hawken, turning around and going, "Give me £5 to make the game easier." is simply cheating your customers.

If you're going to have Microtransations; Make it for extras, funny hats, strange voices, so on and so forth, don't place ways to circumvent main gameplay mechanics in as a pay to win function in games, Dead Space 3 is especially guilty of this, as you could attain all of the end-game content right at the start, and break the difficulty curve, rendering all that time spent on gameplay, level and balancing completely moot, because you come charging out of the gates with a gun that effectively just destroys the early level enemies.

It also runs the risk of making the game boring for the player, since they've just cut across a lot of the levelling and progression, giving them all the end-game equipment and no drive to experiment beyond the usual. "Oh look, it's a new thing. I wonder what Thingy-things it does."

And the reference to TF2; That game has since become Free to Play, it's supported entirely off income from people buying those silly keys and hats. Main items are also available, but the game has no defined difficulty curve nor Storyline, it's just a chaotic deathmatch.

Put it this way; Imagine starting up Skyrim and finding it a bit difficult, after a Giant has just shot you into the sky; a Popup box turns up and goes "Give me £5 and I'll make it easier!", so you fork up, and bam, you're suddenly max level on all skills. The game then becomes a push-over, you quickly bore of being about to walk around murdering everything with impunity and stop playing the game.

While it's certainly an extreme scenario above; that's the point I'm trying to make; Don't let people pay to break the game. Let them find their own ways. Difficulty settings are there for a reason, and if they want super cool extras; Put them in as hidden features. Save the micro-transactions for things that won't break gameplay design, use them for Cosmetics and other odds and ends.

The other horrifying implication, which I sincerely hope noone is silly enough to think is a good idea, is to screw balancing the game for the normal player, Assume that the average player does shell out extra for overpowered items in the early game and balance for that instead, thereby making the game somewhere between very hard and impossible for the players who don't want to have to pay to continue.

 

BF 3 was the last EA game i am going to buy. I am fed up with EA forcing us to buy their expansion packs just so we have a greater choice of server to play on!! I buy a game to play and enjoy, not to then spend another £40-50 on expansion packs just so I can continue to play it!!

Also I want the full game to just work, I do not expect a patch to be released just 6 days after launch! I am looking at you Crysis3!!

 

The difference with bf3 was it didnt have microtransactions to give advantages to players, it was dlc for a whole load of extra content.

I only paid £20 for premium but the hours i've put in would still make full price exceptional value.

However, if microtransactions were introduced for, say, individual OP weapons that would be a different unacceptable development.

 

Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of business.' What planet is this guy on? I am sick of this DLC culture and have stopped buying new games because of this bs. I remember the days when you could buy a great game with loads of content and hardly any bugs. These days you get sold a game with zero content, tons of bugs and zero value for money. Their greed will be their downfall. EA you suck and will not recieve one penny from me ever!

 

At over 6 hours per $1 for BF3 I found that even with premium, ot was a damned good value.

Unlike hookers.

That said, microtransactions that modify the game diffculty are hard to justify.

 

It chea

 

Grr Ibone soz. It cheapens the whole experience, but as I've said the games industry is run by middle managers now, not gamers. Shame. I detest the whole buy to gain lvl/ xp especially if it breaks into the multiplayer experience. It will be the death of games for me. Buy a cosmetic upgrade or more lvls I can handle.

 

So this is interesting. Apparently EA have realised that everybody hated them and that their attitude towards this anti-consumer practise possibly wasn't as well received as they'd have hoped, so they've backtracked a bit on the whole matter. Doubt they've learned anything from it, but there you go.